THE GHOST WALKS LORE ALEXA LAWRENCE

OK, ONE OF THE CHEESIER ASPECTS OF PHOTOGRAPHY IS SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY. YOU KNOW, BOO WHO?

To go back to the origins of spirit photography, you have to go back to the origins of spiritualism itself. In the early 19th century, the two bored girls, Margaret and Kate Fox, tormented their mother by making knocking sounds in their home in upstate NY.

It should be noted that at the time, a religious revival was burning up the state. Lots of weird cults, including one that centered around a cross-dresser. But I digress.

The Haunted Lane. c. 1889

The knocking sounds these girls got off on were actually the cracking of toe knuckles. The fact that they resounded throughout an entire house probably says something about them as marriage material. But nonetheless, they claimed they could communicate with the dead, and if you crack it, they will come.

Came they did, and soon the Fox sisters were the Kardashians of their time (just substitute toes for rear ends.) Their mother even managed them (talk about coincidences); communicating with the dead became all the rage, from séances that usually included table “rapping.”

It got weirder. People believed in “ectoplasm,” a mysterious floating substance from the Other Side, usually muslin or cheesecloth stuffed up all sorts of orifices. (All sorts. I mean it.) One woman gave birth to rabbits. Talk about animal cruelty. Horns blew, tables levitated.

In other words, people were dumb. Really dumb. (And very gross.) Even educated people like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, father to Sherlock Holmes, believed in this stupidity.

Ectoplasm in use

And so the time was ripe to make a little money. And you could do it without Photoshop! A photographer named William Mumler accidentally discovered spirit photography when he made a double exposure – two photographs on top of each other.

Sensing a strong demand, (all those deaths in the Civil War didn’t hurt things) he began selling his stuff and imitators followed. His most famous pic was of Mary Lincoln and her dearly departed, Abe.

Mary Todd Lincoln and the alleged spirit of her departed husband. Wm. Mulmer

Eventually, calmer heads began to prevail and Mumler actually got hauled off to court for creating and selling fraudulent photos. Although the judge didn’t believe Mumler’s photos were real, he couldn’t prove it either. (Just like life after death.)

Mumler claimed he was vindicated, but business, well… fell off. And eventually he died, but no one has seen Mumler in a spirit photo since.

•  Famous spirit photographers: William Hope, E. Buguet, and Frederick Hudson.

And the Fox sisters? They had taken to the lecture circuit to make money. Both ended up alcoholic, told the secret of their big toes, and proved it in a public forum. It was described as large cracking sounds. They ended up in pauper’s graves.

If Polaroid was around for Henry James’ epic ghost story “Turn of the Screw” in which a very young English governess believes her charges are being possessed by her dead predecessor and her equally dead lover, we WOULD know if in fact young Miles was killed by malevolent spirits or was just scared to death by his nanny.

Double exposure used to great effect.

JUST SO YOU KNOW, FILM IS NOT DEAD.