hat the plates were not
tampered with by either myself or any one present. Are they
crystallisations of thought? Have lens and light really nothing to do
with their formation? The whole subject was mysterious enough on the
hypothesis of an invisible spirit, whether a thought projection or an
actual spirit, being really there in the vicinity of the sitter, but it
is now a thousand times more so....

"In the foregoing I have confined myself as closely as possible to
narrating how I conducted a photographic experiment open to every one to
make, avoiding stating any hypothesis or belief of my own on the
subject."

Two years later, in May 1895, the spiritualists held a General
Conference in London, the proceedings of which extended over several
days. At one of the meetings Mr. Traill Taylor read a paper under the
title--"Are Spirit Photographs necessarily the Photographs of Spirits?"
An abstract of this paper appears in _Light_ (18th May 1895), and it is
printed in full in _Borderland_ (July 1895). At the commencement of the
paper, Mr. Taylor explained that light is the agent in the production of
an ordinary photograph; but he says: "I have ascertained, to my own
satisfaction at any rate, that light so called, so far as concerns the
experiments I have made, has nothing to do with the production of a
psychic picture, and that the lens and camera of the photographer are
consequently useless incumbrances." Following this up, Mr. Taylor says:
"It was the realisation of this that enabled me at a certain seance
recently held, at which many cameras were in requisition, to obtain
certain abnormal figures on my plates when all others failed to do so.
After withdrawing the slide from the camera, I wrapped it up in the
velvet focussing cloth and requested the medium to hold it in his hand,
giving him no clue as to my reason for doing so. A general conversation
favoured the delay in proceeding to the developing room for about five
or more minutes, during which the medium still held the wrapped-up
slide. I then relieved him of it, and in the presence of others applied
the developer, which brought to view figures in addition to that of the
sitter."

In making a categorical reply to the question which forms the title of
his paper, Mr. Taylor replies--"No"--and gives various "surmises" to
account for recognisable likenesses having been obtained. At the end of
his paper Mr. Taylor says:--

"The influence of the mind of the medium in the