As my friend Admiral Usborne Moore observes in a letter received from
him as I write these words: "We are dealing with a great mystery here."
He is himself one of those who by persevering effort is helping us to
solve the mystery.

It is certainly the branch of psychic science which promises the best
results from an evidential point of view, but it must be a case of "each
man his own photographer."

There is always a tendency in human nature to be over-credulous as to
our own achievements, and over-sceptical as to those of our neighbours.

So for many years probably, we shall only accept our "very own" psychic
photographs as quite genuine; but when a sufficient number of people are
convinced by their personal experiences in this line of research, there
will be some hope that the subject will go through the usual stages--(1)
Impossible and absurd; (2) Possible, but very improbable; (3) Possible,
and not even abnormal; (4) Finally, normal, and "_Just what we knew all
about from the first!_"

Meanwhile some of us have been experimenting, with professional
assistance, and in these cases the question is not "Can such photographs
be faked?" We all know nowadays that faking photographs is the easiest
of all possible frauds. I have spent many a half hour doing the faking
myself, with an amateur photographer, by sitting for so many seconds in
a chair and then vacating it in favour of some other "spook"!

No, the whole question at present must be determined by our recognition
or non-recognition of the photographs produced.

If Mr Boursnell or any other photographer can produce (_as he has done_)
my old nurse, who died twenty-three years ago, and was never
photographed in her life, then we must find some other suggestion than
that of "common or garden faking" as a solution of the mystery. There
she sits, as in life, with a little knitted shawl round her shoulders
and the head of a tiny child upon her lap. The eyes are closed, and give
a dead look to the face, yet the features are to me quite unmistakable,
and no one knew the dear old woman so well as I did.

Again, I have in my little picture gallery, an old and very well-known
Oxford professor, in whose house I stayed many times.

Quite unexpectedly he appeared on one of Mr Boursnell's plates last
summer, and although this special photograph is fainter than the one
just described, the likeness can only be denied by someone more anxious
to be sceptical than truthful. I com