by Hans Holzer
Controlled experiments of this kind have established that communications from the so-called dead can indeed be received under conditions excluding any form of fraud, delusion, or self-delusion. Needless, perhaps, to add that no financial rewards whatever were involved for Myers in this experiment.
My next session with Myers came about as a result of United Press reporter Pat Davis’ interest in the subject. I asked Myers that we try another experiment, and he agreed to do so on April 25, 1964. On this occasion the photographic paper was purchased by a trio of outsiders, Dr. S. A. Bell, a dentist, a female associate of the doctor’s, and Miss Lee Perkins of New York City. They accompanied Myers to a store of their own selection, where the paper was bought and initialed by them in the usual manner. Myers never touched the package. Three packages had been bought from a batch of photographic paper, presumed to be identical in all respects. The initialed three packages were then placed in a large envelope and the envelope sealed and stapled in the presence of attorney Gerstein. Gerstein then took charge of the paper and kept it with him until that evening when he brought it to the Myers apartment for the experiment.
In full view of all those present—about a dozen observers unfamiliar with the subject matter, plus Miss Davis and myself—Gerstein placed the three packages on the table and brought out three basins filled with developing and fixation liquids and water. Pat Davis, who had never met Myers until then, now stepped forward and, on Myers’ suggestion, picked one of the three packages, which again was examined by Gerstein and me carefully as to possible violations. There were none. Miss Davis then opened the package and, one by one, placed the photographic paper sheets contained in it onto the first pan. All this was in full electric light, with the observers standing close by around the table.
As soon as the sheets touched the first liquid, forms and faces began to appear on them, varying from sheet to sheet. Among them was a clear likeness of the late Frank Navroth, immediately identified by Gerstein, who knew this man before his death. Another photograph was that of a young girl who had passed on five or six years ago and was identified by one of the observers present, Dan Kriger, an oil executive. Several people recognized the likeness of the late Congressman Adolph Sabath also. Pat Davis then requested that Myers leave the room so that we could determine whether his bodily nearness had any influence on the outcome of the experiment. Myers agreed and went to another part of the apartment. Pat Davis then took the second of the packages and opened it and again submerged the sheets in it exactly as she had done with the first package. Nothing happened. All sheets were blank and exactly alike, a little fogged from the exposure to the strong room light, but without any distinguishing marks whatever. She then opened the third and last package and did the same. Again nothing appeared on the sheets. Finally we used a few sheets still remaining in the first package, and again the results were negative as long as Myers was not within the same room.
AUTHENTIC “SPIRIT PICTURES” TAKEN AT SÉANCES
Myers was not the only reputable psychic photography medium. For many years I worked with New Yorker Betty Ritter in cases involving her major talents as a clairvoyant. She is a medium who supplies valid information from the so-called dead and predicts events before they become objective reality. In this area Betty Ritter was excellent. She also developed her psychic photography to a point where it deserves to be taken very seriously.
Miss Ritter was a middle-aged woman of Italian descent, a pensioner who lived quietly and occasionally saw friends of friends who wanted professional “readings” or psychic consultations. She was a sincere spiritualist and also a devoted Catholic. Any thought of fraud or commercialism was completely alien to her character, and she remained a person of very modest circumstances. On the occasions when I requested photographic prints of her negatives she would not even ask for her own expenses.
From about 1955 on, Betty Ritter obtained unusual photographs with her old-fashioned bellows camera, results that came as much as a surprise to her as to the people she photographed. She was guided by an intuitive feeling that she should photograph the audiences where psychic energies might be present, perhaps as a result of large-scale production of thought forms, prayers, and other man-made force fields. She took her camera with her whenever going to a spiritualist church or meeting, or when sitting privately with people whom she knew well enough to be relaxed with. I often examined her camera and found it in perfect working order. She used standard film and average developing laboratories. Many years later, she finally learned to print from her negatives, although she did not develop them herself. By no means was Betty Ritter a photographic technician. Some of the many pictures I have in my files that were taken by her, were snapped in my presence, others under conditions I consider satisfactory. I have selected four outstanding photographs from them, although each photograph is merely one of several similar ones obtained on the same roll of film and under similar conditions.
Both the medium and I considered the white lines to the left and the round ball to be concentrations of psychic energy. They cannot be explained by any kind of faulty equipment or materials. Pictures of this type are not too rare, and there seems to be a connection between the number of persons present in the room and the intensity of the phenomena. If ectoplasm is a substance drawn from the bodies of emotionally stimulated sitters, and I think it is, then this substance must assemble in some form or shape before it can be utilized via thought direction to perform some intelligent task. I think these streaks, known as “rods,” are the raw materials that are used also in materializations of the dead, when these are genuine phenomena, and in poltergeist cases, when objects seemingly move of their own volition. This material, isolated some years ago in London and found to be a moist, smelly whitish substance related to albumen, undoubtedly comes from the body glands of the medium and her sitters or helpers. It is later returned to the sources, or that portion of it not used up at the end of the séance. It can be molded like wax into any form or shape. Strange as this may sound, it is thought direction that does the molding.
Psychic photographs of Betty Ritter during a séance
In the case of the spiritualist séance picture, no such molding took place, and what we see on the picture is merely the free ectoplasm as it is manufactured and assembled. The naked eye does not normally see this, of course. But then the human eye does not register much of the spectrum, either. The combination of sensitive camera and sensitive photographer or operator seems to be the catalyst to put this material onto photographic film. Just how this works we do not know fully, but it happens frequently under similar conditions and in all such cases faulty materials or cameras have been ruled out.
One of those present at this small gathering in Reverend Boyd’s church was Helen M., whose father had died seven years before. He had lost a leg in his physical life. The communicator, through the medium, wanted to prove his identity in some form and proposed to show his severed leg as a kind of signature, while at the same time making a point of his having two good legs once more in his world.
On the print (which matches the negative which I have seen) the white substance of the “new” leg is superimposed on the leg of the sitter. There appear to be two extra hands in the picture, while the rest of the photograph is sharp, pointing to supernormal origin of the extras rather than conventional double exposure—the rest of the picture is sharply defined. It is my opinion that ectoplasm was molded through thought into the desired shapes and the latter then made capable of being photographed.
As the psychic photographer develops his or her skill, the extras become more sophisticated until they eventually are faces or entire figures. With Betty Ritter it started with concentrations of power or ectoplasm, and later included such higher forms of imagery as hands, a cross symbol and, eventually, writing. In 1965 I had recommended a young lady named Trudy S. to Betty. I had unsuccessfully tried to break the hold a dead person evidently had on her. This was probably due to the fact that Trudy herself is psychic an
d therefore supplies the desired entrance way. The attentions of this young man, who died in a car accident and had been a friend of the young woman’s during his lifetime, were not welcomed by Miss S. after his death. I thought that perhaps Betty Ritter, being a strong medium (which I decidedly am not), might be able to “outdraw” the unwelcome intruder and, as it turned out, I was right in my suggestion.
Reverend Boyd during a spiritualist séance—notice the psychic energy
During the time when Trudy S. went to see Betty Ritter to break the hold of the dead man, she also had a boyfriend in her physical world. But the intruder from beyond the veil kept interfering until the couple broke up, largely because of the situation. On March 3, 1965, Trudy S. had a sitting with Betty during which Betty took some photographs. On one of them, imbedded in the well-known “cotton wool” of psychic photography, there appears the word ROME in black letters. Nothing in the negative, the camera, the film or the paper can account for this writing. Why ROME? At the time of the sitting Trudy’s boyfriend was in Italy and on his way to Rome.
SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY AT A CAMP
Spiritualist camps have been the subject of much controversy and investigation as to their honesty, and are at best a mixed bag of evidence. Years ago the late Eileen Garrett commissioned me to look into fake materializations at some of the camps. I found many of the resident psychic readers at these camps to be honest and the number of fraudulent cases small. Nevertheless, they do happen and one must guard against being too trusting when visiting these places.
Maggy Conn was a well-known newspaper columnist for a string of Eastern newspapers. In February 1982 she asked me to examine a picture taken in 1947 at Camp Silverbelle, in Ephrata, Pennsylvania.
While neither Maggy nor I know who the manifesting spirit in the photograph is, it does appear to match in texture and general appearance the kind of spirit pictures taken under test conditions, so I have no reason to doubt it.
SOME UNEXPECTED SPIRIT FACES
Mary Krauss of Boston, Massachusetts, contacted me in late September 1972 because of an odd spirit picture she had taken.
The little boy holding the cat in this picture, taken in October 1965 in Pearl River, New York, is apparently quite unaware of any “presence,” but the cat evidently is not, as she stares, not into the camera or at the photographer, but at “something” she can see to the left of the boy, which neither he nor the photographer could see.
The swirling white mass on the lower right of the picture contains two faintly visible faces, which Mrs. Krauss circled. At the time, only the little boy, Krauss’ brother, and Mrs. Krauss herself were in the room with the cat. But whose face or faces is it?
Shortly after Mrs. Krauss’ family moved into the house, it became clear that they were not alone though they could not actually see a presence. On cleaning out the attic, however, they noticed that objects had been moved about, and sensed a strong presence in the area. It was in the attic that the picture was taken. Could it be the previous occupant wanted to manifest his or her continued presence in the house?
PHOTOGRAPHING MATERIALIZATIONS
Born in Westphalia in 1911, Hanna Hamilton was always “unusual” to her family. She had an uncanny (but uncontrollable) ability to produce psychic photographs.
In early August 1977 Miss Hamilton attempted to take a photograph of her living room toward her outdoor garden (see the following page). Only Hanna and her cats were in the room at the time. Picture her surprise when a whitish female body (Hamilton called her “the streaker”) appeared in the picture. But what appears to be a nude is really a white materialization made of ectoplasm.
Hanna Hamilton’s materialization picture
Hamilton had no idea who the visitor was, but with so many “spirit friends” in her earthly life, it might have been anyone’s guess.
Dixie Tomkins, a very religious lady in Troy, Michigan, contacted me regarding a series of unusual photographs taken in December 1968 during the christening of one of her children (opposite page). Mrs. Tomkins had been psychic all her life, and the picture did not surprise her, but she turned to me for an explanation.
A materialized male figure appears in the picture, close to the baby, evidently watching the ceremony.
This also seems to show that such ectoplastic figures can be invisible to the naked eye but not to the camera. That is, if and when a psychic catalyst is present in close vicinity.
THE PHYSICIAN, CATHERINE THE GREAT, AND POLAROID SPIRIT PHOTOGRAPHY
Dr. Andrew von Salza, a West Coast physician originally without any interest in psychic matters, began to realize that he had a strange gift for psychic photography. He was a jolly and successful man with medical degrees from the Universities of Berlin and Tartu (Estonia). A leading rejuvenation specialist in California, he was nothing more than an amateur shutterbug without the slightest interest in anything supernormal or psychic. Unexpected and totally unwarranted “extras” have appeared on his photographs, both those taken with regular cameras and with the speedy Polaroid type. He had known of my interest in psychic research through a mutual friend, Gail Benedict, the public-relations director of the Savoy-Hilton, where he usually stayed. Although I had heard about his strange encounters with this subject, my only previous meeting with the doctor was on a social occasion, where others were present and when the chance to discuss the matter deeply did not present itself. At that time, too, von Salza met my ex-wife, Catherine, and was told that she was of Russian descent, to which he remarked that he was a Balt himself. But neither the doctor nor my wife went into any detailed history of her background.
Hanna Hamilton—psychic photographer
Finally, in March 1966, von Salza arrived in New York on business and unexpectedly telephoned me, offering to experiment in my presence, as I had so long desired him to do. We arranged for a get-together at our house on Sunday, March 13, and I asked Gail Benedict to bring the doctor over. In addition, a friend of Miss Benedict’s, Mrs. Marsha Slansky, a designer and not particularly experienced in matters of psychic research, joined us as an additional observer. Shortly after their arrival, the doctor suddenly requested that my wife seat herself in an armchair at the far end of the living room, because he felt the urge to take a picture of her. It was at this point that I examined the camera and film and satisfied myself that no fraud could have taken place.
The first picture taken showed a clear superimposition, next to my wife, of a female figure, made up of a white, semitransparent substance (see page 754). As a trained historian I immediately recognized that as an attempted portrait of Catherine the Great. The sash of her order, which she liked to wear in many of her official portraits, stood out quite clearly on this print. We continued to expose the rest of the pack, and still another pack which I purchased at a corner drugstore a little later that evening, but the results were negative except for some strange light streaks which could not be accounted for normally. The doctor handed me the original picture, and the following day I had a laboratory try to make me a duplicate which I was to send him for the record. Unfortunately the results were poor, the sash did not show at all in the reproduction, and I was told that this was the best they could do because the original was a Polaroid picture and not as easily copied as an ordinary print. At any rate I mailed this poor copy to Andrew von Salza in San Francisco with my explanation and regrets. To my surprise we received a letter from him, dated March 25, 1966, in which he enclosed two pictures of the same subject. Only this time the figure of Catherine the Great was sharp and detailed, much more so than in the original picture and, in fact, superimposed on the whitish outline of the first photograph. The whole thing looked so patently fraudulent at first glance that I requested exact data on how this second “round” was taken. Not that I suspected the doctor of malpractice, but I am a researcher and cannot afford to be noble.
Von Salza obliged. When he had received my poor copy of his fine psychic picture, he had tacked it to a blank wall in a corner of his San Francisco apartment
in order to rephotograph it. Why he did this he cannot explain, except that he felt “an urge” to do so. He used a Crown Graphic camera with Polaroid back, size 4 x 5, an enlarging lens opening of F/32, with the camera mounted on a tropod about a yard or less away from the subject. His exposure for the rephotographing experiment was one second by daylight plus one 150-watt lamp.
Furthermore, Dr. von Salza offered to repeat the experiment in my presence whenever I came to San Francisco. What struck me as remarkable about the whole business was of course the fact, unknown to the doctor, that my ex-wife Catherine is a direct sixth-generation descendant of Catherine the Great. This was not discussed with him until after the first picture was obtained. Nevertheless Gail Benedict reported that on the way over to our apartment, von Salza suddenly and cryptically asked, “Why do I keep thinking of Catherine the Great?” Now had he wanted to defraud us, surely he would not have tipped his hand in this manner. The two rephotographed pictures sent to me by the doctor are not identical; on one of them a crown appears over my ex-wife’s head! Several psychics with whom my ex-wife and I have “sat,” who knew nothing whatever about my ex-wife or her background, have remarked that they “saw” a royal personality protecting my wife. New York medium Betty Ritter even described her by name as Catherine. It is true also that my ex-wife has a strong interest in the historical Catherine, and finds herself drawn frequently to books dealing with the life of the Empress. Although her sisters and brothers are equally close in descent to the Russian ruler, they do not show any particular affinity toward her.