The Perfect Medium - Photography and the Occult

[fangs]

So, you all know about my obsession with the paranormal/supernatural/occult, right? Well, not too long ago I got this book off Amazon (I think it's a school text book, but I really wanted it anyway..).. it cost me a small fortune (probably more than I've ever paid for a book..) but it's amazing!

It's called The Perfect Medium - Photography and the Occult.

In the early days of photography, many believed and hoped that the camera would prove more efficient than the human eye in capturing the unseen. Spiritualists and animists of the nineteenth century seized on the new technology as a method of substantiating the existence of supernatural beings and happenings. This fascinating book assembles more than 250 photographic images from the Victorian era to the 1960s, each purporting to document an occult phenomenon: levitations, apparitions, transfigurations, ectoplasms, spectres, ghosts, and auras. Drawn from the archives of European and American occult societies and private and public collections, the photographs in many cases have never before been published.
The Perfect Medium studies these rare and remarkable photographs through cultural, historical, and artistic lenses. More than mere curiosities, the images on film are important records of the cultural forces and technical methods that brought about their production. They document in unexpected ways a period when developing photographic technology merged with a popular obsession with the occult to create a new genre of haunting experimental photographs.


Anyway, I scanned a few of my favorite pictures from the book. I was going to scan more, but some of them are just flat out creepy. Even for me.. and it takes alot to creep me out.

Comments

[rozillla.livejournal.com]

OMG! I love these!! So effing awesome. Thanks for scanning them I'm definitely saving most of these (for texture-like purposes). But I used to stay up for hours trying to find images like these across the internet and decipher with friends which ones are clearly the Photoshopped ones.

Doesn't it make you made when you think you're about to see a ghost picture and it turns out to be a freakin' orb? Damn orbs!

[hxcfairy.livejournal.com]

I watched a program not to long ago about how they used to fake those pictures X) was pretty interesting!

[cathynow.livejournal.com]

Those are really spooky.

You would appreciate this. Since I went to a boarding school in connecticut, there were two major ghost stories that were told each year. There is this major staircase that leads to the dorms. Well, freshman year, my room was the room right next to it. On one of the doors it was written that a girl had miscarried on the steps and each year, the baby came and haunted the room. Of course, that night, my roommates and I all slept together on the floor. Nothing happened, but we weren't risking it.

And the second story is that during WWII one of the maids who lived on campus (there was this whole hallway with bigger rooms and smaller closets. We all think that they put the maids in that room and the students in the rooms with the larger closets). I guess her bf/husband was killed in the war and she killed herself by hanging herself near the junior hallway near the clock. We weren't really allowed to leave our rooms until senior year, so everytime I would have to walk by myself to my room, I would have to scuttle quickly because I'm rather scared of ghosts.

[behindtonsils.livejournal.com]

Oooh, those are really cool; the second one from the bottom with the girl's face in the sheet is actually quite creepy and I'm like you - takes qite a lot to creep me out usually but spooky faces seem to do it every time XD

<3 Supernatural stuff, not just the show lol

[organza.livejournal.com]

DUDE. CREEPY.

[willow-diamond.livejournal.com]

That's kinda awesome.

And omg fairy!

[cleverblackbox.livejournal.com]

oh wow, that's pretty rad, actually! I particularly like the one with them faeries :D

[scullyseviltwin.livejournal.com]

Ohhhhh, very cool. I love those old books. I used to get really moldy, ancient books about ghosts out of my library and read them for hooours.

[artemislives.livejournal.com]

THOSE ARE ABSOULTELY FANTASTIC

and i would write more, except i'm running out the door right now:/

[guitar-kat.livejournal.com]

The girl with the faries picture is a fake! In my first year mass comm class we looked at that photo and it turned out what the girls had done was take some images and then took photos of them with their camera. Because of the bad technology it looked real. The last photo is also the cover of a book right now.

Those are kind of cool though.

I saw a ghost driving home the other night and I thought of you.

[telltale.livejournal.com]

I think all of the pictures are fake, but I didn't know that's how those girls made those pictures. I remember they made a movie about those pictures.. something like *Fairytale* or something. It was good.

oh man?! You saw a ghost? I am soooo going to move to Canada! haha

[redlight-parade.livejournal.com]

That is some crazy stuff, but it's hella cool! :D

[ibejeska.livejournal.com]

I Totally had a book of spooky pictures when i lived in nyack. Someone stole it though. I used to only read it furing the day. I loved that book.
I have so many ghost stories...dude fun stuff
ANYWAY, so whats goin down? You gonna be online tonight or what?!

[telltale.livejournal.com]

:D aawweessommee!

of course I will be, will you?

[ibejeska.livejournal.com]

I'm staying up just for you!
PLUS I made you something!

[telltale.livejournal.com]

I'm online, where is you?!
omg joo made me somefing!?