The Nature of Ghosts and the Human Spirit

Speaking of Leadbeater, he's mentioned in this offer to make some cash in exchange for proving that ghosts exist.  Take a look at this wonderful artwork!

Chicago Examiner, 1908

And for even more amazing artwork...  "After You Are Dead."

Also from the Chicago Examiner, 1908. 

Spirit photography - W.K. Dunmore, Photographing the Unseen

Looking through an issue of Occult Digest, I saw a listing for a book by local spirit photographer W.K. Dunmore, "Photographing the Unseen."  After a variety of fruitless searches I worried that this book was lost to history.

At some point I realized that this book was taken from a collection of essays in Occult Digest's predecessor, Psychic Power magazine.  So I tracked down the appropriate issues in archives and took the time to scan each article, collecting them into a single PDF.

So if you are interested in the methods of a Chicago-based spirit photographer from the earlier part of the 20th Century, visit this link:

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B9QYMrCUmLu1UlkwV1Nja2xWWGc

The file looks much better when downloaded than when viewed in a web browser.

For more information about W.K. Dunmore, see this earlier post regarding Psychic Power magazine.

The Bangs Sisters - Chicago's spiritualist portrait painters

Mary "May" Bangs (born 1864) and Elizabeth "Lizzie" Snow Bangs (born in 1860) were mediums, getting publicity for contacting the dead at a very early age, with written reports of their seances dating at least as early as 1872.  Eventually the duo would become famous for materializing painted portraits of the dead.

 From the Wikipedia entry on the Bangs Sisters

The pair gained quite a following, with patrons regularly attending seances at their home in Chicago.  They also were the subject of numerous venomous newspaper articles and police raids - in 1888 one raid resulted in the death of Lizzie's 7 year old daughter.  After this incident, the sisters released this card:

 

Even marriage was scandalous for the Bangs sisters.

There was a lot of speculation regarding the method employed in the creation of the portraits of the dead.  Many believed that they were painted over enlarged photographs and/or painted by students hired from the Art Institute.

Video showing many of the Bangs Sisters' "precipitated" portraits, with some notes about the supernatural nature of the paintings themselves.

Chicago Followers of Strange Religions

Chicago Tribune - April 16, 1899

Isis Worshipers, Martinists, Hermeticism and more. 

UPDATE:  Blogspot reduced the size of this image.  I've uploaded a larger, legible 6.3 mb  jpeg of this article here:  http://www2.zshare.ma/r1gm8ufd5efv
 

Occult Craze Sweeps City; Seek the "Why"

As a Walpurgis treat, here is an article from the Chicago Defender dated December 1, 1919.

Psychic Power magazine

Psychic Power magazine was the forerunner of Occult Digest, being published in the earlier part of the 1920s.  Like the Digest, it was edited and published by Effa Danelson.  Psychic Power was just slightly different in that it had less illustrations and focused a bit more on Spiritualism, seances and etc.

A year's worth of Psychic Power, bound.

Local spirit photographer W.K. Dunmore published a series of essays in Psychic Power which would later be published in book form.

Dunmore also had ads featured in the back of the magazine.

The Psychic Power headquarters, later home to the Occult Digest and Occult Book Mart.

Documenting seances and other events at the center.

Two articles from the same year regarding radio gaining "sight."

I'd read before about Edison's secretive inventions intended to contact the deceased.  I appreciate finding this article published during his lifetime.

 Publisher and editor Effa Danelon