Tony Oursler: The Imponderable Archive

Exhibition Guide

For Exhibition Use Only

Tony Oursler: The Imponderable Archive

Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College
The objects, publications and documents exhibited in the CCS Bard Galleries
are drawn from the Tony Oursler Archive and inspired the three films on view.
On view in the entrance gallery:
Imponderable (excerpt, 3D version, 2016)*
On view in the first archive gallery:
Le Volcan, 2015-2016
On view in the second archive gallery:
My Saturnian Lover(s), 2016

*Concurrent with the presentation at CCS Bard, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in
New York will exhibit a full-scale theatrical film installation of OurslersImponderablefilm
(June 18, 2016 - January 2, 2017).
A fully illustrated publication is available at the front desk (price $65).
The original soundtrack for Imponderable by J.G. Thirlwell is also available at the front desk
(price $20).
Imponderable: The Archives of Tony Oursler was commissioned and produced by the LUMA
Foundation for the Parc des Ateliers in Arles, France. Curated by Tom Eccles and Beatrix
Ruf. CCS Bard exhibition design by Adam Bandler and Jessica Rivera. This guide was
produced by Staci Bu Shea with object descriptions from Imponderable: the Archives of Tony
Oursler. The curators would like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of Katie Langjahr
in the Oursler Studio.
The exhibition Tony Oursler: The Imponderable Archive, curated by Tom Eccles and Beatrix Ruf
is on view at the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New
York, from June 25 to October 30, 2016.

First Archive Gallery

Le Volcan
Le Volcan is an extrapolation on the photographic
processes of Commander Louis Drget, arguably
the first thought photographer. Darget was a
pseudoscientist, believing his research would reveal
new methods of recording thoughts and dreams
photographically. He was also involved with occult
and mystical groups active at the beginning of the
1900s. This film takes as its starting point his iconic
work, Le Volcan, which was generated during a
sance on May 13th, 1902, at 9pm, in Tours, France.
Earlier that week, on May 8th, Mount Pele volcano
erupted in the French colony Martinique at 8 am
in the morning. Within minutes, the town of SaintPierre was leveled under molten rock and ash, with
approximately 30,000 - 40,000 perishing. The plume
of ash circled the globe, as did the news of the
catastrophe. The rapid loss of life shocked the world.
During the sance, Darget postulated that the
trauma of Pele somehow existed within the
darkened atmosphere and hoped would somehow
register on the glass negative plate, which was
wrapped in paper and strategically placed by the
occultist Papus. Later, the plate was developed,
and as was Dargets habit, he interpreted the
photographic image in a hand written text that
accompanies the image, often writing on the back
or below the image. The involvement of Grard
Encausse, a popularizer of occultism and mysticism
(particularly the Kabbalah) who went by Papus,
suggests the complex network of experimentation
at the time. The resulting photograph is one of
Dargets key works. Volcan also opens another
perspective into the event through August Cyparis,
which introduces the colonial dynamic of Frances
occupation of Martinique. August, a man of AfroCuban descent, was the only known survivor of
the explosion. The night before the event he was
placed in solitary confinement, luckily in the most
protected room on the island, where he barely
managed to survive. There are numerous conflicting
reports of why he was incarcerated, as well as a
prophetic dream he is said to have had. August
later changed his name and traveled in Barnum and
Baileys circus, and is said to be the first black man
to perform in a segregated exposition.

Commander Darget is presumed to be the inventor

of thought photography. Thought photography
involved the belief that the photographic plate or
paper could be, in some way, sensitive to thoughts,
dreams, and other life forces. Developed in the late
1800s, it was a natural cultural reaction to scientific
discoveries of the time, which made the invisible
visible, notably the Xray. Darget also stands out as a
practitioner of photographic activities, which could
be considered pseudoscientific and prefigure the
interpretive process of the Rorschach test, and later
high tech brain imaging such as the EKG.
Darget was never known to manipulate the images
that he produced, but rather chose to interpret
those images. Arguably Dargets photographs are
some of the first mechanically produced abstract
images.
By Tony Oursler
Le Volcan Film Credits
Written and directed by Tony Oursler
Tim Geraghty as Commander Darget
Jon Campolo as Papus
Jason Henderson as August Cyparis
Josie Keefe as Seance Attendee #1
Corey Riddell as Seance Attendee #2
Phillip Birch as Seance Attendee #3
Enver Chakartash - Costumes
Naomi Raddatz - Hair & Make-up
Tim Geraghty - Editing

Second Archive Gallery

My Saturnian Lover(s)
This film explores the interlinking characters
involved with the origins of Unidentified Flying
Object photography. In the late 40s and early 50s,
a loose group of characters simultaneously emerged
on both coasts of the US, which brought to the
publics attention the possibilities of intelligent
alien life forms via photographic evidence of UFOs.
The popularization of the belief in UFOs generated
a unique set of aesthetic and fictive codes parallel
to UFO photography such as films books, sound
recordings, and lectures. Art Historian Branden
Joseph says UFO photos always appear as two
images at once: what they depict are UFOs, since
they helped construct the visual typology, even as
(most likely) they are not.
The veracity of these photographic images and
surrounding narratives have become a pivotal
pop-cultural disruptor, provoking new dialogues
regarding science, religion, and class. In fact,
according to Joseph, UFO photographers were
merely continuing conversations started by their
spiritualists forebears...the impulse to speak to
both the dead and to aliens emerges from the same
source. Joseph goes on to describe, before UFO
sightings were common, spirit mediums conversed
with deceased personalities residing on other
planets. Not only was this a continuation of the
spirit photo tradition, documenting the invisible and
unseen on film, but UFO photography also served
as means of upward mobility for its practitioners.
Contact with aliens not only separated such
individuals from their peers (both Baxter and
Menger wrote of their dissatisfaction with the
prospect of conventional suburban life), Joseph
describes, but empowered them to speak with
authority to vastly different audiences than they
otherwise could have, even providing them access
to mass media and, in George Adamskis case,
European royalty.
The appearance of UFOs is linked to an admixture
of Hollywood, pulp science fiction and technological
advancement. Set against the ominous background
of the Cold War, and the threat of nuclear
annihilation, all eyes were focused on the sky when

Sputnik launched in October 1957. The satellites

continually orbit the earth, forever changing our
perceptions of the heavens and suggests a scale
shift which is evident in UFO photos and films.
Are these giant space crafts in the sky or models
dangled before the camera? Are we discovering new
information about other worlds or extending our old
narratives into new territories?
The shifting perspectives inherent in the UFO
narrative are also parallel to developments in
optics, astronomy, aviation, and the rise of military
industrial complex. The films script loosely follows
the published accounts and early activities of leading
UFO figures. The story follows key themes that
emerge in the depiction of UFOs, involving utopian
alien relationships with a benevolent higher-order
of being and with much superior technology, who
warns against the misuse of our technology here on
earth.
George Adamski is arguably the first UFO
photographer. Adamski quickly went from being a
first generation Polish immigrant to a sought after
lecturer and publisher of best-selling books, largely
due to his photographic evidence of UFOs as well as
his narrative surrounding the phenomenon. In this
film, Adamski and followers into the field of UFO
photography, notably Marla Baxter, Howard Menger,
as well as Ruth Norman (founder of Unarius), travel
freely to the Moon, Saturn, and Venus with their
alien-assisted cosmologies, often with a camera to
record their activities. They bring back photographic
evidence and feed a soap-operatic plot.
By Tony Oursler

Table 1: 1-11 (abc, in rows left to right)

1. a. Photograph of the Temple of Sibyl in Tivoli, an
ancient town outside of Rome. The women known
as Sibyls were legendary oracles and prophets in
classical Greece.
b. Clipping from The Portfolio, 1827. The writer
relays a story told to him by someone he met who
claimed to have seen a spirit one night, dressed
in the habit of days gone by in his 400-year-old
house.
c. Madonna of the Ice! Photograph by Evans &
Evans, 1949.
d. Photograph of the Shroud of Turin.
2. Fold-out table from Hibberts Sketches: Sketches of the
Philosophy of Apparitions by Samuel Hibbert, M.D.
(1824) which presents a way to measure the
faintness or vividness of ideas, sensations, and
emotions when one is experiencing a hallucination.
3. Apparition of an ascension scene that appeared
only after the photographer developed the photo.
4. Apparition of the Virgin Mary on a rose petal.
5. a. Photograph of an atmospheric apparition of the
Virgin Mary above a forest.
b. Apparition outside a chapel in Quebec, 1950s.
c. Photograph with a note (verso): This was taken
while we were in the circle listening to the organ
music...The glow of light is where the medium sits,
she is blotted out with a round light of power...
Another unit of power is beginning to build up at
the bottom...
d. Photograph of Beckets Ghost in Canterbury
Cathedral, c. 1920. Thomas Becket was Archbishop
of Canterbury from 1162 until his murder in 1170.
e. Photograph of a wolf apparition in clouds.
f. Photograph with handwritten note (verso):
Ernest Jr. & I, taken in Maui, at Hana. 1970.
g. Photograph, 20th c. The apparition of a male
figure wearing a suit can be seen beside the
woman.
h. Photograph of an apparition, reproduced in
Cyril Permutts Photographing the Spirit World with
the caption: The supernormal image of a person
praying suddenly
appeared three months after this print was made in
January 1976.
i. Photograph taken by amateur photographer
William C. Weidling of a cemetery in Cincinnati,

Ohio, 1914. Weidling only meant to capture the

snowscape, but later realized that the trees had
formed a likeness of Christ.
j. Photograph of an apparition of Christ in upper
right corner.
k. Photograph of a snow-covered landscape, 1950s.
The face of Christ is visible in the undulations in
the snow when the picture is inverted.
l. Photograph of an apparition in a procession for
the Feast of St. Joseph, Heroldsbach, Germany,
1966.
m. Photograph, 1953.
6. Angels on Earth magazines, 1990s-2000s, including
the first issue, from 1995 (top left). A Guidepost
publication; Tonys father, Fulton Oursler, Jr., is
the founding editor.
7. Hand-drawn copy of A table with the angel of
the day, its character and planet, and the name of
its heaven, from Peter de Abanos Elementi Magici:
ossia modo di soggiogare gli Spirit di ogni genere (Magical
Elements, or How to Subdue the Spirit of All
Kinds), 1537. Spencer Collection, vol. 33.
8. Hagar and Ishmael in the desert. Photograph,
1899.
9. Photograph of angel hair.
10. Bayside apparition artifact; A note taped to the
back states that when the photo was taken, No
cross was there!
11. a-b. Bayside apparition artifacts, including a
Polaroid taken by Bernie Beyer at St. Bellarmines
Church, Bayside, New York, 1981 (left); a Polaroid
taken by Al Arcovitch at St. Bellarmines Church,
Bayside, New York, 1981 (right); and a Polaroid
taken at the shrine of the Virgin Mary in Bayside,
1976.
c. Poster about the Bayside apparitions, c. 1980.
Veronica Leuken, a Roman Catholic woman
living in Bayside, New York, experienced a series
of visions of the Virgin Mary and various saints
between 1970 and her death in 1995. The Roman
Catholic Church investigated Leukens claims and
concluded that her experiences did not meet the
criteria of legitimate Marian apparitions.

Table 2: 12-21
12. Hand-drawn copy of a diagram from Man, the
Microcosm, possibly kabbalistic (left) and a table of
the 28 lunar mansions with their intelligences and
qualities, from Tycho Brahes Teletes, 1866 (right).
Spencer Collection, vol. 39.
The Spencer Collection is a 45-volume manuscript
encyclopedia of occult and esoteric knowledge. Its
compiled contents intersect at many points with
other areas of the Oursler Archives.
13. Hand-drawn copy of A Figure that Serves
to Erect a Theme or Horoscope for Kingdoms,
Cities, Republic and Congregations, from
Astrologia Cabalistica. Spencer Collection, vol. 24.
14. Hand-drawn copy of The Philosophical
Divisions of Man, the Microcosm, from Mondo
superiore (tables and diagrams of cosmogonies).
Spencer Collection, vol. 44.
15. Spencer Collection, vol. 35.
16. 19th-c. printed image of the Tablet of Cebes,
one of Socratess students. It shows a tableau of
life--with virtues and temptations symbolically
represented--written in French, according to
the Platonic dialogue of Cebes. From the Piccola
Enciclopedia Scienze Occulte (Small Encyclopedia of
Occult Sciences). Spencer Collection, Vol. 41.
17. Hand-drawn copy of Robert Fludds diagram
of the mind. Spencer Collection, vol. 6. Fludd was
an English physician who followed the teachings of
Paracelsus, a Swiss-German Renaissance scientist
and astrologer who founded the discipline of
toxicology. Fludd also wrote occult philosophy and
studied astrology, Cabala, and mathematics.
18. Seals (sigils) of Beelzebuth, hand-copied from
the Tegrario grimoire. Spencer Collection, vol. 45.
19. These hand-drawn images may be a diagram
translating numbers into sign language. The first
image reads the numbers of the Chaldaeans,
and the second diagram is of an extremely clear
demonstration of the formal numbers that have
emanated from the divinity after the substantial

unity. From the Piccola enciclopedia scienze occulte

(Small Encyclopedia of Occult Sciences). Spencer
Collection, vol. 42.
20. 19th-c. printed images pasted from Evocations
(i.e. the summoning of spirits). Spencer Collection,
vol. 34.
21. Diagram of the nei guan spots on genitals. Nei
guan are acupoints, i.e., points on the body that
are stimulated during acupuncture. Spencer
Collection, vol. 13.

Table 3: 22-32
22. a. Photograph of Old Witch House, Salem,
Mass, c. 1900-10.
b. Postcard of Joseph Smiths cabin, 1907. Old
Joe Smith House near Susquehana, Pa. Built by
the founder of the Mormon religion between 182428. Smith lived here while translating the Golden
Bible or Book of Mormon.
c. Photograph of the Fox sisters cottage with a
plaque above the door, Spiritualism originated
March 31st 1848 in this house.
d-e. Photographs of the Boleskine House, a manor
on Loch Ness owned by occultist Aleister Crowley.
In addition to raising a family here, Crowley
performed occultist rituals on the grounds of
Boleskine, including the Abra-Melin Operation,
described in the grimoire The Book of the Sacred
Magic of Abramelin (1458). Led Zeppelin guitarist
Jimmy Page owned the house from the 1970s-90s.

26. Bone Reliquary, Vienna, 18th c.

23. The Social Palace At Guise, by Edward

Howland, Harpers New Monthly Magazine, 1872.
Jean-Baptiste Andr Godin, a French industrialist,
built a community in Guise called the Social
Palace between 1856-59, which was cooperatively
owned and managed by its 1200 residents and
workers. The illustration depicts the pouponnant
(infant care) and nursery.

29. Frontispiece for La Physique des Miracles (Physical

Miracles) by Wilfred de Fonvielle, 1872.

24. a. You may not believe this, but Ive been here
five times before, said the sixth body of the Rv.
Henry Holstine, minister of a band of Appalachian
Holiness people known as the Never Dies. News
photograph of Jesus Church, Camp Creek, West
Virginia, 1973.
b. News photograph of the Branch Davidians
communal house photographed during the siege
by FBI snipers.
c. This is an aerial view of the destroyed Branch
Davidian compound...The religious cults
stronghold was destroyed in a fire Monday. News
photograph, Waco, Texas, 1993.
25. The Gift, photograph by Brook Brown, Montana,
1980. The text is from A Treatise on the
Melchisedek Priesthood, and the Calling of
God (1872) by Stephen Post, an early member
and preacher of the Mormon Church, who later
belonged to a splinter group.

27. a. Photograph of a religious ceremony in

Calcutta, 1945.
b. Postcard of the Model of Palestine, a scale
model of the Holy Land, located on the grounds
of the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua,
New York, 1910. In the 19th century, people made
a pilgrimage to the site if a trip to Jerusalem was
outside their means.
28. a. Photograph of a piece of wood lodged in a
small tree, c. 1900-50.
b. Postcard of the choir of the Girls Friendly
Society Pageant at the Royal Albert Hall in
London, 1925. Six hundred members participated
in the Societys Golden Jubilee pageant, which was
attended by Queen Mary and Princess Mary.

30. Wooden crucifix in a glass bottle, 1950s.

31. a. News photograph, 1940. The Italian town
of Sezzes staged re-enactment of the passion of
Christ took place annually for 700 years leading up
to World War II. Sezzes 1,500 citizens acted out
the performance throughout the towns streets.
b. Bill Talley, a representative of AAARG hung
a judge in effigy during the noon hour along
Lincoln St. in Denver Friday afternoon [...]. News
photograph, 1985.
32. Oil painting, c. 1970s.

Table 4: 33-41
33. Chart Showing the Rates of Church Accommodation to
the Total Population over 10 Years, compiled by
Francis A. Walker from the Social Statistics of the
Ninth Census, 1870.
34. a. The Witches Dance in Tam o Shanter, published
in The Complete Works of Robert Burns (London: Geo
Virtue, 1839). Print by Samuel S. Smith after John
Masey Wright.
b. Maxine Morris, self-styled Queen of Englands
30,000 witches... performs the rite of calling
down the moon with magical and pagan elements
surrounding her. People magazine, 1970.
c. Witch Ron Parshley poses at an altar in his
Lawrence home holding an athame, a ritual
tool exclusively, never used as a weapon. News
photograph, 1986.
35. A printed Tibetan image of the tribunal of Yama,
the god of death, from Frate da St. Bartolomeo
Carmelita Paolinis Sistema Bracmanico liturgino
mitologiio (Brahmanian Systems of Liturgical
Mythology), 1791. Spencer Collection, vol. 40.
36. Tibetan Kapala Skull, Lhasa, 19th c. Kapala,
the Sanskrit word for skull, is also used to
describe a vessel made from a human skull that is
used in both Hindu Tantra and Buddhist Tantra
rituals. The deities of the Vajrayana system of
Buddhism are often depicted holding kapalas.
In Tibet, the skulls are decorated with carvings,
metalwork, or precious gems.
37. a. Grisly Trophies at Nuremberg. News
photograph, 1945.
b. Photograph of a shrunken head, 20th c.
38. Shrunken head, 1950s.
39. a. Chasing Ghost--Good witch Zia Rose of
Bridgeport, [Connecticut]... News photograph,
early 1970s.
b. Photograph of Cecil Williamson, an English
neopagan witch, at the Museum of Witchcraft,
which he founded in Cornwall in 1951.

40. a. Photograph of an occult ritual held in Denver,

Colorado, 1974.
b. The Goddesss Phantom is Hooked on Pop.
News photograph, 1976.
c. The Playgroup Leader is a Witch By day Ann
Hamburger [far left] is a play school leader...But
after dark an eerie change overcomes the good
fairy of the playground: Miss Hamburger becomes
a witch. The 32-year-old brunette indulges in
weird nude ceremonies with men and women of
her coven. On occasions she has performed ritual
sex with a priest. News photograph, 1977.
41. Two engravings by Jacques Aliamet, 18th c.,
made after paintings by David Teniers. Preparation
for the Witches Sabbath (left) and Arrival at the Sabbath
(right), which shows demons and witches preparing
to hold their sabbath rituals; a small homunculus
stands next to the lantern.

Table 5: 42-54
42. A Voudoo Dance--Drawn by John Durkin,
Harpers Weekly, 1887.
43. Printing plate for The Sixth & Seventh Books of
Moses: Magic. Spirits. Art, a text written in the 18th
or 19th century that was ostensibly taken from
lost books written by Moses. The book contains
instructions on how to cast magical spells to
recreate the miracles described in the Bible, and
drew heavily on the language and imagery of the
Bible for its incantations and symbols. It was
brought to America by German immigrants, and
subsequently proliferated among the AfricanAmerican population, influencing the Rastafarian
movement in the 20th century.
44. a. Photograph of a spread of antique Tarot cards.
b-e. Thoth tarot cards from the deck made by
Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris. The
deck, which introduced the tarot to a broader
audience, was painted by Harris. Crowley sought
to incorporate aspects and symbols from his wide
range of interests in the occult, ancient Egypt, and
Taijitu. Top left is the printing plate for the Thoth
decks Hierophant card.
f. Contact sheets for the Thoth Tarot deck.
g. The Mystical has become serious business.
Tarot cards used to tell the future are extremely
popular. News photograph, 1972.
h-m. Illustrated gypsy fortune-telling cards
by Nemesi, with titles in German, Serbian,
Hungarian, and Slovenian, early 20th century.
From left to right, top to bottom: Falseness,
Longing, Disaster, Letter, Stability, Death,
Annoyance, Thief, Sadness.
45. Sequined baby voodoo doll, late 20th c.
46. a. Photograph of a palm reader in Allery, France.
b. Photograph, 1904. The caption reads: Now the
oracle spoke: Stay true to your values. This is the
only way you will achieve true happiness.
c. Photograph of a Chinese fortune teller in San
Francisco, 1905.
47. Cheiros Language of the Hand by Cheiro, 15th ed.
(New York: Rand, McNally & Co., 1897). The book
contains complete practical work on the sciences

of cheirognomy and cheiromancy, containing

the system, rules, and experience of Cheiro, an
Irish astrologer who claimed to be clairvoyant.
Cheiromancy is the practice of palmistry.
48. Card advertising the palm reader Prof. Madame
de Saint Ferieul in Amsterdam.
49. Photograph of Louise Zubke and Elizabeth
Arbad, 1927.
50. Photograph, 20th c.
51. Pinup photograph of a nude model wearing a
Krampus mask, mid-20th c.
52. a. Photograph of outdoor ritual with torches
and makeshift globe, 20th c. Handwritten in pencil
(verso): Solstice.
b. Cyanotype.
53. A graph of the hand that shows the four ages of
life with the four seasons and the months of the
year. Spencer Collection, vol. 11.
54. a. A carnival masker lets fly with a handful of
doubloons, the most sought after object of
hundreds of thousands of spectators who crowd
the New Orleans streets each year. News
photograph, 1976.
b. Druids Hold Traditional Ceremony at
Stonehenge: The traditional ceremony of the
Summer Solstice was held at Stonehenge during
the week-end. Photograph, 1958.
c-d. Photographs of a sexual rite, mid-20th c.
e. Ancient Druid Order Celebrates Summer
Solstice....The ceremony of drawing the sword
which was placed on the recumbent stone during
todays Druids ceremony at Stonehenge. News
photograph, 1974.
f. Trials of the Egyptian Initiation, engraving
published by the Freemasons of France, 1845.

Table 6: 55-62
55. Oddfellows banner, painted silk with gilt trim
and tassels, late 18th-early 19th c. The threelink chain signifies the primary values of the
organization: friendship, love, and truth. The
scythe symbolizes the specter of death, the skull is
a reminder of mans mortality, and the all-seeing
eye represents the omniscience of God.
56. Hand-painted wire mesh mask with beard and
eyebrows made from human hair. Members of
the Oddfellows wore these masks during fraternal
ceremonies and rituals. In the 1920s, costume
companies like DeMoulin Bros & Co. began
manufacturing them for the lodges.
57. a. Cellulose negative of Aleister Crowleys Abbey
of Telema, a small temple he founded in 1920 in
Cefal, Sicily.
b. Glass negative of Aleister Crowley in his
late 60s, c. 1950.
58. Kenneth Anger, a young American film-maker
who rediscovered [Aleister Crowleys] Abbey,
had to scrape off a thick covering of cement
to reveal the Magic Circle on the floor of the
Sanctum Sanctorum--Crowleys Temple. In the
centre of the circle stood the six-sided altar on
which was kept among many magic symbols, the
Record of the Abbey, in which were such entries
as: Yesterday I resolved to use no heroin after 11
a.m.... [He] prepared his drugs in the kitchen, with
pestle, mortar and the usual batch of sorcerers
utensils. Photograph, c. 1968.
59. a. News photograph of Charles Manson
compiling images from December 1969-March 1971.
b. 666 Devil Lane. Pencil on paper drawing,
possibly by Charles Manson.
c. Sandra Good (L) and would-be presidential
assassin Lynette Fromme enter the Federal
Building for the continuation of Miss Goods
trial on charges of making death threats against
corporate and government leaders [...]. News
photograph, 1976.
60. a. Screenshot of the Heavens Gate website, 1990s.
b. Heavens Gate Travel Tape, DVD, color, 90 min.,
1996. The video shows the leader of Heavens Gate,

Marshall Applewhite, explaining their beliefs and

mission a short time before the bodies of the 39
members of the group were discovered after they
committed mass suicide by consuming poisoned
pudding.
61. Page from A New and Complete Illustration of the
Occult Sciences, Vol. 1 by E. Sibly (London:
Champante and Whitrow, 1784). The illustration
depicts the magician Edward Kelley invoking the
spirit of a deceased person.
62. a. Comin Through. One of the women
attending services of The Church of God...
trembles and gestures [while] snake handlers show
their faith. News photograph, Kentucky, 1948.
b. Snake Cultists Who Regularly Defy Death...One
branch of the Church of God has used poisonous
snakes...in religious faith demonstrations...
[According to Rev. Oscar Hutton] the snakes
are symbols by which the faithful are willing to
risk their lives to prove the power of God. He
believes that once the power is felt, the snakes are
harmless. News photograph, Kentucky, 1947.
c. Shown is Rev. Richard Lee Williams drinking
poison. [He] was recently killed in a snake handling
ritual. News photograph, West Virginia, 1974.

Table 7: 63-69
63. a. The Rev. Jim Jones in Jonestown, Guyana,
November 17-18, 1978. This photograph was taken
just hours before the mass murder-suicide of 909
members of the Peoples Temple cult.
b. Outside of Jim Joness compound, Jonestown,
Guyana, November 18, 1978. Photograph by Tim
Reiterman.
64. Photograph of some members of the Unification
Church, including its founder and leader, Sun
Myung Moon, 1979.
65. Photograph of three members of artist Otto
Muehls Praterstrae Commune in Vienna, 1973,
by Theo Altenberg. Muehl founded the Commune
in 1970; members wore pacifiers in public as a
symbol that they had separated themselves from
mainstream, adult society.
66. a. Newspaper clippings, photograph, and
photographs mounted on board, dates vary, 18801910s. Handwritten caption: Photos show the
pentintes (sic) whipping themselves on Good
Friday. This is done once a year to free them of
Sin and the devil for the coming year. Women and
children roll in cactus. The spots on their backs
[are] blood drawn from administering whips as
shown in the photo above. They also carry heavy
crosses. This ceremony is after dark.
b. STREET OF THE HEAVENLY GENERALS:
Iron ball with steel spikes is used by medium
scourging his back in self-mortification. Temple
assistants stand by with buckets of ice-cold water
to douse wounds. News photograph, 1956.
c. Photo of Southeast Asian public ritual involving
self-flagellation, 20th c.

c. I AM MEMBER FIGHTS TO KEEP SON.

CHICAGO--In the witness stand in the Chicago
court where she is contesting her husbands suit
to gain sole custody of their 11-year-old son, Mrs.
Naomi Moberg, 32, member of the I am cult,
reads from a cult pamphlet, defending it. Her
husband says she is trying to imbue the boy with
her beliefs, and they have made him nervours
(sic). News photograph, 1940. I AM was a
religious movement founded in the 1930s, which
was an offshoot of theosophy, and at its peak
claimed up to 1 million followers.
d. Photograph of the self-immolation by fire of a
monk in Vietnam, 1963. Following the example
of Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk Thch
Qung c, who set himself on fire on a main
road of Saigon in June 1963 to protest the
persecution of Buddhists by the South Vietnamese
government, five more monks self-immolated
through October of that year.
e. With devout gestures, blindfolded followers of
Rajneesh seek spiritual enlightenment of the cults
way at Poona, India. News photograph, c. 1979.
f. Photograph of members of the Unification
Church, known as Moonies, 1976.
g. Suspect in Whipping Deaths Bares Own Scars.
News photograph, 1951.
h. Two police officers dressed in the regalia,
and displaying the weapons of, the order of the
Black Legion, the potential strength of which in
Michigan alone is comparable to that of the United
States Army. News photograph, Detroit, 1936.
i. A television reporter interviews a member of
the Children of God sect Friday outside the United
Nations in New York [...]. News photograph, 1973.

68. Poster of the Aum Shinrikyo members

67. a. News photograph of John Mills being arrested
responsible for the 1995 sarin attack on the Tokyo
and removed from his home in a trance, 1933.
subway, which killed 12 people.
Mills was the leader of a cult called the Unknown
Tongues, and was accused of murdering his mother 69. The Audiobook on Christians and Cults by Walter R.
by strangling her with chains while in another
Martin, Volumes 1-5. Five 5-inch vinyl records.
trance during a sacrificial rite.
b. Turned Away--Two members of the WKFL
Fountain of the World, a San Fernando Valley
religious sect which opposes capital punishment,
were refused entry to the Chessman clemency
hearing here today [...]. News photograph,
Sacramento, 1959.

Table 8: 70-81
70. Photograph of the cottage at Camp Chesterfield,
home of the Indiana Association of Spiritualists.
Founded in 1886, the camp was a community
(complete with residences, an auditorium, and
sance cabins) for practicing mediumship and
spiritual development.

78. The Exorcist. One troy-ounce silver piece with an

engraving of a devil being smited by a cross.

71. Ribbons and medals given out by the spiritualist

Lyceum at Camp Chesterfield, early 20th c. The
lyceum served as an educational platform for the
teaching of spiritualist history and doctrine.

79. Photograph of the home of Mr. and Mrs.

Walter Szlanfucht, and their son Jack, in Osceola,
Indiana, 1966. The house was said to have been
vandalized by a poltergeist.

72. Photograph of residents of Lily Dale, a

spiritualist community in upstate New York, c. 1920.

80. Viennese mask, thought to be a decorative

brothel mask, 19th c.

73. Silver dish made by Oneida Limited. The

company originated from the utopian Oneida
Community founded by John Humphrey Noyes
in 1848 in Sherrill, New York. The Oneidans
lived communally and practiced free love. They
began producing silver products in 1899, and
the company continues to manufacture and sell
stainless steel and silver-plated tableware today.

81. a. Photograph of the home of Mr. and Mrs.

Walter Szlanfucht.
b. The flying objects which have shocked this
woman are put in space through the work of trick
photography, but the phenomenon of mysteriously
moving objects has been seriously reported by
many persons over hundreds of years. News
photograph, c. 1960.
c. Twelve-year-old James Hermann of Seaford,
NY, claims that objects in the house are
spontaneously blowing up; a Duke University
psychologist plans to visit to determine if Jimmy
has the supernormal ability to make things move
without touching them. News photograph, c.
1958.

74. a. Dealing with the Devil by C.S. Lovett (Baldwin

Park, CA: Personal Christianity, 1967), which
outlines a four-step plan for resisting the devil.
b. Fighting the Devils Triple Demons: Three Books in
One Volume by Robert J. Moorehead (Brantford,
Ontario: The Bradley-Garretson Co., Ltd.,
Publishers, 1911).
75. a. A magician invokes the devil, England, 1954.
b. A Witch at Six. News photograph, London, 1978.
c. Photograph of a bonfire gathering. The paintings
hanging on the tree depict Satan or a demon (left),
and a small figure in a frying pan over a fire.
76. Unpublished manuscript of Noted Demons: A Study
Personally Typed, Emended, Illustrated, & Presented by
the Author, Francis von Albade Cabeen, 1925. This
10-volume typeset manuscript is a compendium
on demons and demonology, presenting a survey
of texts on the magic and mythology of the occult.
77a. Photograph of Satan worshipers, England, 1980s.
b. Anton Szandor Lavey, who calls himself a
sorcerer and the High Priest of the First Church of
Satan, taps his gum-chewing 3-year-old daughter,

Zeena Glatea Lavey, on the head with a sword

during baptism ceremonies... News photograph,
1967.

Table 9: 82-92
82. Scientific American, vol. 151, No. 1 (July 1934).
83. a. Mental Telepathy Explained by Hereward
Carrington, 1977.
b. Thought Transference: A Critical and Historical Review
of the Evidence for Telepathy, with a Record of New
Experiments by Northcote W. Thomas (New York:
Dodge Publishing Company, 1903). The book presents
a record of experiments in telepathic communications
using several subjects and participants.
84. a. Photograph of Dr. R. L. Noran, an ESP
practitioner, with half-dollar coins taped over his
eyes, c. 1978.
b. Whatever this bat is saying, his language is being
recorded for use in Dust or Destiny, new scientific
color film, just released by the Moody Institute
of Science of Los Angeles, offshoot of the Moody
Institute of Chicago.... News photograph, 1950.
c. Photograph of one of Dr. Rhines subjects, c. 1937.
Handwritten note (verso): George Zirkle naming
cards by telepathy. His fiance, Sara Ownbey, is
looking at the cards two rooms away.
85. ESP Cards for Testing Extra Sensory
Perception, developed in Dr. Joseph Banks Rhines
Parapsychology Laboratory at Duke University.
Rhinewas also one of the debunkers of the Boston
medium Margery Crandon in the 1920s. Rhines
colleague Karl Zener designed these cards to test
telepathic abilities. Ultimately, many of Rhines
experiments with the cards were discredited due to
sensory leakage (the symbols on the cards could be
made out even when looking at the reverse side).
86. The Hefley Psychic Report, Vol. 6 (January/February
1979). Electronic Exorcism, an article by Edith
Kermit Roosevelt, describes how possession
of human beings may someday be proven by the
scientific community.
87. Illuminated, cloth-bound notebook presenting
instructions for alchemical processes, 19th-c.
Prepared by the French alchemist Albert Poisson
(1868-1893), it includes a transcription of 15thcentury alchemist Nicolas Flamels Le Brviaire,
originally written in cipher in the margins of a breviary
for use by Flamels nephews. Poisson is remembered
as one of the most renowned modern alchemists,
publishing his most famous work, Thories et symboles
des alchimistes, at age 22.

88. Photograph of Albert Poisson, and an excerpt

from one of his marked-up typeset transcriptions of
Flamels Le Brviaire.
89. a. Scientific Preacher / Rev. Irwin A. Moon, 36,
of the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago is a preacher
who lets physics and chemistry do the preaching...
News photograph, 1943.
b. [Psychic researcher] Ferrall Howard displays
bank of electronic monitors in his psychic research
laboratory. The voltages in here are dangerous,
Howard, 26, said. I run all the controls myself. News
photograph, 1975.
c. Wilbur Glenn Voliva, leader of the cult at Zion,
Ill., is back home after his second trip across the
world, and although he traveled in a straight line and
returned to his starting point, still insists the world
is as flat as a pancake...[He says] its obvious that if
the world were spherical the people on the under side
would drop off into space. News photograph, 1931.
d. Combining science and religion, the Rev. David
Allcorn prepares a chemical mixture while delivering
a sermon from the Brethren Church in Pittsburgh,
Pa. The unusual pastor conducts experiments in
physics and chemistry to enliven his sermons. News
Photograph, 1959.
90. a. Illustration, Some Ancient Ideas About the
Earth, showing (from top to bottom) the Chaldean,
Egyptian, and Greek concepts of Earths structure.
b. News photograph of the blessing of a nuclear
reactor, Washington, D.C., 1957.
c. Orgone energy accumulators are exhibited by
George P. Larrick, food and drug administration
commissioner, with aid of Mrs. Joanne Dodd. She
sits in orgone box and wears orgone cap. Larrick
holds orgone blanket. On top of box are books by
Dr. Wilhelm Reich, who was convicted of contempt
on charge he refused to pay FDA order to cease and
desist from selling the phony cancer cure equipment.
News photograph, 1960.
91. Vintage E-meter, 20th c. This device is used
by Scientologists to measure the characteristics
of the static field surrounding the subjects body
during auditing, a process that aids the auditor in
determining the nature of the sitters reactions during
testing. The device has never been tested in any
randomized clinical trials.
92. Photograph of a patient undergoing an early form of
electroshock therapy, 1924.

Table 10: 93-100

93. Orgone collector, 20th c.
94. Model of the DNA molecule which carries
the hereditary qualities from parent to child.
Photograph, 1957.
95. The General Form of an Atom, from The
Principles of Light and Color by Edwin D. Babbitt (New
York: Babbitt & Co., 1878). Babbitt presents his
theory of atomic structures with the assumption that
the ether concept of classical and medieval physics
was correct.
96. a. News photograph of Soviet scientist Vladimir
Petrovich Demikhovs two-headed dog, 1959.
b. She walks across her living room floor, holding
two fiberglass rods joined at their tips like a giant
wishbone...Mrs. Smart is a water witch. The belief
that some people can find underground water
through the use of divining rods...dates back
thousands of years and persists today.... News
photograph, 1979.
97. a. Hitler Hung in Effigy, The Brooklyn Chapter
of Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies
pulls the gag at Kings Highway & East 17th Street
Brooklyn. Photograph, 1940s.
b. Students at Tulane University held a rally near
an effigy of President Nixon they hung in protest of
the administrations war policy. The demonstration
followed an all-night vigil in protest of the killing
of four Kent State University students. News
photograph, New Orleans, 1970.
c. White shrouded University of Toronto students
burn an effigy of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy on
the campus last night. News photograph, 1953.
d. News photograph of German soldiers hung in
effigy in a French town, 1944.
e. On [April 9] the burghers were celebrating
Sechseluten, the coming of spring. In late afternoon
thousands gathered at the huge town square...
There, at the top of an immense pyre shaped like
a Christmas tree, a white cotton effigy of Old Man
Winter, known locally as the Bgg, awaited his
execution. News photograph, Zurich, 1963.
f. News photograph of demonstrators opposing the
British aid bill, 1941.
98. a. An effigy of Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev, hanging on an improvised gallows,
is driven by the U.N. Secretariat Building. News

photograph, New York, 1960.

b. President Nixon was burned in effigy here
yesterday...amid shouts of save energy, burn Nixon,
and throw the bum out. News photograph, 1974.
c. Postcard of Jimmy Carter being burned in effigy
by Iranian revolutionaries in the streets of Teheran,
1981.
d. "Emperor William hung in effigy," France, 1914.
99. a. News photograph of an effigy of President
Nixon, 1970.
b. News photograph of an effigy of Governor Eugene
Talmadge of Georgia, 1935.
c. The NSDAP (aka the Nazi Party) of...Berlin held
a midsummer solstice celebration, where Reich
Minister Dr. Goebbels spoke about the significance
of the solstice in German culture. A straw doll
symbolizing bygone time is shown burning. News
photograph.
d. News photograph of effigy in San Quentin Prison,
California, 1959.
e. Right-wing activist Donald Lobsinger...holds
aloft an effigy of Mayor Young which the Detroit
City Council prohibited him from burning. News
photograph, 1975.
f. An effigy of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi
is engulfed in flames in front of the Indian consulate
here [in Saigon] Jan. 17th during demonstration
protesting Indias establishment of an embassy in
Hanoi. News photograph, 1972.
g. This effigy, bearing the chemical term Au H20
was found hanging from a light pole on the campus
of the Purdue University Indianapolis Extension...
Au is the elemental abbreviation for gold, and H20
is the chemical formula for water. Barry Morris
Goldwater (Au H20) was an American politician and
businessman who was a five-term United States
Senator from Arizona and the Republican Party's
nominee for President of the United States in the
1964 election. News photograph, 1962.
100. a. Photograph of a Japanese instruction manual
for creating an automaton, 19th c.
b. Photograph of the Maschinenmensch (machinehuman) prop (or a replica of it) used in Fritz Langs
Metropolis (1927).

Table 11: 101-109

101. a. Print ad, 20th c.
b. Photograph advertising Alva Stanhope, The
Human Accumulator, also called The Electric
Enigma.
c. Photograph advertising Electricia, a performer
who used electricity in her act.
d. Photograph of a man strapped into an electric
chair, c. 1920-40.

102. Illustration from Le Monde des Automates: Etude

Historique et Technique by Alfred Chapuis and
Edouard Glis (Paris: Blondel La Rougery, 1928)
showing the mechanics of The Dulcimer Player,
an automaton fashioned after Queen Marie
Antoinette.

relief for a number of different psychiatric

illnesses including major depression, catatonia, or
schizophrenia. The treatment in its current form
came about in 1937, when an Italian professor
of neuropsychiatry, Ugo Cerletti, developed
the treatment after experimenting with the
production of seizures in dogs and observing the
anesthetic effects of electric shock.
107. Illustration from Giovanni Aldinis Essai
Thorique et Exprimental sur Le Galvanisme (1804).
Aldini was an Italian physicist and nephew of
physicist Luigi Galvani. Galvani discovered
that our nervous system is electrically based
by famously shocking dead frogs legs. Aldini,
interested in re-animating dead tissue, performed
similar experiments, notably stimulating the
limbs of an executed murderer, George Forster,
with an electrical charge in London in 1803. His
experiments were said to have inspired Mary
Shelleys Frankenstein.

103. a. Although her hair is standing straight on

end, this pretty miss takes a jolt of atomic power
with a big smile. The hair-raising power comes
from the 250,000-volt miniature atom-smasher on
which she is resting her hand...The real thing is
used to fire atomic bullets into special targets....
News photograph, Chicago, 1950.
108. A model demonstrates the life restoring
b. EDISONS CLAIM TO INVENTION OF
device, invented by Dr. Robert Cornish. The
LIGHT BULB DISPUTED--Research workers
machine moved like a teeter-totter, in order
at Emory University, Atlanta, Ga., have collected
to get blood re-flowing in recently deceased
facts to prove that Dr. Alexander Means, first
patients. Cornish was an associate at the
president of Emory University, with the aid of this
University of California. Photograph, 1934.
electrostatic machine this young lady is operating,
invented the first electric light bulb in 1852,
109. Photograph showing two magnets, probably
long before Thomas Edisons discovery. News
19th c. Handwritten note (verso, in French):
photograph, 1938.
These magnets represent the negative and
positive poles on metallic plates, be they lead,
104. Illustration of an early method of electroshock
zinc or tin, for nervous diseases, which we have
therapy, 1818. Engraving by H. Anderson,
healed together, my husband. Attached, the
London.
graphic of the nervous centres.
105. Illustration of a machine like Francis
Hauksbees influence machine (1706), a device
with an airless, spinning glass globe that sparked
when touched. The Electrified: I know where to
find / This almost magic virtue / Smartly named
electrical / Young beauties, it is in your eyes.
106. Electrotherm, a vintage electroshock therapy
machine, produced by the Wappler Electric Co.
The device is used to administer an electrical
stimulus to the frontal lobe of a patients brain
in order to induce seizures, which may provide

Table 12: 110-129

110. Animal Magnetism--The Operator putting his
Patient into a Crisis, an illustration from A Key to Physic,
and the Occult Sciences by E. Sibly (1810).
111. a. Drawing of Franz Mesmer, early 1800s.
b. The print, made after a 1784 print, shows one of the
magnetically charged tubs used by Franz Anton Mesmer
in his treatments. Spencer Collection, vol. 42.
c. Letter, dated February 18th, 1846, to the president of
the Mesmerism Society, an organization that extended
the popularity of Mesmerism after the death of Mesmer
himself. The sender writes: Sir, I have worked a lot
with magnetism...the best somnambulists in Paris owe
their celebrity to me, in part, [for] having facilitated
their ability. Many have thus called upon me to once
more take up this work. [...] I have accepted the offer
from Mr. Burns and Mr. Perrodi to present myself in
order to become part of your society....Sincerely, I am
honored to be your humble and devoted servant.
d. Political cartoon satirizing Mesmers Baquet
(tub). The cartoon was used in the frontispiece of a
publication titled The Anti-Magnetism, Or, the Origin,
Progress, Decay and Refutation of Animal Magnetism
(London, 1784).
e. Cartoon from The Cosmopolitan, vol. 20 (November
1895-April 1896). Mesmer and the Devil, originally
published in 1784, likely refers to Mesmers debunking
of a popular priests exorcisms in the mid 1770s.
112. Anti-Mesmer humorous caricature.
113. Tintype of a woman exerting a mesmeric force
on two subjects; a prime artifact from the 19th-century
revival of mesmerism.
114. a. Photograph of Mademoiselle Lina.
b. Stereoscope of the Durvilles magnetism clinic in
Paris, 19th c.
115. a. Photograph of a man attempting to control
his subject through hypnosis, using the same gesture
Mesmer used to control the animal magnetism of his
patients, 19th c.
b. Photograph of a man using the mesmeric hand
gesture to levitate his subject, 19th c.
116. Mounted photographs of Mademoiselle Lina,
a painters model and magnetic subject of Col.
Albert de Rochas. A note (verso) by Commander Louis
Darget states that, while sleeping, Lina assumes poses
that correspond to the subject we want to express,
inspired by the sound of music, or the words or desires
expressed by M. Rochas.

117. Photograph from the files of Henri Durville,

19th c. Hector Durville (far left) oversees a groups
attempt at mesmeric hypnosis at the Durvilles
magnetism clinic in Paris. Durville was an occultist who
became fascinated with Mesmer and began practicing
animal magnetism, eventually opening a clinic
with his son Henri. Henri later developed a theory
differentiating hypnosis from animal magnetism, and
extensively investigated somnambulism.
118. Auto-suggestion and hypnosis. A hypnotized
girl believes a poster to be reflective and powders
herself. Photograph, Berlin, c. 1926.
119a. Auto-suggestion and hypnosis. Suggestion of
drunkenness. Photograph, Berlin, c. 1926.
b. Auto-suggestion and hypnosis. Suggestion of
dance. Photograph, Berlin, c. 1926.
120. Hypnotism, As It Is by X. LaMotte Sage
(Rochester, NY: Ellwanger & Barry Building, 1902).
121. The Perfect Course of Instruction in Hypnotism, Mesmerism,
Clairvoyance, Suggestive Therapeutics, and the Sleep Cure,
Giving No Less Than 50 Methods of Hypnotizing by the
Masters of the Science (Chicago: The Psychic Research
Company, 1900).
122. Photograph of a man undergoing hypnosis,1903.
123. Auto-suggestion and hypnosis. Sensuality by
suggestive effect. Photograph, Berlin, c. 1926.
124. Auto-suggestion and hypnosis. Suggestion of
murder. Photograph, Berlin, c. 1926.
125. Auto-suggestion and hypnosis. Sleep
suggestion. Photograph, Berlin, c. 1926.
126. Photograph of hypnosis in Manitowoc,
Wisconsin, 19th c.
127. Postcard depicting Princess Luise of AustriaTuscany, 1903.
128. Auto-suggestion and hypnosis. Waking suggestion.
The hypnotized believes a rock to be a child.
Photograph, Berlin, c. 1926.
129. Illustration from Die Bewussteins-Vorgnge bei
Suggestion und Hypnose (The Awareness Operations
during Suggestion and Hypnosis) by Max Kauffmann
(Halle: Carl Marhold Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1922). The
title of the diagram reads, Progress of a hypnosis with
a duration of 30 minutes.

Table 13: 130-141

130-134. Glass-plate negatives documenting a series
of experiments in hypnotism, 19th c.
135. How to Become a Clairvoyant, Containing,
also full Instructions for Practising Psychology and
Mesmerism (New York: Hurst & Company
Publishers, 1874).
136. Photograph of hypnotic trance demonstration.
137. a. Blonde hypnotist Pat Collins, left, who not
only attracts the Hollywood crowd to the
Interlude on the Sunset Strip but gets em
onstage in droves as well, hypnotizes one of the
famous names of the film colony...The young
actress [Tuesday Weld], uninhibited normally,
was hypnotized into believing she was a stripper.
News photograph, 1963.
b. During a demonstration to show the effect
of an induced catalepsy on the human body,
two 200-pound blocks of granite were broken
by sledges on the body of Miss Marie Sweezy of
Los Angeles without her knowledge. Mink de
Ronda, well-known hypnotist, is seen holding
Miss Sweezy in a cataleptic trance while the
granite blocks were broken over her body. News
photograph, 1931.
c-e. Photo series of Dr. Roman Ostoja
hypnotizing various subjects in Hollywood,
California, mid-20th c. Ostoja was a psychic who
held sances and claimed to be of Polish nobility.
138. Auto-suggestion and hypnosis. Piercing the
upper arm in a state of auto-suggestion.
Photograph, Berlin, c. 1926.
139. a. Portuguese hypnotist Aurea entrances
several young men onstage. Photograph, c. 1965.
b. Photograph of a hypnosis demonstration,
mid-20th c.
c. Shoot from behind: Vernon Jones, hypnosis
technician, seated in a chair in the hypnosis
room. Hell be facing a triangular design on the
wall. Focus on the design. News photograph,
Columbus, Georgia, 1980.
140. a. Photograph of a hypnotist sending his subject
into a sleep-like trance in a home appliance store,
mid-20th c.

b. Photograph of laboratory pigeon in a B.F.

Skinner-style operant conditioning chamber,
mid-20th c.
c. MONKEY WITH A PROBLEM...Hercules
the monkey tries to figure out which switch to
throw. If he guesses wrong he gets an electric
shock. If he guesses right he doesnt... News
photograph, 1960.
141. a. Many doctors have advised their patients,
caught up in todays rat race, to calm down
by taking a tranquilizer, at the same time
cautioning them not to mix it with alcohol.
To find out if mixing alcohol and tranquilizers
does impair memory and judgment, the Florida
StateUniversity psychology laboratory at
Tallahassee is conducting its own rat race... News
photograph, 1961.
b. GE electronic computer helps army
psychologists select right personnel.
Photograph, 1953.
c. Hermione Hawkins, member of the Society for
Projective Techniques and Rorschach Institute,
poses with the inkblot papers used for the
Rorschach tests. Photograph cutout pasted on
board, 1952.

Table 14: 142-155

142. Rorschach blot test plates to be used in
psychological diagnoses, mid-20th c. Hermann
Rorschach was a Swiss Freudian psychiatrist who,
in the 1920s, developed the famous ink blot test
to draw out aspects of his patients unconscious
by prompting them to project onto the shapes.
143. American Phrenological Journal, Vol. 10,
No. 6, June 1848 (New York: Fowlers & Wells).
144. The Comic Natural History of the Human Race,
designed and illustrated by Henry L. Stevens
(Philadelphia: S. Robinson, 1851). The
illustrations are satirical, and place the heads of
contemporaneous public figures on the bodies of
animals; the texts are from various authors.
145. Phrenological diagrams from the Agli avvocati e
giudici la metoscopia (To the Lawyers and Judges of
the Metoscopic). Spencer Collection, vol. 15.
146. Photograph of a group of men studying skulls
and a head, c. 1930s.
147. Illustration from Portraits, Memoirs, and Characters
of Remarkable Persons from the Reign of Edward
the Third, to the Revolution, Collected from the Most
Authentic Accounts Extant, Vol. 3, by James Caulfield
(London: J. Caulfield, 1794). James Poro, born
with a growth on his abdomen having something
of the form and feature of the human kind,
considered it a sort of twin. The excrescence was
named Matthew and baptized.
148. Pareidolia photograph of a face in the dregs of
the coffee cup. Pareidolia is the human tendency
to perceive recognizable shapes or pictures in
random imagery--as in a Rorschach test.
149. Illustration titled Lusus Naturae (Freak of
Nature), which documents the image of three
heads (two human and one dog) found in a piece
of petrified wood.
150. a. Postcard of a storm surge, 1924; printed in
Dresden. The caption on the back states that the
profile of a sea spirit can be seen in the water
coming over the pier.
b. Photograph of a monstrous face appearing

the smoke of the September 11th attacks on the

World Trade Center, bought from a street vendor
shortly after the event.
c. Postcard of the Image of Christ as it appeared
in a cave in Spring Valley, Minnesota, 20th c.
d. Photograph of Snow Ghosts in the Forest,
Switzerland, 1931.
151. MOON DUST PROFILE. News photograph
of a face seen in a microscopic speck of moon
dust, 1970.
152. Live Coals; or, Faces from the Fire by L.M. Budgen
(Acheta) (London: L. Reeve & Co., 1867).
153. Photograph of a rock formation on Mars, in
the Cydonia region. In July 1976, the Viking 1
orbiter took this photograph, which subsequently
became famous for the formations likeness to a
human (or humanoid) face. The small black dots
in the photograph are actually data errors from
the orbiter. Further observations in recent years
have confirmed this was an illusion created by
shadow and the orbiters viewing angle.
154. Postcard, Cherchez le viveux.
155. a. Postcard of The Face on the Barroom
Floor. Artist Herndon Davis was hired to do a
series of paintings in 1936. After an argument
with the manager, Davis quit, but secretly
painted a portrait of his wife on the floor. The
bar claimed it was the face referenced in Hugh
Antoine DArcys famous poem, The Face on the
Barroom Floor.
b. Postcard of Old Man of the Mountain,
published by The Flume Reservation in Franconia
Notch, New Hampshire, 1934.

Table 15: 156-165

156. a. The common spider, teamed with a scientist
and an IBM computer, is weaving a new web of
knowledge about the complex behavior of man.
Dr. Peter N. Witt...is studying the erratic webs
spun by spiders on drugs by comparing the erratic
webs with a master web stored in the computer...
News photograph, 1970.
b. Article on Witts experiments with drugged
spiders in LIFE, March 22, 1954, p. 80.
157. a. Scientific American, December 1954. The
cover story is a report by Dr. Peter N. Witt on his
experiments with drugged spiders.
b. An open letter and informational pamphlet on
drug abuse for all Pennsylvania students and their
parents from the governor, 1969.
158. Oxydonor Victory, invented, made & sold by
Dr. Hercule Sanche, Detroit, Michigan, 1890. The
eagles banner on the lower half of the container
reads, Victory, Diaduction Rules Life. Sanche
claimed that the instrument could cure all
form of Disease quickly, intangibly, pleasantly,
infallibly... Within the case was a metal tube with
a length of piping attached, with a metal disc on
the other end. The user placed the tube in ice
water, and then attached the disc to the ankle of
the sick individual. In the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, this device and other gas-pipes were
popular treatments for a variety of ailments.
159. Photograph of a rock book taken by sci-fi
writer Richard Shaver. He believed that highly
advanced prehistoric races built cities inside the
Earths crust before abandoning this planet for
another, leaving a small population here. This
population included the good-natured Teros,
who became the human race, and the sadistic
Deros, who lived in cave cities beneath the
surface and used the advanced devices left behind
by the ancients to project negative thoughts
into the minds of humans. In the 1960s, Shaver
began searching for physical evidence of the
ancient peoples. He found it in what he called
rock books: texts that the ancients had written,
illustrated, and embedded in rocks. Shaver
believed the texts were still accessible if one split
open the right rock in the right place. Shaver

highlighted and annotated his photographs of

rock cross-sections to illuminate the imagery
within.
160. a-c. Educational brochures for how to deal with
drug abuse and drug culture, 1960s-70s.
d. Dr. Joseph A. Gengerelli...is shown with
the apparatus used in current experiments to test
responses/memory of human beings under drug
influence. News photograph, 1939.
161. Pages of Parapsychological Monographs, no. 5, an
academic journal presenting a series of
experiments with hallucinogenic drugs, 1964.
162. Photograph from a stage production, 1940s-50s.
163. LIFE, September 9, 1966.
164. a. Photograph of E.A. Warburton, silent movie
actor, in costume as Daddy Tyl for The Blue Bird
(1910).
b. Production still, possibly from Orson Welless
Macbeth (1948). Text (verso) reads: ...Welles
wanted the result to be weird and ghost-like,
rather than to present the conventional idea of a
witch that is found in fairy tales...
c. Photograph from a comedic musical
performance, mid-20th c.
165. Indonesian Wayang shadow puppet, most likely
from Bali, 20th c.

Table 16: 166-174

166. a. Headshot of an actress in blackface, early
20th c.
b. Postcard of a man dressed as a faun.
c. Postcard, 20th c.
167. Magic lantern, 19th c.
168. a. Sheet music for A Real Moving Picture from
Life by Andrew B. Sterling and Harry Von Tilzer,
1920s.
b. Print illustrating various optic phenomena.
c. What happens to the air surrounding the
muzzle when a gun explodes...Coming from the
muzzle, shown at left center, are gases expelled
when the gun is discharged. Long, dark, curved
line shown at the right is the high pressure--or
sound wave...Exposure length of this photograph
was about four-millionths of a second. News
photograph, New York, c. 1944.
169. Various magic lantern glass slides, 19th c.
170. Harpers Weekly, July 2, 1870 (Vol. XIV, No. 705).
The engraving, after J.A. Houstons painting,
depicts one of Isaac Newtons experiments with
light and prisms.
171. a. Spectrum graph paper, published by the
Graphic Arts Research Center, Rochester
Institute of Technology, New York.
b. Diagram illustrating the physics behind various
optic devices.
172. Illustration of a magic lantern, 1855.
173. a. [Scientists] examining the vacuum tube in
which they have developed a new and prolific
source of protons... News photograph, 1933.
b. Opening a new and revolutionary phase of
warfare, the worlds first atomic bomb was
dropped on Japan on August 5th...Vital in the
development of the atomic bomb were atom
smashing machines...Here is the worlds smallest
atom smasher... News photograph, August 7,1945.
c. Photograph of an early atom smasher in
operation at UC Berkeley, 1940.
d. This picture, showing two stars, representing
disintegration of atomic nuclei caused by

100,000,000 electron volt neutrons, was

displayed...at Stanford University [in Palo Alto,
California]...This picture is explained as a cloud
chamber photograph, and the stars (arrows)
are caused by disintegration. Each prong of
star represents a particle being emitted from
an oxygen nucleus. Heaviest tracks are explained
as alpha particles, the lighter by protons and
electrons. News photograph, 1947.
174. a. CALIFORNIA SCIENTISTS TRACE
CREATION OF MATTER. [Scientists] produced
what is believed to be the first photograph
showing the birth of matter from radiant
energy....This photo shows...the cloud chamber
machine which obtained the photograph. News
photograph, 1933.
b. Optical Glass comes in big chunks.
Photograph, 1943.

Table 17: 175-187

175. Vintage Christmas color wheel, mid-20th c.
These decorative, rotating wheels were placed
before Christmas trees so that the tinsel reflected
its colors.
176. Glass photographic plate with photos taken in a
darkened space, in the presence of infrared rays.
177. How to Tell the Birds from the Flowers by Robert
Williams Wood (New York: Paul Elder and
Company, 1907). Woods, a physicist, wrote this as
a childrens book, but it was also a satirical critique
of the nature fakers: writers who misstate or
falsify facts about the natural world to serve their
project. Wood also debunked N-rays in 1904 and
later served on an American Society for Psychical
Research committee organized to investigate
medium Mina Margery Crandon.
178. The Lscher Color Test by Dr. Max Lscher, ed.
and trans. Ian A. Scott (New York: Pocket Book,
1971). This test, originally published in 1969, aimed
to discern a variety of psychological characteristics
of a subject through his or her color selections.
179. Hand-painted chart from Principles of the
Science of Colour by William Benson, Arch. (London:
Chapman & Hall, 1868).
180. Pages from LExtriorisation de La Sensibilit by
Albert de Rochas (Paris: Chamuel, diteur, 1899).
181. a. Noel Ourslers aura portrait.
b. The Science of the Aura by S. G. J. Ouseley (London:
L. N. Fowler & Co., Ltd., 1964).
182. Diagrams by Gerald Light. At the top and
bottom, Light wrote two quotes by Ralph Waldo
Emerson in pencil: Astrology is Astronomy
brought to earth and applied to the affairs of
men, and Men should take their knowledge from
the stars. Light was a metaphysical scientist
who claimed to have had an encounter with
extraterrestrials at Edwards Air Force Base in 1954
along with President Dwight Eisenhower. Light
also claimed to be clairvoyant and had extensive
knowledge of the occult.
183. Violet ray tube, early 20th c. Violet ray tubes
were used to administer electrotherapy to various

points on the human body, which was thought

to alleviate a variety of conditions. The therapy
is not accepted or practiced in the medical field
today. The violet ray tube emits a high voltage,
high frequency, and low current of electricity to
the subject. The basic technology of the tubes
was developed from Nikola Teslas wireless gasdischarge lamp.
184. a. Illustration of various auroras, 4th ed.
(Leipzig and Vienna: Bibliographic Institute, 18851892).
b. AURORA BOREALIS BOTTLED. For the
first time in the history of science, the Aurora
Borealis has been reproduced inside a test tube.
This has been accomplished by Dr. Joseph Kaplan,
Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of
California... News photograph, 1931.
185. Close-up color photographs of minerals, mid-20th c.
186. a. Photograph of a menhir, a large, vertical
stone, in Brittany, France, erected by proto-Celtic
peoples.
b. Postcard of the Devils Doorway rock
formation at Devils Lake State Park, 1920s.
187. a. Postcard of the rock formation known as
the Devils Bedroom in the Panama Rocks, located
south of Chautauqua Lake in New York, 1920s.
b. Postcard of The Devils Chair, a rock formation
in Taylors Falls, Minnesota, 1920s.
c. The legendary Devils Stone at the Gotthard
road near Gschenen has to move: the huge rock
has to give way to the construction of a highway.
The stone now is to be moved about 60 meters
[away]. This will be done on a special concreteconstruction and on rails. News photograph, 1973.
d. Man beneath the geological formation known
as the Miracle Rock in western Colorado.
Photograph, late 19th-early 20th c.
e. Howard Lyon shown on hillside overlooking
Cape Dorset [in Canada] with Inuk Shuk, [a
traditional sculptural stone form] in the likeness
of man. These stone markers are said to have a
religious significance and may be found at the
top of several of the highest hills in the area.
Photograph, 1966.

Table 18: 188-202

188. A Life Behind the Canvas, 2nd Ed. (London: R.
March & Co., c. 1885).
189. Spectropia, or, Surprising Spectral Illusions
Showing Ghosts Everywhere and of Any Colour (New
York: James G. Gregory, 1864). The author
wrote that his aim was the extinction of the
superstitious belief that apparitions are actual
spirits, by showing some of the ways our senses
may be deceived. Readers were meant to stare at
the illustrations inside for long enough that they
saw a spectral afterimage when they looked away.

198. Carte-de-visite of the ghost of Thurstaston

Hall, Birkenhead, England, 19th c., based on the
miniature painter Reginald Eastons watercolor
made after seeing the ghost of an elderly woman
at 3 a.m. seven times consecutively. Note from
William Hope, June 13, 1882 (verso): My dear
Aunt Charlotte, We were much interested with this
picture of our ghost--I am bound to say we have
never seen her...but from time to time we have
been much alarmed by the violent ringing of the
bell, rung too loudly and persistently that it could
not be the work of rats...

190. Pamphlet titled The Laird of Cools Ghost"

(Glasgow: J. Lumaden & Son, Glasgow, 1822).

199. Photograph taken at the Seale Haunted House,

20th c.

191. Lovats Ghost on Pilgrimage, June 15th, 1747

by Samuel Ireland. This mezzotint shows Simon
Fraser, 11th Baron of Lovat, dressed as a monk and
carrying his head through a cemetery. Fraser was a
Scottish Jacobite who was convicted of treason and
became the last person in Britain to be publicly
beheaded on Tower Hill in London.

200. Thought Forms by Annie Besant and C.W.

Leadbeater (London: The Theosophical Publishing
Society, 1905).

192. Illustrations copied from Spectropia found in

volume 45 of the Spencer Collection. The Spencer
Collection collects a wide range of hand-copied
imagery and texts; in this instance both the
published original and the copied images can be
found in the Oursler Archives.
193. a. Engraving of a ghost emerging through the
floorboards, 19th c.
b. Postcard depicting a man fleeing ghouls, early
20th c.
194. Magic lantern glass slide of the Witch of Endor
summoning the spirit of Samuel, c. 1880.
195. Telepathic Hallucinations: The New View of Ghosts
by Frank Podmore (New York: Frederick A. Stokes
Company, 1910).
196. Photograph, 1972. Handwritten note (verso):
Close-up of head for detail of surrounding light.
197. Man Visible and Invisible by C.W. Leadbeater (New
York: John Lane, 1903).

201. Stereoscopes depicting ghosts, 19th c.

202. a. Original hand-painted illustration by Felicia
Bryce for the novel Phantom of Edgewater Hall by
W.E.D. Ross (New York: Avalon, 1980). Jacket
design by Edrien.
b. Illustration for a short story, The Underclyffe
Ghost, published in Frank Leslies Popular Monthly,
Vol. IV, No. 1 (July 1877), captioned Send a ball
through its head, suggested Jarvis.
c. Bottom: Hundreds of people, armed to
the teeth with guns and sticks, turned out at
Kingsdown, Kent, for an all-night hunt for the
ghost that for more than a week has terrorised the
inhabitants. When fired at by a man with a gun
the ghost is said to have retaliated by throwing a
brick... News photograph, London, 1939.
d. Engraving of the catacombs of Paris by Franois
Auguste Trichon from the Illustrated Home Book
of the Worlds Great Nations, being a Geographical,
Historical and Pictorial Encyclopedia (New York: The
Werner Company, Publishers, 1898).
e. Illustration of different skulls from various
tombs and catacombs in Egypt from Crania
Aegyptiaca: Or, Observations on Egyptian Ethnography,
Derived from Anatomy, History and the Monuments by
American natural scientist Samuel George Morton,
M.D. (Philadelphia: John Penington, 1844).
f. Photo of a ghostly apparition seen in a window,
1990s.

Table 19: 203-215

203. Photograph of Church of St. Mary of the
Immaculate Conception, Rome, 20th c. The
Capuchin Crypt was decorated, beginning in the
early 17th c., with the exhumed bones of dead
friars. It is estimated that some 3,700 skeletal
remains have been interred throughout the sixroom chapel.

211. Illustration of a Peppers Ghost performance

from Instructions Pratiques Sur LEmploi des Appareils
de Projection by A. Molteni, 4th ed. (Paris: 44, Rue
du Chateau DEau, 1892).

204. Frontispiece of The True History of Peppers Ghost

by Professor John Henry Pepper (New York:
Cassell & Company, Limited, 1890).

213. Illustration from Harpers Weekly, May 27th,

1882, of tienne-Jules Mareys photographic
gun, a device that rotates a sensitized plate
behind a 12-aperture chamber that, upon
aiming at a desired subject and pulling the
trigger, exposes the frame within one second.

205. The True History of Peppers Ghost by Professor

John Henry Pepper (New York: Cassell &
Company, Limited, 1890). The book lays out the
mechanics and optics behind the Peppers Ghost
illusion.
206. a. Cartoon by George Cruikshank, 1829.
b. Puzzle Post Card with a lenticular image
that alternates between a skeleton and a clown, c.
1906.
c. Postcard of a man in a skeleton costume at a
bar theater, 20th c.
207. a. Stereoscope from Les Diableries, a series of
hand-colored photographs that circulated around
Paris throughout the 1860s. The figures in the
photos are clay figurines and the scenes are set
in Hell. The underlying narrative is a satirical
portrayal of the extravagance of the bourgeois
Second Empire under the rule of Napoleon III.
b. Magic lantern slide, 19th c.
208. Carte-de-visite of Prof. John Henry Pepper,
London, 19th c.
209. Postcards of Cabaret Nant (Cabaret of
Nothingness), a macabre dinner club in
Montmarte, Paris, c. late 19th-early 20th c. The
images show the various stages of an evening
there, including a performance in the Tomb of
the Dead, and a Peppers Ghost-type display of
Melancholy Specters.
210. a. Pinup photo, c. 1940s-50s.
b. Skull Island-Confederate Section, an
attraction at Six Flags amusement park in Dallas,
Texas. Postcard, mid-late 20th c.

212. Production still from a Lumire brothers film,

c. 1895.

214. Picture gun, c. 1940s. This particular device

projected still or moving images onto a surface.
215. a. Production still from Georges Mliss The
Devil in a Convent, 1899.
b. Photo cutout pasted on paper, mid-20th c. The
image was created by a Scientologist artist, and
published in an issue of Famous Monsters magazine,
edited by Forrest Ackerman.
c. Production still with Jehanne dAlcy, actress
and the wife of Georges Mlis, in his film La
source enchante, c. 1890s.
d. Hedy Lamarr returns to the screen as Joan of
Arc in Warner [Bros.]s The Story of Mankind.
Miss Lamarr, shown here at the stake, acts with
more than 50 top personalities in the Irwin Allen
Technicolor production. News photograph, 1957.
e. Production still of The Reaper from Carl
Dreyers LEtrange Aventure de David Gray, 1931.

Table 20: 216-224

216. a. John Travolta in makeup for Robert Fuests
Devils Rain, 1975.
b. Photocollage of production stills from
Yoshimitsu Bannos Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster,
released by American International Pictures,1971.
c. Production still from Jacques Tourneurs Curse
of the Demon, 1957.
217. a. Production still from The Mummys Tomb,
released by Universal Pictures Co., Inc., 1942.
b. Production still, c. 1940s.
218. a. Production still from the BBC television
series The Quatermass Experiment (U.S. title: The
Creeping Unknown), 1955.
b. Publicity still with Lon Chaney, Jr., in character
as George Waggners The Wolf Man (1941).
c. Photograph of a demonic monster statue or
costume.
219. a. Production stills from The Devils Own with
Joan Fontaine, directed by Cyril Frankel and
released by 20th Century Fox, 1966.
b. Production still from Mysterious Doctor Satan
(1940), with Robert Wilcox and Eduardo Ciannelli.
220. a. THE GREAT DICTATOR, Hollywood
style, climaxes a rousing speech with a lefthand salute. Charles Chaplin, famous comedian,
portrays the title role in this picture, believed
to be a travesty on dictators. The double cross
seems to be the insignia of Chaplins party. News
photograph, 1940.
b. Publicity still for The Deadly Mantis, starring
Craig Stevens (1957).
221. Various Dream drawings by Federico Fellini,
1960-1990.
222. a. Set still from Mervyn LeRoys I Am a Fugitive
from a Chain Gang, 1932.
b. Set still from Roy Del Ruths Lady Killer, 1933.
223. Set still from Art Napoleons Too Much, Too Soon,
1958.

224. a. Set still from Red Meat,

b. Set still from The Great Race,
c. Set still from Alias the Doctor, 1932.
d. Set still from Harry Beaumonts Children of
Pleasure, 1930.
e. Set still from William A. Wellmans Darbys
Rangers, 1958.

Table 21: 225-231

225. a. Photograph of a theater interior, United
States, location unknown.
b. Photograph of Murat Theater, Indianapolis.
c. Photograph of a theater interior, Indianapolis,
1979.
d. Photograph of a theater interior, United States,
location unknown.
226. a. Photograph of Proscenium-Mutual Theater,
also known as the Majestic Theater, in
Indianapolis.
b. Photograph of the demolition of Lyric Theater,
possibly Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1970.
c. Rendering of a movie theater, c. late
1950s-early 1960s.
d. Photograph of the Vogue theater in Broad
Ripple Village, Indianapolis, Indiana, 1974.
227. a. Photograph of a movie theater, United States,
location unknown, 1974.
b. Photograph of a theater on Ft. Benjamin
Harrison U.S. Army post, Indiana, 1970.
c. Photograph of a movie theater exterior, United
States, location unknown.
d. Photograph of a movie theatre exterior, United
States, location unknown, 1948.
228. Ghost show poster for Dr. Draculas Living
Nightmares Show, 1960s.
229. Photograph of a midnight horror-film
screening, 1952.
230. a. Dr. Evil spook show lobby card, 1950s-60s.
Philip Morris, known by his stage name, Dr.
Evil, was a stage magician and owner of Morris
Costumes in Charlotte, North Carolina.
b-e. Pages from the Nixons Ghost manuscript by
magician Doc Nixon, 1929. A variety of topics
are covered in the text, which has been typed
and pasted into a collage form with photographs
and diagrams. Nixon was one of the originators
of the Ghost Show trend, wherein movie
theaters screened a horror film while mediums
held sances and magicians performed illusions;
this manuscript includes instructions for staging
such productions. Spirit photography, spirit
writing, spirit horns, ultraviolet therapy, ghost
materialization, and ectoplasmic regurgitation are
all described in Nixons text.

231. Ghost show poster, London. Described as the

4th Dimension of Modern Entertainment, the
show featured a sance and a Crystal Mind Act
involving audience participation.

Table 22: 232-240

232. a. Photograph of Howard Thurston, Rochester,
New York, c. 1930. Thurston, a highly innovative
American stage magician, was performing his
Seeing Through a Lady trick, in which the
assistant was sliced into three pieces with two
sheets of metal; the middle section of her body
then disappeared.
b. Photograph, 1935, with note (verso) dated
1962: Saltash, Cornwall...[U]nearthed this old
shot which I think is of interest. It was taken
in ordinary house lighting during an actual
performance by the late Horace Goldin of his
sawing through a woman with a -- saw! Kindly
observe that the saw is actually passing through
the ladys body...This performance was at the
Alhambra Music Hall...which was blitzed during
the war of course and never rebuilt. Not a very
large hall but cozy and I saw and met many
magicians...Signed Ted S____.
c. Photograph of The Indian Rope Trick, in
which a disassembled man is magically made
whole again, 1936.
d. Ghandu Illusionist. Photograph, 1938.
e. Photograph of an early 20th-century stage
magic show.
f. Retouched photo of an illusion called the
Death Ray, in which The Great Leon fires
a woman encased in a bullet-shaped, metal
container from a cannon into a sheet of steel,
1922.
233. Printed illustration from a chapter titled
Recreations in the Piccola Enciclopedia Scienze
Occulte (Small Encyclopedia of Occult Sciences).
Spencer Collection, vol. 43.
234. Photographs of vaudeville headliner The Great
Leon performing illusions on a stage in Chicago,
1911.
235. The Magician: A Monthly Journal Devoted to Magic,
Spiritualism, Hypnotism, and Human Progress, vol. 2,
no 1. (December 1906).
236. a. Levitating performer onstage in an Egyptianthemed performance. Contact-sheet photograph,
20th c.
b. Photograph of escape artist Hudini Rosselli in
Ghent, Belgium, early 20th c.

237. Pair of photographs, c. 1950s.

238. a. Spirit Photograph trick set from Hellers
School of Magic, New York, c. 1890. The prop
was used to magically make a photograph of an
ordinary playing card selected by a participant
appear within the deck.
b-c. Hand-painted photographs of a magician
with his props (left) and linking rings trick (right),
late 19th-early 20th c.
239. a. Escape artist Bobby Andrews...escaped the
chains and made it out of the box in 3 1/2
minutes. News photograph, 1979.
b. AFTER HOUDINIS RECORD--Geoffrey
Hansen, an 18-year-old from Orinda, Calif., set
out Sunday to break escape artist Harry Houdinis
record for escaping chained, underwater in San
Francisco Bay...[He] came up about 20-seconds
later...Houdinis record was 57-seconds. News
photograph, 1972.
c. Patsi Farmer, a reporter for the Houston
Press...takes an interview lying down...It
happened that Bill Sires was warming up for
the International Brotherhood of Magicians
convention. News photograph, 1957.
d. Publicity photograph of a magician and his
assistant performing a trick with a live rabbit, c.
1940s.
e. Sorry, He Wont Tell Us How Its Done.
Tabloid photograph, 1974.
240. Poster advertisement, c.1930s-40s

Table 23: 241-250

241. a. National Safety Council of Chicago poster,
mid-20th c.
b. Postcard for Etiopa, the living girl from Mars.
c. Postcard of The fortune-telling miracle spider
with the living human head, Berlin, 1902. The
Spider and the Fly was a popular sideshow
illusion featuring a giant spider with a live human
head.
242. Publicity photographs of stage magicians,
early 20th century.
243. Magician letterheads, late 19th-early 20th c.
244. Scrying ball, c. 1950-60.
245. a. Publicity photograph for magician Wilfred
Sellten, mid-20th c.
b-c. Houdini demonstrating how to make the wax
hands and fingerprint impressions channeled by
mediums during sances, 1923. Mediums claimed
these were spiritual imprints or manifestations of
the deceased.
246. Magician letterhead, late 19th-early 20th c.
247. The Spirit World Unmasked by Henry Ridgely
Evans (Chicago: Laird & Lee, Publishers, 1897).
248. Houdinis Spirit Exposs from Houdinis Own
Manuscripts, Records and Photographs, Vol. 1, by
Joseph Dunninger (New York: Experimenter
Publishing Col, Inc., 1928), which explained many
of Houdinis methods for exposing fraudulent
mediums.
249. a. News photograph of Florida detective Patty
Watson, 1994. Watson went undercover to
expose the psychic Tammy Mitchell, who had
been conning elderly targets out of thousands of
dollars. Mitchell conjured devils heads from
tomatoes and snakes from eggs.
b. Photograph of the Rev. Canon Rausher, who
exposed spirit mediums, 1978.
c. A magician weathervane at Sandalwood, the
home of Fulton Oursler and Grace Perkin in
Falmouth, MA.
d. Fulton Oursler and Grace Perkins at
Sandalwood.

250. Howard Thurston deconstructs pyschic's

fraudulent tricks during sance with Fulton
Oursler and Bogdon, c. 1930.

Table 24: 251-260

251. a. Fulton Oursler practicing prestidigitation.
b. Fulton Ourslers privately-bound cover of Spirit
Mediums Exposed for his own library.
c. Engraving by C. Mottram from the original
by Hogarth titled Cruelty, Superstition &
Fanaticism.
252. Spirit Mediums Exposed by Samri Frikell (New
York: Macfadden Publications, 1930). Frikell,
aka Fulton Oursler (Tony Ourslers grandfather),
compiled this collection of articles explaining
various techniques fraudulent mediums used
to dupe their sitters; it includes contributions
by Howard Thurston and Harry Houdini. In
Ghost Photographs, Frikell wrote about how
he commissioned a spirit photograph, which he
then sent to Conan Doyle, who confirmed it was
authentic. In this article, Fulton revealed how the
photo was made (double exposure) and reported
his correspondence with Conan Doyle.
253. The Musical Medium: Madame Magdeleine,
by Sidney Dark, Royal Magazine, 1904.
254. Postcard, early 20th c.
255. A Sance with the Lights up: Some Spirit Mysteries
Expoded by Philip Astor, 1902.
256. Negatives from the Cottingley Fairy series,
1920. The Coming of the Fairies by Arthur Conan
Doyle (New York: George H. Doran Company,
1921) presents Conan Doyles investigation into
the existence of fairies (which he believed were a
psychic phenomena), centering on the celebrated
series of photos taken by cousins Francis Griffiths
and Elise Wright in Cottingley, a village in West
Yorkshire, England.
257. Photograph of Arthur Conon Doyle, early 20th
century.
258. Pair of spirit photographs, early 20th c. Arthur
Conan Doyle verified their authenticity and
signed them.
259. a. Lily Dale, N.Y., July 2--Records Spirit Voice.
News photograph, 1937.
b. Photograph of psychic Eugenia Dennis of

Atherton, Kansas, a friend and teacher of Harry

Houdini, 1924.
c. Hand-painted photo collage of psychic Ava
Muntell, The Woman with a Million Eyes, c.
1920s.
260. a. Infrared photograph, taken over a 20-minute
span, of the ectoplasmic manifestation of Silver
Belle, a deceased Native American that the
medium Ethel Post-Parrish (seated) claimed was
her spirit guide, 1953.
b. Spirit photograph of Dr. John Winning
completely obscured by the manifestation of a
spirit lady in a cloud of ectoplasmic light, 1964.
c. Infrared photograph and photographic glass
plate of Welsh medium Jack Webber excreting
ectoplasm from his abdomen in a darkened
sance.
d. Photograph of the hands of French medium
Marthe Beraud (aka Eva Carrire or Eva C)
during a sance, 1921.
e. Photograph of the Austrian medium Rudi
Schneider in a sance, late 1920s-early 1930s.
f. Photograph of Grigori Rasputin, a mystic
religious advisor to the Russian Tsar and his family.
g. Photograph of a table levitating in a sance led
by British medium Ada Emma Deane, 1923. The
wire mesh at the participants feet was meant to
prevent anyone from touching the legs of the table.

Table 25: 261-272

261. a. Photograph of Eva C. during sance, 1920s.
b. Photograph of Eva C. with the full
materialization of a spirit, Bisson, 1913. Clipping
(verso) states that it was taken during Baron
Albert von Schrenck-Notzings experiments
in materialization...showing a full-length spirit
and the medium, on the same plate. SchrenckNotzing was a German psychiatrist who devoted
much of his career to the investigation of psychics
and psychic phenomena. Eva C. often led sances
in the nude, in an attempt to prove no objects were
hidden on her person.
c. Photograph of Eva C.s hands manipulating
ectoplasm during a sance, 1920s.
d. Photograph of Eva C. producing ectoplasm
during a sance, 1920s.
e. Spirit figure produced during one of Eva C.s
sance.
262. Photograph with note (verso): Chicago 3-11-26:
Exposing the Spiritualist: This is possibly the
most remarkable picture exposing the fakery of
sptiriualism ever made. It was made by speed flash by
a news photographer whose presence in the room as
a photographer was not suspected at the time that the
spirit was blowing a trumpet. This medium is Mrs.
Minnie Reichert, of Chicago, and her voice was supposed
to be that of the dead Indian chief, Blackhawk. Houdini
arranged the expose. Sent to all bureaus. (AMER)
263. Documents on Eusapia Palladino, 1900-1908, a
report published by the Division of Psychic
and Psychological Research at the General
Psychological Institute in Paris. Palladino was a
medium famous for her ability to levitate tables
and other objects.
264. a. Photograph of Canadian medium Mary
Marshall leading a sance under the scrutiny of
parapsychologist and spiritualist Dr. Thomas
Glendenning Hamilton, 1932. Hamiliton took this
photograph.
b. Unknown sance group in Belgium, c. 1950s.
c. Photograph by Hamilton of the medium Susan
Marshall (aka Mercedes) exhibiting The Shining
Garment, an apport Marshall claimed was brought
to the sance by a spirit named Katie King.
d. Photograph by Hamiliton of Mary Marshall
leading a sance.

265. Photographs of Eusapia Palladino during

a sance, c. 1906. Camille Flammarion, second
from left, was a French astronomer and popular
science fiction writer. A frequent participant in
Eusapia Palladinos sances, Flammarion was both
a scientific researcher and believer in psychic
phenomena.
266. a. Photograph of Eusapia Palladinos hands.
b. Retouched photograph of the sance room in
which Palladino was tested, 1898. At the center
is an industrial scale to test the hypothesis that a
dead persons soul could be weighed. The Mysteries
of the Psyche, a manuscript in Ourslers archives,
reports that the test sances took place in the
presence of scientists like Pierre Curie [and]
Madame Curie [who were interested in] the
observation of the phenomena and, if possible,
their recording, using scientific methods. Another
artifact in Ourslers archive, a letter written to a
French scientific publicist on behalf of Madame
Curie, demonstrates her ambivalent outlook on
occult phenomena: Sir, In response to your
letter, Ms. Curie asked me to tell you that she has
witnessed certain psychic manifestations but that
she currently has no scientific certainty on the
subject.
267. Retouched photograph mounted on board
showing Palladino levitating a table during a
sance, 1898. The handwritten note at the top:
without threads.
268. Two ectoplasms of Abraham Lincoln (left) and
George Washington (right) used by actual
mediums, early 20th c. They were doused with a
fluorescent substance so that they glowed in the
darkness of the sance room.
269. a. A Wizard of To-day by H.J.W. Dam, Pearsons
Magazine, 1896.
b. Photograph of Wilhelm Rntgen, c.
1899. Rntgen was a German physicist who
discovered X-rays in 1895. His discovery, a
major advancement for medicine and science,
also had an unexpected galvanizing effect on the
contemporaneous experimental photography of
Louis Darget and other thought photographers.
c. The New Roentgen Photography, Life, Feb. 27,
1896.

d. The photograph shows the Ruhmkorff coil

and Crookes tube which Wilhelm Conrad Rntgen
used to produce x-rays. Other scientists had
conducted experiments with similar equipment,
but Rntgen was the first to observe that rays
could be produced which would penetrate solid
objects. Photograph from The American College
of Radiology, Chicago.
270. The Goligher Circle, May-August 1921 (London: John
M. Watkins, 1922), a summary of William
Crawfords experiments. These are discussed at
length in another object in Ourslers archives,
The Mysteries of the Psyche, an undated report on
a meeting of the Psychic Research Section of
the Institut Gnral Psychologique in France:
As skeptical as one might be with regard to the
reality of these phenomena, one cannot not [help
but] be struck by the magnitude of the produced
manifestations, by the repetition and by the
rigorous control to which they were subjected. It
is difficult to find it admissible that Dr. Crawford
could have been mistaken under the conditions in
which he operated [...].
271. Front page The New York Herald, Sunday, October
31, 1909, with an image of Marie and Pierre Curie
in their laboratory.
272. Three photographs of Goligher Circle mediums
excreting ectoplasm, 1914-20. The Goligher Circle
was a group of approximately six mediums, all
members of the same Belfast, Ireland, family.
From 1914-1920, psychical researcher William
Crawford carried out a series of experiments
on the mediums to test the validity of psychic
phenomena.

Table 26: 273-284

273. a. Scientology workbook illustrated by L. Ron
Hubbard.
b. Diagrams by Gerald Light, c. 1950s.
274. Vintage Ouija board made by J. M. Simmons,
Chicago.
275. Photograph given to George Adamski by
the Venusian, December 13, 1952
276. a. Photograph with handwritten note (verso):
Lillian, Vivian and some other girls talking to the
Ouija Board, Xmas.
b. New York--The serious people around the
table here are convinced that they are about to
get in touch with the spirit world, through the use
of a new spirit communication instrument...The
instrument is called a Metacom, a contraction
of the words metapsychic and communicator....
The inventors of the board maintain that
through it they tune in on the unknown. News
photograph, 1947.
277. The backing board for a Cottingley fairy
photograph sent from Arthur Conan Doyle to
Fulton Oursler in the 1920s. A stamp on the verso
reads 138 Fulton Street, an address in lower
Manhattan. In a mysterious coincidence, Tony
acquired a floor at that same address, which, as it
turns out, is also where the design work for Spirit
Mediums Exposed was done.
278. Skotograph by the Falconer Brothers, early
20th c. Craig and George Falconer were Scottish
spirit photographers who developed a new kind of
spirit writing; they wrapped a photographic plate
in black paper, placed their hands on the plate,
and the writing appeared. In 1931, the brothers
were arrested in South Africa on charges of fraud
after undercover police officers were able to
confirm that they had doctored their photos.
279. Notebooks kept by psychic A.T. Reynolds in
Mechanic Falls, Maine, throughout the 1930s-40s.
Everything Reynolds wrote was done while in a
deep trance.
280. a. Spirit photograph from William Mumlers
studio in Boston. The spirit presents the

sitter with a note: Charity, To the brightest

jewel in the crown, Nathaniel. In the 1860s,
William Mumler pioneered the practice of spirit
photography, in which the ghostly image of a
deceased person--usually a loved one or a famous
personage--became visible in the photograph
after it was exposed.
b. Carte-de-visite, 1874. Note (verso): I love this
little boy. Note (recto): ...written by our
infant child, aged 5 months and 18 days. In our
presence, in a clear light, the pencil having been
placed in the babys right hand by an invisible
agency.
281. The automatic writing manuscripts of the
medium Ethel Le Rossignol from the 1920s.
282. Spirit photograph with two ghosts and some
spirit writing, by J.M. White & Co. photographers,
Port Huron, Michigan, 1892.
283. Skotograph by the Falconer Brothers, early 20thc.
284. a. Dr. Lee DeForest [sitting], inventor of the
3-element vacuum tube, watching and listening to
a talking movie...transmitted by a sight and sound
film via radio without the use of land wires. News
photograph.
b. News photograph with television tube
designed for television sets of the future, 1955.
c. SCHENECTADY, N.Y.--The 6 by 7 foot
screen on which television motion pictures were
successfully presented in the RKO-Proctors
Theater here. News photograph, c. 1930.
d. Looking at pictures coming over the New
Jenkins Model A Console. This equipment
projects a picture on a ground glass screen. The
size is approximately 10 sq. Photograph, c. early
1930s. Charles A. Jenkins was an early pioneer of
the mechanical television system.
e. NEW YORK CITY--Miss Irene Delroy
operating the television transmitter of the
General Electric Company at the 5th annual
Radio Worlds Fair. News photograph, c. 1928.
f. Commercial photograph of a couple watching a
television set, c. 1930s.

Table 27: 285-298

285. a. News photograph of an early television camera,
c. 1920s-30s.
b. NEW YORK CITY--No longer will hubby call
up the wife and say, I wont be home for dinner
tonight; Im very busy at the office, for the first
radio television sets are ready for installation
in the home and no modern household will be
complete without one...The person televised sits
in front of the televisor and the image is sharply
focused on the scanning disc, which has a spiral
of small holes. Behind the disc is the photoelectric cell and amplifier which convert the units
of the image into electric current impulses to be
broadcasted. The receiver consists of a common
radio receiver, a disc and a neon lamp. The disc
turns in synchronism with the transmitter and the
neon lamp stands behind the disc. It is modulated
by the received signals and the image becomes
visible. News photograph of the scanning disk (or
Nipkow disk) used in early television technology,
1920s-30s.
c. Tonights demonstration...of the first practical
larger-screen television [involved] eight complete
scene shifts and more than forty different camera
positions. Commercial photo by NBC, 1937.
d. NEW YORK--Miss Keeling, who was chosen
from 150 beauties...[with] the latest tele-talkie
device, perfected by Scotch inventor John L.
Baird...[She] is shown beside the transmitter,
which features the new periscopic scanner, which
enables a wide variety of subjects situated in a
number of places to be scanned without moving
the whole of the transmitter assembly. News
photograph, c. 1929.
e. Miss Lila McClelland appearing before the
Jenkins Direct Pick-Up Camera at the Hotel Park
Central in New York. Photograph, 1930s. The
camera utilized a scanning disk.
f. Grace Voss, pantomimic artist...will appear
before the photo-electric cell bank each Tuesday
night...A special long-shot lens is used to pick up
Miss Vosss image from head to foot. Commercial
photograph.
286. Crookes tube, 1950s. Invented by William
Crookes in 1875, the Crookes tube glows with
fluorescent light when activated. It is a glass
container from which air has been evacuated.
Two metal electrodes are attached to the tube--a
cathode and an anode. The tube is activated when

a high-voltage current is applied to the electrodes,

causing electrons to project from the cathode,
illuminating the tube. The Crookes tube was
instrumental in the later discovery of X-rays and
the development of television.
287. An illustration of a spiritoscope, c. 1855.
288. Pages from Experimental Investigation of the Spirit
Manifestations, Demonstrating the Existence of Spirits
and Their Communion with Mortals by Robert Hare,
M.D. (New York: Partridge & Brittan, 1855).
Robert Hare was a 19th-century American chemist
and professor; in the mid-1850s, he invented
several devices to disprove spirit mediums ability
to contact the dead, but then found himself
convinced, and subsequently converted to
spiritualism. He developed several variations of an
apparatus called the spiritoscope, designed to
test the legitimacy of spirit manifestations.
289. Illustration of the spirit manifestation of
Katie King by W.P. Snyder, Frank Leslies Illustrated
Newspaper, August 22, 1874. The caption reads:
Spiritual Materializations....Annie Morgan, said
to have been dead for two centuries, revealing
herself under the name of Katie King, and
through spiritualistic mediums, to persons
in Philadelphia. In the early 1870s a group
of spiritualists claimed to have observed her
appearance during a series of sances held in
London, New York, and Philadelphia.
290. a. Photograph of Katie King, late 19th c.
b. Spirit photograph of Katie King, late 19th c.
A handwritten note (verso) says it was taken at
William Crookess residence in electric light.
c. Photographed illustration of William Crookess
encounter with the spirit Katie King, late 19th c.
William Crookes, a British chemist and physicist,
was an elected fellow of the Royal Society; he
discovered the element thallium in 1861, and
conducted important investigations into cathode
rays and vacuum tubes (developments critical
to the later discovery of X-rays and modern
television). He became a spiritualist after the death
of his brother in 1867.
d. Photograph of William Crookes and Katie King,
with a handwritten note from Arthur Conan Doyle:
This is a photo of the spirit Kate King, who lived

Table 27: 285-298, continued

off and on for three years in the household of Sir
William Crookes, 1871-1873. She was seen by many
people and photographed 40 times. There was no
possibility of fraud. She was 4 1/2 inches taller
than the medium, and her pulse rate was 74...
291. Pages from Researches in Spiritualism by William
Crookes (London: James Burns, 1899), showing
apparatuses invented by Crookes to test the
psychic abilities of mediums.
292. Sur Terre La Vie de lAu-Del !, Paris, 1925.
293. Pages from the manuscript for Sur Terre...La vie de
lAu Del! (On Earth...The Life from Beyond!)
by the French spiritualist group Fiat Lux.
Handwritten in ink, with tipped-in photos
taken during their sances. The manuscript was
published in 1925 as a printed book, which is also
in the Oursler Archives.
294. Spirit photograph.
295. Spirit photograph by Richard Boursnell, c. 1895.
296. Spirit photograph, 18th c.
297. Spirit photograph. Tintype in wood, leather, and
velvet case, late 19th c.
298. Spirit photograph.

Table 28: 299-309

299. Kodak Instamatic 124 camera, sold in the U.S.
from 1968-71, and a spirit photograph obtained
by the camera, whose previous owner claimed it
was haunted.
300. Spirit photographs and cartes-de-visite, late
19th century-early 20th century.
301. a. Photographing the Invisible by James Coates,
Ph.D., F.A.S. (London: L. N. Fowler & Co., 1911).
b. Chronicles of Spirit Photography by Miss Houghton
(London: E. W. Allen, 1882).
c. Photograph of Andrew Jackson Davis, an
American spiritualist who claimed to have
clairvoyant powers and practiced magnetic
healing.
d. Twenty Photographs of the Risen Dead by Thomas
Slaney Wilmot (London: Simpkin, Marshall,
Hamilton, Kent, & Co., Ltd., 1894).
302. a. Spirit photograph (with ectoplasmic face on
the wall), c. 1920s-30s.
b. Spirit photograph, possibly related to the
Crewe Circle.
c. Spirit photograph by William Hope, 1913.
d. Spirit photograph by William Hope, 1924, of
psychical researcher Stanley De Brath (center).
The script describes the methodology used:
De Brath provided Hope with the camera and
plate, and developed it himself to prevent any
tampering.
303. Pages from the scrapbook of Mumler
photographs.
304. Spirit photographs and cartes-de-visite, late
19th century-early 20th century.
305. Spirit photographs, possibly from Camp
Chesterfield, 1960s.
306. a. Photograph of the apparition of Grimaldis
Clown in a crystal ball.
b. Print of a much-circulated 19th-c. image
of Joseph Grimaldi in one of his most famous
pantomime roles, the clown in Thomas Dibdins
Harlequin and Mother Goose, Covent Garden
Theater, 1806-7.
c-d. Spirit photographs and cartes-de-visite, late
19th century-early 20th century.

307. Souvenir spoon from spiritualist camp Lily Dale

with an engraving of the Fox sisters cottage.
308. Carte-de-visite of Leah, Margaret, and Kate
Fox, mid-19th c.
309. Postcard of the Fox sisters cottage, c. 1905-09.

Table 29: 310-319

310. a. Page from Harpers Weekly, November 23, 1861.
b. Page from The Illustrated London News, July
22, 1905, showing a full-page diagram of a
telephotography-type machine.
311. Photograph of a 1919 caricature of Sir Oliver
Lodge, a British physicist, inventor of the wireless
telegraph, and spiritualist. Caption (verso): The
heaven that Sir Oliver and Arthur [Conan Doyle]
report is the heaven imagined by fat-headed old
women who love the dark and two dollars.
312. Original engraving of apes from the Encyclopdia
Brittanica, Vol. 17, 3rd ed. (1797).
313. Photograph of Thomas Alva Edison, 1908.

reptilian portrayal of the species formulated by

paleontologists at the time.
317. Illustration from Harpers Weekly, Dec. 26, 1891,
by F.S. Church, depicting Professor Richard
Lynch Garners studies of the language of
monkeys; the invention of the phonograph
allowed him to make more precise and
comprehensive observations.
318. Carte-de-visite of Alfred Russel Wallace, a
British anthropologist and biologist who
theorized evolution through natural selection.
Wallaces work was independent of, yet
simultaneous with, Charles Darwins theory
of evolution; their papers on the topic were
published jointly in 1858. Wallace said he
worked out the theory while laid up with a
fever. His investigations of--and subsequent
belief in--spiritualist contact with the dead
negatively effected his reputation in the scientific
community.

314. Plate from Ernst Haeckels Kunstformen der Natur

(Art Forms of Nature), 1904. Haeckel, a German
biologist, created detailed nature illustrations;
this image shows radiolarians, single-celled
organisms found in the ocean that form skeletons
from surrounding minerals. Nearly all radiolarian
species are now extinct, but their fossils are often 319. a. Photograph of William Jennings Brian at The
used for geological dating, as they came about in
State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes aka the
the Cambrian period (541 to 485 million years ago).
Scopes Monkey Trial (1925), an infamous court
case that tested the law that banned teaching
315. a. Photographic evidence of Bigfoot, 1976.
evolution theory in Tennessees state-funded
b. News photograph of Sasquatch tracks at
schools. Brian argued for the prosecution, and
a community dump near Colville, Washington,
Clarence Darrow defended Scopes.
1971. The tracks were made by Ray L. Pickens,
b. Photograph of trial defendant John Thomas
a bricklayer, who wanted to demonstrate that
Scopes, 1950.
anybody could fake them.
c. Claude D. Noble, of Detroit, [Michigan], tried
c. News photograph of a reconstruction of the
in vain to contact the spirit of Clarence Darrow...
Piltdown Man skull, 1954. British amateur
who died 13 years ago. News photograph, 1953.
archeologist Charles Dawson discovered the
Darrow, a famous American lawyer, defended the
skull in 1912, but it was later exposed as a hoax
teaching of evolution theory in the Scopes Trial.
made from an orangutan jawbone and a modern
human cranium.
d. News photograph of Bigfoot plaster cast, 1972.
e. Photographic evidence of Bigfoot, 1979.
Caption (verso): Even the most skeptical
scientist says that if its a hoax, its brilliant.
316. Pages from a manuscript called Fossil
Reptiles, c. 1920s. Handwritten in ink with
several tipped-in photographs, the manuscript
describes and illustrates various fossils. The
dinosaur illustrations are consistent with the

Table 30: 320-327

320. Illustration of The Japanese Mermaid, for an
article on the Japanese Noomo fish, Harpers
Weekly, Feb. 4, 1860.
321. a. News photograph of Nessies fin, 1972.
b. Photograph of Loch Ness Monster taken by Mr.
L. Stuart, 1952.
322. Various late Edo and Meiji period (1853-1912)
Japanese prints by Tsukioka Yoshitoshi (top row
and bottom left) and Utagawa Kuniyoshi (bottom
right).
323. Weather Underground member Kathy Boudin
on the cover of Soho News, c. 1981. On October
20, 1981, the Black Liberation Army and the May
19th Communist Organization (to which Boudin
belonged) held up a Brinks armored car in
Nanuet, New York, stealing $1.6 million. A Brinks
guard was killed during the heist, and two police
officers were killed in a gunfight in Nyack.
324. Japanese print, 19th century.
325. Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance (Port
Townsend, Washington: Loompanics Unlimited,
1983), a collection of studies presented to
President Gerald Ford in 1976.
326. News photograph of a nude man arrested in a
convenience store in Tampa, Florida, 1979.
327. a. News photograph of Patty Hearst circulated
shortly after her capture by police in San
Franciscos Mission District, 1975.
b. Centerfold of a Weather Underground
pamphlet, c. 1974.

Table 31: 328-337

328. a. HIPPIES WIN POP FESTIVAL FREEDOM-Painted pop fan Frances Pickles and her friend
stroll hand-in-hand as they exhibit the floral
designs painted on them. She said: Nakedness
doesnt bother us. I feel quite dressed now.
News photograph, 1970.
b. Nudists hiking at Lupin Lodge, a clothingoptional resort in Los Gatos, California, 1977.
c. Page from Weather Underground pamphlet,
c. 1974.
329. Various ink and watercolor drawings by Madge
Gill, c. 1942. Gill, a self-taught British artist,
claimed that her spirit guide Myrninerest
worked through her to create artworks.
330. Photograph with a handwritten note (verso):
...Direct spirit writing in Chinese characters
drawn on a green leaf, between two slates, under
test conditions...on June 14th, 1882. The Chinese
characters seem to have been made by some sort
of reddish-brown pigment and applied with great
delicacy and perfection of drawing...by a skillful
expert.
331. Spirit artwork by Ethel Le Rossignol, 1953.
Handwritten note (verso): The followers of the
promised spiritual revelation ardently desire
the...Presence which can only be revealed in the
radiant semblance of the eight point diamond
stars upheld in a portion of the garment, which
is the raiment of the Master in the world of
manifestation...
332. Spirit painting from Camp Chesterfield, early
20th c. Watercolor on silk.
333. Photographs by Masaru Emoto, late 20th
century. Emoto believed that human
consciousness can reorganize the molecular
structure of water to reflect the nature of a
specific thought. His experiments consisted
of exposing water to various stimuli--pictures
and music, for example--freezing it, and then
microscopically photographing the crystals.
334. a. Photograph of a spirit drawing, 1932.
b. Photograph by Commander Louis Darget
of artwork by artist Augustin Lesage, c. 1910s.
Lesage was a French coal miner who began

painting and drawing at the age of 35, following

the direction of spirit voices that began speaking
to him.
c. Photograph from Le Fluide des Magnetiseurs by
Baron Carl von Reichenbach. The white forms
are the magnetic auras of various people and
objects.
335. a. Spirit drawing made by the spirit guide of
medium Lilian Brooke in Halifax, November
1931.
b. Photograph by James Bowman, Glasgow.
c. Photograph of a drawing of White Feather,
The Controlling Spirit of Mrs. Kate Robinson,
Philadelphia.
d. Spirit drawing, 1934.
336. Illustration of the magnetic human aura from
Aphorismen ber Sensitivitt und Od (Aphorisms
on Sensitivity and Od) by Baron Carl von
Reichenbach (Vienna: Wilhelm Branmuller, 1866).
337. Kirlian photograph by David Bowie, 1970s.

Table 32: 338-343

338. Kirlian photograph by David Bowie, 1970s.
339. a. Carte-de-visite portrait of Commander Louis
Darget.
b. Funeral annoucement for Monsieur Louis Darget,
1923.
340. a-b. Photographs of a coin by Commander Louis
Darget, 1899, created by placing a magnetized coin
on the gelatin side of a glass plate while it was in
the developer.
c. Thought photograph by Commander Louis
Darget, late 19th-early 20th century.
d-f. Thought photographs by Commander Louis
Darget with his handwritten note (verso), late 19thearly 20th century.
d. Photo of disease. Migraine. Plate placed for 1 hour on
the forehead of Mr. P...See plate from the day before where
migraine was stronger. The emanations are less accented.
e. Plate placed for 24 hours on one of the points of
Mesmers tub in The Mysterious Life. Launched magnetic
dots and printed handwritten bars. The tub had been
recharging. Mesmer said in his 17th proposition: the
magnetism can be accumulated, concentrated, and
transported. Commander Darget.
f. February 21 1914 / Glass wrapped (and) placed
for 24 hours on two points of Mesmers tub in La Vie
Mysterious. It recorded the writing in a positive way.
Printed blue positive and negative writing. The tub was
charged in magnetism by Mr. Bonnet, reputed magnetizer...
Commander Darget.
341. An anthology of experimental and paranormal
photographic activity, including a large selection of
images produced and collected by Darget.
342. Thought photographs by Commander Louis
Darget with his handwritten notes (verso), late
19th-early 20th century. (Read top down, zig zag)
a. Number 27, June 28, 96 / The Asparagus / Obtained
from the forehead, remarkable sample of magnetic
photography from a refined-exquisite naturalist. Specimens
of writing and drawing are saved (or preserved)...Some
spirits remember too well that they were men, or, in other
words, perverts or at least pleasure seekers...It may be vague
but its not less interesting.
b. Le Volcan (The Volcano), 1902. Thought
photograph by Commander Louis Darget made
after Martiniques Mount Pele erupted, killing
tens of thousands of people.

c. The Double Fluidic / The ghost of the Pinard girls,

magnetized by their father, obtained by Commander
Darget. I cannot see double pose because the feet are not
there; [they] never came. Like Mr. Durville said on page
186 of Fantme des vivants (Phantom of Living), the
ghost contracted and became smaller and less luminous in
back, as it shows here. See the left corner of the dress of the
left ghost is shorter than the real dress by more than a halfcentimeter...Commander Darget.
d. Photo sent by Mr. Viand, teacher at the Lyce de
Prigueux, obtained on a plate that was in a box in the
middle of the table of a spiritualist group during a sance.
e. Number 24 / June 25 1896 / The Eagle / Obtained by
Mrs. D... / She kept the plate on for 10 minutes. 0.01 from
her forehead. See the description of the production in the
Scientific Review of Spiritism from March 5 rue manuel.
f. April 1, 1903 / Mephistopheles / Commander Darget
had already obtained the gold layers [shown] on the
photographic plate by the contact of his fingers on the
developing fluid [...], wishing to have a new gold creation.
[D]uring the time that he was trying to produce gold
with his right hand, he was magnetizing a plate with his
left hand. / The gold never came on the destined plate.
The mephisto...presented his portrait on the second plate.
Shouldnt we suppose that its a cosmic portrait made by
a spirit on this second plate? [T]hey were saying, You
wanted to make gold, you cannot without my permission.
And to prove it to you, we are drawing the portrait of
Mephisto, who also wanted to create gold. The plate that
you threw fluid gold upon, this fluid has served us as ink
pen of vital forces to make our drawing.
g. [...] was manifested. The big stain on the gourd from the
side [...]. Little small spots didnt come out. [...]
h. Thought photograph by Commander Louis
Darget, late 19th-early 20th century.
i. Le deuxime Bouteille (The Second Bottle).
Thought photograph by Commander Darget.
j. The Specter of Montresor / Obtained from Mr. Lefevre,
photographed (inside an old church in Montresor). There
were 3 people [there] during the exposure, which took 10
minutes. No one saw an apparition. Mr. Lefevre told me
that he had a stomachache at that moment and he almost got
sick. It was obviously the fluid he took that made him sick.
The specter is too tall to be a man who was posing...It is the
empty head and beard, without arms, without legs, with
tibia, without feet, without eyes.

Table 32: 338-343, continued

343. a. Verso of photo-mount with description of La
Colre" (anger), and incorporated morse code.
b. Thought photograph (enlarged) by Darget with
his writing (verso): La Colre" (anger).
c. Fluidic photograph by Commander Louis
Darget with handwritten note (verso): N-Rays-Human fluidics--Bubbling fluids, May 2, 1896.
Obtained by Commander Louis Darget, who held
the plate with the tip of his fingers, the palms of
his hands kept at a distance. In total obscurity, 10
of exposure. These are human effluvia observed in
Nancy...
d. Photograph by Commander Louis Darget of
various thought photographs; the plaque in the
lower right corner states that they have captured
V-Rays, or Human Fluidics.

Table 33: 344-355

344. Fluidic photograph by Jakob Ottonowitsch von
Narkiewitsch-Jodko with handwritten note
(verso): Discharge of a positive current, 1883.
345. Fluidic photo by Jakob Ottonowitsch von
Narkiewitsch-Jodko, 1895.
346. Photographs by Adrien Majewski of the hands
of Ms. Majewska, who laid her palm on the photo
for 15 minutes (bottom) and Mr. Majewski, who
laid his palm on the photo for 20 minutes at room
temperature (top), 1895-1900.
347. Right: Procs Verbaux des Expriences sur le fluide
humain (Report of the Human Fluidic
Experiments). A notebook belonging to a Mr.
Rosart, containing accounts of several thought
photography experiments, 1915-16. Left: Thought
photography postcard from Rosart, 1918. Gelatin
silver print mounted on a postcard, April 24, 1918.
Handwritten note: Brussels Metapsychic Circle-Photographic Section--Technical Department
Control--Rosart--shape of a bean protected
by varnish--The result expected has not been
achieved. No halo.
348. LAme Humaine: Ses Mouvements, Ses Lumires et
LIconographie de LInvisible Fluidique by Dr.
Hippolyte Baraduc, ed. Georges Carr (Paris:
Georges Carr, 1896).
349. Fluidic photograph by Hippolyte Baraduc, 1906.
Handwritten note (verso): Lourdes Coeur
(Heavy heart).
350. Fluidic photograph by Hippolyte Baraduc, 1896.
Handwritten note (verso): Fluidic Aviary.
351. Printing plate showing aura on finger tips, early
1900s
352. Photographie transcendentale. A notebook belonging
to a Mr. Dardenne, containing accounts of several
thought photography experiments, Belgium,
1915-16.
Experiment 1:
Fasten a sealed photographic plate to the forehead with a

common bandage, keep it [there] as long as possible, during

an evening and overnight for instance. In the meantime,
focus your attention on a familiar object (or even a pet
dog or cat or bird). [A] vase, bottle, casket or any kind of
simple form.
Get the strong will, the violent desire, to see the visualized
picture reproduced on the sheet.
Questionnaire to fill in after the experiment:
(the subject himself, a tailor, wrote the answers)
Day of the experiment: Monday 26th April
Time of the experiment: 9 in the evening
End of the experiment: Tuesday 27th at 3 in the morning.
Subjects state of mind, medical condition, age: Good,
53-year-old
Did the subject sleep alone? no
Did someone else sleep in the bedroom? yes my son
Age of these people: 14-year-old
Are they believers or unbelievers: believer
Place where the experiment took place: in my bedroom
Which picture has been experimented with? a curved pipe
made of foam with an amber tip
Miscellaneous: Since the outset of the experiment I had
headaches, which were different from the headaches one
could usually have because of a cold or tiredness, for
instance...
Results: nothing.
353. Thought photographs, 20th century.
354. Dust-jacket flap and inside cover of New Psychic
Frontiers: Your Key to New Worlds by Walter and Mary
Jo Uphoff (Gerrards Cross, England: Colin Smythe
Limited, 1975), with tipped-in photograph.
355. a. Polaroid print thought photograph by Ted
Serios, 1960s.
b. Kirlian photograph (contact print made using
high-voltage electrophotography).
c. Skotograph by the medium Madge Donohue,
who produced cameraless thought photographs
from 1920 until her death in 1940.

Table 34: 356-364

356. Colored pencil drawings of extraterrestrial
beings, 2003. Signed by A. Heid. The drawings note
the aliens height specifications, skin color, and
number of digits.
357. Unidentified Flying Objects: a Synthesis by Henry
Harold Cresswell, 1972. The outsider-artist, social
topographer and putative author Henry Harold
Cresswell (1912-1985), had served in the RAF during
WWII, and his interest in UFOs apparently derived
from personal experience.
358. a. Film still of an extraterrestrial life form in a
container, circa 1970s.
b-d. Photographs (recently printed from negatives)
of ink drawings by Pier Fortunato Zanfretta, with
typeset captions.
359. a. Stereophotos of UFOs flying over Florida,
by Ed Walters, 1988; he said he was abducted by an
extraterrestrial spaceship the same day he took these
photographs.
b. Two photographs on an album page.
360. a. 19 April, 1897 2 a.m. A man in El Paso,
Texas, reportedly saw a cigar-shaped object with
portholes on each side. Light was emanating from
the openings and there were searchlights on each
end of the craft. Huge wings protruded from both
sides. Drawing, pencil and black crayon on board,
by Earl J. Neff, c. 1967. This drawing is part of a
series Neff created for Mysteries of the Skies: UFOs in
Perspective by Gordon Lore (1969).
b. Graphite sketch on tracing paper by Chan
Johnson, c. 1987, after Travis Waltons account of his
interaction with extraterrestrial beings. Walton said
he was abducted by an alien spacecraft for five days
in 1975.
361. UFO photograph by Rex Heflin, 1965, with
inset of a similar UFO photograph taken in South
Africa, 1956.
362. Photograph by George Adamski, taken at the
Palomar Gardens campground, 1952. Handwritten
note (verso): space ship from Venus? 11 photo
events preceeded [sic].

363. Photograph of the Lubbock Lights,

1951, observed by three professors from Texas
Technological College from a backyard. After the
local newspaper ran an article, other Lubbock
residents began to report similar sightings.
364. a. Photograph of a submarine-type space ship
taken with a 6-inch telescope by George Adamski at
the Palomar Gardens campground, 1951.
b. Photograph by Howard Menger, late 1950s. He
said this metal foil had fallen from a spaceship.
c. Photograph by Howard Menger, which he said he
shot on the moon after an alien spaceship abducted
him, late 1950s. A handwritten note (verso, not by
Menger) states that the photo shows rocks, when
scientists claimed only dust was on the moon.
d. Photograph by Howard Menger, shot while aboard
the spaceship taking him to the moon, late 1950s.
e. Photograph of a scout-craft against the moon
by George Adamski, taken at the Palomar Gardens
campground in 1950.

Table 35: 365-372

365. a. UFO photograph.
b. News photograph of a flying saucer, taken
by Coast Guard public-relations yeoman Frank
Ryman, 1947, near Seattle, Washington.
c. ...The photograph, which shows five round
shaped objects in echelon formation through
clouds, is accompanied by a news story which
states that the flying saucers are the fore-runners
of the Suspension Bomb or Space Station...
[S]uspension bombs could be already swinging
over several of the worlds capital cities and even
over some atomic energy installations. News
photograph, 1950.
d. Photograph by Shell Alpert, Salem,
Massachusetts, 1952.
e. Photographs by Albuquerque mechanic Paul
Villa, 1965, taken near Bernalillo, New Mexico.
Mr. Villa estimated the spacecraft to be 360 feet
in diameter and stated that he was not able to
observe the UFO at a distance any closer than 1
1/2 miles because it was giving off a heat strong
enough to incinerate him.
366. a. Pages from a notebook by Gerald Light
describing his interactions with and observations
of extraterrestrial life. The first page dedicates
the manuscript to various authors and thinkers
like Francis Bacon, Leonardo da Vinci, Goethe,
William Blake, and Helena Petrovna Blavatsky.
b. Amazing Stories, June 1948.
367. a. Photograph by Billy Meier, Landespur von
Menaras Schiff (Landing Tract of Menaras Ship),
1977.
b. Photograph by Billy Meier, 1976. Taken from
Bachtel, a mountain in the Swiss Prealps, Zrich.
Meier also shot an 8mm film of this encounter.
c. Photo of Paul Villa, at Los Lunas, New Mexico,
in 1972. He is holding a model of one of the
spacecrafts he claimed to witness flying over the
desert.
368. Photograph by Paul Trent, taken outside
McMinnville, Oregon, May 11, 1950.
369. a. The sides of the moons face, now distorted
to human sight by the satellites curvature, are
being lifted by a new kind of moon map...A
photograph of the Moons face is projected

like a movie still upon a screen [producing] the

same views as would come from flying about the
moon... News photograph, 1931.
b. Royalty, Episcopacy & Law, an illustration
by William Hogarth, first published in 1724,
engraved by J. Moore.
c. NASA photograph of the Arago lunar impact
crater.
d. Photograph representing the Lunar Apennines
and Archimedes Crater, from The moon: considered
as a planet, a world, and a satellite by James Nasmyth
and James Carpenter (London: John Murray,
1874). Nasmyth, a retired mechanical engineer
turned astronomer, created extremely detailed
20-inch plaster models of the moons surface,
which he then photographed. Nasmyths
photographs were praised for their accuracy of
representation by leading 19th-century scientists.
370. Left: Slab of rock from a meteorite. Right:
Photograph of Halleys Comet, 1910.
371. Cartes-de-visite of the solar eclipse that
occurred on March 6th, 1964, as seen from
Hastings, England.
372. a. News photograph of lunar sampling, 1969.
b. News photograph of solar wind experiment on
the moon, 1969.
c. News photograph of a recreation of the moons
surface in Houston, Texas, 1964.
d. News photograph of Neil Armstrong reflected
in the helmet visor of Edwin Aldrin on the moon,
1969.
e. Small poster with photographs of Buzz Aldrins
descent onto the surface of the moon, taken by
Neil Armstrong, 1969.
f. News photograph of the first picture of earth
seen from the vicinity of the moon, 1966.

Other objects in exhibition:

Spectro-Chrome, 1940s-50s. The purpose of the
instrument was to expose a subject to a specific set of
bright, intensely colored lights to alleviate an ailment
or even cure a disease. Dinshah P. Ghadiali invented
it in 1920; he earned more than one million dollars
through its sales. His theory was that the elements that
make up the human body (mostly nitrogen, carbon,
hydrogen, and oxygen) were responsive to colored light,
and became diseased only when our exposure to the
colored wavelengths was out of balance.
Papier-mch mask, early 20th c.

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