As reported in the New York Times, the Metropolitan Museum of Art is running a gallery showing entitled The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult, displaying a variety of photographs of "ghostly" images and phenomena from throughout the brief history of this technology's existence. From the NYT article:

Like all examples of great humor, it is, at heart, also a sneakily serious affair. Its subjects include the depths of human gullibility and the conjuring power of photography, whose technology, we may forget in the cynical day of digital manipulation and Photoshop, seemed unfathomable to so many people a century and more ago.

See, there it is, right there: the general population is always lagging somewhat behind the march of technology; and there are those who — whether for fun, fraud, or even honest education — take advantage of new technologies to keep those masses in the dark.

Don't get us wrong — as the Metropolitan showing demonstrates, there are plenty of people who fiddle with technology in various media with not the slightest criminal intention. And the simple fact that these folks are honest about their deceptions, and even willing to explain how they're done, should be enough to educate the masses on just how easy it is to manipulate, for example, photographs to depict whatever you might like. It's a gag, folks; you don't have to make up something supernatural to explain it!

But spiritualism, if suddenly voguish, belongs to a longstanding strain of American freethinking. It caught on during the second half of the 19th century when grieving survivors of the Civil War longed to reunite with their dead relatives. Electricity, the X-ray, expansions on Mesmer's experiments with magnetism, and the telegraph, with its rat-tat-tat, in syncopation with the spiritualists' ghost rappings, reinforced the notion that there were all sorts of invisible forces at play in the world.

Arthur C. Clarke put it this way: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." The thing to keep in mind, of course, is that different regions in our world, and even different cultures in one region, can far surpass others, technologically speaking. So, way back when the the "big city folk" were all excited about the relatively recent phenomenon of photographic techniques, it took much longer for the science to trickle down to the rest of the world. The technology was new — it was sufficiently advanced — and therefore seemed like magic. So when "ghosts" started cropping up in photographs, how were the uninformed or uneducated — the general population — to know the difference?

Skip forward a couple of centuries to today, and we'd bet that the average person on the street still couldn't tell you how photography works. This lack of knowledge is by no means detrimental to the individual's daily life — as long as he or she isn't involved with a career in photography — and therefore goes "untreated," leaving the individual blissfully unaware of the tricks that a skilled photographer or photoshopper can perform. However, the general ignorance (or miseducation) is detrimental to a society as a whole, because it enables the dishonest among us to exploit those tricks for their own ends; and, more problematically, renders a large percentage of the populace too credulous and uninformed to see through such fraud.

Now let's return to the Nineteenth Century:

This was also the era of Barnum. The first spirit photographer, William H. Mumler, produced for Mary Todd Lincoln a picture showing her with the ghostly image of her dead husband. The picture was widely circulated. Even the fact that Mumler was prosecuted for fraud did not dissuade the faithful from believing what they saw.

Mumler's French equivalent, Édouard Isidore Buguet, plied his trade in Paris after the War of 1870. Put on trial and facing prison, Buguet freely admitted his pictures were fakes and offered up the equipment he had used to concoct them, but this only caused the spiritualists to assert he was a martyr to their cause and a medium despite himself.

Both Barnum and Abraham Lincoln are alternately credited with saying, "You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can't fool all of the people all the time." We would amend that to read: "Some people want to be fooled all of the time; all people want to be fooled some of the time; no people never want to be fooled."

It's a funny thing about human nature. Even when we know better, we can't help but succumb to interesting or seductive fantasies. It seems that everyone is guilty of this (we'd even accuse ourselves of it on occasion!). The best weapon we have with which to fight our own gullibility is education. Educate yourself; educate others. Only through learning about the world around us, and not blindly accepting what others — even (and especially) us! — tell you, can you gain an understanding of what's "really" going on.

To quote Ted Knight from Caddyshack: "The world needs ditch diggers too."
People are gullible, what else can you say? There are simple people out there who watch the show on TV based on Allison Dubois and think that's real. So be it. It's not like any of us can convince them otherwise and why should we even try? You shouldn't argue with idiots in public because an observer might not be able to tell who is who. It's the educated people that perpetuate the myths of the supernatural that bug me because they bring a certain amount of "street cred" to the argument. People who have the desire to educate themselves don't need to be saved. The desire will lead to reason, or at least lead a person to question. Just trying to convince someone to be skeptical and question long standing beliefs is sometimes harder than moving mountains.

outsiderart.co.uk/ressler.htm Please see this site for genuine pareidolia.

Fan-man,

We certainly understand that feeling of trying to move an immovable object when it comes to convincing people to change their beliefs; but to us, countering bullshit is always worth it. Sure, some believers are stubborn to the point of ignoring basic evidence that refutes their beliefs, and we tend to avoid any lengthy discussion with them as it quickly turns into a waste of time and energy. However, some people just need to be exposed to the evidence in order to see the light. Take some feedback that we got a few months back:

I found your site while searching Google on the subject of Allison DuBois (I'm a fan of the NBC show Medium). I was hoping to find some true examples of her psychic abilities, so your Rant was obviously disappointing. However, I appreciate your setting me straight.

This reader previously believed in Allison DuBois' "powers" — thanks, at least in part, to the TV show being labeled as "based on a true story." He set out to find examples of Allison psychically assisting law enforcement, came across our site, and read our challenges to Allison's claims. But he didn't stick his fingers in his ears and write back to us that we "just don't understand the supernatural," or that we "must really believe but be scared" — instead he read our posts, checked our sources, and made an informed decision that our arguments were stronger and better supported than Allison's claims.

So, yes, some people are beyond help, but others just need to get their hands and minds on the facts, and they'll come to the right conclusion. There are so many sources of misinformation available to people that we feel obligated to combat it with factual information whenever we can.

We'll admit that you had us worried twice, fred.

First, we wondered if your short comment was spam. We get so much of it that we've become more than a little wary, and your message was simply a link followed by what could have been the auto-generated words "Please see this site for genuine [insert first word of post title here]." As you can see, even we can recognize patterns where none deliberately exist! At any rate, we were happy to see that your comment and your link were genuine.

Second, we were worried that you might believe that you were photographing "real" angels or ghosts in your photos of shadows and light instead of recognizing pareidolia for what it is. You put that fear to rest with comments like:

I feel the shadows are telling us how much we have overlooked that is right before us. That a child "banging" on the piano is playing free music.

Yup. And if the random banging is beautiful, or intriguing, or moving, then the fact that this result was, in part, accidental should in no way lessen that impact.

That 99% of the figures are human with 1% animals is probably from our brainstem being hardwired to see human faces from our earliest perception.

Bingo.

With our skepticism out of the way, we were free to enjoy your images. Hey, we've always liked pareidolia! To us, the actual phenomenon itself is cool enough without having to make up supernatural claims to back up the images — the true explanation of pareidolia is fantastic enough. One thing that struck us was how even small partial slivers of faces are enough to create the illusion, as our readers can see in the image on the top left of fred's page. It's amazing how the brain fills in missing details without missing a beat.

Thanks for sharing, fred!

Anybody want to hear the 'short form' version of my theory on why faith-based beliefs are an evolutionary development, and were absolutely necessary for the development of homo sapiens as we know him, er, us?

Sorry we haven't answered in four days, Gren, but it's only because we've been discussing the very topic you mentioned — that a predilection for faith-based beliefs may actually have helped the human race successfully navigate the early steps on the road to the survival of the fittest. We're sure we've read about this at some point recently, and we were discussing what we remembered about it.

From what we recall, the material we read had to do with making connections between observed events or phenomena, and the potential to make those connections based on false or misleading information. In short, people who make connections more often, and are hence able to act on those connections, are more likely to gain beneficial rewards from their actions than are people who fail to make connections. So the evolutionary trait that was more "fit" (in the Darwinian sense) was, in fact, the ability to make connections between different concepts and observations. Of course, with this trait there comes the possibility of making incorrect connections — false positives. An example of this would be seeing something happen and assigning it a supernatural cause. Since there are certainly a variety of false positives that are less detrimental to an organism than failing to make any connections at all, evolution favored the connection makers — even those who come up with false positives, as long as those misleading misconnections don't kill them off physically or culturally.

Today, that same trait serves to perpetuate faith-based beliefs, since the humans who have reproduced most successfully had — and still have — a tendency to make connections, even where there might not be any.

That's a rough outline of what we recall on the topic. So, yes, please fill us in on what you're thinking — it's a fascinating line of inquiry.

I'm aware of that line of reasoning and it makes sense to me.

What I'd add (a nickel tour) is the possibility that man evolved intelligence quicker than he could handle the consequences of having a certain level of intelligence, i.e., that he became self-aware and inquisitive into what must have been a truly terrifying environment when you consider the weather, fauna, disease, predators, etc., that threatened man on every front 40,000 years ago.

Once man attained the intellectual power to make observations, which in turn caused him to cogitate questions, he found himself still severely limited in his ability to answer those questions.

Lightning comes. Lightning kills. Lightning starts fires. Fire kills. I live. I can die. Observations that lead to questions... What is lightning? Where does it come from? Who am I? What am I? Why am I?

Factor in earthquakes, disease (can you imagine suffering through untreated appendicitis?!), droughts, famine, predation on humans, what is still called the 'miracle' of childbirth, etc., and you have hills of observations leading to mountains of questions -and no answers.

I speculate this would produce an inner disconnect, a baseline frustration, producing levels of fear that would prove pathological in the way it affects behavior, perhaps to the point of working against the instinct to survive. After all, that's one attribute that distinguishes man from animal -the ability to behaviorally react to stimuli in ways other than instinct, to allow intellect to drive the car instead of instinct, so to speak. It is no secret that sufficient fear can produce essentially not-sane behaviors in homo sapiens, 'insane' behavior.

What to do when you have so many questions you cannot answer when the answers are desperately needed if crippling fear is to be abated?

Why, you make up your answers, of course.

Perhaps mankind developed what we would term religious beliefs solely to provide a pretend answer to all the unanswerable but critical questions of the day.

God makes lightning. God causes the earth to shake. It is God's will, but since God made us, He will take care of us. Fear not tempest nor flood, all is in God's hands when and if we will die, if it will rain, if the caribou/antelope/salmon will return.

In other words, mankind may have had to evolve a sort of planned insanity to provide a place to park his fears of an environment he could not possibly understand. The acquisition obviates the questions, hence, they cause less or no fear, hence, they cause less or no pathological responses to that fear.

As societies formed and became more complex, what were no doubt thousands of localized little belief systems began to meld and merge as formerly isolated societies encountered one another, and the thousands were salted down to smaller numbers as the world got 'smaller' by virtue of geographical expansion.

This hypothesis predicts that since those most basic of human fears are pretty much the same all over the world, so too would the evolving bits of insanity called 'religious beliefs' carry common themes at their respective roots. This is what we find.

I suspect that certain philosophical sayings such as 'God helps those who help themselves' came down to us from the very beginnings of this process and are the reason pre-historical man wouldn't have simply walked unfearing along a hilltop in the midst of a lightning storm, certain God would protect him. It was a measured and practical insanity, there only to provide safe haven for one's fears, not necessarily as a guide to day-to-day behavior in the battle to stay alive and breeding.

Well, sometimes you can improve a thing too much, a practice eminently human, and at some point some village shaman figured out you can control people if you control their fears. The clergy was born.

I think the last couple millenia have been spent slowly learning to control our environment, and slowly gaining answers to the questions that originally petrified us so. This process slowly lessened our need for and dependence on what we call 'religion', and what I call 'planned insanity'. The atheist was born. Or scientist, if you prefer.

It was he/she who first said, "No, it isn't God who determines whether the antelope herds return to our hunting fields each summer, and you can pay tribute to yonder shaman all you want but it will have no effect. I have traveled far to the north each year for several years and have discovered a great river (he researched and noted his observations)! Whether the antelope return depends on how high the river rises after the spring snow thaw, not on the whims of any God! Some years the antelope cannot cross to return to us!" (At which point the community shaman lobbies the community chief to banish or kill the heretic who dares to question the shaman's knowledge of God's will).

As we know, religiosity hasn't necessarily lessened among mankind overall, though some areas of the world have seen big increases and decreases. But religion has definitely lost vast influence in terms of controlling governments, hence entire populations, countries, continents even, as it did during the Dark Ages when all scientific discoveries had to be reconciled with the religious beliefs of those in power or repressed upon pain of imprisonment, exile, or death.

Finally, Science was divorced from Religion in Europe and could speak increasingly freely. Ever since, the Newtons, Darwins, Pasteurs, and Einsteins of the world have been free (freer) to use science to answer those fearful questions once the sole province of religion.

Paranormal beliefs are merely an offshoot of old religious beliefs. Though advocates might give a paranormal belief some scientific name, stripped down to its base elements you will virtually always find an ancient religous belief lurking behind the faux modernity.

I saw a new term used recently on a paranormal message board: "Spectral Entity" or "SE" for short, a nice, scientific-sounding name for what the poster's description identified as a simple ghost. Behind the ghost belief, of course, are many religious beliefs that would be validated were the existence of ghosts validated. If ghosts are real, this means:

1) there is such a thing as a soul or spirit
2) the soul survives corporeal death
c) the soul or spirit may be observed
4) the soul or spirit may be communicated with
e) corporeal death does not mean your loved one is gone forever
d) when you die you won't be irretrievably gone either
7) humans can help me talk with my dead mom

And so on....

These sorts of beliefs address a plethora of age-old fears typical to mankind throughout his development, and no doubt since the first development of his damnedable intellect and ability to question.

Paranormal beliefs are branches of traditional religious beliefs.

Religious beliefs are a sort of 'planned insanity', required in ancient times to handle mankind's unassuagable fears.

Science is slowly supplanting that purpose in mankind.

Religion is really pissed off about it, feels threatened, and fears its own demise.

Religion amps up the 'planned insanity' package in response.

~*~

I honestly devised this little theory quite on my own, over several years. I never really wrote it up or anything as the subject matter is outside my education, vocation, and experience. Then it happened. One day I'm running the idea past a friend of mine with an inquiring, curious mind like so many of us and he stops me mid-sentence. He writes down the following and tells me i really need to read it:

Wings Of Illusion: The Origin, Nature and Future of Paranormal Belief - John F. Schumaker, 1990 Prometheus Books (ISBN 0-87975-624-1)

I eagerly begin reading the book and within a chapter or so I'm in tears of both joy and frustration to find that I independently hypothesized pretty much exactly what is outlined in this very important book. He goes into way more detail than I ca here, of course, and his terminology is different, etc., but essentially the same base idea. I was crushed and elated at the same time.

Of course, this may mean one of two things, the author and I are unrecognized geniuses -or recognized goofs, lol.

~*~

One day I will rule the universe, and brother? There are gonna be some changes.

First hand experience should be the deciding factor. Take similar photos of shadows and see. Guaranteed you will find friends/relatives/angels or whatever is on your unconscious mind. Solipsism is the name of the game, and the shadow photos are no exception. i know this for sure as the table you are in front of is not "matter." My guess is i worried you for the third time.

Grendel- i believe you are confusing "religious" belief (which i agree is "sacreligious",) with their entheogenic origin (see "Plants of the Gods" by Shultes and Evans.) These first hand beliefs are what " paranormal" is about and are totally "valid."

hey fred and Eileen--greetings from the Hoop. if you want to hear from us - send an e mail....