Spiritist photography
Spiritual photography is the attempt to capture supernatural or paranormal phenomena photographically in order to prove their existence. The starting point is the assumption that photographic processes can not only represent the part of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to humans .
History and Development
In the early days of photography , the possibilities and limits of the new medium were discovered; the previously invisible was visualized in different areas; As part of a visual turning point, the possibilities of optics and light were first explored and exhausted.
The photography itself was ascribed an acheiropoietic character , as can already be seen from Talbot's designation of the process as photogenic drawing and the book title Pencil of Nature .
Use in border areas
In the 19th century as well as at the beginning of the 20th century, photography was viewed as a graphically uninterpreted image that gave people access to the invisible. This objectivity ascribed to photography made it the “true retina of the scholar” (Janssen) and gave rise to scientific photography in which the camera was regarded as the “primary aid of the human eye” (Frizot 1998: 274). In view of the miracles of photography, it was difficult to determine the limits of the photographic possibilities, the possibilities of the new medium were still being explored.
Hippolyte Baraduc made an early attempt to take photographs of the “light vibrations of the soul” in L'Ame humaine from 1896, who spoke of a “spontaneous iconography”. His pictures show, for example, the “vital force that is attracted by the compassionate state of mind of a child”, as a flow-like veil; How these pictures were created is not known in detail.
A variant of self-printing by nature was also discussed around 1900 with the advent of photography: the Turin shroud , which, according to investigations from 1988, came from the Middle Ages , was photographed by Secondo Pia in 1898 and by Giuseppe Enrie in 1931 ; the negative of the photographs shows a picture of a person that was much clearer than the only shadowy outline on the shroud. This phenomenon gave the shroud new media attention. (Frizot 1998: 283; cf. also P. Vignon, Le Linceul de Christ ; étude scientifique. Paris 1902).
In 1898 Emil Jacobson claimed in the Photographische Rundschau that he had been able to use so-called electrographs to “prove that love and hate can also be determined electrographically in the animal world”; he showed "pictures of glowing hatred" of animals that he had chased towards each other and photographed with an electrographic process. Jacobsons believed that he could not only represent these rays in living matter, but also, for example, in a sausage: "The sausage on the left shines little, it seems sickly [...]".
“At first it might seem as if the time of icons was returning when an image rose from the surface in the darkroom, as if guided by an angel's hand. It is therefore not surprising that in the 19th century photography was popularly appropriated by ghosts who carried out spiritualistic experiments with the latest technical medium in order to prove the age-old assumption that there was a paranormal life alongside everyday life ”(Beat Wyss, Über die Making the invisible ).
The picture Teleplasma und Spiritistisches Bild von Deane, a so-called thought photo , created around 1920, shows, for example, a female torso rising out of a veiled head; In such works, influences of psychoanalysis are mixed with photographic montage techniques to create an aesthetic expression of soul life.
The so-called aura (also fluidum or bioplasma ) - not to be confused with Benjamin 's term aura - can supposedly be recorded chemically as an emanation phenomenon through effluviography .
The Japanese Masaru Emoto was said to be able to prove with his photographs of water crystals that water reacts to emotions and can store information and exchange it with other liquids. However, these experiments are not reproducible with scientific methodology. Emoto himself had no scientific claim, but called his work art (“ Therefore, the photograph of crystals is neither science nor religion. I hope it is enjoyed as a new type of art. ”).
Kirlian photography
Kirlian photography was discovered by Semjon Kirlian in 1937, patented in 1949 and further developed by his wife Valentina. Corona discharges or glow discharges are generated on electrically conductive materials such as metals, but also on living organisms, by means of high voltage . The optical phenomena are self-luminous discharge channels as a result of a gas discharge. These physical phenomena are used technically, for example, in glow lamps and the plasma lamp toy . Due to the low current strength, this is safe for most people, except for people with a pacemaker or heart failure. The ionization of the air can generate harmful gases such as nitrogen dioxide or ozone from 5 kV (see also: ozone # photocopier ).
The aura-like images are associated in esotericism with the energy body of theosophy and anthroposophy and used to depict the meridians . The application for diagnosing the human health status has been medically refuted several times.
The effects were investigated from 1989 to 1990 at the TU Berlin, "by manipulating the skin moisture, washing with various cleaning agents, stressful situations, nicotine influence and (with some restrictions) through concentration and meditation exercises", changes in the corona images could be generated. The pictures of the individual test persons had schematically the same pattern over months. The phantom leaf effect (a mutilated plant leaf supposedly appears completely in the Kirlian photo) could not be reproduced, and a corona was also shown in gummy bears.
literature
- Jule Eisenbud: Mind Photography. The PSI recordings of Ted Serios . Aurum, Freiburg im Breisgau 1975, ISBN 3-591-00002-7 .
- Rudolf H. Krauss: Beyond light and shadow . Jonas, Marburg 1992, ISBN 3-89445-122-X .
- S. Sanzenbacher: Photography as a medium between science and occultism , diploma thesis at the University of Graphics and Book Art Leipzig, January 2003.
- Claudia Dichter, Hans Günter Golinski , Michael Krajewski , Susanne Zander (Eds.): The Message. Art and occultism . With an essay by André Breton . Walter König Verlag, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-86560-342-5 .
Web links
- The Message - The Medium as an Artist Spiritist photographs in an exhibition at the Museum Bochum 2008 ( Memento from February 11, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- Anonymous. Spiritual photography , in: Musée d'Orsay
- Article in Spiegel-online.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Masaru Emoto's statement in relation to his photographs ( memento of the original from October 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Website of Masaro Emoto. Retrieved April 12, 2014.
- ^ Edzard Ernst : Complementary medical diagnostic procedures. Dtsch Arztebl 2005; 102 (44): A-3034 / B-2560 / C-2410
- ↑ Sebastian Büttrich / Niels Gottschalk: "Kirlianfotografie". ( Memento from November 28, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Documentation by the Physics Project Workshop, TU Berlin 1989/1990
