Fraud Claims
On 4 February 1922, the Society for Psychical Research and the paranormal investigator Harry Price attempted to prove that Hope was a fraud during tests at the British College of Psychic Science.
Price secretly marked Hope's photographic plates, and provided him with a packet of additional plates that had been covertly etched with the brand image of the Imperial Dry Plate Co. Ltd. in the knowledge that the logo would be transferred to any images created with them. Unaware that Price had tampered with his supplies, Hope then attempted to produce a number of Spirit photographs. Although Hope produced several images of spirits, none of his materials contained the Imperial Dry Plate Co. Ltd logo, or the marks that Price had put on Hope's original equipment, showing that he had exchanged prepared materials containing fake spirit images for the provided materials.
Price later re-published the Society's experiment in a pamphlet of his own called Cold Light on Spiritualistic "Phenomena" - An Experiment with the Crewe Circle."
In 1932, Fred Barlow, a former friend and supporter of Hope's work and also the former Secretary of the Society for the Study of Supernormal Pictures, along with Major W. Rampling-Rose, gave a joint lecture to the Society for Psychical Research to present findings gleaned from an extensive series of tests on the methods Hope used to produce his spirit photographs.
Barlow and Rampling-Rose concluded that the "spirit extras" that appeared in Hope's photographs were produced fraudulently. The pair would later present their case in depth in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research.
Despite Price's findings, Hope still retained a noted following, including author and spiritualist Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who refused to accept any evidence that Hope was a fraud and went to great lengths to clear his name, going so far as to write a book supporting spirit photography, The Case for Spirit Photography, in response to Price's claims of fraud and trying to convince Price to withdraw his story.
Read more about this topic: William Hope (paranormal Investigator)
Famous quotes containing the words fraud and/or claims:
“The disfranchisement of a single legal elector by fraud or intimidation is a crime too grave to be regarded lightly.”
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