Unique Mrs. Deane 1923 Photo Discussion on her mediumship

This is unique, the recipient added into the front of their copy of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Case For Spirit Photography which through time has reached a loving home with us.

Hi Jim,

It truly is interesting, thanks for sharing it.

Lynn

See the picture of ADA's posted in Spirit Photographs

The ghost picture from the 1923 armistice



Subsequently the Daily Sketch published an article claiming fraud because the faces were those of famous sporting people.



This was rejected by Ada and her supporters, including Conan Doyle because it was impossible to truly say the faces matched and that had it been faked Ada would never have used famous faces to do so.

The 1922 Armistice Photos
Before Spirit arrive


after

From Conan Doyle's "The Case For Spirit Photography" Copy purchased by William Neale Eltham SE for two shillings and sixpence about 1922
CHAPTER 6
THE ATTACK ON MRS. DEANE .And MR. VEARNCOMBE

I took up my pen for the purpose of considering the case of the Crewe Circle and urging the folly of discarding seventeen years on the score of a single case. I cannot, however, end my task without saying a few words as to the attack upon Mrs. Deane and Mr. Vearncombe, two other puotographic mediums. This attack hardly deserves attention as it was anonymous, but it was brought out under the auspices of the Magic Circle, a society of conjurors who have been interesting themselves in matters psychic. As the two attacks were issued simultaneously they seem to have had some common inspiration , and to have formed a general assault upon the whole position of psychic photography. The same individual, Mr. Seymour, theamateur conjuror took part, I understand, in both transactions.
Mrs. Deane the person attacked, is a somewhat pathetic and forlorn figure among all these clever tricksters.She is a little, elderly charwoman, a humble white mouse of a person, with her sad face, her frayed gloves, and her little handbag which excites the worstS suspicions in the minds of her critics. Her powers were discovered in the first instance by chance. When she first pursued the subject, her circumstances were such that her only darkroom was under the kitchen table with clothes pinned round it. None the less, she produced

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The Case for Spirit Photography
some remarkable pictures. under these conditions, one of which fell into my hands, and I at once concluded that she had real. powers. The portrait was of a young man in life, with a female spirit face behind him. This might well have been faked. Something seemed to be emerging from the young man's head, however, and on observing this object with a lens I distinguished that it was a small but correct representation of the Assyrian fish-god, Dagon, wearing the peculiar hat with which that deity is always associated. This was so entirely the kind of freakish result which I exxpect from Sprit photography, and was so removed from the normal powers of a charwoman, that I provisionally accepted her in my mind as a true medium, a position from which I have never been compelled to budge. I still retain this photograph, but the little head is too small for satisfactory reproduction.
Mrs. Deane (or Mrs. Deane's control) has one embarrassing habit which I believe to be unnecessary, and which makes it very difficult to convince the sceptic, or, indeed, to prevent him from writing her down as an obvious fraud. Far from insisting that you bring your own plates, as Hope does, she likes them to be sent to her in advance, and she does what she calls "magnetising" them, by keeping them near her for some days. This is so suspicious that it can hardly be defended, but here, again, there is an element of fanatical obedience. My own personal belief is that her results are perfectly honest, that they are actually formed in the shape of psychographs during the days before the sitting, and that if her plates were examined before they were exposed to light, the pictures would be found already on them. This, of course, would very naturally be taken as clear proof of fraud by the superficial investigator, ignorant of the strange possi­bilities of psychic photography, but I believe myself that the psychic effect is a perfectly genuine one, but that the extra will very probably bear no
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Attack on Mr . Deane and Mr. Vearncornb .
relevancy to the sittcr. I am speaking now of her general routine, for how can I guarantee every particular case or' judge what a medium may do when dealing with so evanescent and elusive a thing as psychic power? When they have it they use it. when it fails them the human element may come in.
I have had one sitting with Mrs. Deane in which six plates were exposed. In four of them there were abnormal resu1ts. One of these was a female face smiling from an ectoplasmic cloud. What does Mrs. Deane know of ectoplasmic clouds? One such is visible in the specimen of her work which is shown in fig. 30. Exactly similar are some of the clouds which appear in Hope's work, Such appearances do not aid deception. Why, then, should they appear if it is not that it is part of a psychic process?
Mrs. Deane gave me the choice of two packets of plates upon this occasion, and I admit that the effects may very well have been on the plates before the exposure. None the less, they were probably quite genuine as supernormal pictures. Such a statement may raise a smile from Mr. MacCabe or from Mr. Paternoster in Truth, but I have the advantage over them in the fact that I have had practical experience of the matter at issue.
But I am bound to give my reasons for such a statement, or I might well be branded as credulous. My reasons are that I am convinced that this magnetising process is perfectly unnecessary and Mrs. Deane, within my knowledge, obtains her best results when there has been no possibility of knowing who her sitter will be. The very finest result which I know of in psychic photography was that obtained by Dr. Cushman with Mrs. Deane. Dr. Cushman, a distinguished scientific man of America, had suffered the loss of his daughter Agnes some months before. He went to the Psychic College without an ap­pointment or an introduction. When he arrived he
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The Case for Spirit Photography
found Mrs. Deane in the act of leaving. He per­suaded her to give a sitting! and then and there he obtained a photograph of his "dead" daughter which is, he declares, unlike any existing one, and is more vital and characteristic than any taken in life. When I was in the States I showed this picture on the screen as in fig. 14, and there was abundant testimony from those who knew Agnes that it was a life-like picture.
I would refer this case to the anonymous witersof the Magic Circle, who have done all they could to worry this poor woman and to destroy her powers, and I would ask them how that little bag of tricks which exists only in their own imagination could have affected such a result as that. It will be noted in the already quoted opinion of Dr. Cushman that since this scandal Mrs. Deane has been severely tested by him and others, and that they have been able under the Doctor's own con­ditions to get psychic results.
Another excellent case of Mrs. Deane's power is that which forms the subject of fig. 30. The extra in the ectoplasmic cloud is Mr. Barlow, senior. -the father of the Secretary of the S.S.S.P. Beside him is a picture of how he looked twelve years before his death. No one can deny that it is the same man with the years added on. Mrs. Deane never knew Mr. Barlow's father in life. How, then, was this result obtained? These are the cases which the Magic Circle report avoids, while it talks much of any negative results which it can collect or imagine. I hope that this short account may do something towards helping a woman whom I believe to be a true psychic, and who has suffered severely for the faith that is in her, having actually, I understand, endured the excommunication of her church because she has used the powers which God has given her:
I have a recollection that Joan of Arc endured the same fate for the reason "Le plus il change, le plus il veste Ie mime."

The figures follow in the next post laso see the unique picture by Mrs Deanes that had been taped into this book by its owner in Spirit Photos

See also the description of Ada Deanes Mediumship in the Physical mediumship section

Thanks for printing that interesting extract, Jim.

Yes very interesting thanks Jim.

Hello Jim,

Thank you for sharing that nice article. I did attend the workshop by Lionel Owen and found it to be quite interesting, his collection of photographs was amazing, mainly pictures from the Crewe Circle. He told us the pictures were checked by the National Museum of Photography for any sign of being faked, all passed their inspection. He also had some pictures that are in the book "Faces of the Living Dead" book by Martyn Jolly.

Lynn

Hi Lynn,

Thanks, yes the majority of the book is about Hope and the Crewe circle. I am pleased that their are some very substantive pieces of information like the picture of Agnes shown here. Without that I sometimes feel that Sir Arthur could be a little accepting of things as with the problems he encountered over the Cottingley Fairies. I will put something up on here about that when I get the chance.

Jim

Of Course in the days of Spirit of PN I wrote an article about her The pictures are, by and large in the preceding posts.

Though apparently having many psychic experiences as a child, it was not until Ada Emma Deane was fifty-eight years old that her career as a photographic medium began. After becoming involved with Spiritualism, she was encouraged by a North London medium to develop her psychic powers and in June 1920 obtained her first psychic photograph.


Ada Emma Deane – photograph with extra

Initially her work was regarded as controversial because she apparently needed to hold the unexposed photographic plates to “magnetise” them. Some researchers felt that this was an opening for fraud, a view reflected in the American Journal of The Society for Psychical Research (ASPR), Vol 15 1921 p.364, suggesting that “control of the experiments is … so unsatisfactory that at present it is impossible to arrive at any conclusions of value”. A later ASPR Journal, however, took a different view, being more supportive of her work, according to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in his review in Volume 2 of the History of Spiritualism. Doyle relates how Dr Allerton Cushman, Director of the National Laboratories at Washington USA, upon a surprise visit made to the British College of Psychical Science, in July 1921, received a photograph with the image of his deceased daughter.


Agnes Cushman – comparison of psychic likeness and photograph

The same year Ada commenced the first of her series of Armistice Day photographs that brought her great notoriety. These were taken at the Cenotaph in London in November 1921, 1922, 1923 and 1924.

The 1922 pictures received widespread coverage in the press.


Ada Deane Armistice picture from 1922, taken just before the 11th hour of the 11th day


Ada Deane Armistice picture from 1922, taken at the exact moment of Armistice in which the ‘spirit extras’ appeared

The 1923 photo is notable for the fact that H. Dennis Bradley, having received a communication from his brother-in-law in spirit to do so, found what he believed to be his face in the picture. The story is related in Bradley’s 1924 book Towards the Stars.

Ada Deane Armistice picture from 1923

The 1923 picture drew controversy with the Daily Sketch claiming that the faces were those of famous sports stars indicating the picture was a fraud. This was strongly denied by Ada Deane’s supporters, especially Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.


Daily Sketch front page claiming to expose an Ada Deane picture as a fraud

In her 1925 booklet, Faces of the Living Dead, Estelle Stead published letters written to the editor of the Daily Sketch. These stated that the greatest authority on “anthropametic” matters, Sir Arthur Keith, had decided that the faces in the photograph were in no way identical to those published by the newspaper.

Ada Deane was subjected to considerable investigation. Whilst investigators such as Hereward Carrington were prepared to accept that something was happening, others continued to think it was pure fraud. Yet most of those who decided upon the negative view did so just because she held the plates for a while before use. However, when several investigators substituted their own plates without Mrs Deane’s knowledge they obtained results including all of the phenomena usually associated with her work.

As Martyn Jolly notes in Faces of the Living Dead (2006), Ada Deane became “one of Britain’s busiest photographic mediums, holding over 2,000 sittings, many of which were for ordinary people. “ One good example of this, in our personal library, is a photo taken in 1923 showing a Mrs Fillmore, of Eltham, with a spirit extra recognised by the sitter as her control, ‘Sister Alicia.’