The Humbugs of the World · Chapter
Spiritual Photographing explained
Barnum exposes the fraud of spirit photography, detailing how a photographer used scientific tricks to produce ghostlike images that were sold as genuine spiritual manifestations.
What happens
Barnum exposes the fraud of spirit photography, detailing how a photographer used scientific tricks to produce ghostlike images that were sold as genuine spiritual manifestations. He recounts the story of Colorado Jewett obtaining spirit pictures of famous statesmen and a lady who received a photo of her deceased son and a brother she thought dead but was alive, yet still believed. Barnum explains the method and vows to continue exposing such humbugs.
Themes in this chapter
Gullibility and Human Nature
Barnum highlights the extreme credulity of people who believe in spirit photographs, even when contradictions arise, such as a woman who still believed after finding her 'dead' brother alive.
Science, Medicine, and Quackery
The photographer uses scientific knowledge of lenses and reflectors to create fraudulent spirit images, exploiting the public's ignorance.
Advertising and Showmanship
The photographer's fame spreads through spiritualist circles and newspapers, driving demand and allowing him to raise prices.
Characters to notice
- Colorado Jewett
Visited the photographer to obtain spirit pictures of deceased statesmen like John Adams, Daniel Webster, Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas, and Napoleon Bonaparte for his peace efforts.
- Daniel Webster
One of the deceased statesmen whose spirit photograph was produced for Colorado Jewett.
- Mr. Barnum
Author and narrator, who exposes the fraud of spirit photography and offers a $500 challenge to mediums.
- Hans Von Vleet
Mentioned as a performer who publicly produces similar manifestations in daylight without claiming spiritual aid.
Key passages
“I pronounce all such pretensions ridiculous impositions, and I stand ready at any time to prove them so, or to forfeit five hundred dollars, whenever these pretended mediums will succeed in producing their 'wonderful manifestations' in a room of my selecting, and with apparatus of my providing; they not being permitted to handle the sealed letters or folded ballots which they are to answer, nor to make conditions in regard to the manner of rope tying, etc.”
Barnum declares that all claims of supernatural communication are fraudulent and offers $500 to any medium who can produce genuine manifestations under his controlled conditions.
Barnum's challenge to spiritualists, demonstrating his confidence in exposing their tricks.
“One of the faithful obtained a 'spirit' picture of a deceased brother who had been dead more than five years, and said that he recognized also the very pattern of his cravat as the same that he wore in life. Can human credulity go further than to suppose that the departed still appear in the old clo' of their earthly wardrobe?”
A believer recognized the exact pattern of a cravat in a spirit photo of his brother who died five years earlier, showing absurd gullibility.
Barnum mocks the extreme lengths of credulity among spiritualists.
“She simply remarked that some evil spirit had assumed her brother's form in order to deceive her. This is a very common method of spiritualists 'digging out' when the impositions of the 'money-operators' are detected.”
When a woman discovered her supposedly dead brother was alive, she rationalized it as an evil spirit impersonating him, a typical excuse among spiritualists.
Barnum notes how spiritualists explain away evidence of fraud.