Thoughts and Emotions Photographed.

Professor Larkin describes thoughts as "electric corpuscles" darting hither and thither with inconceivable rapidity in search of a congenial lodgment, and to show that this conception of the nature and power of thought is no empty flight of the imagination, it will only be necessary to draw attention to the photographic experiments conducted by Dr. Baraduc, the eminent nerve specialist, page 11 of Paris. If thoughts are things, he considered it should be possible to photograph them. He accordingly prepared a special apparatus, with an exceptionally sensitive plate attached, and under the most conclusive conditions obtained a series of strikingly distinct, and, in some cases, most beautiful pictures of these thought forces and emotions, as will be seen from the frontispiece to this little work.

These pictorial wonders were reproduced in the Illustrated London News some time ago, and their publication caused a great sensation in the Scientific circles of Europe. One of these photographs represents a column of prayer. By arrangement with half-a-dozen devout persons, a prayer meeting was held in an apartment at the top of the Eiffel Tower. The special camera was arranged in position, and at a given moment Dr. Baraduc took the picture. The result was a very clear and impressive representation of the thoughts and aspirations of these intensely earnest souls rising like a column of incense as though ascending direct to the very throne of God. He has also taken good thoughts and bad thoughts of certain individuals, placid thoughts and stormy thoughts, and the pictures they produce are most remarkable—some beautiful in their sweet and tranquilising aspect, whilst others resemble a veritable mental typhoon, according to the humour of the subject at the time the photo was taken.

Dr. Baraduc further believes that psychic powers can be applied to the treatment of diseases, and in this connection the pictures representing the forms of benedictions and of a flow of curative force at Lourdes during the performance of a "miracle" are certainly very suggestive. The wonderful cures wrought at Lourdes. year after year have hitherto been regarded by the majority of people, either as frauds or purely imaginary occurrences, but it is now known that they are well-based Scientifically and are too real to be any longer disputed. They are, apparently, due to that Spiritual "gift of healing," of which Paul writes, and the potential curative agency is a mysterious psychic emanation which is sufficiently palpable to impress a sensitive plate.

"I am not a Spiritualist, nor a doctrinaire," says Dr. Baraduc, "but speak from experience, and I declare I have found forces surrounding man which have been registered on photographic plates. Man is surrounded by an atmosphere of personal ether. Every human being has an impalpable double, which reproduces his form and which allows us to explain ghost stories and the phenomena of double sight Call it soul, if you like, or astral body. I have photographed this ether double 80 hours after death. When my wife died I photographed a nebulous globe which escaped from her like a soul. You see, there are forces in this page 12 world and forces in the other world. When, in the name of truth, Spiritual scientists unite with Material scientists, we will arrive at a knowledge of the synthesis of the forces which regulate our life and our immortality, for man does not belong to this planet only, but to the starry spaces in which his thoughts revolve."

Nor are we indebted to Dr. Baraduc alone for this revelation. Colonel Albert de Rochas has conducted similar experiments with great success, and in The Annals of Psychical Science in February last he contributes an illustrated article showing not only remarkably vivid representations of thought forces, but also of the partial and complete severance of the astral body from its physical counterpart, the complete astral form being identical in outline with the human body. "We have a natural body and we have a spiritual body," says St. Paul. Was it this astral body to which Paul alluded as the spiritual body ? Was he aware of the existence of this duplicate which we are only just discovering ? And, it should be remembered, the camera cannot lie !