William Hope (paranormal investigator)
| William Hope | |
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| Born | 1863 Crewe, Cheshire, England |
| Died | 8 March 1933 (aged 70) Salford, England |
| Occupation | Spiritualist |
| Organization | Crewe Circle |
William Hope (1863 – 8 March 1933) was a pioneer of so-called "spirit photography". Based in Crewe, England, he was a member of the well known spiritualists group, the Crewe Circle. He died in Salford hospital on 8 March 1933.
As a young man Hope was employed as a carpenter, but he quickly came to prominence in paranormal circles after claiming to be able to capture images of spirits on camera. Hope produced his first spirit image in 1905. Soon afterwards he formed the Crewe Circle Spiritualist group, with himself as the leader.
In 1906, Hope managed to dupe William Crookes with a fake spirit photograph of his wife. Oliver Lodge revealed there had been obvious signs of double exposure – the picture of Lady Crookes had been copied from a wedding anniversary photograph. However, Crookes was a convinced spiritualist and claimed it was genuine evidence for spirit photography. Doubts were also raised about his spirit photography in 1908.
Hope was first exposed in 1920 by Edward Bush who had caught Hope out by using a trap. He used the fake name "Wood" and sent a letter to Hope with a photograph of a living person which he pretended was his deceased son. He later attended a sitting with Hope. Hope produced a "spirit" extra which was exactly the same as the photograph he had sent Hope and on it were the words "Dear friend Wood". The psychical researcher Whately Carington wrote regarding the exposure "any reasonable person will say that Mr Bush had proved his case." In 1921, Mr DeVaga, a friend of the magician Harry Houdini, attended a sitting with Hope. DeVaga found the dark conditions in the room suspicious and suspected that Hope had switched a plate.
In February 1922, the Society for Psychical Research and the paranormal investigator Harry Price with James Seymour, Eric Dingwall and William Marriott demonstrated that Hope was fraudulent during tests at the British College of Psychic Science. Price wrote in his report "William Hope has been found guilty of deliberately substituting his own plates for those of a sitter... It implies that the medium brings to the sitting a duplicate slide and faked plates for fraudulent purposes."
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