Victorian Ghost Photography

In the mid-1800s, Spirit Photography became the rage. Mediums and Spiritists employed a method of double exposing negatives (a process unknown to the public since photography was still a rather new medium) in order to convince people that they were being contacted and visited by the spirits of loved ones. It is easy to see that many people believed in this (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a huge believer) but it's also easy to see that some indulged in this practice with their tongue in their cheek. And some photos, as you can see, were absolutely staged, no doubt as a kind of "business card" for the medium and photographer.