In the early days of photography, many believed and hoped that the camera would prove more efficient than the human eye in capturing the unseen. Spiritualists and animists of the nineteenth century seized on the new technology as a method of substantiating the existence of supernatural beings and happenings. This fascinating book assembles more than 250 photographic images from the Victorian era to the 1960s, each purporting to document an occult phenomenon: levitations, apparitions, transfigurations, ectoplasms, spectres, ghosts, and auras. Drawn from the archives of European and American occult societies and private and public collections, the photographs in many cases have never before been published. The Perfect Medium studies these rare and remarkable photographs through cultural, historical, and artistic lenses. More than mere curiosities, the images on film are important records of the cultural forces and technical methods that brought about their production. They document in unexpected ways a period when developing photographic technology merged with a popular obsession with the occult to create a new genre of haunting experimental photographs.
‘We did not know; nobody has ever told us that!’ These were the words, spoken in tears, of Pope Pius XII on first reading passages from A Doctor at Calvary, Dr. Pierre Barbet’s scientific and reverent study of the Crucifixion of Christ. From an examination of the Holy Shroud of Turin—the authenticity of which Dr. Barbet accepts from medical evidence—a remarkable reconstruction of Christ’s terrible agony is presented in language that cannot fail to move the heart. What kind and what degree of physical torture did Our Lord suffer on Calvary? What was the medical cause of His death? These are among the questions answered in A Doctor at Calvary, one of the most significant contributions to Christological science in modern times. Christ’s preliminary sufferings—the agony in the Garden of Gethsemane, the scourging, the carrying of the cross—the wounds of the hands, in the feet, in the heart, the causes of the rapid death, and the entombment are recounted with the devotion and compassion of an ardent Christian and with a brilliant doctor’s accuracy of anatomical detail. ‘Without doubt this is one of the most gripping and moving books to have been published in many a year.’—Harold C. Gardiner, S. J. ‘As an aid to vivid viewing of the Passion, this book is peerless.’—Rev. John S. Kennedy, Balancing the Books ‘...a profoundly moving study of the Passion.’—Commonwealth ‘...a remarkable reconstruction of Christ’s agony and death.’—Jubilee ‘This volume is an outstanding example of how science can contribute not only to theology, but to solid Christian piety, and thus be an aid to love of Christ.’—The Voice ‘This is a gripping and powerful book of the highest stature.’—Voice of St. Jude ‘Sincere study of this book will enable us for the first time to understand what is behind the words: ‘Jesus suffered and died for us.”—America
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