Cat's Eye View @ MPL: A Good Geek Fit, Paranormally Speaking

Sunday, April 1, 2012

A Good Geek Fit, Paranormally Speaking

My Library continues to create Geek the Library posters for staff who haven't gotten around to having them made (or who have been hiding somewhere). This one is hilarious, and it's quite a good fit. Scowl-Face and the paranormal are practically synonymous. Just look at the guy. If he's not paranormal, nothing is.

No disrespect intended to the people included in the original photograph, who were, from left to right:

Reverend Charles L. Tweedale, the Church of England vicar at Weston, who was also a renowned amateur astronomer, violin-maker, and premiere psychical researcher of the early 20th century;
Frank Burnett, Charles Tweedale's father-in-law, who was deceased at the time this photo was taken; and
Mrs. Violet Tweedale, Charles' wife, and daughter of Frank Burnett.

Want to see the original "spirit photograph?" It's Plate XXVII in Tweedale, Charles L., News From the Next World (London: Spiritualist Press, 1st ed. 1940; 2d ed. 1947). Don't have a copy handy? Not to worry. I'll borrow Scowl-Face's.

Is the photo genuine? Rev. and Mrs. Tweedales' honesty and integrity were beyond reproach. There is no rational explanation for how an image of Mrs. Tweedale's father appeared on this photo. Precautions made fraud impossible. No such photo of Frank Burnett directly facing the camera (as he does in the picture above) was ever taken when alive, but the figure is readily recognizable as Frank from photos the family had taken of him during his lifetime (all of which were in different poses, or wearing hats, or with different facial features).

Of course, one purported spirit-influenced photograph cannot conclusively prove anything, in and of itself., regardless of its authenticity. Compile hundreds of similarly validated images, and tens of thousands of veridical cases, and then maybe you've got something. Spend 20 or 30 years researching the subject, and then you can decide what to think about images such as this.

Anyway, Scowl-Face did a decent job with Photoshop. It's funny and appropriate to his arcane interests.

As you can see from the MPL YouTube Channel paranormal playlist, we have several book trailers on this topic. Our first book trailer included the Tweedale photo above. Want to see? You betcha. Sorry if it seems rather crude. It was our first attempt! What did we know way back then?