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| Ectoplasmic Morphogenesis of a functionable human handform in direct view and close proximity is a rare opportunity and a privilege for all to be present! 2013 professional Photographer Shannon Taggart shot during such an event intruiging photos, like the one above. It is one of a row showing the gradual development of a three-dimensional hand from a pile of ectoplasm, just beforehand extruded and separated from the medium... |
PART I: FACES, HEADS AND TORSOS OF THE DECEASED
In the realisation phase of Modern Spirit Photographer Shannon Taggarts new book
SPIRITUALIST RITUAL AND THE SEARCH FOR ECTOPLASM she
revisits older photos to look at them newly under different exposure
conditions to excavate new beforehand unseen findings.
The different aggregate states, textures and densities of ectoplasm makes that endeavour meaningful in regards to possible different layers existing in the three-dimensional form it is mostly appearing. Different exposure conditions may reveal characteristics that may not have been visible in
their original outcome.
Shannons own artistic approach when photographing the paranormal in special séanceroom-events opens a very specified path for the etherical to link into her photography - literally beyond the event itself - and is also justifying a new look under different conditions during the photographic development process.
Said and done we travel back in time to the year 2013, when during séances near Lillydale, US, the spirit team of the Felix Circle worked with Medium Kai Muegge to deliver their message and present an array of phenomena, amongst them astounding ectoplasmic displays.
In the focus stood the demonstration of intelligent morphogenesis within extruded ectoplasmic material.
So within the huge amounts of material you'll gonna see in the upcoming photos the spirit team started to create denser centers, in which obviously complex forms of information became processed, coming either from the etheric realm or from the sitters.
The photographed séances were examples of an extraordinary high number of appearing spirit faces, that were building up nearly everywhere within the psychic structure inside of the cabinet around the medium.
Other photos document the classic building of spirit hands from extruded ectoplasmic matter, showing their autonomy and intelligent response (waving f.e.), and the fascination gripping the observers just becoming witness to a very rare mediumistic production.
The mentioned differences when developing them newly this time changed the photos into black and white-editions and extrapolated intense new approaches to them.
Introducing the actual revisit of the 'Cassadaga'-photos are the blueish ones below, we already had received months ago and which you probably have seen in earlier publications!
The newly processed images you can find just below those bluish ones!
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| This combination from Shannons upcoming book is demonstrating marked similarities in ectoplasms ability to morph into meaningful displays over the centuries. On the left we see famous Marthe Beraud, the medium that caused Charles Richet to use the term 'ectoplasm' after his experiments with her at the Villa Carmen in Algier. She became famous as 'Eva Carriere/Eva C.', when working under Schrenck, who shot this photo around 1912/13 in Paris, showing a face inside the produced ectoplasmic material at the right side of her head. On the right side it was 2013 a spirit visitor, probably a deceased relative of a sitter, showing up in form. Behind the mass that is embedding the image you can see the hairline of the medium to estimate the size of the spirit image... |
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| In these two subsequent photos we see two faces and a three-dimensional relief-like face developing. Note the eye-section in the lower left. In the following photo both will obviously look into another direction, even though the photographer hadn't changed her position and the photo was photographed 1,6 seconds later... |
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| In this second photo all faces went through a development, specifically the face at the top, which has become clearer and stronger, and the relief-like face below, now showing nose and mouth clearly. At least one or even two more faces are showing to the far right. Do not forget this is ectoplasm photographed inside of the cabinet in front of the medium. |
When 2013 the sitters in Casadaga opened the cabinet curtains and
watched the extrusion of extremely large volumes of ectoplasm from the
mediums body for the first time, they weren't aware, about which
essential capabilities of the mysterious substance they would learn
during the given séances: Ectoplasms ability to change its look, color
and texture within seconds (like from cloudy to thready), ectoplasms
characteristic to move, breath and flex like a living body almost,
ectoplasms ability to process complex information and reflect or express
it, like when embedding highly detailed human faces that
make a lively impression onto the onlookers - or hands building from
ectoplasmic piles, forming out more and more, finally erecting and even
waving towards sitters! The newly edited Shannon Taggart-photos are
impressingly focussing onto the described characteristics and are
presented here for the first time in that expressional specialty.
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| In this photo, shot right after the curtains were opened, an extremely rare and by the sitters never before seen scenario became visible: the cabinets inside, nearly fully filling with a foggy, cloudy and whirly ectoplasmic mass, that is actually seperating the medium in the back of the cabinet from the rest. At only a few locations the cloudy mass had started to build denser sections, like around the mouth, where two faces started to become visible at that time, far from completion, but definitely existing. |
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| When the spirit control was drawing the cabinet and turning the mediums head to the left, it was even possible to photograph the scenario from the side to actually see the medium literally inside of the ectoplasmic mass that in this photo already starts to turn the cloudy substance into a denser thread-like material (the mediums head can be seen from the side in the middle of the picture looking to the right). The faces at the mouth region of the medium also have started to become clearer at that slightly later moment in time... |
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| Shortly later the process turning the substance into something denser has clearly succeeded. We see still cloudy sections but also areas in which the substance has changed into a more dense, threadlike appearrance. In these sections a few seconds later multiple faces will appear, which the sitters were allowed to observe close-hand. |
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| Finally the material has built several sections with a multitude of visible faces embedded. The two faces formerly seen in the mouth region of the medium have now detached and 'hang' inbetween the mass and the other faces... |
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| In Authors AUGUST GOFORTHS 'Water under the Rocks', he describes as one who was present, where in the changed material suddenly faces popped up and encircled them in the original photo. When you count them you get over a dozen of them. We need to admit though that many of the faces were very small and it was not enough time for everybody to look at them to identify, but experience shows at these instances usually around 85% of the faces can be immediately identified as deceased friends and relatives, showing up through the processes the spirit team is enabling... |
2. SPIRIT HANDS
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| Much more common in the Felix Circle teams séances is the extrusion of ectoplasmic mass from the mouth onto a buidling up pile in front of it, before seperated from the mediums body. There usually the astounding characteristics become visible, thousands of sitters over the years were privileged to witness. First mostly careful movement patterns become visible the most do describe with the term 'breathing' or 'flexing'. Short darkness phases do strengthen the processes behind this. Then the material seems to restract and start to build visible denser centers or areas within the piles... |
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| Voluminously rearing up is the substance during the processes that turn the substance into concrete logical forms that sooner or later do emerge and appear at the surface of it. |
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| Here clearly although slightly defocussed one of these handforms becomes clearly visible. It is working itself out of the substance with autonomous movements clearly defining it during its final building processes... |
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| Speechless the sitters are following with their eyes what emerges in front of their view and takes concrete form despite every logic and despite everything what they have learned about matter or biology. Cognitive dissonance is the term that is defining the state every sitter is pushed here into becoming witness to genuine ectoplasmic morphogenesis. The hands that emerge in séances like the depicted have oftentimes different characteristics like different grades of completion, but also interestingly rings for example they were observed wearing... |
Photos of that caliber, of high strangeness, but also photos of amazing beauty - all that awaits the reader of
Taggarts new book that in the most beautiful form will bring the complexitiy of art into a dynamic with the most ancient human practice, the occult!
