The Human Soul
Its Movements, Its Lights, and the Iconography of the Fluidic Invisible
Dr. H. Baraduc
Chapter III
Technical and theoretical statement of Iconography
The capital phenomenon consists in how the sensitive plate, which is thought not to receive any impression in the dark, is impressed.
The silver salts are converted, not only by what we call exterior solar light and by electric fulguration, but also by the intimate light of the soul.
Dr. H. Baraduc.
Iconography, that is to say the fixation by the image of the invisible vibrations, has nothing in common with solar photographs, in which the light of the sun produces the forms and the reversed outlines of an object on a plate put beyond the focus of the lense.
In Iconography, I have not studied the solar light, reflected by photographed objects, as an impressing agent of the plate; on the contrary, I have always attempted to affect this same plate by waves, by emanations, by the intimate vibrations of the invisible or visible objects in more or less obscurity.
I have especially sought to obtain the signatures of hidden forces, vital and psychical forces, refused up to the present.
Iconography, such as I believe to have created and exposed, is based on the direct action of the human soul acting through the hand on the plate. Since 1893 my experiments have taken place without any intermediary lense, reversing the image. Solar light is refracted in inflected foci, whilst the animistic glimmering of man, or the force of universal life, penetrates straight into the bodies, or emerges without deviation and traces itself in its very form.
The interpretation of the seen forms is [33] subject to discussion, as every interpretation, but in any case, the plate is impressed in circumstances unusual to ordinary photography, and for a quite different use, than for which it was destined. It should not be impressed, and nevertheless it is.
It was destined to reproduce the exterior light of an object, instantaneously, in daylight, or to retrace its form, the reversed projections and shadows.
In iconography, the plate receives, very slowly, no longer by the solar ray, but by an electro-vital current (wind, breeze) or simply by a direct emission, no longer, the exterior light of the object, but what is called its internal light, its intimate soul, which it records. To produce this image, the condensing apparatus, the lense is not necessary. Iconography is then not governed by laws of refraction and inflected foci; it is a law peculiar to this vital force, to our soul of life, of directly graphing itself without undergoing transposition by the fact of its passage from [34] a dense surrounding into a surrounding less dense, and such as it is in form.
To obtain this internal light, this obscure fire of vitality, the whole consists in placing one's self in certain conditions. In any case, here is a new chapter of higher physics wrested from the occult and opening out to man a new world, that of unknown forces, belonging to the domain of the invisible, where nothing is lost, where everything is transformed; and if the terrestrial dust of beings, having once existed, is refound at the present time, one could also discover the shadows of those, who have passed, leaving in the words of Ovid, "the body to the earth, the shadow to the tomb and the spirit to the heavens."
One may at this very moment pay homage to the great occultists of former times, who have expressed by symbols the forms and vibrations of these forces, which they kept carefully hidden.
Since they had no photographic plates at their disposal to reveal these forces by fixing them, one is logically led to consider [35] them as inspired or prophetic. Perhaps they also possessed means of registration since lost, like so many other things.
In the study of the production of the images or icones, we must consider four factors:
1. The operator, with his vital and psychic power;
2. The electric fluids and the intermediate cosmic space between him and the plate;
3. The sensitive plate, a receptive organ, the fixative body of the produced current;
4. The invisible, which does not fall under our senses. It is this invisible which is drawn by the human will, forcing, the appeal and creating the attracted current of ambient forces, belonging to vitality or to universal intelligence.
The human spirit will be able likewise to project its own fluidic psychic body, and the plate to collect it. The whole consists in being able to create the current; there is no need of a lense of any kind.
In conclusion; to succeed in these experiments, one must know how to create this attractive current of animation, which combines the hierarchy of the known with the unknown different forces, and forms an intermediary ladder between our visible world and the invisible world: in a word, to elevate and lead our spirit so as to be able to put ourselves in relationship with the conscious forces, to act on the semi-conscious forces, or to re-act on them in case of need.
Kunrath has found the formula, which shows the best state of soul to possess in order to obtain a result.
"Laborando, perseverando, orando."
"By working, by persevering, by praying."
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