Page 12 - Demo

In the early 1900s, Elizabeth and May Bangs of Chicago were often guest mediums at Camp Chesterfield during the summer season. Their particular spiritual gift was called precipitated portraits. These were paintings that seemed to appear on previously blank canvases without the aid of human intervention. To create such a painting, each sister would hold up one side of a large canvas, and without any paints or brushes being used, a faint image would slowly begin to appear, then gradually grow darker. There are 25 of the sisters%u2019 paintings on display at Camp Chesterfield%u2019s Hett Art Gallery and Museum, which contains the world%u2019s largest collection of precipitated spirit art. The paintings have remarkable detail and quality, and eyewitness accounts testify that they were not produced by human hands. Spiritualism has survived many assaults against its belief system (some warranted, some not) and Camp Chesterfield came under fire as early as 1895. In that year, the October 31 issue of the Fort Wayne News reported that W.R. Covert, an anti-Spiritualist crusader, called mediums %u201cliars, knaves, fools, frauds, and ignoramuses.%u201d Carolyn Hilligoss, who owned a drug store in Lapel with hers husband George, filed a slander suit against Covert for $10,000, but lost the case because the jury said the negative Spiritualist comments were not directed specifically toward her. In August 1925, Virginia Swain, a reporter for the Indianapolis Times, investigated Camp Chesterfield. In a long series of articles, she described even longer list of almost laughably inaccurate readings she received there. Furthermore, she told Sheriff Arthur Daniels that the camp%u2019s mediums were obtaining money under false pretenses. Soon, the sheriff initiated a mass arrest of 14 mediums%u2014but the charges were eventually thrown out.