Bangs Sisters' Paintings:

Spiritual Precipitation Painting

These color portraits were created by the Bangs sisters, early 1900s psychics who lived in Chicago.

The Bangs sisters were "psychic specialists" who created pictures of residents of the next dimension through a mediumistic process known at the time as "precipitation." There was no color photography at that time, yet the work seems almost photographic. There are no stroke marks that indicate any type of portraiture such as pastels. Examination at certain angles shows marks of a fine dust-like substance that has clung to the glass covering the portrait. It has been stated that similar works were chemically tested in those days and could provide no proof of any known substance.

There are a number of other samples in a psychic museum at the Spiritualist Camp Chesterfield in Indiana, where the Bangs sisters resided and presented their work for two months each summer for several years. The following story tells of how one person received a portrait of his deceased mother.

He went to the Bangs sisters cottage in which a picture window faced a grove of trees at Camp Chesterfield. He arrived at their cottage just before lunch without any prearrangement for the purpose of making an appointment. The sisters asked whose portrait he would like to have and he replied that he wished to have a picture of his mother, but that as it was nearly noon he could return after lunch.

The sisters told him it wasn't necessary to wait and directed him to a rack of approximately twenty picture frames along one side of the fairly large living room. Blank canvasses were already mounted in the frames, which were of various sizes. They asked him to select any frame and canvas he wished. After making his selection, the canvas was placed on an easel in the center of a table located just under the picture window. He said it was possible to see the light from outdoors through the loose weave of the canvas.

The two sisters sat at opposite ends of the table and he sat in the center, facing the canvas which was approximately two feet in front of him. At no time was the canvas covered. The sisters told him to be very quiet and think as strongly as possible of his mother. He did this for what he felt was between ten and fifteen minutes.

He began to think that perhaps the process was not going to be successful when suddenly a silver mist gradually enveloped the canvas. He compared it to steam from a teakettle. He said that in the mist there appeared and quickly disappeared small flecks of a darker and more solid substance – and that they seemed to him to be small faces, but he was not sure of that.

After less than five minutes of this activity, the mist disappeared. Gradually the outline of a face began to appear — obviously head and shoulders. Then the outline began to fill in, hair and clothing first, followed by facial features. In a very few moments the procedure seemed complete — and he recognized the face of his mother.

However, one detail disappointed him. Her eyes were closed. At this moment one of the sisters asked him if the portrait satisfied him, so he mentioned the closed eyes. She then instructed him to be quiet for a moment — and suddenly the eyes gradually opened. He said the entire process occurred over a period of about thirty-five minutes.

The idea of "precipitation" is that through psychic energies manipulated from the other side of life, a fine substance is projected to a canvas or art paper, possibly similar to an exceedingly fine spray. Artists in that higher dimension are believed to assist in the process. There have never been any psychics who could reproduce the phenomena presented by the Bangs sisters.