The Ghost in the iPhone

Christopher B. Steiner traces the history of nineteenth-century "spirit photography," focusing on William H. Mumler's famous photograph of Mary Todd Lincoln with the supposed ghost of Abraham Lincoln. By having students recreate the image using an iPhone long-exposure app, Steiner demonstrates how photographic effects and digital technology can reproduce seemingly supernatural images, highlighting the continuity between Victorian photographic trickery and modern digital manipulation. Read this article and find accompanying references at: https://skepticalinquirer.org/2026/08/the-ghost-in-the-iphone/ About the Author: Christopher B. Steiner is the Lucy C. McDannel '22 Professor of Art History and Anthropology at Connecticut College, where he teaches courses on the history of photography, the anthropology of secrecy, and the visual culture of the invisible. He is currently writing Hustling Pictures: An Economy of Photographs, a history of American vernacular photography told through the entrepreneurs, hustlers, and wheelers-and-dealers who transformed photographs into one of America's most successful consumer products. Subscribe to Skeptical Inquirer: https://skepticalinquirer.org/subscribe/