The Seance - Talking to the Dead

In the history of early man the primary religious belief of the world was various forms of Shamanism. In these early times mankind saw the world as filled with life. The trees were alive - even the stones were alive - this is called animism. Also of course they believed in spirits - spirits of nature like wind and rain - spirits of animals like the ancient cave bear cult and Indian great buffalo cult. Spirits of the dead were no less alive and with our ancestors around the ancient campfires. Shadows moving in the darkness - unseen sounds penetrate the night. The Shaman screams to the great spirits to aid them in finding food. He entreats their honored ancestors to grant them wisdom and strength. In these times speaking to the dead was not remarkable but commonplace.

One can without much effort locate stories without end. In China and Japan spirits inhabit the land and the ancestors are ever present. King Solomon was said to have power over spirits and demons. Titus of Rome who destroyed Jerusalem and sent the Jews into exile - was said to be haunted by dreadful dreams of Jewish dead and their God. The gypsy’s have a history of claiming communication with the spirits. Often it was done with tarot cards and the communication from the spirits was given as a personal reading. History abounds with literature of ghosts and contact with the dead. For instance Shakespeare’s Hamlet haunted by his murdered father.

Then as we roll forward in time to the famous Fox sisters who are normally given credit for starting the seance craze. The Fox sisters who discovered their mediumistic powers as young girls in 1848. They were not the first such but soon the story of these girls spread across America and Europe and soon spirit parties [later called seances] were occurring in homes across the country. The phenomena experienced quickly grew from ghostly rapping to flying tables to ghostly manifestations. The early spiritualist movement at first consisted of trance channeling and automatic writing but soon found itself at the heart of the seance movement and became one with it. Soon fakes and frauds and organized crime saw profit and joined in the action. This led to the anti-psychic laws passed between 1929 through the 1950’s by the various states. Two camps of belief developed - the spiritualists who believed communication with the dead was possible and those that believed such communication was impossible even if there was an afterlife.

Houdini and Dunninger are the two best known names of those that sought to find and expose fraudulent mediums. They felt the mediums were a public danger. Some people had become insane, committed suicide or given their life savings to the mediums.

The one medium to escape Houdini’s exposure was Margery better known as Mrs. Mina Stinson Crandon of Boston. Mrs. Crandon is said to have been the greatest physical medium of the 20th century. A physical medium is a medium who can aid some form or forms of physical manifestation to take place. Ectoplasm,table movement,spirit rapping,ghost lights,and physical appearance are all forms of a spirits physical manifestation. Houdini toured the country exposing what he thought were her methods but he could not prove his theories. The Scientific American Committee wrote articles largely in her favor as the most amazing physical medium they had ever seen. If Houdini had lived he may have continued to try to expose her but alas Houdini himself died as Margery had predicted his death within a year and he did die about 11 months later.

Many questions remain about Margery’s powers and there is a vast amount of documentation on her mediumship. She accepted no payment for her seances and attendance was by invitation only. The major number of her seances were given before professors and psychic researchers. In the end she was discredited on a single effect and even that exposure was by no means clear. This was the death knell for spiritualism who had backed Margery all the way. Suddenly the followers drifted away and Margary’s fame vanished like yesterday’s news.

A seance is entertainment following in the tradition of our ancestors. The seance answered questions,”Do we survive death?” The seance allowed unresolved issues or feelings to be finalized with the beloved dead. Some people spend thousands of dollars and years on psychotherapy on what a seance ‘might’ have done in a single night. What is peace of mind worth? Does it matter that the phenomena is real or faked or some of both. No? As long as intentions are good and the sitters of sound mind only a positive experience will result. If you witness a miracle real or faked- it will be as strong wine to the soul. Energy is never lost - it transforms and the generations of past ancestors surround us. Why not have a word with them?

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