Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances

Since it’s still spooky season, this week’s book of the week is Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances by Lisa Morton.

I’m not quite sure what I was expecting when I started this book, but I was pleasantly surprised by a straight up history read on mankind’s quest for contact with life after death, starting with Gilgamesh. Like, literally thousands of years now, we’ve been trying to make contact with the dead. From ancient Mesopotamia, through Egypt, Greece, and Rome, there were rituals to contact the dead, each with their own prohibitions and spells required for contact.

I have not read Gilgamesh, but I have read The Odyssey, so of was familiar with Odysseus’s methods of contacting Hades. Just as an aside… and this is not mentioned in the book… but one fun historical fact is that the city of Troy was assumed to be pure myth, until the 19th century, when amateur archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann, reading the Odyssey, followed Odysseus’ route and found…Troy. So, with that in mind, you have to wonder if the Greeks were on to something with their methods of ghost contact.

Anyway, the Romans were a bit grizzlier with their rituals and rites, a lot bloodier, because everything in Rome was bloodier. Look, Rome is credited with a lot, and they did a lot, but compared to the Greeks, they were fucking savages.

The Germanic tribes had death rites in accordance with Odin and of course most people are at least familiar with Valhalla, although less are familiar with Folkvangr and Niflheim, ruled over Freya and Hel respectively, and if you died at sea, you might be taken to the underwater dwelling of the giantess Ran.

 The Celts were also mentioned, and they also had multiple death cults, with at least two psychopomps in the forms of The Morrigan and Mannana Mac Lir, and the belief in Tir na Nog.

Now, when Rome fell, and the Catholic church rose in the West, necromancy became a thing. And the church fought back against this largely by outlawing it. Along with witchcraft, necromancy was definitely a burning offense. And here Morton touches on John Dee and Edward Kelley, in addition to the inquisition and German witch burnings. Included in this section are references to earlier works the medieval necromancers cited, which include both Jewish and Arabic influences. Which certainly did not help the victims of the inquisition any, since both of those faiths are enemies of the true faith, that being Catholicism. And what’s really ironic in Christian necromancers citing Arabic influences is that “Islam doesn’t offer the possibility of ghosts. Black magic or sorcery, known as Sihr, are recognized in the Quran, but ghosts are not. Sorcerers may call on jinn, and jinn may impersonate ghosts, but the spirits of the dead don’t return.”  Makes this Disney joke a little bit funnier.

I can’t bring people back from the dead…

Next, we turn to the Enlightenment and gothic eras. Now, the enlightenment brought an end to witch burning, but philosophy, if you will, broke in to two branches at this point: 1. The age of reason, where in death was believed to be the end; and a renewed and more public interest in mysticism. As the topic of this book was spiritualism, the author focused on the mystics, starting with Cagliostro, a mystic so well knows, Marvel included his works in Dr. Strange, and I had it included in my Turtle logo:

It’s the Red One

In addition to Cagliostro, the Comte Sainte Germain was covered, moving into the creation of the Magic Lantern and phantasmagoria shows. Now, it looks like, from reading this, that people in the 18th century were aware this was entertainment purposes only. Like, they knew it was not really ghosts and ghouls and long legged-y beasties that were dancing across the stage. But safe scares are always fun. Like, that’s why roller coasters and haunted houses are so fun. They’re safe scares. Ghost stories and gothic horror a la Frankenstein and The Telltale Heart are safe scares.

But by the 19th century, safe was no longer cutting it. The people were primed and ready for actual contact. Enter, the Fox sisters. I’m not going too deeply into them, since I read a book on the Fox sisters in 2021, and that book was cited in THIS book, but the Fox sisters kicked off 170 years and counting of Spiritualism.

The Fox sisters were the first, but by no means the last. It didn’t take long for the spirits to become as popular in Europe as they were in America. Morton covers in detail the feud over spiritualism between Arthur Conan Doyle and his one-time friend Harry Houdini. And it was interesting because the two of them switched viewpoints. Initially, Houdini was a believer in the spirits, until he became immersed in the culture and began practicing magic, at which point he flipped and became the penultimate sceptic on the matter, with seances being famously held to today where in people are looking for a sign specifically from Houdini, a tradition that has long outlasted his spouses search for contact—she died in 1943.

Some of the common themes of the spiritualists of the 19th century were that they had contact with the same spirits. Like, there were a lot of dead Katie and John King’s who were using all the mediums of the 19th century. And for some reason, Black Hawk, a native American warrior, seemed to communicate to white people a lot in the 19th century. So…make of that what you will. I don’t know, it seems like the tribes, if they commune with the dead, probably have their own rituals that don’t include white people. I’m a wee bit skeptical of that one myself, and I DO believe in ghosts. Note: I believe in ghosts…not sure about mediums. Cold reading is too well known for me not to be a wee bit skeptical about psychics.

Conversely, Arthur Conan Doyle was a complete skeptic going into the seances and mediumship but came out on the other side a firm believer. When his own spouse began practicing automatic writing, where-in the medium enters a trance state and allows the spirits to write through the medium, Doyle offered her services to Houdini to prove the spirits were real. And when Jean Leckie began writing a stream of English claiming it was communication from Houdini’s mother, Houdini questioned the veracity based on one simple question: his mother had never spoken English in life, why would she only speak English in death? Conan Doyle took offense on his wife’s behalf at this question, believing Houdini was accusing her of fraud—which he was.

The two world wars brought renewed interest in spiritualism, as those who had lost loved ones through the extreme violence sought to contact them, or some proof that they were someplace safe after all. There was a lot of fraud involved in this. A lot of fraud.

And Morton brings the topic into the 21st century, with such psychic superstars as John Edwards, Yvette Fielding of Britain’s Most Haunted, Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson of Ghost Hunters; the myriad spin offs of both of those shows. She includes how psychics have been involved in law enforcement and crime solving—as well as crime committing and the very long history of fraud that has co-existed with the psychic community.

I do love how her last chapter is called (Why) do we need the séance? Which could, of course, be read as Do we need the Séance? And while the entire book is superlatively written as straight history, I am still not sure if the author believes in psychic powers or not, this last chapter basically says that belief in the afterlife is comforting. Belief that our loved ones are still there somewhere comforts people tremendously. So much so that even Michael Shermer, author of Skeptic magazine, allowed that Spiritualism had “presented a relationship to the divine that was broad-minded, without dogma, hopeful, and liberating.”

Hope is a long-standing need of humanity. Hope, as we’ve seen through some of the darkest reading, I’ve done in the last three years, sees us through the worst that life can throw at us. And so, whether you believe in the supernatural or not, that hope of seeing our loved ones again is one of the biggest sources of comfort, for those left behind when someone passes. Which is probably why so many who might have had reason not to believe, defended unto death those mediums that helped them reach the other side.

The author is extremely neutral. I don’t know from reading this book, if she believes or doesn’t. Which is the mark of an excellent researcher and author. When reading/writing history, opinions should be left out in favor of reporting just the facts. And the facts as presented in this book is that a whole lot of fraud went on in regard to spiritualism. Morton does offer a reason why: most of those who engaged in mediumship came from lower class households. This life offered them a way out of poverty. And who wouldn’t want that?

I quite liked this book; it is probably not for everyone. True believers will be irritated by the just the facts style of reporting. Just the facts do include discussion of this photograph, though:

That is the Brown Lady of Raynham Hall, which is the only photograph of a ghost that has never been conclusively disproven. Even this picture of Mary Todd Lincoln and assassinated President Lincoln has been shown to be a clever photography trick, way back when photography used plates for processing.

The book does focus heavily on European and American study of the spirits, which is not to say that other cultures don’t include contact with spirits, and the author does briefly touch on them, but the book was specifically talking about Spiritualism as a belief and the western belief in spirit contact. To write a book regarding these beliefs that encompassed the entire globe would be a daunting task, as most cultures include some aspects of honor and communication with ancestors. And interesting side note, other than the times around wars, the others being communicated with were the very generic Katie and John King, rather than specific relatives of the séance attendees.

I did find one glaring omission in the book, which I was a little surprised by and didn’t catch at first: she does not mention Edgar Cayce in the book, who was well known in his day for interacting with spiritual beings and used that contact to predict WWII…which was maybe not so hard to predict if you followed politics at all, but he also predicted the 1929 stock market crash…hmmm…ok, maybe that was also not so hard to predict. Ok, maybe Cayce was just very good at spotting trends…but he thanked his predictions on spirit guides, so I was surprised he wasn’t mentioned in here.

Also not included in this book is the distinct possibility that in ancient necromancy…like Gligamesh, Egypt, Greece, and Rome…it’s highly likely that psilocybin was used in those rites. But I have a feeling that topic will be discussed in one of December’s books.

This book was originally reviewed on YouTube on October 15, 2023, but is now available on Rumble and PodBean.