20th Century Seances

Seances

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Seances became a popular fad across Europe and the U.S. Groups would regularly hire a medium to host seances at homes in the fashionable interest of morbid curiosity of the unknown. Even Mary Todd Lincoln would hold seances in the White House to remain in contact with her deceased son. 

In the 1870s, an apparition named Katie King became a regular appearance at Seances. She was believed to be the daughter of a higher spirit controller named John King. John King often claimed to be the spirit of infamous pirate Henry Morgan. However, the controversy surrounding Katie King continues, whether she was an apparition visiting the brave seance goers or a sham by fraud mediums exploiting the gullible. Fraud mediums would strategically place bells and inconspicuous systems to levitate furniture in order to pass themselves off as a medium that could relay messages from the dead. 

Some would go as far as to expel a mysterious substance from their bodies that eventually became known as ectoplasm. They would often ingest ot before the seance to expel it during to really sell it. The ectoplasm was usually made of gauze, muslin, chiffon, or sheep’s lung.

(Marthe Beraud ectoplasm during seance)

Marthe Beraud was the first medium to use ectoplasm. Known as daring and perverse, she became one of the most notable mediums in the early 1900’s. She was well known for stripping nude during seances and even performing sexual acts with seance goers. She had an assistant that would physical prove that no ectoplasm was inserted into Beraud’s vagina before the seance. Although many considered her performances fraudulent and pornographic and came forward with proof of Beraud’s deception, she maintained a large following who believed she and her assistant were truly making contact with the dead. Sir Arthur Canon Doyle, renowned author of SHerlock Holmes, was one of her most outspoken supporters. He hosted a seance with Beraud present and afterwards claimed that there had been no deception and that her performances were genuine.

Sir Arthur Canon Doyle was a large believer in the supernatural and often held seances with his wife in their home. He declared he was a spiritualist and traveled the world, writing books on the subject and giving lectures. At one point, he had a disagreement with Harry Houdini who completely dismissed the idea of communing with the dead stating that the parlor tricks involved could be done by a competent magician. He would even demonstrate the illusions himself with his wife, Bess, assisting.

After his death in 1926, his wife began holding seances in her tea house in New York. Despite Houdini’s cynicism, the couple had agreed that the living spouse would make an attempt to contact the spouse that had passed away first. They had a predetermined code that their spirit would pass to the medium to ensure authenticity. That code was “Rosabelle- answer- tell-pray, answer- look- tell- answer, answer- tell,” based off of the inscription on Bess’ wedding band; “Rosabell”. Bess made attempts to contact her dead husband for 10 years before finally resigning herself. The final Houdini seance was conducted on Halloween of 1936.

Another common ruse was spirits and phantoms appearing in photographs taken during or after the seance was held. While some frauds put effort into the illusion using double exposures for ghostly forms, some were horribly obviously staged and only succeeded as the con artist preyed on the sadness and vulnerability of their clients.

Here is a link to a video with more information as well as more vintage photography of the supposed seances.