Séance
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A séance or seance is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word séance comes from the French word for "session", from the Old French seoir, "to sit". In French, the word's meaning is quite gene
Black Hawk
Paschal Beverly Randolph
Seance, Balmain, Sydney, 1939, by Ray Olsen
A poster for an early 20th century stage show from Houdini, advertised as proving that spirits do not return
Spiritualism (movement)
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Spiritualism is a social religious movement popular in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, according to which an individual's awareness persists after death and may be contacted by the livin
Séance
…North-American Savage", William Penn, and Christina, Queen of Sweden. The popularity of séances grew dramatically with the founding of the religion of Spiritualism in the mid-nineteenth century. Perhaps the best-known series of séances conducted at that time were those of Mary Todd Lincoln, who, grieving the loss…
By 1853, when the popular song "Spirit Rappings" was published, spiritualism was an object of intense curiosity.
Spiritualism was equated by some Christians with witchcraft. This 1865 broadsheet, published in the United States, also blamed spiritualism for causing the American Civil War.
Franz Mesmer
The Fox sisters