Seances
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[edit] Definition
Sitting for the purpose of obtaining supernormal manifestations or establishing communication with the dead. For success the presence of a medium is required. The sitters need not have psychic powers.
[edit] Discussion
Belief in the ability to communicate with the dead is part of, although not exclusive to, a religious movement called Spiritualism, which flourished from the 1840s until the 1920s and still exists in various forms today.
A seance may consist of physical mediumship, mental mediumship, or a combination of the two.
In physical mediumship, the spirits manifest their existence by seemingly miraculous physical effects: sometimes the table the sitters are sitting at leans and tilts, sitters might feel a cold breeze on their faces, items, even other human forms, can materialize apparently out of thin air, sometimes in the form of ectoplasm, and musical instruments might play mysteriously. Writing from the dead appears on sealed plates, ghostly images appear on sealed-up photographic plates, and painted images gradually appear upon previously blank canvas. Displays of physical mediumship are invariably given in dark or at least ill-lit conditions.
In mental mediumship, the medium passes on messages from the dead, going into a "trance" and speaking, or producing automatic writing. This can be done in fully-lighted TV studios.
Alternatively, the sitters may use a Ouija board to produce their own messages from the dead, with or without the supervision of some official medium.
[edit] Skeptical Response
Skeptics generally consider séances to be scams, or at least a form of pious fraud.
The fact that physical mediumship nearly always take place in the dark is seen as an obvious way to help the medium use tricks to fool the participants. The usual requirement that the participants in the seance should all hold hands is an excellent way to prevent them from reaching out in the dark and detecting a hidden accomplice or piece of apparatus. The physical medium, it is alleged, has no more to do than to perform magic tricks in the dark under conditions of his or her choosing.
The effects produced by physical mediums have been reproduced by such stage magicians as Harry Houdini and Derren Brown. M. Lamar Keene once practiced scam séances, but revealed the fraud in his book The Psychic Mafia.
The effects of mental mediumship can be produced by cold reading or hot reading; combined with a very willing supsension of disbelief: for willing participants in séances, hearing a message believed to be from a dead loved one can be an emotionally powerful experience, one that precludes suspicion of the medium and belief in life after death.
The apparently astonishing effects produced by Ouija boards are an example of the ideomotor effect.
