Calling the Spirits: A History of Seances

From Halloween expert Morton, a level—headed and entertaining history of our desire and attempts to hold conversations with the dead.

Calling the Spirits investigates the eerie history of our conversations with the dead, from necromancy in Homer’s Odyssey to the emergence of Spiritualism—when Victorians were entranced by mediums and the seance was born. Among our cast are the Fox sisters, teenagers surrounded by “spirit rappings”; Daniel Dunglas Home, the “greatest medium of all time”; Houd...