Sance

Sance conducted by John Beattie, Bristol, England,

1872
A sance /se.ns/ or seance is an
attempt to communicate with spirits. The
word "sance" comes from the French
word for "seat", "session" or "sitting", from
the Old French seoir, "to sit". In French, the
word's meaning is quite general: one may,
for example, speak of "une sance de
cinma" ("a movie session"). In English,
however, the word came to be used
specically for a meeting of people who
are gathered to receive messages from
ghosts or to listen to a spirit medium
discourse with or relay messages from
spirits. In modern English usage,
participants need not be seated while
engaged in a sance.
One of the earliest books on the subject of
communication amongst deceased
persons was Communication With the Other
Side by George, First Baron Lyttelton,
published in England in 1760.[1] Among
the notable spirits quoted in this volume
are Peter the Great, Pericles, a "North-
American Savage", William Penn, and
Christina, Queen of Sweden. The
popularity of sances grew dramatically
with the founding of the religion of
Spiritualism in the mid-nineteenth century.
Perhaps the best-known series of sances
conducted at that time were those of Mary
Todd Lincoln who, grieving the loss of her
son, organized Spiritualist sances in the
White House, which were attended by her
husband, President Abraham Lincoln, and
other prominent members of society.[2]
The 1887 Seybert Commission report
marred the credibility of Spiritualism at the
height of its popularity by publishing
exposures of fraud and showmanship
among secular sance leaders.[3] Modern
sances continue to be a part of the
religious services of Spiritualist, Spiritist,
and Espiritismo churches today, where a
greater emphasis is placed on spiritual
values versus showmanship.[4][5]

Varieties of sance
The term sance is used in a few different
ways, and can refer to any of four different
activities, each with its own social norms
and conventions, its own favoured tools,
and its own range of expected outcomes.

Religious sances

In the religion of Spiritualism, and the

religion of Divine Metaphysics (a federally
recognized religious branch out of
Spiritualism in the United States), it is
generally a part of services to
communicate with living personalities in
the spirit world. Usually, this is only called
"sance" by outsiders; the preferred term
for Spiritualists is "receiving messages". In
these sessions, which generally take place
in well-lit Spiritualist churches or outdoors
at Spiritualist camps (such as Lily Dale in
upstate New York or Camp Cassadaga in
Florida), an ordained minister or gifted
contact medium will relate messages
from spirit personalities to those here in
the physical form.[4] Generally Spiritualist
"message services" or "demonstrations of
the continuity of life" are open to the
public. Sometimes the medium stands to
receive messages and only the sitter is
seated;[6] in some churches, the message
service is preceded by a "healing service"
involving some form of faith healing.[7]


Black Hawk

In addition to communicating with the

spirits of people who have a personal
relationship to congregants, some
Spiritual Churches also deal with spirits
who may have a specic relationship to
the medium or a historic relationship to
the body of the church. An example of the
latter is the spirit of Black Hawk, a Native
American warrior of the Fox tribe who
lived during the 19th century. Black Hawk
was a spirit who was often contacted by
the Spiritualist medium Leafy Anderson
and he remains the central focus of
special services in the African American
Spiritual Churches that she founded.[5]

In the Latin American religion of

Espiritismo, which somewhat resembles
Spiritualism, sance sessions in which
congregants communicate with spirits are
called misas (literally "masses"). The
spirits contacted in Espiritismo are often
those of ancestors or Catholic saints.


Paschal Beverly Randolph

Stage mediumship sances

Mediums who contact spirits of the dead

or other spirits while on a stage, with
audience members seated before them,
are not literally holding a sance, because
they themselves are not seated; however,
this is still called "sance". One of the
foremost early practitioners of this type of
contact with the dead was Paschal
Beverly Randolph, who worked with the
spirits of the relatives of audience
members, but was also famed for his
ability to contact and deliver messages
from ancient seers and philosophers, such
as Plato.[8]

Leader-assisted sances

Leader-assisted sances are generally

conducted by small groups of people, with
participants seated around a table in a
dark or semi-dark room. The leader is
typically asserted to be a medium and he
or she may go into a trance that
theoretically allows the spirits to
communicate through his or her body,
conveying messages to the other
participants. Other modes of
communication may also be attempted,
including psychography or automatic
writing, numbered raps, levitation of the
table or of spirit trumpets, apports, or even
smell.

This is the type of sance that is most

often the subject of shock and scandal
when it turns out that the leader is
practicing some form of stage magic
illusion or using mentalism tricks to
defraud clients.

Informal social sances

Among those with an interest in the

occult, a tradition has grown up of
conducting sances outside of any
religious context and without a leader.
Sometimes only two or three people are
involved, and, if they are young, they may
be using the sance as a way to test their
understanding of the boundaries between
reality and the paranormal. It is in such
small sances that the planchette and
ouija board are most often utilized.[9]
Spiritualist Seance

Here spiritualists and practitioners

(psychic and mediums) hold a seance so
that all participants speak with various
personalities in the spirit world. This held
in a seating manner in a circle.

Sance tools and techniques

Mediumship, trance, and
channeling


The fraud medium Eva Carrire in a sance with

cardboard cut out gure of King Ferdinand of Bulgaria.

Mediumship involves an act where the

practitioner attempts to receive messages
from spirits of the dead and from other
spirits that the practitioner believes exist.
Some self-ordained mediums are fully
conscious and awake while functioning as
contacts; others may slip into a partial or
full trance or into an altered state of
consciousness. These self-called "trance-
mediums" often state that, when they
emerge from the trance state, they have
no recollection of the messages they
conveyed; it is customary for such
practitioners to work with an assistant
who writes down or otherwise records
their words.[10]

Spirit boards, talking boards,

and Ouija boards

Spirit boards, also known as talking

boards, or Ouija boards (after a well-
known brand name) are flat tablets,
typically made of wood, Masonite,
chipboard, or plastic. On the board are a
number of symbols, pictures, letters,
numbers and/or words. The board is
accompanied by a planchette (French for
"little board"), which can take the form of a
pointer on three legs or magnifying glass
on legs; homemade boards may employ a
shot glass as a planchette. A most basic
Ouija board would contain simply the
alphabet of whatever country the board is
being used in, although it is not
uncommon for whole words to be
added.[11]

The board is used as follows: One to all of

the participants in the sance place one or
two ngers on the planchette which is in
the middle of the board. The appointed
medium asks questions of the spirit(s)
with whom they are attempting to
communicate.[12]

Trumpets, slates, tables, and

cabinets

During the latter half of the 19th century, a

number of Spiritualist mediums began to
advocate the use of specialized tools for
conducting sances, particularly in leader-
assisted sessions conducted in darkened
rooms. "Spirit trumpets" were horn-shaped
speaking tubes that were said to magnify
the whispered voices of spirits to audible
range. "Spirit slates" consisted of two
chalkboards bound together that, when
opened, were said to reveal messages
written by spirits. "Sance tables" were
special light-weight tables which were
said to rotate, float, or levitate when spirits
were present. "Spirit cabinets" were
portable closets into which mediums were
placed, often bound with ropes, in order to
prevent them from manipulating the
various aforementioned tools.

Critical objections


A poster for an early 20th century stage show from

Houdini, advertised as proving that spirits do not return

Scientic skeptics and atheists generally

consider both religious and secular
sances to be scams, or at least a form of
pious fraud, citing a lack of empirical
evidence.[13] The exposure of supposed
mediums whose use of sance tools
derived from the techniques of stage
magic has been disturbing to many
believers in spirit communication. In
particular, the 1870s exposures of the
Davenport Brothers as illusionists and the
1887 report of the Seybert Commission[3]
brought an end to the rst historic phase
of Spiritualism. Stage magicians like John
Nevil Maskelyne and Harry Houdini made
a side-line of exposing fraudulent
mediums during the late 19th and early
20th centuries. In 1976, M. Lamar Keene
described deceptive techniques that he
himself had used in sances; however, in
the same book, Keene also stated that he
still had a rm belief in God, life after
death, ESP, and other psychic
phenomena.[14] In his 2004 television
special Seance, magician Derren Brown
held a sance and afterwards described
some of the tricks used by him (and 19th-
century mediums) to create the illusion of
paranormal events.

Critics of channelingincluding both

skeptics and believersstate that since
the most commonly reported physical
manifestations of channeling are an
unusual vocal pattern or abnormal overt
behaviors of the medium, it can be quite
easily faked by anyone with theatrical
talent.[14] Critics of spirit board
communication techniquesagain
including both skeptics and believers
state that the premise that a spirit will
move the planchette and spell out
messages using the symbols on the board
is undermined by the fact that several
people have their hands on the planchette,
which allows any of them to spell out
anything they want without the others
knowing. They claim that this is a
common trick, used on occasions such as
teenage sleepover parties, to scare the
people present.

Another criticism of spirit board

communication involves what is called the
ideomotor effect which has been
suggested as an automatism, or
subconscious mechanism, by which a
Ouija-user's mind unknowingly guides his
hand upon the planchette, hence he will
honestly believe he is not moving it, when,
in fact, he is.[15] This theory rests on the
embedded premise that human beings
actually have a "subconscious mind," a
belief not held by all.[16]

The exposures of fraud by tool-using

mediums have had two divergent results:
skeptics have used historic exposures as
a frame through which to view all spirit
mediumship as inherently fraudulent,[13]
while believers have tended to eliminate
the use of tools but continued to practice
mediumship in full condence of its
spiritual value to them.[4][5]

Jews and Christians are taught that it is

sinful to attempt to conjure or control
spirits in accordance with Deuteronomy
XVIII: 912.[17][18]

Psychology
Research in anomalistic psychology has
revealed the role of suggestion in
seances. In a series of fake seance
experiments (Wiseman et al. 2003)
paranormal believers and disbelievers
were suggested by an actor that a table
was levitating when, in fact, it remained
stationary. After the seance,
approximately one third of the participants
incorrectly reported that the table had
moved. The results showed a greater
percentage of believers reporting that the
table had moved. In another experiment
the believers had also reported that a
handbell had moved when it had remained
stationary and expressed their belief that
the fake seances contained genuine
paranormal phenomena. The experiments
strongly supported the notion that in the
seance room, believers are more
suggestible than disbelievers for
suggestions that are consistent with their
belief in paranormal phenomena.[19]
Notable sance mediums,
attendees, and debunkers
Mediums

Cora Scott Hatch

Popular 19th century trance medium

lecturers include Cora Scott Hatch, Achsa
W. Sprague, Emma Hardinge Britten
(18231899), and Paschal Beverly
Randolph (18251875).

Among the notable people who conducted

small leader-assisted sances during the
19th century were the Fox sisters, whose
activities included table-rapping, and the
Davenport Brothers, who were famous for
the spirit cabinet work. Both the Foxes and
the Davenports were eventually exposed
as frauds.[20][21][22]

In the 20th century, notable trance

mediums also include Edgar Cayce and
Arthur Ford.

Attendees
Notable people who have attended
sances and professed a belief in
Spiritualism include the social reformer
Robert Owen; the journalist and pacist
William T. Stead;[23] William Lyon
Mackenzie King, the Prime Minister of
Canada for 22 years, who sought spiritual
contact and political guidance from his
deceased mother, his pet dogs, and the
late US President Franklin D. Roosevelt;[24]
the journalist and author Lloyd Kenyon
Jones; and the physician and author
Arthur Conan Doyle.[25]
Scientists who have conducted a search
for real sances and believed that contact
with the dead is a reality include the
chemist William Crookes,[26] the
evolutionary biologist Alfred Russel
Wallace,[27] the inventor of radio Guglielmo
Marconi, the inventor of telephone
Alexander Graham Bell, and the inventor
of television technology John Logie Baird,
who claimed to have contacted the spirit
of the inventor Thomas Edison.[28]

Debunkers

Among the best-known exposers of

fraudulent mediumship acts have been
the researchers Frank Podmore of the
Society for Psychical Research, Harry
Price of the National Laboratory of
Psychical Research, the professional
stage magicians John Nevil Maskelyne[29]
(who exposed the Davenport Brothers)
and Harry Houdini, who clearly stated that
he did not oppose the religion of
Spiritualism itself, but only the trickery by
phony mediums that was being practiced
in the name of the religion.[30]

The psychical researcher Hereward

Carrington exposed the tricks of
fraudulent mediums such as those used
in slate-writing, table-turning, trumpet
mediumship, materializations, sealed-
letter reading and spirit photography.[31]
The skeptic Joseph McCabe documented
many mediums who had been caught in
fraud and the tricks they used in his book
Is Spiritualism Based on Fraud? (1920).[32]

Magicians have a long history of exposing

the fraudulent methods of mediumship.
Early debunkers included Chung Ling Soo,
Henry Evans and Julien Proskauer.[33]
Later magicians to reveal fraud were
Fulton Oursler, Joseph Dunninger, and
Joseph Rinn.[34] The researchers Trevor H.
Hall and Gordon Stein have documented
the trickery of the medium Daniel Dunglas
Home.[35][36] Tony Cornell exposed a
number of fraudulent mediums including
Rita Goold and Alec Harris.[37]

See also
List of topics characterized as
pseudoscience

References
1. Lyttleton, George; Montegue, Eizabeth
(1760). Dialogues with the Dead . London: W.
Sandby.
2. "Telegrams from the Dead" . Public
Broadcasting Service (PBS). 1994.
3. Preliminary Report of the Commission
Appointed by the University of
Pennsylvania , The Seybert Commission,
1887. 1 April 2004.
4. Wicker, Christine (2003). Lily Dale: The
True Story of the Town that Talks to the
Dead. HarperCollins. ISBN9780060086664.
5. Barry, Jason (1995). The Spirit of Black
Hawk: A Mystery of Africans and Indians.
University Press of Mississippi. ISBN0-
87805-806-0.
6. "Sunday Afternoon Message Service at
Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp." . Retrieved
November 25, 2007.
7. "Sunday Services are held at the Healing
Temple on East Street in Lily Dale." .
Retrieved November 25, 2007.
8. Deveney, John Patrick (1996). Paschal
Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth-Century
Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and
Sex Magician. State University of New York
Press. ISBN9780791431207.
9. Brown, Slater, The Heyday of Spiritualism.
New York: Hawthorn Books. 1970.
10. God's World: A Treatise on Spiritualism
Founded on Transcripts of Shorthand Notes
Taken Down, Over a Period of Five Years, in
the Seance-Room of the William T. Stead
Memorial Center (a Religious Body
Incorporated Under the Statutes of the State
of Illinois), Mrs. Cecil M. Cook, Medium and
Pastor. Compiled and Written by Lloyd
Kenyon Jones. Chicago, Ill.: The William T.
Stead Memorial Center, 1919.
11. "The Museum of Talking Boards, a photo-
gallery of historical and contemporary spirit
boards and planchettes" .
Museumoftalkingboards.com. Retrieved 22
July 2009.
12. Cumerlato, Daniel. "How to use the Ouija
Board - A guide to the safe use of this
ancient device" . Ghost Walks. Retrieved 19
July 2014.
13. Randi, James; Clarke, Arthur C. (1997).
An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and
Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural . St.
Martin's Press. ISBN9780312151195.
Retrieved 30 July 2012.
14. Keene, M. Lamar (1997). The Psychic
Maa. Prometheus Books.
ISBN9781573921619.
15. Wegner, Daniel (2002). The Illusion of
Conscious Will. MIT Press. pp.99102.
ISBN0-262-73162-2.
16. Carroll, Robert, Todd, The Skeptic's
Dictionary "The unconscious or
subconscious mind, according to classical
Freudian psychoanalysis, is a 'part' of the
mind that stores repressed memories. [...]
However, there is no scientic evidence (for)
unconscious repression [...] The
unconscious mind is also thought by some,
such as Jung and Tart, to be a reservoir of
transcendent truths. There is no scientic
evidence that this is true." Retrieved Nov 25
2007.
17. "Do You Believe in Ghosts?" . Catholic
Exchange. Retrieved 2010-03-27. Ghosts
can come to us for good, but we must not
attempt to conjure or control spirits.
18. Klein, Michele (2003-06-30). Not to worry:
Jewish wisdom and folklore . Jewish
Publication Society. ISBN978-0-8276-0753-
8. Retrieved 2010-03-27. Jews have
sometimes engaged in conjuring spirits
when worried, even though the Bible
prohibits this behavior.
19. Wiseman, R., Greening, E., and Smith, M.
(2003). Belief in the paranormal and
suggestion in the seance room . British
Journal of Psychology, 94 (3): 285-297.
20. Podmore, Frank. (2011, originally
published in 1902). Modern Spiritualism: A
History and a Criticism. Cambridge
University Press. p. 188. ISBN 978-1-108-
07257-1 "In the autumn of 1888 Mrs. Kane
(Margaretta Fox) and Mrs. Jencken
(Catherine Fox) made public, and apparently
spontaneous, confession, that the raps had
been produced by fraudulent means. Mrs.
Kane even gave demonstrations before large
audiences of the actual manner in which the
toe joints had been used at the early
seances. Mrs. Jencken, at any rate, if not
also Mrs. Kane, afterwards recanted her
confession."
21. Lehman, Amy. (2009). Victorian Women
and the Theatre of Trance: Mediums,
Spiritualists and Mesmerists in
Performance. McFarland. p. 87. ISBN 978-0-
7864-3479-4 "By the 1880s, Maggie, like her
sister Kate who was now widowed after
losing her English husband Jenckens, had
become a full-blown alcoholic. In 1888, the
sisters confessed that they had faked the
ghostly rapping which precipitated the age of
spirit contact. They claimed to have
produced knocking sounds by manipulating
and cracking the joints in their feet and
knees. For a while they made money giving
lectures about this "deathblow" to
Spiritualism. However, before she died,
Maggie recanted the confession, and Kate
began conveying spirit messages to close
friends once again. Ultimately, trance
mediumship brought the sisters neither
wealth nor happiness. Both died in penurious
circumstances, essentially drinking
themselves to death."
22. Christopher, Milbourne. (1990 edition,
originally published in 1962). Magic: A
Picture History. Dover Publications. p. 99.
ISBN 0-486-26373-8 "The Davenports were
exposed many times, not only by magicians
but by scientists and college students. The
latter ignited matches in the dark. The
flickering flames disclosed the brothers, with
their arms free, waving the instruments
which until then had seemed to be floating.
The exposures had little effect on that
segment of the public which chose to believe
the manifestations were genuine. They
closed their minds to the truth and sat in
awe, sure that spirits had been conjured up
in their presence."
23. " ''Stead on Spiritualism'' at The William T.
Stead Resource Site" .
Attackingthedevil.co.uk. Retrieved 22 July
2009.
24. Levine, Allan (2011). King: William Lyon
Mackenzie King: a Life Guided by the Hand
of Destiny . Vancouver, British Columbia:
Douglas & McIntyre. pp.214. ISBN978-1-
5536-5560-2.
25. Doyle, Arthur Conan. The History of
Spiritualism Vol I , 1926.
26. Hall, Trevor H. (1963). The spiritualists:
the story of Florence Cook and William
Crookes. Helix Press.
27. Wallace, Alfred Russel (1866). "The
Scientic Aspect of the Supernatural" .
Wku.edu. Retrieved 22 July 2009.
28. Goff, Hannah (30 August 2005). "Science
and the Seance" . BBC News. Retrieved 22
July 2009.
29. Jim Steinmeyer (2005). Hiding the
Elephant. Arrow. pp.9596. ISBN0-09-
947664-9.
30. Harry Houdini: A biographical essay by
staff at the Appleton Public Library based
primarily on material provided in the
biography Harry Houdini by Adam Woog
(Lucent Books, 1995) : "Houdini so strongly
opposed the phony spiritualists that he
testied against them before a committee of
Congress. 'Please understand that,
emphatically, I am not attacking a religion,'
he said. 'I respect every genuine believer in
spiritualism or any other religion ... But this
thing they call spiritualism, wherein a
medium intercommunicates with the dead, is
a fraud from start to nish ... In thirty-ve
years, I have never seen one genuine
medium.'"
31. Hereward Carrington. (1907). The
Physical Phenomena of Spiritualism. Herbert
B. Turner & Co.
32. Joseph McCabe. (1920). Is Spiritualism
based on Fraud?: The Evidence Given by Sir
A.C. Doyle and Others Drastically Examined.
London: Watts & Co.
33. Chung Ling Soo. (1898). Spirit Slate
Writing and Kindred Phenomena. Munn &
Company. Henry Evans. (1897). Hours With
the Ghosts Or Nineteenth Century Witchcraft.
Kessinger Publishing. Julien Proskauer.
(1932). Spook crooks! Exposing the secrets
of the prophet-eers who conduct our
wickedest industry. New York, A. L. Burt.
34. Fulton Oursler. (1930). Spirit Mediums
Exposed. New York: Macfadden
Publications. Joseph Dunninger. (1935).
Inside the Medium's Cabinet. New York, D.
Kemp and Company. Joseph Rinn. (1950).
Sixty Years Of Psychical Research: Houdini
And I Among The Spiritualists. Truth Seeker.
35. Trevor H. Hall. (1984). The Enigma of
Daniel Home: Medium or Fraud?.
Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-0879752361
36. Gordon Stein. (1993). The Sorcerer of
Kings: The Case of Daniel Dunglas Home and
William Crookes. Prometheus Books. ISBN 0-
87975-863-5
37. Tony Cornell. (2002). Investigating the
Paranormal. Helix Press New York. pp. 400-
414. ISBN 978-0912328980

Further reading
 Charles Richet. (1923). Thirty Years of
Psychical Research being a Treatise on
Metaphysics. New York, The Macmillan
Company. ISBN 0766142191
Arthur Conan Doyle. (1975). The History
of Spiritualism, Volumes I and II. New York,
Arno Press. ISBN 9780405070259
Ruth Brandon. (1983). The Spiritualists:
The Passion for the Occult in the Nineteenth
and Twentieth Centuries. Alfred E. Knopf.
ISBN 978-0394527406
Edward Clodd. (1917). The Question: A
Brief History and Examination of Modern
Spiritualism . Grant Richards, London.
 Joseph Dunninger. (1935). Inside the
Medium's Cabinet . New York, D. Kemp and
Company.
Amy Lehman. (2009). Victorian Women
and the Theatre of Trance: Mediums,
Spiritualists and Mesmerists in
Performance. McFarland. ISBN 978-
0786434794
Walter Mann. (1919). The Follies and
Frauds of Spiritualism . Rationalist
Association. London: Watts & Co.
Joseph McCabe. (1920). Is Spiritualism
Based On Fraud? The Evidence Given By Sir
A. C. Doyle and Others Drastically
Examined . London: Watts & Co.

External links
External links
Look up sance in Wiktionary, the free

dictionary.

A Sance Procedure (courtesy of the

Other World Society)
Other World Society
Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp
Physical Mediumship today: The home
of the "Yellow Cloud Circle of Eternal
Illumination" . Information, Seance
recordings and testimonials.
National Spiritualist Association of
Churches
 eLibrary of ancient books on the
subject of spiritualism, sances,
development of mediumship in the
Western and Oriental Traditions

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