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PROP SEANCES

There are two different types of seances that magicians do. Both are meant to show that spiritualists and mediums are not actually speaking to the dead.

"Real" Seances are just that, an attempt - using means dictated by mediums and spiritualists - to contact Houdini. Prop seances are similar to the seances done by magicians (including Houdini) for entertainment. They are meant to entertain but it is understood that the effects being shown are magician effects and not really Houdini or any other disembodied spirit making a visit.

This section deals Prop Seances. For those who would like to do a seance like this you might enjoy taking a look at some of the effects by Abbott's magic that have been specifically selected for the prop seance magician.

To do a prop seance (rather than a magic show), the idea is to create a seance atmosphere. Dim the lights, have candles lit, use an old creepy table, add in some quality Abbott props (see above links in the 5 sub-categories), and you will be well on your way to creating a seance show that they will remember.

Since this is going to mimic the seances of the Houdini era, probably a good place to start would be to take a look at how those fraudulent mediums of the past did their performances. These fraudulent mediums did their act to such a degree that their seances and visitations were considered real. They did not have the advantages of modern magic props such was what we have today, yet they were convincing. Below is a description of what it was like to perform a Houdini seance in the Houdini era. These mediums were truly the first to do a prop seance and many did it without props, just ingenuity and creativity.

The Traditional Blackout Seance

In the blackout seance, the medium is in complete control of the situation and whether or not her guests realize it, they are being manipulated from the start. As the seance guests enter the home or working area of the medium, they are greeted and pleasant conversation exchanged through an agent, assistant or "greeter" of the medium. The medium may do this themselves if working alone but most of the time someone else does this as the medium "meditates" in another room. The purpose of the greeter and the conversation is to gather information and also to determine the type of personalities for the seance so that they can be seated accordingly. The most receptive guests will be close to the medium, while the skeptical guest will be at a distance from the medium. The "why" of this will be explained in a moment.

The guests are then led into the seance room with a round table in the center of the room. The table has various props on it such as a tambourine, a trumpet, a bell, and anything else the medium might be prepared to use in the seance. The table is usually illuminated with a lit candle at the center. The medium will be seated, and the guest will join her sitting around the table in the order the medium directs (different excuses will be given for the seating arrangements such as a man/woman rotation or a certain number of male & female positions, etc).

Once the guests are seated the rules of the seance are given. There will be no talking unless directed by the medium, this includes whispering as it will disrupt the spirits. There will be no light including matches or (in more modern times) flashlights as that will disrupt the spirits. All persons seated at the table will hold their hands palm down on the table in front of them. Their fingers will be spread wide and the thumbs on their right hand and left hand must be touching. The little fingers of each hand must be touching the little fingers of each person next to them so that a circle is creating. It is very important that this circle is not broken! Once all the guests are seated properly and a correct circle of hands has been formed, the medium will begin to meditate. It is at this point that the seance may go in different directions depending on the mediums method of freeing up a hand for it is the mediums hand that will produce the spirits and the supernatural activity on the table.

The medium will ask the person to her right to blow out the candle at the table center. The table is sufficiently wide so that the guest will have to stand up and lean forward to blow out the candle which will temporarily break the contact with the medium's hand in order to reach the center of the table. The medium keeps her hands stationary until the lights are off. Once the light is off, the medium removes her right hand and as the guest goes back into their sitting position, they will search with their hand to try and find the mediums hand and will end up touching the mediums left hand rather than the right. Since it is pitch dark, this goes unnoticed by everyone at the table. The medium's hand now being free, the medium will be able to pick up some of the props in front of her on the table, and also reach for some hidden ones under the table.

Another method of the medium to free a hand, or a second hand, is to convulse as the medium meditates, when this happens the circle is broken and the guests on each side will extend their fingers outward in the darkness, eventually reaching the mediums left hand, or - if the medium wants both hands free - the guest's hand on the mediums other side. Due to it being completely dark (absolutely no light, the medium cannot allow anyone to see anything in the dark), the seance participants have no perspective when replacing their hand to complete the circle and the mediums moves will be undetected.

A third method of the medium to free a hand is to have a confederate sitting next to the medium during the seance. With the confederate in place the medium is free to break the circle at any time with the confederate Now there is truly an unseen spirit in the seance room that will cause all sorts of manifestations to take place and it is the mediums free right hand. The medium has taken away the guests vision with the darkness and has taken away their sense of touch by the joining of the hands across the table. The medium should be undetected if the guests follow the rules. This is why skeptics are put further away from the medium than believers. A skeptic might simply reach with their hands when the manifestations begin and expose the medium if they were close. Being at a distance, the medium will have ample warning if a skeptic is trying anything "against the rules".

The trumpet is the most significant tool for voice communication. It is a cylinder that is wide at one end and extremely narrow at the other. Once the lights are off, the trumpet will be seen (thanks to a bit of luminous paint) to be floating around the table. The medium is doing this with the free arm of course and the medium will keep the wide end closest to themselves because they have to use their hand inside the wide end so that it does not block the luminous paint on the outside of the trumpet. Hollow and distant voices can be heard, this is the medium speaking into the wide end of the trumpet and the sound comes out the narrow end usually a few inches from the mediums target of the message (i.e. a dead husband speaking to a wife, a dead child speaking to a mother, etc).

The tambourine will shake, and spirit rapping will take place as the medium communicates with the dead. One rap for yes, two raps for no. Of course, everything that happens is a result of the medium's free hand(s). Additional hidden props that telescope outward actually touch the spectators may be used, or the telescoping props may be used to float a luminous item well over the heads of the seance guests. It is truly up to the medium at this point. At some time during the seance, the guest who is trying to contact a deceased person is allowed to ask questions. The response can be raps, or with the trumpet, or with the assistant greeters voice who is hiding in the room. The rule of thumb is to give the guests the answer they want to hear, such as the deceased one is doing fine on the other side, and they will meet again someday.

Once the questions are answered, the medium needs to decide if the seance participant is satisfied with the answer, or if a more personal appearance is needed. If the medium decides to come out of her trance - usually with a shudder to get the mediums hands back into position. the lights are turned on, and the seance concludes with the now exhausted medium being escorted from the room by assistants. This is to prevent further questions from the guests to the medium. Should the medium determine more is need, the medium may go to the full manifestation.

seances with full manifestations appearing (confederates dressed in luminous clothing or luminous cheese cloth on a wire) could get elaborate. These larger manifestations were dangerous because it made it easier to expose the mediums should the manifestation be grabbed or a light shown on them. Because of this sometimes the confederates would sometimes use heavy black material with a luminous spirit painted on one side and blank on the other side. This gave the confederate a buffer away from the seance participants and the spirit could vanish instantly by simply turning the black material around so that the luminous side was now away from the seance participants. A very unusual effect is created by rolling the spirit with the glowing side to the audience, creating the effect of the ghost vanishing in sections.

The appearance of a full body spirit would generally be the grand finale to the seance. One today might ask how seance participants could be fooled by such simple props with luminous paint. They were fooled because the mediums greatest weapon was that their guests wanted to believe, otherwise as Houdini and Thurston and every other magician of the era said, they are just cheap parlor tricks.

There you have a pretty good description of the atmosphere you want to generate at your seance. If you wish to use some of the old stunts the fraudulent mediums did it could be a real fun time. One item that works against this is that to completely kill all the lights is prohibited in most places and the mediums needed total darkness. With that in mind, you might want to look at the props in the sub-categories above which also includes special effects, books, and downloads along with the high end and standard props.