Anatomy of a Seance: A History of Spirit Communication in Central Canada (Volume 28)

by Stanley Edward McMullin

Spiritualism came up several times in McMullin's (Canadian cultural studies, Carleton U.) research on other topics, and like any reputable academic, he brushed it away for many years. But when he discovered the papers of the Church of Divine Revelation, he surrendered to the inevitable. Then a group of Kitchener residents provided him with over 100,000 feet of audiotape recording about five years of seances in the early 1960s. Distributed in the US by Cornell U. Press Service. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Genres: Canada

288 pages, Paperback

First published March 19, 2004

Reviews

[Dasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

McMullin does an excellent job dissecting the culture and experiences of those Canadians who participated in seances in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. He highlights how at this point individuals blurred the line between spiritualism and Christianity, with many Christian churches seeing the behaviour as unorthodox, thus driving spiritualism into the margins of Canadian society. Despite this, some formed formal structures around seances such as the Lacey Group. As well, seances further blurred the line between science and religion. McMullin does an excellent job focusing on individuals and their experiences with seances, and Canada's broader culture that limited it's existence. The highlight was the lengthy quotes from directly from the primary sources which allow the reader to understand how seances were experienced and further recorded. I wish McMullin spent more time discussing the connection seances had to Indigenous spirituality and how that related to settler religiosity. Regardless, a worthwhile read on spirituality in Canada.

[Oliver Ho · Rating 3 out of 5]

Primarily a historical survey of documents related to spiritualism in Ontario and the prairie provinces, from the early 19th to the early-mid 20th century. The subject matter is fascinating, and if I were writing a story about it, this would be excellent resource material--lots of quotes and good details. Overall, the book was just-okay. The author accepts the reality of paranormal activities too much, and it feels like he uses that belief (it really happened! ooo...) to jazz things up. It gets repetitive, the descriptions of seance after seance. I used to read a lot of books about magicians and magic tricks when I was younger, and the ones from this period were full of explanations of how people faked the goings-on at seances and the like. It would have been refreshing if the author had explored some of that history (the early networks that existed in the spiritualist communities to circulate information about people that could be 'revealed' during a seance, for example). He does offer some interesting insights into why spiritualism became so popular and held such a strong grip on the culture for over a century. I liked the detail that in the aftermath of WWI, so many people had lost friends and loved one that there was a clamouring for proof that people never actually went away when they died.