History Main / SpookySeance

* ''The Haunting in Connecticut'' features one character's psychic flashbacks to a séance that took place in the HauntedHouse long ago, in which an adolescent boy channels ectoplasm from his mouth.

* In ''The Uninvited'' (1944), Rick (Ray Milland again!) stages a phony séance to convince Stella that her dead mom wants her to leave the house, only to have Mom ([[spoiler: her real mom, that is!]]) actually show up and explain that she's trying to protect the girl. We see in this picture the old-time spelling glass, a homemade device which was eventually replaced by the Ouija board.

* ''Film/TheOthers'' has one. [[spoiler:The protagonists are being contacted by the very much alive new residents of their house.]]

* ''Literature/SimonArk'': In "A Sword for the Sinner", Simon holds a seance in which he impersonates the voice of the dead man to spook the killer into revealing themselves.

* ''Literature/SimonArk'': In "A Sword for the Sinner", Simon holds a seance in which he impersonate in which he impersonates the voice of the dead man to spook the killer into revealing themselves.

* ''Literature/Simon Ark'': In "A Sword for the Sinner", Simon holds a seance in which he impersonate in which he impersonates the voice of the dead man to spook the killer into revealing themselves.

** On the episode "[[Recap/SouthParkS17E4GothKids3DawnOfThePosers Goth Kids 3: Dawn Of The Posers]]", the Goth Kids hold a séance to summon the ghost of Creator/EdgarAllanPoe, who [[RunningGag assume that Goths and emos as the same]] and irritate the Goth and Emo kids.

* ''ComicBook/GhostIsland'': Issue #1 begins with Josh holding a seance with a family to contact their dead son, Tommy. When the father, Brian, gets involved, it's revealed that he is Tommy's killer.
* ''ComicBook/{{Necronauts}}'': Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is part of a seance in London when the summoner is possessed by the [[EldritchAbomination Sleepers in the Void]] and [[TearOffYourFace rips his own face off]]. This is a sign to Arthur that he needs to help his friend Houdini.

* Subverted in the ''Series/{{Angel}}'' episode "[[Recap/AngelS05E04HellBound Hell Bound]]" when the Wolfram & Hart psychic is called in to clear their HauntedHeadquarters. She turns out to be a pretty blonde griping about missing her pilates class, who says she's going to "mutter a few calming words" to set the mood. When Fred asks if they should be HoldingHands she replies, "Only if you're lonely. Now, zip it and let me do my sweet funky." Then it gets creepy when she starts [[PsychicNosebleed bleeding from the nose]] and [[YourHeadAsplode her head explodes]].

* In ''Series/TheSuiteLifeOfZackAndCody'' episode "[[Recap/TheSuiteLifeOfZackAndCodyS1E19TheGhostInSuite613 The Ghost in Suite 613]]", the cast investigates a purportedly haunted room in the Tipton and attempt to contact the ghost of a woman who died in there. It takes a spooky turn when the cast minus Zack disappears during the seance and Zack gets scared out of his mind, however it's later revealed to be nothing but a prank on him in revenge for all the pranks he's pulled.

* ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaV3KillingHarmony'': In Chapter 3, a seance is held by the students in an effort to determine who killed the latest victim. [[spoiler: It goes awry when the spirit medium gets killed too.]]

* There is one in ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode "Closure" in which Mulder finds out what happened to his sister Samantha. In the middle of searching for a missing little girl (not Samantha), Mulder encounters a self-professed psychic, who claims that both girls were taken by "walk-ins" (read: killed) to save them from a horrible fate on Earth.[[note]]They did get that right. A walk-in is a spirit who enters the body of a living child or adult, sometimes to save them from abuse, and thereafter [[TheMasquerade pretends to be that person]]. The original soul may go on to heaven, return later, or stay around [[SharingABody forming a cooperative team]]. Many quite sane, rational people who are not at all into "spiritual" things have reported having this experience.[[/note]] This psychic begins to have visions of Samantha, as Mulder is tracing her whereabouts after her abduction, and holds the séance to help Mulder find resolution with what happened to her. The séance is successful, leading to a touching scene between Mulder and [[spoiler:Samantha, who is revealed to be dead.]] However, being Mulder and Scully, the scene could not escape the show's habitual deadpan snark:

* After having accidentally received a MacGuffin from a Nazi spy posing as a FortuneTeller in ''Film/MinistryOfFear'', Ray Milland traces the fortune teller to London. He finds a completely different woman by that same name, who works as a medium, and promptly joins her spooky séance. Just as the medium is uttering some things that make Stephen really uncomfortable, a shot rings out, and Stephen is framed for murder.

* In ''The Uninvited'' (1944), Rick stages a phony séance to convince Stella that her dead mom wants her to leave the house, only to have Mom ([[spoiler: her real mom, that is!]]) actually show up and explain that she's trying to protect the girl. We see in this picture the old-time spelling glass, a homemade device which was eventually replaced by the Ouija board.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/spooky_seance.jpg]]

* ''Film/Mortuary1983'': Christine and Greg find Mr. Andrews and his female friends holding a seance in the mortuary, trying to contact the spirit of Christine's father.

* In a NoodleIncident from Creator/TimPowers' ''Literature/TheAnubisGates'', a séance was being conducted at the site of one of the gaps in time. As these gaps cause magic to start working in their vicinity, this séance presumably got results; just ''what'' result, no one knows, as the participants were all found dead the next day, sitting around their ouija board with horrified looks on their faces.

* Angela in Creator/ShirleyJackson's never-finished ''Come Along With Me'' is a (real) medium. However, because the spirits tend to come to her at random, she isn't always sure that when she holds an actual sit-down seance she's going to be able to talk to the sitters' loved ones. Their messages don't fit the sitters' preconceived notions either, and they leave unsatisfied.

* ''Literature/TheTimeOfTheGhost'' by Creator/DianaWynneJones has a scene where the Ghost tries to get through to her sisters while they're messing around with a ouija board. She has trouble making the board say what she wants, partly because one of the living participants is surreptitiously steering it to say something else.

* There is one in ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode "Closure" in which Mulder finds out what happened to his sister Samantha. In the middle of searching for a missing little girl (not Samantha), Mulder encounters a self-professed psychic, who claims that both girls were taken by "walk-ins" (read: killed) to save them from a horrible fate on Earth.[[note]]They did get that right. A walk-in is a spirit who enters the body of a living child or adult, sometimes to save them from abuse, and thereafter [[TheMasquerade pretends to be that person]]. The original soul may go on to heaven, return later, or stay around [[SharingABody forming a cooperative team]]. Many quite sane, rational people who are not at all into "spiritual" things have reported having this experience.[[/note]] This psychic begins to have visions of Samantha, as Mulder is tracing her whereabouts after her abduction, and holds the séance to help Mulder find resolution with what happened to her. The seance is successful, leading to a touching scene between Mulder and [[spoiler:Samantha, who is revealed to be dead.]] However, being Mulder and Scully, the scene could not escape the show's habitual deadpan snark:

* ''VideoGame/DarkFall: The Journal'': Jonathan Boakes's previous game, includes a ouija board through which you can ask ghosts questions.

* ''[[VideoGame/TheRoomMobileGame The Room 2]]'' devoted an entire chapter of puzzles to this concept. You end up in the room of a PhonyPsychic who decided it was RealAfterAll and then conducted a seance that probably [[GoneHorriblyWrong went horribly wrong]]. The medium herself isn't present, but a box and cards used in her rituals is there, [[spoiler: as is a letter scolding her for leaving her accomplice out of her latest scam]]. As you solve the puzzles, flickering lights and flying objects let you know when you've hit a solution.

* Today's Spiritualist environments and practices are [[https://hyperallergic.com/365338/shannon-taggart-seance-spiritualist-ritual-and-the-search-for-ectoplasm/ documented by photographer Shannon Taggert]]. Her forthcoming book is called ''Seance: Spiritualist Ritual and the Search for Ectoplasm''. [[https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/bjnmbd/haunting-photos-from-the-worlds-largest-spiritualist-community Here, she gives more details about her work and a little history.]] Christine Wicker's ''Lily Dale'' tells the story of the oldest Spiritualist camp town.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' had these in "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS2E19IOnlyHaveEyesForYou I Only Have Eyes For You]]" to exorcise the school from a school ghost who shot his teacher before he met his demise and "[[Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS4E18WhereTheWildThingsAre Where the Wild Things Are]]" to exorcise the Lowell House from the LivingMemory spirits created from the orphans' negative emotions.

* ''[[VideoGame/TheRoomMobileGame The Room 2]]'' devoted an entire chapter of puzzles to this concept. You end up in the room of a PhonyPsychic who decided it was RealAfterAll and then conducted a seance that probably [[GoneHorriblyWrong went horribly wrong]]. As you solve the puzzles, flickering lights and flying objects let you know when you've hit a solution.

* The chamber in which a medium regularly performs this trope is the setting for one chapter of ''[[VideoGame/TheRoomMobileGame The Room 2]]''. The medium herself isn't present, but a box and cards used in her rituals is there, [[spoiler: as is a letter scolding her for leaving her accomplice out of her latest scam]].

* Spiritualism began as a couple of kids talking to a ghost in their house, and quickly evolved into a political movement allied with the Quakers, advocating the emancipation of women, and strongly abolitionist. It was called Modern Spiritualism to distinguish it from similar practices that are OlderThanDirt. It was ''extremely'' popular between 1848 and the early 1900s. So many revolutionary discoveries were made, especially the telephone, telegraph and radio — the "Internet" of that time — that the idea of communicating with the afterlife didn't seem far fetched. Many how-to guides were written: [[http://www.spiritwritings.com/GuideMediumshipWallis.pdf A Guide to Mediumship]] is one of the most sensible. [[http://www.nsac.org/spiritualism.php Spiritualism is also a religion]], guided by principles and ideas that will be familiar to anyone with a working knowledge of NewAge doctrine.

* ''VisualNovel/NewDanganRonpaV3'': In Chapter 3, a seance is held by the students in an effort to determine who killed the latest victim. [[spoiler: It goes awry when the spirit medium gets killed too.]]

* The ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'' episode "Séance Schméance" has [=SpongeBob=] and Mr. Krabs holding one to uncover a long-forgotten sandwich recipe.

** On the episode [[Recap/SouthParkS17E4GothKids3DawnOfThePosers Goth Kids 3: Dawn Of The Posers]], the Goth Kids hold a séance to summon the ghost of Creator/EdgarAllanPoe, who [[RunningGag assume that Goths and emos as the same]] and irritate the Goth and Emo kids.
** In [[Recap/SouthParkS16E1ReverseCowgirl Reverse Cowgirl]], the boys arrange to hold a "sue-ance" and summon the ghost of [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harington_(writer) John Harington]], the inventor of the modern toilet, and sue him for causing the death of [[spoiler: Clyde's mother]].

* Subverted in ''Series/{{Angel}}'' when the Wolfram & Hart psychic is called in to clear their HauntedHeadquarters. She turns out to be a pretty blonde griping about missing her pilates class, who says she's going to "mutter a few calming words" to set the mood. When Fred asks if they should be HoldingHands she replies, "Only if you're lonely. Now, zip it and let me do my sweet funky." Then it gets creepy when she starts [[PsychicNosebleed bleeding from the nose]] and [[YourHeadAsplode her head explodes]].
* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' had these in "I Only Have Eyes For You" to exorcise the school from a school ghost who shot his teacher before he met his demise and "Where The Wild Things Are" to exorcise the Lowell House from the LivingMemory spirits created from the orphans' negative emotions.

* ''Theatre/BlitheSpirit'' has Mme. Arcati. She's the genuine article (although Coward originally wrote her as a fake) and speaks quite matter-of-factly about it. The part was written for Margaret Rutherford, who insisted on playing the spirit-contact part straight, as she really was a Modern Spiritualist and wouldn't be in something that made fun of her faith. She consulted real mediums and was praised by psychic research groups in later years for her complex performance. Arcati's focus on health and exercise is actually recommended for mediums in Spiritualist manuals. (It's also just plain Rutherford: she used to ride her own bike onstage, braking neatly right before the footlights.) Her hesitance to eat meat right before a session is also textbook.

* Creator/NoelCoward's play ''Theatre/BlitheSpirit'' ([[BlitheSpirit no relation]]) begins with a séance, which causes Charles's first wife to [[VisibleInvisibility appear]]. HilarityEnsues.

* ''Theatre/BlitheSpirit'' has Mme. Arcati. She's the genuine article and speaks quite matter-of-factly about it. Looks like Noel Coward has ShownTheirWork as her focus on health and exercise is actually recommended for mediums in Spiritualist manuals. Her hesitance to eat meat right before a session is also textbook.[[note]]Dame Margaret Rutherford, who plays Mme. Arcati in the 1944 film version, really was a Spiritualist.[[/note]]

* ''Theatre/BlitheSpirit'' has Mme. Arcati. She's the genuine article and speaks quite matter-of-factly about it. Looks like Noel Coward DidTheResearch as her focus on health and exercise is actually recommended for mediums in Spiritualist manuals. Her hesitance to eat meat right before a session is also textbook.[[note]]Dame Margaret Rutherford, who plays Mme. Arcati in the 1944 film version, really was a Spiritualist.[[/note]]

* In Disney's ''Disney/RobinHood'', Robin, disguised as a Gypsy fortune-teller, stages a fake séance as a distraction while he and Little John rob Prince John.

%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1459432160005654500
%% Please do not change or remove without starting a new thread.

Séances were popular forms of entertainment around the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth century, during which time many people became interested in spiritualism and the occult. Usually the medium would attempt to contact the spirits while asking everyone else in the room to concentrate on summoning and welcoming them. Real séances did not require a dark room, just a pleasantly peaceful atmosphere. The darkened room came into vogue when people started trying to produce materialized "phenomena" -- most of which you could buy from theatrical supply companies.

%%
%%
%%This page has been alphabetized. Please place examples in the correct alphabetical order.
%%
%%
%%%

* Subverted in the opening of ''Film/Amityville3D'', where the seance turns out to be a laughable hoax.

* ''Film/FullCircle'' features a disturbingly successful attempt.

* After having accidentally received a MacGuffin from a Nazi spy posing as a FortuneTeller in ''Film/MinistryOfFear'', Ray Milland traces the fortune teller to London. He finds a completely different woman by that same name, who works as a medium, and promptly has her join her spooky seance. Just as the medium is uttering some things that make Stephen really uncomfortable, a shot rings out, and Stephen is framed for murder.

* ''Franchise/SherlockHolmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles'' (1939) Dr. Mortimer's wife performs one.

* ''Theatre/BlitheSpirit'' has Mme. Arcati. She's the genuine article and speaks quite matter-of-factly about it. Looks like Noel Coward DidTheResearch as her focus on health and exercise is actually recommended for mediums in Spiritualist manuals. Her hesitance to eat meat right before a session is also textbook.[[note]]Dame Margaret Rutherford, who plays Mme. Arcati in the 1944 film version, really was a Spiritualist.[[/note]]
* The documentary ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJx8sR-Wb5k No One Dies in Lily Dale]]'' is worth watching to see what today's Spiritualist camp villages, seances and mediums are like.

* ''A Drowned Maiden's Hair'', by Laura Amy Schlitz, revolves around séances conducted by the Hawthorne sisters.

* A fancy séance is very prominent in ''RimOfThePit''.

* In ''Literature/{{Watersong}}'', Marcy convinces Harper and Alex to try holding a seance to ask the ghosts of the sirens' victims to tell them Gemma's location. She defies a lot of the normal tropes by holding it outside and during daytime, calling the others ignorant when they ask if it shouldn't be done around a table at night. The seance does manage to call some spirits which light a candle with blue flame and move some rocks, but they are unhelpful in determining Gemma's location.

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS27E3TheUnquietDead "The Unquiet Dead"]], they hold a séance to find out what's going on. It turns out to be EnergyBeings rather than actual ghosts.

* George Furth conducts one for [[Series/LaughIn Ruth Buzzi]] on ''Series/TheMonkees'' episode "A Coffin Too Frequent".

* There is one in the third episode of ''Series/{{Ravenswood}}.'' It doesn't go well.

* There is one in ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode "Closure" in which Mulder finds out what happened to his sister Samantha. In the middle of searching for a missing little girl (not Samantha), Mulder encounters a self-professed psychic, who claims that both girls were taken by "walk-ins" (read: killed) to save them from a horrible fate on earth.[[note]]They did get that right. A walk-in is a spirit who enters the body of a living child or adult, sometimes to save them from abuse, and thereafter [[TheMasquerade pretends to be that person]]. The original soul may go on to heaven, return later, or stay around [[SharingABody forming a cooperative team]]. Many quite sane, rational people who are not at all into "spiritual" things have reported having this experience.[[/note]] This psychic begins to have visions of Samantha, as Mulder is tracing her whereabouts after her abduction, and holds the séance to help Mulder find resolution with what happened to her. The seance is successful, leading to a touching scene between Mulder and [[spoiler:Samantha, who is revealed to be dead.]] However, being Mulder and Scully, the scene could not escape the show's habitual deadpan snark:

* ''Series/ElChavoDelOcho'': [[RecycledScript At least two episodes]] used the premise of Doña Clotilde and the adults of the Vecindad holding a seance to deal with "los espiritus chocarreros (the rude spirits)" haunting the neighborhood (in reality the side-effects of [[HanlonsRazor the kids doing stupid things]] and Don Ramon being a sleepwalker) and the children, hidden in the same room and frightened by [[LargeHam the invocations of]] "The Witch of Apartment 71", start to make sounds and move things that the adults believe are being done by the ghosts, and frighten them in return.

[[folder:Pinballs]]

[[folder:Theater]]

* Spiritualism began as a couple of kids talking to a ghost in their house, and quickly evolved into a political movement allied with the Quakers, advocating the emancipation of women, and strongly abolitionist. It was called Modern Spiritualism to distinguish it from similar practices that are OlderThanDirt. It was ''extremely'' popular between 1848 and the early 1900s. So many revolutionary discoveries were made, especially the telephone, telegraph and radio -- the "Internet" of that time -- that the idea of communicating with the afterlife didn't seem far fetched. Many how-to guides were written: [[http://www.spiritwritings.com/GuideMediumshipWallis.pdf A Guide to Mediumship]] is one of the most sensible. [[http://www.nsac.org/spiritualism.php Spiritualism is also a religion]], guided by principles and ideas that will be familiar to anyone with a working knowledge of NewAge doctrine.

* Conversely Creator/ArthurConanDoyle was a great believer in spiritualism, including séances.