History Main / SpookySeance

* ''[[WebVideo/LifeSMP Last Life SMP]]'': {{Parodied|Trope}} during Day 8, with Grian and Joel trying to contact Bdubs' "ghost" (Bdubs in spectator mode), in which they succeed when Bdubs responds to their questions in the in-game chat.

* Creator/NoelCoward's play ''Theatre/BlitheSpirit'' ([[BlitheSpirit no relation]]) begins with a séance, which causes Charles's first wife to [[VisibleInvisibility appear]]. HilarityEnsues. It's also a 1945 film with Kay Hammond (Elvira) and Margaret Rutherford (Mme. Arcati) in the roles they created for the original stage play. Arcati is eccentric but not a fraud; Rutherford, a Modern Spiritualist, told Coward she wouldn't play her any other way and based her performance, including Arcati's health regimens, on real practices.[[note]]Spiritualist publications at the time advised mediums and seekers to get lots of exercise, fresh air and sunlight, eat right, get enough sleep and maintain a reasonably positive outlook: Spiritualist [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Jackson_Davis Andrew Jackson Davis]], quoting the Greek poet Horace, advised "under all circumstances, keep an even mind".[[/note]] She was later praised by psychic research groups for her complex performance. The bicycle, though, was all Rutherford. She used to ride her own bike onto the stage and brake neatly before the footlights.

* ''Webcomic/Bobbinsverse'': In one ''Steeple'' storyline, Clotilde and Ludmilla insist that Maggie should run a séance, saying that she was known for these things when they were at school together. Strangely, although the supernatural is definitely real in the setting, and Clotilde and Ludmilla themselves are genuine, active witches, Maggie is very clear that her séances are actually fake; she has studied the sort of stage magic tricks that Victorian fake mediums used. Apparently, everyone treats these events as pure theatre. However, shortly after the séance begins, Maggie is possessed by a (rather disturbing) supernatural effect.

* ''[[LetsPlay/LifeSMP Last Life SMP]]'': {{Parodied|Trope}} during Day 8, with Grian and Joel trying to contact Bdubs' "ghost" (Bdubs in spectator mode), in which they succeed when Bdubs responds to their questions in the in-game chat.

* 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]], at least publicly. 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:

** Teenage trance medium Nettie Colburn Maynard, however, had a sitting with Lincoln in December 1862 concerning ''when'' he should sign the Proclamation into law, as advisers were pressuring him to wait. The [[http://www.mrlincolnswhitehouse.org/inside.asp?ID=709&subjectID=2 impressively worded answer]], possibly from Daniel Webster, was that Lincoln should stand by his own convictions.

* Spiritualism began as a couple of kids -- Catherine and Margaret Fox -- talking to a ghost in their house via -- 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 in communications were being made at the time, what with 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: [[https://archive.org/details/guidetomediumshi01wall 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.

* UsefulNotes/FranklinPierce's wife Jane consulted mediums Catherine and Margaret Fox, two of the founders of Modern Spiritualism, to connect with her son Benny, after witnessing his death in a horrific train accident. She experienced reassuring dream-visions of him, and like UsefulNotes/MarieCurie, wrote him letters.
* Other serious investigations of Spiritualism were made by UsefulNotes/QueenVictoria, Horace "Go west, young man" Greeley, Booth Tarkington (author of ''Alice Adams''), Beethoven, Marie and Pierre Curie and Pierre's brother Jacques with their friend, physicist [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Crookes William Crookes]], and [[Literature/SonnetsFromThePortuguese Elizabeth Barrett Browning]]. Like Jane Pierce, Marie Curie wrote to Pierre after he died and sometimes felt he communicated with her.

* [[UsefulNotes/FranklinPierce]]'s wife Jane consulted mediums Catherine and Margaret Fox, two of the founders of Modern Spiritualism, to connect with her son Benny, after witnessing his death in a horrific train accident. She experienced reassuring dream-visions of him, and like UsefulNotes/MarieCurie, wrote him letters.

* 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 in communications were being made at the time, what with 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.

* [[UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln Mary Todd Lincoln]] consulted mediums to talk with her dead children. Abe went along out of curiosity. Contrary to popular myth, Abe did not claim that spirits wrote, or persuaded him to write, the Emancipation Proclamation.

* Other serious investigations of Spiritualism were made by UsefulNotes/QueenVictoria, Horace "Go west, young man" Greeley, Booth Tarkington (author of ''Alice Adams''), Beethoven, Marie and Pierre Curie and Pierre's brother Jacques, and [[Literature/SonnetsFromThePortuguese Elizabeth Barrett Browning]].
** Her husband Robert Browning was less than impressed, having [[https://atlantisrisingmagazine.com/article/the-brownings-and-the-medium/ caught famed "rock star" medium D.D. Home red-handed]] two years before the incident in France described above. Browning's poem about [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Dunglas_Home#Allegations_of_fraud D.D. Home's fraud]] is "[[http://www.telelib.com/authors/B/BrowningRobert/verse/dramatispersonae/mrsludge.html Mr. Sludge, the Medium]]".

* Creator/NoelCoward's play ''Theatre/BlitheSpirit'' ([[BlitheSpirit no relation]]) begins with a séance, which causes Charles's first wife to [[VisibleInvisibility appear]]. HilarityEnsues. It's also a 1945 film with Kay Hammond (Elvira) and Margaret Rutherford (Mme. Arcati) in the roles they created for the original stage play. Arcati is eccentric but not a fraud; Rutherford, a Modern Spiritualist, told Coward she wouldn't play her any other way and based her performance, including Arcati's health regimens, on real practices.[[note]]Spiritualist publications at the time advised mediums and seekers to get lots of exercise, fresh air and sunlight, eat right, get enough sleep and as far as possible keep a positive outlook.[[/note]] She was later praised by psychic research groups for her complex performance. The bicycle, though, was all Rutherford. She used to ride her own bike onto the stage and brake neatly before the footlights.

* ''Film/GhostNote'': [[TheProtagonist Mallory]] decides that she and her cousins will have a seance in her grandmother's attic at Thanksgiving dinner. Unfortunately, doing so leads to her getting involved with [[BigBad Eugene Burn]].

* ''Film/{{Ghost}}'': Whoopi Goldberg plays a PhonyPsychic conducting fake séances for money, who, to her surprise, actually does manage to communicate with the dead.

%%* ''Literature/ADrownedMaidensHair'', by Laura Amy Schlitz, revolves around séances conducted by the Hawthorne sisters.

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

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

* ''Film/TheParanoamalDiariesClophill'': Two seances are held on two different nights in the movie, both of which utilize a OuijaBoard.

* In ''Film/TheUninvited'' (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.

* Happens in the 1940 Kay Kyser musical ''You'll Find Out''. Creator/BelaLugosi is the medium, Prince Saliano. Various weird effects include the use of the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH-krlgo2e8 Sonovox]] for spirit voices.