A Spiritual Séance

A séance / or seance is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word "séance" 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 séance de cinéma" ("a movie session"). In English, however, the word came to be used specifically 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 séance.

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. 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 séances grew dramatically with the founding of the religion of Spiritualism in the mid-nineteenth century. Perhaps the best-known series of séances conducted at that time were those of Mary Todd Lincoln who, grieving the loss of her son, organized Spiritualist séances in the White House, which were attended by her husband, President Abraham Lincoln, and other prominent members of society. 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 séance leaders. Modern séances 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.

Critical Objections

Scientific skeptics and atheists generally consider both religious and secular séances to be scams, or at least a form of pious fraud, citing a lack of empirical evidence. The exposure of supposed mediums whose use of séance 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 brought an end to the first 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 séances; however, in the same book, Keene also stated that he still had a firm belief in God, life after death, ESP, and other psychic phenomena. In his 2004 television special Seance, magician Derren Brown held a séance and afterwards described some of the tricks used by him (and 19th-century mediums) to create the illusion of paranormal events.

Critics of channeling—including both skeptics and believers—state 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. Critics of spirit board communication techniques—again 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. This theory rests on the embedded premise that human beings actually have a "subconscious mind," a belief not held by all.

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, while believers have tended to eliminate the use of tools but continued to practice mediumship in full confidence of its spiritual value to them.

Jews and Christians are taught that it is sinful to attempt to conjure or control spirits in accordance with Deuteronomy XVIII: 9–12.

                             https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A9ance



Deuteronomy 18:9-18 King James Version (KJV)
⁹ When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations.
¹⁰ There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch.
¹¹ Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.
¹² For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee.
¹³ Thou shalt be perfect with the Lord thy God.
¹⁴ For these nations, which thou shalt possess, hearkened unto observers of times, and unto diviners: but as for thee, the Lord thy God hath not suffered thee so to do.
¹⁵ The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;
¹⁶ According to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not.
¹⁷ And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken.
¹⁸ I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.