This spirit communication via automatic writing, from I Heard a Voice, 1918, is a precursor to Ringfinger's gothic "Undercroft" (our favorite song that's sung from the Other Side).  The text reads, "I can't remember my time on Earth.  I don't know.  I simply can't recollect what happened on Earth."  In the song, a freshly buried speaker with a mind going dim can't remember who or where he is, nor why he is buried with a shouded stranger.  Speaking of spirit communications, see Seance Parlor Feng Shui.

From The Davenport Brothers, 1869.  This should be of interest: Seance Parlor Feng Shui.

From The Davenport Brothers, 1869.  This should be of interest: Seance Parlor Feng Shui.

Here's a spirit trumpet interpenetrating a seance table, from The Reality of Psychic Phenomena: Raps, Levitations, Etc. by William Jackson Crawford, 1916.  We wish we'd encountered this diagram in time for our guide to Seance Parlor Feng Shui.

From The Davenport Brothers, 1869.  This should be of interest: Seance Parlor Feng Shui.

Here's the art and seance of table levitation from Mysterious Discovery of Nature, Shown in a Dream to Dr. P. Polack, and Relating Directly to the Question of the Discovery of the North Pole by Peter Pooley, 1910.  This should be of interest: Seance Parlor Feng Shui.

"Our first mesmeric séance," from The Children's Fairy History of England by Forbes Edward Winslow and illustrated by E. Marillier, 1889.  This should be of interest: Seance Parlor Feng Shui.

We love finding Ouija boards referenced in old yearbooks.  And check out how they charmingly spelled superstitious:

If

Were you a mystic spirit,
And I a ouija board,
   We'd kick up such a rumpus
   That the mediums would pump us
Of occult news and smear it
On the superstitutious [sic] horde;
Were you a mystic spirit,
And I a ouija board.

From Mansfield State Normal School's Semaphore, 1921.  See also our guide to the Care and Feeding of a Spirit Board.  In the words of the celebrated magician Eugene Burger, "what a lovely and strange book it is!"

See The Care & Feeding of a Spirit Board. 

From The Davenport Brothers, 1869.  This should be of interest: Seance Parlor Feng Shui.

From The Davenport Brothers, 1869.  This should be of interest: Seance Parlor Feng Shui.

We're honored that acclaimed poet Gary Barwin has offered a foreword to our new guide to The Care and Feeding of a Spirit Board.

We're honored that the renowned philosopher of magic Robert E. Neale (author of The Sense of Wonder) thinks we've stumbled upon the secret to world peace with our Seance Parlor Feng Shui project: 

Prof. Oddfellow has carried the logical approach to nonsense to even greater heights than before. The logic of two absurd systems logically joined into a masterpiece of faith for fools that could stop us from killing each other. My delight lies in making up meaning, but his talent in this is unsurpassed. This treatise will lurk about on our coffee table waiting to preside over a promising guest. In the meantime, I might play with feng shui myself.

Woohoo!

From Prof. Oddfellow's sketchbook.  [Inspired by and for William Keckler.]  The text reads, "It would be wrong of us to interrupt the cat seance."  This should also be of interest: How to Be Your Own Cat.