Anatomy of a Seance: A History of Spirit Communication in Central Canada

Joanne Wotypka is a sessional lecturer in the Religious Studies program
of the Office of Interdisciplinary Studies at the University of Alberta.

In that curious Victorian time at the end of the 1800s, table-tipping,
voluminous ectoplasm, and contacting dead relatives were part of the
greater social milieu. In bridging the gap between the world of flesh
and the world of spirit, the spiritualist movement provided Canadians
(among others) with an alternative to both mainstream religions and
science.

Stan McMullin’s exhaustively researched work shows just how prevalent
the belief in the spirit world was, with supporters and practitioners
ranging from Susanna Moodie to Prime Minister Mackenzie King (whose
attempts to contact his dead mother were derided by political
opponents). The opening chapter, “Science and Religion: The Quest for
Balance,” examines the spiritualist movement in the context of
secularism. From there the reader is taken into the history of the
movement, and then into the stories of people who experienced spirit
communication first-hand.

There is a small gallery of photos at the beginning of the book. It
would have been more useful to position these pictures in the section of
the text they apply to. That quibble aside, Anatomy of a Seance is a
valuable and long-overdue work: the scholarship is sound, the prose is
accessible, and the subject matter is fascinating.