Mysterious rapping, eerie music, otherworldly voices — witnesses ascribed these strange phenomena and others to the historic séances of Margery “Mina” Crandon, one of America’s most celebrated spiritualist mediums. Read more here.
William Stainton Moses (Nov. 5, 1839 – 5 September 1892) was an English cleric and spiritualist medium. He promoted spirit photography and automatic writing, and co-founded what became the College of Psychic Studies.
On Nov. 14, 1849, Kate and Margaret addressed a sizable audience at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester. This is now marked as the first demonstration of spiritualism before a paying public.
Rosemary Isabel Brown (nee Dickeson, 27 July 1916 – 16 November 2001) was an English composer, pianist and spirit medium who claimed that dead composers dictated new musical works to her. She created a small media sensation in the 1970s by presenting works purportedly dictated to her by Claude Debussy, Edvard Grieg, Franz Liszt, Franz Schubert, Frédéric Chopin, Igor Stravinsky, Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Schumann and Sergei Rachmaninoff.
Brown claimed that each composer had his own way of dictating to her: Liszt controlled her hands for a few bars at a time, and then she wrote down the notes; Chopin told her the notes and pushed her hands on to the right keys; Schubert tried to sing his compositions; and Beethoven and Bach simply dictated the notes. She claimed the composers spoke to her in English.
Mrs. Fox had moved into the the tiny Hydesville, New York cottage with the rest of her clan on Dec. 11, 1847.
On Dec. 16, 1868, the renowned séance medium DD Home allegedly levitated out one third-story window and into another. Three witnesses were present, and each alleged that they saw his body float out horizontally through the window. The residence was in Ashley Place, London, and the window was about 70 feet from the ground.
Hereward Carrington (17 October 1880 – 26 December 1958) was a well-known British-born American investigator of psychic phenomena and author. His subjects included several of the most high-profile cases of apparent psychic ability of his times, and he wrote over 100 books on subjects including the paranormal and psychical research, conjuring and stage magic, and alternative medicine.
Cora Lodencia Veronica Scott (April 21, 1840 – January 3, 1923) was one of the best-known Spiritualist mediums of the last half of the 19th century. Most of her work was done as a trance lecturer, though she also wrote some books whose composition was attributed to spirit guides rather than her own personality. Married four times, Cora adopted the last name of her husband at each marriage, and at various times carried the surnames Hatch, Daniels, Tappan, and Richmond.
Edgar Cayce (March 18, 1877 – January 3, 1945) was an American attributed clairvoyant who claimed to speak from his higher self while in a trance-like state. During the sessions, Cayce would answer questions on a variety of subjects such as healing, reincarnation, dreams, the afterlife, past lives, nutrition, Atlantis, and future events. A devout Christian and Sunday-school teacher, Cayce said that his readings came from his subconscious mind exploring the dream realm, where he said all minds were timelessly connected. Cayce founded a non-profit organization, the Association for Research and Enlightenment, to record and facilitate the study of his channeling and to run a hospital. Cayce is known as “The Sleeping Prophet“, the title of journalist Jess Stearn‘s 1967 Cayce biography. Religious scholars and thinkers, such as author Michael York, consider Cayce the founder and a principal source of many characteristic beliefs of the New Age movement.