I just finished Séance 101 by Elaine M. Kuzmeskus. This was one of the books I purchased for summer reading and to research some possible upcoming séance experiences.
I have to first be honest and tell you that it isn't exactly what I thought it would be. It seems to be more of a history of physical mediumship, with an occasional emphasis on the séance. Some of the bigger topics Elaine hits on are table tipping, psychic photography, opening the third eye, trance mediumship, medical clairvoyance, psychic surgery (which I found fascinating and hadn't really heard of), trumpet séances, precipitated painting, and materialization. She does this while discussing many important mediums along the way.
Also, I have to very respectfully and honestly tell you that the editing in this book is absolutely horrible. There are so many terms misspelled, or spelled multiple ways within a single chapter even. An example of this would be “chakra” being spelled “charka”, “chaka”, and in the index it's even spelled “chakas”. It reminded me of the day my mother innocently referred to them as “chokers”. 🙂 But also, there are several sentence fragments, missing periods, incorrect book titles… things like that. It distracted me a lot. It is an out of print book, and my copy is in good shape but is actually a discarded copy from the St. Louis Public Library. Did they not like it?
If you can get past all of the editing flaws and are interested in learning about the history of physical mediumship, you may want to check out this book. Actually, the book was written in 2007. Just last month, Elaine came out with a brand new book (which is also on my “to be read” shelf) titled The Art of Mediumship: Psychic Investigation, Clairvoyance, and Channeling. I'm sure I'll share more on that when I get to it.
So there you have it. It's not the most comfortable read in the world, but I'm sure I'll refer to it in the future.
From the inside cover of her most recent book.
Elaine Kuzmeskus, M.S. is a nationally recognized Spiritualist medium, who has been a presenter at Lily Dale Assembly in New York and the Learning Annex in New York City. During her thirty-five years as a medium, she has conducted many well-publicized séances, including the 1997 Official Houdini Séance and a séance for the play “Blythe Spirit”, at New Haven's Long Wharf's Theater. Recently, Elaine was featured on Better Connecticut and the PBS special, “Things That Go Bump in the Night”.
She is also the director of the New England School of Metaphysics, Suffield, Connecticut, and the author of several books on mediumship including “Connecticut Ghosts” and a book on physical mediumship, “Séance 101”.