Seance on a Hot Afternoon

When I was a teenager, Mom and I went to a lot of psychics. Partly because we were learning about this new and fascinating subculture, and partly because we were just like everyone else: we wanted to know what was going to happen in the future. (Hopefully, something good.)

We explored a whole arena of methodologies that "psychics" use: clairvoyance, trance, materialization, apportation, to name a few—and the accoutréments that went with them, like crystal balls, cards, trumpets, candles, crystals, tables, Ouija boards, etc.

There is a town in Florida called Cassadaga that was (at the time, I don't know about now) like the food court of psychics: palmists, card readers, astrologers, trance mediums—what are you hungry for? There was one woman who could supposedly apport things and who'd find strange objects—like a garter belt—wrapped around the insides of a lamp shade or discover her purse in a different room from the one she’d set it down in. (But this made me wonder just who was doing the apportation, her or someone else, because it seemed like she was "importing" rather than "apporting". Surely apporting is to send something somewhere else, away from you? So was it her talent taking things from somewhere else? Or was it someone else's talent, sending stuff her way?)

Mom visited Cassadaga more than I did; I had school and a social life completely detached from her journeys, and she had other friends willing to go with her.

But I was with her for this particular seance on a hot Florida afternoon. It took place in the same church where Mom and I met the Rev. Joe and his wife, Lil. Not in the church itself, but in a back room that we approached from the parking lot behind the church. We streamed in with a group of excited people, glad to pass from glare and humidity into a cool, dim room. Chairs were set up in a circle. The walls were draped with dark fabric. Bustling around was the minister, a stout young man with pale skin and blond hair. He was assisted by a slender, equally young man with dark hair. We were about to experience a materialization.

For those of you who don't know, a materialization is when spirits are supposed to gather and take form. They draw on the energies of the people in the room and manifest themselves. They may make objects move or speak through trumpets—long, simple metal horns, which our hosts had placed around the room in case they were needed.

Mom and I sat down, smiling or nodding at people sitting near us. I was excited but also nervous. Would I see ghosts? Who would they be? Would it be terrifying to hear them speak? When the Rev. Joe went into trance, his voice altered but it was still all contained within Joe. I could take that. But this...

We sang a hymn. We said a prayer. We closed our eyes and tried to breathe slowly. The room was very dark. The minister went into a trance.

"I feel the spirits around us..."

Typically, when you attended a service at this spiritualist church, the minister would stand up and call out messages or names to people in the audience. "Greta, is there a Greta here?" or "I have a message from Tommy, he wants to say he's sorry about the car accident. Does anyone recognize him?" Depending on who the minister of the day was, the message might be more or less specific. I often thought the messages were very broad—"He says to tell you he loves you and he's happy"—but sometimes they were clearly accurate, specific, and emotional. That's the thing about the world of psychics: I've experienced enough "real" information, stuff that someone couldn't possibly know, to keep believing in the possibilities. And I was living with proof of the paranormal: my own mother.

As our materialization session continued, I started to feel a drawing sensation in my nose, as if something was being gently pulled out of it. My fingertips and ears felt a lesser sensation.

"Ectoplasm..." whispered the minister. "The spirits are trying to manifest..."

Ectoplasm is supposedly a pale, ethereal substance that is drawn from trance mediums (and their guests) to help spirits materialize in the physical world, or to help them move objects around. It's been debunked by scientists and skeptics, and I have no comment about its authenticity; I only know what I felt, and it was weird!

A horn started to rise into the air. It moved around the circle and through it a voice spoke to someone. I couldn't hear what it said. I blinked my eyes, straining to make out what was happening in the darkness. Shapes roiled, like the wigglers left when you close your eyelids. The horn seemed faintly phosphorescent as it hung in the air. Now a lighter shape began to form in the middle of the circle. It stood in front of someone and the minister told us through his trance what the spirit was saying. People murmured. Another horn rose.

I'm looking back over many years, so some of the details are no longer clear in my memory. But I do remember being frustrated by the darkness. And I did get my turn! A spirit appeared in front of me. The minister said it was my grandfather (who had been dead some years at this point). He told me that my grandfather loved me and missed me and was happy and at peace. Then he asked me to hold out my hand, because he said my grandfather had a gift for me. Something small and light fell into my palm. I kept straining to see through the wavering darkness, to recognize something of my grandfather in the apparition before me. After all, if he was going to appear, wouldn't he take on the physical appearance I was familiar with? Was there not enough energy in the room to manifest completely? Did it need to be so very dark for him to appear?

Other people heard other messages and spirits wavered before them. My mother didn't get a message and I felt her unhappiness.

But when we at last emerged into the stifling afternoon sunshine, blinded and dazed, I looked down at the "gift" my grandfather's spirit had dropped into my hand; it was a small sapphire-blue gem. A variety of emotions washed over me as we climbed into our oven of a car and turned on the air: surprise, awe, confusion...then skepticism and disappointment.

"I didn't get a thing, not a thing! Not even a message," Mother said. "And sapphire is my birthstone. If someone was going to get a sapphire, it should have been me!"

For a moment we contemplated the possibility that grandfather had mistakenly given me something he meant for my mother. Then common sense got the better of me.

"You're better off getting nothing," I said flatly, "than getting a fake."

For nothing had really happened to convince me of my grandfather's appearance. I couldn't tell what he looked like, he hadn't said anything specific to our lives or our relationship, and there was absolutely no significance in giving me a small blue glass jewel.

"I don't know what happened in there, but it wasn't real. It wasn't right. I don't believe it," I said.

It was nothing like movie seances. And, after a little personal experience with "seeing" spirits, I can say it was nothing like them, either.

A few months later, there was an article in the newspaper; the minister and his companion were rousted from the church for being frauds. They found boxes full of those glass gems, the "gifts" of the spirit world; and black draping, some painted with a faint phosphorescent web, that the minister's assistant wore while pretending to be a spirit or holding up the horns.

Even though I had been skeptical, this deepened my disappointment. I took the sapphire from my dresser drawer and threw it in the trash.