Hours with the Ghosts or, Nineteenth Century Witchcraft Illustrated Investigations into the Phenomena of Spiritualism and Theosophy — Reading Notes

The Medium’s Own Handbill

Evans includes the full text of Pierre Keeler’s promotional handbill, a document that reads like a carnival barker’s pitch. It promises “a NIGHT OF Wonderful Manifestations” and claims that “the whole world have proclaimed these Philosophical Idealisms to be an astounding FACT.” The handbill explicitly invites skepticism: “Do not class or confound SLADE with the numerous so-called spirit mediums and spiritual exposers that travel through the country, like a set of roaming vampires.” This self-conscious distinction between genuine and fraudulent mediums is a recurring rhetorical strategy. Evans lets the handbill speak for itself, allowing readers to see how mediums framed their own credibility.

The Seybert Commission’s Methods

The Seybert Commission, appointed by the University of Pennsylvania, included prominent scientists and physicians: Dr. William Pepper, Dr. Joseph Leidy, Dr. Horace H. Furness, and Dr. S. Weir Mitchell. Evans reproduces their report verbatim, describing a séance at Mr. Furness’s house on May 27. The medium, Pierre Keeler, is described as “a young man, with well cut features, curly brown hair, a small sandy mustache.” The commission’s dry, observational tone contrasts sharply with Keeler’s flamboyant advertising. Evans does not editorialize; he simply juxtaposes the handbill’s promises with the commission’s clinical account, letting the discrepancy emerge naturally.

Slate-Writing and the Limits of Testimony

Evans devotes a chapter to “Psychography or Slate-writing,” a phenomenon in which messages supposedly appeared on slates held by mediums. He includes illustrations of slates with writing, numbered as figures 4, 5, and 6. The text does not reveal how the tricks were performed, but the very act of illustrating the slates implies that the writing was physically present. Evans’s approach is to present evidence—handbills, commission reports, photographs—and let readers draw conclusions. The book’s structure, moving from subjective phenomena like telepathy to physical phenomena like materializations, mirrors the investigative logic of the Society for Psychical Research, whose members Evans quotes in his epigraphs.

Evans’s book is less a polemic than a curated archive of spiritualist ephemera. Readers should attend to the documents he reproduces—handbills, commission reports, and medium advertisements—rather than seeking a unified argument. The value lies in the raw material: the language of the mediums, the skepticism of the scientists, and the unresolved tension between belief and exposure. Evans himself remains an ambiguous figure, both photographer of spirits and chronicler of fraud.

That rainy Tuesday, I sat with Evans’ dismantled séances, feeling oddly fond of the ghosts he debunked—their yearning was so human. My hand drifted, almost by accident, to a shelf holding Keep Happy — Text and Context, and I found the same quiet ache there, only turned toward sunlight.