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A seance is an organized attempt to communicate with the dead. Hence, the seance posits life after physical death in the form of a non-physical and coherent intellect and mind called a "soul" or "spirit."

Since many magicians are fully capable of producing pseudo-ghostly phenomena, they hold that it is impossible for the dead to communicate with the living; these magicians (such as [[Harry Houdini]]) say that seances fall into two general categories: 
# Fraudulent charades given by fake mediums to fleece money from people. The "spectators" in these situations believe the manifestations to be real.
# Theatrical performances given by magicians (generally those interested in [[Bizarre Magick]]). The spectators in these situations understand that they're watching a show.

There are several excellent texts for those interested in the latter category, among them are [[Spirit Theater]] by [[Eugene Burger]] (1985) and [[Séance(book)|Séance]] by Scott Moore-Davis (1996, Originally published in magazine form 1988-1991). Both were published by [[Kaufman and Company]].

==External Links==
• http://geniimagazine.com/kaufman/booksandtapes.html
 
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