Chronicles the life of Maggie Fox, a young woman who, in 1848, claimed she and her sisters had received messages from the spiritual world, beginning the spiritualist movement that swept the country.

Richard West didn't want to be psychic. He tried, over the years, to ignore the voices that he heard and the gentle prods he received from a higher place. However, he always wondered why his hands got warm when he was near someone unwell. He also became accustomed to a certain sense of knowing about people and events before they happened and used this to good advantage in his life, first as a customs officer and later as a successful businessman. In the end, Richard couldn't avoid the persistent nudging. As his life unfurled, his reticence shrank and his inquisitiveness grew. The Reluctant Psychic is the story not only of how he eventually came to terms with his abilities but also regarding how he puts those abilities to good use as a healer, dowser, and ghostbuster. His bulging case files are full of ghost stories, both funny and poignant, that he has collected in the course of his work around the world. The stories are informative and interesting, and they give valuable insight into the work of a dowser and psychic operating with a foot in both worlds. This book provides comfort and reassurance to all of us who have encountered things that go bump in the night, and it explains in detail how places can affect us in a variety of ways.

Barbara Weisberg’s Talking to the Dead blends biography and social history in this revelatory story of the family responsible for the rise of Spiritualism. A fascinating story of spirits and conjurors, skeptics and converts in the second half of nineteenth century America viewed through the lives of Kate and Maggie Fox, the sisters whose purported communication with the dead gave rise to the Spiritualism movement—and whose recanting forty years later is still shrouded in mystery. In March of 1848, Kate and Maggie Fox—sisters aged eleven and fourteen—anxiously reported to a neighbor that they had been hearing strange, unidentified sounds in their house. From a sequence of knocks and rattles translated by the young girls as a "voice from beyond," the Modern Spiritualism movement was born. Talking to the Dead follows the fascinating story of the two girls who were catapulted into an odd limelight after communicating with spirits that March night. Within a few years, tens of thousands of Americans were flocking to séances. An international movement followed. Yet thirty years after those first knocks, the sisters shocked the country by denying they had ever contacted spirits. Shortly after, the sisters once again changed their story and reaffirmed their belief in the spirit world. Weisberg traces not only the lives of the Fox sisters and their family (including their mysterious Svengali–like sister Leah) but also the social, religious, economic and political climates that provided the breeding ground for the movement. While this is a thorough, compelling overview of a potent time in US history, it is also an incredible ghost story.

At once controversial and intriguing, Spiritualism has spread from the United States to become a global movement. Bringing together perspectives from within the movement and without, this unique collection treats readers to insights about Spiritualism's history, belief, and practice. Based on the belief that the dead can communicate with the living through mediums, Spiritualism touches concepts as timelessly fascinating as human mortality and the continuing existence of the soul beyond bodily death. This comprehensive work will help readers parse the mysteries of this uniquely American religion through three thematically organized volumes: Spiritualism in the U.S. and Globally, Evidence and Beliefs, and Cultural and Social Issues. Drawing on fields as diverse as psychology, sociology, religious studies, anthropology, history, ethnic and gender studies, literature, and art, this broad-based collection frames Spiritualism through the views of a team of international scholars. Among the many things that separate Spiritualism from mainstream religions is the involvement of women in central leadership roles. Such cultural and political elements of the movement are one aspect of this study. Of equal interest to believers and skeptics alike will be the work of scholars who have devoted themselves to examining the claim that communication through mediums proves the existence of life after death.

""Here are the details of an amazing life. . . . This is a book well worth reading."" --Very Revd John Miller ""A work rich in human interest, redolent of the grace of God, and completely honest in describing both the author's struggles with a sense of call to ministry, and the highs and lows of subsequent pastoral experience."" --Angus Morrison, Church of Scotland Moderator, 2015-16

Critical attention to the Victorian supernatural has flourished over the last twenty-five years. Whether it is spiritualism or Theosophy, mesmerism or the occult, the dozens of book-length studies and hundreds of articles that have appeared recently reflect the avid scholarly discussion of Victorian mystical practices. Designed both for those new to the field and for experts, this volume is organized into sections covering the relationship between Victorian spiritualism and science, the occult and politics, and the culture of mystical practices. The Ashgate Research Companion to Nineteenth-Century Spiritualism and the Occult brings together some of the most prominent scholars working in the field to introduce current approaches to the study of nineteenth-century mysticism and to define new areas for research.

'No matter where I move or how many times I change my name or what colour I dye my hair, people find me. I don't advertise. I don't have a website. I don't even answer the phone. And still when I arrive at my used-clothing store in town, there are people lurking in the parking lot hoping to get a reading with me.' Born in suburban New York in the 1960s, Suzan Saxman has spent a her life coming to terms with her extraordinary gifts. As a child, she saw things that terrified her and her uncanny insight alienated her from other children and her own mother. But as an adult, she slowly learnt to use her psychic ability to bring comfort to those in need. She has connected the living with the dead, brought messages of hope from one world to another, and helped clients bring the shadow of their past into the light of the present. Described as an 'uncanny and profoundly moving book' by Proof of Heaven author, Eben Alexander, this is a gripping and sometimes unsettling portal into the life of a woman who lives in many worlds, some wildly far from and some eerily near to our own.