The book of séances : a guide to divination and speaking to spirits

Title:

The book of séances : a guide to divination and speaking to spirits

Author:

Goodchild, Claire

ISBN:

9780316353342

Physical Description:

x, 290 pages : color illustrations ; 21 cm

Summary:

As long as people have lived, they have longed for wisdom and comfort from those who have died. In The Book of Séances, artist, author, and witch Claire Goodchild takes readers on a journey over the historical landscape of spiritualism and guides questers through safe practices for cultivating a connection with the other side. The Book of Séances details the four types of spiritual encounters, teaches us how to protect ourselves, and breaks down the different tools -- from spirit boards and tarot to dominoes and charms -- that are essential for opening a bridge to the afterlife. Whether you are conducting solitary or group séances, this book offers a way to safely glimpse beyond the veil. Through her evocative writing and singular art, Goodchild provides a comprehensive history of the séance alongside an immersive guide to accessing and communing with the spirit world. The Book of Séances provides hauntingly lovely signposts of our own personal mythology as revealed through our conscious and unconscious lives.

Subject:

Spiritualism

Seances.

Divination

Fortune-telling by cards.

Fortune-telling by books.

Ouija boards.

Divining-rod

Crystal gazing.

Available:*

Library	Collection	Material Type	Call Number	Status	Item Holds
Searching... Cobourg Branch	Searching... Unknown	Adult Non-Fiction Book	133.9 Goo	Searching... Unknown	Searching... Unavailable

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Summary

From an award-winning artist, a beautifully mysterious guide to conducting seances and communing with the spirits in our conscious and unconscious lives.

As long as people have lived, they have longed for wisdom and comfort from those who have died. In The Book of Séances , artist, author, and witch Claire Goodchild takes readers on a journey through the historical landscape of spiritualism and guides questers through safe practices for cultivating a connection with the other side.

The Book of Séances details the four types of spiritual encounters, teaches us how to protect ourselves, and breaks down the different tools -- from spirit boards and tarot to dominoes and charms -- that are essential for opening a bridge to the afterlife. Whether conducting solitary or group séances, this book offers a way to safely glimpse beyond the veil.

Through her evocative writing and singular art, Claire provides a comprehensive history of the séance, alongside an immersive guide to accessing and communing with the spirit world. The Book of Séances provides hauntingly lovely signposts into our own personal mythology as revealed through our conscious and unconscious lives .

Author Notes

Claire Goodchild is an award-winning artist, photographer, designer and writer from Toronto, Canada. She created the wildly popular tarot deck, The Antique Anatomy Tarot, published in 2019 by Quarto UK and Abrams Books, that features antique medical images, and she was the first person to create an Astrology themed tarot deck called the Arcana of Astrology which was published in 2020 by Abrams Books.

Reviews (1)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Tarot artist Goodchild (The Antique Anatomy Tarot) delivers a generous grab bag of strategies for connecting with the spirits of the dead. She explains that anyone with patience, dedication, and compassion can learn to perform séances, use tools of divination, and interpret occult signs and messages. Discussing death rituals in ancient Egypt, Madagascar, and Tibet, she offers detailed advice on how to hold séances, enumerating the pros and cons of conducting them in churches, graveyards, or parks and urging readers to summon spirits by focusing one's "intention" on the spirit one wishes to summon. She provides a bounty of alternative methods for receiving messages from the beyond, including reading tea leaves, analyzing randomly chosen passages in books, and interpreting dominoes. For example, Goodchild explains that cartomancy involves divining messages from tarot cards, and she outlines spreads--or card configurations--readers can use to glean meaning. Goodchild's impressive variety of divination techniques that encompass the common and obscure, paired with straightforward instructions for interpretation and execution, makes for a bountiful volume that practitioners will find easy to follow and customize. Readers of the occult will want to check this out. Agent: Meg Thompson, Thompson Literary. (Nov.)