As you have undoubtedly guessed, I’m not convinced that we can contact the spirits of the dead. I used to have a book called How to Earn $1,000 a Week Doing Séances, in which the author describes how to do the trick with burning the written questions. The author also describes other ways to trick people into thinking you are psychic. The business with the telephone headset came from an actual con described by the famous con man the Yellow Kid in his autobiography. He also tells about running the fake-oil-land sale, although I added the twist to the end of it. You can’t make this stuff up!

The Fox sisters were quite successful as psychics for many years, conducting séances in the mid-1800s. They did all sorts of fancy things like raising tables and receiving messages from spirits knocking, sounds they made by rapping on the table leg with their toe joints! None of my research led me to believe any of this is real, but I did learn that some particularly insightful mediums really do believe they can predict the future.

Please let me know if you enjoyed this book. You can sign up on my website to receive notices when my new books are released, so you don’t have to miss a single one! You can contact me at Victoriathompson.com or follow me on Facebook at VictoriaThompson.Author or on Twitter @gaslightvt.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Victoria Thompson is the Edgar® and Agatha award-nominated author of the Gaslight Mysteries including Murder on Pleasant Avenue, and the Counterfeit Lady Mysteries including City of Scoundrels.

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