It’s the winter of 1942 and you have lost a son in the war. Devastated and desperate for a final farewell, you attend a seance where you sit facing open curtains strung across a comer of the room. A stout black-haired woman enters in stately fashion and takes her seat there. The main lights are switched off, leaving only the glow of a red bulb. A gramophone plays lighthearted music, which, the organiser explains, helps “raise the vibrations”.
As the curtains close, a man you can’t see introduces himself as Albert, the medium’s spirit guide. With him, he says, he has the spirit of a soldier killed in the war. When Albert says his name, you call to claim him, and the curtains part to reveal, dimly, a glimmering mass trailing from the medium’s slumped body. The
