Conjuring the Spirit World: Art, Magic, and Mediums explores the essential role art and objects played for mediums and magicians “communicating” with the dead during the 19th- and 20th-century Spiritualism movement in the U.S. and Europe—a time when people actively debated and wondered, "Can spirits return?" See paintings, posters, photographs, stage apparatuses, costumes, film, publications and other objects that will transport visitors to the age of Harry Houdini, Margery the Medium, Howard Thurston, and the Fox Sisters, among others. Whether you’re a believer, skeptic or somewhere in between, gain a new perspective on the timeless draw of mediums and magicians, séances and magic shows.

The exhibition is accompanied by a generously illustrated, 144-page companion book with thematic essays by curators from PEM, The Ringling, and other experts in the field.

Conjuring the Spirit World: Art, Magic, and Mediums is organized by the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem Massachusetts.

.

Conjuring the Spirit World: Art, Magic, and Mediums is generously supported by the Gulf Coast Community Foundation, Bob & Diane Roskamp Endowment Fund, Chao Ringling Museum Endowment, Selby Foundation Ringling Museum Endowment, and Peter & Mary Lou Vogt Museum-Generated Exhibition Fund.

Image: The Otis Lithograph Company, (American), Thurston The Great Magician — Do the Spirits Come Back?, 1929., Lithograph, Tibbals Circus Collection, ht2005133