Spirit Sleuths: How Magicians and Detectives Exposed the Ghost Hoaxes

This nonfiction account investigates spiritualists who persuaded customers that they could communicate with the dead in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It explains techniques such as table tipping, rapping, and glowing spirit trumpets before turning to Harry Houdini and Rose Mackenberg’s work exposing fraudulent mediums. A final chapter considers later psychic scams and places the history of spiritualism alongside contemporary misinformation and propaganda. Photographs, newspaper material, and archival illustrations accompany the story.