The Sensuality of Séance
Summary: Séance requires the shedding of the rational mind and the awakening of the senses. From the stench of ectoplasm to the touch of a loved one, seances take place as a fully multi-sensory experience, for bad or for good.
The Sensuality of Seance delves into the sense-based aspects of historical séance, and the impact such experiences have on the sitter and observer within the séance room. Refocusing sitters’ attentions to a particular sense allowed domestic spaces to be transformed into liminal spheres, where each interaction brought about a fresh and vulnerable experience.
With the touch of a spirit’s robe, the soft hand of a stranger, the smell of heavenly bouquets, the glimpse of a manifesting spirit or the sound of hymns, sung into darkness; all culminated in the heightened, unseen and unspoken power of the séance room
Presenting examples of scent, touch, sound and sight in the séance room, this talk examines séance as a curated experience, far greater than its perceived singular spiritual purpose..
BIO: Dr Kate Cherrell is a writer, speaker and broadcaster specialising in Victorian Spiritualism and paranormal history. She is the author of Begotten (2025), Buried England (2026) and The Sensuality of Séance (TBC), and writes commercially about paranormal history for various media outlets. As a paranormal historian, she has co-hosted the television programmes Haunted Homecoming and Unexplained: Caught on Camera and has provided historical expertise for The Yorkshire Exorcist, Paranormal, and Weird Britain. She is co-founder of Not of this World festival, director of The Bats’ Ball and co-founder of the Lincolnshire Folklore Society. She lives for good wine, ghosts, and graves
BIO: Dr Kate Cherrell is a writer, speaker and broadcaster specialising in Victorian Spiritualism and paranormal history. She is the author of Begotten (2025), Buried England (2026) and The Sensuality of Séance (TBC), and writes commercially about paranormal history for various media outlets. As a paranormal historian, she has co-hosted the television programmes Haunted Homecoming and Unexplained: Caught on Camera and has provided historical expertise for The Yorkshire Exorcist, Paranormal, and Weird Britain. She is co-founder of Not of this World festival, director of The Bats’ Ball and co-founder of the Lincolnshire Folklore Society. She lives for good wine, ghosts, and graves
Curated & Hosted by:
Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience
don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day
This is a 5 part series of lectures
