SECRETS OF SEANCE CHARLATANS: How Victorian Mediums Fooled the World With Ghost Tricks
Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime StoriesShow Notes
Grieving families in the Victorian era paid good money for a few minutes with their dead, and the mediums who took that money had help, from props hidden up their sleeves to assistants who gathered details about each sitter before the séance began.
EPISODE BLOG PAGE (includes sources): https://weirddarkness.com/victorian-seance-tricks
READ or DOWNLOAD the full transcript of this episode: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/bdd96bh3
FEATURED STORIES IN THIS EPISODE: Victorian era séances – where mediums claimed to bridge the living and the dead with mysterious rituals and eerie phenomena. But they had some elaborate tricks and illusions up their sleeves, all with the intention of misleading millions with the promise of communicating beyond the grave – and lining their own pockets, of course. (Secrets of the Seance Charlatans) *** Underneath the Nevada desert a 13-year-old Marc Brooks was exploring – and encountered the unknown. A secret chamber, a mysterious artifact, and a chilling humanoid creature defies explanation. What lies underground in the desert? (Reptile Men And Underground Bases) *** From charitable beginnings to centuries of cruelty, Bedlam – England's first mental hospital – has a shocking history. It’s dark past of inhumane treatments and public spectacles are such well-known atrocities that we’ve eventually come to use the word “bedlam” to describe uproar and confusion. We’ll take a look at the chilling stories of the hospital that started it all. (Nightmare at Bedlam) *** The 1976 Chowchilla school bus kidnapping saw 26 California children abducted, buried alive, and held for ransom — then they miraculously escaped. (The Chowchilla Kidnapping) *** Spells, magic and curses have captivated the human imagination from the beginning of time. From ancient Egyptian tombs to modern-day superstitions, beliefs in the supernatural have shaped history, influenced cultures, and continue to fascinate us today. Why does magical misfortune still hold such an interest for us? (Magic, Curses and Supernatural Spells) *** A man almost crashed an entire country's economy by tricking a bank into printing real money for him? It was one of the most audacious schemes in financial history, flooding Portugal with millions in genuine but unauthorized banknotes. It was great while it lasted – but the crash was brutal! (The Man Who Almost Broke a Country) *** Urraca Mesa is a mysterious table mountain in New Mexico where compasses spin wildly, and ghostly blue lights dance in the night. It’s full of stories of vanished ancient tribes and terrifying supernatural encounters with evil spirits. It’s a hotspot for unexplained phenomena and those who seek it. We’ll learn some of the eerie secrets of the Urraca Mesa. (The Urraca Mesa Portal) *** AND MORE!
CHAPTERS & TIME STAMPS (All Times Approximate)… 00:00:00.000 = The Foreboding 00:03:21.893 = Show Open 00:06:46.207 = Secrets of the Seance Charlatans 00:17:16.895 = Nightmare At Bedlam *** 00:25:39.431 = Reptile Men and Underground Bases 00:32:21.868 = The Chowchilla Kidnapping *** 00:36:12.454 = Magic, Curses and Supernatural Spells 00:44:50.503 = The Man Who Almost Broke a Country’s Economy *** 00:51:48.689 = The Urraca Mesa Portal 00:58:06.908 = Bizarre Name Changes *** 01:05:31.975 = Show Close *** = Begins immediately after inserted ad break
*No AI Voices Are Used In The Narration Of This Podcast*
SOURCES and RESOURCES: “Reptile Men And Underground Bases” source: Marc Lowth at UFOInsight.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/64vrrh66 “The Chowchilla Kidnapping” source: Jessica O’Connor at AllThatsInteresting.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/cxefxjks “The Man Who Almost Broke a Country’s Economy” source: Kaushik Patowary at AmusingPlanet.com:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/2p94ykzw “Magic, Curses and Supernatural Spells” source: Liz Leafloor at Ancient-Origins.com:https://weirddarkness.tiny.us/3yk42ksb “The Urraca Mesa Portal” source: Zoe Mitchell at Anomalien.com: https://weirddarkness.tiny.us
More from Weird Darkness: Paranormal & True Crime Stories
Lost in a Colorado snowstorm, a man who's fallen behind on his child support pulls into a roadside diner called The Silver Line just as it's closing, and the huge, cheerful man inside lets him in and locks the door behind him.
A man who runs a plant that builds nuclear reactors calls his wife to say he'll be home in twenty minutes for their anniversary dinner, walks in a full day later with wilted flowers in his hand and sure it's still Tuesday, and the next morning a truckload of uranium whose schedule only he knew is found hijacked beside the highway.
In 2025, Louisiana’s corrections secretary said Jessie Hoffman’s nitrogen execution “went flawless”, and a journalist counted more than 225 heaving breaths from Anthony Boyd under Alabama’s mask. South Carolina’s firing squad fired three rifles at Mikal Mahdi, and the autopsy found only two entrance wounds. In Tennessee, Byron Black said on the gurney, “Oh, it’s hurting so bad”, and the doctor who couldn’t place a line in Tony Carruthers was on the team again the night the state tried to execute Christa Pike in October, 2026.
Twelve stories, starting with a Roswell officer's sealed statement about bodies under a tarp, now sitting in the Pentagon's newest UFO files, and running through a voice on a basement recording in Cheyenne, an airliner that passed an object the pilot put at the "size of four toasters", a Hamburg murder warrant over a girl's death in Indiana, and a pest controller in France who says he mistook his wife for a rat.
Twenty years after his father walked out, Josh gets a letter saying the man's dead and has left him a cabin in the Montana woods. Inside, there's a shelf full of matches and not a single light.