In this episode, we interview George Schwartz, the curator-at-large for the new exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, titled, Conjuring the Spirit World: Art, Magic, and Mediums. Over the past twenty years, at PEM, George contributed to many of the institution’s most successful exhibitions. He has lectured internationally and teaches courses on material culture at Tufts University in the Museum Studies program.
Just in time for Halloween, the exhibit and the accompanying book elaborately detail the origins of the Spiritualist movement in America and its locus in the belief in life after death. We explore the history, controversy, personalities, and symbolism of spirit photography, the public exhibitions of mediumship, magicians like Harry Houdini, Thurston the Great, Kellar and his Amazing Cabinet Mysteries, among others, as well as the makers of objects used to conjure spirits.
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