Hi Docc, welcome to the café. I live in Ecuador and love your work. I'm into some bizarre magick, and I wanted to know what kind of things you keep in mind when performing a seance. For example: light, music, noise, the control of your voice, some powerful words you might repeat to ensure the effect (like death, spirit, maybe...), what external factors you control to avoid disturbing, as house phones, etc.
Which elements you use for your seance? Ouija board? candles? bells? I just want to know how you manage all this things, because I'm into performing a really good worked seance, and the best advice I can receive is feedback from such great performers and magicians as you are Docc.
Thanks for your help and thanks for all you have done and keep on doing for all the magic comunity.
Best regards.
Que viva la magia!!

Thanks for the Kudos. I'm not certain I'm as deserving as all that.

Seances are like songs; many different styles for many different audiences.

Some performers have been successful with haunted house or Disney style scare shows. Crashing windows, floating candles, etc. The market they work is different from others.

Some want to be re-creations of Victorian parties, although I'm never certain what kind of market research supports the need for such.

Some play to a shut-eye audience.

Some seances are Q&A in the dark. My own $1,000 Secret Seance is that, plus two others designed to sell as a package. The Pocket seance sells the Grand seance. The Grand seance sells the Private seance.

What do you think makes a seance strong? Sudden jumps, long periods of silence, darkness, visual effects, accurate information?

Thanks Docc.

I think silence intensify the mood of a mysterious seance. I think that the most important aspect is the voice of the perfomer and the darkness.

People hear what is going on, and with a very interesting story-telling or with a nice poem, you can achieve a lot of power in your audience. The venue is also a very important thing. A plan is to perform a seance in an old house, far away from the city.

I watched the seance of Derren Brown and I loved one thing he did. He used 3 candles, and in the progress of the seance, he turned them off one by one, generating this mysterious and scary feeling.

One more thing. I read Corinda and one thing got me curious. He said that when you are performing a Seance, you should know that ANYTHING can happen. Has something weird happened to you? Also, as I'm from Ecuador capital, Quito, we have a lot of religious background. People in the city is very religious, and they have warned me a lot about this kind of things. One thing they warned me was the Ouija Board. Do you think they really work or if they are really a threat?

Thank you some much for your help Docc. I'm a huge fan of your work. Hope to meet you some day.
Que viva la magia!

Now if we keep the value of performer constant - and by this I mean he can deliver convincing effects and patters...

I would say that revelation of accurate information is one thing that surely counts.

The other, which you didn't mention, and this maybe because you don't find it important for you, is to me the contnuous feeding of release and tension moments, like on a mystery ride. I don't mean necessary - long silence - but literally everything you do aimed one moment to release tension and one another moment to make it rise so high that adrenaline start pumping in the sitters blood...

My take. Not an absolute, of course.

Thanks Lord Of The Horses.

You are absolutely right.

I'm here at the Café to learn from everyone. I consider myself as a begginer in magic, and all I want is to learn and improve. Your reference to release tension and cause tension is a good reflection. You can find tension and resolution in music, and as every art, they have something alike.
What kind of elements do you use in your seance Lord of the horses?
Best Regards!

Nachotuoni,

Smells and Sounds are important for that (in a blind seance).

Oh... and while some will (erroneously) scoff "energy" as BS... I tell you, it's not. Even with your full intent of releasing the atmosphere (or the opposite( you are sending the right signals to be sensed.



However, to give you some deeper idea to the lenghts I went when I wanted to give people that extra "shock", I have sent you a PM with some details of a thing I did in the past.

Docc, of course, has the SAME copy of the PM I've sent you.


After you will have read that, you will understand fully why I was ALWAYS tempted to try one of the most beautiful pieces that Docc has put out - in my opinion . which is the "ritual curse + causing someone to die"...

Why I will probably never do that? Because this would be something that really could be having my "unsuspecting partner in crime" lose their mind. No exageration.

However, the temptation to do that, grows stronger and stronger, each time I only think of that gem from Docc.

Those are very pertinent statements. Thank you.