In the latest episode of Travel Channel Kindred spirits, Amy Bruni and Adam Berry investigate a mysterious haunted mirror at the famous Farnsworth House in Gettysburg. With help from haunted property experts Greg and Dana Newkirkparanormal investigators use this object to construct an ancient device enabling contact with the dead: the psychomanteum.
Regardless of whether you utilize tarot during investigations, perform classic sessions or using the Estes Method, sometimes it’s the most unusual tools that provide the most intriguing answers. In Thursday’s episode Kindred spirits, Greg and Dana Newkirk, curators of the Traveling Museum of the Paranormal and the Occult, are drawn to construct a psychomanteum, a approach to summoning the dead that has been all but forgotten by modern paranormal investigators. But what exactly is psychomanteum and the way does it work?
Necromenteion in Epiros, Greece | via Shutterstock
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Resulting from Greek “nekromanteion”, meaning “oracle of the dead”psychomanteum was such a popular approach to contacting spirits that it’s mentioned in Homer’s epic Odyssey, in which Odysseus talks to his dead mother while watching a pool of blood. It wasn’t until the Nineteen Fifties that archaeologists actually unearthed one in all the devices at Epiros, officially moving the psychomanteum from legend to reality.
Although crystal balls, mirror reading and other types of palmistry remained popular for years, it was not until 1993 that Dr. Raymond Moody, researcher of near-death experiencespublished a book Reunions: visionary meetings with deceased family members and brought the psychomanteum back to life. In his book, Moody tells how he was inspired by Greek necromanteions and other shamanic mirror-gazing traditions from around the world, constructing his own psychomanteum and documenting the experiences of roughly 300 individuals with this method.
In a room shielded from sunlight, Moody placed a chair in front of a large mirror held on a wall that was tilted forward at a 45-degree angle to dam the viewer’s own reflection. A low-power lamp was placed behind the chair to mimic the delicate glow of a single candle. Before taking a seat in the psychomanteum, subjects were asked to give attention to a loved one who had passed away. Then the staring session began. The results were astonishing.
Of those surveyed, a quarter said they’d made contact with the dead, seen and even talked to family members in the reflection of a mirror. About ten percent of those people even said that ghosts actually got here out of the mirrors and touched them. In nearly a quarter of cases, contact with the dead didn’t occur immediately, but inside 24 hours of the psychomanteum session. Even more surprisingly, almost every subject firmly stated that their reunion was neither a fantasy nor a dream, but insisted that it was a real event with physical elements.
Dr. Raymond Moody wrote that sessions together with his modern psychomanteum weren’t only an effective approach to contacting the dead, but literally modified the users’ lives, healing wounded relationships with the dead and changing their way of seeing the world.
If such a powerful tool is very easy to create, why don’t more paranormal investigators use the psychomanteum? Mainly because they do not know that such a method even exists. Like many traditional methods of spiritual communication, they’ve been forgotten, replaced by fancy gadgets seen on television, or stigmatized as “dangerous occult practices.” For this reason, the Traveling Museum of the Paranormal and the Occult has been crisscrossing the country with a portable psychomanteum for the past several years, swapping the quiet room for headphones and white noise, and educating the public about the history and practice of therapeutic mirror gazing. In the third season, third episode of the Travel Channel Kindred spiritsthis lesson shall be made available to an even wider audience.
Of course, things get even weirder while you construct your psychomanteum out of a giant haunted mirror in one in all the most paranormally lively locations in the world.
Psychomanteum seen in Kindred Spirits on Travel Channel | by Greg Newkirk
“When Amy Bruni and Adam Berry called us a few months ago and asked us to get our butts out to Pennsylvania, we were actually on our way to the Appalachian Mountains for Operation: Return the Crone– says Greg. “Fortunately, there was a pit stop in Gettysburg on the way. When we arrived, they told us they were dealing with a very old and potentially haunted mirror that the owners believed could be the source of aggressive paranormal activity in their building. We already knew this would be a special case, but we didn’t realize how strange it would become.”
With only a few days left before filming, Amy and Adam looked for a strategy to test the mirror that may give the best results. The team immediately set to work constructing what could also be the largest modern psychomanteum in history.
Haunted object expert Greg Newkirk looks into a haunted mirror | by Greg Newkirk
In this episode, the group goes into the basement, which the owners designed to represent a traditional Civil War-era funeral, and thoroughly begins to tilt a massive mirror at a 45-degree angle. Once it was secure, Greg placed a bowl of water under the mirror – a step that Dr. Raymond Moody omitted in his modern psychomanteum (the Greeks often stared at the reflection of the water where the mirror met the water). Once every little thing was secured, he lit a single candle behind the designated viewing area and turned on the lights.
Adding one other twist to the device, it was decided that each Dana and Amy would use the psychomanteum at the same time. Not only was it large enough, but having two observers helped confirm or deny the visions presented in the mirror as mere hallucinations… or something more.
Amy Bruni and Dana Matthews stare at the psychomantheum | by Greg Newkirk
We won’t spoil the episode for you, except to say that you just shall be shocked by the final result.
Tune in to the Travel Channel tonight at 10pm ET to look at the entire investigation Kindred spirits. in the event you are member of the Traveling Museum of the Paranormal and the Occult (and you must), you possibly can join Greg and Dana Newkirk at 11:15 PM ET for a live post-episode discussion in the Super Secret Museum member’s Facebook group.
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