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What is "seance"

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seance
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
seance
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ But mainly they came to their human partners in seances or visions.
▪ During a seance, humans request their spirit guides to come and to help them.
▪ Karajan sat with the orchestra in something closer to a seance or seminar than a rehearsal.
▪ Look what had happened at the last seance.
▪ Rhoda took to table-tapping and seances and reported seeing the ghost of Wendy hovering over her bed at night.
▪ Since his student days in Venice, when he went to seances, he had been fascinated by the occult.
▪ The pianist sits and dabs at his keyboard, as though he were sorting cards for a seance.
▪ Wasn't it likely that the thing that had got into him at the seance was really from the planet Tellenor?
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
seance

1789, "sitting, session," as of a learned society, from French séance "a sitting," from seoir "to sit," from Latin sedere (see sedentary). Meaning "spiritualistic session" first recorded 1845.

Wiktionary
seance

n. (alternative spelling of séance English)

WordNet
seance

n. a meeting of spiritualists; "the seance was held in the medium's parlor" [syn: sitting, session]

Wikipedia
Séance

A séance or seance is an attempt to communicate with spirits. The word "séance" comes from the French word for "seat", "session" or "sitting", from the Old French seoir, "to sit". In French, the word's meaning is quite general: one may, for example, speak of "une séance de cinéma" ("a movie session"). In English, however, the word came to be used specifically for a meeting of people who are gathered to receive messages from ghosts or to listen to a spirit medium discourse with or relay messages from spirits; many people, including skeptics and non-believers, treat it as a form of entertainment. In modern English usage, participants need not be seated while engaged in a séance.

One of the earliest books on the subject of communication amongst deceased persons was Communitation With the Other Side by George, First Baron Lyttelton, published in England in 1760. Among the notable spirits quoted in this volume are Peter the Great, Pericles, a "North-American Savage", William Penn, and Christina, Queen of Sweden. The popularity of séances grew dramatically with the founding of the religion of Spiritualism in the mid-nineteenth century. Perhaps the best-known series of séances conducted at that time were those of Mary Todd Lincoln who, grieving the loss of her son, organized Spiritualist séances in the White House, which were attended by her husband, President Abraham Lincoln, and other prominent members of society. The 1887 Seybert Commission report marred the credibility of Spiritualism at the height of its popularity by publishing exposures of fraud and showmanship among secular séance leaders. Modern séances continue to be a part of the religious services of Spiritualist, Spiritist, and Espiritismo churches today, where a greater emphasis is placed on spiritual values versus showmanship.

Seance (band)

Seance is a Swedish death metal band. The band was formed in March 1990 when two local Linköping bands, Orchriste and Total Death, fused. They split up after two albums in 1998. Most band members were also involved in the bands Satanic Slaughter and Witchery. Patrik Jensen later joined the band The Haunted. They reunited in early 2008 and released a 2009 album, Awakening of the Gods, through Pulverised Records.

Séance (album)

Séance is an album by the German melodic black metal band Dark Fortress. Alex Krull mastered the album in the Mastersound Studios and the whole layout of the booklet has been designed by Travis Smith.

Seance (film)

is a 2000 Japanese horror/ thriller television film directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, starring Koji Yakusho, Jun Fubuki and Tsuyoshi Kusanagi. It is based on the novel Seance on a Wet Afternoon by Mark McShane, which was also the basis for the 1964 film of the same title.

Seance (disambiguation)

A séance is an attempt to contact spirits.

Seance can also refer to:

  • Seance (band), Swedish death metal band
  • Seance (album), album by Australian rock band the Church
  • Séance (album), album by Swedish black metal band Dark Fortress
  • Seance (film), 2000 Japanese horror film directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa
  • Seances (film), lost Guy Maddin film project
  • Séance, 2006 film by Adrian Paul

Usage examples of "seance".

Friday morning, that is, the day after the accursed seance, all the available staff of the Variety -- the bookkeeper Vassily Stepanovich Lastochkin, two accountants, three typists, both box-office girls, the messengers, ushers, cleaning women -- in short, all those available, were not at their places doing their jobs, but were all sitting on the window-sills looking out on Sadovaya and watching what was going on by the wall of the Variety.

With a salaam, Mahatma Xanadu polished the all-revealing crystal and placed it upon a stand to announce the conclusion of a highly successful seance.

Gesturing to two chairs, Xanadu turned back into the seance room and spoke through the door as he closed it.

Akbar was grim enough, but in the gloomy seance room, Mahatma Xanadu outdid his formidable servant.

Having toyed with that dial without result, Lenfield was anxious to see what Xanadu did with it, but the Mahatma simply retired to the seance room, stating that he would receive Lenfield shortly.

Ushering Lenfield into the equally gloomy seance room, Xanadu merely glanced at the dim corners.

Closing the door, Mahatma Xanadu crossed the seance room alone, pocketing the money beneath his garish robe.

I have always had the greatest contempt for such nonsense, and put an end to it years ago when Carrie, at our old house, used to have seances every night with poor Mrs.

I’ve analysed lots of these seances, and I’ve never got answers that someone in the group mightn’t have known or guessed—though sometimes they weren’t aware of the fact.

The talkative lady is Miss Badley, who lives for seances, a jaded Society woman in search of new sensations -- always visible, always audible, and always empty.

Gaines at the tea and the incident during the seance when Carita Belleville had betrayed her annoyance over some remark by Errol.

He had been delighted when she had abandoned the brothel for the more lucrative job of being a spiritual medium, and Sally's seances were now famous in Richmond, a town obsessed with supernatural phenomena, but there was no doubt that her success had more than a little to do with the fact that the darkened shrine of Madame Royall, as Sally now called herself, was attached to Richmond's most notorious house of assignation, a proximity that added the spice of wickedness to her clients' visits.

Just in this same manner, are many slate-writing and other phenomena misreported, and hence an explanation of the seance, AS REPORTED, is rendered impossible.

So I joked about it: my cracked crystal ball - a small time machine I keep in the basement next to my Ouija Board - my seance guiding spirit, Chief Forked Tongue - tea-leaves, but it has to be Black Dragon tea, Lipton's Orange Pekoe doesn't have the right vibrations.

Aurora and the SDF-3 kids were being exactingly recorded, but Obstat and the others were not likely to learn much from the motionless, silently communing seance the rug rats were holding.