London Month of the Dead - Celebrity Seances

HAS ELVIS REALLY LEFT THE BUILDING A Short History of Celebrity Seances with Dr Kate Cherrell on Sunday the 26th October 2025 at 1:30 pm Since the creation of the modern celebrity, séance and the supernatural have been unhappy bedfellows, allowing audiences to incite or imagine interactions with their idols. Mediums and psychics have built careers on the backs of dead celebrities, with many long-dead pop stars unknowingly spurring an entire subsection of psychic memoirs and after-death experiences. Neither Elvis, John Lennon or Princess Diana have had restful afterlives, but have experienced decades of public appearances and sightings, captured on film, vinyl and countless paperback books. Para-social relationships are an inherent part of the celebrity/consumer cycle, but do not finish at the point of death, rather transform and elevate, where personal ideas, beliefs and senses of self can be projected onto a spectral blank slate. Looking at popular culture within the history of celebrity séance, we can learn more about ourselves and our societal needs than what Oscar Wilde and Michael Jackson had for breakfast. This lighthearted talk takes a sideways look at the weird world of celebrity seances in western history, from Elvis' spectral adventures in Watford to Oscar Wilde's post-mortem literature. Tickets £12.50 including a delightful gin cocktail and a 20% donation to the King's Chaplaincy Trust. Please click here to purchase. Dr Kate Cherrell Dr Kate Cherrell is a writer and broadcaster specialising in paranormal history and popular seance. Her academic interests include 19th century gothic, periodical culture and modern spiritualism. She is the author of Begotten (2025) and Buried England (2026) and writes commercially on supernatural history. As a paranormal historian, she has co-hosted Haunted Homecoming (Discovery, 2022, 2024) and Unexplained: Caught on Camera (Discovery, 2023), and has provided historical expertise on several television shows for major broadcasters. She has edited the blog Burials and Beyond since 2017 and can usually be found in some dark, dusty corner with a big glass of wine and a good book.

HAS ELVIS REALLY LEFT THE BUILDING
A Short History of Celebrity Seances with Dr Kate Cherrell
on Sunday the 26th October 2025 at 1:30 pm

Since the creation of the modern celebrity, séance and the supernatural have been unhappy bedfellows, allowing audiences to incite or imagine interactions with their idols. Mediums and psychics have built careers on the backs of dead celebrities, with many long-dead pop stars unknowingly spurring an entire subsection of psychic memoirs and after-death experiences. Neither Elvis, John Lennon or Princess Diana have had restful afterlives, but have experienced decades of public appearances and sightings, captured on film, vinyl and countless paperback books.

Para-social relationships are an inherent part of the celebrity/consumer cycle, but do not finish at the point of death, rather transform and elevate, where personal ideas, beliefs and senses of self can be projected onto a spectral blank slate. Looking at popular culture within the history of celebrity séance, we can learn more about ourselves and our societal needs than what Oscar Wilde and Michael Jackson had for breakfast. This lighthearted talk takes a sideways look at the weird world of celebrity seances in western history, from Elvis' spectral adventures in Watford to Oscar Wilde's post-mortem literature.

Tickets £12.50 including a delightful gin cocktail and a 20% donation to the King's Chaplaincy Trust. Please click here to purchase.

Dr Kate Cherrell
Dr Kate Cherrell is a writer and broadcaster specialising in paranormal history and popular seance. Her academic interests include 19th century gothic, periodical culture and modern spiritualism. She is the author of Begotten (2025) and Buried England (2026) and writes commercially on supernatural history. As a paranormal historian, she has co-hosted Haunted Homecoming (Discovery, 2022, 2024) and Unexplained: Caught on Camera (Discovery, 2023), and has provided historical expertise on several television shows for major broadcasters. She has edited the blog Burials and Beyond since 2017 and can usually be found in some dark, dusty corner with a big glass of wine and a good book.