The Dark Séance – Ghosts and Magicians

“This rickety little machine was my first conjuring set,” Ingmar Bergman once wrote about his first film projector. “And even today I remind myself with childish excitement that I am really a conjurer, since cinematography is based on deception of the human eye.”

Long before the midnight spook shows of the 1940s, there was already a steady continuity between magicians and filmmakers. Georges Melies, one of the pioneers of modern film – and especially genre film – was, himself, a stage magician prior to his cinematic career, and brought many of the tricks of his trade to his own “trick films,” which often combined the sleight of hand techniques of the magician with those illusions which only “moving pictures” made possible.

“Objects large and small, including people, were made to vanish or appear simply by stopping and starting the camera,” as the Taschen book Magic, edited by Noel Daniel, observes. Magicians like Melies flocked to the new technology, with professional conjurers filming their stage routines as early as 1896.

In the process, Melies and those like him pioneered many of the special effects techniques that continue to be used even to this day, and created some of the most striking and memorable images of early cinema. An iconic shot from Melies’ 1902 short A Trip to the Moon – in which the Man in the Moon has a rocket in his eye – is probably one of the most recognizable moments in the history of film, familiar even to those who have never seen a silent film or heard Melies’ name.

Even before the invention of the motion picture, however, cross-pollination between magicians of the stage and those of the screen had already begun. In the Paris of 1794, where “the thud of the falling guillotine blade [was] still a vivid memory,” Etienne-Gaspard Robertson introduced his Phantasmagoria, in which an oil lamp projected painted images from glass slides.

These “magic lanterns” had already been in use by stage magicians and other lecturers for years, but prior to Robertson’s Phantasmagoria, they were often presented as wonders of technology. Robertson, on the other hand, “chose to conceal his technology rather than display it.”

Before an expectant crowd, in a darkened room filled with candles and hung with funeral shrouds, Robertson proposed to bring back the dead. “Citizens,” he said, “I am not one of those adventurers or impudent swindlers who promise more than they can perform. I have assured the public in the Journal de Paris that I can bring the dead to life, and I shall do so.”

As with the midnight spook shows and gimmick films that would follow, this promise – which was, of course, in fact much more than he could actually deliver – was part of the show, priming the audience to be wowed by the images that were soon to be projected from the “magic lantern.” Robertson further enhanced the experience with a variety of “elements of alchemy and witchcraft borrowed from the oldest magic performances,” including potions, incantations, and candles.

Similar ingredients of light and trickery allowed for the creation of a famous illusion known as “Pepper’s ghost,” named for one of the men who developed it, John Henry Pepper. The Taschen Magic volume describes the first official appearance of the Pepper’s ghost:

“On Christmas Eve 1862, the audience [at London’s Royal Polytechnic Institute] watched a short pantomime, The Haunted Man: As a student toiled at his desk, a ghostly skeleton slowly materialized in the room. The student leaped from his chair and battled the skeleton, which faded away like mist. Unlike Robertson’s projections, Pepper’s Ghost was fully dimensional – a seemingly real being who could interact with the flesh-and-blood actors in a scene.”

The concept, however, is every bit as simple as Robertson’s Phantasmagoria. The figure playing the ghost is located somewhere offstage, where they are brightly lit, but invisible to the audience. Meanwhile, a large sheet of angled glass has been placed between the audience and the stage which, in a dimly lit theater, is also (hopefully) invisible.

The figure playing the ghost is reflected in the glass, making it appear as if it is on stage. Because it is merely a refraction of light, however, the figure appears insubstantial and ethereal, and those living actors on stage can “pass right through it,” making it an ideal way to represent ghosts.

Disney’s Haunted Mansion attraction features probably the largest scale – and certainly the best known – implementation of a Pepper’s ghost illusion in history, and they can also be seen at numerous other theme parks and museums all over the world. Even modern teleprompters operate on a similar theory to a Pepper’s ghost illusion.

What’s more, you can make them yourself at home! There are numerous tutorials online for how to create a wide array of homemade Pepper’s ghosts, but one very simple one involves nothing more than some clear plastic, such as a domed cup lid.

Cut a piece of plastic that will fit inside the interior of the domed lid, and place it there at an angle (you may have to secure it with some Scotch tape). Then, cue up a video on your phone of something with a black background. Place the cup lid on top of your phone’s screen, turn out the lights in the room and, voila, an instant Pepper’s ghost illusion!

These early magicians set the stage (no pun intended) for the gimmick films and midnight spook shows that would come after, combining the thrill of the macabre with the magic of illusion and the ballyhoo of a sideshow to create a potent mixture that kept audiences coming back for more. The same techniques would soon be put into play on a much larger scale, as the invention of “moving pictures” gave rise to a new kind of magic that would thrill audiences and lure them into darkened theaters all over the world…