The Book of Séances: A Guide to Divination and Speaking to Spirits

The Book of Seances by Claire Goodchild is an excellent book on spirit communication and divination.The author goes through multiple forms of divination with short histories, short exercises, and beginning steps on how to use the tool. The book is focused on communicating with spirits with these different divination methods. This is a great book that touches delicately on BOTH spirit communication and divination; it does not choose one over the other. The author also has a great voice while writing. The book is easy to read and keeps your attention.I highly enjoyed your book. If you're looking for Spirit Communication and/or a different Divination tool, I recommend this book. I wish I had this book when I started out!

I love that this book was the " whole package" It included the history of seances, how to do a seance with various methods, and helped with the interpretation of the messages received. It also provided a no nonsense discussion of seances that didn't pander to the usual Hollywood "hype"

I love everything Claire Goodchild!!!!. I have learned so much from this book. It has given me a lot of Insite I can use with using her cards. Memento Mori oracle cards, Oracle of Oddities, and antique anatomy tarot. Her artwork is amazing. This is a must read.

I bought this book specifically for the seance and spirit board information. I had no idea it would contain so many resources. The cartomancy section not only gives the meaning of each tarot card but it also provides the spirit message that the spirit is trying to communicate in a tarot spirit reading. There are several forms of divination explained along with dictionaries explaining meanings of symbols for each type of divination. Instead of saying protect yourself and cleanse your tools, Claire thoroughly explains how to do those things. I think this book would be great for everyone, beginner to expert. Everyone will get something out of this book. Very glad I purchased this! I hope Claire writes more books, she is very knowledgeable and a great teacher.

Bought this as a gift for my daughter. It’s absolutely beautiful. We both love it so much. I highly recommend getting it for anyone interested in divination.

This book was chosen by my book club and it looked like a beautiful book... so I was excited to get into it. It is beautifully designed, no doubt about that. The artwork throughout the book adds a nice touch to this.I was a bit annoyed from the beginning of the book with the warning for anyone with any type of mental illness to not do anything. It is annoying and a bit offensive for the typical stereotypes to be continued. Yes, clearly get professional help if that is needed and CYA and all that, but I just don't feel it was needed. Especially not needed because well... this is a basic intro 101 to divination and doesn't even get into very much in-depth. Goodchild does bring up many types of divination and how you could use it to communicate with spirits, but it is very basic.Perhaps I have just been studying this type of material for too long and mistook this as a more in-depth book. Perhaps I just expected more. If you knew nothing about the subject, this would be an amazing book, I'm sure. I know I would have loved it if this were out when I first started studying this subject matter in the 90s.

This book is so incredibly interesting, with absolutely no fluff! Thank you!!!!!

i’ve been waiting for this book for so long. the hardcover is stunning, and the kindle version is ace — i can have my Book of Seance when all i have on me is a pocket 😅 having known Claire for close to 6 years, her knowledge, artistry and abilities are astounding. her latest creation, her first book, is nothing short of what i have come to expect from her deeply creative mind. thank you, Claire, for blessing us with this book and all your decks and just everything!!! —nyxx

I'm having the best time with this book. While only halfway through, I wanted to give it its dues and help anyone out on the fence. I'll be back to complete this once finishing in the new year.Summarised it's a practical, all be it eloquent, discussion of divination in seance and spirit work. Instead of giving us basic meanings for any approach, we get into specifics that are still beginner friendly but can inspire the intermediate. Despite being well versed in a fair amount of these, some are entirely new to me, so I'm slowly integrating them into my practice to try. That's the beauty of how encouraging this book is. Never is there the suggestion to stick to what doesn't vibe with us, yet still coaxing us out of our comfort zones, embracing imperfection when trying something new. Ok, that sounds obvious, but it takes mere seconds in the community to realise the desire for many to go from beginner to "master" in minutes. This is not that.Bonus points for the historical inclusions. For me, the difference between deepening and understanding practice versus surface-level stuff or mimicry. History is never perfect, but I like to know the author offers/understands something of where this comes from. Practice meets theory is a sweet spot. Doing it our way, but being informed still.All in all, I feel this has reusability working well as reference material. Depth aside, it's also beautiful. I won't deny the addition of Claire's artistic flare, trademark visuals, and finishing touches make for a tactile bookshelf lover experience.

Amazing book! So beautiful, everything is perfect. Claire really did a good job with this book. I am really glad to have it.