The Dilemma of Fun-Yet-Irrelevant Museum Programs, or, A skeptic at the seance

Last Friday I attended my first seance. It was at work; one of my programs, which would be somewhat surprising if you were at all aware of my programming style. See, I'm not really a museum programmer; that's just what I'm doing right now. My first love was collections, but then I quickly realized that I love talking too much to spend my life in storage. So I grew into museum supervisory roles at the junior management level, which inevitably seem to always involve a lot of programming and event planning.

Sure, they're having fun. But let's be honest:
Do they fit at my pioneer homestead museum?

My interests, however, focus more on general interpretation, the visitor experience and visitor engagement. One of the things I have the most difficulty with is developing programs that match the museum's interpretive themes and mandate. Well, it's not that I have issues with it, it's more that I see it as very important (re: essential) that your programs have a strong link to the museum itself. To the layman, that means that I can't just do a program because it sounds like fun; it needs to fit with the museum. So... for example: kids love dinosaurs, but I can't really do a dinosaur program at my historic house museum. Or a renaissance fair. Or have highland dancers. Or a "Pride and Prejudice" day.

Anyway, when I started my job I inevitably inherited some programs. From a an annoyingly popular "let's talk about colours" preschool program (the bane of my existance) to our halloween programs.

We have a seance (which I managed to sell as a "popular victorian passtime") to ghost hunting (I'm still struggling with this one). I mean, I'm so dedicated to authentic museum experiences that I can't help but sigh when visitors ask with a grin, "So, is this place haunted?" It's usually one of the first things people ask, if they're going to at all. It happens so much that I now have a stock answer. My concern is that I can't help but feel that if the word "got out" that we were haunted and that were why people visited us, it would inevitably take away from the respect and historical significance of the site. I just feel that my job as a "custodian of history and culture", as it were, means that I can't a) lie, or b) use sensationalization  to make our museum matter. It should matter as it is. If it doesn't that's an interpretive planning/visitor experience issue that no amount of programming can fix.

See!! Seances are historical! <Phew>

So, fast forward to last Friday. I mean, don't get me wrong; I was pretty excited/curious about how a seance would go. Since I do spend so much time by myself in the 200-year-old house that is my museum, I can't deny that I think about it being haunted, but I've never had anything unexplained happen. I've had my fair share of Ouija board sessions in my late teens and early twenties, but I've always been the resident skeptic.

I wanted to sit in on the seance out of curiosity, so I set up a chair on the side of the room, but the medium (a very nice no-nonsense lady) insisted that I sit at the table so that I would be in the protection circle. She walked around us with salt and made some chants, then asked us to do our own little circle around ourselves with the salt while we thought positive thoughts and asked for the people we wanted to talk to.

I don't have any deceased loved ones. So I couldn't help but wonder about if there were any spirits of the family or in the house. I didn't expect, however, to get any answers, or to even participate, really.

Yeah, it's Florence Nightingale.
Just go with it.

I was impressed, I must say. The psychic was pretty good and there were a few hits and misses, but the hits were spooky in their accuracy. People were enjoying themselves. Throughout, however, a few odd things happened while she was talking to other people. They usually felt like misses.

"Did anyone's house burn down? No? Hmm... I keep getting someone's house burned down."
"Sorry, there's just this powerful pioneer woman with a bonnet in the corner." The psychic laughs, "She keeps distracting me because she keeps talking about torn dresses. I can't figure out why."
Psychic laugs and interrupts again, "Sorry, she just keeps going on and on about torn dresses." The psychic gestures to the back of her shoulder.

Then, "Who's Helen?"
One of the women said, "My name's Helen."
"No, it's not you. It's the woman in the dress! That's her name!"
My heart sank. "Oh my God," I said, "I know who it is!"

There was a woman who lived in another pioneer house down the road whose name was Helen. She was a strong woman whose house burned down in a huge fire in the mid-1850s. Now for the strange part. The psychic agreed, "Yes, she's agreeing, but she's talking about the dresses again. She's mad about the torn dresses."

It was the fact that the psychic was gesturing to her shoulder that clued me in. All summer, the girls kept tearing their costumes in the shoulder because they weren't used to the tight victorian dresses. I sometimes put off sewing them up. Apparently "Helen" was angry with me for letting them walk around like that. "Oh... she's mad at you," the psychic said with a smile and a laugh. "She's also talking about how she gets mad when you get things wrong."

So... apparently Helen lives at my museum because hers burnt down. Her grave is actually pretty close and I visited it the other day, strange as that may seem. To be honest I'm still not sure if I believe, even though some stuff came out that the psychic couldn't possibly know. I like the idea that Helen's there, or not.

If I have to share my museum with a spirit, it might as well be one with the same visitor experience standards as me.