I\u2019ll get right to the point: I did not have an encounter with the dead. And yet I left \u201cPhasmagorica\u201d deeply curious. That\u2019s because Smith sets up the evening as an exploration of the modern Western history of communing with the deceased, attempting to conjure the feeling of a s\u00e9ance as it occurred in late 1880s America, albeit with a better sound system and all the Death in the Afternoon cocktails you can consume (note: you should not consume very many). <\/p>\n
The \u201cexperiment\u201d \u2014 Smith shirks at the word performance \u2014 is designed, he says, for believers and nonbelievers. He himself falls somewhere in the middle. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a hopeful skeptic,\u201d Smith says. \u201cIf I were a 100% believer, \u2018Phasmagorica\u2019 would be a church. I just wanted to create a space that started a conversation for people.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is relevant to point out that Smith is also a magician, a member of the Magic Castle, home itself to a popular s\u00e9ance. While Smith has not conducted a Magic Castle s\u00e9ance, he has \u2014 and will \u2014 orchestrate what he refers to as a \u201ctheatrical s\u00e9ance,\u201d for which he is present as a storyteller. \u201cPhasmagorica\u201d is different, Smith says, and was born out of those more dramatic performances, in part because he kept encountering the unaccountable. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s highly curated,\u201d Smith says of a core difference between a theatrical s\u00e9ance and \u201cPhasmagorica,\u201d as the former will be tailored specifically to guest needs and requests. \u201cBut people were experiencing a lot in those s\u00e9ances that I could not explain,\u201d Smith says. He recites a story that opens \u201cPhasmagorica\u201d of a shadow reaching out and touching someone on a shoulder. Smith says he witnessed this phenomena, and at that point decided to create an event that focused on realism and dispensed with the notion that there could be any illusions or magic. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
BC Smith\u2019s \u201cPhasmagorica\u201d is not a theatrical or magic performance. The event aims to recreate the feel of a vintage s\u00e9ance.<\/p>\n
(Roger Kisby \/ For The Times)<\/p>\n
I was surprised, for instance, when Smith left the room. At that point, we were with only a television, which narrates a short history of s\u00e9ances in America before instructing us to hold a pendulum over a spirit board. Knowing Smith\u2019s past, I went in expecting more of a show. Instead, we are prodded to examine a tarot card, peer into the scrying mirror and ask questions to our spirit board. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt becomes more personal,\u201d Smith says. \u201cEven in my theatrical s\u00e9ances, I\u2019ve had people want to cut me off mid-sentence and say, \u2018This just happened to me.\u2019 And they want to spend the next five minutes talking about it. At the end of the day, I think what people like is that this is all about them.\u201d<\/p>\n
And still, Smith says, audiences are looking for wizardry. But there\u2019s no tricks of the light, no hidden fans. He stresses multiple times in this interview and at the start of \u201cPhasmagorica\u201d that this is \u201cnot theater, not a performance, not a show.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had people walk out of the room and swear there was a magnet in the pendulum board,\u201d he says. \u201cOr swear there was some effect that made them see a person standing. People still have an explanation that I had something to do with it. Whatever helps you sleep with the light off.\u201d<\/p>\n
While numerous cultures and spiritual movements have throughout history long attempted to commune with the dead, a s\u00e9ance, says Lisa Morton, author of \u201cCalling the Spirits: A History of S\u00e9ances,\u201d is a relatively recent occurrence. She and Smith trace their popularity to the Fox sisters, Kate and Maggie, who performed to packed crowds in the late 1880s in New York, attempting to demonstrate that spirits could speak via a series of raps on the walls. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
BC Smith calls \u201cPhasmagorica\u201d an \u201cexperiment,\u201d shirking at the word performance. (Roger Kisby \/ For The Times) <\/p>\n
Prior to the Fox sisters, Morton says, attempts to commune with the beyond, broadly speaking, were a more personal and ritualistic affair. \u201cThe Greeks believed that sleeping on a grave might give you dreams in which you communed with a spirit,\u201d she says. Popular myths, too, would portray the practice as borderline arcane. In Homer\u2019s \u201cThe Odyssey,\u201d for instance, a bridge to the spirit world is reached only after a complex series of sacrifices and offerings \u2014 a potent mix of sweet wine and the blood of a lamb. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe s\u00e9ance comes along, and not only is it a group activity, but it suggests that anyone can communicate with the spirits of the dead,\u201d Morton says. \u201cYou just need a medium \u2014 someone who can enter a trance state and open themselves to receiving spirit communications. It was done with a group, and in the comfort of someone\u2019s home. Those were startlingly new ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morton has taken part in Smith\u2019s \u201cPhasmagorica.\u201d She, too, appreciated the historical emphasis, specifically the way a musician performs after the s\u00e9ance as guests mingle with one another and share their experience. Music was a big part of early s\u00e9ances, Morton says. <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople would sit around a table and the lights would be lowered and they would sing,\u201d Morton says \u201cNow, singing did have a scammy double purpose, as they allowed the medium to start doing things in the dark unheard. But these evenings were wondrous for people, and I thought that was what BC Smith captured really well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPhasmagorica\u201d has been running on select weekends at Heritage Square since the late summer. Smith intends to continue adding events throughout the fall as his schedule allows, announcing them on Instagram<\/a>. Though intimate, they do typically sell out. It\u2019s traveling via word of mouth, theorizes Smith, because people today are increasingly searching for \u201cconnection and meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n Heritage Square Museum is itself a location imbued with history and mystery, the site of the homes of Los Angeles as they existed a century ago.<\/p>\n (Marcus Ubungen \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n \u201cThe experience is really up to you,\u201d he says. \u201cI think we\u2019re all searching for something. This is a safe space to explore.\u201d<\/p>\n Late in life, Maggie Fox denounced the spiritualism movement that she and her sister Kate had helped start, demonstrating the ways in which they had fooled their audiences. Smith again stresses that he himself is a \u201chopeful skeptic,\u201d and purposefully stays out of the experience so that guests aren\u2019t trying to figure out if he\u2019s holding onto any secrets.<\/p>\n And yet he says, \u201cPhasmagorica\u201d has permanently changed him. He notes that his wife is a commercial airline pilot and must travel often. <\/p>\n \u201cWhen she\u2019s away, I sleep with a night-light,\u201d he says. \u201cMaybe that\u2019s the answer to the question whether I believe or not.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n