Tuesday, April 20, 2010

There's something spooky in Iceland

We're not the kind to push trivia very often, but find it interesting to have discovered via the data analyzer at YouTube that our video presentation of The Risen is most popular in Iceland, which is much in the news now due to the recent volcano eruption. What's especially striking is that Iceland has quite a long haunted history, and has been said by some historians to be the home of modern mediumship, and has been studied and noted as such for quite a long time. Icelandic Spiritualism: Mediumship and Modernity in Iceland (1997) is considered the definitive study of mediumship there in the 19th and 20th centuries, and although a rather dry, academic book, offers interesting insights into methodologies for testing and confirming authenticity. Here is one review. Other important research papers on Icelandic mediumship can be found here. The Ghosts of Iceland, by Robert Anderson, was more recently published (2004). The author is said to have "spent time with spirit mediums, joined in group séances, observed and recorded conversations between the living and the dead, arranged for spirit doctors to treat sick friends, and attended lectures at spiritist schools, and coffee klatches of the 'spirit society'. "

The Ghost Center in Stokkseyri is a ghost museum that features all of Iceland’s most famous ghosts. There are even travel businesses that focus exclusively on "ghost hunting" there.