Department of Haunted Antiques
The Department of  Haunted Antiques studies objects, stories and phenomena related to the spiritualist movement that emerged in Hydesville, New York in 1848 . One section of this Department analyses the Magic Mirror of Maria de Naglowska, a celebrated Russian occultist who lived in France in the 1930s.
The True Stories Section examines verifiable accounts, while the Random Stories and Dream Digressions section focuses on stories and accounts related by troubled individuals.

• Spiritualist section
  In 1848, a strange phenomenon took root in Hydesville, New York. Two sisters, Kate and Margaret Fox (and later another sister, Leah), began communicating with the soul of a vagrant who had died some years previously. Before long, they were world famous. This marked the birth of spiritualism. Everyone wanted to make contact with the dead. Spiritualist churches sprang up around the country, and sensitives - known as 'mediums' - became channels for communicating with the Other Side. Various methods were used to talk to the spirits, including trance and séance tables. Spirit writing became fashionable and the 'planchette' was invented. The planchette was a small wooden board mounted on rollers, with a hole used to hold a pencil. But the séance tables took too long to answer and the writing obtained from using the planchette was often illegible.
  • Ouija boards: The first Ouija board was produced in the United States around 1892
    • Boards from 1892-1900 -1950
    • Oak spiritualist table (Designed for the Surnateum in 1938, this unique spiritualist table hides an ancient Tibetan Tantric talisman which increases the table's power of invocation remarkably.) (AH/SS/PO4) Included is a piece of furniture containing all the equipment needed for spiritualist invocations.
    • Spiritualist pedestal table (Designed by a famous French film producer and sold by a magic shop in the 1980s, this pedestal table conceals a clever secret mechanism  that can be used to activate it.) (AH/SS/GS1)
    • Planchette (AH/SS/PS1)
    • Spirit slates
  • Spirit photographs
    • Mat.Phaenomene
    • Spirit photos on glass, used in spiritualist demonstrations (ca 1900)
    • Set of spirit slides about an American spiritualist circle (ca 1940)
    • Spiritualist game 5AH/SS/JS1)
    • Angèle Rosier
  • Documents
    • La Table Tournante: the first French spiritualist journal (1853) (BB-AH/SS/TT1)
    • Small, hand-written American spiritualist notebook dating from 1855 (BB-AH/SS/cs1)
    • Livre des Esprits et livre des Médiums (Allan Kardec) (BB-AH/SS/AK1-2)
    • Spiritualist and astrological magazines from 1935-36 (BB-AH/SS/RS1-20)
  • Rapping Hands
    • Martinka model (deadly hand of Anna Eva Fay) (AH/SS/MSM1)
      
    • Owens model (AH/SS/MSO1)
  • Ghost Hunter's kit (AH/SS/KCF1)
    • HWW Protocol (typewriter) (AH/SS/KCF-PC)
    • Ghost_Hunter's Kit. (between 1920 and 1940)
      · Case (AH/SS/KCF1-A)
      · Cameras and movie camera (AH/SS/KCF1-af1-2-3)
      · Set of 19th century skeleton keys (AH/SS/KCF1-pp)
      · Multi-purpose tool (AH/SS/KCF1-o1)
    • Confessions of a Ghost Hunter
    • Photographs (AH/SS/KCF1-pf)
      · Dead children (AH/SS/KCF1-pfem1-5)
      · Cristeros (AH/SS/KCF1-pfC1-5)
      · Beersel (AH/SS/KCF1-pfB)
    • Miscellaneous documents
      · Warsaw Haunting
      · The ghost of Beersel
      · Various maps (Maulbronn) (AH/SS/KCF1-Mb)
    • Sundial / astrological dial (AH/SS/KCF1-cs1)
• Magic mirror
  • Maria de Naglowska
  • Mirror and Icon (AH/MM/MN/mi1) and (AH/MM/MN/ic1)
  • Books with inscriptions
• True stories
  • Case TVSS/ACC/1910: Alice and Célia Cassave (Text and objects) (Célia Cassave devoted her life to trying to communicate with her twin sister who died at a tragically young age. She succeeded.)
• Legends, oneirism and random stories:
  • Case TAFa/Ir/1900: IRMA (Text and objects) (Account by a young lady who thought she was a fairy. And not just any fairy!)
  • Case TAFa/Ma/1942: Russian Princess (Text and objects) (Convinced that she was responsible for a terrible disaster, Marie D. recounts a strange hallucination in her diary. 1942)
  • Case TASO/PQ/1968: Paradox of Quan-Tri (Beset by multiple personalities and post-traumatic mental disorders, one disturbed sensitive recounts his experience. (AH/TAOn/PQ-pc-jc)
  • Case Lé/BR/1975: Dream Jar (The Curator's strange dream experience when he was still young.)
• The ghost of Jean Cocteau
  • Case TVSP/JC/1961: Jean Cocteau (letter and objects) (Jean Cocteau was certainly one of this century's greatest sensitives. This text is a tribute to him.)
  • Autographed letter
  • Box