This summary from the CoastToCoastAM radion broadcast the other night. Twain was mentioned, but not in as much detail. Any Twainiacs aboard who've done more about his beliefs and practices (after brother's death, for example)?
-Richard R, SF Bay


Seances:
 
"In the latter half (July 31 broadcast), author M.J. Rose spoke about the history of seances and techniques that have been used  by the likes of Victor Hugo, Mark Twain, Mary Todd Lincoln and Arthur  
Conan Doyle to access the souls and spirits of the departed. Seances  
reached their height of popularity during the Victorian era, with the  
rise of interest in Spiritualism. Yet, trickery was enormously prevalent during this era, such as the use of a "trumpet" in which people at a  
seance listened through it and heard the voices of spirits, but it was  
actually the sitter manipulating their own voice through it, she  
explained. A lot of trick photography (see example) was used to portray ghosts, spirits and other phenomena, and because  
the photographic medium was so new, people tended to believe it was  
authentic.
 
"The Ghost Club was a group started in 1862 in London with the goal of  
carrying out scientific studies of paranormal activity, and well known  
members included Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens. They sought to  
investigate, and in many cases debunk, spiritualists and seances, and  
the group led to the formation of the Society of Psychical Research some
  20 years later. A kind of seance involved "table tapping," a 
forerunner  to the Ouija board, with messages spelled out in taps on a 
stool. In  Paris, the renowned French writer Victor Hugo became obsessed
 with  seances after the death of his daughter. In a two-year period he 
was  involved in some 100 seances, in which not only his daughter came  
through, but Jesus, Shakespeare, a Martian, and Plato were said to send 
 messages, she recounted. Rose also touched on her interest and study of
  reincarnation and soul groups."