WHY ARE PEOPLE FLOCKING TO THIS CHILLING SÉANCE?

THERE ARE NO TRICKS AT 'PHASMAGORICA,' THE CREATOR SWEARS

- TODD MARTENS

I AM SITTING IN A TENT placed inside the parlor of a Victorian-era house. Before me lies a spirit board, a lone tarot card and a black scrying mirror. I am here to commune with the dead. There is no medium. It is only myself and eight other attendees-our guide has left the tent. Though earlier we could hear tension-rattling music setting a cryptic mood, now there is nothing.

Lights? Off. The tent has gone pitch black. At this particular moment, there's only the sound of our breaths, our thoughts and perhaps some new guests. Welcome to "Phasmagorica," what composer-turned-magicianturned-spiritual explorer BC Smith describes as "a séance reimagined as art." It's been running since late summer at Heritage Square Museum, and will reemerge this fall at West Hollywood's Petit Ermitage Hotel.

I'll get right to the point: I did not have an encounter with the dead.

And yet I left "Phasmagorica" deeply curious. That's 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 séance 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).

The "experiment" Smith avoids the word "performance" - is designed, he says, for believers and nonbelievers. He himself falls somewhere in the middle.

"I'm a hopeful skeptic," Smith says. "If I were a 100% believer, 'Phasmagorica' would be a church. I just wanted to create a space that started a conversation for people." It is relevant to point out that Smith is also a magician, a member of the Magic Castle, home itself to a popular séance.

Though Smith has not conducted a Magic Castle séance, he has - and will - orchestrate what he refers to as a "theatrical séance," for which he is present as a storyteller.