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wife, Jean, professed to be a medium who could channel spirits at s%u00e9ances. Even after several mediums that Conan Doyle praised were shown to be frauds, he remained an avid believer. In fact, during his lifetime, he wrote 20 books that dealt positively with Spiritualism. Little wonder that in 1925, Sir Arthur was nominated to be Honorary President of the International Spiritualist Congress in Paris.Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, and his deaf wife Mable, were also fascinated with Spiritualism, and attended s%u00e9ances together. At one point Bell tried to create an electronic form of spirit communication. His assistant, Thomas Watson, was a practicing medium who believed electricity was an occult force.President Abraham Lincoln%u2019s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, hosted s%u00e9ances in the White House, and it is believed the President occasionally attended. Some Spiritualists feel he was inspired by spirits when he wrote the Emancipation Proclamation.No matter what the era, those who claim to contact the dead generally provoke extreme reactions in others. Skeptics tend to believe all mediums are fakes, and consider Spiritualists to be superstitious, ignorant dupes. Believers, on the other hand, view the skeptics as close-minded and na%u00efve. Yet, while some believers will admit to a few frauds, they point out that others truly have psychic ability. As in all religions, faith is far more powerful in Spiritualism than scientific evidence.Spiritualism books and journals began to appear in the 1850s, as s%u00e9ances (also known as spirit circles) became popular. Spiritualist churches began to be established all over the United States, and by the mid-1850s, more than a million people claimed to be Spiritualists. In 1851, there