Thirty Years Among the Dead contains dozens of detailed accounts of patients treated by psychiatrist Carl A. Wickland with spiritualist methods, with his wife acting as the medium for the patients involved.
Through transcripts taken during the treatment administered by Wickland, we read first-hand the behaviors of the patients who have agreed to undergo a seance. Many describe feeling a sudden change in their mood and consciousness, and are upset that their lives have been disrupted in such a way and desire relief from such a disequilibrium.
The ghosts which are communicated with often express surprise that they have died; most feel existence as vividly as when they were living, breathing people. Wickland explains that ascertaining the temperament and attitudes of the spirits is a crucial first phase to helping the patient. Often they are quite recently dead; few of the ghosts Wickland heard from through his patients had been deceased for more than a century. Sometimes the spirits were ignorant of the damage they were causing to the patient involved, whilst others show no concern.
Spiritualist theory holds that many instances of mental illness can be ascribed to the patient having been possessed or haunted by a dead spirit. The malevolence of said spirit has deleterious effects upon the person's psyche, to the point of causing depression, anxiety or other mental disturbances. The cure involves the use of a psychic medium to communicate with the spirit, hear its grievances, and offer empathy for its discontentment in the spirit world while urging it to decouple from the patient.
Born in Sweden and educated in Chicago, USA, Carl August Wickland was fascinated with the idea of hidden realms beyond our own. While still a student he began investigations of spiritism and spirit phenomena, meeting his wife-to-be Anna who was also an enthusiast and medium. Together for over forty years until Anna's death in 1937, the pair became famous in Los Angeles for treating patients with spiritualist methods.
