Keeping Austin Paranormal: An Interview With The Austin Séance

The human desire to explore the unseen tends to swell when reality itself grows more dismal. Case in point: The American Spiritualist movement of the Victorian Era, which posited that spirits exist and are distinct from matter, was fueled by the country’s grief over a rising Civil War death toll. Spiritualism held the promise that the dead can somehow communicate with the living, offering a bereaved population comfort in the notion that their deceased loved ones were still nearby. Popular Spiritualist practices like automatic writing, séances, and psychic readers reinforced the belief that the veil separating ordinary life and the afterlife truly was thin.

In an increasingly disconnected culture fractured by isolating online vitriol and troubling global events, this need to investigate realms beyond the material world is still quite present today, and even seems to be on the rise. It is as if, in our desperation for connection and escape, many of us long to access a mystical plane that might hold more meaning than what we can find on the screen of a phone or laptop.

For the past 9 years, The Austin Séance has been celebrating the history and practice of Spiritualism through lectures, séance demonstrations, workshops, and an occult journal. They take an almost empirical approach to the implementation of Spiritualist methods by educating audiences about historical mediumistic practices, holding séances that incorporate both old and new techniques, and testing various instruments traditionally used to talk to ghosts.

In honor of October and all of the mysterious possibilities this month holds, below is The Austin Tadarida’s emailed interview with the talented duo behind The Austin Séance. Artistic Director Albert Lucio (who holds degrees in sociology and psychology) and Editorial Director Jake Cordero (with an esteemed background in journalism) have spent decades studying ghost hunting, psychics, and the supernatural. Together, the two — with Albert as the Scully to Jake’s Mulder — bring a balance of facts and magic to all of their events, which are held in and around Austin. Thanks to them, our town serves as a hub for both the preservation of Spiritualist history and the open-minded pursuit of hope.

Will you please describe what The Austin Séance does, what inspired you to launch the project, and how long it's been active?

Albert Lucio: My inspiration in the project has been a desire in how and why we experience the supernatural. My background is in sociology and psychology, and I have always been interested in things that go bump in the night. I think it is interesting the way the supernatural has influenced us as individuals and how we as a society and culture have influenced the supernatural. The movement of Spiritualism greatly influenced American history, including our arts, religions, sciences, politics, entertainment, etc. Part of The Austin Séance's mission is the preservation and exploration of that history. 

Jake Cordero: Albert and I share a longtime interest in séances and the occult, and to a large degree that’s what brought us together. We’ve been conducting public sessions since 2016, and private ones for friends and family even before then. Besides séance demonstrations, our work includes occult workshops, occult lectures and academic seminars. We also publish The Austin Séance Quarterly Journal, which is a print publication devoted to the history and practice of Spiritualism [full disclosure: the author has contributed to The Austin Séance Quarterly].

Do you personally believe in ghosts and/or the afterlife?

Lucio: I am the skeptic of the duo. However, I think belief or non-belief is less interesting than the impact of the supernatural on culture. That really is my interest. 

Cordero: This is a very complicated question for me, so my answer will be a bit long-winded. But here goes: My good friend Albert would consider himself the “skeptic” of our team, which then might make me the “believer.” However, I would say the distinction between our worldviews is a bit more nuanced than all that. I am a notorious fence-sitter. Do I believe? Do I not believe? I am on the same journey that many of our sitters are on. I’m searching. I want to believe. And I have had experiences in the séance room that arguably could point to the existence of ghosts and the afterlife. 

Now, some may argue that many (or even most) supernatural or religious beliefs lack the backing of scientific rigor. My retort is that even still, the lack of such rigor does not make all such beliefs irrational. Without going into too much detail, I’ll just say this about how I can hold such seemingly paradoxical views. The scientific method, by definition, confines itself to the examination of objective phenomena. It’s quite possible, however, that objective phenomena do not comprise the totality of our subjective experience of the world. Take for instance the famous example of the apple. A scientist may objectively describe an apple to you all day long. He may measure it. He may X-ray it. He may send it through an MRI machine. He may provide you with all that objective data. But until you subjectively taste an apple, what can you really know about it? Similarly, perfectly rational people sometimes claim first-hand experiences of the supernatural or claim personal spiritual awakenings. Who are we to dispute such experiences? Using objective science, it’s impossible to completely discount them. Science, which measures objective things, cannot approach these subjective experiences directly — despite what the hard materialists might claim.

But belief is a fickle thing, and for many of us it changes. Some days I believe. Some days I’m not so sure. We’re all searching. Like I said, it’s complicated.

What is the most astonishing thing you’ve ever witnessed during one of your séances?

Cordero: Where to begin? We often receive mysterious messages during sessions in the form of odd combinations of letters or numbers. This is interesting in itself, of course. What can be truly astonishing, however, is when those letters and numbers are not mysterious, and they instead form some sort of coherent message that resonates directly with one or more of our sitters. This happens fairly frequently, and when it does, our sitters can become quite emotional. Here's something else that I find astonishing: I sometimes have disturbing dreams the night before sessions and these dreams either seem to find confirmation during the sessions themselves, or seem indicative of some sort of afterlife communication.

Another example of something astonishing: in one recent instance, we had a gentleman fall from his chair and seemingly go into convulsions. He claimed that his body had been overtaken by an entity. We had to stop the séance immediately. And finally, after all these years I still find it spooky when objects seemingly move on their own accord, or if we detect some strange sound in the séance room. This happens much less frequently than you might imagine — particularly if all you know about séances is what you know about them from the movies. Sometimes Albert and I are the only ones in the room to detect such “disturbances,” and they will stand out to us only because we’ve facilitated so many sessions over the years. So that means that what Albert and I may find astonishing during a séance may go completely undetected by the sitters themselves.

 What, in your opinion, is the most haunted place in Austin?

Cordero: The “most” haunted? That’s hard to say. But some locations with the greatest haunted reputations include the projection booth at the Paramount Theatre, Austin’s Oakwood Cemetery, and the Texas Capitol Itself. Of course, there’s also the Driskill Hotel, which was the site of a séance we conducted in 2024 for KUT radio’s ATXplained. One thing I find particularly creepy about the Driskill is the eerie painting of the little girl holding flowers on the fifth floor. That painting was included in a list of famous haunted paintings we published last year in The Austin Séance Quarterly Journal. Next time you’re in the Driskill, go check it out. The first time I saw it, that painting gave me chills.

 Could you give us an example of someone demonstrating accurate psychic abilities?

Lucio: This is a good question. This is something I am constantly in search of. I worked with various ghost hunting groups for about three years then with psychics for 2 years. 

Cordero: I might point to Mina Crandon, the famous Jazz Age medium from Boston. Harry Houdini tried to expose her as a fraud, and, in my view, railroaded her unfairly. She certainly was up to shenanigans on occasion, but even still some of the reports of her mediumistic abilities are quite astounding. For instance, a fairly accurate prediction of Houdini’s death emerged from one of the séances she conducted in advance of the magician’s death in 1926. We consider Mina Crandon something of our patron saint, and keep a commissioned portrait of her with us during many of our séances.

 What are some ways you’ve observed that Austin has [d]evolved over the years? What changes has this caused in your own project, The Austin Séance?

Lucio: I think people are always in search of meaning and a genuine experience. We create a safe space for people to explore those questions. Often our sitters are a mixture of the curious, the skeptic, and the believers. We definitely want people to have that space to explore. 

Cordero: Austin has a very growing and vibrant spooky community, as evidenced by all the spooky shops, and the spooky entertainment options. This has brought us great success and has allowed for the flourishing of our publication, The Austin Séance Quarterly Journal. On the other hand, I would say that when we started, there were very few individuals or groups in Austin offering anything similar to what we were doing. That has really changed — and I would say we’ve seen a few imitators emerge over the years. The competition has kept us on our toes.

 Do you have any recommendations about other spooky events/artists/sites/shops in Austin?

Cordero: We would recommend plenty of shops. Some of our faves are City Alchemist on Sixth Street and Curia Arcanum on South Congress. We also are fans of Curio Mrvosa in Taylor and the Yarrow & Sage witch stores in north and south Austin. As far as fun spooky events go, I’m very partial to Scarah’s Scream Theatre at Doc’s Drive-in in Buda. I’m also a big fan of the Susto Podcast, which is hosted by our friend Ayden Castellanos, right here from Austin.

What would you want to be inscribed on your own tombstone?

Lucio: "See you soon."

Cordero: “Please go to TheAustinSeance.com for details of upcoming appearances.”

To see The Austin Séance’s upcoming events schedule, including their appearances at The Texas Spirit Gathering on Oct. 18, please click here.