“As I did take mine seat before her, the likeness held fast within mine hand, the air grew ever thin, and a veil of darkness did cloak the chamber round. Her eyes did wander to the corner, where stood a chair; and upon it sat a doll. It was clad in bonnet and in gown, yet methought there lay some strangeness in its countenance. Verily, I could have sworn its visage did alter—aye, did shift and twist. For the first time, it seemed to me I gazed into the eyes of one long dead…”

— Margery Thistlewaite, 12th August, 1540.

For centuries, people have claimed to speak with the dead, though many of history’s most gifted psychics have faded into obscurity. But tucked away in a museum of bizarre artefacts in Nottingham lies a story that sparked my curiosity and inspired a routine unlike any other.

Years ago, there were reports of a psychic with an unusually eerie method for contacting the spirit world. Her process began with a simple request: the sitter must bring a picture, drawing, or painting of the person they wished to contact. Much like these...

The performer displays a stack of 20 small Polaroid-style photos, each marked with a name, age at death, and year of passing.

In the corner of her séance room sat a worn rocking chair, and on it, a doll. The psychic would lock eyes with the doll. Though she had never seen the person in the picture, she claimed the doll’s face would morph into that of the deceased. From there, she would deliver uncanny details about the spirit.

A spectator secretly selects one of the photos and hides it from the performer. Then, a small envelope is produced. Inside, a final photo: a portrait of the doll, restored and preserved through generations, now held in a museum.

The performer gazes at the photo of the doll... and begins to speak.

“I see… food. And the colour brown. Numbers—59, perhaps? A year… 1951? And a name. Heidi?”

Every detail is confirmed accurate.

The doll’s photo is placed back into the envelope, which remains in plain view and is never switched. The spectator selects a second photo, memorises its details, then places it face-up in the middle of the face-down stack. The stack is turned over and spread, only one image now faces the other way.

“You clearly saw a person in that image, didn’t you? Remember, the psychic said she saw the doll’s face morph. Who did you see?”

The spectator replies: “Adam.”

They slide the reversed photo out and flip it over, it’s the image of the doll.

And inside the envelope? The photo of Adam, the one they thought they saw.

AFTERLIFE is a stunning routine that scales easily from close-up to parlour. Multiple spectators can be involved, and each image’s details can be revealed with chilling precision.

Worried about memory work? Don’t be. The secret is ingeniously built into the first names. Each name holds the key to the person’s age, year of death, a colour, and an object associated with them, making it easy and intuitive to perform.

Includes:

20 custom Polaroid-style photos

1 plain envelope

1 crib envelope

Full video instructions with multiple handlings