Historic Cemeteries, Spiritualism and Hauntings

Victorian-era advances in photography and Spiritualism converged when Boston engraver William H. Mumler produced ‘spirit’ double exposures and turned them into a ghost‑photography business, a phenomenon made plausible to the public by contemporaneous scientific breakthroughs like X‑rays. Magnolia Cemetery in Charleston, founded in 1850, serves as a living museum of the city’s past and is maintained as both an active burial ground and repository of local monuments. Edinburgh’s Greyfriars Kirkyard is internationally known for reports of the Mackenzie Poltergeist, a long-running series of alleged physical attacks and unexplained phenomena around the Black Mausoleum that attract believers and skeptics. The Museum of the Paranormal and Spirituality in Carmarthen stages Victorian-style séances and displays of allegedly haunted objects, reflecting ongoing public interest in contact with the dead. In North Carolina’s Piedmont Triad, the 1929 Lawson family murders have spawned enduring local legend and are now the subject of a Netflix series, with nearby sites such as the Madison building and Browder Family Cemetery cited in reports of disturbing apparitions and sensations.