Thirty Years Among the Dead

Thirty Years Among the Dead is a book by Carl A. Wickland, first published in 1924. In this unsettling, methodical collection of case studies, Swedish-American psychiatrist Carl A. Wickland describes three decades of clinical encounters in which he came to believe that many severe mental illnesses were linked to influence from “obsessing” spirits. Wickland presents transcripts of séances, medium-assisted sessions (with his wife Anna acting as medium), and treatments that blend early psychiatric practice with spiritualist methods; the book reads as part medical casebook, part psychical investigation. Readers seeking historical accounts of spirit possession, mediumship, and afterlife narratives will find detailed session records, vivid spirit-communications, and Wickland’s reflections on the nature of discarnate existence and how it intersects with mental health. Controversial in its time and still provocative today, the work sits at the crossroads of parapsychology and early 20th-century psychiatric experimentation. It has influenced spiritualist communities and those researching the paranormal and afterlife, while skeptics note its departure from mainstream medical practice. For anyone cataloguing historical studies of spiritualism, spirit possession case histories, or early psychical research, this book remains a notable — if debated — primary source.