Postal Seance: A Scientific Investigation into the Possibility of a Postlife Postal Existence

by Henrik Drescher

If you can write letters to Santa Claus c/o the North Pole, you ought to be able to write a letter to Jack Kerouac or Albert Einstein. As it turns out, you can. People have been trying to communicate with the dead for aeons, but it took renowned author and illustrator Henrik Drescher to break through the eternal barrier. Postal Seance is the result of his bizarre and ambitious experiment, in which the afterlife meets the epistolary impulse in the form of elaborately decorated letters to the dead. By sending out 52 ornately designed cards and letters to deceased luminaries throughout history -- including James Joyce, Dolly the Sheep (in two letters), Chairman Mao, Saul Steinberg, and others -- Drescher puts his faith in the efficacy of the international postal network. In some cases, the letter is returned, bearing evidence of its lengthy journey in the form of international postmarks as it bounced from Singapore to Manchester, Sydney to Kentucky, or Madrid to Moscow, at last surrendering to the ultimate defeat, the "Return to Sender" stamp. Of those not returned, it is deduced that the letter was successfully delivered. With a foldout map showing the post-life postal system and custom stamps for the reader's own far-reaching missives, Postal Seance is a uniquely imaginative presentation, and perhaps the closest we humans have ever come to contact with the dead.

Genres: Art

80 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2004

About the author

Henrik Drescher was born in Copenhagen and immigrated to the United States in 1967. He began a career in illustration as a young man and has been traveling throughout the United States, Mexico, Europe and China, creating massive journals of notes and drawings wherever he went.

His books are held in the collections of the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Rijks Museum in Den Haag, Netherlands. He has received numerous other honors including two awards from the Society of Illustrators.

Reviews

[Mim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this quite awhile ago, and just looked at it again. It's very clever and wonderfully illustrated and makes me want to send mail to the ethereal plane, myself.

[Justwinter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderfully eccentric and hilarious conceit: mailing postcards to the (famous) deceased to see what number 'get through' to the other side.

This is scientifically determined via the number of returned/undeliverable postcards.

Really, I think I'm sort of in love with anyone who thinks up this sort of mad-cap idea.

The postcards and letters are beautifully reproduced in this petite, postcard-sized volume. It is engaging both visually and mentally, a pure joy to read.