Cranky Town

When I saw "My Winnipeg" by the genius Canadian director Guy Maddin I noticed something wierd that I wondered where it originated.The subject that came up in this part fiction but mostly true hodgepodge recreation documentary was ectoplasm.I've been obsessed with ghosts ever since I saw Ghostbusters.He mentions a corrupt spiritual leader and architect(almost exactly like Ivo Shandor,who is made up).But it got me thinking where did this all come from? I thought it might be of Canadian folklore(but it's not).It's just another creepy part of history or the primitive version of crummy tv psychics.

I mean who wants a snot filled web of dead relatives anyway?

this is the info I found for this creepy pic:
Mediums conjured spirits which spoke through aluminum trumpets, drew on chalkboards, painted portraits, and appeared in photographs. All of these phenomena were debunked by the likes of PT Barnum--who, though no stranger to fakery, drew a line at the exploitation of peoples' sorrow. Harry Houdini was another renowned critic of physical mediums, though at least one of his debunkings was later debunked. Pictured below is "Margery" Crandon, a Boston blueblood, wife of a Harvard professor, and the most famous medium of the 1920s. When Houdini locked her in a safe during a séance no spirits manifested themselves, but when she was released, out they came. Houdini produced a collapsible ruler on the spot and claimed it belonged to Crandon, a charge she vigorously denied. Years after Houdini's death, an assistant of his told a reporter that he had planted the ruler for his boss to find. Although that is impossible to verify at this late date, Crandon was professionally compromised when one of the wax gloves left by the ectoplasmic hand of her dead brother Walter was found to have been imprinted by the thumb of a local dentist.

wiki entry:Ivo Shandor was, according to Ghostbusters, the designer of 55 Central Park West, using magnesium-tungsten alloys, gold plated bolts, and other unusual materials, designing it convergently similar to the telescopes NASA uses to identify dead pulsars in deep space.

In life, he was a doctor, often performing "unnecessary operations," and founded a cult of Gozer worshippers, with more than a thousand members, who conducted strange occult rituals on the roof of the building. After World War One, he decided humanity was too sick to live, and he and his cult shifted their attention to ending the world. Their efforts were in vain until 1984, long after Ivo Shandor's death, when Gozer attempted to pass through to the real world. Its efforts were ultimately stopped by the Ghostbusters.

He is apparently described in Tobin's Spirit Guide

Zool