Ottawa – Eccentric William Lyon Mackenzie King served a total of 22 years as Prime Minister of Canada. After he died in 1950 the public learned that he was a spiritualist and would hold séances in his home, seeking guidance from his dead mother, his dogs and colourful deceased personalities from Leonardo da Vinci to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The fact that he he owned and used both a Ouija board and a crystal ball was published in Time Magazine in 1953.

King lived in Laurier House (as had Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier.) As Prime Minister, at the house he entertained the powerful and famous from Winston Churchill to Roosevelt, DeGaulle, Shirley Temple and the Dionne quintuplets. Among the unique mementos there today – in his bedroom is the prayer stool of Mary Queen of Scots. King’s crystal ball in is his third-floor study.

Laurier House is in a residential neighbourhood close to Parliament Hill. It’s now a National Historic Site operated by Parks Canada and the public can visit year-round.

King often expressed his wish to communicate with the living after he died. On March 6, 1977 the CBC recorded a seance at Laurier House (CBC seance.) He’s buried in Toronto’s Mount Pleasant Cemetery.