Der Geisterseher

Geisterseher, Der, an uncompleted novel written by Schiller between 1786 and 1789. It was published in instalments in Schiller's periodical Die Thalia (1787-9), and as a book in 1789. It bears the sub-title Eine Geschichte aus den Memoires des Grafen von O. A young prince lives modestly in Venice with his companion Count O. A strange Armenian and a Sicilian adventurer seek to acquire an ascendancy over the prince, the Sicilian promising to summon up the prince's dead friend. He seems to do so, but his attempt is exposed as a fraud. The second book is in the form of letters. The prince's character has now changed. He falls in love with a beautiful Greek woman, who is involved in a conspiracy to convert him to Roman Catholicism. After her death he undergoes conversion, and at this point the story breaks off.

Der Geisterseher, of which Schiller soon wearied, proved to be one of the most popular of his works, chiefly because it treated in masterly style the then topical theme of experiments in the supernatural. It is mentioned with approval in E. T. A. Hoffmann's story Das Majorat.