A closer look
The ancient Greek equivalent of a haunted house was surprisingly lucrative. At the Oracle of the Dead (the Necromanteion) in Ephyra, wealthy citizens would pay huge sums to speak with their deceased ancestors. Priests would lock them in total darkness for days, feed them a strict diet of narcotic beans and lupines, and then parade them through a subterranean maze. By the time they reached the inner sanctum, they were so delirious and malnourished that a priest waving a sheet on a pulley system genuinely looked like Uncle Socrates.
