The death of Johann Georg Schröpfer

Johann Georg Schröpfer, a Leipzig ghost-raiser, was found dead on 8 October 1774 after a gunshot was heard during a walk with associates. He was buried the same day in the hospital's burial ground for suicides.

Johann Georg Schröpfer died in Leipzig on 8 October 1774. Wikipedia describes him as a German charlatan, independent Freemason and necromancer who staged ghost-raising séances using secret special effects. It suggests these possibly included magic lantern projections of ghosts onto smoke, which it says inspired the phantasmagoria shows that later became popular across Europe. Museum-digital Sachsen, quoting the German Wikipedia, calls him a pioneer of séance entertainment who gave shows in his Leipzig coffee house and convinced his audience that he could speak with the dead.

The Leipziger Internet Zeitung, in a 2011 article in German, describes the night of 7 to 8 October 1774. Associates who had been promised valuable banknotes, said to be stored in crates in Frankfurt, wanted the promise honoured. The paper says they presumably confronted him at his house. It reports that he sat down that night and wrote farewell letters, and that all six of them set out at 5 in the morning for a walk into the Rosental, a park.

Wikipedia's account of what followed says Schröpfer disappeared from the sight of his companions for a moment. A gunshot was heard and he was found dead. Some witnesses claimed he had vanished by magic, and that a necromantic ritual alone could bring him back. His body was taken to the nearby hospital within half an hour and an autopsy was carried out. He was buried quietly that same day in the hospital's burial ground for suicides.