How anxious the spirit is to come through at the seance? (4,4)

I believe the answer is:

dead keen

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'spirit is to come through at the seance?' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I cannot tell whether this works.

'how anxious' is the wordplay.
'how' becomes 'dead' (I can't explain this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'anxious' becomes 'keen' (I've seen this before).
'dead'+'keen'='DEAD KEEN'

'the' is the link.

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