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Mediumship is a form of relationship to spirits practiced in religions such as Spiritualism, Spiritism, Espiritismo, Candomblé, Voodoo, Kardecism, and Umbanda. ^[1]

The term "mediumship" denotes the ability of a person (the medium) to experience and/or to tell others about their experiences of contact with spirits of the dead, spirits of non-corporeal entities, angels, and/or nature spiirits. In addition to experiencing these spiritual phenomena directly, the medium generally facilitates communication between non-mediumistic people and spirits who may have messages to share.

A medium may listen to and relate conversations with spirit voices, go into a trance and speak without knowledge of what is being said, allow a spirit to enter his or her body and speak through it, or may use some form of physical tool, such as a writing pad, to relay messages from the spirits those who wish to contact them.

Mediumship is part of the belief system of some New Age groups. In this context, and under the name channelling, it most often refers to a medium receiving messages from a teaching-spirit of advanced wisdom. ^[2][3]

In some cultures, mediums (or the spirits working with them) are said to be able to produce physical paranormal phenomena such as materialisations of spirits, apports of objects, or levitation.^[4][5]

Contents 1 History of mediumship 2 The terminology of mediumship 2.1 Spirit guide 2.2 Spirit communicator 2.3 Spirit operator 2.4 Demonstrations of mediumship 2.5 Mental mediumship 2.6 Trance mediumship 2.7 Physical mediumship 2.8 Spiritualist definitions of psychic senses 3 Well-known mediums 4 Research into mediumship 5 Criticism 6 Mediums and channellers in fiction 6.1 Television and movies 6.2 Video games 6.3 Books 7 See also 8 References 9 External links

Main article: Spiritualism

Methods of communicating with the dead and other spirits have been documented back to early human history.

One of the most famous mediums of all time was the Witch of Endor, who raised the spirit of the deceased prophet Samuel for the Hebrew king Saul, who wished to question his former mentor about an upcoming battle, as related in the First Book of Samuel in the Jewish Tanakh.

Mediumship became quite popular in the United States after the rise of Spiritualism as a religious movement. Modern Spiritualism is said to date to the mediumistic activities of the Fox sisters in New York state 1848. The trance mediums Paschal Beverly Randolph and Emma Hardinge Britten were among the most celebrated lecturers and authors on the subject in the mid 1800s. Mediumship was also described by Allan Kardec, who coined the term Spiritism, around 1860 ^[6].

After the exposure of the fraudulent use of stage magic tricks by physical mediums such as the Davenport Brothers, mediumship fell into disrepute, although it never ceased being used by people who believed that the dead can be contacted.

From the 1930s through the 1990s, as psysical mediumship became less practiced in Spiritualist churches, the technique of channelling gained in popularity, and books by channellers who related the wisdom of non-corporeal and non-terrestrial teacher-spirits became best-sellers amongst believers.

A spirit who brings other spirits to a medium's attention or carries communications between a medium and the spirits of the dead is called a "spirit guide." Many mediums claim to have specific guides who regularly work with them and "bring in" spirits of the dead. The relationship between the medium and the guide may be providential, or it may be based on family ties. In 1958, the English-born Spiritualist C. Dorreen Phillips wrote of her experiences with a medium at Camp Chesterfield, Indiana: "In Rev. James Laughton's seances there are many Indians. They are very noisy and appear to have great power. [...] The little guides, or doorkeepers, are usually Indian boys and girls [who act] as messengers who help to locate the spirit friends who wish to speak with you." ^[7] Then, describing the mediumship of Rev. Lillian Dee Johnson of Saint Petersburg, Florida, she noted, "Mandy Lou is Rev. Johnson's guide. [..] She was, on earth, a slave to Rev. Johnson's grandmother." ^[7]

A spirit who communicates with a medium, either verbally or visually.

A spirit who uses a medium to manipulate energy or energy systems.

In old-line Spiritualism, a portion of the services, generally toward the end, is given over to the pastor, or another medium, who receives messages from the spirit world for the congregants. This may be referred to as a "demonstration of mediumship." A typical example of this older way of describing a mediumistic church service is found in the autobiography of C. Dorreen Phillips, written in 1958. Telling of the worship services at the Spiritualist Camp at Chesterfield, Indiana she wrote: "Services are held each afternoon, consisting of hymns, a lecture on philosophy, and demonstrations of mediumship." ^[7]

Main article: Seance

Mental mediumship is defined as communication of spirits with a medium by telepathy. The medium mentally "hears", "sees", and/or feels messages from spirits and, having received the communication, either directly or through the help of a spirit guide, the medium then passes on the information to the recipient(s) of the message. When a medium is doing a "reading" for a particular person, that person is known as the sitter.

Trance mediumship is often seen as a form of mental mediumship.

Some mediums remain conscious during this communication period, while others go into a trance, wherein a spirit uses the medium's body to communicate. Trance mediumship is defined as a spirit taking over the body of the medium, sometimes to such a degree that the medium is unconscious. Part trance mediums are aware during the period of communication, while full trance mediums pass into an unconscious state in which their physical and mental processes are completely controlled by the spirit communicator.

In the 1860s and 1870s, trance mediums were among the most popular of lecturer-entertainers. Spiritualism had attracted adherents who had strong interests in social justice, and many trance mediums delivered passionate speeches on abolitionism, temperence, and women's suffrage.^[8]

Because the typical trance medium has no clear memory of the messages conveyed while in a trance, a medium of this type generally works with an assistant who writes down or otherwise records his or her words. A good example of this kind of relationship can be found in the early 20th century collaboration between the trance medium Mrs. Cecil M. Cook of the William T. Stead Memorial Center in Chicago (a religious body incorporated under the statutes of the State of Illinois) and the journalist Lloyd Kenyon Jones, a non-mediumistic Spiritualist who transcribed Cook's messages in shorthand and then edited them for publication in book and pamphlet form.^[9]

Main article: seance

Physical mediumship is defined as manipulation of energies and energy systems by spirits.

Physical mediumship may involves perceptible manifistations such as loud raps and noises, voices, materialized objects, apports, materialized spirit bodies, or body parts such as hands, and levitation. The medium is used as source of power and substance for such spirit manifestations. This is sometimes said to be accomplished using the energy or ectoplasm released by a medium. ^[10][11]

Most physical mediumship is presented in a darkened or dimly lit room, and most physical mediums make use of a traditional array of tools and appurtenances, including spirit trumpets, spirit cabinets, and levitation tables.

Psychic senses used by mental mediums are sometimes defined differently in Spiritualism than in other paranormal fields. The term clairvoyance, for instance, may be used by Spiritualists to include seeing spirits and visions instilled by spirits, whereas the Parapsychological Association defines "clairvoyance" as information derived directly from an external physical source.^[12]

• Clairvoyance or "Clear Seeing", is the ability to see anything which is not physically present, such as objects, animals or people. This sight occurs "in the mind’s eye", and some mediums say that this is their normal vision state. Others say that they must train their minds with such practices as meditation in order to achieve this ability, and that assistance from spiritual helpers is often necessary. Some clairvoyant mediums can see a spirit as though the spirit has a physical body. They see the bodily form as if it were physically present. Other mediums see the spirit in their mind's eye, or it appears as a movie or a television programme or a still picture like a photograph in their mind.

• Clairaudience or "Clear Hearing", is usually defined as the ability to hear the voices or thoughts of spirits. Some Mediums hear as though they are listening to a person talking to them on the outside of their head, as though the Spirit is next to or near to the Medium, and other Mediums hear the voices in their minds as a verbal thought.

• Clairsentience or "Clear Sensing", is the ability to have an impression of what a spirit wants to communicate, or to feel sensations instilled by a spirit.

• Clairsentinence or "Clear Feeling" is a condition in which the medium takes on the ailments of a spirit, feeling the same physical problem the spirit person before they died.

• Clairalience or "Clear Smelling" is the ability to smell a spirit. For example, a medium may smell the pipe tobacco of a person who smoked during life.

• Clairgustance or "Clear Tasting" is the ability to receive taste impressions from a spirit.

• Claircognizance or "Clear Knowing", is the ability to know something without receiving it through normal or psychic senses. It is a feeling of "just knowing". Often, a medium will have the feeling that a message or situation is "right" or "wrong".

Some well-known mediums are Gordon Smith, Janet Birdseye (ST), Andrew Jackson Davis, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Paschal Beverly Randolph, Emma Hardinge Britten, Edgar Cayce, Jeane Dixon, Derek Acorah, Sylvia Browne, Kuda Bux, Allison DuBois, John Edward, Daniel Dunglas Home, Esther Hicks, Colin Fry, JZ Knight, Joseph Kony, Jane Roberts, Lekhraj Kripalani, Hirday Mohini, Sathya Sai Baba, David Wells, Lisa Williams, James Van Praagh, Rosemary Altea, Divaldo Pereira Franco, Chico Xavier, Richard Ireland, and Clifford Bias.

In Britain, the Society for Psychical Research has investigated some phenomena, mainly in connection with telepathy and apparitions.^[13] According to an article in the Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, in some cases mediums have produced personal information which has been well above guessing rates .^[14]

The VERITAS Research Program of the Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health in the Department of Psychology at the University of Arizona, run by Gary Schwartz, was created primarily to test the hypothesis that the consciousness (or identity) of a person survives physical death.^[15] Studies conducted by VERITAS have been approved by the University of Arizona Human Subjects Protection Program and an academic advisory board.

Some Christians believe that although mediumship is an effective and practical way to contact spirits, it is a practice that is specifically forbidden in the Bible, and they can cite biblical verses to support their position. ^[16]

Criticism of mediumship also comes from skeptics and atheists, who dispute the existence of spirits or of genuine mediums. Skeptics say the phenomena of mediumship are the result of self-delusion, unconscious influence, or of magician's techniques such as cold reading, hot reading, and conjuring.^[1][17].

Others say that Gary Schwartz's studies such as The Afterlife Experiments have not provided competent scientific evidence for the survival of consciousness or that mediums can actually communicate with the dead. In the January/February 2003 issue of the Skeptical Enquirer, Ray Hyman charged that the research Schwartz presented is crucially flawed in a number of ways, including inappropriate control comparisons, inadequate precautions against fraud and sensory leakage, reliance on non-standardised and untested dependent variables, failure to use double-blind procedures, inadequate use of double-blind protocols, failure to independently check details the sitters endorsed as true, and the use of plausibility arguments to substitute for actual controls.^[18] Schwartz and Hyman debated these points in the March 2003 issue of the Skeptical Enquirer.^[19][20] In January 2007 Julie Beischel and Gary Schwartz published the results of a triple-blind study in EXPLORE The Journal of Science and Healing that also had positive results.^[21]

In fantasy literature, references to channellers or mediums are sometimes used in other ways, particularly to describe a person's ability to draw on some form of magical power.

• The Amazing Mr. X, also relased under the title The Spiritualist, is a movie starring Turhan Bey as a fraudulent medium.
• Medium is an American television series about a woman (played by Patricia Arquette) who acts as a research medium for the Phoenix, Arizona district attorney's office. The series is based on the life of Allison DuBois, who claims to use her psychic ability allowing her to contact the dead to help the local law enforcement agency.
• Ghost Whisperer is an American television drama-fantasy-thriller starring Jennifer Love Hewitt as a young woman who can communicate with the spirits of the dead.
• A green chihuahua named Shirley is a medium in the cartoon Courage the Cowardly Dog.
• The film The Sixth Sense is about a boy who can see ghosts.
• In the movie Ghost, Whoopi_Goldberg plays a fraud medium who discovers she can hear ghosts and uses her ability to help the main protagonist.

• In the 2004 video game Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, the player meets The Sorrow, a mysterious dead medium who battles and also assists the player.
• In the Ace Attorney series, Maya, Pearl, and Mia Fey are spirit mediums who have the ability to allow spirits to take over their bodies temporarily and at the same time alter their appearance to that of the person they are channeling. Mia Fey never uses her abilities in the games, but is usually called upon by Maya and Pearl.
• In the 2007 independent computer game series The Blackwell Legacy, a young woman named Rosangela Blackwell is a medium who inherited the ability from her late Aunt Lauren who was thought to have dementia. She inherits her aunt's "spirit guide", a ghost named Joey that apparently only she, other ghosts, and other mediums can see. They work together to bring tortured souls trapped in the material plane to the afterlife. In the second game of the series you play as her Aunt Lauren at the time she was Rosangela's age, where she channels spirits whose souls are linked between another medium and a living "spirit guide" who wrote about their troubles.
• The 1995 Sierra horror epic Phantasmagoria (computer game) featured the main character consulting a hobo woman who turned out to be an actual medium who channeled one of the malicious spirits present on the property.

• Yoshino Somei in Spriggan uses her necromancy skills to act as a medium, allowing the dead to speak to any living human.

• In the Wheel of Time the energy of the "Source" is channelled by those gifted women able to use it.

• The Secret Life of Sparrow Delaney by Suzanne Harper tells the story of a teenage medium in a family of eight others.

• Séance
• Spiritualist Church
• Spiritualism
• The Spirits Book
• The Book on Mediums
• Spirit possession
• List of channelled texts
• Automatic drawing
• Automatic writing
• Faith healing

• A further point-by-point response by Gary Schwartz to Ray Hyman's article How Not to Test Mediums
• After Death Communication Research Foundation, Jody A. Long, J.D. and Jeffrey P. Long, M.D.
• The Scientific Proof of Survival After Death
• Allan Kardec Educational Society website: The Book of Mediums
• Article about how mediums work
• DMOZ listing of Mediums