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Mediumship is a term used mostly in Spiritualism to denote the ability of a person (the medium) to produce psychic phenomena of a mental or physical nature. The term is usually used to denote a person who is thought to be able to facilitate communication with spirits of the deceased, either by going into a trance and allowing a spirit to use their body, or by using extrasensory perception to relay messages from the spirits. Some mediums (or the spirits working with them) are also said to be able to produce physical paranormal phenomena such as materilizations of spirits, apports of objects, or levitation.

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.

History of mediumship

Mediumship was described in modern scientific terms by Allan Kardec, who coined the word spiritism, ca. 1860 . Spiritualism in the United States dates from the activities of the Fox sisters in 1848. Some mediums acknowledged by the Spiritualist Church today include Andrew Jackson Davis, Daniel Douglas Home, and Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. In Britain, the Society for Psychical Research has carried on investigations of some phenomena, mainly in connection with telepathy and apparitions.

Types of mediumship

There are several distinct types of mediumship. Mental mediumship is defined as communication of spirits with a medium by telepathy having received the communication, the medium then passes on the information. Trance mediumship is defined as a spirit taking over the body of the medium, sometimes to such a degree that the medium is unconscious. Physical mediumship is defined as manipulation of energies and energy systems by spirits, using the energy or ectoplasm released by a medium .

A spirit who communicates with a medium, either verbally or visually, is known as a spirit communicator. A spirit who uses a medium to manipulate energy or energy systems is called a spirit operator.

Mental mediumship

Mental mediumship involves communication between spirits and the medium. The medium mentally "hears", "sees", and feels messages from spirits, which he then relays to the recipient(s) of the message. When a medium is doing a "reading" for a particular person, that person is know as the sitter.

Psychic senses used by mental mediums are sometimes defined differently in spiritualism than in other paranormal fields. Clairvoyance, for instance, is often 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.

Spiritualistic definitions of psychic senses:

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.

In clairsentinence or "Clear Feeling", 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".

Trance mediumship

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. 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, many delivering passionate speeches on abolitionism and women's rights.

Physical mediumship

According to spiritualists, physical mediumship involves such manifistations as loud raps and noises, voices, materilized objects, apports, and 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. The power or substance taken from the medium is called ectoplasm.

Research and supporting arguments

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 .

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. Studies are conducted by VERITAS have been approved by the University of Arizona Human Subjects Protection Program and an academic advisory board.

Skeptical perspective

Skeptics dispute the existence of genuine mediums, arguing that individuals who claim to possess this ability are either self-deluded or charlatans who engage in cold or hot reading. See also Fraud in parapsychology.

Harry Houdini was a famous magician who became a debunker of mediums later in life and, indeed, even in death, because he left a ten-word passphrase with his wife that a medium should say in order to prove they were channelling him. Although many people did claim to channel Houdini, no-one was able to reproduce the passphrase.

Critics contend that Director of the VERITAS Research Program Dr. Gary Schwartz's past studies such as The Afterlife Experiments have not provided competent scientific evidence for survival of consciousness or that mediums can actually communicate with the dead. They charge that the research he presented is crucially flawed and deviated from accepted norms of scientific methodology.

Well-known mediums

Some well-known mediums are, Derek Acorah, Sylvia Browne, Kuda Bux, Edgar Cayce, Jeane Dixon, Allison DuBois, John Edward, Daniel Dunglas Home, Esther Hicks, Colin Fry, JZ Knight, Joseph Kony, Jane Roberts, Sathya Sai Baba, David Wells, Lisa Williams, James Van Praagh, Rosemary Altea, Divaldo Pereira Franco, Myles Balfe, and Chico Xavier

Fictional mediums

Television and movies

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 from the cartoon Courage the Cowardly Dog.
Technically, Cole in The Sixth Sense is a medium, especially when he acts to help others via the knowledge given to him by the "dead people" he sees.

Video games

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, although Mia Fey never does so in the games.

Books

"The Signalman" from Charles Dickens' short story, The Signalman isn't a medium per se, but he sees the ghost of a man who warns him of danger before it happens.

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

References

^ http://skepdic.com/medium.html Skeptic's Dictionary by Robert Todd Carroll, on Mediums Retrieved March 23, 2007 "In spiritualism, a medium is one with whom spirits communicate directly." Cite error: The named reference "Skepdic" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
Parapsychological Association website. Glossary of Key Words Frequently Used in Parapsychology. "Materialization: A phenomenon of physical mediumship in which living entities or inanimate objects are caused to take form, sometimes from ectoplasm." Retrieved January 24, 2006.
"Medium - Definition". Dictionary.com. Retrieved 2007-03-23.
"spiritism is not a religion but a science", by the famous French astronomer Camille Flammarion in Allan Kardec's eulogy on April 2, 1869, in "Death and Its Mystery - After Death. Manifestations and Apparitions of the Dead; The Soul After Death" Translated by Latrobe Carroll (1923, T. Fisher Unwin, Ltd. London: Adelphi Terrace.), online version at Allan Kardec eulogy
The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition, "Spiritism"
Somerlott, Robert, Here, Mr. Splitfoot. Viking, 1971.
Parapsychological Association website, Glossary of Key Words Frequently Used in Parapsychology, Retrieved January 29, 2007
Braude, Anne, Radical Spirits, Spiritualism and Women's Rights in Nineteenth-Century America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.
"Ectoplasm" def. Merriam Webster dictionary, Retrieved 18 January 2007
Journal of the Society for Psychical Research January, 2001 - Vol. 65.1, Num. 862
The VERITAS Research Program of the Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health in the Department of Psychology at the University of Arizona
http://www.csicop.org/articles/19990608-vanpraagh/
http://www.apl.org/history/houdini/biography.html
http://www.csicop.org/si/2003-01/medium.html

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