In Spiritualism the medium has the role as intermediary between
the mortal world and the spirit world.
Mediums can hear, see and sense spirits to relay messages, or a medium can
be used by a spirit to control their body as in direct voice or by using
automatic writing or drawing.
Mediums are able to 'tune in' to the
spirit world by listening, sensing, or seeing spirits or symbols.
Mental mediumship is communication
of spirits with a medium by telepathy,
and is also known as 'telepathic mediumship'.
The medium mentally sees by
clairvoyance, hears by clairaudience,
and feels by clairsentience spirits either directly or with the help of a spirit
guide. The medium then conveys
the information on to the sitter.
During seances mediums go into a trance state, which can vary from light
to deep that permits the spirits to control the medium's mind and
actions. Most trance mediums
remain conscious during the communication period, but some
go into a sleep-state that permits
a spirit to use the medium to communicate.
The spirit influences the medium's
mind with the thoughts being
conveyed, and the medium allows
the ego to step aside for the
message to be delivered. At the
same time, the medium can have awareness of the thoughts coming through and may even influence the message with his or her own bias.
Trance phenomenon is the result of intense focusing of attention, which is the key psychological mechanism of
trance induction. In the typical deep trance, the medium may not have clear recall of all the information
conveyed while in this altered state such mediums generally work with an assistant.
That person selectively writes down or otherwise records the medium's words, rarely does the assistant record the responding words of the sitter and other attendants. In the 1860s and 1870s trance mediums were very popular.
Spiritualism generally attracted female adherents many who had strong interests in social justice.
Many trance mediums delivered passionate speeches on abolitionism, temperance and women's
suffrage. Scholars have described Leonora Piper as one of the most talented of the
trance mediums in the history of Spiritualism.
This is when a medium channels
an address from a spirit though
not in a trance state.
It is said that the words uttered generally pop into the speakers
head just before they are spoken, which is considered to be
a form of clairaudience.
Also known as 'independent writing',
'direct writing' or 'spirit writing', and is
a process or product that does not come
from the conscious thoughts of the writer.
The writing is performed without apparent intent or conscious control to achieve spontaneity or uncensored expression. It
can be done in a trance state, but most
often the writer is not in trance and is
aware of their surroundings but not of
the action of their writing hand.
With automatic writing the medium will sit holding a pen or pencil and the spirit communicator will influence
the medium's mind and control his or her hand sometimes at great speed to convey their communication
onto the paper. The medium may be unaware of the content of the communication until he or she reads
it afterwards. Geraldine Cummins is an example of a famous automatic writing medium.
In my estimation of all the spirit communications that I have read the automatic writings of James Padgett
originate from inhabitants of the spirit world that occupy higher levels. The following is an excerpt from his wife Helen explaining the method she uses to write to her husband. "When you take hold of the pencil, I
exercise all my power to move the pencil so that it will write just what I think and in order to do that
my thoughts go through your brain. You do not do the thinking but merely allow my thoughts, and the
movement of the pencil is caused by the exercise of your brain in conjunction with the power that
I exercise on the pencil. So, you see, you do not originate the thought, but merely convey it to the your
hand, which I guide in accordance with my thought. You do not have anything more to do with
what is written than an electric wire has to do with transmitting a message from the
party at the end where the message is sent."
This is the modern commercial form of mediumship, where the channeller purportedly receives messages from teaching-spirits,
an alleged ascended master, from an angelic entity
or supposedly from God.
The information is thought to essentially come through the filter
of the medium's own waking consciousness or what is called
the 'higher self'. When in trance the medium appears to come
under the control of a spirit.
Some channellers open their eyes and remain able to walk and
behave normally while rhythm and intonation of the voice may completely change. A widely known channeller of this variety is
J. Z. Knight, who claims to channel the spirit Ramtha.
Other notable channellers are: Jane Roberts for Seth, Esther
Hicks for Abraham, and Carla L. Rueckert for Ra.
Defined as the manipulation of energy by spirits.
This type of mediumship is claimed to involve
perceptible manifestations such as: loud raps,
bell-ringing, voices, materialized objects, apports
(objects appearing), entire materialized spirit bodies
or just hands, legs and feet.
The medium is used as a source of power for such spirit manifestations, which is believed to be accomplished
by using a substance called 'ectoplasm'.
This material is said to be created from the cells of the medium's physical body and those of seance sitters.
Most physical mediumship is presented in a darkened
or dimly lit room, and a traditional array of tools and appurtenances (apparatus) are used including: trumpets, cabinets and levitation tables.
A person whose level of ectoplasm allows for
the physical manifestation of non-physical
entities and non-physical objects.
Ectoplasm is a supernatural viscous substance
that is supposed to exude from the body of a
medium during a trance-state that forms the
material for the manifestation of spirits. It is
unstable and looks like: tenuous vapors,
spirals, threads, cords, webs or rays.
Usually, ectoplasm would ooze from the medium's body, mouth, ear, nose or any other orifice. The ectoplasm would sometimes look like gauze,
cloth-like material and would mysteriously take
the form of a face of a spirit that was invited, or
can appear as an entire semi-physical person.
During this process the people present can see the materialization and dematerialization,
so this phenomena can be witnessed during séances.
Direct voice communication is when a spirit speak independently of the medium who facilitates the
phenomenon rather than produces it.
The role of the medium is to make the connection between the physical and spiritual worlds.
Trumpets are often utilised to amplify the
sound, and direct voice mediums are sometimes known as 'trumpet mediums'.
This form of mediumship also permits the medium
to participate in the discourse during séances,
since the medium's voice is not required by
the spirit to communicate.
Direct voice as it implies comes directly from
the spirit world and not from the medium's vocal cords, but is produced by the creation
of an ectoplasmic voice box.
The phenomenon of remote-viewing can also be technically called 'travelling clairvoyance'.
Therefore the remote-viewer can clearly see people, places, things and events happening at
long distances in the physical dimension or in the non-physical dimension.
The remote viewer can also describe with their eyes-open what is
being seen and happening in real-time.
A person who has the ability to get information from a spirit who knows what the immediate future may
hold. The future may not unfold according to the prediction because people have freewill
and with it the capacity of choice to change their future.
A person that can read the information
being transmitted from one person to another
in the physical or non-physical dimensions.
In the physical dimension, telepathy occurs when
the alpha rhythms of the two communicating
minds enter into synchronicity.
A person that can read information contained in the energy
of objects. The psychometrist can acquire information from the present or the past and details of the owner from an object.
If the owner is deceased, the time that he or she lived can.
be ascertained by reading the energy that is attached to
the object. One of the most positive applications of psychometry is the finding of missing persons.
Psychic art is different from ordinary art because a spirit uses the medium's hand to draw the picture.
Psychic art can be expressed by the drawing or painting of the likeness of a loved one in the
spirit world or frequently a spirit guide is drawn.
Messages can be portrayed through psychic
art along with that drawings that offer evidence
of survival. Psychic art works on a similar
principal as automatic writing.
This appears to be an American phenomenon, and is claimed to be a form of psychic
art whereby a spirit produces the drawing, not the mortal medium.
It is said that the process entails the spirit or spirits to dematerialize the paint, ink, chalk, crayon,
lead etc., and then rematerialize it either onto a canvas, paper or a 3x5 index card to create usually
a portrait. No brush strokes can be detected because the colour is laid down by the spirit artist,
which is evidence that the picture was made by supernatural means.
The ability to move or alter objects without
them being touched.
Uri Geller became famous for demonstrating
on television what he claimed to be psychokinesis, dowsing, and telepathy.
His performances included: bending spoons, describing hidden drawings and making
watches stop or run faster. He is said to
perform these feats through his will
power and the strength of his mind.
A medical intuitive uses psychic vision
to see into a person's body or by
reading a person's energy or aura
field to diagnose their
physical health.
People may see a medical intuitive
when they are unable to obtain a
diagnosis from traditional methods.
The interesting thing about
medical intuitives is that they can
often diagnose the root cause
of the ailment.
This technique was used by mediums
that involved school slates and claim that spirits were writing messages on them.
Usually, a pair of slates are used and
shown to the viewer as clean then hidden, and then shown to the viewer again
with a written message.
Henry Slade (1840-1905) is credited with inventing slate writing, and incorporating
it into his act as a psychic medium.
Slade called himself a spiritual doctor and
is often referred to as Dr. Henry Slade.
Used predominantly between 1901 and 1932 this form of mediumship
was a way to test and validate the powers of mediums who were being studied by psychical researchers. Although, no longer studied cross correspondences offered worthwhile proof of paranormal powers.
The correspondences were made
up of information that was purportedly delivered to mediums
by discarnate entities while the mediums were either in a trance
state or through automatic writing.
The mediums were in different locations, and in some cases different continents.
There were three types of cross correspondences: simple, complex and ideal. In simple correspondences,
two or more mediums produced the same word or words, phrases or similar phrases that were connected
or related. In complex cross correspondences, messages are indirect and must be deciphered.
Ideal correspondences involved messages that were incomplete and had to be put together like a
puzzle. Some psychical researchers believed cross correspondences provided strong
evidence in support of survival after death.
The practice to gain insight into a question or situation by reading signs, events, or omens.
An omen (also called portent or presage) is a phenomenon that is believed to foretell the future often
signifying the advent of change. People in ancient times believed that omens were a divine message
from their gods. Omens include natural phenomena such as: an eclipse, abnormal births of animals
or humans, and behavior of the sacrificial lamb on its way to the slaughter. They had specialists,
the diviners to interpret these omens. They would expect a binary answer, either yes or no answer,
favorable or unfavorable. They did this to predict what would happen in the
future and to take action to avoid disaster.
Psychologist Julian Jaynes categorized divination
into the following four groups:
Chinese history offers scrupulously documented occurrences of strange
births, the tracking of natural
phenomena and other data.
Chinese governmental planning
relied on this method of forecasting
for long-range strategies.
It is not unreasonable to assume that modern scientific inquiry began with this kind of divination, and Joseph Needham's work considered this very idea.
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This consists of the casting of lots whether with: sticks, stones, bones, beans, coins, or some other item.
Modern playing cards and board games developed from this type of divination.
This ranks a set of given possibilities, which can be qualitative shapes or proximities.
Dowsing was developed from this type of divination, especially in the discovery of ores, springs of water, etc., by the means of a rod or wand.
Augury is also considered to refer to divination by the study of the flight
patterns of birds.
An unconstrained form of divination free from any particular medium, and actually a generalization of all types of divination.
The answer comes from whatever object the diviner happens to see or hear.
Some religions use a form of bibliomancy, asking a question then riffling through the pages of their holy book taking the first passage their eyes light upon as the answer.
Other forms of spontaneous divination include reading auras and methods of feng shui.
In addition to these four main categories there is palmistry also called 'chiromancy'.
A practice common to many different places on the Eurasian landmass including the cultures of:
India, Tibet, China, Persia, Sumeria, Ancient Israel and Babylonia.
In this practice, the diviner examines the hands of a person for whom they
are divining for indications of their future.
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