Modern Spiritualism is said to date from practices and lectures of the Fox sisters in New York State in 1848. Mediumship became quite popular in the 19th-century United States and the United Kingdom after the rise of Spiritualism as a religious movement. History Īttempts to communicate with the dead and other living human beings, aka spirits, have been documented back to early human history, such as the Biblical account of the Witch of Endor. Ĭhanneling can be seen as the modern form of the old mediumship, where the "channel" (or channeller) purportedly receives messages from "teaching-spirit", an " Ascended master", from God, or from an angelic entity, but essentially through the filter of his own waking consciousness (or " Higher Self"). by using " ectoplasm" created from the cells of their bodies and those of séance attendees.ĭuring seances, mediums are said to go into trances, varying from light to deep, that permit spirits to control their minds. Physical mediums are believed to produce materialization of spirits, apports of objects, and other effects such as knocking, rapping, bell-ringing, etc.Mental mediums purportedly "tune in" to the spirit world by listening, sensing, or seeing spirits or symbols.Spiritualists classify types of mediumship into two main categories: "mental" and "physical": Mediums claim that they can listen to and relay messages from spirits, or that they can allow a spirit to control their body and speak through it directly or by using automatic writing or drawing. In Spiritism and Spiritualism the medium has the role of an intermediary between the world of the living and the world of spirit. The practice is associated with several religious-belief systems such as Shamanism, Vodun, Spiritualism, Spiritism, Candomblé, Voodoo, Umbanda and some New Age groups.Ĭoncept Séance conducted by John Beattie, Bristol, England, 1872 Other forms involve materializations of the spirit or the presence of a voice, and telekinetic activity. Several different variants of mediumship have been described arguably the best-known forms involve a spirit purportedly taking control of a medium's voice and using it to relay a message, or where the medium simply "hears" the message and passes it on. Fraud is still rife in the medium or psychic industry, with cases of deception and trickery being discovered to this day. Investigations during this period revealed widespread fraud-with some practitioners employing techniques used by stage magicians-and the practice began to lose credibility. Mediumship gained popularity during the nineteenth century, when ouija boards were used as a source of entertainment. An experiment undertaken by the British Psychological Society led to the conclusion that the test subjects demonstrated no mediumistic ability. Scientific researchers have attempted to ascertain the validity of claims of mediumship. There are different types of mediumship or spirit channelling, including séance tables, trance, and ouija.īelief in psychic ability is widespread despite the absence of objective evidence for its existence. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums".
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