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Mediumship Explained

The main aim of mediumship is to provide evidence of survival of the human personality beyond physical death. Mediumship is the transfer of information from the spirit of a deceased person via a medium to a recipient. So, if you are the recipient of a communication you should ask yourself the following questions:

  • Was the identity of the person in the spirit world established beyond reasonable doubt?
  • Was there sufficient evidence of who was communicating?
  • Did the person in the spirit world convey knowledge of recent events?
  • Was there a pertinent message?

The main purpose of mediumsip is to provide evidence that can be proof of survival to the recipient, not to predict the future, not to give advice and certainly not to counsel. Mediumship is a means of enabling people in the spirit world, probably our family and friends, to communicate with us, thus enabling us to gain an understanding that:

  • The spirit of every person survives physical death
  • The spirit of a person retains his personality, character, mind, memories, emotions, etc., just as we knew him during his life on earth.
  • People in the spirit world have opportunities to continue to learn and develop similarly to the personal growth experienced during earth life.
  • Mediums cannot call up a particular person in the spirit world; it is they who choose to communicate with us.

A medium’s primary purpose is to identify the spirit person who is communicating with him. It is expected that the communicator will provide a combination of personal information about himself so that the recipient can identify him. The medium can only provide the information given by the communicating spirit and examples of this type of information could be:

  • His name
  • His relationship to the recipient
  • A description of himself during his life on earth
  • Where he lived
  • His profession or employment
  • The cause of his death
  • Hobbies or other activities
  • Character
  • Shared memories, etc.

Sometimes the communicating spirit provides information that the recipient is not aware of or does not recall at the time of receiving it. Such information should be checked with relatives and friends later to seek confirmation. This previously unknown information should be considered to be very important evidence, as it disproves the claim by some people that mediumship is just reading the mind of the recipient.

During a communication information is often given which relates to events that have taken place in the recipient’s life since the communicating spirit’s passing. This would be considered very valuable evidence of the continuous existence of the individual person in the spirit world being consciously aware of these events, otherwise how could he know this information?

Not all evidence of survival is given verbally, as the medium may sometimes exhibit mannerisms of the deceased person without even realising it, which are recognised by the recipient. Similarly, the medium may use words or phraseology regularly used by the communicating spirit person, also easily recognised by the recipient.

A recipient should look for an appropriate combination of these facts that identify the communicator beyond reasonable doubt. This is important, because it is the evidence that supports the Third and Fourth Principles of Spiritualism:

  • The Communion of Spirits and the Ministry of Angels
  • The Continuous Existence of the Human Soul

Through mediumship the evidence of survival of the human spirit beyond physical death can provide comfort to the bereaved and enable people in the spirit world to express themselves to family and friends.

Science uses supporting evidence to gain facts and thus it can be seen that mediumship is an important part of the science of Spiritualism. Such evidence provides factual information to people who wish to investigate mediumship from a scientific point of view, thus demonstrating that Spiritualism has a scientific basis as well as being a recognised religion with a religious philosophy based on the Seven Principles of Spiritualism. One such scientific experiment conducted on the evidence of mental mediumship by members of the Society for Psychical Research was called MIA (Mediumship Information Analysis), with documented results. The first paper is contained in the “Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, JSPR April 2001, volume 65.3, number 863”. This paper is entitled “A preliminary study of the acceptance by non-recipients of mediums’ statements to recipients”. Paper two in the JSPR July 2001 ii in volume 68.1, number 874. This paper is entitled “Results of the application of the Robertson-Roy protocol to a series of experiments with mediums”.

Spiritualism accepts that mediumship cannot provide empirical proof that there is life after death. However, a body of evidence can be so convincing to an individual that it becomes personal proof that those whom we have once known have indeed survived death. This knowledge, based upon evidence and not just faith, can be a life-changing event, abolishing fear of death and giving us all hope for the future.

We do not normally associate healing with evidence of survival, yet during many healing treatments there is evidence of a superior intelligence at work. When a treatment is commenced the medium very often has no prior knowledge of the patient’s condition or why he has come for a treatment, yet during the session many patients feel effects directly related to their problems and a significant percentage get benefit for the exact reasons why they came. Therefore someone, other than the healing medium, knows their needs. Does this provide evidence of survival, or is it evidence that there is a benevolent God helping us? We cannot say and have to leave that to the individual to make his own conclusions.

The contents of this page can be found in leaflet form in the church foyer.