Mediumship

Mediumship is the process of communication with spirits. It forms a major part of the Spiritualist belief system, as well as many other belief systems globally. Mediums may be born, although many are people that have worked at it.

History
Mediumship dates back to early human history, and is even mentioned in the Old Testament. It became more well-known and popular following the birth of the Spiritualist movement in the 19th Century. This was mostly physical mediumship, however, it attracted a lot of fraud, so fell into disrepute. Today, the vast majority of mediumship is mental mediumship, and is gaining increasing amounts of supporters and believers.

Methods
There are several variants of mediuship, all of which will be outlined below.

Mental mediumship
This is the form of mediumship most commonly practised today. It is essentially the method of communication with spirits via telepathy. The medium will get information in a number of ways, i.e. a feeling, visual information, or hearing.

Trance mediumship
Using this method, the medium will enter a trance and allow spirits to control their body. The spirit will control the vocal cords or other parts of the body, to convey a message to the recipient. The medium may or may not have recollection of what happened during the trance.

Physical Mediumship
Physical Mediumship involves the use of physical phenomena to prove the existence of life after death. This method has largely fallen into disuse, due to fraud in the early days of Spiritualism, which has attached a stigma to mediumship that endures to present day.