What to Expect from a Spiritual Medium

History of Spiritualism

Spiritualism is a religion based on the belief that the spirits of the departed, currently residing in the spirit world, can communicate with the living. Spiritualism developed and grew in popularity from around 1840 and by 1897, there were more than eight million followers in Europe and the United States. In the late 1880s, after half a century of spreading by means of camps, trance lectures and examples of mediumship, more formal Spiritualist organisations began to appear. Today, Spiritualism is practiced primarily in Spiritualist churches in the U.K, U.S.A and Canada.

What is spiritual mediumship?

Mediumship is the practice of communicating with the spirits of the dead. There are many different forms of mediumship, falling into two main categories: ‘Mental’ and ‘Physical’ mediumship, and mainly take place during a Séance (from the old French word ‘to sit’).

‘Mental mediumship’ takes place when the medium ‘tunes in’ to the spiritual world and either sees, hears or feels messages from the spirits residing there and passes them on to the desired recipient. Trance mediumship falls under ‘mental mediumship’. During a trance, the spirits use or influence the medium’s mind to convey their messages. It is common for the medium to not recall the messages they have conveyed during a deep trance and so tend to work with an assistant who can record the session.

Similar to trance mediumship is the art of channelling. This is when the medium goes into a trance, leaving their body, and allowing the spirit to talk through them, directly to the audience. The medium’s voice often changes completely as the spirit takes over. The spirit communicates with the audience and answers their questions.

Physical mediumship takes place when the spirits manipulate energy and elements to create loud noises or voices, as well as manifestations and materialised spirit bodies or body parts.

There are different words to describe the senses that allow spiritual mediums to communicate with the spirit world, the most well known being ‘clairvoyance’, ‘clairaudience’ and ‘clairsentience’. Clairvoyance is the ability to see what isn’t physically present, in the ‘mind’s eye’. For some mediums, this is a natural and constant state, whereas others have to focus their minds using meditation. Clairaudience is the ability to hear the voices or thoughts of the spirits as though they were stood next to the medium, whispering in their ear. Clairsentience is when a medium senses or feels impressions of the messages the spirit wants to convey.

Visiting a Spiritual Medium

When attending a session with a spiritual medium, it is important to keep a few things in mind.

It is important to go to a medium with an open mind. You are bound to have certain questions that you would like answering or people you would like to hear from, especially if a loved one has recently passed. It is important to remember that a medium does not choose who they speak to, and cannot ‘dial in’ to a specific person on command; they communicate with those spirits who come forward and are available when they link to the spirit world.

Spirits communicate with mediums in different ways and sometimes it may take a while for the medium to gain clarity from a message. Be patient and give the reader time to understand what he or she is being told. Be honest with a reader and tell them if something doesn’t relate to you, so they can adjust and make more sense from the message, but also remember not to feed the reader; you will be expected to answer some questions but don’t give the reader all of the information as that is their role.

You also need to understand that a good reading includes both the good and the bad and you may not always like what you hear. Most of all though, despite the possibility of hearing something you may not have wanted or expected to hear, a session with a spiritual medium should be a positive experience and hopefully an opportunity for you to come away with closure and peace of mind.