An Extraordinary Journey: The Memoirs of a Physical Medium

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The key role in mediumship of this sort is played by "effect of subjective confirmation" (see Barnum effect) — people are predisposed to consider reliable that information which though is casual coincidence or a guess, however it seems to them personally important and significant and answers their personal belief. [203] In 2003, skeptic investigator Massimo Polidoro in his book Secrets of the Psychics documented the history of fraud in mediumship and spiritualistic practices as well as the psychology of psychic deception. [55] Terence Hines in his book Pseudoscience and the Paranormal (2003) has written: Clément Chéroux. (2005). The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult. Yale University Press. p. 268. ISBN 978-0-300-11136-1

Lewis Spence. (2003). Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology. Kessinger publishing. p. 399. ISBN 978-0-7661-2815-6 The following detail relates to work carried out by well-known Psychic Investigator Mr B. Abdy Collins C.I.E. …..Edward Clodd. (1917). The Question: A Brief History and Examination of Modern Spiritualism. Chapter Mrs. Leonard and Others. pp. 215–41 Georgess McHargue. (1972). Facts, Frauds, and Phantasms: A Survey of the Spiritualist Movement. Doubleday. p. 158. ISBN 978-0-385-05305-1 Marina Warner. (2008). Phantasmagoria: Spirit Visions, Metaphors, and Media into the Twenty-first Century. Oxford University Press. p. 299 Tony Cornell. (2002). Investigating the Paranormal. Helix Press New York. pp. 347–52. ISBN 978-0-912328-98-0 The physicist Kristian Birkeland exposed the fraud of the direct voice medium Etta Wriedt. Birkeland turned on the lights during a séance, snatched her trumpets and discovered that the "spirit" noises were caused by chemical explosions induced by potassium and water and in other cases by lycopodium powder. [161] The British medium Isa Northage claimed to materialize the spirit of a surgeon known as Dr. Reynolds. When photographs taken of Reynolds were analyzed by researchers they discovered that Northage looked like Reynolds with a glued stage beard. [92]

Spiritism is not a religion but a science", as the famous French astronomer Camille Flammarion said in Allan Kardec's Eulogy on April 2, 1869, in Death and Its Mystery – After Death. Manifestations and Apparitions of the Dead; The Soul After Death Translated by Latrobe Carroll (London: Adelphi Terrace, 1923), archive version at Allan Kardec eulogy Gary Schwartz's Subjective Evaluation of Mediums: Veritas or Wishful Thinking by Robert Todd Carroll Psychics: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)". Youtube. LastWeekTonight . Retrieved 25 February 2019. Millais Culpin. (1920). Spiritualism and the New Psychology, an Explanation of Spiritualist Phenomena and Beliefs in Terms of Modern Knowledge. Kennelly Press. ISBN 978-1-4460-5651-6

So how does this ectoplasm enter the room and become visible to the sitters in the session?

In Spiritism and Spiritualism the medium has the role of an intermediary between the world of the living and the world of spirit. 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. Richard Wiseman. (2011). Paranormality: Why We See What Isn't There. Macmillan. p. 38. ISBN 978-0-230-75298-6 In the later half of the 20th century, Western mediumship developed in two different ways. One type involves clairaudience, in which the medium claims to hear spirits and relay what they hear to their clients. The other is a form of channeling in which the channeler seemingly goes into a trance, and purports to leave their body allowing a spirit entity to borrow it and then speak through them. [30] When in a trance the medium appears to enter into a cataleptic state, [31] although modern channelers may not. [ citation needed] Some channelers open the eyes when channeling, and remain able to walk and behave normally. The rhythm and the intonation of the voice may also change completely. [31]

Hines, Terence. (2003). Pseudoscience and the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. p. 52. ISBN 1-57392-979-4 Channelling is lighter than trance mediumship but still deeper than mental mediumship. In channelling, the spirit being blends with the outer layers of the medium's aura only. They do not merge as deeply. Channelling also has levels – light, medium and deep – that as with trance mediumship, relate to the conscious awareness and the depth of blending. Demonstrations of mediumship [ edit ] Colin Evans, who claimed spirits lifted him into the air, was exposed as a fraud. After her death in the 1980s the medium Doris Stokes was accused of fraud, by author and investigator Ian Wilson. Wilson stated that Mrs Stokes planted specific people in her audience and did prior research into her sitters. [174] Rita Goold a physical medium during the 1980s was accused of fraud, by the psychical researcher Tony Cornell. He claimed she would dress up as the spirits in her séances and would play music during them which provided cover for her to change clothes. [175] The spirit guide Silver Belle was made from cardboard. Both Ethel Post-Parrish and the lady standing outside of the curtain were in on the hoax.

What do we mean by spirit circles?

Gordon Stein. (1996). The Encyclopedia of the Paranormal. Prometheus Books. p. 520. ISBN 978-1-57392-021-6 Nandor Fodor. (1960). The Haunted Mind: A Psychoanalyst Looks at the Supernatural. Helix Press. p. 100-22 Many 19th century mediums were discovered to be engaged in fraud. [64] While advocates of mediumship claim that their experiences are genuine, the Encyclopædia Britannica article on spiritualism notes in reference to a case in the 19th century that "...one by one, the Spiritualist mediums were discovered to be engaged in fraud, sometimes employing the techniques of stage magicians in their attempts to convince people of their clairvoyant powers." The article also notes that "the exposure of widespread fraud within the spiritualist movement severely damaged its reputation and pushed it to the fringes of society in the United States." [65] O'Keeffe, Ciaran (May 2005). "Testing Alleged Mediumship: Methods and Results". British Journal of Psychology. 96 (2): 165–179. doi: 10.1348/000712605X36361. ISSN 0007-1269. PMID 15969829. Connor, Steven (1999). "9. The Machine in the Ghost: Spiritualism, Technology and the 'Direct Voice' ". In Buse, Peter; Stott, Andrew (eds.). Ghosts: deconstruction, psychoanalysis, history. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 203–25. ISBN 978-0-312-21739-6.

In March 1902 in Berlin, police officers interrupted a séance of the German apport medium Frau Anna Rothe. Her hands were grabbed and she was wrestled to the ground. A female police assistant physically examined Rothe and discovered 157 flowers as well as oranges and lemons hidden in her petticoat. She was arrested and charged with fraud. [105] Another apport medium Hilda Lewis known as the "flower medium" confessed to fraud. [106] PM is a unique form of mediumship, entirely different from the much better known type of mediumship that offers messages from spirit communicators relayed through a medium who is fully conscious (albeit perhaps in a somewhat altered state) and is essentially acting as a telephone line for those who have moved on from this life to communicate with loved ones still on earth. Spiritualists believe that phenomena produced by mediums (both mental and physical mediumship) are the result of external spirit agencies. [39] The psychical researcher Thomson Jay Hudson in The Law of Psychic Phenomena (1892) and Théodore Flournoy in his book Spiritism and Psychology (1911) wrote that all kinds of mediumship could be explained by suggestion and telepathy from the medium and that there was no evidence for the spirit hypothesis. The idea of mediumship being explained by telepathy was later merged into the " super-ESP" hypothesis of mediumship which is currently advocated by some parapsychologists. [40] Scientific skepticism [ edit ] Wiseman, Richard; Greening, Emma; Smith, Matthew (2003). "Belief in the paranormal and suggestion in the seance room" (PDF). British Journal of Psychology. 94 (3): 285–297. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.528.2693. doi: 10.1348/000712603767876235. ISSN 2044-8295. PMID 14511544. Called the laying of the hands in Pentecostalism, Energy Mediumship also refers to forms of energy sending like Reiki and Shamanism. #4 Channeling MediumshipAmy Tanner. (1994, originally published 1910). Studies in Spiritism. With an introduction by G. Stanley Hall. Prometheus Press. p. 18 Klimo, Jon (1998). Channeling: Investigations on Receiving Information from Paranormal Sources. North Atlantic Books. p.100. ISBN 978-1-55643-248-4.