What is Modern Mediumship?
It’s a wonderful thing that mediumship has found its way to mainstream awareness.
What was once relegated to the hidden occult section of the local bookstore or a Spiritualist church is now on tv, radio, and social media. It always makes me smile to know that people have a better understanding of the work because it’s being showcased so frequently and well. I believe this has been the goal of those in spirit since before Andrew Jackson Davis received the message from his guides, “the good work has begun”, about the Fox Sister’s connection with the spirit world, and the founding of modern Spiritualism.
The other side to mediumship being out in the public in such a big way is that the work is sometimes exploited. The point of mediumship, for the spirit world, will in some ways always be that our loved ones not only survive the change called death but that our relationships with them never truly end and it’s up to the client to decide if they want to continue that relationship before they too are without a body.
To prove the point that those in spirit are working actively to change and refine how mediumship is practiced and received, we need only look at historical trends. Rather than starting with ancient Romans, or Egyptians, I believe starting back around the time of modern spiritualism in the 1800s is appropriate. Being in an age when a framework for the continuation of life after death was no longer considered a time of laying in the grave waiting for the second coming of Christ but an automatic transportation to the afterlife you “earned”.
Presuming first we had the philosophy connected from with folks such as Emmanuel Swedenborg, Andrew Jackson Davis, and Allan Kardec to name a few. They helped to give context to the work of mediumship. Without their framework certainly the full trance work aided by the invention and popularization of mesmerism, now known as hypnotism, would not have meant anything. In this state, mediums were able to bring through contact with the spirit world as well as information in the form of philosophy, identity, and sometimes physical mediumship as well. I believe at that point the spirit world would work in any way possible to deliver the good news that those in spirit could continue to communicate without the body. That lead to the rise of physical mediumship, taking us to the story of the birth of modern Spiritualism.
Many people are aware of the story of the Fox Sisters that I mentioned above. Two little girls living with their parents in a rented cottage in Hydesville just outside of Rochester, NY. These children were being kept awake at night by knocking noises said to have come from a beam just below their bedroom. Bearing in mind that this cottage had no electricity or plumbing and the only thing below the cottage was a basement/foundation that was mainly used as a root cellar and probably storage for fuel to heat the home. This cottage was rented to the family cheaply because it was said to be haunted. Thus, if the family before the Fox’s had decided to lean into the work of communication the story of modern Spiritualism would be different.
This means there was already a belief in an afterlife, an eternal soul in the public consciousness. It also means, there was a belief that some souls don’t go anywhere after death. So, it’s not like the kids made the whole thing up out of nowhere just for something to do. The children tired of being kept awake finally, jokingly worked out a communication system like follow the leader. One child knocked and the spirit repeated the pattern. Thus, was born the system of rapping mediumship.
Already popular at that time, was something called table tipping. Rapping or knocking was often intertwined into the table work. Like rapping, table tipping is considered physical mediumship and would take place in a séance setting where people would put their hand’s palms down on the table and wait for sound or movement in response to questions asked by the participants.
The Fox sisters did not create the concept of seances or physical mediumship they simply popularized by adding their methodology. In so doing, the spirit world gained one more tool for communication as well as publicity on the concept of the possibility of communication with the afterlife being possible.
Physical seances then expanded to other genres including but not limited to slate-writing, where two school slates with chalk in between were placed on a table under a cover, and post séance the cloth was removed to have writing found on the slates. Seances in the dark with instruments. Johnathan Koons popularized the idea of a “spirit room” or private sacred space used only for physical seances took place. Koons was very responsible for how most physical seances were set up as well even now. Again, he certainly helped with the publicity of what the spirit world could do to prove its existence and intelligence. Precipitated paintings popularized by the Bang Sisters, and Campbell Brothers as a precursor to other forms of mental mediumship featuring spirit art.
Meanwhile, trance mediumship which had been building since mesmerism, now known as hypnotism, came on the scene in the mid-1800s helped along by charismatic folks like Andrew Jackson Davis and a little later Edgar Cayce. Eventually, though, it was mental mediumship that came much more into popularity in part because of folks like Harry Houdini who exposed fraudulent practices and raised the bar legitimate mediumship.
The foundation for the philosophy of modern mediumship and Spiritualism took centuries to develop and was helped along, refined, and shifted back to the importance of proof of continuation of intelligence/personality, and the message of active participation every time.
I believe that those in spirit are always collectively and individually working on our behalf because they still care. Does that mean you can advocate responsibility for your life and decisions? Absolutely not. The whole point is that we are supposed to support and uplift each other on this is plane of reality and in the next. Those who have already made their mistakes in the living will of course work to help you. Cycle breaking and healing are given support and attention precisely because it’s difficult.
Modern Mediumship looks like many things. It may look like a loved one leaving you pennies, showing you their favorite flower constantly as a reminder they are nearby. It might look like a public mediumship demonstration at a church or on Facebook. Or it could look like messages received in your meditation practice or even a visit in a dream.
Regardless it’s reaching out to share love with you. If we remember to keep the work sacred, then it is. Of course, there is more on that topic but I’ll leave it for another blog post.
Books that may interest you:
On becoming a Spiritualist by H. Gordon Burroughs
History of Spiritualism by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
