An Extraordinary Journey: The Memoirs of a Physical Medium

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The interpretive framework employed by early commentators such as Frazer tended to be dismissive. Frazer referred to this ‘temporary inspiration’ as an ‘abnormal state,’ 4 indicating a pejorative attitude. According to this perspective, spirit possession practices represented little more than delusion or folly. In the words of Frazer’s contemporary EB Tylor, it is merely a surviving remnant of primitive mentality. a state of mind characterized by intense focus, the loss of the strong sense of self and access to types of knowledge and experience that are inaccessible in non-trance states. 80 Frazer, J.G. (1993 [1890]). The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions. The medium or chairperson at a seance must give a pre-seance briefing to the sitters with details of what can and can’t be done during the seance, tailored to the individual medium who is working during the seance.

More recent research, however, has demonstrated that the distinction between the ideal shaman as a controller of the spirits, and the ideal medium as entirely under the control of the spirits, is often blurred. 86 Wilson has also criticised the classically assumed distinction between spirit mediumship and shamanism, and has proposed that spirit mediumship, and in particular Euro-American Spiritualist mediumship, can be thought of as a variety of shamanism, with mediumship development seen as a form of shamanic apprenticeship. 87 Our concept of the ASC is, therefore, built upon this foundational perception of a generalized productive waking consciousness. ASCs from this perspective are modes of experiencing the world through forms of consciousness different to our ‘everyday waking consciousness’. Of course there is a wide range of these alternate modes of consciousness, including everything from early morning drowsiness and caffeine rushes to dreams, trances, ecstasies and psychedelic states. Functionalist analyses of spirit possession in this vein have been popular among anthropologists, applied to numerous societies worldwide. 9 These include accounts of the Zar possession cult of Northern Sudan, 10 spirit possession amongst the Digo in Southern Kenya, 11 the case of spontaneous epidemics of involuntary spirit possession in Malaysian factories, 12 and even in a Spiritualist home-circle in 1960s Wales. 13The medium then goes into a deep trance state and begins to do readings for the group one at a time. He brings in souls that have passed on to the spiritual realm and describes them to each person along with some interesting details to validate the spiritual presence. At the meeting I was met by David Bruton, Judith Seaman, Julia Almond, Simone Key and Tanya Smith, the general manager. Eileen and I were then handed the new protocol. David Bruton stressed that it was not a reflection on my mediumship but a way forward for the College. It's something that’s been discussed for thousands of years, though because of past persecution, it had gone underground for a couple hundred years amongst certain groups. Graham, F. (2014). ‘Vessels for the Gods: Tang-ki Spirit Mediumship in Singapore and Taiwan.’ In J. Hunter & D. Luke (eds). Talking With the Spirits: Ethnographies from Between the Worlds. Brisbane: Daily Grail Press.

Halloy, A. (2010). ‘Comments on “The Mind Possessed: The Cognition of Spirit Possession in an Afro-Brazilian Religious Tradition” by Emma Cohen.’ Religion and Society: Advances in Research, Vol. 1, pp. 164-176. The first person in spirit was Doris Maude O’dlum. I looked her up and she was a well-known psychiatrist in England. Yet it is interesting to note that, despite Tylor’s public dismissal of spiritualism, he was nevertheless perplexed by the phenomena he witnessed with some of the Victorian era’s great Spiritualist mediums. 5 Other Approaches And what about AFC’s apparent one-size-fits-all approach to physical mediumship? Surely every medium, physical or otherwise, works in his or her unique way? All clutter to be removed and as much metal as possible as this depletes the energies being used. It is known that soft furnishing used to disintegrate over time in rooms used for physical seances, thus showing that everything in the room affects the conditions.they must be filmed with infrared cameras. It would be invaluable if the AFC invested in a video system that uses multiple cameras that could be linked not only to a recording device but also to a monitor outside the seance room. Wilson, D.G.M. (2011). Spiritualist Mediums and Other Traditional Shamans: Towards an Apprenticeship Model of Shamanic Practice. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Edinburgh.

In principle there should be no seances held in total darkness. Subdued lighting including coloured lights or Natural light is preferable at all times.” Erika Bourguignon, in a cross-cultural study of 488 widely distributed societies, 74 determined that 90 percent of her sample societies employed some form of institutionalised altered state of consciousness (trance), and that 70 percent of the sample societies associated such states with the notion of spirit possession. 75 Channel Mediums allow their mouths and hands to be used to deliver messages through speaking and writing.

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

In her study of a Spiritualist home-circle in a Welsh town in the late 1960s, Vieda Skultans (1974) focused on the therapeutic and supportive elements of Spiritualism as its main attraction for adherents. She interpreted Spiritualist practice and belief as a coping strategy for the women of ‘Welshtown’ in light of their traditional feminine roles as ‘housewife, mother and sexual partner’. 22 According to Skultans, and in line with Lewis’s hypothesis, Spiritualism provided these women with a means to escape their normal day-to-day circumstances, at least for the duration of the circle meetings:

Lots of people from all over the political, religious, age, class, race, industry spectrum have pulled me aside to talk about their connection to Spirit. Social functionSpirit possession usually performs important social functions, including, for example, enabling marginal groups to protest, and for making important community decisions. More recently, Paul Stoller has suggested that anthropological commentaries on spirit possession have tended towards five dominant explanatory frameworks (excluding the dismissive framework of the earliest anthropologists), which include: ‘functionalist, psychoanalytic, physiological, symbolic (interpretive/textual), and theatrical’ frameworks. 6 These perspectives will be used to structure what follows. Functionalist Interpretations With today’s Photoshop technology the original 80 year old photographs have been given a little more contrast for this publication but absolutely NO other changes have been made to them. (AH Publisher)

Knowing that AFC has sought spirit guidance on the future of physical mediumship at the College, I asked David Bruton through whom that spirit guidance had been given. In this case the identity of the medium for that information is particularly relevant since, as we know, a medium is a human instrument and his or her mind (and therefore, personal opinions) can never be 100 per cent absent from the communication, even when in deep trance. Physical mediumship is not practiced much today. One reason might be that these phenomena brought on quite a bit of skepticism, as well as the exposure of many fraudulent physical mediums. Seances are still popular today, and the necessity of a physical medium is no longer a requirement. People have turned more to mental mediumship, psychic mediums, and evidential psychic mediums ? to assist in their connections with the spirit world. Jane – During the session you are the only one who came forward for me,however, there were others that were on the card the medium removed from the box.It was somebody by the name of Doctor O’dlum--- it had the hyphen also. Maraldi, E., Machado, F.R. & Zangari, W. (2010). ‘Importance of a Psychosocial Approach for a Comprehensive Understanding of Mediumship.’ Journal of Scientific Exploration, Vol. 24, No. 2, pp. 181-196.