Spirit mediumship

This essay explores intimate relationships between Buddhism and power in contemporary Thailand. Considering practices like divination and spirit mediumship as well as more orthodox contexts like kingship and the monkhood, it argues that Thai Buddhism cannot be divorced from the race for political influence and material wealth. The essay ultimately investigates the role of religion in legitimizing social hierarchy and economic inequality in the kingdom. It also illustrates how Thai Buddhism offers opportunities for resistance, as people from the periphery appropriate idioms of morality to challenge the status quo.

Patience Worth, a British Puritan girl who lived and died sometime in the seventeenth century, produced a prolific four million words in the form of novels, plays, poems, prayers, and short stories. "Produced" is the best word for what she did; we certainly can't say she "wrote" them. We can't, in fact, say that Patience Worth existed at all. But neither can we comfortably say that Pearl Pollard Curran wrote the material in question, though she is usually credited as its author. Between 1913 and 1937, Curran , a St. Louis, Missouri, housewife, spoke these four million words aloud (often in an idiosyncratic, pseudo-Shakespearean dialect) with the aid of a Ouija board and a planchette. A series of secretaries transcribed what she said: Curran claimed that Worth was a thwarted authoress who had long been searching from beyond the grave for a suitable host and that she had selected Curran as her channel. Some of the material she (they?)

The temples of the Vale do Amanhecer (Valley of the Dawn) in Brazil and across the world are intended as 'spiritual emergency units' where mediums and their spirit guides provide patients with free assistance for health, relational, spiritual, and material matters concerning the person’s wellbeing. The therapeutic practice is known as 'disobsessive healing' and involves the release of causal spiritual agents considered to be affecting the person’s wellbeing. This paper discusses the Vale do Amanhecer’s etiology of illness and how mediums understand disobsessive healing as a complementary epistemology of healing, discerning spiritual and pathological experiences. Then, it examines how patients may draw their therapeutic trajectories across biomedical and spiritual contexts, sometimes developing mediumship as part of their therapeutic process. Approaching these therapeutic practices from the standpoint of affect and bodily experience may undermine the prominence of 'belief' in the study of non-biomedical approaches to healing, shedding light upon the relational, embodied, and lived-through dimensions of the notions involved in the therapeutic process.

For an anthropologist, studying the afterlife presents a particular challenge. I am interested in what individuals and cultures think happens when we die - where we go (or don't go), what happens (or doesn't happen) and why. The Western materialist assumption that consciousness is synonymous with the brain is supported by rather less evidence than the supposition that consciousness is independent of our material bodies. Among those who say that they know, rather than just believe, in an afterlife, there is an intriguing degree of consistency in their metaphysical assumptions. Some version of the law of kama (all thoughts and actions have consequences beyond those of our immediate circumstances) appears to be universal. The notion of all life as energy vibrating at different frequencies is common, and entirely possible from quantum physics. Descriptions of the geography of the afterlife as planes of existence corresponding to spiritual values, increasing in vibrational lightness with distance from the material world, are also very widespread. If, as many religions, mediums, clairvoyants, sages and mystics tell us, we create our world through thought, what we think and believe is a key determinant of our immediate post-mortem experience. Individual and cultural variations are therefore to be expected. Those who die believing that they will go to hell might well, for a time at least, find themselves wandering in a state of confusion. Martyrs who die for a cause may unwittingly recreate the religious vision they had eagerly anticipated. The process of leaving the body, of a period of rest and recuperation, meetings with deceased loved ones and with a higher self, seem to recur across many cultural and religious systems. An attempt to outline some of these possible scenarios is the purpose behind this book. These ten short vignettes draw on information from mediums and clairvoyants, hypnotic regression, near death experiences, after death contacts and religious traditions - and from my own experience.The data distilled from many sources consistently suggests that how we live and what we believe affects our experience of death and re-awakening.

This study was carried out to help demystify traditional medical practices in Zimbabwe and assist people in understanding Zimbabwean traditional medicine. The Zimbabwean traditional religion involves a hierarchy of spirit mediums differing in the way they practice traditional medicine, as well as the origin and power of the spirit(s) that possess(es) them. MaGombwe, mediums of angels of God, occupy the highest level on the hierarchy. The second level is that of maSadunhu, the spirit mediums of the original leaders of clans who look after the interests of members of their clans. The third level is that of maTateguru, the spirits who look after the interests of the families they left behind. These spirits of great grandparents are complimented by spirits of grandparents who possess their mediums only to get a specific thing done and then disappear. The fourth level is occupied by N'angas, the 'real traditional medical practitioners.' These mediums may be possessed by spirits from any of the above levels, and differ from mediums at the original level in that they charge clients and the powers of their spirits are lower. The spirits at any of the levels are complimented by maShave, spirits that were created to perform specific tasks. The role of the spirit mediums is to service spiritual and medicinal interests of people. Training at the different levels of spirit mediums involves rigorous and tedious apprenticeship systems, and the mediums are willing to cooperate with other service providers if certain conditions are met. ______________________________________________________________________________ Médecine traditionnelle au Zimbabwe Takawira Kazembe Département des sciences et d'éducation mathématique, faculté d'éducation, Résumé Cette étude a été effectuée pour aider à démystifier les pratiques médicinales traditionnelles au Zimbabwe et pour aider les gens à comprendre la médecine traditionnelle Zimbabwéenne. La religion traditionnelle Zimbabwéenne implique une hiérarchie d'esprits médiums qui diffèrent dans la manière qu'ils pratiquent la médecine traditionnelle, aussi bien que dans l'origine et le pouvoir de(s) esprit(s) qui les possède(nt). MaGombwe, médiums des anges de Dieu, occupe le plus haut niveau de la hiérarchie. Le second niveau est celui de maSadunhu, les esprits médiums des chefs originaux de clans qui s'occupent des intérêts des membres de leurs clans. Le troisième niveau est celui de maTateguru, les esprits qui s'occupent des intérêts des familles qui sont laissées en arrière. Ces esprits d'arrière-grands-parents sont loués par les esprits des grands-parents qui possèdent leurs médiums seulement pour accomplir une chose spécifique et puis ils disparaissent. Le quatrième niveau est occupé par N'angas, les « vrai praticiens de la médecine traditionnelle ». Ces médiums peuvent être possédés par les esprits de n'importe lesquels des niveaux au-dessus, et diffèrent des médiums au niveau originel parce qu'ils font payer les clients

Since 2009, in the aftermath of Sri Lanka’s ethnic war, certain contingents of Sinhala Buddhists have lodged attacks against religious minorities, whom they censure for committing violence against animals in accordance with the dictates of their gods. Considering these interventions against sacrifice in spaces of shared Hindu and Buddhist religiosity, this article examines the economies of derogation, violence, and scapegoating in post-war Sri Lanka. Within Sinhala Buddhism, sacrifice is considered bio-morally impure yet politically efficacious, whereas meritorious Buddhist discipleship is sacrificial only in aspirational, bloodless terms. Nevertheless, both practices fall within the spectrum of Sinhala Buddhist religious life. Majoritarian imperatives concerning postwar blood impinge upon marginal sites of shared religiosity—spaces where the blood of animals is spilled and, ironically, where political potency can be substantively shored up. The article examines the siting of sacrifice and the purifying majoritarian interventions against it, as Buddhists strive to assert sovereignty over religious others. [Excerpt only. please find full article at https://doi.org/10.3167/arrs.2019.100110  or email me for full PDF.]

En esta tesis se investigan algunos de los elementos tanto del espiritismo, como de los distintos estudios del cerebro y la mente de mediados del siglo XIX y principios del siglo XX, que influyeron en la conceptualización surrealista de la escritura automática. Se propone que, así como algunos de los miembros del movimiento surrealista incorporaron de la neurología, psiquiatría y en especial, de las investigaciones de Pierre Janet, el concepto automatismo para adaptarlo al surrealismo, así también, tomaron de la psicografía y de algunos elementos del espiritismo de Allan Kardec, ciertas ideas para su propia noción de escritura automática. Asimismo, en esta tesis se busca estudiar la escritura automática desde una perspectiva científica actual, tanto desde algunas de las ciencias de la mente y el cerebro materialistas (como las neurociencias, la neurología, la neurolingüística y otras disciplinas aledañas) como desde las ciencias de la mente y el cerebro autonombradas post-materialistas.

This essay explores some of the theoretical repercussions of the debate concerning the growth-oriented dimension of the personality that took place in the late nineteenth-century psychologies of transcendence.  The French-Swiss-English-American psychotherapeutic axis,  a ‘loose-knit alliance’ of cutting-edge scientists, investigated occult and paranormal phenomena ranging from somnambulism, hypnotic trance states, double consciousness, and multiple personalities to mediumship and pathological schizophrenic fantasies. Their insights into the complex phenomena of psychic dissociation posited a subliminal region that was not only a reservoir of trauma, but also source of a potentiality beyond normal consciousness, a notion which was continued and developed in Jung’s psychology.

Zusammenfassung Dem Umgang mit Trance und Besessenheit ist in der ethnologischen Literatur viel Aufmerksamkeit gewidmet worden und dementsprechende Fremderfahrungen stellen seit jeher eine Herausforderung für rationale Erklärungen dar. Die Interpretation solcher Erfahrungen führt u. a. zu Fragen nach der Konzeption von Körper und Seele und dem Selbst und dem Anderen. Der emische Diskurs der von mir teilnehmend beobachteten medialen Heilerinnen und Heiler in Deutschland wie auch der etische Diskurs der Ethnologinnen und Ethnologen beschäftigen sich in Bezug auf Trance und Besessenheit vor allem mit dem Ursprung dementsprechender Erfahrungen. Dabei schwanken beide zwischen der Rückführung dieser Erfahrungen auf einen Ursprung innerhalb oder außerhalb des Selbst. Auf der einen Seite werden Geister, unpersönliche Energien oder Ähnliches als autonome Entitäten betrachtet, die das Selbst afizieren, während sie auf der anderen Seite als ursprünglich im eigenen Selbst konzipiert werden, indem man sie als Projektionen des Unbewussten, Imaginationen oder (bewusste) Fiktionen betrachtet. Selbst einige phänomenologische Ansätze, die versuchen Erfahrung jenseits der Dichotomien von Innen und Außen, Selbst und Anderem zu verstehen, wie der vielzitierte Embodiment-Ansatz von Thomas Csordas, verstricken sich in diesen Dichotomien und tendieren dazu, Erfahrungen des Fremden als ursprünglich im Eigenen zu konzeptualisieren. Dieser Vortrag zeichnet die gängigen Erklärungsweisen nach und versucht, durch einen Rückgriff auf die Phänomenologie des Fremden von Bernhard Waldenfels einen Ansatz für die Ethnologie fruchtbar zu machen, der von einer Fremdheit der Erfahrung ausgeht und damit eine Alternative zu einseitig externalisierenden oder internalisierenden Interpretationen anbietet. Schlagwörter Phänomenologie des Fremden-Embodiment-Mediales Heilen-Deutschland Domestications of foreignness. The Interpretation of Trance and Possession in Anthropology and in the Culture of Mediumistic Healing Abstract The handling of trance and possession is often brought into focus in anthropological literature and has challenged rational explanations. The interpretation of such experiences leads to questions concerning the conceptualizing of the body and the soul, and thus "the Self" as well as leading to the question of the relation between "the Self" and "the Other". The emic discourse of the mediumistic healers in Germany I have researched as well as the etic discourse of anthropologists about experiences of trance and possession in religious contexts oscillate between inding the origin of such experiences inside and outside the Self. On the one hand "Spirits", "Energies" and similar things are seen as autonomous entities affecting the Self, while on the other hand they are seen as having originated in the Self through projections of the unsconscious or through imagination. Even some phenomenological approaches which actually aim to conceptualize experiences beyond dichotomies such as inner and outer or the Self and the Other, like the much cited approach of Thomas Csordas, tend to entangle themselves in such dichotomies and tend to trace back experiences of the Other as having originated in the Self. This paper traces different emic and etic conceptions of body, soul, the Self and the Other and, against this background, argues with reference to the German philosopher Bernhard Waldenfels for a phenomenology of otherness which is grounded in the assumption of an otherness of experience itself and offers an alternative to one-sided externalizing or internalizing interpretations.

This report is about events at Shona Traditional Gatherings as revealed in a study carried out between 2005 and 2009 in Manicaland, Mashonaland Central, and Mashonaland East Provinces of Zimbabwe. People take part in such gatherings mostly in response to problems emanating from mishandling the cow/heifer given to a mother-in-law by her son-in-law (mombe yehumayi) or avenging spirits, and chenura (soul cleansing). The problems of avenging spirits emanate from murder or ill-treatment of people. Upon death the immediate ancestors present the soul to clan spirits who in turn alert the spirits of Gombwe, who contacts the Deity, and judgment commences. A person who has committed serious crimes is sent back to effect restitution through the involvement of living relatives. Chenura, a culmination of events to establish cause of death and prevent similar deaths, to rectify whatever may be out of place, to settle debts and credits, and to destroy the unwanted (for example goblins), must be held at least a year after the death of an adult. The end of these events is marked by dedicating beer to spirits and consuming it amid merrymaking into the following morning. The soul is symbolically taken home from the grave, then the property and responsibilities of the deceased are distributed. The celebrations are punctuated by spirits possessing their mediums and advising as needed. Spirits use gatherings to rectify whatever might have gone wrong, and remind people of their obligations. People attend gatherings to enjoy themselves amid fellowshipping with ancestors as opposed to worshipping ancestors. Events at Shona gatherings cannot be generalized because they depend on the problems at hand. Les rassemblements traditionnels Shona Takawira Kazembe, MPhil Résumé Cet exposé traite des événements qui surviennent lors des rassemblements traditionnels Shona, tels que révélés par une étude entreprise entre 2005 et 2009 au Manicaland, dans les provinces centrale et de l'est du Mashonaland au Zimbabwe. La plupart du temps, les gens prennent part à ces assemblés le font en réponse aux problèmes résultants de la mauvaise gestion d'une vache ou une génisse donnée à une belle-mère par son beau-fils (mombe yehumayi) ou pour venger les esprits, et pour le chenura (purification de l'âme). Le problème de venger les esprits proviennent de meurtres ou de mauvais traitements des gens. A la mort, les ancêtres immédiats présentent l'âme aux esprits du clan qui alors alertent les esprits de Gombwe, qui à leur tour contactent Dieu, et le jugement commence alors. Une personne ayant commis des crimes sérieux est renvoyée pour qu'elle puisse restituer par l'intermédiaire des parents qui sont toujours en vie. Chenura, une culmination d'événements pour établir la cause de la mort et prévenir des décès

Geraldine Dorothy Cummins was born on 24 January, 1890 at 17 St Patrick’s Place, Cork City, Ireland. She was the fifth of the eleven children of Dr Ashley Cummins, an eminent physician, appointed Professor of Medicine at University College Cork at the early age of 40, and his obviously equally busy wife, Jane Constable. In her youth Geraldine was active in the campaign for votes for women and made a number of public speeches in favour of the suffragette cause. Along with her activities in support of women’s suffrage, she pursued a literary career even though her own estimation of her literary talents was low, and she went so far as to describe herself as ‘slow of speech’, and as a ‘dull uninformed conversationalist’. Yet, despite these self-confessed short-comings, she managed to co-write two plays for the Abbey Theatre and went on to publish two novels, The Land they Loved (1919) and Fires of Beltane (1936), both of which displayed her continuing concern with feminist issues. In 1952 she published the first biography of her friend and fellow-writer Edith Somerville (co-author of The Irish R. M. books) however Geraldine Cummins’s principal interest in psychic phenomena and she was to became one of the best known automatic-writing mediums of the 20th century.

This study was carried out in four provinces of Zimbabwe to improve people's understanding about the roles of spirit mediums in Zimbabwe, the spirit mediums' interpretation of concepts of Shona religion, the mediums' knowledge of the spirits they are medium to, and to clarify the circumstances surrounding some events in the lives of some spirit mediums in Zimbabwe. The study was carried out using open-ended interviews with maGombwe and n'angas, some of them being interviewed while possessed. Spirit mediums explained that maGombwe, for example Chaminuka, Nehanda, Kaguvi, Dzivaguru were possessed by the same spirit. The spirit possessed different mediums differently depending on the purpose for possession. Spirit mediums gave further clarification to the nature of Gombwe, vadzimu and mashave. Whilst most maGombwe showed knowledge of the nature of spirits that possess them, most n'angas could not distinguish between the spirit of their ancestors and those which possessed the ancestors. Similarly, most people, including senior politicians, fail to distinguish between the lives of mediums and the spirits that possess the mediums. « Les anges divins » et Vadzimu dans la religion Shona, Zimbabwe Takawira Kazembe, Ph.D. Résumé Cette étude s'est effectuée dans quatre provinces du Zimbabwe afin d'améliorer la compréhension des rôles des esprits médiums au Zimbabwe, l'interprétation des concepts de la religion Shona par les esprits médiums, la connaissance que les médiums ont des esprits auxquels ils sont le médium, et afin de clarifier les circonstances autour de certains événements dans la vie de certains esprits médiums au Zimbabwe. L'étude s'est effectuée à l'aide d'entretiens à questions ouvertes avec des maGombwe et des n'angas, certains étant interrogés pendant qu'ils étaient possédés. Les esprits médiums ont expliqué que les maGombwe, par exemple Chaminuka, Nehanda, Kaguvi, Dzivaguru, étaient possédés par le même esprit. L'esprit possède différents médiums de façons différentes dépendant du but de la possession. Les esprits médiums ont donné de plus amples clarifications sur la nature de Gombwe, vadzimu et mashave. Bien que la plupart des maGombwe démontrent une connaissance de la nature des esprits qui les possèdent, la plupart des n'angas ne peuvent distinguer l'esprit de leurs ancêtres d'avec ceux qui posséda les ancêtres. De la même façon, la plupart des gens, incluant les politiciens haut placés, ne peuvent faire la distinction entre la vie des médiums et les esprits qui possèdent les médiums.

Ningún otro caso de mediumnidad en Brasil fue tan significativo y de tan amplia repercusión como el de Francisco Cândido Xavier -o simplemente Chico Xavier. Considerado popularmente como el más importante médium brasilero, Xavier ha tenido una trayectoria de caridad y devoción a la doctrina espiritista. En torno a él, se ha creado toda una aura de mito y adoración. Autor de centenares de obras psicografiadas (escritura automática), atribuídas a famosos poetas y pensadores ya fallecidos, Xavier fue considerado por muchos como un eminente paranormal. Su actuación en el movimiento espírita brasileño es reconocida no sólo a nivel nacional, sino también internacionalmente (Playfair, 2010).

Clinical Parapsychology: Extrasensory Exceptional Experiences is a graduate-level textbook designed to facilitate more reliable diagnosis, classification, treatment, and research. It is designed for clinicians, educators, and researchers challenged with investigating into the nature of distressing extrasensory (psychic) exceptional experiences. This textbook assists in interpreting extrasensory experiences reported in a wide diversity of context that are often viewed as religious, spiritual, anomalous, or transpersonal, and that vary greatly in subjective experience. This textbook is a valuable resource for both students and experienced professionals and is designed to be utilized by both individuals and educational institutions. Part I: Diagnosis (Differential & Co-Diagnosis), Part II: Classification (Dimensional & Categorical), Part III: Treatment Options (Recovery & Prevention), and Part IV: Research Methods & Measures.

The mind wearies swiftly when it tries to grapple with concepts of the infinite. However, ancient tribes must have questioned their own mortality, and sought to find intelligent purpose beyond their own lifespan. In one such tribe, located in the Henan region of China, the priests and shamans devised a ritual system that allowed for communication between their ruler and the souls of his ancestors, thus acknowledging the existence of life beyond death. The tribe was named after the ruling family, the Shang, which over time became the name of the dynasty 1 .

South African mediumship has become known beyond its traditional realm in black African culture through books of whites with ties to Europe and North America on their initiation as Sangomas, and through reports in media like magazines, newspapers, television and through the internet. This process can be understood as the latest step of spread of traditional Southern African mediumism into Christian and urban culture and also into white milieus as basis for this reception. A good standard of interested, unbiased presentation can be observed in these reports in which the Spiritist cosmology, experiences and practices are taken seriously and often accepted as verified. This reception resonates with similar ideas and phenomena in the marginalised Esoteric discourses of European and North American cultures. It is observable that the presentation of Sangoma mediumship calls the prevalent rationalistic exclusion of such phenomena into question. Among the pathways for reception is however also a pragmatic attitude which frames Sangoma practice as a symbolic or “intuitive” form of “healing”, thereby deliberately leaving aside its spiritual and Spiritist aspects.
This paper focusses on the aspects of “resonance” and explores the possibility of applying the paradigm of “morphogenetic fields” the well documented phenomenon may be explained that whites living in black traditional cultural environments manifest clear patterns and phenomena of Sangoma initiatory mediumistic experiences which cannot be explained by learning, since none of the more arcane knowledge about these issues has been acquired. This calls approaches of cultural and social “Constructivism” into question. It opens up interesting perspectives on the effects of such cultural encounter to be expected in European and North American contexts.

Drawing on ethnographic data from the Brazilian mediumistic religion known as Vale do Amanhecer (Valley of the Dawn), this article addresses the learning process at the core of mediumistic development. The process of learning is here approached as a multi-layered experience, which is embodied, intuitive, performative, conceptual and inter-subjective. I will illustrate how the relationship between mediums and spirits is established in trance states through what Thomas Csordas calls a ‘multi-sensory imagery’. The discussion examines the concurrence of emotions, feelings, somatosensory experience and doctrinal discourses in developing mediumistic skills, which simultaneously engenders the attributes of extendability and multi-dimensionality that ground the notion of the self, informing the conceptualisation of trance.

Émergeant au milieu du 19e siècle, le mouvement spirite, convaincu de la survivance de l’âme après la mort, place les femmes au centre de sa doctrine et de sa pratique1. La vogue des tables tournantes qui envahit les pays occidentaux fait surgir, parmi les participants, certains individus qui semblent faciliter, plus que d’autres, la circulation du «fluide» nécessaire à la communication avec les esprits. Parmi eux, de nombreuses femmes et adolescentes vont s’employer à révéler l’existence d’une population d’êtres spirituels attestant d’une solidarité entre les vivants et les défunts.
Pourtant, ces femmes sont aussi, à plusieurs niveaux, frappées d’invisibilité: elles deviennent de simples instruments dans les mains de savants les soumettant à toutes sortes de tests dans les laboratoires de sciences psychiques; elles se cachent sous d’épaisses étoffes afin de canaliser au mieux leurs énergies (BAUDOUIN 2020); ou encore elles disparaissent derrière les fantômes auxquelles elles confèrent une consistance. Comment comprendre cette place paradoxale des femmes – à la fois au centre et à la périphérie du mouvement spirite –, alors même qu’elles vont gagner, grâce à celui-ci, une nouvelle visibilité sur la scène sociale?

This essay examines resonances between common cultural models of the mind in the central region of Ghana and patterns of spiritual experience among charismatic evangelical Christians and practitioners of southern Ghana's indigenous religion, known as traditionalists. In particular, I examine the resonance between the model of the mind that construes it as porous, as vulnerable to forcible takeover by hostile entities, and experiences of divine beings insistently pushing people to do their will. It is also relatively common for people in Ghana to report seeing the divine with their eyes and hearing it with their ears. I argue that this experience resonates with, and is perhaps facilitated by, a tendency of local models of mind in Ghana to blend sense and percept.

Background: Mediumship can be defined as the alleged ability to communicate with deceased persons. The last decade has been particularly productive for this field of research and the study of mediumship can help the understanding of the human mind-brain relationship and provide objective data to the scientific community and to the general population. Objective: The aim of this review is to summarize and discuss the results found on recent studies investigating mediumship. Furthermore, we aim to discuss the psychophysiology underlying mediumship and future perspectives for this study topic. Methods: A literature search for articles in English, Portuguese and Spanish published from January 2000 up to June 2015 was conducted using three electronic databases (PubMed, Lilacs and Web of Science). Review articles, qualitative studies and studies investigating altered states of consciousness caused by psychoactive substances were excluded. The original search returned 150 articles, but the application of exclusion criteria resulted in the inclusion of 19 articles for final analysis. Results: The general findings were: (1) an association of mediumship with good mental health, predominantly in experienced mediums, (2) heterogeneous findings regarding the ability of mediums to provide accurate information what may be due to different study methodologies and (3) incipient studies assessing physiological correlations during mediumistic communications (i.e. hypoactivation of brain regions responsible for cognitive processing and writing planning during psychography compared to a control task; electroencephalographic (EEG) changes and a slight predominance of the sympathetic nervous system). Discussion: There is a paucity of empirical data available in this controversial research field. New studies employing rigorous design (e.g. triple-blind protocols to test accuracy of mediumistic communications), and sensitive methods are required.

In spite of its popularity, mediumship is at odds with modern science. Since science is an extremely important part of our culture, mediumship will never be completely accepted until a scientific theory can explain how consciousness survives after the death of the material body. Even the presently available experimental evidence of survival is not enough to sway the opinions of scientists without a theory to support the data obtained from experiments. Only one theory, at present, can account for both consciousness and survival, the five-dimensional single field theory.

Sociocultural boundaries come in many forms, and crucially, are responsive to power and constantly in flux. This article focuses on the production of space and unmarked sociocultural boundaries linked to spirit mediums in a historically contested area of northeastern Thailand who are possessed by the spirits of Phaya Narin Songkhram — a key ‘Lao’ military leader of Chao Anou’s famous Vientiane revolt against Siam between 1826–28 — and those of his subordinates. Spirit mediums linked to ethnic ‘Thai’ leaders are also found to the south of this area. Through channeling and performing these historical persons, spirit mediums keep alive and reproduce group memories with space-making implications. This article also shows how the mediums’ positioning has shifted over time and varies in relation to contemporary power relations, altering the sociocultural boundaries between ethnic Lao and Thai.

This article examines the question of the researcher's bodily experience in the production of ethnographic knowledge, discussing fieldwork in the Brazilian Spiritualists Christian Order Vale do Amanhecer (Valley of the Dawn). Focussing on spirit mediumship, it proposes a twofold analysis discerning local categories from those widely in use in other spiritual contexts and in the scholarly debates, and considering how they are articulated and lived through. Hence, it tackles questions such as how do mediums learn their practice? How do they discern between different categories of spirits? How does mediumistic experience inform notions of the body and the self? In doing so, it shifts the focus from belief to experience, including that of the researcher, as part of the ethnographic encounter. The process of learning spirit mediumship is hereby approached considering the cultivation of a mediumistic body as an intersubjective process of development of a specific mode of knowing, exploring how the cognitive, bodily and affective dimensions interweave. This kind of analysis demands a peculiar reflexive attention to the ethnographer's re-education of perception as a way of becoming skilled in local ways of knowing and communicating, producing common grounds of interaction in the field.

Spirit possession is an extremely complex phenomenon, with social, cultural, psychological and, potentially, parapsychological components. All of these different aspects interact and coalesce to produce something that is very difficult to reduce into a simple explanatory scheme. 1 In this chapter, however, I am going to focus only on the behavioural aspects of this unusual phenomenon, in particular those aspects that might be referred to as 'performance,' and the way that performance is utilised in the manifestation of spirits. This is not because I consider this perspective to be the best for interpreting and understanding spirit possession, but rather because it illuminates interesting issues, which in turn highlight other components of the phenomenon. This chapter will examine spirit possession practices from a cross-cultural perspective, drawing on the anthropological and ethnographic literature on spirit possession, as well as on my own field research with trance mediums in Bristol. My research takes the form of participant observation at the Bristol Spirit Lodge, a group devoted to the development of trance and physical mediumship. The Lodge was established in 2005 by Christine, the circle leader, after she was 'made aware' of the reality of spirit mediumship during a seance she attended with a friend. 2 I have been conducting field research with the group since 2009. 3

This volume addresses controversies connected to the testing of the capacities and potentials of mediums. Today we commonly associate the term "medium" with the technical communication between transmitters and receivers. Yet this term likewise applies to those who cooperate with agencies that exceed the presumed domain of the material world. Insofar as one presumes a division between distinctly opposed categories of religion and the secular, technical media tend to be associated with the secular and human (trance) mediums tend to be associated with religion after 1900. This volume concerns the ways in which the term medium still marks an overlapping of – and thus problematizes – the aforementioned division between religion and the secular, the personal and the technological.

The term medium carries with it a seed of doubt that is itself inseparable from investment in the medium's power: insofar as they communicate with an "other" realm, mediums offer the hope and promise of new possibilities and improved efficiency, and thus of a better life; yet they have simultaneously been under suspicion of altering (or even inventing) the messages they communicate. It is due to this combination of promise and suspicion that "mediumism" has tended to evoke scientific, religious, and moral controversies. Thus, we can speak of a "mediumistic trial" – that is, a process in which a medium is put to the test concerning its potentials and trustworthiness. Around 1800, experts were asked if a modern secular institution would be capable of inspiring, domesticating or excluding trance mediumship. This question has stayed with us ever since, and the answers have remained inconclusive. That is why the past and present of mediumship may be asked to elucidate each other.

https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/510174?language=en&tab_body=toc-75135

Review: https://igpp.de/allg/ZfA/ZfA_2021_2/Bauer_Rezension_ZfA-2021-2.pdf

Mediums are individuals who report experiencing regular communication with the deceased; the phenomenon of mediumship has been reported in cultures all over the world since time immemorial. The current study examined similarities and differences in the reported experiences of secular American mediums (those not associated with any formal religious organization) during mediumship readings involving communication with the deceased and during psychic readings for/about the living. Participant responses to two counter-balanced, open-ended online survey items were quantitatively analyzed using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) text analysis software and qualitatively analyzed using a content analysis methodology. Participants included 113 self-identified mediums and 14 Windbridge Certified Research Mediums; over 90% were white females; their average age was 54.2 ± 9.6 years; 97% reported being able to distinguish between mediumistic and psychic experiences; and 122 provided complete survey responses. Statistically significant differences between descriptions of mediumistic and psychic experiences were seen regarding the proportion of words included in the LIWC categories of: social processes (11.76% ± 5.8% vs. 9.93% ± 5.64%, p=0.004); perceptual processes (6.63% ± 4.31% vs. 4.81% ± 3.81%, p<0.001); ingestion (0.23% ± 0.57% vs. 0.05% ± 0.20%, p<0.001); past-focused time orientation (3.09% ± 3.23% vs. 2.06% ± 3.19%, p=0.001); religion (0.90% ± 0.11% vs. 0.34% ± 0.09%, p<0.001); and insight (5.06% ± 2.97% vs. 6.48% ± 4.30%, p=0.002). The proportion of words describing positive and negative emotions, present-focused and future-focused time orientation, health, and money were not different. Qualitative content analysis found three overarching, summative themes regarding mediumistic communication: preparation, communication triangulated, and experience of the communication. Four overarching, summative themes emerged from the text regarding psychic readings for the living: establishing the connection, experiencing the connection, content of the reading, and psychic information flowing from various sources. Perhaps most interesting is the finding that experiences of psychic connections during readings for the living included “non-specific discarnates” as a source of information; this strongly calls into question theoretical frameworks that posit separating mediums’ experiences into categories that do and do not involve communication with the deceased as well as the continued use of terminology reflecting such a separation.

Based on the hypothesis that the inclusion of visual media provides insights into non-verbal communication not provided by the written word alone, this paper represents an experimental approach to test the usefulness of reproducing fieldwork photography in directing reader’s attentions to probe the emic understandings of deific efficacy, and the researcher’s selective bias which the images implicitly or explicitly
portray. This paper therefore explores the use of the visual image to illustrate that a reader’s own analysis of proxemics and kinesics allows for a deeper understanding of emic perspectives by drawing insights from the manipulation of material objects and from non-verbal communication – insights that the written word may struggle
to accurately portray. Framed around a photo-rich ethnographic account of trance possession cults in Singapore, the intent of the paper is to contribute towards the broader discourse of the future of the visual image in anthropology in the digital age.

This paper documents the responsibilities of spirit mediums in Zimbabwe and highlights gender balance in the systems. It reveals that the spirit of the same Gombwe may be on men, women, or objects, at different places at the same time and the choice is made by the spirit. Hence, gender balance is not an issue. The study also seeks to find out the views of African traditional medical practitioners about the way traditional medicine should develop: i.e., independent development, or integration, or assimilation into the conventional system. N'angas and herbalists had mixed feelings about the course of action to follow, but all, including maGombwe, agreed that there is need to develop traditional medicine. The government of Zimbabwe, like other governments in the Southern African Development Community region, supports the development of traditional medicine. Quelques aspects culturels de la médecine traditionnelle, de la religion traditionnelle, et des sexes au Zimbabwe Résumé : Cette études documente les responsabilités des esprits médiums au Zimbabwe et met en évidence la balance des sexes dans les systèmes. Elle révèle que l'esprit du même Gombwe peut être dans l'homme, la femme, ou les objets, à différents endroits en même temps, et le choix est fait par l'esprit. La balance des sexes n'est donc pas un problème. L'étude vise aussi à démontrer les opinions des praticiens africains de médecine traditionnelle quant à la façon dont la médecine traditionnelle devrait se développer : développement indépendant, ou intégration, ou assimilation dans le système conventionnel. N'angas et les herboristes avaient des sentiments ambivalents quant au plan d'action à suivre, mais tous, y compris maGombwe, sont d'accord qu'il y a un besoin de développer la médecine traditionnelle. Le gouvernement du Zimbabwe, tout comme les autres gouvernements dans la région de la Communauté du Développement du Sud de l'Afrique, supporte le développement de la médecine traditionnelle.

This article questions the way sexuality has been conceived as constructionism by previous studies of mediumship. I focus on female practitioners in northeast Thailand, seeing in their bodies the potential for the enactment of heterogeneous modes of desire that exceeds the bounds of inquiry set by representationalist frames. This perspective demands a new set of tools that will better resonate with the expressions of the practitioners’ bodies. Engaging with affect theory in the tradition of Brian Massumi, the article proposes an important shift from discourse‐based critique of Thai spirit possession to an approach that accounts for bodily sex and desire, beyond constructions and categories. I argue that spirit mediumship gives rein to a localized register of desire and sexuality that eludes discursive normalization. Ritual performance by spirit mediums materially vocalizes an expanded and more diverse repertoire of desire. Moreover, I take a view of the body as an undifferentiated object to argue, against the hierarchical dichotomy between the sacred and the profane, that the spatiality of the full body is a plane on whose flows the sacred and erotic intensities commingle. In mediumistic ritual, religious and sexual ontologies melt into the same bodily organs and zones of skin. [spirit mediumship, female body, desire, sexuality, affect theory, Northeast Thailand]

Presented at the annual ARPR meeting, Philadelphia, Summer 2002

Abstract: The practice of mediumship, in one form or another, is as old as human history itself. Moreover, The human race as a whole has shown a keen interest in the prospect of communicating with its dead ancestors, relatives and friends even though mediumship has been at odds with science and the scientific worldview ever since science first began to eradicate the hold of superstition on human thought, so the human interest in communication with the dead poses a paradox for our modern society which cherishes and favors its scientific ideals. This begs the question: Why, in the face of open skepticism, scientific criticism and common sense does this paradox persist? Perhaps because we have an innate intuitive sense that ‘life’ is more than just the sum of the physical components of the living body. Therefore, some part of life must survive the death (cessation of electro/chemical action) of the material body. This intuitive notion is seemingly devoid of scientific or logical support, but it still persists. The logical conclusion then is that the scientific community will never accept mediumship until life is defined and it is PROVEN that some physical portion of ‘life’ survives the death of the living body.

The therapeutic value of religious dissociative practices does not represent new information in the literature. Many authors have recognized the power of these cathartic or curative interventions. We found, however, few references to certain psychological aspects that we have identified: “regression in the service of the ego”, elaboration for diffuse or impulsive emotions and psychological integration. There is also little information in the psychological literature on coping styles and specific strategies used by spiritist mediums. Method: From biographical accounts, coupled with field observations and analyzes of automatic writings and drawings produced by two groups of spiritist mediums (11 participants, 9 women and 2 men), we came up with some hypotheses about the coping styles employed by supporters of spiritist mediumistic practices. Results and discussion: Resignification, personification and projection were some of the coping strategies identified. According to the mediums, the spiritist practices helped in more active adaptation to personal and family difficulties, expanding social networks and improving self-esteem. However, we also verified the presence of institutional mechanisms of control of dissociative experiences that can cause anxiety or stress. Conclusion. It is expected that the hypotheses are of use to those who partake in the clinical practice in psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis, both in terms of differential diagnosis of these experiences, and both as to the proper understanding of the therapeutic efficacy of such social practices.