An Extraordinary Journey: The Memoirs of a Physical Medium

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St. Germain – Call her Maude. She is here. I listened to her very British accent as she said, “Hello dear child. I am very pleased to be here and I will assist you and Saint Germain in the work of healing the mind. The body is not my area of expertise, however, I do understand the potential of the mind and thoughts just as you do, correct?” Maude told me she lived close to London in her last life and I was familiar with the West Coast of England. She went on to say that she would travel with me if I have the opportunity to go. Pierini, E. (2014). ‘Becoming a Spirit Medium: Initiatory Learning and the Self in the Vale do Amanhecer.’ Ethnos, Vol. No. , pp. 1-25. 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.

This was followed by a remarkable form of phenomena. The medium, still in trance, rose from his chair and walked across the room, with all the ropes remaining secured to his body. He shook hands warmly with Mr Turner and whispered a warning to him of things likely to happen in the séance which could spoil everything. Several of the sitters were sensitives and were judged to be giving way to their spirit controls and were thus sapping the power in the room which might easily bring chaos in the séance. Mr Webber returned to his chair and within less than a minute the guide requested that the lights be put on and the knots examined. 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 Physical mediumship is very rare and it is said that there are probably only a handful of good physical mediums in the world. It is also said it can take 10 or 20 years for physical mediumship to develop. Wilson, D.G.M. (2011). Spiritualist Mediums and Other Traditional Shamans: Towards an Apprenticeship Model of Shamanic Practice. Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Edinburgh. Lewis, I. M. (1971). Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit Possession and Shamanism. London: Penguin Books Ltd.Moreover, it is not even possible to state conclusively that individual mediums within a particular tradition employ the same form of altered consciousness during their trance state. Indeed, mediums often distinguish between different degrees of trance, usually ranging from ‘light’ to ‘deep’. Trance is, therefore, a term that refers to a broad spectrum of related, but not necessarily identical, states of consciousness. This comes across clearly in scholarly definitions such as that provided by historian Brian Inglis; in his book Trance: A Natural History of Altered States of Mind (1989), he identifies a wide variety of experiences and states of consciousness encompassed by the term: Peter Wilson, 20 perhaps somewhat naively, disagrees with Lewis’s protest hypothesis on the grounds that within ‘male dominated societies’, in which males and females operate in different spheres, it is not clear that women necessarily feel downtrodden and neglected. Wilson comments that ‘deprivation surely implies withholding that which is due’, and goes on to ask, ‘in what traditionally male dominated society is it ever regarded as a woman’s due that she be granted access to the man’s domain?’ There are of course problems with this statement, but it nevertheless highlights one potential pitfall in Lewis’s theory. Kehoe & Giletti suggest that spirit possession cults represent ‘institutionalised recognition of class endemic symptoms of nutrient deficiency’. 44 However, the idea has been subject to much criticism, as it is easy to see instances where the hypothesis fails to stand up to scrutiny, for example within the modern Euro-American Spiritualist tradition. Bourguignon et al. (1983) have provided several counter-arguments to the nutrient deficiency hypothesis; for example they highlight:

Kilson, M. (1971). ‘Ambivalence and Power: Mediums in Ga Traditional Religion.’ Journal of Religion in Africa, Vol. 4, pp. 171-177.

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. 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. Vicars, G.R. SLATE-WRITING, Journal 2, 1885-6, pp. 151-2. Note on séances with Eglinton. physical mediumship/slate writing 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