Psychic (Mental) Mediumship
Claims that information can be conveyed through mediums have generated some of the strongest evidence and sharpest disputes in survival research. This Survival of Death subcategory covers the varieties of mental or psychic mediumship, including its forms, notable practitioners, research findings and significance for questions about communication, personality and agency beyond death.
‘Raymond’ by Oliver Lodge
The soldier son of Sir Oliver Lodge killed in battle in 1915 thereafter communicated with his family through mediums.
Julie Beischel
Co-founder of the Windbridge Research Center in Arizona, USA, concerned primarily with mental mediumship.
Book Tests
Research technique that demonstrates knowledge of book contents that neither medium nor sitter can be expected to know.
Rosemary Brown
Twentieth-century British medium who specialized in musical compositions she claimed were dictated to her by deceased composers.
The Buried Crosses
Describes successful efforts in the 1930s to locate buried Aztec Indian relics from information provided by a spirit medium.
Cold Reading
Discusses the psychological strategies that can be used to simulate a mediumistic communication or psychic reading.
Copenhagen Fire
Early nineteenth-century mediumship case in which a communicator in Iceland reported a fire then underway in Denmark.
The Cross-Correspondences
Apparently coordinated messages through different mediums, thought to provide strong evidence of survival.
Geraldine Cummins
Irish medium who published automatic scripts said to originate with well-known people in their discarnate state.
Drop-In Communicators
Communicators unknown to both medium and sitters who provide enough information for their identification.
Edgar Vandy Case
In this 1930s case, four mediums independently gave strikingly similar information about a young man's death by drowning.
Fox Sisters
American women who were at the centre of poltergeist-type disturbances and later helped found Anglo-American Spiritualism.
Luiz Antônio Gasparetto
Brazilian medium well-known for paintings made in trance at high speed and attributed to deceased artists.
George Chapman/William Lang
British trance medium reputed to channel the spirit of William Lang, an ophthalmic surgeon.
The Glastonbury Scripts
Communications through a medium, seemingly in an attempt to help an archaeologist with his excavations.
Hafsteinn Björnsson (medium)
Icelandic trance medium (1914-1977) who produced 'drop-in' communications and xenoglossy.
The Junot Sittings with Leonora Piper
Highly evidential communications purporting to come from the surviving spirit of a deceased teenager.
Gladys Osborne Leonard
British trance medium who collaborated with SPR investigators in the 1920s and 1930.
Everton de Oliveira Maraldi
Brazilian psychologist with research interests in the psychology of non-ordinary experiences, spirituality, religion and health.
Maroczy Mediumistic Chess Match
Match played between a living Russian grandmaster and a deceased Hungarian one.
Mediumship and Multiple Personality
The personalities of mediumistic communicators are similar to dissociative identity disorder.
Mediumship and Pathology
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, some in medicine regarded mediumship as an abnormal condition.
Mediumship and Spirit Possession in Cross-Cultural Perspective
There is great overlap in the expression of mediumship and spirit possession.
Modern Mental Mediumship Research (Overview)
A review of studies carried out with mental mediums in Britain, Europe and America since 2001.
Catherine-Élise Muller (Hélène Smith)
Swiss medium (1861–1929), the subject of a classic study by Théodore Flournoy showing psychological dimensions of mediumship.
Ouija Board
Ouija boards have sometimes allowed for veridical communications from apparent spirit entities and for automatic writing in creative productions.
Leonora Piper
American trance medium (1859–1950), the subject of extensive investigations by British and American psychical researchers.
Anna Prado
Brazilian spiritist medium (1883–1923) reputed to produce direct writing, levitations, apports and materialization phenomena.
R-101 Airship Disaster
Classic case, in which a communicator identified himself as captain of an airship that had crashed two days earlier.
Jesse Shepard (Francis Grierson)
Outstanding musical performer (1848–1927) who attributed his gifts to discarnate entities through mediumship.
Doris Stokes
Doris Stokes (1920–1987) was a controversial celebrity medium who was much in the public eye in Britain during the 1980s.
Hester Travers Smith (Hester Dowden)
British automatist who believed she was in contact with the deceased Oscar Wilde.
George Valiantine
American direct voice medium, noted for foreign languages heard during his sittings, viewed with suspicion by some investigators.
Windbridge Institute
Institution founded in 2008 to conduct research on psi functioning, with an emphasis on real-world applications.
Windbridge Research Center
Non-profit research institute based in Tucson, Arizona, dedicated to the rigorous study of mental mediums.
Etta Wriedt
American direct-voice medium (1859–1942) of considerable power, according to observers who attended sittings in the US and Britain.
Chico Xavier
Popular Brazilian medium (1910–2002) celebrated for his prolific output of poetry, fiction and Spiritist philosophy.
Wellington Zangari
Brazilian psychologist whose research interests include anomalistic psychology, hypnosis and altered states of consciousness.