Concept
In Spiritism and Spiritualism, the role of the medium is to be an intermediary between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Mediums claim to be able to listen to and relay messages from spirits or allow a spirit to control their body and speak through it directly or by using automatic writing or drawing.
Spiritualists classify types of mediumship into two main categories: "mental" and "physical". Mental mediums are believed to "tune in" to the spirit world by listening, sensing, or seeing spirits or symbols. Physical mediums are believed to produce materialization of spirits, apports of objects, levitation, and other effects such as knocking, rapping, bell ringing, etc. by using "ectoplasm" created from the cells of their bodies and those of seance attendees. During seances, mediums are said to go into trances, varying from light to deep, that permit their minds to be controlled by spirits.
Mediumship is also part of the belief system of some New Age groups. In this context, and under the name "channelling", it refers to a medium (the channel) who is said to receive messages from a "teaching-spirit".
Read more about this topic: Mediumship
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