Talk:Mediumship/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Mediums

I think it makes sense to distinguish between mediumship, the ability to produce psi phenomena of a mental or physical nature, and mediums, those who claim to be able to accomplish mediumship. By doing so, we can avoid the lengthy terminology like "professed mediums" and Category:Purported spiritual mediums. This definition is backed up by dictionary.com's Random House-based dictionary, which defines a medium as "a person through whom the spirits of the dead are alleged to be able to contact the living." I've made the changes, and I hope that that will convince people to rename the clunky Category:Purported spiritual mediums to Category:Spiritual mediums or Category:Mediums. Λυδαcιτγ 22:02, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

You should get together With Dreadlocke on this. You have the same instincts, but different approaches, and I think you really ought to work it out. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 22:13, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

I think Λυδαcιτγ's edit is a step in the right direction, more accurate and more NPOV. --Minderbinder 22:17, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

You can take out the "spiritual" in "Purported spiritual mediums", as it is inaccurate. But just because I say I am a medium does not make me one, nor does it make me a psychic to say I am one. This is not proper, and contradicts most or all of the sources. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 01:42, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I just looked at your link. We cannot have an extreme minority definition. We have to go with the definition that makes sense and which is in the majority of sources. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 01:50, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

So now Random House is an "extreme minority"? I assume you're going with your interpretation of majority and minority that defines it as a majority/minority of Medium experts and ignores the rest of the world...as you have done with Electronic voice phenomenon? You really need to get that clarified once and for all. --Minderbinder 12:03, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Minderbender, I have to agree that this definition is a minority one, as I haven't seen it anywhere else. Martin, I think medium and psychic are occupations; that's why you can't be a medium or a psychic (or a doctor, lawyer or cook) by claiming to be one.

Do you two support the current version? I think that "According to spiritualists" may be enough skepticism for these two sentences, but I'm not sure. Λυδαcιτγ 22:17, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Milo, I am going with the same definition of "majority," as usual- a numerical one or one which takes account of expertise, not one which defines "majority" as "skeptical." The numerical majority of sources define a psychic or medium as someone who actually has the powers- not as someone who claims to have them. And, Random House means the same as the others, I think. It intends the reader to think "a psychic is someone with powers, but these powers may not really exist; they may just be claimed." Even if this is not true, it is still a small minority definition.

I agree to the current version- I'll tweak it for clarity, but not change the meaning. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 22:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

A numerical majority of sources? With no regard for whether those sources are ones accepted by the general population or fringe ones? I don't buy it. And who exactly do you feel are the medium "experts" that you think are more qualified to define the term than everyone else? --Minderbinder 23:38, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Come on, Milo. We are using both mainstream, paranormal, and skeptical sources, and they all agree on the definition. Even the Skeptic's Dictionary defines it this way. What's your problem? Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 23:55, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Out of the three, one uses "claimed" and the second uses "alleged" (among other terms used to avoid defining it as something that exists). Only the paranormal association defines it without a qualifier, so if you really insist on the "numerical majority", it supports including the disputed nature as part of the definition. I don't see that as agreeing on your definition. I'd be fine with including either of those terms. --Minderbinder 01:33, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I counted, and the numbers are about equal either way, with a small majority defining it without a qualifier. However, as I said above, the meaning of the qualifier is not that anyone who says they are X are actually X, but that someone who says they are X may not be X. This is obvious if you read it. These qualifiers are used not to define but to indicate doubt. Since we have no need for such brevity, we should be more specific.

This is shown by the first meaning of the word "alleged" in the same site, which is "1. to assert without proof."

Thus, if you are correct, what we would be saying is this:

"a person through whom the spirits of the dead are asserted without proof to be able to contact the living."

This, of course, would mean that a person who did provide such proof would no longer be a medium. This reductio ad absurdum argument indicates that I am correct. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 01:50, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Well I guess then it's a good thing I didn't make that argument or propose that wording. Why not use "said to be" or something similar, which includes both those who might have the power, and those who just claim it? --Minderbinder 13:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Very good, as you would have been wrong. As I just said. Why don't you read what I just said? If we put "a medium is someone who is said to be in contact with spirits" then someone who was in contact with spirits (perhaps writing a channelled book), but about whom no one had said anything, would not be a medium. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 20:13, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Oxford def, to start

http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/medium?view=uk

-- LuckyLouie 19:45, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

That's certainly about a billion times less convoluted (not to mention more NPOV). --Minderbinder 19:54, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

It starts off with "claims", not allowable under WP:WTA. And, our current version is much better. A medum isn't someone who claims to be a medium, it's someone who actually is - whether one exists or not. Those issues should be discussed in the body of the article - where they belong. Dreadlocke ☥ 01:38, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

So we substitute "says" or "said to be" for "claims". Problem solved. Any other objections? --Minderbinder 13:34, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Let's see the proposed version here on the talk page or in a sandbox. Or do you plan on copying verbatim the text from OED? I'd like to see exactly what I'm signing off on. Dreadlocke ☥ 18:27, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Here's a suggestion to start with:

Mediumship means the claimed ability to communicate with the dead. A medium is someone said to have that ability. Spiritualists say that mediumship...etc

That's about all the current version says, just much more convolutedly. --Minderbinder 18:34, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

No claims. That doesn't work. MartinPhi states the reasoning for that above - and I believe you had a different starting point. Dreadlocke ☥ 18:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Try it from this point:

Why not use "said to be" or something similar, which includes both those who might have the power, and those who just claim it? --Minderbinder 13:49, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Very good, as you would have been wrong. As I just said. Why don't you read what I just said? If we put "a medium is someone who is said to be in contact with spirits" then someone who was in contact with spirits (perhaps writing a channelled book), but about whom no one had said anything, would not be a medium. Martinphi (Talk Ψ Contribs) 20:13, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

So how would you recommend tweaking that wording to use "said to be"? I'm fine with that phrasing, I'm just having trouble figuring out how to make it work grammatically. --Minderbinder 18:57, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Technically and logically speaking, a person isn't a medium if they can't actually speak to the dead. I don't know how one gets around that by using phrases such as "said to be" or "alleged" or even "believed to be". It is what it is, and the dispute that such people even exist is where those types of skeptical qualifiers need to be used. In any event, I'm sure that won't be allowed, so we have to find a way to define it without being too skeptical. I'd like to see some suggestions from the great many who I am sure are watching this discussion. Any good thoughts anyone? I'm fine with the way it is, or even the way it was before (which was simpler, but didn't contain the "necessary" qualifiers to quell an ongoing war of words.) Dreadlocke ☥ 19:08, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

What about just defining "medium" and not worrying about covering other less-used forms of the word?

A medium is someone said to have the ability to communicate with the dead. Spiritualists say that mediumship...etc

Most dictionaries and enyclopedias don't seem to agree that there's a technical and logical issue with defining it like that.--Minderbinder 19:14, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I imagine we'll end up having to do something like "most" dictionaries and encyclopedias do. That doesn't make it right, though. We don't do that with, say, Scientist, do we? "A scientist is someone who claims to be an expert in..." or even milkman, a milkman is somone who claims to deliver milk.." No, and why not? Because claims don't enter into it, either you're a scientist or a milkman, or you're not. Same with medium. The difference is that we can prove there are scientists and milkmen, but that has nothing to do with the definition of what a scientist, a milkman or even a medium is. (feel free to replace "claims" in those sentences with the word of your choice, whether it be "alleged" or even "said" - same logic applies.)

Anyway, so far your last version is best. Much better than the "first" try. I admit that I'll never get my version in because of the very large skeptical community on Wikipedia, so the most I can hope for is to get something that's not completely biased. Dreadlocke ☥ 19:27, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Let's get NealParr's input, he's had the best track-record so far. Dreadlocke ☥ 19:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Just to be clear, this article is about "mediumship", which is what needs to be defined. I don't believe you can just take the definition for "medium" and apply it here. That's why we have the definition that's currently in place. "Medium" has much broader scope, and can include the DVD media you use in your computer.... :) Mediumship is an entirely separate and distinct word. As it states in the current definition, the human instrument is the medium. Dreadlocke ☥ 21:26, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Milo is on to something when he says "spiritualists say." I would go for a definition which simply attributes it to spiritualists. What is wrong with that? And Dreadlocke is right- I was thinking along those lines before he said it: Mediumship is the process of communicating with the dead. Not the process of claiming to communicate with the dead. And a medium is someone who actually does it. There are skeptics who say that mediums do not exist but merely fake communication with the dead by cold reading etc. These are the concepts we have to communicate. There is no reason we have to boil it down to one sentence. That is what this is about: whether it all has to be said in one sentence. I we could only use several sentences, stating the real state of things, there would be no problem.

1. Attribute the definition of what a medium is
2. Say that there is skepticism about whether mediums are all fakes or not.

There shouldn't be any trouble. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 21:47, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Martin. How does this differ from what is in place now? What needs to be done to the current wording of the intro? Dreadlocke ☥ 21:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Darned if I know. I have no notion of why it is necessary to have a definition of what a medium "is" rather than what a group says a medium is. The article is about mediumship, and thus is firmly placed within the spiritualist context. So, why are we discussing other options? Attribution is enough. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 22:06, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) "Medium" isn't just used as a term by spiritualists. We need to define how it's used in general use, not a niche definition that disagrees with the dictionary definition. It's fine to go into more detail later about what spiritualists believe, but the definition needs to be a standard one, not a minority interpretation of the term. Dreadlocke, if you disagree with just defining the term "medium", please suggest a definition using "said to" or something similar. Martin, you just seem to be repeating the argument you made at Psychic, and trying to define an unproven concept in a way that makes it sound real is no less POV here. --Minderbinder 22:14, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

"Mediumship," on the otherhand, has no definition that I know of outside spiritualism. "Medium" has a disambig page, which is where you have what you are talking about. See current change to intro. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 22:18, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

"Mediumship" is my dictionary. Are you seriously arguing that a different form of the word is grounds for using a "specialist" definition instead of a general one? --Minderbinder 22:32, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

This article is indeed about "Mediumship". That's what needs to be defined, and is defined properly in the current article. I don't see the problem. If you want to define "Medium" in the psychic sense, then create an article for it - or add a consensus definition to this article. That's one of the reasons "Mediumship" was chosen, it's not ambiguous at all. Dreadlocke ☥ 22:41, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

We can certainly add in your definition for Medium to this article, perhaps as an add-on to the existing sentence about mediums:

Spiritualists refer to such a human instrument as a medium, a person who is said to have the ability to communicate with the dead.

How's that? Dreadlocke ☥ 22:52, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Whether this article defines "mediumship" or "medium", it still has to give a general definition (consistent with dictionaries would be a good guideline) and not how it is defined by a smaller group. You can't sneak in a POV definition simply by adding "Spiritualists say..." --Minderbinder 22:53, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

This article was created specifically about the Spritualist concept of Mediumship, there's nothing POV about that. It's like saying that the articles on Christianity sneak in a POV of Judiasm. (Or perhaps that's better as Baptist articles being a pov article on Christianity). There used to be a separate article on Mediums (spirtual), but that was merged here because mediums fell under the broader and more historical scope of Mediumship. No one is trying to sneak anything anywhere, and I resent the implication. Dreadlocke ☥ 22:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I guess if you two aren't going to make a better suggestion, and you're going to insist on starting with mediumship, I'm back to my original proposal:

Mediumship means the claimed ability to communicate with the dead. A medium is someone said to have that ability. Spiritualists say that mediumship...etc

I know you two don't like claimed - I'm only using it because you have yet to suggest a better alternative. I look forward to hearing what other editors suggest. --Minderbinder 23:06, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm actually trying to find a happy medium, and am negotiating in good faith, but if you want to insist, I guess we'll have to do this the hard way. Shame, really, I was hoping to actually come to a compromise with you - at least this once... You have to admit, there is a point to the Mediumship/spiritualist situation here...Dreadlocke ☥ 23:16, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

And what is that happy medium? If you've proposed a revision to the opening sentence, I must have missed it. And I'm only saying that the definition should be how the term is generally defined, and not how a smaller group defines it. That's just basic wikipedia policy, do you disagree with it? --Minderbinder 23:21, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you missed it, it's right above - where I proposed adding your version to the existing version. I'll repeat it here:

Spiritualists refer to such a human instrument as a medium, a person who is said to have the ability to communicate with the dead.

Dreadlocke ☥ 23:55, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

"it still has to give a general definition (consistent with dictionaries would be a good guideline) and not how it is defined by a smaller group." This article is about how it is defined by a smaller group.

"Mediumship means the claimed ability to communicate with the dead" - don't be silly. Ask any spiritualist, and they will tell you that it means, to them (and recall this article is about what it means to them), the real, not the claimed, ability. They talk about false mediums, which your definition doesn't allow. Your definition is therefore innacurate. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 23:26, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

"This article is about how it is defined by a smaller group." If that were the case, it should be called Mediumship As Defined By Spiritualists. As it stands, it's a term used by everyone so the definition needs to be how the term is defined overall. I'm not sure why you think Spiritualists get to hijack the term and overrule everyone else's definition. --Minderbinder 23:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Fine. Move the page. Suggest "Mediumship in Spiritualism" -I don't know whether to keep the second cap or not. But you are completely wrong that it is a term used by everyone. It is a spiritualist term. No one else uses "mediums" or "mediumship." So re-naming shouldn't be necessary. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 23:34, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

See, this is the very reason I opposed merging Medium (spirituality) into this article. This one was based on the Spiritualists definition and history of Mediumship, moving medium here was meant to add it under the broader scope and historical perspective of Spiritualist Mediumship. But here we are trying to define the broad (Mediumship) by the narrow (Mediums). Dreadlocke ☥ 00:03, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

So you would be OK if we called it "Mediumship in Spiritualism" and be done with this argument? Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 00:14, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I'd rather keep "Mediumship" named as it is, since there's only one of those. We could just recreate Medium (spirituality) and move this entire "medium" discussion over there and leave this one to the spiritualists' definitions. The old article is still there[1], it wasn't moved, just apparently cut/pasted here. Dreadlocke ☥ 00:21, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone have any reason to believe that "mediumship" and "mediums" are used anywhere except in a spiritualist context? Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 00:26, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Have you never heard of Medium (TV series), in which the main character talks to dead people? Or are you saying that those who create, watch, and discuss the show are all Spiritualists? By the way, the article on that show links here for the definition of the term Medium. Nealparr's description below is very apt - while the term originated from spiritualism, it is now used by the mainstream to described the alleged ability to talk to dead people. --Minderbinder 13:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The funny thing about Allison DuBois is that she uses the term medium as a self-label to differentiate herself from fake psychics. That's not my words, it's her own. That's kind of what I'm talking about when saying it was borrowed from Spiritualism. The term originated in Spiritualism, was used by psychical researchers who investigated the claims of Spiritualists, and has seeped into the public consciousness as *the* term for psychics who talk to dead people. Of course that's medium, we're talking about mediumship, the beliefs and practices. The case I'm making is that although DuBois probably isn't a Spiritualist, you can rightly say that she has some Spiritualist beliefs.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 17:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Kid gloves

This article needs special care, and I would approach it with kid gloves. While I wouldn't go so far as saying it is a term used exclusively in Spiritualism, it is mostly a Spiritualist term. Medium (in the talking to the dead sense) has been appropriated from Spiritualists and is now used by the general population to refer to psychics who get their info from departed people. Medium-ship has not left it's Spiritualism roots as much as the word medium, but it still deals with the same basic stuff. There may be a desire to treat it like an article on mediums or psychics, and give a great deal of space to debunking, but I don't think that's entirely appropriate here.

The problem, and why it needs kid's gloves, is because it was originally, and mostly still is, tied to the religious movement of Spiritualism. Mediumship (versus Mediums-people) is a religious belief. I'm not exactly sure what Wikipedia's policies are on religious belief articles, but looking around at some of the more controversial ones, for example reincarnation, you don't see much time spent criticizing it. Facts are stated, like maybe that it's not a widespread belief, but comments like "James Randi thinks it's an absurd belief" would be less appropriate here than in an article on psychics or mediums themselves.

That said, as a term that refers to a religious belief, we should take our cue from other articles about religious beliefs and word it similarly. For example, the reincarnation article starts off with:

Reincarnation, literally "to be made flesh again", is a doctrine or mystical belief that some essential part of a living being (in some variations only human beings) survives death to be reborn in a new body. This essential part is often referred to as the Spirit or Soul, the 'Higher or True Self', 'Divine Spark', 'I' or the 'Ego' (not to be confused with the ego as defined by psychology). According to such beliefs, a new personality is developed during each life in the physical world, but some part of the being remains constantly present throughout these successive lives as well.

Notice how it's describing the belief itself. It's not making claims that the belief is real or right or wrong. It's also rightly labeled as a belief (something missing in the current mediumship definition). There's other example articles to go off, I'm just too lazy to quote them. --Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 03:14, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Btw, the Spiritualism article does contain criticism about specific instances of manifestations and fraud, and so should this article. What I'm advocating against is giving this article the same treatments as, say, the criticism in the article on Scientology. I think that article makes Wikipedia look really bad (notice how it's always locked down), especially since there's good examples of how to treat the subject, like the reincarnation article and the Spiritualism article itself.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 03:23, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

This is a really good idea. Treat it as a sociological phemomenon, not a physical phemonenon. But how is we aren't allready doing that? We just say what it is "according to spiritualists." What should we do different? Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 03:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

One last thing, and this sort of addresses your comment, where mediums and psychics and even psychic abilities are things, mediumship is an idea, a religious belief. That's the distinction. One's a thing, the other's an idea. The article should approach it from an idea standpoint. Right now it's not clearly defined as a belief and isn't labeled as a belief throughout. That's what it needs, I think. That will solve any POV issues because beliefs aren't facts.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 03:39, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, it is also said to be something that really happens, in other words, something which sometimes becomes physical, can always be felt, provides information on specifics, can be developed as a skill, works according to principles which are partially physical (doesn't like light, and in some cases does like certain substances), and can be scientifically confirmed. This isn't your normal religious doctrine. It would have to be labeled as a set of beliefs. I'm wondering if maybe we should just rename it "Mediumship in spiritualism," then there would be no question of NPOV- in anyone's mind. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 03:47, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Doctrine refers to a set of beliefs. Word it in the style of the reincarnation quote above and you should be alright. Add "Spiritualism" to it as well (reincarnation is shared by many religions where mediumship is pretty contained to spiritualism, though similar concepts appear in other religions under different names). And p-l-e-a-s-e drop "psi" from it. I never had strong feelings about that word, but I'm starting to hate it : ) --Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 03:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

You mean something similiar to this? Dreadlocke ☥ 04:27, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I'm thinking more like this:

Mediumship is the doctrine or mystical belief, predominantly held by Spiritualists, that it is possible to communicate with spirits. Part of this belief is that spirits are in some way more advanced than humans. The two beliefs: that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits are more advanced than humans, leads to a third belief, that spirits are capable of providing useful knowledge about moral and ethical issues, as well as about the nature of God and the afterlife. Intermediaries between the spirit world and the world of the living are called "mediums".

(Paraphrased from the Spirtualism article [2])

Note how it's clearly worded as a belief, similar to other articles about beliefs. --Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 04:54, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I like it! Dreadlocke ☥ 05:04, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Also in the sandboxed definition, the last line where it talks about manifestations should be moved further down in the article. It's not a defining characteristic from a religious perspective. From a religious perspective, people consult mediums and thereby spirits for moral or ethical reasons, or insights into the nature of the universe. It's not to manifest a lost set of car keys or to glean the winning lotto numbers. Manifestations are central part of the story of mediumship, but not the idea of mediumship. Hopefully I explained that right.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 05:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and if you use my wording above, there's a source on the Spiritualism article [3] that can be attached to it. I failed to copy that over.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 05:10, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Oh, this is splendid, Neal! I knew you'd be the right editor to sort it all out! Guess we need to see if there are any objections or suggestions from anyone else before we put it into place... Dreadlocke ☥ 05:14, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! : ) --Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 05:18, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm feeling like a complete party pooper here- cause someone or other here doesn't know much about spiritualism. They (defined broadly) don't think all spirits are more advanced, do they? - I think a lot of them think there is a sliding scale. Do you really think that a spiritualist would believe that Hitler is closer to God than they are because he died? I doubt the belief in mediumship is predominantly held by spiritualists. And it isn't a mystical belief in itself, though it might go along with them. And I really don't like the word doctrine, because of its connotations to religion.

Mediumship is also not a doctrine or mystical belief. It is a practice, something people do as a skill and vocation. I think you should not use the spiritualism article as a guide on these things. But one way or another, Mediumship is the practice, associated with certain manifestations, not the belief. The article on spiritualism already covers, or should cover, doctrinal and sociological aspects- this article is about the practice and manifestations- or it needs re-naming. This article is about a belief the way Zazen is about a belief.

A better example might be:

Shamanism refers to a range of traditional beliefs and practices concerned with communication with the spirit world. Its practioners claim the ability to diagnose and cure human suffering and, in some societies, the ability to cause suffering. This is believed to be accomplished by traversing the axis mundi and forming a special relationship with, or gaining control over, spirits. Shamans have been credited with the ability to control the weather, divination, the interpretation of dreams, astral projection, and traveling to upper and lower worlds. Shamanistic traditions have existed throughout the world since prehistoric times.

Notice that it is concerned with what shamans do.

But that is more or less what we have for an intro, given that shamanism is a broader field.

This is good:

Shamanism is based on the premise that the visible world is pervaded by invisible forces or spirits that affect the lives of the living. In contrast to animism and animatism, which any and usually all members of a society practice, shamanism requires specialized knowledge or abilities. It could be said that shamans are the experts employed by animists or animist communities. Shamans are not, however, often organized into full-time ritual or spiritual associations, as are priests.

I have to go now. Good hunting. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 05:38, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

And anyway, the spiritualism article also says this:

For example, Madame Blavatsky (1831–1891) of the Theosophical Society only practiced mediumship in order to contact powerful spirits capable of conferring esoteric knowledge. Blavatsky apparently did not believe that these spirits were deceased humans, and in fact held beliefs in reincarnation that were quite different from the views of most Spiritualists.[29]

Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 05:43, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

The definition doesn't say human spirits. It just says spirits. It can also be worded as something people do, like this:

Mediumship refers to a range of beliefs and practices, predominantly held by Spiritualists, concerning communication with the spirit world. Part of this belief is that spirits are in some way more advanced than humans. The two beliefs: that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits are more advanced than humans, leads to a third belief, that spirits are capable of providing useful knowledge about moral and ethical issues, as well as about the nature of God and the afterlife. Intermediaries between the spirit world and the world of the living are called "mediums".

You might not like the implications of religion, but when you start talking about the afterlife and spirits, it has religion written all over it. You might not like the author's characterization of mediumship and Spiritualism either, but remember, this isn't made up. It comes from two books quoted on the Spirtualism article that we can only assume are reliable sources.

I think you might be confusing the Hitler communication Martin. When mediums contact discarnate evil people like Hitler, it's not the person as they were in life. They assume that the person has somehow been freed of their Earthly selves and are more enlightened and less evil in the afterlife. This, or they are seeking to understand why the person was evil in life by asking their more advanced spirits. While many Spiritualists believe in both good and evil spirits, they seek to gain insight (as a religious practice) from the good ones, or the more advanced versions of the bad ones. They believe the "other side", good or evil, has more available information, thus more advanced. But the predominant goal in Spiritualism, and the wording reflects this, is to gain moral and ethical insight.

By "advanced" I mean (and probably the author means) that spirits are more advanced along the Great Chain of Being. That's the scale that goes from (simplified) body -> mind -> spirit -> Godhead. In this chain, advanced doesn't refer to further along moral perfection, it refers to the degree that one is removed from the Godhead. So living folks would be further away from the Godhead and spirits would be closer, regardless of whether they are good, evil, or indifferent.

The clue here as to what ties mediumship to Spiritualism is why not call it shamanism? The reason is because different beliefs call this communication with the spirit world different things. Spiritualists call it mediumship.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 05:58, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Hey, that's great input Martin, not party-pooping at all! I think we can combine your ideas with Neal's (as Neal did above) and come out with something great! It's a work in progress! Dreadlocke ☥ 06:05, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to a different wording. I'm just trying to illustrate what the style of the definition should be.

Oh, and the other difference between shamans and mediums is that shamans generally ask spirits to do something for them. Mediums just want to talk : ) Yeah, sure, tip tables and such, but shamans carry this to a much larger level asking for greener crops, rain, better health, bigger things than just "show us a sign." In mediumship, spirits seem generally weaker than in shamanistic beliefs. Mediums get excited about a ringing bell, for example, where a shaman seems to think spirits are able to move heaven and earth to give them what they ask for. --Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 06:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Neal, I really like your most recent proposed wording above, and I think defining the term as a religious belief is a good solution. We really need to get away from the "X is the ability to do Y" wordings that we've had, and this is a fair way to do it. Part of the problems these articles have had is that they try to cherrypick different elements from religious and scientific views, mixing and matching to try and present the topic in the most favorable light. I'd be fine with presenting this article completely from a religious/spiritual perspective, describing it as a belief throughout, but I suspect some want to include the study of mediumship at universities and such. We can, and probably should include mention of the term being used in a more general sense by the general public. We may also want to include mention of research into mediumship, but obviously such a section would have to be balanced and include response to and criticism of that research as well. If the research side stays in the article, I'd recommend putting it in a section separate from the religious discussion instead of mingling the two throughout as it is now. --Minderbinder 13:08, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Going with the idea that it's a set of beliefs and practices, there's a number of good articles to draw from as a style template or for ideas. The zazen article Martin linked up looks pretty good, the general meditation article looks pretty good. I don't know, there's a bunch of them. I'm only talking about mediumship because my opinion was asked for. All the stylistic things aside, my opinion really is that for all its uses, it's pretty well tied to the religious movement of Spiritualism. That's not to say everyone who practices mediumship is a Spiritualist, but the beliefs and practices are predominantly Spiritualist. It's a lot like the zazen practice that was linked to. While everyone who practices zazen might not be a card-carrying Buddhist, it's still a Buddhist practice. If you think Jesus is the son of God and you practice zazen, you have Christian-Buddhist beliefs.

About the manifestations: I realize there may be a tendency to want to focus on the evidence in this article, but I think that's just one approach. I'm saying it might not be the most appropriate approach and I'm definitely saying it would the most criticized approach. The reason is because the evidence for manifestations in mediumship are the reason Spiritualism itself is highly criticized. It's not the ideas of Spiritualism that are criticized most often. A lot of people support how Spiritualism coupled Eastern mysticism with Western philosophy. It's the evidence that's damning. A great deal of the evidence came with the invention of photography and thereby spirit photography. While the photographs caused a great sensation in the mid-1800s, they are obvious fakes in today's age where people understand how double exposures work. Any modern research into manifestations are automatically put into the context of, "well we were fooled before."

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 17:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to add New Age to my suggested definition. Strictly speaking, it's a mostly a Spiritualist term, but it's been adopted by New Agers in modern times. The New Age movement has its roots in Spiritualism, but by adding New Age, it handles the question of how it's used today. Thus:

Mediumship refers to a range of beliefs and practices, predominantly used in Spiritualism and New Age religious movements, concerning communication with the spirit world. Part of this belief is that spirits are in some way more advanced than humans in terms of a degree of separation from the divine. The two beliefs: that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits are more advanced than humans, leads to a third belief, that spirits are capable of providing useful knowledge about moral and ethical issues, as well as about the nature of God and the afterlife. Intermediaries between the spirit world and the world of the living are called "mediums".

It might be correct to label Allison DuBois as having Spiritualist beliefs, but it's a weaker case than saying she has New Age beliefs. It'd be very hard to deny that she has New Age beliefs.

I also updated it to more clearly reflect that "advanced" means closer to the divine than living people.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 20:09, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I like the new definition, nice work. --Minderbinder 20:11, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! : ) --Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 20:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I like it too. It's very neutral and is very descriptive. It also leaves room for the practice and other issues that Martin brings up. Dreadlocke ☥ 20:36, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I've never heard this unintuitive "closer to the divine" stuff before. And these things are ususlly intuitive. Is there some source which speaks for all spiritualism which you can quote me or point me toward? (other than the article, I mean). I've asked Tom Butler, a ordained Spiritualist minister, to weigh in on this, as I don't know enough myself. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 20:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

It's the central philosophy of most wisdom traditions, including Eastern and Western religious models. The basic idea is that life, the universe, and everything is set up within spheres or levels of existence that become closer to the divine in a hierarchical fashion. There's a whole lot about it, but you can start with Great chain of being and Perennial philosophy. The most basic version if this is body (lower level) -> mind -> spirit -> God (higher level). This expansion model is in every religion from Christianity to Buddhism to etc. In Spiritualism, there's the gross material plane, encompassed by the ether, encompassed by the astral plane, and on up to the divine Godhead. It's often drawn as a huge outer circle with smaller circles inside, each circle representing a plane of existence. The etheric plane is within the astral plane, the physical plane is within the etheric, etc.

Here's a basic drawing (though they get really complex) [4]

It's planes of existence in Spiritualism, chakras in Hinduism, the Tree of Life (Kabbala) in Jewish mysticism, body/mind/spirit in Christianity, and so on. Every major religion has the basic concept in its core set of beliefs which is why they call it perennial.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 20:54, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Duh, or you could just go to Planes of existence, lol --Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 21:06, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Kid gloves 2

I know that, but in almost all systems, there are planes below the human as well as above, and inhabited by spirits. No, spirits are on both sides of human in these metaphysics. "Soul" would be below and above and within the human/physical level. I know this for a fact in Buddhism and Hinduism, Christianity has Hell, which is further away from God, etc. And the hells of Buddhism and Hinduism are further away from enlightenment than the human level. I just don't see it, the graphics not withstanding. This is rather unique to spiritualism, if it is true. Where do animals fit in for them? Here is from the Plane (metaphysics) article:

Most cosmologies suggest that there are both positive and negative planes. They indicate that an Earth-departed soul is propelled towards the plane that corresponds to the level of its merits or demerits. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 21:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Your not getting it correctly. Let me see if I can explain. There is a hierarchy and parallels. In the Great Chain of Being the material world is on one level, and on this one level there are parallel positive and negative. But within the hierarchy the spirit world is above the material world, and any parallel divisions of positive and negative are on that higher level. Generally rocks, animals, etc are seen as lower than human beings within the material plane. That is, each level has sub levels. Like I said, the basic is body/mind/spirit. But most versions carry this to insane levels where the body level (physical) has levels of its own. Here's a more comprehensive example [5].

Most versions have at least the material plane, a spiritual plane, and a divine plane. Spiritual (with all its parallels) are always seen as closer to the divine (remember, divine isn't necessarily God and heaven. It can also be seen as the devil and hell.) The parallels of positive and negative are still seen as above the physical. The defining characteristic of Spiritualism as opposed to other religious thought is that humas can talk to entities on that level. That's the crux of Spiritualism (and mediumship).

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 21:28, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Btw, you're still assuming that the goal of mediumship is to talk to negative spirits, which simply isn't the case. The goal is to gain insight and useful knowledge from the spirit world, which whatever our interpretation of the planes, would be from higher levels, as stated in those two references.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 21:34, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

One last thing and I have to take a break to get some work done (but I'll come back to it if you want). Yes, in some models the Great Chain of Being shows levels of hell as below the material (in all its parallels), but that's not the widespread versions of the Great Chain. Check out some of the drawings in the external links section of of the planes article for an example of the overall thought. It's a hierarchy.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sagga/loka.html http://www.kheper.net/integral/planes.html http://spirits_quest.tripod.com/Genesis.htm http://www.rosicrucian.com/images/rccen002.gif

Note that this one [6] has several negative levels (below Earth), but then look at the diagrams above it where it talks about what happens when people die [7]

It's all about one's degree of separation from God. The goal of these traditions is to return to God, the same as it is in Spiritualism, regardless of whether mediums talk to Hitler or the devil. --Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 21:45, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

You may be right, and I'll respond more later. But I don't know where you got the idea I think they are trying to communicate with evil. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 21:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I worded that incorrectly. I meant that though mediums are thought to sometimes communicate with negative spirits, like Hitler, it's not the defining characteristic of mediumship.

I actually took the time to read through the Spiritualism article fully just now. Everything I'm talking about is already in there, so (yeah!) I don't have to regurgitate it here. I wrote most of the above from memory, but you don't have to take my word for it, it's already sourced over there. Spiritualists and New Agers alike think that the spirit world is above or closer to the divine than the world of the living, it's all there in that article, so just read through them and get back to us : )

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 22:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

It's the same thing John Edward talks about in his books, but he considers himself to be a Catholic, but with these extra spiritual connections to the "other side". It's an interesting subject, thanks for sharing so much interesting information with us, Neal! Dreadlocke ☥ 22:55, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

No prob. Btw, the defining characteristic of New Age is inclusiveness. That's why Edwards might draw some things from other religious practices and still call himself a Catholic (not technically correct). In New Age, you can be a Christian-Muslim-Hindu-Buddhist-Wiccan all rolled into one. Not technically, but New Age doesn't have definitive guidelines.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 23:04, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

I can only speak from the perspective of a NSAC Spiritualist, so I will try to stay on point. Mudiumship is not considered a religious belief or doctrine in the NSAC. It is considered a scientifically proven fact and is only used as a demonstration of the fact of personal survival. I understand the benefit of hiding it behind a religious screen, but that would also hide the fact that Spiritualists do not think they need to hide. What you would really be doing is hiding the subject from skeptical attack. If that is your objective, then do change the title to "Religious implications of mediumship" or some such, but make sure you show that NSAC Spiritualists do not think of mediumship as an article of religion.

lains of existence was mentioned. There is no consensus of anything more than that there are aspects of reality other than the physical and that survived personality inhabit some of them. I, for instance, do not see any empirical foundation for the notion of higher or lower plains in relationship to the physical. See http://ethericreality.aaevp.com/Essays/essays10_imaginary_space.htm for one alternative view.

The 8th principle of the NSAC Declaration of Principles reads, "We affirm that the doorway to reformation is never closed against any soul here or hereafter." While Hitler is not our favorite character, it is difficult to say he was evil, only that his acts were those of an evil minded person. We believe he has continued his education on the other side, but we do not believe that he became enlightened just because he crossed over. Most informed Spiritualists I know do not think that evil exists as an entity, only as a consequence of imperfect understanding of Natural Law.

Now this is an important point for mediumship. The very core of Spiritualism is survival of the personality after "so called death." Next is the demonstrated fact that survived personality is able to communicate with those of us still in the flesh via mediumship. We all have mediumship ability, only some have developed it more than others. We believe this has been established with good science, and to say otherwise would be a criticism of NSAC Spiritualism. If we have to be eaten in the arena by skeptics to say it that way, then so be it.

Mediumship is used by Spiritualists, but it certainly is not unique to Spiritualsim.

One fine point I would like to add. New Agers are generally concerned with developing human potential and are not much interested in survival. For instance, IONS is a human potential group. and its founder, Edgar Mitchell, is famous for promoting the quantum-holographic hypothesis which is designed to explain the phenomena of Spiritualism without the need to include survival.

Spiritualist, on the other hand, would have a hear attack if a New Ager started giving angel spells from the podium--not because it is a New Age think but because it has no empirical foundation to support the notion that such spells work. There is hardly any conjunction of New Age and Spiritualist concepts.

I hope that helps a little. The Reverend Tom Butler, NST Tom Butler 00:48, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Hi Reverend Butler. As a NSAC Spiritualist, is there any objection you would raise to the proposed definition as follows:

Mediumship refers to a range of beliefs and practices, predominantly used in Spiritualism and New Age religious movements, concerning communication with the spirit world. Part of this belief is that spirits are in some way more advanced than humans in terms of a degree of separation from the divine. The two beliefs: that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits are more advanced than humans, leads to a third belief, that spirits are capable of providing useful knowledge about moral and ethical issues, as well as about the nature of God and the afterlife. Intermediaries between the spirit world and the world of the living are called "mediums".

What I read in your post that might concern the definition is that mediumship is a scientifically proven fact. I believe (and would appreciate the input) that the definition stated above doesn't say that it's not scientifically provable, without going so far as to say it is. You also said that it's not limited to Spiritualism, and the definition only says that it is predominantly used in Spiritualism/New Age. It also doesn't say exactly that it is strictly a religious belief and only says that Spiritualism and New Age are religious movements. I think we can safely say that Spiritualism is a religious movement considering that it is the NSAC, after all, where the C stands for Churches. Am I correct in that, or are you saying the above is incorrect? --Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 01:39, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, geez, I wish I'd had the background. I didn't have the specific knowledge to say all that, though I understood it. Thanks, Tom (:. I think these points -from Tom- would help:

It isn't New Age.

New age isn't Religion.

Spirits aren't necessarily more advanced.

Mediumship isn't a belief. It is a practice.

Possible re-word:

Mediumship refers to a range of practices, predominantly used in Spiritualism. Mediumship presupposes an afterlife and a world of spirits, with which humans can communicate given proper training and talent. A medium, according to spiritualists, is a person who has the training and talent to act as an intermediary between the human world and the spirit world. Spiritualists believe that such communication is a scientifically proven fact.

I'd like to have the following vetted by Tom:

Spiritualists say that mediumship comes in three main varieties: physical mediumship, in which phenomena such as materialization, movement of objects or lights can occur. Trance mediumship in which a spirit takes over the body of the medium in order to communicate. And mental mediumship, in which the medium transmits the messages from spirits by means of extra-sensory perception. Mediumship is a phenomenon studied in parapsychology.

We already have an article -Spiritualism- which should cover the beliefs, sociology etc. This article is about mediumship itself, the practice and phenomena. Being told from the viewpoint of spiritualists (should that be cap?), it doesn't have a problem with NPOV, though perhaps it should be re-named maybe "Mediumship in (modern?) Spiritualism" in order to make that point. Nealparr, you have the right idea, it is just that we already have an article which should cover it as a belief, metaphysics etc. If this article is not about the practice, why do we have it? Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 02:37, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Hold your horses : ) I'm sorry, but it is Spiritualism/New Age and it is religion. Reverend Butler seems to agree. These are his words written at his site [8]

"The completion of the process of Spiritual Intention is the return of awareness gained through experience to the creator aspect or to the Prime Creator. This is the fulfillment of spiritual maturity. It may be considered in part, as the fulfillment achieved by Self as its creator entity gathers its aspects, or in its entirety as the Prime Creator gathers it creator aspects. This principle also holds that once a process is initiated, it will be completed."

That is exactly the Great chain of being and the Perennial philosophy. In regards to the hierarchal levels of development, returning eventually to the Godhead, he says the above and specifically in regards to planes of development:

"Reality is not homogenous, but is formed into planes of existence for Self, defined by differing rates of the vibration of etheric energy. The finest rate of vibration is sometimes referred to as the God Plan."

These are not empirically evidential planes, as he said, but rather spiritual planes and tied to religion or at least religious thought.

It's not been established that there is a material phenomenon. What has been established is that there is a belief in the phenomena. We haven't established that there is a scientific belief in the phenomena, but we have established that there is a religious/spiritual belief in the phenomena. All we have to go on is what's been established. Again, let me point out that the zazen article, which deals with a spiritual practice, doesn't go off on a tangent about science.

Now, those who know me know I'm pretty open minded. But you've got to give me more to go on. Reverend Butler is saying exactly what this definition is saying so far. --Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 02:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

To clarify what I am saying: We can talk about mediumship as a practice, no problem. We can say there's terms such as trance mediumship, etc. We can do all of that. I don't think that's part of the definition really, and belongs more in the sub sections of the article, but that's all things that can be included.

But so far we've only established that it is a religious, spiritual practice and we have to say that. My proposed definition reflects that. There's not much difference in my proposed definition and Martin's except that I'm clearly stating it. I would, however, drop the "Spiritualists believe that such communication is a scientifically proven fact" from Martin's definition. That hasn't been established at all (not even a quoted source), and is irrelevant. Even if it is the consensus of all Spiritualists, it's still a religious/spiritual practice, not a method of science. If I'm a baker and you're a farmer, my opinion about farming isn't really as relevant as yours. That's why I'm always saying who cares what science thinks of religion? A scientist's opinion about religion isn't as relevant as a preacher's.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 03:12, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Well, yeah, no one is arguing with that. But that is the Spiritualism article. This is the Mediumship article. It is about a practice within a religion, and describes what is done, relative of course to the beliefs, but not focusing on them. As if we had an article on the Mass (see).

No one is saying that there is any proof. We are describing the phenomena, the process, and the beliefs concerning what that process is, from the viewpoint of Spiritualism.

No one is really saying it is or is not religion. What's being said is, that Spiritualists don't believe it is religion. Why is it we can't just say things from their POV, in an article on their POV?

Are even you pinning the "ParanormalApologist" tag on me? I'm not trying to say anything. I just think this article is about "Mediumship," and my interpretation of that word is that it is about the process, claimed phenomena, and claimed manifestations- not primarily about the beliefs behind them or the world view. There is already an article about that. So I'm wondering why you don't put in these things over there. What's wrong with having an article on what Spiritualists think about mediumship, the process and phenomena? What are you planning to say which wouldn't better go under the Spiritualism article? I just don't know where you are going with it, I guess. When we say "Spiritualists say," it should be taken for granted that this is spirituality or religion. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 03:22, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed to drop the science thing- the lead is a reflection of what Tom was saying, mostly. Since not all spiritualists believe it is religion, we shouldn't say that outright, only say "Spiritualists say." Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 03:26, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not pinning any tag on anyone. I'm just trying to define this thing properly. I have no idea why I'm bothering with it and regret it already : ) Maybe these articles are hopeless, but I'll say it one more time and then step away. It's not just a set of practices. It's a set of practices based on a set of beliefs. Though there's another article all about the beliefs, this article would have to summarize them, so the reader will understand what is a medium, why they do what they do, and so on before we ever start talking about what they do.

We can say:

Mediumship refers to a range of practices, predominantly used in Spiritualism. Mediumship presupposes an afterlife and a world of spirits, with which humans can communicate given proper training and talent. A medium, according to spiritualists, is a person who has the training and talent to act as an intermediary between the human world and the spirit world.

But that's pretty pointless. There's no explanation of why they do it. There's no explanation of what Spiritualism is. There's no statement of what the practice seeks to accomplish. It's an empty definition. There's an obvious reason why it's an empty definition. It never explained the belief. The belief gives the practice a context and imparts more meaning to the reader.

That's why:

Mediumship refers to a range of beliefs and practices, predominantly used in Spiritualism and New Age religious movements, concerning communication with the spirit world. Part of the belief is that spirits have, in some way, more information available to them than humans. The two beliefs: that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits have more available information than humans, leads to a third belief, that spirits are capable of providing useful knowledge about moral, ethical, and worldly issues, as well as about the nature of God and the afterlife. Intermediaries between the spirit world and the world of the living are called "mediums". The practice of mediumship seeks to train mediums and prepare them spiritually for this communication.

Is so much better.

But I don't care what you guys say. It's like pulling teeth : ) I mean seriously, I have people here saying I am mistaken and then I go look at their web site and they are saying the exact same thing, just in different terminology -- New Age terminology -- but I'm wrong?

I resign. Have fun. I'll go back to my minor edits.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 03:55, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Poor baby. You try so hard and you're so right and no one loves you nor gives ya nothing to eat! But we love you Nealparr, we really do. We're just mean D=. Try this:

Mediumship refers to a range of practices, predominantly used in Spiritualism. Mediumship presupposes an afterlife and a world of spirits, with which humans can communicate given proper training and talent. A medium, according to spiritualists, is a person who has the training and talent to act as an intermediary between the human world and the spirit world. Spiritualists endeavor to communicate with spirits who are nearer to the divine than humans, in order to recieve useful knowledge about moral and ethical issues, as well as about the nature of God and the afterlife. Mediums undergo spiritual and mental training to prepare them to recieve this communication. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 04:10, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Just kidding. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 04:27, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Heh, you guys give me plenty to eat. Let me ask you. How is what you wrote above any different than what I wrote, except that mine is based on two books that can be sourced? The only real difference that I can see is that you made sure not to include two terms: belief and religious movement. Just for my own peace of mind, I promise I won't pick on your answer, why? Why's it so hard to call it a belief and relate it to religious movements when it's all about spirits, the afterlife, God, and so on. That's what the category of religion deals with. Remember, I'm the one who was saying parapsychology is a science based on category. If this looks like, smells like, and tastes like religion, why can't we just call it that? It's the National Association of Spiritualist Churches... they're churches! I mean, come on. Isn't it really just religion-phobia?

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 04:32, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, for one thing it leaves out this, which I think is not true: "Part of this belief is that spirits are in some way more advanced than humans in terms of a degree of separation from the divine."

What's different is that before you seemed to be talking about religion, now you're talking about background for the term- seems different to me. See below also.

Reason for not calling it belief and religion: it offends some of the Spiritualists. Why bother them? Yeah, it's religion phobia, but spiritualism -if I'm correct- has always shied away from being a religion, and only incorporated to avoid fortune telling laws. So they -some of them- really don't like terms like doctrine and religion, or even church for that matter. Because they feel they are doing something emperical, while the churches are only doing dogma. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 04:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Fair answer, calling it a religion might offend Spiritualists, in other words not neutral. Calling it a belief is still neutral, though, and seems to be what people liked most about the definition.

The part you have a problem with, the "advanced" part, comes directly from those two academic books written about Spiritualism and published by Indiana University Press. And references to the spirit world being a higher dimension (thus "some way more advanced") is plastered everywhere. That whole hierarchy of spiritual development is pretty well established also and your guy Butler even mentions it on his site. But I promised I wouldn't pick on your answer, so I'll stop short of saying you're wrong.

In any case, I defined it how I would define it and that's all I was asked to do or what can be expected of me, so I'm moving on. Back to my Wikibreak. Back to my hole. Were no one loves me. And I don't get nothing to eat. : (

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 05:05, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Background

Because Nealparr is right, what it lacks is background about what mediumship is supposed to acomplish. So,

Mediumship refers to a range of practices and beliefs, predominantly used in Spiritualism. Mediumship presupposes an afterlife and a world of spirits, with which humans can communicate given proper training and talent. A medium, according to spiritualists, is a person who has the training and talent to act as an intermediary between the human world and the spirit world. Spiritualists endeavor to communicate with spirits who are nearer to the divine than humans, in order to recieve useful knowledge about moral and ethical issues, recieve, as well as about the nature of God and the afterlife. Contact with the spirit world is also sought to provide assurance that deceased loved ones are not lost forever, and that one's own death need not be feared. Mediums undergo spiritual and mental training to prepare them to recieve this communication. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 04:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

And we should be able to source this to the same books, as it says the same thing except that it doesn't say that all spirits are necessarily nearer to the divine. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 04:46, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Unless someone wants to do the history, suggest renaming to "Mediumship in modern Spiritualism," to make everything NPOV without having to say supposed etc. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 04:52, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

The definition needs to be more clear that it's defining the term in the context of a religion and what it believes. Spritiualism is defined in the first sentence of the article as a religion, you brought a guy in here for his opinion because he's a reverend. "According to spiritualists" doesn't make it clear that it's a belief of the spiritualist religion. I generally prefer the wordings Neal has proposed. --Minderbinder 12:53, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

This is the reason for the name change. Do you dislike that idea? Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 20:40, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

First, I used "Reverend" as a fast way to establish credential. My perspective is always empirical, so I go by "Tom." Thank you for the consideration, though. (I found that becoming a Spiritualist as much as possible was a good way to understand spiritualism and I like the community of people, but I am not a practicing minister.)

I have had a chance to think about this a little and will address what I can, again from the perspective of the NSAC and remembering that there are other Spiritualist church groups.

First, for definitions see http://www.nsac.org/definitions/index.htm, specifically the Declaration of Principles, which is as close the NSAC comes to dogma. Principle 5 states, "We affirm that communication with the so-called dead is a fact, scientifically proven by the phenomena of Spiritualism." In this case, "communication with the so-called dead" is mediumship.

The Spiritualist Church (the religion) uses mediumship as part of its religious practice; however, so does the Spiritist Church (the religion), people not affiliated with any religion but who use it as a practice and people researching the subject such as Dr. Gary Schwartz (http://lach.web.arizona.edu/). To say that mediumship is predominantly a Spiritualist practice is only addressing a fraction of its practitioners.

"spiritualism" (little s) is a philosophy or more technically speaking, an old term for the Survival Hypothesis, and the practice of mediumship is the application of that hypothesis.

Mediumship must be defined in contrast to psychicism ( seldom spoken of as an -ism). The litmus tests are: Mediumship is the gathering of information form an etheric entity by enabling an etheric to physical influence. Examples would be channeling, mental mediumship, trance mediumship, physical mediumship, automatic writing, communication using a planchette and board and various forms of inspirational activities such as speaking or writing. If I give you a reading in which I say that I have a fellow who calls himself Uncle John and he want to thank you for the pretty roses you placed by his grave last weekend, I am functioning as a medium. I at least think I am in contact with an entity named John and the message is evidential if you did, indeed, place roses by his grave last weekend.

By contrast, a psychic access information from the physical environment by sensing subtle energies. Examples would be the traditional suite of Clair- abilities, including clairaudience, clairvoyance, clairsentience, precognition and the like. This also includes remote viewing, and psychic readings. Psychometry is claimed by the NSAC.org site as a phenomena of spiritualism but I think it is more properly a psychic ability because it fails the test for information from an etheric entity. If I give you a message that you are going to meet the love of your life on the trip you are going to take next week, then I am giving you a precognitive psychic reading and that is not mediumship.

The reason I say that Spiritualism (capital "S") and New Age have nothing in common is that Spiritualism is all about survival of the personality after so-called death, and mediumship is one of the tools used to prove it. New Age is all about human potential and virtually all of the readers at New Age fairs are functioning as psychics. I have only been to a half dozen churches that might be considered New Age and not one of them uses mediumship as part of their service.

So I think that Wikipedia should approach this as the religion of Spiritualsim--and there is an entry for that. There should be an entry for psychicsm and I do not know if there is one. There should be an entry for mediumship that addresses it as a process that is incidentally used by some religions (at least Spiritualism and Spiritism). All of these can be relatively simple articles, but would depend on each other for completeness.

A similar solution would be appropriate for spiritual healing, the second tool used in Spiritualism to prove survival of personality. The church considers the healer as a medium for the entity, but the actual practice is not much different than therapeutic touch. http://www.therapeutic-touch.org/newsarticle.php?newsID=1

As I see it, you have a dilemma. You can define mediumship as you are now and be about 20% correct. You can define it as I suggest and be much more correct as I see it anyway, but if you define mediumship as a tool and even hint that it is "scientifically proven," the article will suffer the same fate as the EVP entry. (By the way, we consider EVP as a mode of mediumship.)

So whatever you do, keep it simple. I am not going to suggest specific wording for the article more than I have be because I tend to be too technical and I would take you right into a battle with the skeptics.

Sorry I cannot be of more help. Tom Butler 00:20, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

You've been a lot of help. I'm just not sure what to do with it. Because it seems attribution is not enough for some. If it were, there would be no trouble. Hmmmm. Suggestions? Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 01:20, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Martin, while a name change is an option, I don't think it's a substitute for the article text making it clear that a Spiritualist definition means that mediumship is one of their religious beliefs. And "Mediumship in modern Spiritualism" raises the question of where do we discuss the term as used by people other than spiritualists? We could have mediumship (everyone else) but I think that risks a content fork. --Minderbinder 14:55, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Mediumship

Perhaps it would help by clarifying some of the aspects of Psychic phenomena, Mediumship and Spiritualism. They are linked in my view as below:-

Psychics - people who have the ESP ability to elicit facts and sense feelings from another living person, usually practised for entertainment and fortune telling, may involve the use of aids such as Tarot cards, crystal balls etc

Mediumship - the ability of a person to communicate with a discarnate entity (dead person) in the Spirit World, usually on the behalf of the bereaved, for the purpose of providing comfort and proof that the deceased life on another dimension. There is an adage that "all Mediums are Psychics but not all Psychics are Mediums".

Spiritualism - the religion based on the evidence of Mediumship that life continues after death, carried out for the comfort of the bereaved and as a philosophy for daily living.

I would suggest that the statement that Spiritualists believe that the deceased are closer to the divine and thus able to offer high moral and ethical guidance needs further development. Just because a person dies does not mean that become sanctified! They will initially retain all the opinions and preferences of their earthly life. As already stated they retain their personality - otherwise how would we recognise them ? During their continued development in the Spirit World they will progress. There are however highly developed Souls who have communicated their philosophy through Mediums e.g. Silver Birch through Maurice Brabanell.

The acid test for mental Mediumship is the imparting of facts by the Medium to the Sitter which were not known to either of them but were known to the deceased and proved after the communication.

These topics are massively researched subjects which have nothing to do with the New Age, Wiccan, Pagan or Magick practices except that they all permit the existence of a non-material world, in addition to the one we inhabit.

Hope this helps

Realale 10:24, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

You guys are looking at the whole "more advanced" part the wrong way. You see "closer to the divine" as "more good". That's not the idea at all. It's "higher vibration" in their terms. The crux of the idea is that the end point, the divine, is a nondual state beyond good and evil anyway. That's all that line that everyone has a problem with was saying. It's not saying that when someone dies they become a better, more moral, spirit. It means that when they die they have more available information. That is, they can see both the spirit world and the physical world, which is a central idea of mediumship. There's variations on the idea, of course, that hold that some spirits don't have any new information, don't know they're dead, and so on. But it's not the goal of mediumship to kick it with those spirits except, maybe, to get them to move on to the state where they do have the new available information. The goal of mediumship, by and large, is to contact spirits that can relate information about the afterlife, and the reason mediums believe that spirits can give useful information is because they believe the spirit is at a higher vibrational level that can both perceive the spirit world and the physical. Those aren't my words. They're in Spirtualist texts everywhere.

My suggested definition was revised to drop the word "divine" that no one seemed to get (though I maintain is correct). Focus on the most recent version:

---

Mediumship refers to a range of beliefs and practices, predominantly used in Spiritualism and New Age religious movements, concerning communication with the spirit world. Part of the belief is that spirits have, in some way, more information available to them than humans. The two beliefs: that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits have more available information than humans, leads to a third belief, that spirits are capable of providing useful knowledge about moral, ethical, and worldly issues, as well as about the nature of God and the afterlife. Intermediaries between the spirit world and the world of the living are called "mediums". The practice of mediumship seeks to train mediums and prepare them spiritually for this communication.

---

The idea that somehow New Age is only concerned with human development and not concerned with survivalism, I just don't get. Channeling is a definite New Age term, reincarnation is a central theme to New Age philosophy, the whole idea of human development concerns levels beyond the physical and there's a lot, a lot, of talk that centers around what happens when people die. Read the New Age article for the basic backgrounds. You can argue some minor point over there, but to say New Age doesn't concern itself with what happens when people die, or that New Agers don't want to talk to spirits, come on. Jeez, the most popular teachings of New Age are supposedly from books written by authors who channeled the information from spirits.

Groups like IONS, and the human potential movement altogether, are not mainstream New Age. The typical New Ager isn't even familiar with them. Mainstream New Age is everything that is over in the New Age article, which might not be perfect, but covers the basic outline of the mainstream New Age movement. I also agree that Wiccan, Pagan or Magick practices don't need to be mentioned here because mediumship isn't a defining characteristic for them. But they're not altogether New Age. New Age does fit here where they don't.

It seems more like a turf war where people don't want to be associated with other turfs, when, as it was pointed out, mediumship is a broad term stemming from and mostly used in Spiritualism but used elsewhere as well.

Anyway, I didn't want to focus mainly on that. I wanted to respond about the "divine" part that isn't an issue any longer according to the revision I made that clears that up.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 17:51, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I wanted to address the "massively researched" part as well, because there was a reference to the Gary Schwartz work above and a hint that this research somehow takes it out of religion. Massive research doesn't divorce the subject of mediumship from its Spiritualism/New Age context. If Schwartz comes in and studies mediumship, or say a parapsychologist comes in and studies mediumship, it doesn't automatically take mediumship and place into a category of science, or away from its original context. Rather, science is studying a religious/spiritual practice, not the other way around. The other way around would be that there is a scientific practice in religion/spirituality, just because it's being studied. The science is the study of the practice, not necessarily the practice itself.

Hopefully I'm explaining that clearly because it's important. Scientists have been studying religion from day one of science, but science and religion remain separate categories.

The reason it is important, and this goes to the heart of the debate in the other articles on Wikipedia dealing with similar subjects, is that the flow can be seen like this:

Scientific study -> Object of study

Here we have:

Scientific study -> Mediumship -> Medium phenomena

Where proponents of the idea of pseudoscience cry foul is when that hierarchy is collapsed to the science level. In other words, they say hold up a sec when someone says medium phenomena is science, or mediumship is science, just because scientific study is applied to either. There's a hierarchy there, not an equation. It's not, for example:

Scientific study = Mediumship -> Medium phenomena

That's the crux of the position against pseudoscience. If we just accept that there's a hierarchy and not an equation, there'd be no debate. It may very well be that medium phenomena is a scientifically provable fact (or that it will be one day) as some Spiritualists believe, but that doesn't automatically mean that mediumship is a scientific practice.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 18:56, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

New Age is better defined as a culture. I have yet to see a church of New Age that can honestly represent the New Age community and most New Agers I know do not want to be associated with a religion. (Most of them do not much like being called a New Ager.) There are concepts shared between the New Age culture and Spiritualism but the practice if different. Since there is no center of New Age culture, it is difficult to be very specific about what the average New Ager believes, but it has been my experience from a Spiritualist viewpoint, being a long-time New Agers and the work we do with EVP, that the interest in survival is simply less from the new Age community than it is from Spiritualists.

I think you are mixing apples and oranges by casting Spiritualism with New Age. Now if you say spiritualist community, rather than Spiritualist Church, then I would have no argument. I think we should not say Spiritualist as a church because as I said before, others use mediumship and some have no religious interest at all.

One of the reasons channeled material is popular amongst New Agers is that it teaches "right thinking," which is self-improvement. I have seen many instances of a person believing in ghosts but not making the intellectual association between ghosts and their own survival of bodily death. By the same token, I have seen people believe in Seth, but not connect the existence of Seth with personal survival. My point is that it is not necessarily logical to say that a popular concept of New Age is the same as a belief of Spiritualism. It may be but I have not seen evidence of it in my 45 years or so of study, so there would need to be references.

From your definition of the 30 March post, I agree that some people--enough for a majority I regret to say--believe that discarnate entities have a better understanding of things. That part of the definition is technically correct as I know it. Mediums in Spiritualist church services do not normally seek such enlightenment, but rather, seek contact with loved ones.

You may be missing the point about mediumship and science. I (others too, I think) am saying that mediumship is a process or the act of being a medium. it is not a religious thing, although it is used by some religions in religious services. it is a tool with which communication across the veil is achieved. Whether or not true communication with a discarnate entity is achieved via mediumship is the subject of scientific research. Spiritualists believe all people are latent mediums, and use mediumship in the form of "guidance" in daily life.

To say that Schwartz is studying mediumship is not the same as saying mediumship is scientific. My camera may be used in a scientific experiment, but it is not inherently science. It is just a tool. if you are going to define mediumship, I think you need to stay in that context and not depend on religions to support it. At the same time, it is important to simply state the facts without characterizing them as true or not, science or not. The controversy is not whether mediumship is real, it is who the medium is communicating with that is controversial. As for the who, it is reasonable to state that in terms of belief. Tom Butler 22:19, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Though New Age beliefs, I agree, vary greatly, the one defining characteristic is that they don't like labels. This is exactly why there's no central, organized thing you can point to and say, "that's New Age".

One of these labels that they particularly dislike is "religious" although everyone one else labels it as "religious", the reason being that spirits, afterlife, and all of that, is properly categorized religious. Sometimes the weaker word "spirtual" is used, but proper classification puts things "spiritual" within its broader "religious" category. Mass, for example, is a spiritual practice within the religion of Catholicism. If it's a "culture", it's a "religious culture". It's not surprising to find that Spiritualists -- or if you prefer (s)piritualists -- don't like labels either, since Spirtualism birthed the more modern New Age. That's also why you'll find more organization within Spiritualism versus the newer New Age. Spiritualism's been around much longer.

Nevertheless, there are broad generalities that can be made, the dislike of labels being one. Another is that New Age draws their teachings from spirits. Half the New Age teachings are claimed to come from discarnate human spirits, the other half from extraterrestrial spirits. Of course one can say this all comes from older ancient teachings, and that less books published in recent years have as much to do with channeled spirits, but the modern books that kicked off the New Age movement were exactly from channeled human spirits and later extraterrestrial spirits. It still has a great deal to do with the religious culture of New Age. They might not use the term "spirits". They may say, for example, that the teachings come from "entities" who operate on a higher plane of existence. But if you ask them what are entities, they'll go on to explain a definition that is exactly that of a spirit. Survivalism is a huge part of this, though again, they may not like the label, or as you said, it might not be in the thoughts. Communication with spirits (what mediumship is all about) is in their thoughts, even if they don't consciously make the connection to survivalism.

I agree that Spiritualism and New Age are quite different in many areas, however. That's why they are mentioned separately instead of as one broad term in my version of the definition. But they do share a concept of mediumship which is why they are both listed.

I'm not advocating any particular wording, of course. I gave up on trying to get a particular definition in this article. I'm just explaining what it is I wrote and why. It can have a big (S), little (s), it can drop the New Age part, it can say science, or whatever. That's up to you guys. I'm just stating my observations, and that of the books on the subject.

Note that it says "religious movements," not the "religions of". The "movement" part implies that it isn't organized and while mediumship might be a spiritual practice, the religious movements part is directed at Spiritualism and New Age, not the practice. I didn't want to just say Spirtualism and New Age -- period, because that is an empty definition. It needs the trailing part to let readers know that we aren't talking about, for example, art theory. As more broader terms dealing specifically with death and the afterlife, they are "religious" versus "spiritual" for the reasons I mentioned above. I chose the exact wording because I realize that New Agers and Spiritualists don't like labels and this wording both imparts information and is still pretty vague. In New Age, they don't like specific labels because they want to be as inclusive as possible. This is odd when you think about it, because when pressed for a definition, they reply in terms of, "well, we're not that, and we're not that, and we're not that." For a movement that defines itself as inclusive, they sure like to exclude a lot of things : )

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 23:34, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

Nealparr, you said, "Communication with spirits (what mediumship is all about) is in their thoughts, even if they don't consciously make the connection to survivalism." I think that may be a hard case to make, as we do not know what is in "their thoughts."

Spiritualists like labels just fine. they say, "I am a Spiritualist."

New Age is a cultural phenomena that has been named from the concepts of "ages" in astrology. The idea is that the change in age will usher in a new kind of energy and a change in spiritual status of our world. It was seen to be important to prepare ourselves to be more "in tune" with nature, spirit and one another. It manifests as individuals seeking to improve themselves in ways that will make them more "complete" as human beings. They will usually embrace anything that leads them in that direction, which is why it is common to hear a person say "I am on a path of enlightenment." Mediumship is just one of those ways of learning and is seldom approached as a religious tool when addressed in the context of self-improvement.

We are probably not too far apart on this. However, I think the stability of the article depends on saying as little as possible, and it is probably not difficult to do this without including New Age.

By the way, I wrote one of the books that was around for a while in "modern new Age" circles, the Handbook of Metaphysics (©Tom Butler 1994, Christopher Publishing House, Hanover, Mass. 02339. ISBN: 0-8158-0485-7) It was not channeled.

You said, "One of these labels that they particularly dislike is "religious" although everyone one else labels it as "religious", the reason being that spirits, afterlife, and all of that, is properly categorized religious." From that statement, I see a possible difference of assumptions that we have and which is probably the major source of our misunderstanding. I approach the subject of things etheric by being open for the possibility that at least some of the beliefs are more than articles of faith, and therefore can be and require study. There were quite a few researchers from 1850 to early 1900s who had concluded there was suitable evidence of survival to at least hypothesis that mediums were actually communicating with discarnate people. Most of Spiritualism has not done a good job of keeping current, although we tried to help as directors of the Department of Phenomenal Evidence for a few years. See http://nsacphenomena.com, which up to the end of 2006, was authored by my wife and I.

We also approach the study of Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP) with an open mind, and as you may know, our working hypothesis today is that the Survival Hypothesis is substantiated by EVP. (http://aaevp.com) Of course, this is where the skeptics get off the track and will not allow Wikipedia to include an article that suggests something is possible that is clearly impossible. I will admit that you avoid that problem by clearly saying that all of this is religion and therefore need not be taken seriously.

Nevertheless, as I posted the other day, Principle Five make sit clear that NSAC Spiritualists believe survival is scientifically proven. Since "Spiritualism is the Science, Philosophy and Religion of continuous life, based upon the demonstrated fact of communication, by means of mediumship, with those who live in the Spirit World." http://www.nsac.org/definitions/index.htm, you need not be politically correct. It is appropriate to challenge the statement on factual terms, but saying that it is impossible is not a valid argument. It is just a statement of personal belief and that does insult the Spiritualist church. Tom Butler 01:40, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

While I appreciate that you wrote your book about the New Age in 1994, I'm pretty sure we can agree that the New Age was around long before then and that the books that kicked it off would be more like Ruth Montgomery and Jane Roberts -- to name just a few that came early (though not necessarily in the beginning). As you said, it's named for astrology ages, but modern interest in astrology dates back to... Spiritualism. We're probably saying similar things in roundabout ways. I'm pretty open to these topics, obviously, or I wouldn't be able to talk about it so much. I personally believe that no one is ever 100% incorrect. But my approach to writing for Wikipedia is within the guidelines here and those are more like standing outside a topic and reporting on it than reporting from within. That's where the definition was coming from, a third-party perspective. It's not necessarily first-person reporting. It's more third person, examining the topic as a whole and generally. But like I said, that's the definition I would go with. I explained why for my own purposes, and to answer questions directly about it. If you guys come up with something else I won't be the one to object. My objections were to clarify what I was saying.

Btw, I never said calling it religion places it in a position where it doesn't have to be taken seriously. I understand that you haven't read my other posts on Wikipedia (that end up being more like essays, sorry about that), but I am of the opinion that when people say science, they are usually talking about hard science, and that hard science is extremely limited to only studying clear cut physical phenomena. Hard science can only measure biochemical sparks in the brain, for example, when studying consciousness. It can't really tell us much about how we experience consciousness (we don't see sparks going off when draw a picture) or why we have a consciousness at all. Only so-called soft sciences, philosophy, religion, hermenuetics and art can tell us anything important about that part of the human condition, in my opinion. No, what I'm about is proper classification, not belittlement. If a topic is religious, it's religious. If it's philosophy, it's philosophy. If it's science, it's science. Trust me, I don't really care what science has to say about religion, just like I don't really care what religion has to say about science. That's the apple and oranges where I'm coming from.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 02:52, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I suspect that some still might not get where mediumship falls under New Age movements, so I took a moment and drew a map so to speak:

Swedenborg and later Mesmer fall into trance where they say they receive communication from the spirit world. Mesmer takes this to public audiences and it starts to create a sensation wherever he goes. Others jump in as well. By the mid-1800s, Spiritualism is born and the public display of manifestations gets people talking, and it becomes huge overnight. The invention of photography coincides with this and helped it greatly because now people had tangible proof of the afterlife that can be distributed to anyone. It becomes enormously successful. Towards the end of 1800s, some of that growth was reigned in a bit when some of the mediums became exposed as frauds, but by then there were some established groups of truly faithfuls and a few offshoots like Theosophy. Theosophy and some of the other offshoots came about with the increased popularity of talking about the afterlife. Along with that, there was a renewed interest in both Western occult and Eastern mysticism. Theosophy did well taking a little bit of each. They weren't the only ones though. We also saw a lot of other occult branches spin off. Spiritualism continued in its original form, but also in these spin-offs, into the early 1900s, though with less momentum.

In the early 1900s Edgar Cayce came in with something quite similar but with one unique difference. As Spiritualism and its offshoots continued to develop in their own ways, Edgar Cayce starts to go into trances and give communications as well. The difference is that instead of these messages coming from spirits, they come directly from a non-personified source, what he called the Akashic records (a term borrowed from Hinduism and delivered via Theosophy). Edgar Cayce continued to deliver his messages that were very similar to what Spiritualism and Theosophy were saying, with the major difference of them coming from "out there" instead of a spirit.

Though Spiritualism and its offshoots had already laid the groundwork for it, Cayce added some other Western thoughts to the mix of Christianity, Spiritualism, occultism, Eastern mysticism, and so on, including Atlantis from Plato.

By the 1960s, Spiritualism, Theosophy, Cayce, and others had created a pretty widespread subculture of people who believe in trance, hypnotism, mediumship, mysticism, and so on. The important thing to remember is that these offshoots borrowed ideas from each other while keeping their own traits. Thus, mediumship was never lost in any of them but continued on up into the 1960s when counterculture movements in America started looking for alternatives to traditional culture and traditional religion. That's where the New Age was born though it wasn't called that just yet. That didn't come until the 80s when people were tired of calling it the Age of Aquarius and wanted something more inclusive that would handle all the stuff that came up from Spiritualism, through Theosophy, Occult spin-offs, Cayce, and the counterculture movements of the 1960s and 70s. Human potential movements started within New Age movements, but New Age was about a whole lot more, more about the more, and human potential wasn't the defining characteristic of it. Only as New Age moved from the 80s and into the 90s did that become more of a focus.

Again, throughout all of this, mediumship remained in the various offshoots stemming from Spiritualism. We still find it today in New Age movements. Sometimes it was mediumship to contact discarnate humans, sometimes it was mediumship to contact aliens, sometimes it was mediumship between humans and some vast energy source like the Akashic records. But throughout all of that, it still has the basic ideas of Swedenborg and further back to the Oracle at Delphi. A person intermediates between humans and an information source, sometimes going into trance and in later years skipping that altogether.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 04:06, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

So what are the specific objections to Neal's latest proposal? What if we just leave out mention of New Age and just limit it to spiritualism?

Mediumship refers to a range of beliefs and practices, predominantly used in the Spiritualist religious movement, concerning communication with the spirit world. Part of the belief is that spirits have, in some way, more information available to them than humans. The two beliefs: that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits have more available information than humans, leads to a third belief, that spirits are capable of providing useful knowledge about moral, ethical, and worldly issues, as well as about the nature of God and the afterlife. Intermediaries between the spirit world and the world of the living are called "mediums". The practice of mediumship seeks to train mediums and prepare them spiritually for this communication.

--Minderbinder 15:02, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I think the definition could stand if reference to "predominantly used in the Spiritualist religious movement" is removed. In my American Heritage Dictionary, the third definition for "-ship" is: 3. Art, skill, or craft. Mediumship is a an application of a skill to function as a conduit between one communicator and another, one of which is believed to be in the etheric. The part of the definition I believe should be removed suggests that it is a system of belief and that is not the case. "spiritualism" with a little "s" is the system of belief, and Spiritualism with a capital "S" is the religion that practices spiritualism and mediumship is used in that practice.

I think there may be more Spiritists in the world using mediumship than there are Spiritualists. I am not sure, but we need to remember that Spiritism is very popular in other countries and has a large following in the USA. There is no reason for pointing out the religion of Spiritualism unless you intend to list all of the other groups--and be mindful not to bunch them into the same system of belief. And by the way, that is exactly why "But my approach to writing for Wikipedia is within the guidelines here and those are more like standing outside a topic and reporting on it than reporting from within." can produce inaccurate articles.

The article can still be written from the perspective of a belief if you want. Replace the above with "used in the practice of communicating with entities thought to exist in a different aspect of reality." That does not leave anyone out.

NealParr, that is a good history, and I wonder if you can say that you are standing outside. We are probably talking philosophically and unrelated to this article, but it is an interesting issue for me. For me, New Age use of mediumship is all about higher beings and wisdom that can guide a seeker. In fact "Seeker" pretty much sums up a New Ager and is a most healthy attitude for living life. However, my experience is that a Spiritualist development circle may go after higher wisdom, but begins with long dead Uncle John. I have never heard a "higher wisdom" message in a Spiritualist service. In actuality, such a message would fail the measure of a good message because it would not be verifiable. We have received thousands of emails from the public about EVP and not one of them have asked for contact with a higher source, Those who are trying to make contact, are trying to reach Uncle John. So my point is that Spiritualists are most often in the religion because they agree with the concepts, want the community and for the need for compassion for people who fear death or need healing. Again, New Agers are seekers of enlightenment. Many may be Spiritualists, but as a community they are very different.

You can bunch New Agers with Spiritualists if you are listing people who use mediumship, but you were making it sound as if the two are almost the same religion. New Age is not a religion. Tom Butler 17:05, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm not opposed to any changes to the wording, it's just the wording I would use. If some things need to be dropped or reworded for compromise that's Wikirific!

It could say, for example:

Mediumship refers to a range of beliefs and practices used by a variety of religious movements to communicate with the spirit world.

and work, though it would contain less information that can give it more context. But that's the nature of compromise. --Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 17:27, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Questioning the Religious label for Mediumship

Are you stuck on "religious movement" because you do not want Wikipedia editors to go into a frenzy if you say it is just a technique believed to be effective for transcommunication? Mediumship is used in some religions as a tool, but mediumship is not itself an article of religion any more than wine is an article of the Catholic faith. It is a technique used by people who are not part of any religion. I used it for years before I decided to study Spiritualism, and I assure you, I was not and am not today a religious person in the sense of an organized belief system. Tom Butler 18:22, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Well no. You can say it's a set of beliefs and practices and not have to worry about all that. The frenzy would come if you said it's a fact that people can communicate with spirits and that this leads to transformation. The frenzy would be because that's an opinion rather than an undisputed fact. It isn't a fact that mediumship does anything, just like it's not a fact that mediumship does nothing. Those are opinions, and opinions are beliefs.

The beliefs need to be stated here and attributed because they aren't necessarily apparent beliefs. It's not simply a practice, or an art, or a skill. It is a practice based on non-apparent beliefs. Driving a car is a practice based on beliefs too, but they're apparent beliefs. That is, you can look out your window and see people driving around and assume some things from it. Not everyone looks out their window and sees spirits.

This particular practice is based on a belief in 1) an afterlife, 2) spirits, 3) transformation. That's not necessarily a relig-ion, but it is relig-ious. It's not like it's the practice, craft, or skill of car mechanics.

Everyone seems to have religion-phobia. At this rate, the poor definition is going to be whittled down to nothing more than "Mediumship is" : )

Like I said, it's up to you guys to figure out how to word it. I'm not stuck on anything because dumping the attribution to specific notable groups has already taken it past what I would call my wording.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 19:35, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I guess that is what I think it should be: "mediumship is" without characterizing it as anything else. You can state why people practice mediumship, and you can state why as a belief. I think that can be done without resorting to religion or religious or claims or pro and con science. People eat some food because of belief that specific foods will make them more healthy, yet there may be no scientific evidence for it. It is done out of belief, but there is no religious connotation in the act.

I agree that Wikipedia has no business characterizing information without substantiation. My personal belief is that there is establish science showing that mediumship is a tool for gathering information. The problem is we do not have good science to show if it has anything to do with the survival hypothesis, and so such a claim should not be made. Doing so would inappropriately characterize the facts that are in evidence. Tom Butler 20:07, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

My only comment there would be that while a belief that organic foods are better for you isn't characterized as religious, it's not exactly dealing with spirits and an afterlife either. I just usually shoot for strong definitions. Beliefs and practices are strong neutral words that don't evoke anything controversial. If you guys feel religious is too strong, you can go with softer words like "spiritual movements" or "philosophical movements". I'd really have no opinion whatsoever, but you guys are still talking about my wording. If you reword it your way, I wouldn't have anything to say : ) I like to write. I guess what I'm doing is defending my wording but not necessarily advocating it.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 20:48, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, now I know where this is all coming from. I just happened across the battlefields of the EVP article mediation. Now I know why everyone has such a strong position on this article : ) It's mostly the same people involved.

I think now I will suggest a particular wording, just to avoid a EVP flareup redux. Strongly consider this as a "good enough" wording:

Mediumship refers to a range of practices shared by a variety of spiritual groups that is based on the belief that it is possible to communicate with a spirit world. Part of the belief is that spirits have, in some way, more information available to them than humans. The two beliefs: that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits have more available information than humans, leads to a third belief, that spirits are capable of providing useful knowledge about moral, ethical, and worldly issues. Intermediaries between this spirit world and the world of the living are called "mediums". The practice of mediumship seeks to prepare mediums for this communication.

It's weaker, but good enough, no? --Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 06:45, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

It ain't weak enough. "Intermediaries between this spirit world and the world of the living are called "mediums". The practice of mediumship seeks to prepare mediums for this communication." will be pounded with weasels. I don't know how to do it without attribution to some group. The practice of mediumship is part of the act, not just the preparation.

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Mediumship refers to a range of practices shared by a variety of spiritual groups. It is based on the belief that it is possible to communicate with a spirit world. Part of the belief is that spirits have, in some way, more information available to them than humans. The two beliefs: that contact with spirits is possible, and that spirits have more available information than humans, leads to a third belief, that spirits are capable of providing useful knowledge about moral, ethical, and worldly issues. Intermediaries between this spirit world and the world of the living are called "mediums".

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See what you can come up with for the last sentence, so we don't have to say "Supposed." Otherwise it is fine if others agree. You are doing something much more ambitious to not define according to a group. But this is good as it gives some reason for the belief. I'd include assurance of an afterlife- which is after all the main thing. Martin^phi _{(Talk Ψ Contribs)} 07:01, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Pfft, just leave off the last sentence. It really seems like everyone wants to undefine it instead of define it anyway : )

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 07:18, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Good enough Tom Butler 15:43, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd be fine with this if the last sentence were tweaked to "Those said to be intermediaries between..." --Minderbinder 16:11, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

I understand why you want it to say that (and it can, that's fine), but the statement that "Intermediaries between this spirit world and the world of the living are called 'mediums'" is already linked to the beliefs about the spirit world through the words "this spirit world" as opposed to, for example, "the spirit world". By saying "this", we link whatever we're saying to the earlier part.

--Nealparr ^{(yell at me|for what i've done)} 17:04, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Chart?

Do we really need a mediums chart? Seems a bit of overkill to me, and each one has their own article for more infomation. I think we just need a list of well known mediums. And yes, it's a profession for these people, whether you believe in them or not. Unless you want to "try" V, NPOV and BLP by purporting they are frauds. Dreadlocke ☥ 06:36, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Re: this summary, sorry dude, but no one "attributed" powers to anyone in this chart. But I think the chart is not only useless, but also a troll-magnet. It needs to be removed. Dreadlocke ☥ 19:46, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

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