Mediumship Conference
Abstracts and Carlos Alvarado's closing summary of the 40th Parapsychology Foundation International Conference "The Study of Mediumship: Interdisciplinary Perspectives" (January 29-30, 2005, Omni Hotel Charlottesville, Virginia)
This is a selection of abstracts of presentations. The abstracts of all talks can be found here.
Carlos S. Alvarado (Parapsychology Foundation)
"Historical Notes on the Role of Mediums in Spiritualism, Psychical Research and Psychology"
Mediums have exerted important influences on the development of aspects of spiritualism, psychical research, and psychology. A variety of mediums were the ambassadors of the spiritualist movement. Such nineteenth century figures as the Fox sisters, Edmond T. Dexter, the Davenport brothers, D. D. Home, Cora L. V. Tappan, and Florence Cook, contributed greatly to the popular dissemination of the concept of mediumship through their performances in their home countries and abroad. Beyond this role mediums created both positive and negative images of their profession and of spiritualism at large. On the positive side, their autobiographical writings put a human face on mediumship, the case of Eileen J. Garrett being one of the best modern examples. Negative images were generated by the high number of exposures of fraudulent physical mediums, and this image of rampant fraud persists today.
Mediums were also very influential in the development of psychical research. The publications of such organizations as the Society for Psychical Research (SPR), the American Society for Psychical Research, and the Institut Métapsychique International clearly show that both mental and physical mediums provided psychical research with an empirical (e.g., veridical communications, telekinesis) and a conceptual agenda (e.g., survival of bodily death, subconscious explanations of mediumship).
The analysis of the evidence produced by some mediums raised methodological standards. Studies conducted with physical medium William Eglinton and mental medium Leonora E. Piper by SPR researchers are examples of this. J. B. Rhine’s well-known later work in the 1920s leading to the development of the modern experimental paradigm in psychical research was connected to his dissatisfaction with the methodological limitations of previous of studies of survival using mediums (e.g., Minnie Soule) and his exposure of fraud in physical mediumship (Margery).
Furthermore, mediums provided material for the development of influential theoretical views (e.g., concepts of force to account for physical mediumship) and methodology (e.g., techniques to quantify mediumistic mentation). Psychologists, psychiatrists and psychical researchers found in mediumship an opportunity to study the uncharted capacities of the subconscious mind. Frederic W. H. Myers and Théodore Flournoy are among those who did such work.
Much the same as hysterics and hypnotic “star” subjects of the past, mediums were active agents in the construction of a variety of ideas in both psychical research and psychology.
Etzel Cardeña (University of Texas Pan-American)
"Anomalous Identity Experiences: Mediumship, Spirit Possession, and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID, MPD)"
Anomalous experiences refer to events that are outside of the statistical or expectable socio-cultural norm, but are not necessarily pathological. People can have anomalous experiences about all major psychological processes, including personal identity. The notion that each one of us represents a discrete, single, and unified identity is, culturally speaking, the exception rather than the norm. Alternatives to this view include the Buddhist perspective that the self is an illusion, the belief that our personality is continuously porous to influences from spiritual forces (or, in more secular terms, to non-conscious forces), and the Gourdjeffian dictum that the unity of the self needs continuous practice to be achieved, among others.
When we move from belief to subjective experience, we encounter myriad variations. They include the general Western common sense view of a discrete, single identity, with some provision made for “clinical” cases in which a single identity may nonetheless have an unaccountable lack of control of a part of the body or speech. More challenging are the experiences of a “regular” identity who may share consciousness with discarnate entities, to the alternation of distinct, idiosyncratic identities within a single body (which, if causing dysfunction would qualify as dissociative identity disorder, or DID), to a spirit taking over, more or less completely, a human identity (spirit possession): the domain of mediumship crosses these three manifestations.
In this presentation I will first use as a heuristic the classification of anomalous identity experiences according to whether they bring about dysfunction or not, and whether they are caused mostly by psychosocial or neurological processes. I will then concentrate on two phenomena closely related to mediumship, dissociative identity disorder and spirit possession. This presentation, based on clinical and developmental psychology, and anthropology, will propose that: 1) Psychological identity is not a biological given, but the result of a long-term developmental process; and 2) Even a “normal,” technological individual, exhibits disruptions of memory, sense of agency, and so on, that remain unaccounted by the single, discrete identity notion.
Cultures and subcultures provide ideologies and techniques to attempt to explain and bring into control such disruptions. Mediumship represents just one particular ideology and set of techniques.
Emily W. Kelly (University of Virginia)
"Mediumship and Survival"
Mediumship holds a uniquely important place in psychical research, in that it is the only phenomenon that combines elements of spontaneous case studies, field studies, survival research, and experimental method. For the most part, mediumship develops spontaneously in a few gifted individuals, it must be studied more or less in its natural setting, and yet it is the only phenomenon directly relevant to survival research that can be produced and observed under conditions of experimental control. Mediumship therefore combines the significant emotional and psychological circumstances that often produce the strong psi effects seen in spontaneous experiences with the ability to control the conditions and thus reduce the uncertainties that too often accompany spontaneous cases about the possibility of normal sources of information.
As we are all well aware, however, mediumship research ultimately reached a stalemate when it became clear that super-psi was often just as good an explanation as survival for the phenomena produced. As a result, mediumship research all but died away in parapsychology and psychical research, and, although the general public today is showing a revival of interest in mediumship, few serious scientists have taken it up again as a topic for research. I would argue, however, that our intimidation in the face of the super-psi/survival impasse led to the suppression of one of our most valuable sources of information and phenomena relevant both to psi and the survival question. However one interprets the phenomena, there is little doubt among persons knowledgeable about mediumistic research that it clearly produced strong paranormal phenomena of some kind. Ceasing to find mediums and methods for producing those phenomena, simply because we could not resolve the theoretical impasse, was surely a serious self-inflicted wound on our science.
Difficulties over interpreting the phenomena also should not dissuade us from continuing to try to find ways to discriminate between the super-psi and the survival hypotheses. There were herculean efforts by earlier researchers to identify and study mediumistic communications difficult to subsume under a super-psi hypothesis, but we have barely begun to scratch the surface of such lines of research. Most notable among these were the cross-correspondences, drop-in cases, and proxy sittings. In the remainder of this paper, I will briefly review these lines of research and argue that by far the most important line of research to pursue now is that involving proxy sittings. Despite the undeniably important contribution of the cross-correspondences and drop-in cases to survival research, they suffer the weakness of spontaneous cases of all kinds, in that we must wait for them to appear before we can study them. In contrast, proxy sittings can be conducted under double-blind conditions whenever there is a medium able and willing to work under such conditions. I will review the literature on previous proxy-sitting research in an effort to understand better the kind of information produced in such sittings and the conditions that seem conducive for obtaining strong results. I will also briefly describe some preliminary proxy-sitting research that I have recently conducted.
Parapsychology Foundation’s 2005 International Conference
"The Study of Mediumship: Interdisciplinary Perspectives:"
Summary Comments
Carlos S. Alvarado
The purpose of this conference was to provide a forum to discuss mediumship from different conceptual and disciplinary perspectives. For this reason we scheduled the following presentations:
Historical Notes on the Role of Mediums in Spiritualism, Psychical Research and Psychology
Carlos S. Alvarado, Ph.D. (Parapsychology Foundation)
Anomalous Identity Experiences: Mediumship, Spirit Possession, and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID, MPD)
Etzel Cardeña, Ph.D. (University of Texas Pan-American)
Are Mediumship and Science Compatible?
Jesús Soto Espinosa, Ph.D. (Confederación Espiritista de Puerto Rico)
Reflections on the Physiology of Mediumship
Ruth Reinsel, Ph.D. (The NeuroPsience Laboratory)
Mediumship and Survival
Emily W. Kelly, Ph.D. (University of Virginia)
Survival is in the Details: Emerging Evidence for Discarnate Intention from Mediumship Research
Gary E. Schwartz, Ph.D. and Julie Beischel, Ph.D. (Human Energy Systems Laboratory)
Mental Health and Healing Process in Puerto Rican Spiritism
Joan Koss-Chioino, Ph.D. (George Washington University)
They See Dead People: Working with Psychics and Mediums in Spontaneous Case Investigations
Loyd Auerbach, M.S. (Office of Paranormal Investigations)
Mediumship in the Balinese Context
Hoyt Edge, Ph.D. (Rollins College)
Incorporating Roles: The Psychosocial Dimension of the Embodiment of Spirits among Umbanda Mediums
Wellington Zangari, Ph.D. (University of São Paulo)
Mediumship and Creativity
Michael Grosso, Ph.D. (University of Virginia)
While we recognize that we have not covered all relevant topics or issues, I think it is fair to say that the conference has been successful in showing the varied aspects of the topic at hand.
Several of the papers illustrated the variety of phenomena mediums can and have produced. Carlos Alvarado reminded us of the difference between mental and physical mediumship, and Ruth Reinsel discussed some physiological phenomena mediums have shown in the past, such as changes in pulse and breathing rate. While Emily Kelly and Gary Schwartz and Julie Beischel focused on veridical phenomena suggestive of survival of death in the case of particular individuals, the presentations of Hoyt Edge and Wellington Zangari had different perspectives. The Balinese and Brazilian mediums discussed in the conference do not seem to be concerned in the main with the presentation of evidence of survival of death, or even veridical statements. For the most part, the spirits channeled were not deceased family members or friends, but supposed entities such as gods and ancestral spirits.
Following on a long established tradition in anthropology, Hoyt Edge and Joan Koss reminded us that the function of mediums in the modern world goes beyond providing evidence for survival of death or parapsychological functioning in any case. Mediums also provide meaning and healing, depending on the cultural context in which they operate.
Another major topic of the papers presented was the psychology of mediumship. Alvarado reminded us of the long history of ideas in which mediumistic phenomena have been related to different conceptions of the subconscious mind. Etzel Cardeña saw mediumship as a particular attempt to express or assert self-identity. Furthermore, he saw mediumship as possibly related to, but at the same time different from, other experiences such as dissociative identity disorder. The latter point reminds me of past attempts to unify human experience such as Frederic W.H. Myers’ system of subliminal psychology.
While Ruth Reinsel speculated on the role of the nervous system in mediumship, Joan Koss reminded us of the efficacy of Puerto Rican mediums as psychotherapists. She proposed that their success, like other forms of psychotherapy, depended on the regulation of emotions through the interaction between the client and the medium.
In his paper on Umbanda mediums Wellington Zangari not only mentioned social roles, but also made interesting observations on the role of group beliefs and dynamics as variables that may shape the manifestation of mediumship. This brings to mind the comments William James made in the first volume of The Principles of Psychology on the influence of beliefs and expectations on mediumistic communications.
Another important psychological view of mediumship was Michael Grosso’s discussion of the different ways in which creativity could be related to mediumship. The examples he presented reminded me of what physiologist Charles Richet referred to as the “talents of the unconscious.” Grosso does much to illustrate how some subconscious manifestations can transcend the productions of the conscious mind. Considerations such as his, and those of Joan Koss, should form part of the growing movement of positive psychology.
However, the study of mediumship as a veridical phenomena following on spiritualism and parapsychology is a very important approach as well. Regardless of the existential, social or psychological functions performed by the medium it is important to study the verifiability of mediumistic statements. Acceptance of the role of the medium as a producer of veridical phenomena has direct implications for the empirical exploration of the concepts of survival of bodily death, and for ideas about the nature of the mind and of humankind in general.
Several of the papers presented explored aspects of these issues. Emily Kelly focused on the importance of past work from the psychical research literature, such as the use of proxy sittings. Current work with a medium was reported by Gary Schwartz and Julie Beischel. The transcripts of the messages they presented are a reminder of the successes, ambiguities, and surprises of mediumistic messages. Furthermore, Loyd Auerbach gave us a glimpse into the veridical mediumistic insights offered by mediums working in haunting investigations.
While the anthropological and psychological views of mediums may be seen to oppose spiritualistic and parapsychological views, this is not necessarily the case. The social and psychological functions of mediumship do not necessarily negate its possible parapsychological aspects. As human phenomena one should expect that veridical mediumship may also be related to non-parapsychological processes. I am saying this not only in terms of the use of cognitive and physiological resources of the organism (as Grosso argued with creativity and Reinsel discussed with the workings of the nervous system), but also in terms of expressions of the self and of particular cosmologies, as mentioned by Cardeña and Edge. Unfortunately, because of training and interest, we usually focus on mediumship from particular points of view to the neglect of other views.
Something should also be said about the healing aspects of mediumship. While some presenters discussed mediums as research subjects (and I am aware none of them wanted to reduce them to this single dimension), others such as Koss, Auerbach and Soto saw mediumship as a helping profession. Current popular interest for mediumship is not only due to concern for spirituality, belief in the beyond, or scientific reasons, but also for the basic need to be healed either of body, mind or spirit, in such cases as bereavement due to the loss of a loved one. The presenters in this conference have all helped us realize not only how complex mediumship is, but also how much we need to do in the future to continue to explore this important topic. In keeping with the philosophy of previous conferences hosted by the Parapsychology Foundation since 1953, it is my hope that such discussions as we have had here will help us chart our future explorations with the awareness that interdisciplinary and multi-conceptual views enrich our understanding of this fascinating and important phenomenon.
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