Speaking of spirits : representations and experiences of the spirit world in British spirit mediumship (original) (raw)
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Journal for the Study of Religious Experience, 2021
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Getting to the Inside First Person Perspectives on Mediumship
The fundamental aim of this paper is to explore three important areas of research: First, the ways in which a first-person science may be conceived of within anthropological and experimental research mainly using existential-phenomenological approaches. Second, how an existentialphenomenological approach may illuminate some of the key aspects of mediumship with respect to state of consciousness and state of being change as well as questions concerning the place of agency and ownership in human experience and behavior. Third, an exploration of the ways in which first-person 'data' may be presented in relation to the consciousness-psi relationship. The overall analysis moves from the 'exterior' to the 'interior' of human life-worlds, to the phenomenology of doing first-person science.
"She must be a pure vessel": An examination of a spirit medium persona
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Rosemary Brown (1916-2001) is certainly a highly unusual case in music history. In the 1960s, she started to notate hundreds of musical pieces that she attributed to the spirits of several great concert music composers with whom she claimed to be in touch as a spirit medium. Brown also furnishes a promising persona case study. In order to convince the public that her music had a spiritual origin, she described herself (and was described) as a simple housewife and mother with no profound musical knowledge, therefore hardly capable of writing original musical pieces in the styles of acclaimed composers. The purpose of this paper is first, to provide an examination of Rosemary Brown's public persona; second, to relate it to the spiritualist tradition, in order to demonstrate that the constituent elements of Rosemary Brown's persona were available in the spiritualist cultural repertoire; and third, to relate this same persona to the implications of gender in the understanding of mediumship among spiritualists.
Mental mediumship is a complex process involving a variety of factors in need of further study before we can increase our understanding of the phenomenon. The purpose of this paper is to offer ideas and topics for further research—mainly from the psychological perspective and with emphasis on the old psychical research literature. The topics discussed are mediumistic trance (e.g., function, stages, and depth, mediumistic mentation (e.g., imagery, symbols), the dramatic capabilities of the subconscious mind, the relationship between mediumship and psychopathology, the variety of experiences reported by mediums outside their performances (e.g., dissociative and ESP experiences), and the changing aspects of mediumship over time. It is argued that in-depth single case studies of specifi c mediums and interdisciplinary studies will greatly help us to understand mediumship more fully.
Journal of the Society For Psychical Research, 2011
Anthropological approaches to the study of spirit mediumship groups, and related practices, have usually tended to focus on social-functional interpretations, arguing that spirit mediumship groups function as a means to enable female practitioners to protest against their traditional roles as "mothers, wives and sexual partners" in oppressive maleoriented societies (Boddy, 1988; Lewis, 1971; Skultans, 1974). Such approaches, however, have failed to address the experiential core of these groups: members believe that they are able to make direct contact with the world of spirits, whether through communicating with spiritual entities channelled via entranced mediums, witnessing ostensibly paranormal phenomena in the context of séances, or through falling into trance themselves and experiencing direct communion with the "numinous" (Otto, 1958). The experiential element cannot be removed from an analysis of mediumship, as it represents the primary motive for séance attendance as the members themselves perceive it. To ignore it would be to detrimentally reduce the complexity of the phenomenon. In addition to providing an overview of a variety of anthropological approaches to the issue of spirit possession and mediumship, this paper will detail the experiences of an anthropologist exploring this experiential component while conducting fieldwork for his undergraduate dissertation (Hunter, 2009a). The fieldwork itself was conducted at the Bristol Spirit Lodge, a centre established specifically with the aim to promote and develop trance and physical mediumship. The fieldwork methodology was one of immersive participant observation informed by the work of Edith Turner (1993, 1998, 2006), who has advocated the necessity of complete immersion in ritual if its functions and effects are to be adequately understood. In an attempt to understand the role of experience for the members of the group, participant observation was carried out in séances and mediumship development sessions as a means to gain an appreciation of the types of experience encountered by both sitters and mediums. This paper will present the research findings and describe the experiences of the researcher while engaged in the field.