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MEDIUM

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Originally appearing in Volume V18, Page 69 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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MEDIUM , primarily a See also:

person through whom, as an inter-mediate, communication is deemed to be carried on between living men and See also:spirits of the departed, according to the spiritistic See also:hypothesis; such a person is better termed sensitive or automatist. The phenomena of mediumship fall into two classes, (I) " See also:physical phenomena " (q.v.) and (2) See also:trance and automatic phenomena (utterances, script, &c.); both these may be manifested by the same person, as in the See also:case of D. D. See also:Home and Stainton See also:Moses, but are often See also:independent. I. No sufficient See also:mass of observations is to See also:hand to enable us to distinguish between the results of trickery or See also:hallucination on the one hand, and genuine supernormal phenomena on the other; but the See also:evidence for raps and See also:lights is See also:good; competent observers have witnessed supposed materializations and there is respectable evidence for movements of See also:objects. Mediumship in the See also:modern sense of the See also:term may be said to have originated with the See also:Rochester rappings of 1848 (see See also:SPIRITUALISM); but similar phenomena had been reported by such authors as See also:Apollonius of Tyana; they figure frequently in the lives of the See also:saints; and the magician in the See also:lower stages of culture is in many respects a counterpart of the See also:white medium. Among physical mediums who have attained celebrity may be mentioned D. D. Home (q.v.), Stainton Moses and Eusapia Palladino; the last has admittedly been fraudulent at times, but no deceit was ever proved of Home; Stainton Moses sat in a private circle and no suspicion of his good faith was ever aroused. W. Stainton Moses (1839–1892) was a See also:man of university See also:education, a clergyman and a schoolmaster.

In 1872 he became interested in spiritualism and soon began to See also:

manifest mediumistic phenomena,which continued for some ten years. These included, besides trance communications, raps, telekinesis, levitation, See also:production of lights, perfumes and musical sounds, apports and materialized hands. But the conditions under which the experiments were tried were not sufficiently rigid to exclude the possibility of normal causes being at See also:work; for no amount of evidence that the normal See also:life is marked by no See also:lapse from rectitude affords a presumption that uprightness will characterize states of secondary See also:personality. Eusapia Palladino has been observed by See also:Sir O. See also:Lodge, See also:Professor Richet, F. W. H. See also:Myers, and other eminent investigators; the first named reported that none of the phenomena in his presence went beyond what could be accomplished in a normal manner by a See also:free and uncontrolled person; but he was convinced that movements were produced without apparent contact. Among other phenomena asserted to characterize the medium-See also:ship of Eusapia are the production of temporary prolongations from the medium's See also:body; these have been seen in a good See also:light by competent witnesses. It was shown in some sittings held at See also:Cambridge in 1895 that Eusapia produced phenomena by fraudulent means: but though the evidence of this is conclusive it has not been shown that her mediumship is entirely fraudulent. Automatic records of seances can alone solve the problems raised by physical mediumship. It has been shown in the Davey-See also:Hodgson experiments that continuous observation, even for a See also:short See also:period, is impossible, and that in the See also:process of recording the observations many omissions and errors are inevitable.

Even were it otherwise, no care could provide against the possibility of hallucination. II. The genuineness of trance mediumship can no longer be called in question. The problem for See also:

solution is the source of the See also:information. The best observed case is that of Mrs See also:Piper of See also:Boston; at the outset'of her career, in 1884, she did not differ See also:MEDLAR 69 from the See also:ordinary See also:American trance medium. In x885 the See also:attention of Professor See also:William See also:James of Harvard was attracted to her; and for twenty years she remained under the supervision of the Society for Psychical See also:Research. During that period three phases may be distinguished: (1) 1884–189r, trance utterances of a " See also:control " calling himself Dr Phinuit, a See also:French physician, of whose existence in the body no trace can be found; (2) 1892–1896, automatic See also:writing by a " control " known as " See also:George See also:Pelham," the See also:pseudonym of a See also:young American author; (3) 1896 onwards, supervision by " controls " purporting to be identical with those associated with Stainton Moses. There is no evidence for regarding Mrs Piper as anything but absolutely honest. Much of the Piper material remains unpublished, partly on See also:account of its intimate See also:character. Many of those to whom the communications were made have been convinced that the " controls " are none other than discarnate spirits. Probably no See also:absolute See also:proof of identity can be given, though the See also:reading of sealed letters would come near it; these have been See also:left by more than one prominent psychical researcher, but so far the " controls " who claim to be the writers of them have failed to give their contents, even approximately. Professor Flournoy has investigated a medium of very different type, known as Helene See also:Smith; against her good faith nothing can be urged, but her phenomena—trance utterance and glossolalia—have undoubtedly been produced by her own mind.

These represent her to be the reincarnation of a See also:

Hindu princess, and of See also:Marie Antoinette among others, but no evidence of identity has been produced. The most striking phenomenon of her trance was the so-called Martian See also:language, eventually shown by See also:analysis to be a derivative of French, comparable to the See also:languages invented by See also:children in the nursery, but more elaborate.

End of Article: MEDIUM

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