Medium guide
History of mediumship and spiritualism
Mediumship and the closely connected religion of spiritualism rose to prominence in the United States in the mid 19th century, at a time when many people were becoming disillusioned with established churches. In this age of science and analysis, experiments in contacting the spirit world caused intrigue and excitement in the general population and many spiritualists rocketed to fame across America with sensationalist acts of showmanship – levitation, moving objects and noisy spirits.
However, spiritualism was inevitably prone to fraud and some large-scale hoaxes and the swindling of paying audiences brought the field into disrepute. Despite this, spiritualism still retained a certain appeal, particularly among people who had suffered bereavement. Many took comfort in the belief that their loved ones were still around. The extensive death toll of World War One therefore saw a resurgence in its popularity and spiritualism continued well into the 20th century.
To shake off its fraudulent image, spiritualism started to change its focus from spectacular feats of physical mediumship to the more credible practice of mental mediumship. There are still several spiritualist communities and churches today, although numbers have declined since the emergence of other churches with similar belief systems, such as Christian Science.
