Spirit Contact

    Contact with the spirit dimension generally requires the services of a medium, a person who is sensitive to emanations of spirit entities and whose psychic abilities enable them to give survival evidence via mental or physical mediumship.

Mental Mediumship

    With this form of mediumship clairvoyance may be employed to enable a medium to see deceased people and related images. This is seen either subjectively as a mental picture in the mind or objectively where it appears to be seen by the eyes. Clairaudience allows spirit voices to be heard, again this can be perceived subjectively as a mental voice or objectively, where it appears to be spoken in the ear. Clairsentience is used to sense a spirit person and for example, give facts regarding its personality and its former body condition.

    Trance or channeling involves a medium attaining an altered state of consciousness, whereupon the thoughts of the communicating entity are expressed verbally by the medium. Spirit writing, which is more commonly referred to as automatic writing, involves a spirit entity controlling a medium's hand and arm independent of their conscious will, to produce text. Psychic artists have the ability to draw the faces of deceased people. Some of these mediums are artists in their own right and draw from the impressions they receive. Often they work in conjunction with a clairvoyant who supplies further details. Others draw or paint automatically with their hand being controlled by the spirit entity, still others produce drawings whilst they are in a deep trance state.

Physical Mediumship

    This type of mediumship is rare today, with very few people possessing the necessary mediumistic ability for it to manifest. Physical phenomena include materialisation (the manifestation of solid, visible and animated spirit people), independent direct voice (spirit voices emanating from mid-air), transfiguration (an ectoplasmic mask being moulded over the medium's face resembling the visible features of the communicating spirit), apports (solid objects manifested, often as gifts for the sitters), and psychic photography (spirit images produced on photographs).

    The production of these various forms of phenomena are dependent on the medium's supply of psychic energy and the amount of ectoplasm that he or she can produce. This substance, that is semi-physical and emanates from the etheric body, is emitted through the physical body. It is liable to disintegrate when exposed to normal light, hence the reason for séances having to be held in darkness. A dark red light or luminous plaques are usually the only illumination which can be permitted at such an event.

Energy-Based Phenomena

    Between 1993 and 1998 the Scole Experimental Group in Suffolk, England, used a new spirit technology that was devoid of ectoplasm to produce physical phenomena. These were created by using pure energy, made from a mixture of spirit world and earth energy, the latter being drawn both from the sitters and from natural 'columns' or reservoirs of earth energy which already exist in certain places. At the beginning of each experimental sitting, these energies were blended by the spirit scientists into specific combinations to create a kind of electro-magnetic field around the sitters and a 'canopy' of energy above the group. Under this the physical phenomena were produced, these included numerous spirit lights of varying sizes and colours, and levitation of objects. Psychic photography produced images on films in cameras and in sealed boxes. Luminous sustained visual objects materialised from the spirit dimension. Spirit energy voices manifested in mid-air enabling sitters to have two-way conversations with deceased people. Video camera experiments resulted in spirit scientists producing a variety of images, and trans-dimensional communication allowed two-way communication with spirit people and inter-dimensional beings.

    The work at Scole encouraged other people to set up energy-based groups. A number of these have attained various forms of phenomena.

EVP and ITC

    Spirit contact can also be achieved by Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP). With this method of communication deceased voices have been recorded onto audio recording devices. Instrumental Trans-communication (ITC) has been attained by using various pieces of other electronic equipment. For example, spirit images have been received through scanners, televisions and video cameras (video ITC). Text has also been received on faxes and computers, whilst two-way conversations have taken place via telephones and radios with deceased people.

    EVP and ITC have been deemed by various researchers to be forms of mediumship, albeit somewhat electronic in nature. As with all other forms of psychic phenomena, we do not know all the factors involved in achieving it and all attempts to demonstrate it must be regarded as experiments. Therefore video ITC image quality may vary and the voice intonation of EVP might not always correspond totally with that of the communicators when they were alive on earth. Mediumship is not an exact science and critics should bear this in mind when making an appraisal of any results.