Is Mediumship Only Telepathy?

There is much skepticism surrounding mediumship and one of the many comments that can be heard from the skeptics or critics of mediumship is “mediumship is telepathy, just mind reading.”

In this article, I will explore the definition of telepathy and mediumship so as to shine a new light on how the communication between people and spirits in the spirit world is established and to close the gaps between mediumship and telepathy. My purpose here is not to convince skeptics into believing mediumship /spirit communication but to offer an opportunity to look at mediumship from a slightly different perspective.

I personally feel that convincing a skeptic into believing spirit communication is not a job of a medium because mediumship is a very personal experience and until one experiences the power of spirit on their own, no matter how much explanations given to them would not turn them into a believer. Most mediums themselves start their mediumistic journey as skeptics but their personal experiences allowed them to not just to believe but to know that spirit communication is indeed possible and that it is not just a form of mind reading/telepathy.

According to Frederic W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research who coined the term Telepathy, the word Telepathy derived from the ancient Greek tele meaning “distant” and pathe meaning “feeling, perception, passion, affliction, experience” and is further defined as “the supposed transmission of information from one person to another without using any of our known sensory channels or physical interaction”.

Mediumship can be defined as a process of blending of the spiritual energies and minds of incarnate (people with physical body) and discarnate souls (people without the physical body) in the spirit world which allows incarnate human instruments/mediums/channels to establish communication with discarnate souls and receive information from the spirit world through feeling, perceptions, and passion and “without using any of our known sensory channels or physical interaction”.

There are two types of mediumship: One is mental mediumship and the other is physical mediumship.

Mental mediumship requires the minds’ of mediums to be used and falls under two different classes: Perception and Control. With Perception, the medium becomes aware and conscious (using mind) of the communicating sprit by means of her ability to see, hear, feel spirits.

With control, the medium is subject to various degrees of trance which means the mind of the medium is strongly influenced by the energies of spirit control/spirit guide (discarnate souls).

When it comes to mental mediumship, only demonstrating medium is able to see, feel, hear, and know the information given from spirits but not anybody else. Mental mediumship requires the minds of the medium to be used during any given spirit communication.

Whereas physical mediumship the medium comes under the control of spirit and everyone becomes aware of the information given at the time from spirits. It is not the mind of the medium that is used for spirit communication but in this case, most typically, the energy of the medium in the form of ectoplasm, a living cellular substance that emanates from the medium’s body is used to produce various physical phenomena, some of which include materialization, direct voice, levitation, and apportation. In this case, the mind of medium is suspended so there is no possibility of mind reading.

When people talk about “mediumship is telepathy”, they are talking about mental mediumship. Because the evidence of communication is only perceived by the medium, any unknown comes under suspect. For many seeing is believing.

Since there are few charlatans that give bad names to mediumship, it is natural for others to first disbelieve mental mediumship.

When we look at the definition of telepathy, mediumship is indeed a “transmission of information from one person to another without using any of our known sensory channels or physical interaction” so in this sense, we can say that mediumship is indeed a form of telepathy, but the difference between telepathy and mediumship is that transmission of information from one person to a person without a physical body. When the term telepathy is used, most people associate it with mind-reading. When mediums work on psychic level, they can certainly use mind reading ability.

Within the auric field of a person contains memories of the past, present, and aspirations for their future and any gifted psychic/medium can certainly tap into the memories and get information from there without needing to connect with spirits in the spirit world.

However, working with sprits does not require a reading of the mind of a sitter but a reading of the energetic mind of a communicating spirit.

Mind reading requires a medium to acquire information that is contained within the mind of the sitter. But there are numerous occasions during spirit communication where mediums received information that are not in the mind of their sitters, totally unknown to the sitters and the disbelieving sitters had to go and find and check the accuracy of the information given by the mediums and confirm the information was indeed accurate.

In one aspect, mediumship can be thought of a form of telepathy since it is a mind to mind communication but it’s not the mind of a person to another but the mind of a person to a discarnate soul.