Mediumship
The practice of acting as a channel between the living and the dead or other spirits, central to Spiritualism.
Also: medium, channelling, spirit communication
Mediums are found in many traditions, from Korean mudang and Brazilian Umbanda to the Spiritualist churches of Britain and the United States. Modern Spiritualism began in 1848 in Hydesville, New York, when the Fox sisters reported rapping sounds they said were messages. The movement grew quickly and spread across the world, with seances, trumpets and automatic writing. Investigators from the Society for Psychical Research, founded in 1882, exposed a number of fraudulent mediums, and Margaret Fox herself later said the raps were produced by her toe joints, a claim she then retracted. Believers hold that genuine mediums exist, and the practice continues in many places.