Speaking with spirits and the dead
Mediumship, ancestor rites, possession and the offerings made to the unseen.
Speaking with spirits and the dead is the aim of mediumship, ancestor rites, possession and necromancy. It runs from the spirit mediums of Korea and Brazil to Vodou possession, Chinese ancestor offerings, the Mexican Day of the Dead, Victorian spiritualism and the Witch of Endor of the Bible. It is a central practice in some living religions and a frequent target of fraud in others. This page covers who speaks to the dead and how they are judged.
Ways of contact
Methods differ. In possession, a spirit or deity is said to speak through the body of a medium, as in Vodou, Candomblé, Haitian and Brazilian rites, and in Korean gut. In trance or dream, a shaman travels to the spirit world. In offerings and festivals, families feed and talk to ancestors, as in the Hungry Ghost month in China and the ofrenda in Mexico. Spiritualism added the seance and the table-rapping of the 1840s.
Who may
In many societies, women lead: Korean mudang, Okinawan yuta, Brazilian mães de santo and the Western spiritualist mediums of the nineteenth century, who found in mediumship a public role denied elsewhere. Elsewhere, the role is for elders and ancestors' descendants. Some traditions require initiation, and some say contact with the dead is not for outsiders to attempt. Spirits and ancestors are not always friendly: mediums report angry, hungry or lost beings, and rites exist for settling them, such as offerings for neglected ancestors in China and Vietnam.
Authority and fear
Religions disagree. Christianity, Judaism and Islam each forbid certain contact with the dead while honouring prayer for them. Spiritist movements around Kardec in Brazil and France treat communication as a doctrine. Colonial authorities banned possession cults in many places, often labelling them devil worship, and some Pentecostal churches today condemn them in the same terms. The rites are widely found in Africa too, where ancestors are consulted at the family shrine and are held to watch over the living.
Fraud, grief and study
Grieving people are vulnerable. Fraudulent mediums, from the Fox sisters, who confessed in 1888, to modern cold readers, have taken money by exploiting loss. Researchers point to cold reading and to the ideomotor effect behind the Ouija board. Many bereaved people also report real comfort from rites that keep a bond with the dead, and counsellors acknowledge that continuing bonds are common. Doctors and psychologists note that a grief reaction can include hearing or sensing the dead, which is common and not in itself a sign of illness.
Speaking with spirits and the dead on EveryJaadu
The entries written up so far, best known first.
🇨🇳 China and 3 moreTang-ki童乩 (tóngjī); 乩童 (jītóng)
A Chinese folk-religion medium whose body a deity is held to take overTradition · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Seeing and foretelling Living
🇺🇸 United StatesFox sisters
Three sisters from New York who launched the Spiritualism movement with spirit rapping séancesTradition · Speaking with spirits and the dead Historical
🇻🇳 Vietnam and 4 moreLên đồng
A Vietnamese ritual where mediums enter trance to channel spiritsRite · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Protection Living
🇯🇵 JapanMount Osore恐山
A volcanic pilgrimage site in Japan believed to be a gateway to the underworldTradition · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Protection Living
🇯🇵 JapanItakoイタコ
Blind women in Japan who train to channel spirits and communicate with the dead.Tradition · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Seeing and foretelling Fading
🇮🇳 IndiaNechung Oracleགནས་ཆུང་ཏ་བླ་མ
The official prophetic medium and spiritual advisor to Tibet's Dalai LamaOracle · Seeing and foretelling · Protection Living
🇺🇸 United States and 3 moreMediumship
The practice of mediating communication between the living and spirits of the dead.Tradition · Speaking with spirits and the dead Living
🇪🇬 Egypt and 5 moreZārزار
A spirit possession tradition and healing ritual in the Horn of Africa and Middle EastTradition · Healing · Speaking with spirits and the dead Living
🇮🇹 Italy and 3 moreEusapia Palladino
An Italian medium whose séances were investigated by leading scientists and magicians in the late nineteenth century.Illusion · Wonder and entertainment · Speaking with spirits and the dead Historical
🇺🇸 United States and 2 moreSéance
A gathering to communicate with spirits, ranging from religious services to stage performances.Rite · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Healing Living
🇫🇷 FrancePlanchette
A wooden device for automatic writing used in Victorian spiritualist séancesCharm · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Seeing and foretelling Historical
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia and 1 moreDhikrذِكْر
Islamic remembrance of God through repeated recitation and prayerRite · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Power and authority Living
🇭🇹 HaitiGedeGuédé
A family of spirits in Haitian Vodou who guard the dead and grant fertility.Being · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Protection Living
🇫🇷 France and 5 moreKardecist SpiritismSpiritisme
A French spiritualist doctrine based on communication with spirits and reincarnation.Tradition · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Protection Living
🇧🇷 Brazil and 3 moreBatuque
An Afro-Brazilian religion with spirit possession and a pantheon of Orixás and encantadosTradition · Speaking with spirits and the dead Living
🇬🇧 United Kingdom and 2 moreDaniel Dunglas Home
A Scottish physical medium known for levitation and spirit communication during the Victorian era.Belief · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Wonder and entertainment Historical
🇭🇹 HaitiVodou veve (sample)Vèvè
Ground drawings that call the lwa.Tradition · Speaking with spirits and the dead Living
🇺🇸 United States and 2 moreSpiritualism
A nineteenth-century religious movement focused on communicating with the dead.Tradition · Speaking with spirits and the dead Historical
🇨🇳 China and 4 moreFuji扶乩
Chinese planchette writing: gods and ancestors reply through a stylus on sandRite · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Seeing and foretelling Living
🇨🇳 China and 1 moreChinese shamanism巫教 (Wūjiào)
Spirit-mediums of China who dance and trance to carry messages between people and godsTradition · Speaking with spirits and the dead · Seeing and foretelling Living
🇮🇳 IndiaVelichappaduവെളിച്ചപ്പാട്
A Hindu temple oracle in Kerala who channels deities through trance and danceBeing · Seeing and foretelling · Speaking with spirits and the dead Living
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Tang-ki: Bunkichi Chang, CC BY 2.0, source
- Fuji: Unknown author, CC BY 4.0, source
- Chinese shamanism: No machine-readable author provided. +上帝+ assumed (based on copyright, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Mediumship: Harvey Metcalfe, Public domain, source
- Zār: Emad Nemati, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Eusapia Palladino: Baldi., Public domain, source
- Séance: Unknown author, Public domain, source
- Dhikr: Eugène Baugnies, Public domain, source
- Gede: Calvin Hennick, for WBUR Boston, CC BY 3.0, source
- Kardecist Spiritism: Coprosme, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Daniel Dunglas Home: Nadar, Public domain, source
- Fox sisters: N. Currier (Firm), Public domain, source
- Lên đồng: Khangoii, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Mount Osore: Douglas P Perkins ( Douglaspperkins ( talk )), CC BY 3.0, source
- Itako: User Geomr~commonswiki self upload, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Nechung Oracle: Christopher Michel, CC BY 2.0, source
- Spiritualism: Rossington, W. W. and Garrett, J. Ellwood, Public domain, source