What is a Mediumship Reading?

Mediumship is the practice of certain people—known as mediums—to purportedly mediate communication between spirits of the dead and living human beings. Humans have been fascinated with contacting the dead since the beginning of human existence. Cave paintings by indigenous Australians date back 28,000 years, some depicting skulls, bones, spirits and the afterlife. Several different variants of mediumship exist; arguably the best-known forms involve a spirit taking control of a medium's voice and using it to relay a message, or where the medium simply "hears" the message and passes it on. Most mediums hear the message or interpret symbols they see in their mind.

In Spiritism and Spiritualism the medium has the role of an intermediary between the world of the living and the world of spirit. Spiritualists classify types of mediumship into two main categories: "mental" and "physical"; we will be looking at the mental.

• Mental mediums purportedly "tune in" to the spirit world by listening, sensing, or seeing spirits or symbols.

Through mental mediumship spirits communicate with a medium by telepathy. The medium mentally "hears" (clairaudience), "sees" (clairvoyance), and/or feels (clairsentience) messages from spirits. Directly or with the help of a spirit guide, the medium passes the information on to the message's recipient(s). Some mental mediums can go into a  trance and remain conscious during a communication period, wherein a spirit uses the medium's mind to communicate. The spirit or spirits using the medium's mind influences the mind with the thoughts being conveyed. The medium allows the ego to step aside for the message to be delivered. At the same time, one has awareness of the thoughts coming through and may even influence the message with one's own bias. 

When a medium is doing a "reading" for a particular person, that person is known as the "sitter". All you have to do is open your mind to be receptive to the reading. Usually you have 5 minutes to tell the reader if you are connected to the reading or not; if not you can almost always ask for your money back. Please, don't just nod your head if you are not satisfied. That way your time and the mediums time is not wasted. Not every medium can read everyone. 

If there is a connection and the medium is proving to be useful and you understand what they are talking about go on. Whatever you hear from the medium is not written in stone, they are only communicating for another who once was as human as you are. Most of the time shortly after death one's personality does not change that much, but in time their spiritual growth continues even in the afterlife. Sometimes by communicating to them, you can help them on their journey. Also many people go to mediums just for clarification that they have been talking directly to the spirit all along. Good friends and loved ones can tend to say goodbye in your dreams before you even get the phone call informing you. This is quite common. 

If you are already talking to those who departed, then the medium can act as a counselor working with the living and the dead to hep both of them get closer to attaining bliss. Just remember that daily conversing with those on the other side can be done just between you two and leave the medium to the times when you believe both of you need help from a third party.

For more questions about mediumship, visit Angelica of the Angels at 192 Essex Street in Salem MA. We offer various classes and are available for informal questions within our shop. Also if you like to book a mediumship reading you can do so by visiting www.salemloveangels.com.

With the Love of the Angels,
~Rev. Barbara
The Salem Love Psychic
www.salemloveangels.com