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Mediumship is the practice of certain people—known as mediums—to purportedly mediate communication between spirits of the dead and living human beings. Attempts to contact the dead date back to early human history, with mediumship gaining in popularity during the 19th century. Investigations during this period revealed widespread fraud—with some practitioners employing techniques used by stage magicians—and the practice started to lose credibility.〔Ruth Brandon. (1983). ''The Spiritualists: The Passion for the Occult in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries''. Alfred E. Knopf. ISBN 978-0394527406〕〔Milbourne Christopher. (1979). ''Search for the Soul''. T. Y. Crowell. ISBN 978-0690017601〕 The practice still continues into the 21st century, with high-profile fraud uncovered as recently as the 2000s.〔Terence Hines. (2003). ''Pseudoscience and the Paranormal''. Prometheus Books. ISBN 978-1573929790〕 Scientific researchers have attempted to ascertain the validity of claims of mediumship. An experiment undertaken by the British Psychological Society led to the conclusion that the test subjects demonstrated no mediumistic ability.〔 〕 Several different variants of mediumship exist; arguably the best-known forms involve a spirit allegedly 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. Other forms involve materializations of the spirit or the presence of a voice, and telekinetic activity. The practice is associated with several religious-belief systems such as Vodoun, Spiritualism, Spiritism, Candomblé, Voodoo, Umbanda and some New Age groups. == Concept == In Spiritism and Spiritualism the medium has the role of an intermediary between the world of the living and the world of spirit. Mediums claim that they can listen to and relay messages from spirits, or that they can allow a spirit to control their body and speak through it directly or by using automatic writing or drawing. Spiritualists classify types of mediumship into two main categories: "mental" and "physical": * Mental mediums allegedly "tune in" to the spirit world by listening, sensing, or seeing spirits or symbols. * Physical mediums are believed to produce materialization of spirits, apports of objects, and other effects such as knocking, rapping, bell-ringing, etc. by using "ectoplasm" created from the cells of their bodies and those of seance attendees. During seances, mediums are said to go into trances, varying from light to deep, that permit spirits to control their minds.〔 Thirty Years of Psychical Research by Charles Richet p. 38 The MacMillian Company 1923 〕 Channeling can be seen as the modern form of the old mediumship, where the "channel" (or channeller) allegedly receives messages from "teaching-spirit", an "Ascended Master", from God, or from an angelic entity, but essentially through the filter of his own waking consciousness (or "Higher Self").〔 ("Glossary of Key Words Frequently Used in Parapsychology" ), Parapsychological Association website. "Materialization: A phenomenon of physical mediumship in which living entities or inanimate objects are caused to take form, sometimes from ectoplasm." Retrieved January 24, 2006 〕〔 (【引用サイトリンク】 Medium - Definition ) 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mediumship」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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