Phenomenology of mediumship Exploring the meaning of

Phenomenology of mediumship
Exploring the meaning of
mediumship from the mediums’
perspective
Dr Elizabeth Roxburgh
Centre for the Study of Anomalous Psychological Processes
‘In search of the light’
Summer Study Program
Overview
• Rationale for the research
• Outline the qualitative research
method adopted (Interpretative
Phenomenological Analysis;
Smith, 1996)
• Findings and implications
Previous research has tended to
adopt a proof-oriented approach
• Investigations into mediumship have tried to provide
evidence for survival after death or have tested
mediums’ abilities.
• Less attention has been paid to understanding the
experience of mediumship from the perspective of
the medium.
But there are some exceptions...
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Process and nature of mediumship
(Emmons & Emmons, 2003)
Mediums’ experiences of discarnate
communication (Rock, Beischel, &
Schwartz, 2005)
Sociological perspective (Gilbert,
2008)
Experiential investigation of
contemporary trance and physical
mediumship (Hunter, 2009)
Aims of the research
To map mediums’ own understanding of their
experiences:
• How do mediums perceive their abilities to have
originated and developed?
• What is the nature and role of spirit guides?
• How do they receive information from discarnate
entities?
• What does the experience of mediumship mean to
them?
What is Interpretative
Phenomenological Analysis (IPA)?
Phenomenological
Refers to the study of phenomena as
they are perceived regardless of whether
what is experienced is objectively real
Interpretative
Researcher is the “primary
analytical tool”
Characteristics of IPA
• Ideographic – IPA attempts to capture the
quality and texture of individual experience.
• Inductive – data-driven (‘bottom-up’) rather
theory-driven (‘top-down’)
• Interrogative – has a dialogue with the
broader extant literature
Childhood experience As a child I was always aware
there was something there
but I never knew what it was,
Fearful of the dark
I was very afraid of the dark as
most mediums are
Communication with surprisingly, you know for
the deceased
people who talk to the dead,
I’d hide under the pillows, so
as a child I was a little bit
Negative feelings
negative because I could feel
things behind me, turn round
Sense of presence
and look and there was
nothing there, I could see
shadows, you know in the
Not having an
room and not understand why
explanation for the
it was there
experiences
Anomalous childhood
experiences
Searching for an
explanation
Rigorous and systematic approach
• IPA views participants as experiential experts
• Being sensitive to the research context (e.g., minimizing
power dynamics within the interview process)
• Better representing the raw data (e.g., including detailed
extracts from participants’ data)
• Being sufficiently interpretative by moving beyond a simple
description of the data to an analysis of its deeper meaning
Why did I use IPA?
1. Opportunity to give a voice to mediums
2. Given that experiences such as hearing spirit
voices/seeing visions could be pathologised by
Western psychiatry, it was important to use an
approach that considered mediums as expert on
their experiences
3. Use of method that has been developed in other
fields to help legitimize the study of mediumship
Initial planning phase
“In doing research on a particular aspect of
human life you should begin, not with a
research protocol or hypothesis but with
exploratory investigations of the research
population itself. Only when you have steeped
yourself in their empirical world can you
possibly be in a position to devise hypotheses
and a research design” (White, 1997, p. 101 )
Participant observation of a
mediumship training course
Increased knowledge of
mediumship terminology
Helped to build rapport
Firsthand insights into the
experiential components
of mediumship
Arthur Findlay College
Data collection
In-depth interviews
At participants’ home, local spiritualist church or
University of Northampton
Interviews lasted between 30 to 75 minutes
Semi-structured interview schedule
“Funnelling” format/ Non-leading questions
Used as a guide rather than a strict set of questions
The interviewer as traveller who...
“wanders along with the local
inhabitants, asks questions that
lead the subjects to tell their
own stories of their lived world,
and converses with them in the
original Latin meaning of
conversation as ‘wandering
together with’”
(Kvale, 1996, p.4)
Who were the participants?
10 Spiritualist mental mediums:
Award holders for
demonstrating mediumship
5 males/5 females
Aged between 46 to 76 years
Length of time practising as a
medium ranged from 9 to 55
years
Analytical process
• Critical understanding based on interpretative activity
(interested in understanding participants’ point of
view/their perspective)
• Look for patterns and connections within and across
participants’ transcripts (i.e. themes)
• Development of a ‘dialogue’ between the researcher,
their data, and their psychological knowledge
Pathways to
mediumship
Childhood anomalous
experiences
“My family were mediumistic”
Spontaneous development
I thought I was going mad”:
Reframing distressing experiences
using a spiritualist model “
“I thus had three visions of incorporeal
personalities. Forgotten until this
moment, I now remembered my uncle
coming to me after his death and his
promise that within two years I should
leave Ireland. This prophecy had come
true. Then I recalled the appearance of
my Aunt Leone holding her tiny baby and
that I had known that she was “going
away” and would take the baby with her.
Now I had seen the unknown one who
had come to save my daughter’s life. I
could no longer doubt that these visions
were real” (Garrett, 1949, p. 83)
Pathways to
mediumship
Childhood anomalous
experiences
“My family were mediumistic”
Spontaneous development
I thought I was going mad”:
Reframing distressing experiences
using a spiritualist model “
“I grew up in a home where Spiritualism
and self-awareness was normal. My
mother’s mother was a Spiritualist
medium and a famous medium and my
father’s mother was also a Spiritualist, so
both my mum and dad had spiritualist
mediums in the family. My mother was a
natural healer, her sister was a healer in
the Christian Scientist Church, I have
various relatives who are involved with
Spiritualism and allied religions, so when
I was a kid seeing spirit people was
normal and I was very lucky that it wasn’t
just me, I had spirit friends that my
parents acknowledged as being real...so
actually I can’t really say when I became
a medium because I have always been
one”
Pathways to
mediumship
Childhood anomalous
experiences
“My family were mediumistic”
Spontaneous development
I thought I was going mad”:
Reframing distressing experiences
using a spiritualist model “
Pathways to
mediumship
Childhood anomalous
experiences
“My family were mediumistic”
Spontaneous development
I thought I was going mad”:
Reframing distressing experiences
using a spiritualist model “
The first memory that I actually have was hearing voices after my father died and I did
actually get in quite a state when I think back, even to the extent that one day I just found
myself sat at the side of the graveyard – I can’t remember how I got there...and I thought
I’m really, really struggling with this because I must have just gone into automatic pilot
and drove there, so that’s the state I was obviously in at that stage and then one night I
went to bed and I woke up and I’d had these voices talking to me saying that my dad was
fine, he was living, there wasn’t a problem, he wouldn’t want me to be upset and I
thought I was dreaming, so I thought “pull yourself together” and as I turned over to go
back to sleep the voices were still there...so I thought “I’m losing it, I’ll go down and make
a cup of tea” so I went down and all the while I was making this cup of tea these voices
were still talking to me, so the next day I said to my husband “You know, I really must be
having a nervous breakdown, I need to go to the Doctor” so I went to the Doctor’s and I
told him what had happened, I said “I must be having a nervous breakdown,” so he gave
me some pills, as they do, told me to go away for a few days and just try and chill and
relax... never took the pills because I don’t take tablets, I don’t believe in that sort of
thing, I never even got them but all the while...I’d still got these voices talking to me, so at
that stage... I thought “Right this is me and now I need to cure myself to get better” so I
just pulled myself together, blocked absolutely everything out, thought I’ve just really got
to get back on track and I did that, I did that probably for about 6-7 years.
Relationship with
Spirit
Responsibility for
“For me I am working or I am not,
you know, so it would be absolutely
no point spirit talking to me unless
I’m working...so I am not aware of
spirit unless I want to be”
communication: Internalized vs.
Externalized
Regulation of communication
Guides: Autonomous beings
vs. Aspects of self
Spirit Influence
“We set ourselves a goal we wish to
achieve while we are here on the
earth plane and as we move away
from that goal, they try to give us a
nudge or a knock…to try to point us
back in the right direction, it might
be a thought, it might be an event
that takes place”
How communication
is mediated
Ritualistic preparation
Prominent modes of spirit
“I’m more clairaudient, than
clairvoyant…the way I hear kind of comes
in waves and as it reaches its peak I then
hear it, so sometimes I get a
“Garblegarblegarblegarble” and then it
comes and goes, it’s like a recording that is
on a wonky tape, you know you hear, then
you don’t”
communication
Objective spirit
representation
Making associations
Very often spirit will use my memory, a
memory of my own will flash into my head,
say for example, my little sister flashed in…
then considering her situation that she is in
at the moment, that would have some
relevance to what they wanted to say, it
works wonderfully well with spirit
communication
‘Psychic dictionaries’
“It is true that I do clairvoyantly see the alleged dead and
clairaudiently receive impressions of the messages they wish
to transmit. These I receive in a process of light in which
images and symbols change so rapidly that the transmission of
the experience can only be sketchy, and also these symbols
and experiences have to depend upon my limited
interpretation. I can only compare the experience to visiting
for a brief moment a country of great beauty where the habits
and language are entirely foreign. One would be able to
communicate only a hazy and confused impression of the
experience” (Garrett, 1948, p. 111)
Mediumship as
counselling
Support for the living
Evidential information
To help the deceased:
Spirit release/rescue
“When I’m given a message...first
of all I’ll establish who I’ve got, I’ll
give some evidence for that
person, a description, something
about what they look like,
something that was going on
around them when they were on
the earth, perhaps some birth
dates or some names around them
and then something that is
happening to that person they are
giving the message to now”
Summary of findings
• Mediums emphasized childhood anomalous experiences
and the family context for how they became mediums
• Importance of a personal experiential framework
• Mediumship can develop spontaneously
• Need to learn to control mediumship
• Preparatory practices
• Spirit guides [aspects of self/real beings]
• Counselling role
Implications for counselling
• Regular, traditional medical and
psychological services fail to address
the existential questions that arise
after having an anomalous
experience
• Counselling experiences of bereaved
people who sense the presence of
the deceased (Taylor, 2005).
Conclusions
• Value of qualitative research methods
• Future research could explore the
phenomenology of trance/physical mediums or
non-Spiritualist mediums
• Study of mediumship training courses
• Clients’ expectations of mental mediumship
Thanks for your attention!
Email: [email protected]