Contemporary Physical Mediumship: Is it Part of a Continuous Tradition?

Contemporary Physical Mediumship: Is it Part of a Continuous Tradition?

Jack Hunter

To many, physical mediumship seances are a social phenomenon relegated to the history books: rising to prominence in the mid-nineteenth century and eventually  petering out amidst high profile exposures of fraud in the first decades of the twentieth century. In recent years, however, physical mediumship has made something of a comeback with new circles working towards the manifestation of physical phenomena being established in private homes across the UK, Europe and the United Sates. This resurgence has been facilitated by the development of internet forums promoting the subject,enabling private circles to disseminate their experiences and to exchange tips and procedures for the production of  physical phenomena. This paper will aim to explore the issue of whether the forms of physical mediumship popular today are part of a continuous tradition beginning in the nineteenth century, or essentially modern phenomena with roots in the 1990s. The main point of the discussion will be to ascertain the extent to which the phenomena of contemporary physical mediumship resemble those documented in the early literature of psychical research.