- SPECTRA -

Description by Mister 13

Aerosol spray on canvas, brush.Mediumship is defined as the practice of certain people—known as mediums—to mediate communication between spirits of the dead and other human beings. While no evidence has been accepted by the wider scientific community in support of the view that there has been communication between the living and the dead, some parapsychologists say that some of their research suggests that such communication may have taken place. The practice is associated with several religious belief systems such as Spiritualism, Spiritism, Espiritismo, Candomblé, Voodoo, Umbanda and some New Age groups.There are several different variants of mediumship; the best known forms are where a spirit takes control of a medium\'s voice and uses it to relay a message, or where the medium simply \'hears\' the message and passes it on. Other forms involve manifestations of the spirit, such as apparitions or the presence of a voice, and telekinetic activity.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. Nevertheless the practice still continues to this day, and high profile fraud has been uncovered as recently as the 2000s.rnIn Spiritism and Spiritualism, the role of the medium is to be an intermediary between the world of the living and the world of the dead. Mediums claim to be able to listen to and relay messages from spirits or 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 are believed to \"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, levitation, 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 their minds to be controlled by spirits.