What Exactly Are
Mediums and Psychics?
Medium (spirituality):
(Redirected from Spirit Medium)
In spirituality, a medium or spirit medium (plural mediums) is a person
who is said to posess the ability to communicate with spirits of
deceased people (and sometimes pets). Some mediums claim to be able to
channel the spirit, by allowing the deceased to speak or write messages
using the medium's body.
While many skeptics believe such mediums are either self-deluded or
charlatans who use cold reading and trickery, some mediums have had
large numbers of followers, who believe strongly in the medium's
purported abilities. In some cases mediums have produced personal
information (allegedly told to them by a spirit) to their clients well
above guessing rates. Skeptical scientists, magicians, and former
mediums have demonstrated how impressive performances can be achieved by
hot readings, warm readings, cold readings, and other "tricks of the
psychic trade."
Examples of current popular mediums include Derek Acorah, Tony Stockwell,
Colin Fry, Alison Dubois, Esther Hicks, Sylvia Browne, John Edward,
Betty Shine, and James Van Praagh.
A recent example of how some mediums are able to manipulate their
followers, even when their "reading" turns out to be false can be seen
in this video of the Montell Williams Show, where Sylvia Browne tells a
grief-stricken woman that her boyfriend's remains will never be found
because he perished in water. When the choked-up woman told Browne her
boyfriend was one of the firemen killed by the collapse of the World
Trade Center towers, Browne insisted that her boyfriend's spirit just
told her no, he had drowned and suggested that it might have been in the
water used to fight the fire. The firemen who died in the collapse of
the towers were not trying to put out the fires in the towers, they were
trying to rescue people still trapped in the burning buildings.
The famous magician Harry Houdini became a debunker of mediums later in
life and had exposed many charlatans — even following his own death.
Fearing spiritualists would exploit his legacy by pretending to contact
him after his death, Houdini gave his wife a secret ten-word code that
he would use to contact her from the afterlife. For ten years after his
death, Houdini's wife held séances on Halloween (the date Houdini died).
Although many mediums claimed to have contacted Houdini, no one ever got
the correct code. Houdini chronicled his debunking exploits in his book
A Magician Among the Spirits.
P
Psychic:
A psychic is a person who is believed to possess extra-sensory abilities,
including: clairvoyance, psychometry and precognition. These claims are
widely disputed by mainstream science, and are regularly attacked by
skeptics. However supporters exist within the field of parapsychology,
including Cornell University's Daryl Bem, who argues for a mild but
significant phenomenon based upon his ganzfeld experiments.
The ability to affect or move objects through the power of the mind alone
is known as psychokinesis.
Mediums, like psychics, also claim to have extra-sensory abilities but
claim to obtain their information through spirits or dead people. Some
mediums also claim to possess psychic abilities.
James Randi has offered a million dollar prize to anyone who could prove
themselves to possess paranormal abilities. No one has yet claimed this
prize.
Information provided by: Wikipedia.com
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