ABSTRACT
Mediums claim to provide evidence for the survival of bodily death. This evidence is usually in the form of physical effects (such as raps, bangs, or movements of objects) that are thought to be caused by discarnate spirits, or in the form of verbal communications that include information that is known only to the deceased person or is characteristic of them when they were alive. Although modern mediumship has its origins in the rise of Spiritualism in the late nineteenth century, it is still very popular today. A recent UK survey (YouGov, 2011) found that 25 per cent of their sample had consulted a psychic or medium, which is similar to the 30 per cent I reported in an earlier survey (Roe, 1998). About half of the YouGov sample had had a reading “for fun”, but half regarded it more seriously, and 57 per cent found the information to be accurate. Similarly, when Haraldsson (1985) surveyed people in a number of countries, including the UK, Sweden and Iceland, he found that of those who had attended a séance (a sitting with a medium in order to contact deceased persons), a surprisingly high 83 per cent had found the experience “ useful”. Over half of respondents (57 per cent) regarded their reading as “quite accurate” or “very accurate”, with fewer than 20 per cent describing it as inaccurate. The prevailing scientific world view asserts that human personality is a product of brain activity such that if the brain dies then the personality is annihilated with it, so these kinds of experiences and beliefs present a puzzle to be solved. In this chapter
I will briefly summarise the origins of modern mediumship, consider some of the reasons why a sitting with a medium might seem impressive even if the medium is not able to contact the deceased, and will describe some of the ways in which the claims of mediumship can be tested scientifically, so as to take into account those conventional explanations.
