Oh, yes it has. By a country mile as Gabe would say.
A medium is someone who contacts the dead, but back then (let's say 1860s to about the 1930s) mediums and spirits did all sorts of things together. Spirits collaborated with live people on writing (some of the best guides to mediumship were co-written by spirits), on art projects, and in public speaking.
(In fact, any woman who gave a public address of any kind in the 1800s (like antislavery, women's rights, health issues) was assumed to be channeling, because people believed that women weren't physiologically or psychologically capable of public speaking. It was generally assumed that a male spirit entered her body and spoke through her, or at least contacted her mind and told her what to say. This was called trance speaking even though most of these women didn't go into a trance. They were perfectly conscious and wrote their own material, but contemporary thought demanded that they must have had help from beyond.
Mediumship came in several flavours -- one could merely converse with the dead, which was called mental mediumship. But there were plenty of people who allowed spirits to move right into their bodies and take temporary control. For instance, if a mother died and her children got in touch with her through a seance, she might want to hug and kiss them and she could do so through the medium's body. Temporary possessions of this nature -- physical mediumship -- were and still are very routine.
Generally a medium had one or two spirits that she related best to. While it's a mistake to refer to this in terms of a "guide", these spirits would usually help facilitate contact between the medium and other spirits who wanted to come through. Sometimes a medium and a spirit were extremely compatible and friendly to the point that the spirit would move right in and coexist with the medium, exactly like a walk-in today. For a few days, or a few years, or forever. The term for this activity in those days? "Multiple personalities."
New Age channelers behave in the same way. They don't just talk to the angels, Atlanteans or whatever -- they often let them take physical control.
In Spiritualist terms, angelusstrigoi is engaged in physical mediumship by hosting a spirit.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2004-12-09 08:18 pm (UTC)A medium is someone who contacts the dead, but back then (let's say 1860s to about the 1930s) mediums and spirits did all sorts of things together. Spirits collaborated with live people on writing (some of the best guides to mediumship were co-written by spirits), on art projects, and in public speaking.
(In fact, any woman who gave a public address of any kind in the 1800s (like antislavery, women's rights, health issues) was assumed to be channeling, because people believed that women weren't physiologically or psychologically capable of public speaking. It was generally assumed that a male spirit entered her body and spoke through her, or at least contacted her mind and told her what to say. This was called trance speaking even though most of these women didn't go into a trance. They were perfectly conscious and wrote their own material, but contemporary thought demanded that they must have had help from beyond.
Mediumship came in several flavours -- one could merely converse with the dead, which was called mental mediumship. But there were plenty of people who allowed spirits to move right into their bodies and take temporary control. For instance, if a mother died and her children got in touch with her through a seance, she might want to hug and kiss them and she could do so through the medium's body. Temporary possessions of this nature -- physical mediumship -- were and still are very routine.
Generally a medium had one or two spirits that she related best to. While it's a mistake to refer to this in terms of a "guide", these spirits would usually help facilitate contact between the medium and other spirits who wanted to come through. Sometimes a medium and a spirit were extremely compatible and friendly to the point that the spirit would move right in and coexist with the medium, exactly like a walk-in today. For a few days, or a few years, or forever. The term for this activity in those days? "Multiple personalities."
New Age channelers behave in the same way. They don't just talk to the angels, Atlanteans or whatever -- they often let them take physical control.
In Spiritualist terms,