Traumatic experiences

On reading a sample of responses it was noted that there were some respondents who reported traumatic experiences as instigating or triggering mediumship. However, findings from research with spiritist mediums in Cuba (Laria, 2000) and Brazil (Moreira-Almeida et al., 2007) did not identify a relationship between traumatic experiences and mediumship (see Sections 2.2.1 and 2.2.2). In an attempt to resolve this issue Trauma was formulated

as a category in which mediums could, or conversely not, associate traumatic experiences with the discovery and/or development of their ability. It was decided that if the text passage in a case (individual mediums' responses) contained the word or theme of "trauma", "illness", "crisis", "isolation", "alienation", "abuse" or "bereavement", it was assigned to the trauma category. For example, if a medium's response included a sentence such as: "My mediumship ability was brought about by illness" or "I had

premonitions when going through an emotional crisis", it would be placed in the trauma category

Out of the 91 respondents only four (4.40/0) said that a traumatic experience was primarily

responsible for them first discovering they had the ability to be a medium. Respondents made the following statements:

/ had premonitions when going through an emotional crisis and I reached the

conclusion that I was getting information from another worldly source.

This was brought about through illness or probably a disability. What I experienced alone encouraged me to investigate the possibility of becoming a medium.

After losing three close members of family in a very short while (within six months of each other) I began to have experiences that I didn't understand. Seeing and sensing people.

I was seriously ill and given only months to live when I saw a spirit build up in my lounge, a man, who looked totally real. He told me to find a healer or I would not hear the New Year bells.

For experiences, events or influences that mediums believed contributed to the development of their mediumship ability, although 10 respondents (11%) said that a traumatic experience contributed to the development of mediumship, they also mentioned one or more other factors that could be placed in other categories. For example, respondents stated the following:

I was born into a traumatic household where there was quite a lot of abuse. Quite a dysfunctional household [trauma]. My maternal grandfather was a very strict domineering Catholic. My paternal grandmother was a medium [family experiences]. Because of the amount of people in the home it was easy to be overlooked. My

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Mote that part of the statement above (my paternal grandmother was a medium) would be coded under the family influences category. For this respondent there would be two variables that could have contributed to them developing their mediumship ability.

/ grew up realising that I had some psychic ahm [personal experiences] but did not

consider it mediumship and took little notice of it. When I was in my late 40s my husband became disabled with a very bad back condition and also about that time

some dear friends lost their 6 month old baby son with cot death. These e v e n ts <;eem

to_ kick my abilities off [trauma]_and at their request I went to our lo ca l sp iritu al

church and found a medium to give me a reading [socialization]. From that day I have developed mv 'gift'.

Similarly, for this respondent there also seems to be more than one factor in developing mediumship; they had a realization in childhood of psychic ability, traumatic experiences that seemed trigger mediumship ability, and they also went to a spiritualist church and developed their ability.

In summary, not many respondents stated they had traumatic experiences that instigated the discovery or development of their ability. This confirms previous research by Laria (1998) and Moreira-Almeida, Neto, and Greyson (2007) who similarly did not find a relationship between trauma and mediumship experiences. However, this does not necessarily conclude that trauma was absent in the lives of mediums as, although the survey was anonymous, respondents might not have been willing to share such personal information. Additionally, mediums may experience trauma but not link this with the discovery or development of their mediumship ability and therefore not feel it necessary to report.

Born with a natural ability or awareness

Born with a natural ability or awareness was included as a category in "discovery of

mediumship" (but not development) to allow for the prediction that mediums may consider themselves to have been "born with the gift” (e.g. Holland, 2003). This category includes participants whose responses give an impression that their mediumship ability was "inherent"; they had a "natural awareness of spirit" and an "inner knowing" or felt they had always been mediumistlc. For example, participants stated:

/ was born with a natural awareness of worlds within worlds.

I don't know how I discovered it, it was just always there.

Only nine respondents (9.9%) reported that they first discovered they had mediumship ability because they believed they were born with the ability. The finding that not many mediums considered themselves to have been born a medium or to have discovered their ability through having some sort of natural awareness is interesting given the large majority of respondents who reported family influences as contributing to the development of mediumship. This suggests that mediums consider family members who are also mediums to have more of a social learning influence on the development of their ability rather than ability being linked with genetic disposition.