To Absent Friends: Classical Spiritualist Mediumship and New Age Channelling Compared and Contrasted

The paper compares Western Spiritualism in the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the Second World War and contemporary New Age channelling. It focuses on one important difference between the two: the presence of physical manifestations of the purportedly supernatural in the former and the absence of such manifestations in the latter. The claim by Spiritualists that they could tangibly manifest the supernatural precipitated conflict with secularising professions and individuals and led to numerous public exposures of mediums. New Age channels continue to be surrounded by opponents. By eschewing physical manifestations and relying solely on verbal communications, channels help to secure themselves from technologically-assisted and media-focused debunkers. Moreover, within the private sphere to which secularisation has confined channelling, the resulting subjectivism is consonant with normative practices within commodity culture and may even increase attractiveness of channelling to certain post-materialist consumers. Consumer culture further assists channelling by supporting the mass dissemination of the cultic milieu.