Medium

MEDIUM. - Refers to a person capable, by virtue of his particular faculties, of acting as an intermediary between us and the dead. But since the spiritistic hypothesis is gratuitous or, perhaps in some cases, merely probable (v. METAPSICHICA; SPIRITISMO), logically such a term ought to be abandoned; nevertheless it has not only remained in use, but, whether or not one accepts the spiritistic interpretation, it is generally employed to designate those subjects who, by their particular characteristics, are held to be indispensable agents for the production of metapsychic phenomena.

There has been much discussion about the supposed necessity of mediums in metapsychical experiments; some deny it, considering it absurd to speak of it when the nature of medianism itself is not even known, nor indeed whether it exists. One fact, however, is certain: metapsychic phenomena do not occur except in the presence of a human being; indeed, the most extraordinary ones normally occur only through the participation of certain persons numbered among the "great mediums." If therefore, at least in some cases, a human being is a necessary agent of them, we must conclude that there exist special faculties productive of the phenomena, in a manner that is, if not adequate, certainly indispensable; apart from the choice of the designation "medium" or of other different ones.

The admission of the fact, however, has nothing to do with the nature and the intrinsic action of medianism, of which one must confess that the most absolute ignorance still prevails. Theories and working hypotheses proposed by authors have not received sure experimental confirmation, but present themselves only as probable and limited to a few cases. Thus, for example, it has been thought that medianic phenomena are caused by a particular energy and matter (ectoplasm) emitted by the medium in the so-called state of "trance," but, apart from the hypothetical and therefore unknown nature of this quid, there always remains in the deepest obscurity the question of how this occurs, that is, why the medium is capable of such operations and how he actually performs them. For which reason everything appears as a complex of mysteries seeking support upon other mysteries. The attempt to penetrate into the intimate mechanism of medianic action remains vain to this day. An effort has been made, at least, to fix some of the extrinsic elements of the medium's personality; here too, however, without result, because in contrast to evident notes of suggestibility and psychoneurosis found in several subjects, others appear completely free of them (v. G. C. Barnard, Il supernormale, Rome 1949, p. 113 ff.). Even the "trance," that particular state of psychic "absence" and of "autonomy," not always total, from the surrounding environment, often joined to particular neurovegetative manifestations (flushing, pallor, sweating, etc.), in which the medium would find himself during the experiments, is not common to all subjects and seems not to be assimilable to the phenomena of hypnotism (v.) and to the suggestive mechanism that provokes them.

In conclusion, even granting medianism as an empirical fact, it is impossible to this day to determine its characteristics of intrinsic action, and even the exterior ones of temperament and personality in those who are its most evident and most representative subjects. Nor for this purpose has any important significance, with regard to the intimate reason of the facts and of the causes that produce them, the practical distinction, proposed by some authors, into "mediums for physical effects" and "mediums for psychic effects"; likewise other systems of classification even more complicated (Ch. Richet, W. Mackenzie, F. Palmés, H. Price, etc.).

From the ethical and Catholic point of view, the exercise of mediumship must be judged according to the principles set forth under the entry METAPSICHICA, to which reference is also made for the description of medianic phenomena. In particular, medianism is morally forbidden when it is practiced in the field of spiritism; not so, however, in general, if the phenomena concern only metapsychics as an object of scientific research. Nevertheless, medianic activity can and must be prohibited whenever, as often happens, it proves gravely harmful to the health, especially the mental health, of the subject who practices it.

Alighiero Tondi