Posted on: Saturday, August 24, 2002

EXPRESSIONS OF FAITH
Mediums, prophets ... or both?

By Michael E. Tymn

I can no longer ignore the data and dismiss the words. They are as real as the sun, the trees, and our television sets, which seem to pull pictures out of the air."

So wrote Gary E. Schwartz, professor of psychology, medicine, neurology, psychiatry, and surgery at the University of Arizona as well as director of its Human Energy Systems Laboratory, in his recent book "The Afterlife Experiments."

Schwartz was writing about his findings resulting from rigid scientific testing of five clairvoyant/clairaudient mediums, including John Edward, who has a popular TV program on ABC.

Schwartz was a speaker at the annual conference of The Academy of Religion and Psychical Research June 23 at Rosemont College near Philadelphia. Schwartz, who received his doctorate from Harvard University and taught at Yale before moving to Arizona, explained his research and told how his extreme skepticism gradually turned to a belief that the mediums were actually in contact with the spirit world and that consciousness survives bodily death. He told of stringently monitored experiments in which fraud was ruled out.

The three-day conference on mediumship featured other scientists and scholars. It was pointed out that while the "circular" mediumship of such people as Edward does not yield much more than evidence that loved ones survive, there is also "spiraling" mediumship, which provides profound messages that help us better understand the meaning of life while preparing us for the "larger life." This type of mediumship is more often associated with trance mediums, direct-voice mediums, and automatic writers.

Bible scholar Frank Tribbe, a retired lawyer, said that much of the Bible obviously came from mediumship and that the word "prophet," as often used in the Old Testament, had the same meaning as "medium" does today.Ê"Those prophets, I suggest, were usually reporting facts, guidance for the people, and future events, as had been told them through mediumship," he said, citing Isaiah 8:1, "Then the Lord said to me, 'Take a large tablet and write. ... ' " — seemingly an example of the automatic writing form of mediumship. Moses receiving the Ten Commandments also appears to have been a case of automatic writing mediumship.

Tribbe discussed Deuteronomy 18:12-13, which states that we should not consult the dead and is often cited by orthodox Christians as an injunction against mediumship and other spirit communication. He pointed out that those same people do not attempt to reconcile that passage with John 4:1, which says that we should "test the spirits, whether they are of God."

Reference was also made to 1 Corinthians 12:10, which states that we should be "discerning of the spirits" as running counter to Deuteronomy.

"We need not fear mediumship, so long as we test the spirits," Tribbe said, "and use our intelligence as to their messages."

Mike Tymn, a Kailua resident, is the book review editor for The Academy of Religion and Psychical Research as well as editor of its quarterly bulletin.