Reviewed by Roberto R. Narváez
This is the second book published by Alejandro Parra in the last two years. It is presented as a systematic revision of what he calls the ‘modern interpretation’ of mediumship considered as a special ‘style of spiritual sensibility’ (p. 18). According to Parra, such sensibility would be a natural precondition in humans to have ‘spiritual experiences’ such as mediumship. For him, the existence of mediumship and related phenomena (clairvoyance, telepathy, psychometry, etc.) is or should be beyond dispute for people who are truly aware of the attention that has been paid to such matters. His own researches with mediums in different countries have convinced him that one should, first of all, keep an open mind and be ‘tolerant’ (to use his own term) when witnessing events of an apparently ‘supernormal’ kind.
This work is not really devoted to discussions of ancient and modern mediumship in the context of séances (for something like that, see Morton, 2020). However, it contains plenty of accounts about the multifarious, dramatic, sometimes brutal ways in which mediums have supposedly interacted with spirits of the dead, or at any rate with spiritual or other-worldly beings, in different historical eras. That said, first things first: an attempt to define the terms ‘medium’ and ‘mediumship’. What is a medium? How many types of mediums are there? Parra answers these questions in chapter 1, where we also find a sufficient historical account of the development of spiritualism, spiritism, and mediumship in Europe, North America, and other regions, from the times of Swedenborg and Mesmer to those of the Fox sisters, Emma Harding, and Allan Kardec. There is also in this chapter an analysis of the differences between Anglo-American spiritualism and that version of French spiritism typically connected to the doctrines of Kardec. (pp. 30-40). The impact of Kardec and his school can never be underestimated when considering the story of spiritualism in Latin America from the final third quarter of the 19th century to the first three decades of the 20th, at least.
Parra assumes the view that the interest in mediumship basically depends on the long-lived hope that death may not represent the absolute annihilation of a human personality. If human personality does not completely disappear after death, then perhaps mediumship can help us find out where and how, and why we continue to live after vital signs seems to be abolished for good. In this sense, mediumship’s main value can be boiled down to: if true, it gives us a degree of certainty that no one really dies, so there is no reason to believe that medical evidence of physical dead should necessarily indicate the destruction of the self. In Parra’s opinion, then, at least considering his words, the question of the afterlife is the biggest that we have to face (p. 13).
Now it is also a common idea, even in scholarly research, that mediumship is a capacity to communicate not only with the discarnate spirits of the dead, but also with other beings or forms of non-human intelligence. Parra favours this more comprehensive interpretation of the phenomenon (pp. 25-26). However, it is not clear why he qualifies it precisely as a spiritual experience. Nowhere in the book does he explains why a medium should be conceived as a person endowed with any specific spiritual faculty or power. And for him mediums are not at all the private property of any school of ancient or modern spiritualism. Given this it is surprising to see the five images on the cover, which represent well-known, spectacular, quite dramatic moments of spiritualistic séances (levitating tables, materializations, orbs, etc.). However, the central and major image was not taken during any séance - it is a picture of illusionist Henri Robin taken in 1863 (by the way, in this volume ‘spiritualist photography’ is never mentioned). I think that the book cover can be explained only by commercial reasons: to attract as many readers as possible through a schematic but colourful representation of mediumship that harmonizes with the preconceived notions and stereotypes maintained by the general public (especially in Latin America) about it.
At all events, this last aspect is curious because Parra’s declared aim is to avoid such popular preconceptions and to offer an impartial, ‘objective’ characterization of a wide variety of ‘spiritual experiences’. He presents the facts or events and then offers a critical assessment. Parra takes special care to suggest that it is simply convenient to be ‘tolerant’ when it comes to deal with those opinions about the paranormal which depend on religious dogmas. He is a professional psychologist who has worked extensively in the field so his approach to mediumship and related phenomena is basically that of the parapsychologist. However, it is palpable that, for him, not all experience of mediumship or channeling, or healing, is of a spiritual nature. He accepts the possibility that many of those experiences might have normal explanations.
In short, I believe that the expression ‘spiritual experience’ functions as a sort of generic title for a multitude of unusual human actions and perceptions that, after the most careful scrutiny, can hardly be accounted for in a regular scientific fashion. Parra stresses that mediumship can be conceived, fundamentally, as a communicative capacity with immaterial entities of various possible origins (p. 25). A large catalogue of its varieties has been registered in practically all continents throughout history. Given these transcultural antecedents, its omnipresence cannot be denied.
Secular forms of mediumship (like channeling, insofar as it is not considered an alternative denomination for the phenomena of trance or possession) are, indeed, Parra’s focus of attention. He is less interested in defining mediumship for any ulterior purpose, scientific or not, than in describing the genesis and development of a medium or sensitive as a member of a given society. A person can show the signs of mediumship at any age - not just in childhood. What matters is that when the person becomes conscious of the abilities, he or she can control their growth. This implies an effort of emotional adaptation to ‘overcome the cultural restrictions that threaten their integrity and personal world-vision’ (p. 51). When well adapted, the sensitive’s capacity to experience certain events, spiritual or psychical, increases. Regarding this point, Parra’s clinical angle becomes prominent. A sensitive can fail to adapt because of prevalent social prejudices against apparently ‘paranormal’ faculties; in modern times, many people are predisposed to assume that a person supposedly endowed with a peculiar ‘gift’, such as mediumship, can be nothing but a ‘mental case’. To prevent such stigmatizing tendency, the general public must receive adequate information and education from qualified professionals. Perhaps the major aim of this work is to serve that purpose.
The book is divided into 12 chapters, and half of them are devoted to comment on the multifarious forms that a peculiar ‘style of sensibility’ can adopt as it passes from one stage of development to the next. There are narratives of embryonic mediums, so to speak, who learn of their condition by, for example, perceiving apparitions or auras. Concerning apparitions Parra discusses, at some length, the theories of ‘imaginary friends’ in childhood. He admits that both Michael Hallowell’s view about the possible objective existence of such friends, as well as the idea that they are ‘eidetic images’ that have developed into memories, are plausible, but suggests that these experiences can be regarded as evidence of an ‘incipient mediumship’. Depending on the option selected, he says, it can be said to be more or less ‘paranormal’ (pp. 78-83).
Beginning in chapter 4, Parra concentrates on the fact that people in emotional distress, particularly because of bereavement, enlist mediums to find spiritual comfort. He explains that this is a regular alternative to psychotherapy and other medical treatments. However, the role played by the medium on such occasions is more that of an ‘emotional counsellor’ than an ‘intermediary’ between the living and the death (p. 87). Sometimes a person in grief can seek help both from a psychotherapist and a medium. For him there can hardly be any substantial medical objections against mediumship, as long as it can efficiently aid in restoring the mental health of someone in grief. However, Parra also puts the reader on guard against charlatans; although fraudulent mediums have always existed, at present, due to mass media and the Internet, it is easier to get duped by deceivers who promise to do anything, including healing, for the right price (pp. 89-91).
Parra provides much information about the different methods (psychometry, ESP, readings, radiesthesia, etc.) used by mediums. Sometimes the accounts (historical and from his own research), make the central theoretical exposition - never doctrinal - somewhat unclear. As for the comments about the equivalents of modern mediumship (mainly spiritualist, or spiritist, by historical circumstances) in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, some are quite pertinent and clearly stated, but others seem rather strange, confused, or frankly mistaken. For example, what is said about the part played by the primitive Christians in the final demise of the Western Roman Empire and posterior persecution of those communities who maintained gentile beliefs and practices, is a very dubious synthesis. And the notion that witchcraft, sorcery, divination (oneiromancy, necromancy), and magic were basically seen as heretical manifestations by the primitive Church cannot be accepted without qualifications (pp. 101-102). Surely necromancy, whether or not it be considered as black magic, represents a sort of mediumistic practice and had a lousy reputation among Christians, but the links established by Parra between divination and witchcraft and sorcery seem unwarranted. It must not be forgotten that the history of magic can be cultivated, with great profit, quite independently from the history of any subject deemed paranormal. From authors such as Dodds (1973) and Cohn (1975) one can learn fine methods to attend to such issues from a steady critical perspective.
Furthermore, Parra states that the Spanish word Adivinar (to divine) means, etymologically, ‘to anticipate the future without the help of God’ (p. 102). This is wrong, as anyone can find out by consulting a proper dictionary of religious-magical terms. In fact, adivinar, to divine, is an activity which depends on divine assistance (Berger & Berger, 1991; for the differences between ‘natural’ or ‘intuitive’, and ‘inductive’ or ‘artificial’, divination, see Montero, 1997). The typically concrete, sensualist sensibility of the pagans must not be overlooked here. The fact that medieval Christians had it as a sort of dogma that anticipations of the future or communications with the dead could be established, sometimes, only with the Christian Heavenly Father’s permission, is another matter.
In general, the chapters are well organized, but there is a notable exception. The second section of chapter 6, devoted to the intervention of mediums in a process to settle mourning, is entitled ‘Methods to investigate mediumship’ (pp. 138-144), and deals with the research of mediumistic faculties under controlled conditions in laboratories. In my opinion, this deserves to be treated in a chapter of its own. However, given the organization of the book, I reckon its more adequate place should be chapter 1.
To illustrate the conception that, from the beginning of the 20th century, the cinematograph and radio came to be perceived by the public as ‘magical’ devices that can give privileged access into the suprasensible (the counterparts in the late 19th century were the telegraph and telephone), chapter 10 is a review of five well-known commercial films, all of them in English and released during the last 35 years (why these limitations?), that have captured the popular imagination about mediumship. This is a very entertaining chapter, especially for those who have seen the movies in question. Parra’s intent is to reflect on the mechanical analogy between a communicative devise such as the cinematograph and a medium: both can record and transmit messages and function immersed in ‘fields of invisible forces’ (electrical, magnetic, etheric, etc.) (p. 238). In short, their trade is to make-believe but in good faith, sometimes with a degree of efficiency enough to convince (by emotional stimulation, ultimately) that they possess some magical or divine power.
So many other things could be said about this book. As an ‘introduction to a diversity of spiritual experience’, it collates such an enormous number of subjects that you cannot but think of it as the result of an ambitious project for a mini-encyclopedia (although not always properly arranged) of all things paranormal that in one way or another cling to mediumship. Perhaps two volumes would be better, one dedicated to historical, paradigmatic cases and anecdotes, and the other to specifically psychological-clinical expositions, including here an elaboration of Parra’s own field research (chapters 11 and 12). There is not a proper bibliography, only a ‘list of recommended readings’: the titles are certainly well selected and most of them can be easily accessed through the Internet.
No matter the problems or flaws that I have indicated, this piece can be instructive for students of abnormal psychology and parapsychology, and enjoyable by anyone interested in facts and fresh points of view about the history of psychical phenomena in Latin America.
References
Berger, A. S., & Berger, J. (1991). The encyclopedia of parapsychology and psychical research. Paragon House.
Cohn, N. (1975). Europe’s inner demons: an enquiry inspired by the great witch-hunt. Basic Books.
Dodds, E. R. (1973). The ancient concept of progress and other essays on Greek literature and belief. Clarendon Press.
Montero, S. (1997). Diccionario de adivinos, magos y astrólogos de la Antigüedad [Dictionary of seers, magicians, and astrologers of Antiquity]. Trotta.
Morton, L. (2020). Calling the spirits. A history of séances. Reaktion Books.