The English word "spirit" comes from the Latin spiritus, meaning "breath" (compare spiritus asper), but also "soul, courage, vigor", ultimately from a PIE root *(s)peis- ("to blow"). In the Vulgate, the Latin word translates Greek (pietµa), pneuma (Hebrew (numrah) ruah), as opposed to anima, translating psykhe. The word was loaned into Middle English via Old French espirit in the 13th century. In India Prana means breath.

The distinction between soul and spirit became current in Judeo-Christian terminology (e.g. Greek. psykhe vs. pneuma, Latin anima vs. spiritus, Hebrew ruach vs. neshama or nephesh; in Hebrew neshama from the root NSHM or breath.)

Spiritual possession

Spiritual possession is a concept of supernatural and/or superstitious belief systems whereby gods, daemons, demons, animas, or other disincarnate entities may temporarily take control of a human body, resulting in noticeable changes in behaviour. The concept of spiritual possession exists in many contemporary religions and can also be seen in the mythology and folklore of many cultures.

Types of possession
While not all belief systems consider spirits to be purely good or evil, the term demonic possession is commonly used when the spirit is perceived as malignant (a demon), whereas incorporation or channelling may be used in the case of benign spirits. Other terms applied to spiritual possession include being ridden, being tied down, Get Happy, and Baptism with the Holy Spirit. "Godforming" is a term often associated with these beliefs; however, it is fundamentally different. Godforming is the possessing of the qualities of an archetypal deity, and has nothing to do with worship. It is rather the "possessing" of the nature of the described deity, and not the deity itself. Generally, no belief in the deity being "godformed" is necessary to the practice.

Channelling is the claimed receipt of information or commands by a person functioning as a medium or channel for a spirit or other source. This often involves a séance, or a process of invocation such as "drawing down the moon". Some forms of channeling appear to involve spiritual possession, as the medium's voice or body may appear to be under the direct control of the channelled spiritual being, but some maintain that channeling and possession are distinct. In Spiritism the channeling (in its manifold types) is seen as a process, which can be either good or bad to the medium, while possession (which they term obsession) is seen as inherently bad, though often benign. Spiritists also reject the term channeling. Traditional religions such as Vodoun and Santeria define possession as a neutral thing, but as specifically positive when it involves being "ridden" by a deity or respected ancestor. In this context, channelling is seen as distinct from possession as channelling may only involve repeating the voices one hears in one's head, whereas possession involves complete loss of control to the outside entity, with the possessed person only returning to consciousness later with no memory of what happened while the spirit controlled their body and voice.

The concept is quite old and widespread in the history of religion. The concept was popularised in the West by Helena Blavatsky the founder of theosophy. The claim is also made by many other Spiritualist religions, such as Kardecism.

According to the religious scholar Wouter Hanegraaff, the difference between channeling and spiritism is that the first conveys extensive philosophical and religious messages and belief systems, not just short messages from the deceased or other entities.

Brazilian psychic surgeons, such as José Arigó, claim to work as channels for deceased surgeons.

Pneumatology is the study of spiritual beings and phenomena, especially the interactions between humans and God. Pneuma is Greek for "breath", which metaphorically describes a non-material being or influence. World Book Dictionary defines pneumatology as "1. Theology the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. 2. The doctrine of spirits or spiritual beings, in the 1600s considered a branch of metaphysics. 3. pneumatics. 4. Obsolete word for psychology."

Spiritism is a philosophical doctrine akin to Spiritualism, established in France in the mid nineteenth century, which has become a sort of religious movement. Like Spiritualists, Spiritists believe in the survival of the souls after death and the importance of eventual communications received from them, but the two movements claim to be different.

Allan Kardec (1804-1869). Founder of SpiritismSpiritism is based on books written by French educator Hypolite Léon Denizard Rivail under the pseudonym Allan Kardec reporting séances in which he believed to be conversing with incorporeal spirits. His assumption was neither original nor uncommon, as such beliefs had numerous followers then (among them many scientists and philosophers) and séances were carried on very often by his contemporaries, though usually for recreational purposes. His work was later extended by writers like Léon Dénis, Arthur Conan Doyle, Camille Flammarion, Ernesto Bozzano, Chico Xavier, Waldo Vieira and others.

Spiritism has adherents in many countries throughout the world, including Spain, USA, Japan and Brazil -- the one with the largest proportion and the greatest numbers of followers.

The Book on Mediums or Mediums and Evokers' Handbook (a.k.a. The Mediums' Book —Le Livre des Médiums, in French), is a book by Allan Kardec published in 1861, second of the five Fundamental Works of Spiritism — the spiritualist philosophy Kardec had been publishing — being the tome in which the experimental and investigative features of the doctrine were presented, explained and taught.

In his introduction to The Spirits Book (the first volume of the Spiritist Codification series) Allan Kardec claimed to have coined the term "Spiritism" to name the movement he was initiating because "new things deserve new names". However, similarly to the word daemon used to designate supernatural beings and spirits and had no negative connotation in Greek mythology, the word Spiritism was appropriated by conservative christians to designate their prejudicial interpretation of different movements and religions that practiced mediumship. Nevertheless, confusion with syncretic religions is less common today, as the followers of such creeds tend to emphasize their proper names. Examples of religions that were often called "Spiritism" in the past are Candomblé, Umbanda, Cao Dai, Santería, Quimbanda, Santo Daime and a host of shamanic cults.

Regarding Spiritualism, the confusion is more common, even now, as the two movements were very close since the beginning. As a proper noun, Spiritualism is a religious movement, prominent from the 1840s to the 1920s, found primarily in English-speaking countries. Some authors, like Camille Flammarion and Arthur Conan Doyle wrote books that are accepted by both groups. Spiritists usually include in the list of famous followers people like Sir William Crookes or the medium Daniel Dunglas Home, who were actually related to Spiritualism. Nevertheless, the two movements have drifted apart over the years and since the very beginning Spiritists rejected the term "Spiritualism" on the grounds that it is a generic term for the belief in an immortal soul.

Spiritualism (in English) as a common noun (uncapitalised) is a largely obsolete term for animism and other religious practices involving the invocation of spiritual beings, including shamanism.

The Book on Mediums repeats, develops and extends into detail some broad concepts about Spirits found in the Spirits' Book. It also introduces some new ones.

Perispirit: The Perispirit, a semi-material envelope (or body) which is the link between pure spirit and pure matter. Such envelope is called Perispirit (from Greek, meaning Outer Spirit or Around the Spirit) and is renewed each time a spirit reincarnates. The perispirit has roughly the same appearance of the spirits' last incarnation and is what we actually see in apparitions.
Serfdom in the Spirit World: Lower spirits, especially those in penance are often hired by higher spirits as their apprentices or even serfs. Weak spirits of low morals may be even enslaved by strong, evil others, especially if they were enemies when incarnated.

The cause of Poltergeists: The perturbation popularly named poltergeist is caused by an evil or clueless spirit taking advantage of an untrained natural medium. If the medium learns how to control his/her powers he will not be disturbed by it. Sometimes the medium loses his/her powers after puberty.

Mind over matter: Spirits are capable of moving, transporting, dematerialising and rematerialising inanimate objects, with the help of mediums. Instrument or Medium?: Throughout the book Kardec used both terms interchangeably, but he prefers to use instrument instead of medium when he is supposedly talking to purported spirits.

Sleep is the emancipation of the mind: While we are asleep our spirit loosens its ties to matter and wanders the spiritual world. Because of it, it is theoretically possible -- although uncommon -- to see the spirit of a living person as an apparition.

Sometimes it is just an illusion: Kardec admits that often people who report apparitions or poltergeist are victims of delusion, hallucination or are just lying.

The spiritual world is a mirror of the material world, except for the lower spirits (for whom it is something not unlike hell) or the higher ones (for whom it is ideal, immaterial).

Haunted houses are haunted all the time, not only at night: But it is much easier to hear and to see spirits when it is quiet and dark.

Because spirits are of varied degrees of knowledge and morality, their communications are also diverse, ranging from inane, stupid, common-place, common sense, elevated but lacking originality to name a few. Only a small portion of the communications are worth keeping record of.

Mediumship is a term used mostly in Spiritualism to denote the ability of a person (the medium) to produce psychic phenomena of a mental or physical nature. The term is usually used to denote a person who is thought to be able to facilitate communication with spirits of the deceased or other non-corporeal entities, either by going into a trance and allowing a spirit to use their body, or by using extrasensory perception to relay messages from the spirits. The term channalling is used in New Age belief for this type of mediumship. Some mediums (or the spirits working with them) are also said to be able to produce physical paranormal phenomena such as materilizations of spirits, apports of objects, or levitation.

There are different types of mediums, as many as the different types of phenomena spirits can produce. A few mediums can produce more than one type of phenomenon, in that those who see/hear cannot produce physical effects, those who write cannot see, and so on. The most common types are: physical effects, seer, hearer, psychographer, sensitive, incorporative (talkative), sleepwalking, healer and intuitive.

Also Please See: How To Conduct A Real Seance During the course of the séance, the medium would speak under the apparent ... The séance, or sitting, is led by a person known as a medium who will usually ... SPIRIT CHANNELING: MEDIUMS CONTACTING THE DEAD IN THE 21ST CENTURY The word séance comes from the French word for 'seat', 'session', from Old French seoir, 'to sit.' In English, the word came to be used specifically for a meeting of people to receive spiritualistic messages. The Ouija Board is one of the most popular methods of spirit communication among the curious and initiates in the world of paranormal investigation. The name – “Ouija” – is derived from the French and German words for “yes” – oui and ja. Although distributed in many different types, today the most recognizable Ouija board consists of a flat board with the letters of the alphabet, a series of numbers, some punctuation marks, and the words “yes,” “no,” and “goodbye” printed on it.

Mediumship can be tiring, painful or even downright dangerous to the health of the body or of the mind. Most mediums are under the risk of being overwhelmed by evil spirits and made their puppets. The only way to prevent this is to lead a saintly life.

Kardec's technique for perfecting psychographic mediumship is strikingly similar to what most creative writing teachers tell their students.

No medium can produce phenomena at will, but only when some spirit is willing to.

Animals are mediums too: they can see spirits, hear them or even be haunted by them.
A large amount of the evil that exists in the world is the work of lower evil spirits that obsess the minds of the weak of will.

The Fox Sisters

Sisters Catherine (1838–92), Leah (1814–90) and Margaret (1836–93) Fox played an important role in the creation of Spiritualism. The daughters of David and Margaret Fox, they were residents of Hydesville, New York. In 1848, the family began to hear unexplained rapping sounds. Kate and Margaret conducted channeling sessions in an attempt to contact the presumed spiritual entity creating the sounds, and claimed contact with the spirit of a peddler who was allegedly murdered and buried beneath the house. A skeleton later found in the basement seemed to confirm this. The Fox girls became instant celebrities. They demonstrated their communication with the spirit by using taps and knocks, automatic writing, and later even voice communication, as the spirit took control of one of the girls.

The Fox Sisters. From left to right: Margaret, Kate, and Leah.

In 1848, the two younger sisters – Kate and Margaret – were living in a house in Hydesville, a village near Rochester, New York with their parents. The house had some prior reputation for being haunted, but it wasn't until late March that the family began to be frightened by unexplained sounds that at times sounded like knocking, and at other times like the moving of furniture. During the night of March 31, Kate challenged the invisible noise-maker to repeat the snaps of her fingers. It did. It was asked to rap out the ages of the girls. It did. The neighbours were called in, and over the course of the next few days a type of code was developed where raps could signify yes or no in response to a question, or be used to indicate a letter of the alphabet. The entity creating the sounds claimed to be the spirit of a pedlar named Charles B. Rosma, who had been murdered five years earlier and buried in the cellar. The neighbours dug up the cellar and found a few pieces of bone, but it wasn't until 1904 that a skeleton was found, buried in the cellar wall. No missing person named Charles B. Rosma was ever identified. The Fox girls became famous, and attracted imitators, or perhaps encouraged people who previously had hidden their gifts. At any rate, during the following few years, hundreds of persons would claim the ability to communicate with spirits.

Skeptics suspected this was nothing but clever deception and fraud. Indeed, sister Margaret eventually confessed to using her toe-joints to produce the sound. And although she later recanted this confession, both her and her sister Catherine were widely considered discredited, and died in poverty. Nonetheless, belief in the ability to communicate with the dead grew rapidly, becoming a religious movement called Spiritualism, and contributing greatly to Kardec's ideas.

Types of mediumship

There are several distinct types of mediumship. Mental mediumship is defined as communication of spirits with a medium by telepathy having received the communication, the medium then passes on the information. Trance mediumship is defined as a spirit taking over the body of the medium, sometimes to such a degree that the medium is unconscious. Physical mediumship is defined as manipulation of energies and energy systems by spirits, using the energy or ectoplasm released by a medium.

A spirit who communicates with a medium, either verbally or visually, is known as a spirit communicator. A spirit who uses a medium to manipulate energy or energy systems is called a spirit operator.

Mental mediumship
Mental mediumship involves communication between spirits and the medium. The medium mentally "hears", "sees", and feels messages from spirits, which he then relays to the recipient(s) of the message. When a medium is doing a "reading" for a particular person, that person is know as the sitter.

Psychic senses used by mental mediums are sometimes defined differently in spiritualism than in other paranormal fields. Clairvoyance, for instance, is often used by spiritualists to include seeing spirits and visions instilled by spirits [citation needed], whereas the Parapsychological Association defines "clairvoyance" as information derived directly from an external physical source.

Spiritualistic definitions of psychic senses:

Clairvoyance or "Clear Seeing", is the ability to see anything which is not physically present, such as objects, animals or people. This sight occurs "in the mind’s eye", and some mediums say that this is their normal vision state. Others say that they must train their minds with such practices as meditation in order to achieve this ability, and that assistance from spiritual helpers is often necessary.

Some clairvoyant mediums can see a spirit as though the spirit has a physical body. They see the bodily form as if it were physically present. Other mediums see the spirit in their mind's eye, or it appears as a movie or a television programme or a still picture like a photograph in their mind.

Clairaudience or "Clear Hearing", is usually defined as the ability to hear the voices or thoughts of spirits. Some Mediums hear as though they are listening to a person talking to them on the outside of their head, as though the Spirit is next to or near to the Medium, and other Mediums hear the voices in their minds as a verbal thought.

Clairsentience or "Clear Sensing", is the ability to have an impression of what a spirit wants to communicate, or to feel sensations instilled by a spirit.

In clairsentinence or "Clear Feeling", the medium takes on the ailments of a spirit, feeling the same physical problem the spirit person before they died.

Clairalience or "Clear Smelling" is the ability to smell a spirit. For example, a medium may smell the pipe tobacco of a person who smoked during life.

Clairgustance or "Clear Tasting", is the ability to receive taste impressions from a spirit.

Claircognizance or "Clear Knowing", is the ability to know something without receiving it through normal or psychic senses. It is a feeling of "just knowing". Often, a medium will have the feeling that a message or situation is "right" or "wrong".

Trance mediumship
Trance mediumship is often seen as a form of mental mediumship.

Some mediums remain conscious during this communication period, while others go into a trance, wherein a spirit uses the medium's body to communicate. Part trance mediums are aware during the period of communication, while full trance mediums pass into an unconscious state in which their physical and mental processes are completely controlled by the spirit communicator.

In the 1860s and 1870s, trance mediums were among the most popular of lecturer-entertainers, many delivering passionate speeches on abolitionism and women's rights.

Physical mediumship
According to spiritualists, physical mediumship involves such manifistations as loud raps and noises, voices, materilized objects, apports, and materialized spirit bodies or body parts such as hands, and levitation. The medium is used as source of power and substance for such spirit manifestations. The power or substance taken from the medium is called ectoplasm.

Ouija and Talking Boards

Just after the news of the Fox affair came to France, people became even more interested in what was sometimes termed the "Spiritual Telegraph". In the beginning, a table spun with the "energy" from the spirits present by means of human chaneling (hence the term medium). But, as the process was too slow and cumbersome, a new one was devised, supposedly from a suggestion by the spirits themselves: the talking board.

Early examples of talking boards were baskets attached to a pointy object that spun under the hands of the mediums, to point at letters printed on cards scattered around, or engraved on, the table. Such devices were called corbeille à bec ("basket with a beak"). The pointy object was usually a pencil.

Talking boards were tricky to set up and to operate. A typical séance using a talking board saw people sitting at a round table, feet resting on the chairs' supports and hands on the table top or, later, on the talking board itself. The energy channeled from the spirits through their hands made the board spin around and find letters which, once written down by a scribe, would form intelligible words, phrases, and sentences. The system was an early, and less effective, precursor of the Ouija boards that later became so popular.

Allan Kardec first became interested in Spiritism when he learned of the Fox sisters, but his first contact with what would become the doctrine was by means of talking boards. Some of the earlier parts of his Spirits' Book were channeled this way.

References
Braude, Ann. 2001. Radical Spirits: Spiritualism and Women's Rights in Nineteenth-Century America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-21502-1.
Britten, Emma Hardinge. 1884. Nineteenth Century Miracles: Spirits and their Work in Every Country of the Earth. New York: William Britten.
Brown, Slater. 1970. The Heyday of Spiritualism, New York: Hawthorn Books.
Carroll, Bret E. 1997. Spiritualism in Antebellum America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-33315-6.
Crookes, William. 1874. "Notes of an Enquiry into the Phenomena called Spiritual during the Years 1870-1873." Quarterly Journal of Science. January 1874.
Davenport, Reuben Briggs. 1888. The Death-Blow to Spiritualism: being the true story of the Fox sisters, as revealed by authority of Margaret Fox Kane and Catherine Fox Jencken. New York: G. W. Dillingham.
Doyle, Arthur Conan. 1926. The History of Spiritualism. New York: G.H. Doran, Co. Volume 1 Volume 2. ISBN 1-4101-0243-2.
Rubin Stuart, Nancy, 2005. The Reluctant Spiritualist: The Life of Maggie Fox , New York, Harcour