Mental Mediumship could be described as being the ability to communicate on a ‘thought to thought’ level with those in Spirit. However it is far more complex than that. To understand mediumship better we need first to separate the psychic level of working from that of mediumship. A psychic is a sensitive, similar in many ways to a medium, but works on the vibrations of energy close to the earth plane. They can read historical information from an object using an ability termed ‘psychometry’. This is where the object retains information possibly in a similar way to a tape recorder or other recording devices. Playing back the information is done by attuning oneself to the vibrations emanating from the object, which the physical senses of the nervous system pick up, and which the brain interprets into understandable pictures or sensations. Psychics work only on energy of people or objects of the earth, a medium is different in that they can do the same as the Psychic, but extend that ability to work on a communication level with those who have passed on. To understand mental mediumship better we need to understand better the main faculties used in mental mediumship. These principle faculties are commonly called Clairvoyance (Clear vision), Clairaudience (Clear hearing), and Clairsentience (clear sensing). There are others but we will deal with these three here as they are the main ones used.

Clairvoyance
This is the ability to ‘see’ Spirit. It is a very commonly misunderstood ability as most people expect to see Spirit people objectively (i.e. out in front as one would see with normal physical sight.) However the reality in most cases is that the ‘seeing’ is subjective, a thought transference and often is seen as a picture ‘popping’ into ones consciousness, or like a projected image. There are differing views on how clairvoyance actually operates. Spiritualists accept that we are Spirit in a physical body. The Spirit body being a replica of the physical but operating on a different ‘frequency’. By allowing the Spirit part of our being to have temporary dominance we can see Spirit with our Spirit eyes as opposed to our physical eyes. The same is possible too for Clairaudience, and Clairsentience.

Clairaudience
The ability to ‘hear’ Spirit is also commonly misunderstood. Our earthly experience teaches us to expect to hear objectively. In some cases in mediumship, voices can indeed be heard normally just outside the mediums ear. However the vast majority of hearing is again a thought process. However this is usually very strong and can seem to the untrained student to be spoken words rather than the strong thought of the words which the brain interprets as being spoken. Logic tells you that if there were voices to be heard outside the mediums body, that more than the medium would hear them. Voices can manifest in that way, but most regard a manifestation such as that to be a form of physical mediumship rather than purely mental mediumship.

Clairsentience
The abilty to sense clearly. By that it is understood that the Spirit body being a replica of the physical body is able to sense the approach and energy of a living or discarnate Spirit. This a particularly useful tool with regards obtaining detailed information about the communicator. By encouraging the communicator to more or less step into your shoes, you can become so attuned with that individual and can better describe their ‘physical’ appearance, their personality, and even become aware oif aches and pains they may have suffered whilst on the earth plane. It should be noted that although Spirit offer these aches and pains as a means of identification, they no longer have those aches and pains in the Spirit world. The information is passed purely for identification purposes.