What is mediumship?

Mediumship is a practice commonly related to Spiritualism, Spiritism, the New Age, Espiritismo, Candomblé, Voodoo, Umbanda and Shamanism. though practice and development varies greatly in the world. A medium is essentially defined as a go-between linking this world with afterlife dimensions. While the Western movements of Spiritualism and Spiritism account for most Western media exposure, most traditional African, Caribbean, South American and Asian movements have grown out of animistic religious communities
Western Mediums in the main are described as people who, psychically gifted, make connections with the afterlife and relay messages from the so-called dead to the living. To make these contacts mediums must achieve a shift in consciousness, in which the higher vibratory senses can interact with the physical world by language that recipients can understand. That shift in consciousness is more accurately defined as an expansion of known consciousness; the physical senses must still be able to shape the higher vibration to provide understandable communication. As the self-being expression is tuned to deal with the physical world, its go between capabilities will be restricted by the demands of the human community -demands that require attachment, ownership, opinion and security. The shift of consciousness needed to channel higher vibratory forces can only deliver in this world when the conscious expression of self is simplified and unbiased.
The medium generally attempts to facilitate communication between non-mediumistic people and spirits who may have messages to share. A medium may appear to listen to and relate conversations with spirit voices; go into a trance and speak without knowledge of what is being said; allow a spirit to enter their body and speak through it; relay messages from the spirits those who wish to contact them with the help of a physical tool, such as a writing implement.
Channeling is a function of mediumship and is an important element of Modern Spiritualism and New Age exponents. Mediumship in this context refers to the inspirations received from a 'teaching spirit'.
Mediums have been responsible for producing an array of science baffling phenomena that includes materialisation, de-materialisation, levitation, apports, direct voice, proof of survival, psychic surgery and rain-making etc.