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Mediumship

Mediumship is the pseudoscientific practice of mediating communication between familiar spirits or spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or spirit channelling, including séance tables, trance, and ouija. The practice is associated with spiritualism and spiritism. A similar New Age practice is known as channeling.

Belief in psychic ability is widespread despite the absence of empirical evidence for its existence. Scientific researchers have attempted to ascertain the validity of claims of mediumship for more than one hundred years and have consistently failed to confirm them. As late as 2005, an experiment undertaken by the British Psychological Society reaffirmed that test subjects who self-identified as mediums demonstrated no mediumistic ability.

Mediumship gained popularity during the nineteenth century when ouija boards were used as a source of entertainment. Investigations during this period revealed widespread fraud—with some practitioners employing techniques used by stage magicians—and the practice began to lose credibility. Fraud is still rife in the medium or psychic industry, with cases of deception and trickery being discovered to this day.

Several different variants of mediumship have been described; arguably the best-known forms involve a spirit purportedly taking control of a medium's voice and using it to relay a message, or where the medium simply "hears" the message and passes it on. Other forms involve materializations of the spirit or the presence of a voice, and telekinetic activity.

Concept
In Spiritism and Spiritualism the medium has the role of an intermediary between the world of the living and the world of spirit. Mediums say that they can listen to and relay messages from spirits, or that they can allow a spirit to control their body and speak through it directly or by using automatic writing or drawing.

Spiritualists classify types of mediumship into two main categories: "mental" and "physical":
 * Mental mediums purportedly "tune in" to the spirit world by listening, sensing, or seeing spirits or symbols.
 * Physical mediums are believed to produce the materialization of spirits, apports of objects, and other effects such as knocking, rapping, bell-ringing, etc. by using "ectoplasm" created from the cells of their bodies and those of séance attendees.

During seances, mediums are said to go into trances, varying from light to deep, that permit spirits to control their minds.

Channeling can be seen as the modern form of the old mediumship, where the "channel" (or channeller) purportedly receives messages from "teaching-spirit", an "Ascended master", from God, or from an angelic entity, but essentially through the filter of his own waking consciousness (or "Higher Self").

History
Attempts to communicate with the dead and other living human beings, aka spirits, have been documented back to early human history, such as the Biblical account of the Witch of Endor.

Mediumship became quite popular in the 19th-century United States and the United Kingdom after the rise of Spiritualism as a religious movement. Modern Spiritualism is said to date from practices and lectures of the Fox sisters in New York State in 1848. The trance mediums Paschal Beverly Randolph and Emma Hardinge Britten were among the most celebrated lecturers and authors on the subject in the mid-19th century. Allan Kardec coined the term Spiritism around 1860. Kardec wrote that conversations with spirits by selected mediums were the basis of his The Spirits' Book and later, his five-book collection, Spiritist Codification.

Some scientists of the period who investigated Spiritualism also became converts. They included chemist Robert Hare, physicist William Crookes (1832–1919) and evolutionary biologist Alfred Russel Wallace (1823–1913). Nobel laureate Pierre Curie took a very serious scientific interest in the work of medium Eusapia Palladino. Other prominent adherents included journalist and pacifist William T. Stead (1849–1912) and physician and author Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930).

After the exposure of the fraudulent use of stage magic tricks by physical mediums such as the Davenport Brothers and the Bangs Sisters, mediumship fell into disrepute. However, the religion and its beliefs continue in spite of this, with physical mediumship and seances falling out of practice and platform mediumship coming to the fore.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s there were around one quarter of a million practising Spiritualists and some two thousand Spiritualist societies in the UK in addition to flourishing microcultures of platform mediumship and 'home circles'. Spiritualism continues to be practised, primarily through various denominational Spiritualist churches in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom, over 340 Spiritualist churches and centres open their doors to the public and free demonstrations of mediumship are regularly performed.

Spirit guide
In 1958, American Spiritualist C. Dorreen Phillips wrote of her experiences with a medium at Camp Chesterfield, Indiana: "In Rev. James Laughton's séances there are many Indians. They are very noisy and appear to have great power. [...] The little guides, or doorkeepers, are usually Indian boys and girls [who act] as messengers who help to locate the spirit friends who wish to speak with you."

Spirit operator
A spirit who uses a medium to manipulate psychic "energy" or "energy systems."

Demonstrations of mediumship
In old-line Spiritualism, a portion of the services, generally toward the end, is given over to demonstrations of mediumship through purported contact with the spirits of the dead. A typical example of this way of describing a mediumistic church service is found in the 1958 autobiography of C. Dorreen Phillips. She writes of the worship services at the Spiritualist Camp Chesterfield in Chesterfield, Indiana: "Services are held each afternoon, consisting of hymns, a lecture on philosophy, and demonstrations of mediumship."

Today "demonstration of mediumship" is part of the church service at all churches affiliated with the National Spiritualist Association of Churches (NSAC) and the Spiritualists' National Union (SNU). Demonstration links to NSAC's Declaration of Principal #9. "We affirm that the precepts of Prophecy and Healing are Divine attributes proven through Mediumship."

Mental mediumship
"Mental mediumship" is communication of spirits with a medium by telepathy. The medium mentally "hears" (clairaudience), "sees" (clairvoyance), and/or feels (clairsentience) messages from spirits. Directly or with the help of a spirit guide, the medium passes the information on to the message's recipient(s). When a medium is doing a "reading" for a particular person, that person is known as the "sitter".

Trance mediumship
In the 1860s and 1870s, trance mediums, also known as trance speakers, were very popular; this allowed female adherents, many who had strong interests in social justice, to speak in public in an era where doing so went against existing social norms. Many trance mediums delivered passionate speeches on abolitionism, temperance, and women's suffrage. Scholars have described Leonora Piper as one of the most famous trance mediums in the history of Spiritualism.

Trance speakers believed that entering a trance gave them access to the spirits and, through them, to knowledge inaccessible in the waking world. Sometimes an assistant would write down the medium's words, such as in the early 20th century collaboration between the trance medium Mrs. Cecil M. Cook of the William T. Stead Memorial Center in Chicago (a religious body incorporated under the statutes of the State of Illinois) and the journalist Lloyd Kenyon Jones. The latter was a non-medium Spiritualist who transcribed Cook's messages in shorthand. He edited them for publication in book and pamphlet form.

Castillo (1995) states, "Trance phenomena result from the behavior of intense focusing of attention, which is the key psychological mechanism of trance induction. Adaptive responses, including institutionalized forms of trance, are 'tuned' into neural networks in the brain."

Physical mediumship
Physical mediumship is defined as manipulation of energies and energy systems by spirits. This type of mediumship is said to involve perceptible manifestations, such as loud raps and noises, voices, materialized objects, apports, materialized spirit bodies, or body parts such as hands, legs and feet. The medium is used as a source of power for such spirit manifestations. By some accounts, this was achieved by using the energy or ectoplasm released by a medium, see spirit photography. The last physical medium to be tested by a committee from Scientific American was Mina Crandon in 1924.

Most physical mediumship is presented in a darkened or dimly lit room. Most physical mediums make use of a traditional array of tools and appurtenances, including spirit trumpets, spirit cabinets, and levitation tables.

Direct voice
Direct voice communication refers to the hypothesis that spirits speak independently of the medium, who facilitates the phenomenon rather than produces it. The role of the medium is to make the connection between the physical and spirit worlds. Trumpets are often utilised to amplify the signal, and directed voice mediums are sometimes known as "trumpet mediums". This form of mediumship also permits the medium to participate in the discourse during séances, since the medium's voice is not required by the spirit to communicate. Leslie Flint was one of the best known exponents of this form of mediumship.

Psychic senses
Senses used by mental mediums are sometimes defined differently from in other paranormal fields. A medium is said to have psychic abilities but not all psychics function as mediums. The term clairvoyance, for instance, may include seeing spirit and visions instilled by the spirit world. The Parapsychological Association defines "clairvoyance" as information derived directly from an external physical source.
 * Clairvoyance or "clear seeing", is the ability to see anything that is not physically present, such as objects, animals or people. This sight occurs "in the mind's eye". 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.
 * Clairsentinence or "clear feeling" is a condition in which the medium takes on the ailments of a spirit, feeling the same physical problem which the spirit person had before death.
 * 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 say that they have a feeling that a message or situation is "right" or "wrong."

Paranormal belief
Spiritualists believe that phenomena produced by mediums (both mental and physical mediumship) are the result of external spirit agencies. The psychical researcher Thomson Jay Hudson in The Law of Psychic Phenomena (1892) and Théodore Flournoy in his book Spiritism and Psychology (1911) wrote that all kinds of mediumship could be explained by suggestion and telepathy from the medium and that there was no evidence for the spirit hypothesis. The idea of mediumship being explained by telepathy was later merged into the "super-ESP" hypothesis of mediumship which is currently advocated by some parapsychologists.

Scientific skepticism
In their book How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age, authors Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn have noted that the spiritualist and ESP hypothesis of mediumship "has yielded no novel predictions, assumes unknown entities or forces, and conflicts with available scientific evidence."

Scientists who study anomalistic psychology consider mediumship to be the result of fraud and psychological factors. Research from psychology for over a hundred years suggests that where there is not fraud, mediumship and Spiritualist practices can be explained by hypnotism, magical thinking and suggestion. Trance mediumship, which according to Spiritualists is caused by discarnate spirits speaking through the medium, can be explained by dissociative identity disorder.

Illusionists, such as Joseph Rinn have staged fake séances in which the sitters have claimed to have observed genuine supernatural phenomena. Albert Moll studied the psychology of séance sitters. According to (Wolffram, 2012) "[Moll] argued that the hypnotic atmosphere of the darkened séance room and the suggestive effect of the experimenters' social and scientific prestige could be used to explain why seemingly rational people vouchsafed occult phenomena." The psychologists Leonard Zusne and Warren Jones in their book Anomalistic Psychology: A Study of Magical Thinking (1989) wrote that spirits controls are the "products of the medium's own psychological dynamics."

A fraudulent medium may obtain information about their sitters by secretly eavesdropping on sitter's conversations or searching telephone directories, the internet and newspapers before the sittings. A technique called cold reading can also be used to obtain information from the sitter's behavior, clothing, posture, and jewellery.

The psychologist Richard Wiseman has written: "Cold reading also explains why psychics have consistently failed scientific tests of their powers. By isolating them from their clients, psychics are unable to pick up information from the way those clients dress or behave. By presenting all of the volunteers involved in the test with all of the readings, they are prevented from attributing meaning to their own reading, and therefore can't identify it from readings made for others. As a result, the type of highly successful hit rate that psychics enjoy on a daily basis comes crashing down and the truth emerges – their success depends on a fascinating application of psychology and not the existence of paranormal abilities."

In a series of experiments holding fake séances, (Wiseman et al. 2003) paranormal believers and disbelievers were suggested by an actor that a table was levitating when, in fact, it remained stationary. After the seance, approximately one third of the participants incorrectly reported that the table had moved. The results showed a greater percentage of believers reporting that the table had moved. In another experiment the believers had also reported that a handbell had moved when it had remained stationary and expressed their belief that the fake séances contained genuine paranormal phenomena. The experiments strongly supported the notion that in the séance room, believers are more suggestible than disbelievers for suggestions that are consistent with their belief in paranormal phenomena.

In a 2019 television segment on Last Week Tonight featuring prominent purported mediums including Theresa Caputo, John Edward, Tyler Henry, and Sylvia Browne, John Oliver criticized the media for promoting mediums because this exposure convinces viewers that such powers are real, and so enable neighborhood mediums to prey on grieving families. Oliver said "...when psychic abilities are presented as authentic, it emboldens a vast underworld of unscrupulous vultures, more than happy to make money by offering an open line to the afterlife, as well as many other bullshit services."

Fraud
From its earliest beginnings to contemporary times, mediumship practices have had many instances of fraud and trickery. Séances take place in darkness so the poor lighting conditions can become an easy opportunity for fraud. Physical mediumship that has been investigated by scientists has been discovered to be the result of deception and trickery. Ectoplasm, a supposed paranormal substance, was revealed to have been made from cheesecloth, butter, muslin, and cloth. Mediums would also stick cut-out faces from magazines and newspapers onto cloth or on other props and use plastic dolls in their séances to pretend to their audiences spirits were contacting them. Lewis Spence in his book An Encyclopaedia of Occultism (1960) wrote:

"A very large part is played by fraud in spiritualistic practices, both in the physical and psychical, or automatic, phenomena, but especially in the former. The frequency with which mediums have been convicted of fraud has, indeed, induced many people to abandon the study of psychical research, judging the whole bulk of the phenomena to be fraudulently produced."

In Britain, the Society for Psychical Research has investigated mediumship phenomena. Critical SPR investigations into purported mediums and the exposure of fake mediums has led to a number of resignations by Spiritualist members. On the subject of fraud in mediumship Paul Kurtz wrote:

"No doubt a great importance in the paranormal field is the problem of fraud. The field of psychic research and spiritualism has been so notoriously full of charlatans, such as the Fox sisters and Eusapia Palladino–individuals who claim to have special power and gifts but who are actually conjurers who have hoodwinked scientists and the public as well–that we have to be especially cautious about claims made on their behalf."

Magicians have a long history of exposing the fraudulent methods of mediumship. Early debunkers included Chung Ling Soo, Henry Evans and Julien Proskauer. Later magicians to reveal fraud were Joseph Dunninger, Harry Houdini and Joseph Rinn. Rose Mackenberg, a private investigator who worked with Houdini during the 1920s, was among the most prominent debunkers of psychic fraud during the mid-20th century.

1800s
Many 19th century mediums were discovered to be engaged in fraud. While advocates of mediumship claim that their experiences are genuine, the Encyclopædia Britannica article on spiritualism notes in reference to a case in the 19th century that "...one by one, the Spiritualist mediums were discovered to be engaged in fraud, sometimes employing the techniques of stage magicians in their attempts to convince people of their clairvoyant powers." The article also notes that "the exposure of widespread fraud within the spiritualist movement severely damaged its reputation and pushed it to the fringes of society in the United States."

At a séance in the house of the solicitor John Snaith Rymer in Ealing in July 1855, a sitter Frederick Merrifield observed that a "spirit-hand" was a false limb attached on the end of the medium Daniel Dunglas Home's arm. Merrifield also claimed to have observed Home use his foot in the séance room.

The poet Robert Browning and his wife Elizabeth attended a séance on 23, July 1855 in Ealing with the Rymers. During the séance a spirit face materialized which Home claimed was the son of Browning who had died in infancy. Browning seized the "materialization" and discovered it to be the bare foot of Home. To make the deception worse, Browning had never lost a son in infancy. Browning's son Robert in a letter to The Times, December 5, 1902, referred to the incident "Home was detected in a vulgar fraud." The researchers Joseph McCabe and Trevor H. Hall exposed the "levitation" of Home as nothing more than his moving across a connecting ledge between two iron balconies.

The psychologist and psychical researcher Stanley LeFevre Krebs had exposed the Bangs Sisters as frauds. During a séance he employed a hidden mirror and caught them tampering with a letter in an envelope and writing a reply in it under the table which they would pretend a spirit had written. The British materialization medium Rosina Mary Showers was caught in many fraudulent séances throughout her career. In 1874 during a séance with Edward William Cox a sitter looked into the cabinet and seized the spirit, the headdress fell off and was revealed to be Showers.

In a series of experiments in London at the house of William Crookes in February 1875, the medium Anna Eva Fay managed to fool Crookes into believing she had genuine psychic powers. Fay later confessed to her fraud and revealed the tricks she had used. Frank Herne a British medium who formed a partnership with the medium Charles Williams was repeatedly exposed in fraudulent materialization séances. In 1875, he was caught pretending to be a spirit during a séance in Liverpool and was found "clothed in about two yards of stiffened muslin, wound round his head and hanging down as far as his thigh." Florence Cook had been "trained in the arts of the séance" by Herne and was repeatedly exposed as a fraudulent medium.

The medium Henry Slade was caught in fraud many times throughout his career. In a séance in 1876 in London Ray Lankester and Bryan Donkin snatched his slate before the "spirit" message was supposed to be written, and found the writing already there. Slade also played an accordion with one hand under the table and claimed spirits would play it. The magician Chung Ling Soo revealed how Slade had performed the trick.

The British medium Francis Ward Monck was investigated by psychical researchers and discovered to be a fraud. On November 3, 1876, during the séance a sitter demanded that Monck be searched. Monck ran from the room, locked himself in another room and escaped out of a window. A pair of stuffed gloves was found in his room, as well as cheesecloth, reaching rods and other fraudulent devices in his luggage. After a trial Monck was convicted for his fraudulent mediumship and was sentenced to three months in prison.

In 1876, William Eglinton was exposed as a fraud when the psychical researcher Thomas Colley seized a "spirit" materialization in his séance and cut off a portion of its cloak. It was discovered that the cut piece matched a cloth found in Eglinton's suitcase. Colley also pulled the beard off the materialization and it was revealed to be a fake, the same as another one found in the suitcase of Eglinton. In 1880 in a séance a spirit named "Yohlande" materialized, a sitter grabbed it and was revealed to be the medium Mme. d'Esperance herself.

In September 1878 the British medium Charles Williams and his fellow-medium at the time, A. Rita, were detected in trickery at Amsterdam. During the séance a materialized spirit was seized and found to be Rita and a bottle of phosphorus oil, muslin and a false beard were found amongst the two mediums. In 1882 C. E. Wood was exposed in a séance in Peterborough. Her Indian spirit control "Pocka" was found to be the medium on her knees, covered in muslin.

In 1880 the American stage mentalist Washington Irving Bishop published a book revealing how mediums would use secret codes as the trick for their clairvoyant readings. The Seybert Commission was a group of faculty at the University of Pennsylvania who in 1884–1887 exposed fraudulent mediums such as Pierre L. O. A. Keeler and Henry Slade. The Fox sisters confessed to fraud in 1888. Margaret Fox revealed that she and her sister had produced the "spirit" rappings by cracking their toe joints.

In 1891 at a public séance with twenty sitters the medium Cecil Husk was caught leaning over a table pretending to be a spirit by covering his face with phosphor material. The magician Will Goldston also exposed the fraud mediumship of Husk. In a séance Goldston attended a pale face materialization appeared in the room. Goldston wrote "I saw at once that it was a gauze mask, and that the moustache attached to it was loose at one side through lack of gum. I pulled at the mask. It came away, revealing the face of Husk." The British materialization medium Annie Fairlamb Mellon was exposed as a fraud on October 12, 1894. During the séance a sitter seized the materialized spirit, and found it to be the Mellon on her knees with white muslin on her head and shoulders.

The magician Samri Baldwin exposed the tricks of the Davenport brothers in his book The Secrets of Mahatma Land Explained (1895). The medium Swami Laura Horos was convicted of fraud several times and was tried for rape and fraud in London in 1901. She was described by the magician Harry Houdini as "one of the most extraordinary fake mediums and mystery swindlers the world has ever known".

In the late 19th century, the fraudulent methods of spirit photographers such as David Duguid and Edward Wyllie were revealed by psychical researchers. Hereward Carrington documented various methods (with diagrams) how the medium would manipulate the plates before, during, and after the séance to produce spirit forms. The ectoplasm materializations of the French medium Eva Carrière were exposed as fraudulent. The fake ectoplasm of Carrière was made of cut-out paper faces from newspapers and magazines on which fold marks could sometimes be seen from the photographs. Cut out faces that she used included Woodrow Wilson, King Ferdinand of Bulgaria, French president Raymond Poincaré and the actress Mona Delza.

The séance trick of the Eddy Brothers was revealed by the magician Chung Ling Soo in 1898. The brothers utilized a fake hand made of lead, and with their hands free from control would play musical instruments and move objects in the séance room. The physiologist Ivor Lloyd Tuckett examined a case of spirit photography that W. T. Stead had claimed was genuine. Stead visited a photographer who had produced a photograph of him with deceased soldier known as "Piet Botha". Stead claimed that the photographer could not have come across any information about Piet Botha, however, Tuckett discovered that an article in 1899 had been published on Pietrus Botha in a weekly magazine with a portrait and personal details.

The trance medium Leonora Piper was investigated by psychical researchers and psychologists in the late 19th and early 20th century. In an experiment to test if Piper's "spirit" controls were purely fictitious the psychologist G. Stanley Hall invented a niece called Bessie Beals and asked Piper's 'control' to get in touch with it. Bessie appeared, answered questions and accepted Hall as her uncle. The psychologist Joseph Jastrow wrote that Piper pretended to be controlled by spirits and fell into simple and logical traps from her comments. Science writer Martin Gardner concluded Piper was a cold reader that would "fish" for information from her séance sitters. The physiologist Ivor Lloyd Tuckett who examined Piper's mediumship in detail wrote it could be explained by "muscle-reading, fishing, guessing, hints obtained in the sitting, knowledge surreptitiously obtained, knowledge acquired in the interval between sittings and lastly, facts already within Mrs. Piper's knowledge."

1900s
In March 1902 in Berlin, police officers interrupted a séance of the German apport medium Frau Anna Rothe. Her hands were grabbed and she was wrestled to the ground. A female police assistant physically examined Rothe and discovered 157 flowers as well as oranges and lemons hidden in her petticoat. She was arrested and charged with fraud. Another apport medium Hilda Lewis known as the "flower medium" confessed to fraud.

The psychical researchers W. W. Baggally and Everard Feilding exposed the British materialization medium Christopher Chambers as a fraud in 1905. A false moustache was discovered in the séance room which he used to fabricate the spirit materializations. The British medium Charles Eldred was exposed as a fraud in 1906. Eldred would sit in a chair in a curtained off area in the room known as a "séance cabinet". Various spirit figures would emerge from the cabinet and move around the séance room, however, it was discovered that the chair had a secret compartment that contained beards, cloths, masks, and wigs that Eldred would dress up in to pretend to be spirits.

The spirit photographer William Hope tricked William Crookes with a fake spirit photograph of his wife in 1906. Oliver Lodge revealed there had been obvious signs of double exposure, the picture of Lady Crookes had been copied from a wedding anniversary photograph, however, Crookes was a convinced spiritualist and claimed it was genuine evidence for spirit photography.

In 1907, Hereward Carrington exposed the tricks of fraudulent mediums such as those used in slate-writing, table-turning, trumpet mediumship, materializations, sealed-letter reading and spirit photography. between 1908 and 1914 the Italian medium Francesco Carancini was investigated by psychical researchers and they discovered that he used phosphorus matches to produce "spirit lights" and with a freed hand would move objects in the séance room.

In 1908 at a hotel in Naples, the psychical researchers W. W. Baggally, Hereward Carrington and Everard Feilding attended a series of séances with Eusapia Palladino. In a report they claimed that genuine supernatural activity had occurred in the séances, this report became known as the Feilding report. In 1910, Feilding returned to Naples, but this time accompanied with the magician William S. Marriott. Unlike the 1908 sittings, Feilding and Marriott detected her cheating, just as she had done in America. Her deceptions were obvious. Palladino evaded control and was caught moving objects with her foot, shaking the curtain with her hands, moving the cabinet table with her elbow and touching the séance sitters. Milbourne Christopher wrote regarding the exposure "when one knows how a feat can be done and what to look for, only the most skillful performer can maintain the illusion in the face of such informed scrutiny."

In 1910 at a séance in Grenoble, France the apport medium Charles Bailey produced two live birds in the séance room. Bailey was unaware that the dealer he had bought the birds from was present in the séance and he was exposed as a fraud. The psychical researcher Eric Dingwall observed the medium Bert Reese in New York and claimed to have discovered his billet reading tricks. The most detailed account at exposing his tricks (with diagrams) was by the magician Theodore Annemann.

The Polish medium Stanisława Tomczyk's levitation of a glass beaker was exposed and replicated in 1910 by the magician William S. Marriott by means of a hidden thread. The Italian medium Lucia Sordi was exposed in 1911, she was bound to a chair by psychical researchers but would free herself during her séances. The tricks of another Italian medium Linda Gazzera were revealed in the same year, she would release her hands and feet from control in her séances and use them. Gazzera would not permit anyone to search her before a séance sitting, as she concealed muslin and other objects in her hair.

In 1917, Edward Clodd analyzed the mediumship of the trance medium Gladys Osborne Leonard and came to the conclusion that Leonard had known her séance sitters before she had held the séances, and could have easily obtained such information by natural means. The British psychiatrist Charles Arthur Mercier wrote in his book Spiritualism and Sir Oliver Lodge (1917) that Oliver Lodge had been duped into believing mediumship by trickery and his spiritualist views were based on assumptions and not scientific evidence.

In 1918, Joseph Jastrow wrote about the tricks of Eusapia Palladino who was an expert at freeing her hands and feet from the control in the séance room. In the séance room Palladino would move curtains from a distance by releasing a jet of air from a rubber bulb that she had in her hand. According to the psychical researcher Harry Price "Her tricks were usually childish: long hairs attached to small objects in order to produce 'telekinetic movements'; the gradual substitution of one hand for two when being controlled by sitters; the production of 'phenomena' with a foot which had been surreptitiously removed from its shoe and so on."

In the 1920s the British medium Charles Albert Beare duped the Spiritualist organization the Temple of Light into believing he had genuine mediumship powers. In 1931 Beare published a confession in the newspaper Daily Express. In the confession he stated "I have deceived hundreds of people…. I have been guilty of fraud and deception in spiritualistic practices by pretending that I was controlled by a spirit guide…. I am frankly and whole-heartedly sorry that I have allowed myself to deceive people." Due to the exposure of William Hope and other fraudulent spiritualists, Arthur Conan Doyle in the 1920s led a mass resignation of eighty-four members of the Society for Psychical Research, as they believed the Society was opposed to spiritualism.

Between 8 November and 31 December 1920 Gustav Geley of the Institute Metapsychique International attended fourteen séances with the medium Franek Kluski in Paris. A bowl of hot paraffin was placed in the room and according to Kluski spirits dipped their limbs into the paraffin and then into a bath of water to materialize. Three other series of séances were held in Warsaw in Kluski's own apartment, these took place over a period of three years. Kluski was not searched in any of the séances. Photographs of the molds were obtained during the four series of experiments and were published by Geley in 1924. Harry Houdini replicated the Kluski materialization moulds by using his hands and a bowl of hot paraffin.

The British direct-voice medium Frederick Tansley Munnings was exposed as a fraud when one of his séance sitters turned the lights on which revealed him to be holding a trumpet by means of a telescopic extension piece and using an angle piece to change the auditory effect of his voice. Richard Hodgson held six sittings with the medium Rosina Thompson and came to the conclusion she was a fraud as he discovered Thompson had access to documents and information about her séance sitters.

On 4 February 1922, Harry Price with James Seymour, Eric Dingwall and William S. Marriott had proven the spirit photographer William Hope was a fraud during tests at the British College of Psychic Science. Price wrote in his SPR report "William Hope has been found guilty of deliberately substituting his own plates for those of a sitter... It implies that the medium brings to the sitting a duplicate slide and faked plates for fraudulent purposes." The medium Kathleen Goligher was investigated by the physicist Edmund Edward Fournier d'Albe. On July 22, 1921, in a séance he observed Goligher holding the table up with her foot. He also discovered that her ectoplasm was made of muslin. During a séance d'Albe observed white muslin between Goligher's feet.

The Danish medium Einer Nielsen was investigated by a committee from the Kristiania University in Norway, 1922 and discovered in a séance that his ectoplasm was fake. In 1923 the Polish medium Jan Guzyk was exposed as a fraud in a series of séances in Sorbonne in Paris. Guzyk would use his elbows and legs to move objects around the room and touch the sitters. According to Max Dessoir the trick of Guzyk was to use his "foot for psychic touches and sounds".

The psychical researchers Eric Dingwall and Harry Price re-published an anonymous work written by a former medium entitled Revelations of a Spirit Medium (1922) which exposed the tricks of mediumship and the fraudulent methods of producing "spirit hands". Originally all the copies of the book were bought up by spiritualists and deliberately destroyed. In 1923, the magician Carlos María de Heredia revealed how fake spirit hands could be made by using a rubber glove, paraffin and a jar of cold water.

The Hungarian medium Ladislas Lasslo confessed that all of his spirit materializations were fraudulent in 1924. A séance sitter was also found to be working as a confederate for Lasslo.

The Austrian medium Rudi Schneider was investigated in 1924 by the physicists Stefan Meyer and Karl Przibram. They caught Rudi freeing his arm in a series of séances. Rudi claimed he could levitate objects but according to Harry Price a photograph taken on April 28, 1932, showed that Rudi had managed to free his arm to move a handkerchief from the table. According to Warren Jay Vinton, Schneider was an expert at freeing himself from control in the séance room. Oliver Gatty and Theodore Besterman who tested Schneider concluded that in their tests there was "no good evidence that Rudi Schneider possesses supernormal powers."

The spiritualists Arthur Conan Doyle and W. T. Stead were duped into believing Julius and Agnes Zancig had genuine psychic powers. Both Doyle and Stead wrote that the Zancigs performed telepathy. In 1924 Julius and Agnes Zancig confessed that their mind reading act was a trick and published the secret code and all the details of the trick method they had used under the title of Our Secrets!! in a London Newspaper.

In 1925, Samuel Soal claimed to have taken part in a series of séances with the medium Blanche Cooper who contacted the spirit of a soldier Gordon Davis and revealed the house that he had lived in. Researchers later discovered fraud as the séances had taken place in 1922, not 1925. The magician and paranormal investigator Bob Couttie revealed that Davis was alive, Soal lived close to him and had altered the records of the sittings after checking out the house. Soal's co-workers knew that he had fiddled the results but were kept quiet with threats of libel suits.

Mina Crandon claimed to materialize a "spirit hand", but when examined by biologists the hand was discovered to be made from a piece of carved animal liver. The German apport medium Heinrich Melzer was discovered to be a fraud in 1926. In a séance psychical researchers found that Melzer had small stones attached to the back of his ears by flesh coloured tape. Psychical researchers who investigated the mediumship of Maria Silbert revealed that she used her feet and toes to move objects in the séance room.

In 1930 the Polish medium Stanisława P. was tested at the Institut Metapsychique in Paris. French psychical researcher Eugéne Osty suspected in the séance that Stanislawa had freed her hand from control. Secret flashlight photographs that were taken revealed that her hand was free and she had moved objects on the séance table. It was claimed by spiritualists that during a series of séances in 1930 the medium Eileen J. Garrett channeled secret information from the spirit of the Lieutenant Herbert Carmichael Irwin who had died in the R101 crash a few days before the séance. Researcher Melvin Harris who studied the case wrote that the information described in Garrett's séances were "either commonplace, easily absorbed bits and pieces, or plain gobblede-gook. The so-called secret information just doesn't exist."

In the 1930s Harry Price (director of the National Laboratory of Psychical Research) had investigated the medium Helen Duncan and had her perform a number of test séances. She was suspected of swallowing cheesecloth which was then regurgitated as "ectoplasm". Price had proven through analysis of a sample of ectoplasm produced by Duncan, that it was made of cheesecloth. Helen Duncan would also use a doll made of a painted papier-mâché mask draped in an old sheet which she pretended to her sitters was a spirit. The photographs taken by Thomas Glendenning Hamilton in the 1930s of ectoplasm reveal the substance to be made of tissue paper and magazine cut-outs of people. The famous photograph taken by Hamilton of the medium Mary Ann Marshall depicts tissue paper with a cut out of Arthur Conan Doyle's head from a newspaper. Skeptics have suspected that Hamilton may have been behind the hoax.

Psychologists and researchers who studied Pearl Curran's automatic writings in the 1930s came to the conclusion Patience Worth was a fictitious creation of Curran. In 1931 George Valiantine was exposed as a fraud in the séance room as it was discovered that he produced fraudulent "spirit" fingerprints in wax. The "spirit" thumbprint that Valiantine claimed belonged to Arthur Conan Doyle was revealed to be the print of his big toe on his right foot. It was also revealed that Valiantine made some of the prints with his elbow.

The medium Frank Decker was exposed as a fraud in 1932. A magician and séance sitter who called himself M. Taylor presented a mail bag and Decker agreed to lock himself inside it. During the séance objects were moved around the room and it was claimed spirits had released Decker from the bag. It was later discovered to have been a trick as Martin Sunshine, a magic dealer admitted that he sold Decker a trick mail bag, such as stage escapologists use, and had acted as the medium's confederate by pretending to be M. Taylor, a magician. The British medium Estelle Roberts claimed to materialize an Indian spirit guide called "Red Cloud". Researcher Melvin Harris who examined some photographs of Red Cloud wrote the face was the same as Roberts and she had dressed up in a feathered war-bonnet.

In 1936, the psychical researcher Nandor Fodor tested the Hungarian apport medium Lajos Pap in London and during the séance a dead snake appeared. Pap was searched and was found to be wearing a device under his robe, where he had hidden the snake. A photograph taken at a séance in 1937 in London shows the medium Colin Evans "levitating" in mid air. He claimed that spirits had lifted him. Evans was later discovered to be a fraud as a cord leading from a device in his hand has indicated that it was himself who triggered the flash-photograph and that all he had done was jump from his chair into the air and pretend he had levitated.

According to the magician John Booth the stage mentalist David Devant managed to fool a number of people into believing he had genuine psychic ability who did not realize that his feats were magic tricks. At St. George's Hall, London he performed a fake "clairvoyant" act where he would read a message sealed inside an envelope. The spiritualist Oliver Lodge who was present in the audience was duped by the trick and claimed that Devant had used psychic powers. In 1936 Devant in his book Secrets of My Magic revealed the trick method he had used.

The physicist Kristian Birkeland exposed the fraud of the direct voice medium Etta Wriedt. Birkeland turned on the lights during a séance, snatched her trumpets and discovered that the "spirit" noises were caused by chemical explosions induced by potassium and water and in other cases by lycopodium powder. The British medium Isa Northage claimed to materialize the spirit of a surgeon known as Dr. Reynolds. When photographs taken of Reynolds were analyzed by researchers they discovered that Northage looked like Reynolds with a glued stage beard.

The magician Julien Proskauer revealed that the levitating trumpet of Jack Webber was a trick. Close examination of photographs reveal Webber to be holding a telescopic reaching rod attached to the trumpet, and sitters in his séances only believed it to have levitated because the room was so dark they could not see the rod. Webber would cover the rod with crepe paper to disguise its real construction.

In 1954, the psychical researcher Rudolf Lambert published a report revealing details about a case of fraud that was covered up by many early members of the Institute Metapsychique International (IMI). Lambert who had studied Gustav Geley's files on the medium Eva Carrière discovered photographs depicting fraudulent ectoplasm taken by her companion Juliette Bisson. Various "materializations" were artificially attached to Eva's hair by wires. The discovery was never published by Geley. Eugéne Osty (the director of the institute) and members Jean Meyer, Albert von Schrenck-Notzing and Charles Richet all knew about the fraudulent photographs but were firm believers in mediumship phenomena so demanded the scandal be kept secret.

The fraudulent medium Ronald Edwin confessed he had duped his séance sitters and revealed the fraudulent methods he had used in his book Clock Without Hands (1955). The psychical researcher Tony Cornell investigated the mediumship of Alec Harris in 1955. During the séance "spirit" materializations emerged from a cabinet and walked around the room. Cornell wrote that a stomach rumble, nicotine smelling breath and a pulse gave it away that all the spirit figures were in fact Harris and that he had dressed up as each one behind the cabinet.

The British medium William Roy earned over £50,000 from his séance sitters. He confessed to fraud in 1958 revealing the microphone and trick-apparatus that he had used. The automatic writings of the Irish medium Geraldine Cummins were analyzed by psychical researchers in the 1960s and they revealed that she worked as a cataloguer at the National Library of Ireland and took information from various books that would appear in her automatic writings about ancient history.

In 1960, psychic investigator Andrija Puharich and Tom O'Neill, publisher of the Spiritualist magazine Psychic Observer, arranged to film two seances at Camp Chesterfield, Indiana, using infrared film, intending to procure scientific proof of spirit materializations. The medium was shown the camera beforehand, and was aware that she was being filmed. However, the film revealed obvious fraud on the part of the medium and her cabinet assistant. The exposé was published in the 10 July 1960 issue of the Psychic Observer.

In 1966 the son of Bishop Pike committed suicide. After his death, Pike contacted the British medium Ena Twigg for a series of séances and she claimed to have communicated with his son. Although Twigg denied formerly knowing anything about Pike and his son, the magician John Booth discovered that Twigg had already known information about the Pike family before the séances. Twigg had belonged to the same denomination of Bishop Pike, he had preached at a cathedral in Kent and she had known information about him and his deceased son from newspapers.

In 1970 two psychical researchers investigated the direct-voice medium Leslie Flint and found that all the "spirit" voices in his séance sounded exactly like himself and attributed his mediumship to "second-rate ventriloquism". The medium Arthur Ford died leaving specific instructions that all of his files should be burned. In 1971 after his death, psychical researchers discovered his files but instead of burning them they were examined and discovered to be filled with obituaries, newspaper articles and other information, which enabled Ford to research his séance sitters backgrounds.

Ronald Pearsall in his book Table-rappers: The Victorians and the Occult (1972) documented how every Victorian medium investigated had been exposed as using trickery, in the book he revealed how mediums would even use acrobatic techniques during séances to convince audiences of spirit presences.

In 1976, M. Lamar Keene, a medium in Florida and at the Spiritualist Camp Chesterfield in Indiana, confessed to defrauding the public in his book The Psychic Mafia. Keene detailed a multitude of common stage magic techniques utilized by mediums which are supposed to give an appearance of paranormal powers or supernatural involvement.

After her death in the 1980s the medium Doris Stokes was accused of fraud, by author and investigator Ian Wilson. Wilson stated that Mrs Stokes planted specific people in her audience and did prior research into her sitters. Rita Goold a physical medium during the 1980s was accused of fraud, by the psychical researcher Tony Cornell. He claimed she would dress up as the spirits in her séances and would play music during them which provided cover for her to change clothes.

The British journalist Ruth Brandon published the book The Spiritualists (1983) which exposed the fraud of the Victorian mediums. The book received positive reviews and has been influential to skeptics of spiritualism. The British apport medium Paul McElhoney was exposed as a fraud during a séance in Osset, Yorkshire in 1983. The tape recorder that McElhoney took to his séances was investigated and a black tape was discovered bound around the battery compartment and inside carnation flowers were found as well as a key-ring torch and other objects.

In 1988, the magician Bob Couttie criticized the paranormal author Brian Inglis for deliberately ignoring evidence of fraud in mediumship. Couttie wrote Inglis had not familiarized himself with magician techniques. In 1990 the researcher Gordon Stein discovered that the levitation photograph of the medium Carmine Mirabelli was fraudulent. The photograph was a trick as there were signs of chemical retouching under Mirabelli's feet. The retouching showed that Mirabelli was not levitating but was standing on a ladder which was erased from the photograph.

In 1991, Wendy Grossman in the New Scientist criticized the parapsychologist Stephen E. Braude for ignoring evidence of fraud in mediumship. According to Grossman "[Braude] accuses sceptics of ignoring the evidence he believes is solid, but himself ignores evidence that does not suit him. If a medium was caught cheating on some occasions, he says, the rest of that medium's phenomena were still genuine." Grossman came to the conclusion that Braude did not do proper research on the subject and should study "the art of conjuring."

In 1992, Richard Wiseman analyzed the Feilding report of Eusapia Palladino and argued that she employed a secret accomplice that could enter the room by a fake door panel positioned near the séance cabinet. Wiseman discovered this trick was already mentioned in a book from 1851, he also visited a carpenter and skilled magician who constructed a door within an hour with a false panel. The accomplice was suspected to be her second husband, who insisted on bringing Palladino to the hotel where the séances took place. Massimo Polidoro and Gian Marco Rinaldi also analyzed the Feilding report but came to the conclusion no secret accomplice was needed as Palladino during the 1908 Naples séances could have produced the phenomena by using her foot.

Colin Fry was exposed in 1992 when during a séance the lights were unexpectedly turned on and he was seen holding a spirit trumpet in the air, which the audience had been led to believe was being levitated by spiritual energy. In 1997, Massimo Polidoro and Luigi Garlaschelli produced wax-moulds directly from one's hand which were exactly the same copies as Gustav Geley obtained from Franek Kluski, which are kept at the Institute Metapsychique International.

A series of mediumistic séances known as the Scole Experiment took place between 1993 and 1998 in the presence of the researchers David Fontana, Arthur Ellison and Montague Keen. This has produced photographs, audio recordings and physical objects which appeared in the dark séance room (known as apports). A criticism of the experiment was that it was flawed because it did not rule out the possibility of fraud. The skeptical investigator Brian Dunning wrote the Scole experiments fail in many ways. The séances were held in the basement of two of the mediums, only total darkness was allowed with no night vision apparatus as it might "frighten the spirits away". The box containing the film was not examined and could easily have been accessible to fraud. And finally, even though many years have passed, there has been no follow-up, no further research by any credible agency or published accounts.

Recent
The VERITAS Research Program of the Laboratory for Advances in Consciousness and Health in the Department of Psychology at the University of Arizona, run by the parapsychologist Gary Schwartz, was created primarily to test the hypothesis that the consciousness (or identity) of a person survives physical death. Schwartz claimed his experiments were indicative of survival, but do not yet provide conclusive proof. The experiments described by Schwartz have received criticism from the scientific community for being inadequately designed and using poor controls.

Ray Hyman discovered many methodological errors with Schwartz's research including; "Inappropriate control comparisons", "Failure to use double-blind procedures", "Creating non-falsifiable outcomes by reinterpreting failures as successes" and "Failure to independently check on facts the sitters endorsed as true". Hyman wrote "Even if the research program were not compromised by these defects, the claims being made would require replication by independent investigators." Hyman criticizes Schwartz's decision to publish his results without gathering "evidence for their hypothesis that would meet generally accepted scientific criteria... they have lost credibility."

In 2003, skeptic investigator Massimo Polidoro in his book Secrets of the Psychics documented the history of fraud in mediumship and spiritualistic practices as well as the psychology of psychic deception. Terence Hines in his book Pseudoscience and the Paranormal (2003) has written:

"Modern spiritualists and psychics keep detailed files on their victims. As might be expected, these files can be very valuable and are often passed on from one medium or psychic to another when one retires or dies. Even if a psychic doesn't use a private detective or have immediate access to driver's license records and such, there is still a very powerful technique that will allow the psychic to convince people that the psychic knows all about them, their problems, and their deep personal secrets, fears, and desires. The technique is called cold reading and is probably as old as charlatanism itself... If John Edward (or any of the other self-proclaimed speakers with the dead) really could communicate with the dead, it would be a trivial matter to prove it. All that would be necessary would be for him to contact any of the thousands of missing persons who are presumed dead—famous (e.g., Jimmy Hoffa, Judge Crater) or otherwise—and correctly report where the body is. Of course, this is never done. All we get, instead, are platitudes to the effect that Aunt Millie, who liked green plates, is happy on the other side."

An experiment conducted by the British Psychological Society in 2005 suggests that under the controlled condition of the experiment, people who claimed to be professional mediums do not demonstrate the mediumistic ability. In the experiment, mediums were assigned to work the participants chosen to be "sitters." The mediums claimed to contact the deceased who were related to the sitters. The research gather the numbers of the statements made and have the sitters rate the accuracy of the statements. The readings that were considered to be somewhat accurate by the sitters were very generalized, and the ones that were considered inaccurate were the ones that were very specific.

On Fox News on the Geraldo at Large show, October 6, 2007, Geraldo Rivera and other investigators accused Schwartz of being a fraud as he had overstepped his position as a university researcher by requesting over three million dollars from a bereaved father who had lost his son. Schwartz claimed to have contacted the spirit of a 25-year-old man in the bathroom of his parents house and it is alleged he attempted to charge the family 3.5 million dollars for his mediumship services. Schwartz responded saying that the allegations were set up to destroy his science credibility.

In 2013 Rose Marks and members of her family were convicted of fraud for a series of crimes spanning 20 years entailing between $20 and $45 million. They told vulnerable clients that to solve their problems they had to give the purported psychics money and valuables. Marks and family promised to return the cash and goods after "cleansing" them. Prosecutors established they had no intent to return the property.

The exposures of fraudulent activity led to a rapid decline in ectoplasm and materialization séances. Investigator Joe Nickell has written that modern self-proclaimed mediums like John Edward, Sylvia Browne, Rosemary Altea and James Van Praagh are avoiding the Victorian tradition of dark rooms, spirit handwriting and flying tambourines as these methods risk exposure. They instead use "mental mediumship" tactics like cold reading or gleaning information from sitters beforehand (hot reading). Group readings also improve hits by making general statements with conviction, which will fit at least one person in the audience. Shows are carefully edited before airing to show only what appears to be hits and removing anything that does not reflect well on the medium.

Michael Shermer criticized mediums in Scientific American, saying, "mediums are unethical and dangerous: they prey on the emotions of the grieving. As grief counselors know, death is best faced head-on as a part of life." Shermer wrote that the human urge to seek connections between events that may form patterns meaningful for survival is a function of natural evolution, and called the alleged ability of mediums to talk to the dead "a well-known illusion of a meaningful pattern."

According to James Randi, a skeptic who has debunked many claims of psychic ability and uncovered fraudulent practices, mediums who do cold readings "fish, suggest possibilities, make educated guesses and give options." Randi offered $1 million US dollars for anyone who could demonstrate psychic ability under controlled conditions. Most prominent psychics and mediums did not take up his offer.

The key role in mediumship of this sort is played by "effect of subjective confirmation" (see Barnum effect) — people are predisposed to consider reliable that information which though is casual coincidence or a guess, however it seems to them personally important and significant and answers their personal belief.

The article about this phenomenon in Encyclopædia Britannica places emphasis that "… one by one spiritual mediums were convicted of fraud, sometimes using the tricks borrowed from scenic "magicians" to convince their paranormal abilities". In the article it is also noted that "… the opening of the wide ranging fraud happening on spiritualistic sessions caused serious damage to reputation of the movement of a Spiritualism and in the USA pushed it on the public periphery".

In March 2017, medium Thomas John was targeted in a sting operation and caught doing a hot reading. The sting was planned and implemented by skeptical activist Susan Gerbic and mentalist Mark Edward. The unmarried couple attended John's show using aliases, and were "read" as a married couple Susanna and Mark Wilson by John. During the entire reading, John failed to determine the actual identities of Gerbic and Edward, or that they were being deceptive during his reading. All personal information he gave them matched what was on their falsified Facebook accounts, rather than being about their actual lives, and John pretended he was getting this information from Gerbic and Edward's supposedly dead—but actually nonexistent—relatives.

As Jack Hitt reported in The New York Times: "'Over the course of the reading, John comfortably laid down the specifics of Susanna Wilson’s life — he named “Andy” and amazingly knew him to be her twin. He knew that she and her brother grew up in Michigan and that his girlfriend was Maria. He knew about Susanna’s father-in-law and how he died.'"

These details were from the falsified Facebook accounts for the pair which were prepared by a group of skeptics in advance of the reading, and Gerbic and Edward were not aware of the specific information in these accounts. This blinding was done in order to avoid John later being able to claim he obtained the false information by reading Gerbic and Edward's minds. In her report, Gerbic also revealed that during an after-show private event, John disclosed in a group setting that at least one of the people in the audience which he did a reading about was actually his own student.

The same week that the Thomas John sting revelation was made in The New York Times, John's claimed mediumship abilities portrayed in the Lifetime reality TV show called Seatbelt Psychic were challenged by Gerbic in an article published by Skeptical Inquirer. In the show, John is a ride-share driver who surprises “unsuspecting” passengers when he delivers messages from their deceased relatives. Gerbic investigated and revealed that John's passengers are actually actors, several of which are documented in IMDb. Gerbic concluded that the riders were likely hired to ride with John, but were probably not acting when talking with him. She concluded that the details about their lives mentioned by John were easily found on social media sources, and likely fed to John, making the readings actually hot readings. One rider, Wendy Westmoreland, played a character on Stalked by a Doctor, a TV show also produced by Lifetime.

title: Mediumship


text:
Mustahabb

Mustahabb (مُسْتَحَبّ) is an Islamic term referring to an action or thing that is recommended and favoured.

Mustahabb actions are those whose ruling (ahkam) in Islamic law falls between mubah (neutral; neither encouraged nor discouraged) and wajib (compulsory). One definition is "duties recommended, but not essential; fulfilment of which is rewarded, though they may be neglected without punishment". Synonyms of mustahabb include masnun and mandub. The opposite of mustahabb is makruh (discouraged).

Parallels have been drawn between the concept of mustahabb in Islamic law and the concept of supererogatory acts in the Western philosophical tradition.

Examples
There are possibly thousands of mustahabb acts, including:

 * As-Salamu Alaykum (a traditional Islamic greeting) (though responding to the greeting is an obligation)
 * Sadaqah (charity outside of zakat)
 * Umrah (except in the Shafi'i and Hanbali madhhab, wherein it is fard)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Mustahabb


text:
File:Pallas-Athena.gif

Gustav Klimt's painting "Pallas Athena", Wien Karlsplatz Museum, Vienna

see also Image:Gustav Klimt 045.jpg.

title: File:Pallas-Athena.gif


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Link whoring

 This page is an archive of the proposed deletion of the article below. Further comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or on a Votes for Undeletion nomination). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was delete. FCYTravis 06:55, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

Link whoring & Link whore
Dicdef neologisms. I see no potential for expansion. They are already at Wiktionary. Delete. --Dmcdevit·t 01:47, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete as per Dmcdevit. Hamster Sandwich 05:03, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete dicdef. JamesBurns 09:03, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete as per Dmcdevit.--Bhadani 10:21, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * delete --Melaen 15:51, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete dicdef. --Ragib 17:44, 20 July 2005 (UTC)
 * Delete dictdef. Ken 20:55, July 20, 2005 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in an undeletion request). No further edits should be made to this page.


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Mubah

Mubāḥ (Arabic: مباح) is an Arabic word roughly meaning "permitted", which has technical uses in Islamic law.

In uṣūl al-fiqh (principles of Islamic jurisprudence), mubāḥ is one of the five degrees of approval (ahkam):
 * 1)  (واجب / فرض) - compulsory, obligatory
 * 2)  (مستحب) - recommended
 * 3)  (مباح) - neutral, not involving God's judgment
 * 4)  (مكروه) - disliked, reprehensible
 * 5)  (محظور / حرام) - forbidden

Mubah is commonly translated as "neutral" or "permitted" in English., "indifferent" or "(merely) permitted". It refers to an action that is not mandatory, recommended, reprehensible or forbidden, and thus involves no judgement from God. Assigning acts to this legal category reflects a deliberate choice rather than an oversight on the part of jurists.

In Islamic property law, the term mubāḥ refers to things which have no owner. It is similar to the concept res nullius used in Roman law and common law.

title: Mubah


text:
Talk:Waw (letter)

For the Record
A Roman Catholic medical institution has been known to administer the marking of the forehead of individuals with a mark similar to the Hebrew and Aramaic letters shown in the article. One does not even have to be older than five to seven years of age to receive the mark. The mark does not guarantee a long life free of being murdered at the hands of another, either. If, after dying, one requests to go to Heaven dead, a fella in Heaven raises them from the dead and traces his finger across the mark; then the individual is set back down upon the Earth in a continuation of life. Gnostics (talk) 03:18, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Syriac letters
Why are the Syriac version of the letters either undetailed, not given enough detail, or not included in the article? example Ayin doesn't have a Syriac part of it even though it's part of the Syriac alphabet. Please add a more detailed part of the Syriac alphabet, the Syriac/Aramaic alphabet is older than the Hebrew alphabet. 66.92.128.140 (talk) 08:35, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Why font variants for Hebrew?
I don't think we should be showing two font variants for the Hebrew letter vav in the summary table. For almost all letters, the two forms are very similar, much more similar than the variants in Arabic (for example). The space would be much better used to show more distant variants such as Syriac. Note that I have also argued against showing font variants in the Greek alphabet article. I know that the other Phoenician letters have two variants -- that should be changed in time.... --Macrakis 01:45, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Pronunciation
It is unclear whether this letter is pronounced like English W or V. Anything it depends on (e.g. variant of Hebrew, time in history, etc.) Georgia guy 19:42, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

Pronounciation Answer
According to the article W is not a native phenome of that region, therefore it follows that they would pronounce it as V. Scratchnloved 23:55, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

ahavtah
To my knowledge "you loved" is 'ahavta' (אהבת) for masculine singular, for feminine singular it would be 'ahavt' which is written the same way in Hebrew but with different nikkud.--rjc 16:33, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Vav and not Waw
When did post-ancient Jews start calling this letter Vav, ie when did the sound change from /w/ to /v/ occur? Obviously, Ruth רות, for example, isn't pronounced "Revet", neither is עםוס pronounced "Amevos", so Waw maintains its original value in biblical times, as can be seen in Greek transliterations of Hebrew names. עזםות is transliterated as Αζμωθ, with an omega for the Waw. Avot, which I would write Abot, has a Waw for the /o/ and a Bet for the /v/. --  spin control 09:02, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, vav originated as /w/ or /Bilabial approximant/; the long /o/ was originally the diphthong /aw/, as even today the difference between spoken Arabic and literary Arabic shows, e.g. "day" in literary Arabic is pronounced and in spoken Arabic   (Modern Hebrew ) – similarly to the way English "faun" is pronounced  whereas German preserves the diphthong pronunciation . Don't know when the shift occurred, though. Dan Pelleg (talk) 17:52, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

When was it ever pronounced though? I thought the sound was in Biblical Hebrew (which it still is in Mizrahi dialects) and this changed to  under the influence of European languages.AlexanderKaras (talk) 07:30, 30 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Is it only coincidental that in Persian it's also vav? TFighterPilot (talk) 09:04, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

 * According to the Hebrew alphabet subsection of the article on alphabets in the Encyclopedia Britannica "though it must be borne in mind that for several letters (waw, het, tzade, qof, shin, sin, and so forth) the exact original phonetic value is still uncertain." However they do seem to think that "waw" is the best idea we have of the original pronunciation.  Someone with authoritative knowledge on the subject should rework the "Hebrew Vav" subsection to include the distinction between modern Hebrew "vav" and the ancient and classical Hebrew "waw".Lpt101095 (talk) 04:58, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

THe move away from "waw" was undiscussed, and very ill-advised. These things should be discussed in detail, and with the proper expertise, but this should happen before people start moving things around on a whim.

I respect that this letter happens to be pronounced as /vav/ in Modern Hebrew. This is worth noting, but this is an article about a family of Iron Age script, not about the phonology of Modern Hebrew. For details on the phonology of Modern Hebrew, kindly turn to Modern Hebrew phonology. --dab (𒁳) 10:41, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

 * Lumping all genetically related letters from different Semitic languages in single articles was a bad decision (I suppose it was discussed somewhere?). Would anybody think it sane to combine e.g. the three articles about Latin Y, Greek Υ and Cyrillic У into one? Or even better, let's lump them all in here – they all decended from Phoenician waw.png – Phoenician Waw – didn't they. Dan ☺ 19:16, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

 * When I was a child of ten to twelve, I had the privilege of living in Germany, in the small town of Ramstein (in the Rhineland Palatinate), a town surrounded by a neat and trim forest, and mediaeval castles, and many a quaint villages overlaid with cobblestones, &c. It was there that I had my first encounter with the German language. European Jewry, of course, was steeped for many centuries in the German culture, and Yiddish (the Lingua Franca of European Jews) has its marked German influence, as everyone knows. However, what very few people know is that in the German language there is no "W" sound, as in English. In German, as also in Yiddish, the "W" is pronounced as an English "V," as in wasser (water) = pronounced "vasser;" or the German was, (what) = pronounced "vass." So, naturally, having no "W" sound, the Jews of Europe who had been reared upon the German language, when they saw the Hebrew letter ו (wāw), they pronounced it as "vāv." When European Jewry came up to Israel and spread their native speech in their new homeland, the same vernacular was quickly caught on by the common masses. The Yemenite Jews, as far as I know, are the only Jews in Israel who continue to read wāw as wāw (i.e. as the English "w") in all of their biblical lections and liturgical readings. Originally, all Jews in Arab countries pronounced the wāw (vāv) as the English "W".Davidbena (talk) 00:44, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

Maltese "u" (sometimes "w")
May be worth noting a comparison to the Maltese "u" (sometimes written /pronunced "w" ). NOte to self. 「ѕʀʟ·✎」 05:39, 1 December 2012 (UTC)
 * However, this article is about the related graphemes, not phonemes, isn't it? Dan ☺ 18:15, 2 December 2012 (UTC)

Why examples in English?
Why are the usage examples just English transliterated? Can't we use actual languages using these letters?

37.123.181.206 (talk) 22:09, 28 December 2019 (UTC)

Vav or Waw
There is a discussion at Talk:Vav-consecutive about moving Vav-consecutive back to Waw-consecutive. Does anyone here have views? (Please comment there, not here.) Doric Loon (talk) 14:55, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Waw (letter)


text:
Talk:Al dente

Picture removed
The picture in this article is removed as it does not demonstrate or provide an example that will make the reader understand the meaning of the subject. It just shows a plate of pasta, which should appropriately be under the subject "Pasta". It does not in anyway educate the reader on what "Al Dente" is, or what is not. It is also referring and linked to a restaurant chain, making it like an advertisement of one of its Pasta dishes.

213.215.245.38 (talk) 19:34, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

22 Oct 2015: Just wanted to leave a comment here that the current picture of that Pastamania "carbonara" is an abomination, and surely there is a better non-copyrighted photo that can be used in its place. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.54.61.76 (talk) 05:22, 22 October 2015 (UTC)

 * I can't agree more, this picture is not only offensively ugly, and an unnecessary advertisement, but there is no way to see how the pasta is cooked. I replaced it with one of a pot of cooking spaghetti pasta. While they are not al dente (yet), nor sow what al dente is, at least they represent that al dente is related with the action of cooking pasta. Calimo (talk) 06:52, 24 October 2019 (UTC)

This whole article stinks. It's just awful. Please rewrite the whole thing.
That thing the header says. ^ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.245.212.163 (talk) 04:37, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Usage
It is unclear from the opening sentence whether this should be used as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb. Michael Hardy 01:45, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

It can be used as an adjective (pasta al dente) or as an adverb (to cook al dente) Aragost 17:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

cooking method?
I remember being told that a critical part of making pasta al dente was the procedure: salting the water, getting the water to a furious, rolling boil before adding the pasta, and most importantly cooking in an uncovered pot. Are these necessary steps, or is it simply much more difficult to reach the al dente stage without overcooking when you cover the pot, add the pasta too early, leave out the salt, etc.?

I am pretty sure that fat does not tend to make pasta not stick together. The stickiness comes from excess gluten, which gets washed away in the colander after the pasta is drained. Tossing the pasta with oil or fat is unnecessary, except if you like the taste of it that way. Suchire 18:55, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

cooking time
One of the most important indicators of cooking pasta al dente is the cooking time mentioned on the package. This is especially true of Italian pasta manufacturers such as Barilla and others, all of whom clearly state cooking time on the box for each kind of pasta. Some varieties of pasta cook to the al dente stage faster than others. The cooking time always indicates the time from when the pasta is added to salted boiling water to when it is drained (as opposed to bringing the water and pasta to a boil together which will always result in pasta scotta, i.e. overcooked pasta.
 * I find this sentence not correct: Cooking pasta to the "al dente" stage without over-cooking requires a certain amount of practice and skill. The only skills you need is reading (the cooking time on the package) and using a count down watch. --MrBurns (talk) 22:53, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, I concur. I've never found it difficult to make good pasta. Of course, there's always the possibility that I've been doing it wrong my whole life... but it's hard to verify that, since "al dente" is such a difficult concept to explain in words. Salvar (talk) 20:45, 27 June 2009 (UTC)
 * ACK. Even if you missed to look to a clock, you can easily take some out of the pot to taste it and decide if they are finished. I removed this part. --85.180.76.216 (talk) 14:00, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

History of the Phrase?
I don't have any evidence of this, but "al dente" sounds like an abbreviation of an earlier, longer phrase, e.g. "firm to the tooth", which then became shortened to just "to the tooth". Can anyone confirm or disconfirm this? Fried Gold 17:20, 23 July 2007 (UTC)
 * You could probably get a good answer on the Italian Wikipedia. Banaticus (talk) 17:49, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Glycemic index
The claim that cooking pasta al dente reduces its glycemic index may be a myth. The source given is an American Diabetes Association web page that does not cite any scholarly research. To the contrary, at least one study has shown that there is no significant relationship between cooking time and pasta's impact on blood glucose: Wolever et al., "Glycemic response to pasta: effect of surface area, degree of cooking, and protein enrichment," Diabetes Care, 1986 Jul-Aug; 9(4):401-4. Fyedernoggersnodden (talk) 01:32, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

 * This would seem to overstate the results of the 1986 study, which did observe a statistically insignificant increase in glycemic index with the overcooked pasta, used very small sample sizes, and also was not an apple to apples comparison, as more than just coking time was varied between the two samples. I would support changing the wording to stating explicitly that the ADA claims this, and I would prefer a more modern source. But I don't have a problem with weighing the conclusions of an authority in 2012 over this particular study from 1986. There are many well accepted results on Wikipedia that are contradicted by far more convincing results from the 1980s. EntropyTV (talk) 16:49, 12 May 2020 (UTC)

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User talk:Sebastian Henckel

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Richard Lee (engineer)

Sir Richard Lee (1513–1575) was a military engineer in the service of Henry VIII of England, Edward VI and Elizabeth I. He was a commander of Henry VIII and appointed surveyor of the King's works. Lee was member of parliament for Hertfordshire in 1545. He was the first English engineer to be knighted.

Surveyor of Calais
Between 1536 and 1542 Lee was surveyor of works at Calais as the successor of William Lilgrave. He may have been a master mason, and his promotion was due to Thomas Cromwell. In 1538 he returned to England to advise Thomas Wriothesley on the conversion of Titchfield Abbey. Following the dissolution of St Albans Abbey he himself purchased the grounds of the abbey (the abbey church itself was sold by King Edward VI to the people of St Albans in 1553), with Sopwell Priory and the rectorship of St Stephen's church (both of which were nearby). He tore down the priory and built a Tudor house on the site which he named Lee Hall. He also purchased the manor of Abbots Langley.

In 1539 he was back at Calais implementing plans for re-fortification devised by Henry VIII in 1532. Only brick was available at Calais so Lee shipped freestone and timber from Kent, with salvaged material from the demolished monasteries at Faversham and St. Augustines, Canterbury. Lee constructed a new harbour at Dykeland on the Hammes river for the Kentish ships. In 1541 Lee started building a trefoil shaped bulwark called the Dublin Tower.

In Scotland
During the war of the Rough Wooing, in January 1544 Richard was sent into Scotland with the Italian engineers Antonio da Bergamo and John Thomas Scala, as expert men in the skill of fortifying. With the Surveyor of Calais, William Burgate, he joined Lord Hertford's raid on Edinburgh in May 1544. Lee pronounced Edinburgh Castle to be impregnable, and made plans of the town and Leith. He was knighted by Lord Hertford at Leith. Lee is generally believed to have plundered the Dunkeld Lectern from Holyrood Abbey during an attack on Edinburgh in 1544. He certainly took the brass font from Holyrood once used to christen Scottish monarchs. Now destroyed, it was formerly at St Albans with his name and the story of its capture in 1544 was engraved on it.

After the battle of Pinkie Cleugh in September 1547, Lee was made General Surveyor of the King's Majesty's works and fortifications in the North parts, for the duration of the Scottish war.

Coastal defence
Around 1550-1552, Lee was at Berwick-upon-Tweed constructing the novel trace-italienne fortifications. In 1557, he was trench-master to the Earl of Pembroke in the Netherlands, and, in 1558, went to Berwick as Surveyor of Works.

After working at Portsmouth, in 1560 Richard was again supervising the re-fortification of Berwick, by correspondence with Rowland Johnston and in person in April. He was to "set forward the device for Berwick": to design the new works. Lee also went to the Siege of Leith on 27 April 1560 asked to, "prick them forward to an end." This was probably to help plan the assault on 7 May which failed. Lee made a map of Leith which was sent to London on 15 May 1560. Lee and Pelham, a captain at Leith, were called before Elizabeth I of England in June 1564, perhaps to give their testimony on affairs at Leith. When in London at this period, Lee stayed at the house of Mr. Graisse in Cheapside. In 1565, Lee viewed the site of Lindisfarne Castle on Beblowe Crag.

List of works

 * Berwick upon Tweed
 * Calais
 * Dover Harbour
 * Harwich and Langar Point
 * Lindisfarne Castle
 * Siege of Leith
 * Norham Castle; July 1550 with Sir Thomas Palmer.
 * Portsmouth
 * Queenborough
 * Roxburgh Fort
 * Sandown, Isle of Wight
 * Tynemouth Castle; March 1545 with Gian Tommaso Scala and Antonio da Bergamo.
 * Upnor Castle

title: Richard Lee (engineer)


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User talk:StevePreddy~enwiki

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User:Roman Soldier

Account Deleted. Roman Soldier 01:18, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

title: User:Roman Soldier


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Talk:Chausie

TICA information
I noticed a lot of this article is based on TICA cat show standards in defining the breed. I realize there are other cat organizations beside TICA. Is that typical for other purebred cat articles? Jooojay (talk) 06:54, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

I added cats portal.
I added cats portal because this article relates to cats. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.19.75.28 (talk) 02:57, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

title: Talk:Chausie


text: File:Baby Ruth sign 1935.JPG

title: File:Baby Ruth sign 1935.JPG


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Talk:Assault with a deadly weapon

Hopefully this helps clarify the term. ILFoxtrot July, 19, 2005. 21:47 hrs.

source
[Copied from User talk:MrFizyx]: 5/12-1 Assault (a) A person commits an assault when, without lawful authority, he engages in conduct which places another in reasonable apprehension of recieving a battery.

5/12-3 Battery (a) A person commits battery if he intentonally or knowing without legal justification and by any means (1) causes bodily harm to an individual or (2) makes physical contact of an insulting or provoking nature with an individual

5/12-2 Aggravated assault (a) A person commits an aggravated assault, when, in committing an assault he:(1) uses a deadly weapon or any device manufactured and designed to be substatally similar in appearance to a firearm, other than by discharging a firearm in the directon of another person ... (and the statute continues with many subclauses). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ILFoxtrot (talk • contribs).

title: Talk:Assault with a deadly weapon


text: User talk:68.49.233.138

title: User talk:68.49.233.138


text:
Kick Ass (Hiaasen book)

Kick Ass is the first of three books which highlight some of Carl Hiaasen's best columns in the newspaper Miami Herald. It was published in 1999, and followed by Paradise Screwed: Selected Columns (2001) and Dance of the Reptiles (2014).

The editor, Diane Stevenson, selected columns that focused on Hiaasen's views on growth and government in Florida. Kirkus described Hiaasen as "a crystalline, pitiless seer of human weakness" and stated the book is "deeply satisfying, both for what it reveals of the serious priorities of a supposedly light novelist and for the outrageous epic of Florida profiteering and entropy within."

title: Kick Ass (Hiaasen book)


text:
Caught in the Act

Caught in the Act may refer to:

Film and television

 * Caught in the Act (1931 film), a comedy film directed by Hanns Schwarz and Georges Tréville
 * Caught in the Act (1941 film), an American comedy film directed by Jean Yarbrough
 * Caught in the Act (1997 film), a comedy film starring Sara Crowe, Annette Badland, Nadia Sawalha and Paul Shelley
 * Caught in the Act (2008 film), a comedy film written by and starring Steve Speirs as the lead character
 * "Caught in the Act", a 2004 episode of Frasier
 * "Caught in the Act", a 1970 episode of The Goodies
 * "Caught in the Act", a 2011 episode of Modern Family
 * "Caught in the Act", a 1995 episode of The Outer Limits
 * COPS: Caught in the Act, a 2004 DVD release of the American documentary television show COPS
 * Caught In The Act, a sketch comedy series produced by David Dillehunt from 1999 to 2004
 * Caught in the Act, a 1993 television movie

Music

 * Caught in the Act (group), a half English, half Dutch boy group

Albums

 * Caught in the Act (Michael Bublé album), 2005
 * Caught in the Act (Debra Byrne album), 1991
 * Caught in the Act (Eric Church album), 2013
 * Caught in the Act by Cinderella, reissue title of Live at the Key Club, 1999
 * Caught in the Act (Commodores album), 1975
 * Caught in the Act (Didirri album), 2023
 * Caught in the Act, Eric Gable album, 1989
 * Caught in the Act, Steve Gibbons Band album, 1977
 * Caught in the Act (Grand Funk Railroad album), 1975
 * Caught in the Act (Pamyua album), 2003 album by Pamyua
 * Caught in the Act (Redgum album), 1983
 * Caught in the Act (Styx album), 1984

Songs

 * "Caught in the Act", song by Chaka Khan from I Feel for You (1985)
 * "Caught in the Act", song by Redgum from Caught in the Act (Redgum album) (1983)

Other

 * In flagrante delicto, Latin legal term for being caught in the commission of an offense
 * Garfield: Caught in the Act, a 1995 game for the Sega Genesis
 * Caught in the Act (ballet), 2000 ballet by Tim Rushton
 * Caught in the Act or Kilroy Was Here, a rock opera film by Styx

title: Caught in the Act