as an occultist, spirit medium, and author who co-founded the Theosophical Society in 1875. She gained an international following as the leading theoretician of Theosophy, the esoteric movement that the Society promoted.

Mediumship can be distinguished as two basic types: 

Mental Mediumship 

Physical Mediumship 

Mental mediumship involves the relating of information, through communication, via the varied aspects of thought transference, or mental telepathy. Mental telepathy is the relaying of information via thought, without using any of the five physical senses. Mental mediumship takes place within the consciousness of the medium. The results are expressed verbally and must pass through the medium's mouth. Because of its telepathic nature, mental mediumship is sometimes referred to as telepathic mediumship. 

There are a number of different forms or types of spiritual mediumship and channeling. They may be broadly classified under either mental mediumship or physical mediumship. Mental mediumship as the term suggests relies upon the mind or mental processes for the purposes of communication with spirit beings. It may only be the individual spiritual medium of channeler who is aware of the communication, though it is possible for a number of mediums to simultaneously connect with the same spirit. Forms or types of mental mediumship include: clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience and trance mediumship. Physical mediumship involves the production of physical phenomena which can be experienced through one or more of the physical human senses by all present. Examples of physical mediumship are: transfiguration and independent or direct voice. However, there are a wide range of other physical phenomena which may be produced through physical mediumship eg: apports, materialisation, movement of objects, lights, touches

 

A medium usually has a variety of psychic skills, but the underlying purpose behind them is threefold; to prove the existence of life after death, to console and advise others and to further develop their own spirituality. How a medium comes to be is based on many factors. Some are born to it, having been able to see spirit people when they were children, and simply developing those abilities in adulthood. Others come to it later because of a bereavement, when they seek the services of medium, and then go on to learn the skills themselves. Even curiosity can lead to the development of psychic abilities.