by Bruce Johnson —
Bruce Johnson has over 30 years of study in the fields of Ancient Wisdom and occultism. He has taught classes on a wide range of topics, from Atlantis to mediums to Zoroaster. He is also a spiritualist minister, with a background in spiritual astrology. He lives in Colorado with his wife and their cat.
The catalogue of psychic gifts is extensive, highly varied, and includes the category of physical phenomena demonstrated through mediums. Let’s examine some of these rarely seen spiritual gifts. Bilocation is achieved by projecting one’s astral body from the physical vehicle and materializing it to become visible to normal sight. Geloscomancy describes gaining psychic information from a person’s laugh. Photographology depicts the psychic impressions gained by viewing photographs. Divination of a person’s shadow is known as Sciomancy. Insight attained by the study of holes in swiss cheese is called Tiromancy.
The following genuine mediums demonstrated some amazing physical phenomena. Mrs. Margery Crandon exhibited – levitation of objects, direct voice, raps, matter through matter (interlocking two rings of different woods), psychic wax molds, telekinesis, independent writing, psychic lights (sometimes manifesting as luminous floating eyes that could blink), hand materialization, psychic breezes, and temperature drop in the séance room.
The trance medium Nettie Colburn had her first contact with President Abraham Lincoln at a séance he requested, within the White House in December of 1862. Present at the séance were Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln, Mr. and Mrs. Laurie, and their daughter Mrs. Belle Miller. Mrs. Miller was a powerful physical medium. Through Nettie’s mediumship the spirit communicator urged Mr. Lincoln to not delay, despite great political resistance, in issuing an Emancipation Proclamation order. Abraham Lincoln was told by the spirit world that the establishment of the Emancipation Proclamation would be the crowning achievement of his administration. Fortunately, President Lincoln acted on the spiritual advice given and signed the Emancipation Proclamation into law in 1863.
In advance of Mr. Lincoln’s entrance at the December 1862 séance, Mrs. Miller played a double grand piano that was in the room. As she played, the heavy end of the piano began rising and falling in time with the music. This piano levitation phenomena was repeated at a subsequent séance attended by the Lincolns, Mrs. Miller, Nettie, and other guests at Georgetown on February 5th , 1863. At that séance, another grand piano Belle was playing began to move, and eventually levitated 4 inches above the floor according to witnesses. Despite the combined weight of Mr. Lincoln and three other men who climbed on top of the hovering piano, it stayed levitated until the four men jumped off and spirit made it descend.
The English medium William Stainton Moses was known for apportation (ivory crosses, pearls and corals), remote movement of objects, musical phenomena (music heard with no instruments in the séance room), materialization of hands and columns of light, direct writing, levitation of his body and physical items, psychic lights, perfumed spirit breezes, and scent phenomena that included sandalwood, rose, musk, new-mown hay, and a special “spirit scent”.
Mrs. Etta Wriedt manifested a variety of physical phenomena including- trumpet direct voice, etherealizations, luminous phenomena, movement of physical objects, apports, and spirit breezes. Flowers were at times taken from vases by spirits and placed in the hands of the sitters. Spirit dogs materialized at seances and were seen, heard, and touched by the attendees. Occasionally, sitters were phenomenonally sprinkled with drops of water. D.D. Home displayed slate writing, body and object levitation, hand materializations, etherealizations, sound and musical phenomena, body elongation and shrinking, table-tipping, fire-immunity, scents, luminous phenomena, raps, direct writing, spirit breezes, and temperature drops. Sometimes the sound of birds in flight was heard at his seances.
