MEDIUMSHIP: SEEING MEDIUMS

Clairvoyant and Somnambulic Mediums | Important Distinctions |
At the Mediumship Sessions | Mental Influence

Clairvoyant and Somnambulic Mediums

Seeing mediums are those who see spirits. This faculty is rare and is seldom permanent.

Normally, when we refer to seeing mediums, we refer to those who possess this faculty in their normal state, when they are perfectly awake, and who preserve an exact recollection of what they have seen.  The seeing mediums that are referred to as clairvoyant are those who see with great clarity, and who do so just the same with their eyes open or closed. They may feel as if they are seeing with their bodily eyes, but in reality, it is with the eyes of their soul that they see, through the action of their perispirit.  Proof of this is found in the seeing mediums who are blind, materially speaking, but are able to see spirits and things of the spiritual realm.  There are some mediums who see only with their eyes open; Rigonatti describes this saying that "the cause of their sight resides in their eyes, which become sensitive under the fluidic action of the spirit that wants to be seen by the medium. In this state of optic sensibility, the medium sees in thought."

Though we normally refer to seeing mediums who see spirits while awake, as Kardec points out, there are those who only see spirits in a somnambulic state, or one bordering on it.  (See somnambulic mediums on menu bar at left).  Kardec also says that we may also include, in the category of seeing mediums, those endowed with second-sight, also called double vision, which takes place when the liberation of the soul occurs in the waking state.  (See somnambulic mediums on menu bar at left, subsection Second Sight ).  Regarding the vision of spirits in dreams, Kardec says that it "undoubtedly results from a sort of medianimity, but, properly speaking, it does not constitute the "seeing medium."