Support For Christianity Among Some Of The Foremost Mediums

Something that doesn't get enough attention in discussions of mediumship is how often some of the mediums with the most documented paranormal abilities have supported Christianity in one way or another. I'm not saying that their mediumship was consistent with Christianity, that these mediums were in contact with the spirits they claimed to be in contact with, or anything like that. As I've explained before, I think that there's a lot of genuine paranormal activity (along with much that's inauthentic) in mediumship, near-death experiences, and other such contexts. But I think what's often involved is human paranormal capacities, meaning that the experiences often reflect the human mind, including its fallibility, sinful tendencies, and so on. Still, it's worth noting how prominent support for Christianity and certain aspects of Christianity (e.g., monotheism, a future judgment) often have been among mediums, near-death experiencers, people who have deathbed experiences, and so forth. That doesn't sit well with the sort of religious pluralism, universalism, relativism, and such that we often hear from many advocates of the paranormal in our day.

Gregory Shushan provides some examples in his recent book on the afterlife:

[Gladys] Leonard had the most consistent and numerous evidential sittings of perhaps any other medium….

It is difficult to accept the [afterlife] descriptions [in Leonard] at face value when so much of the content seems calculated to reassure a hopeful, middle-class Edwardian reverend that the afterlife preserves the earthly status quo.

One spirit described the afterlife journey as travelling "upward" through a cave-like opening to meet "our Lord."…

Buddhists, Muslims, "and others" do not immediately accept Christ upon passing into the spirit realm, though they eventually do….

Similarly, Eileen Garrett communicated a statement from a spirit - said to have progressed as high as the third sphere - that "the Christian religion is above all others" which are simply "wrong"; and that it is the duty of Christians to enlighten "heathens" and "savages" (Thomas 1928: 131).

(The Next World [United States: White Crow Books, 2022], approximate Kindle locations 1796, 1837, 2127)

Shushan refers to the "Christian supremacy" often found in mediumship (2127).

Stephen Braude has occasionally discussed that sort of material in his work on mediums. See his comments on D.D. Home, a medium who produced highly evidential results, in The Limits Of Influence (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, Inc., 1997). As an adolescent, Home and one of his friends "had spent many hours together reading the Bible" (63). Braude writes:

Daniel [Home], unlike his aunt, felt that the [paranormal] manifestations were expressions of God's goodness. During the attempted exorcism [performed by some ministers at the request of Home's aunt], it seemed to him as if the raps and object movements displayed God's participation in his prayers. And once, when Mrs. Cook tried to subdue a moving table by placing a Bible upon it, "the table only moved in a more lively manner, as if pleased to bear such a burden" (Home, 1863/1972, p. 7) Apparently, then, the phenomena that so appalled his aunt only reinforced Home's already deep religious convictions. (64)

Braude quotes an account in which, just after performing some of his phenomena, Home "fell on his knees, looked up in a reverent manner, held up the coal in front and said, 'Is not God good? Are not His laws wonderful?'" (79).