Ethical Readiness and Professionalization Among Mediums and Channelers in the United States
Siri K. Zemel, & Helané Wahbeh
Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS)
California, United States of America
The mediumship and channeling field is growing, both in terms of public interest and economic impact. However, the field of mediumship/channeling is young in its professionalization journey and faces significant hurdles in societal acceptance. While parapsychologists are scientists who work within the parapsychology field, there is currently no predominant term used to categorize parapsychology practitioners. This lack of basic terminology points to a gap between research and application.
Mediums are “individuals who report experiencing regular communication with the deceased”, and mediumship can be divided into two categories: mental and physical. The current study focuses on mental mediumship. Channeling can be broadly defined as “the process of revealing information and energy not limited by our conventional notions of space and time that can appear receptive or expressive”, and more specifically, trance channeling can be defined as “a form of channeling in which an individual willingly enters degrees of trance-like states of consciousness whereby the channel connects with sources of information that appear to exist outside of their ego-awareness”. This study combines the two practices into the single category of mediumship/channeling because they are so tightly linked and because there is not currently a strong socially accepted professional distinction between these two occupations.
Professional mediums/channelers across the country do not practice under a unified code of ethics or regulatory structure. Moreover, while a handful of field leaders offer private mentorship training, new practitioners who do not purchase these apprenticeships may lack the integrated structure and guidance to navigate early professional life as a medium/channeler. Parapsychological mentorship is offered through the international, non-profit Parapsychological Association; however, this program is designed to connect professional scientists and scholars with college and university students and does not connect non-scientific professionals with newer practitioners entering the field (Parapsychological Association, 2010; Parapsychological Association, 2021).
The study’s research objective was to assess readiness for formalized structure within the US mediumship/channeling field. The specific aims were to: identify beliefs and practices related to research, education, and training within the field; identify beliefs related to ethical standards and scope of practice guidelines; and assess views on the development of formalized professional structure within the field.
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Siri Zemel is a behavioral and integrative healthcare consultant with unique experience in business leadership, strategic planning, operations management, and transformational change. She holds a doctorate in Mind Body Medicine and serves as a volunteer researcher at the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Dr. Zemel has published and spoken on soul hunger, holistic health, and spiritual channeling.
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Program chaired by Jacob W. Glazier. Download the Abstracts at https://parapsych.org/uploaded_files/pdfs/00/00/00/01/26/2023_pa_abstracts_of_presented_papers.pdf
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Published on February 3, 2025
