Anthropological Perspectives on the Long Island Medium Rasha Darghawth University of Toronto, [email protected]

View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Scholarship@Western Totem: The University of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology Volume 21 | Issue 1 Article 9 4-28-2013 Contemporary Mediumship: Anthropological Perspectives on the Long Island Medium Rasha Darghawth University of Toronto, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/totem Part of the Alternative and Complementary Medicine Commons, Cognition and Perception Commons, Other Anthropology Commons, Other Mental and Social Health Commons, and the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Darghawth, Rasha (2013) "Contemporary Mediumship: Anthropological Perspectives on the Long Island Medium," Totem: The University of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology: Vol. 21: Iss. 1, Article 9. Available at: http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/totem/vol21/iss1/9 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Totem: The nivU ersity of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Contemporary Mediumship: Anthropological Perspectives on the Long Island Medium Abstract Bereavement following the loss of a loved one has and always will remain a panhuman constant. An increasingly popularized form of healing is asserting itself in the form of mediumship. This paper seeks to investigate contemporary forms of mediumship in North America through critical analysis of the TLC show, Long Island Medium. Rather than questioning the validity of such practices, it instead strives to deconstruct the symbolic healing system surrounding the medium. This healing system serves to assure cultural constructions of an afterlife while acknowledging the presence and ability of spirits gaining agency through after-death communication. Furthermore, this paper seeks to assert that mediumship can in fact draw the bereaved from the liminal state of mourning into active life once again. Keywords Sociocultural anthropology, medical anthropology, traditional healing, symbolic healing, death, afterlife, mediumship, mourning, grieving This article is available in Totem: The nivU ersity of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology: http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/totem/vol21/ iss1/9 Darghawth: The Rebirth of Mediumship Contemporary Mediumship: pertain to the issue of bereavement and Anthropological Perspectives on the Long burden; after experiencing loss, how do we Island Medium heal within a biomedical paradigm intent on curing, rather than coping? I intend to argue Rasha Darghawth that mediumship has become an increasingly exercised form of symbolic healing, Traditionally, the role of contingent on sustained skepticism mediumship in North America incites the surrounding the finality of death and the typically skeptical perspective of mediums notion that spirits gain agency through the as charlatans or “quacks” (Moore 2000). physical nature of perceived events, such as Historically, mediumship emerged as a after-death communication. wildly successful industry, cited as one of the emerging American professions in the I stress that I am not examining 1850s (Moore 2000). In spite of its status as whether mediumship is scientifically a fad of the time, its root –that of rational or “real”. Instead, I adopt an scientifically proving the existence of an interpretive approach and focus on the afterlife and the souls that inhabit it – narratives and experiences of those who endures to this day. Long Island Medium have experienced after-death (2012), a television series broadcast by The communication or sought counsel from a Learning Channel, follows Theresa Caputo medium; they believe they have felt or seen through daily life in Hicksville, New York the spirits of their loved ones. For these with her husband and two children in mourners, spirituality and mediumship are suburbia. “I like to think of myself as a as arguably “real” as the objects surrounding typical Long Island mom”, she says in the you, and must be respected. For this reason, show’s intro. “But, I have a very special I do not engage with the traditional gift… I talk to the dead” (Caputo 2012f). perspective of mediumship as charlatanry. Theresa is a medium, able to connect with people who have “departed the physical In the first section, I begin with world” (Caputo 2012d). With a waiting list questioning death’s finality as potentially of two years, Theresa’s services consist of healing in two ways. First, it implies the channelling messages of assurance from reassuring existence of an afterlife and departed loved ones and imparting them consequent enduring relationships and upon their grieving relatives. second, assumes this platform lessens anxieties regarding death. Both constitute Aside from being a wildly successful “small turns” (Waldram 1997) of a show (garnering impressive ratings for new culturally constructed symbolic world, episodes), the show raises existential which at first glance appears to be a questions concerning the finality of death, resulting “drastic change” (Waldram our tendency to foreground our physical 1997:76) catalyzed by mediumship (note bodies and the process of mourning. this concept of “small turns” will be further Furthermore, it highlights how these three addressed). elements merge to catalyze a healing process otherwise unavailable in a biomedical context 1. Specifically, these questions body as a machine (existing wholly separately from the mind), locating the cause of disease within it. In 1 A biomedical context is one considered to be the process, the illness experience (the subjective contingent on Cartesian dualism or the separation of experience of suffering or any identifiable social mind and body. The biomedical paradigm views the locus of the disease) is overlooked (Kleinman 1988). 83 Produced by The Berkeley Electronic Press, 2013 Totem: The University of Western Ontario Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 21 [2013], Iss. 1, Art. 9 Historically, questioning death and a cultivating its acceptance. Bruce Greyson consequent post-mortem life has been the (2010:159) suggests the notion that “our subject of extensive anthropological unconsciousness might persist in some research with pioneers like Bronislaw discarnate form…[is] widely held in almost Malinowski (1929) and Arnold Van Gennep every culture” and that “a wide variety of (1960). Christian pedagogies emphasize the human experiences suggest to us that our existence of a blissful heaven, while consciousness may not cease when our Trobriander myths envision Tuma, an island bodies die”. Lastly, Kwilecki (2009) notes where spirits of the dead fancifully indulge that “death ends a life… not a relationship” in life and are able to shed old, wrinkled (119). For example, on Long Island skin for a young, smooth alternative until Medium , participants frequently make their decision to be reborn into the physical statements like ‘I feel them with/around world (Malinowski 1929). While mythical me’, referring to an inexplicable, ubiquitous worlds range greatly, various constants presence. Essentially, mediumship serves to persist: the afterlife is one analogous to ours simply state that, “I’m okay. I’m nearby. I (Van Gennep 1960), but is constructed of a love you” (Kwilecki 2009:101). Thus, the “me but better” fabric (Kwilecki 2009:114). departed are the same people who continue Spirits are viewed as healthy, happy, young, to fulfill the same roles, yet are occupying a mobile and continue to occupy their former different realm and matter. Perhaps your familial roles (Kwilecki 2009). mother, father, brother or sister has lost their Consequently, in the show, Theresa overt physicality in death, but they continue constantly refers to loved ones as “on the a happy existence in the hereafter and other side”, subtly implying distance while remain as such, despite lacking physicality. insinuating adjacency (Caputo 2012b). This persistent existence is reflected in the Additionally, she provides validation that, notion of symbolic healing as a mechanism “Your loved ones are alive and well” on said for teaching people how to manage trauma “other side”, where physical ailments which and dysfunction (Waldram 1997). may have hindered mobility and quality of Specifically, mediumship affirms to the life no longer exist (Caputo 2012e). Quite living that: ‘You will be able to cope obviously, the practice of mediumship itself because I am with you’; essentially, the is predicated on the notion that the deceased deceased act as a coping resource. Or do, in fact, ‘exist’ substantially enough to perhaps, ‘You do not need to cope, because I relay messages. Once this key existential am still with you’ there is no need to grieve question is addressed and validated in the because they are still present, though in a process of mediumship, we see contingent different form. concepts predicated on this crucial notion of a verified afterlife and its souls, such as the Additionally, the validation of an enduring nature of relationships and the afterlife and enduring relations through buffering of death’s harmful effects. Both mediumship are crucial in the construction constitute building blocks of a greater of a symbolic healing system. James B. symbolic world; one which will be unpacked Waldram (1997:73) states that the symbol is further throughout this essay. “any thing which may function as a vehicle for a conception”. The author gives the Linda

Load more