Welcome to the Tuesday edition of the Coffee Hour at Street Prophets. This is an open thread where we can discuss what’s happening in our lives, what we’ve been working on, and our opinions on current events. To get us started today, let’s look at the idea of talking to the dead.
In diverse cultures around the world, there are people who feel that it is possible, and perhaps even desirable, to communicate with people who are dead. In many cultures, it is felt that deceased ancestors continue to have an interest in their families and so the living consult with them when making family decisions.
In European societies, the term “medium” is used to describe a person who can communicate with the dead, not just ancestors or deceased relatives, but dead people in general. In his book The Ghosts of Iceland, Robert Anderson reports:
“A future medium is said to be born with an innate ability to communicate with the dead and in some cases to see the dead in their spirit bodies.”
In other words, people don’t go to school to learn how to become mediums, nor do they have diplomas showing that they are qualified. Since most people are not born with this ability, they must employ the services of a medium if they want advice from a dead person.
The possibility of talking with the dead is also found in many American Indian cultures. Among some of the tribes, such as the Beothuk and the Narragansett, it was felt that communication between the living and the dead was possible. Among the Narragansett, the souls of the dead were able to pass back and forth between the world of the dead and that of the living. The dead could carry messages and warning to the living. Among the Caddo on the Southern Plains, the living could send messages to their deceased relatives by passing their hands over the body of someone recently deceased, from feet to head, and then over their own body. It this way messages could be sent via the deceased to other dead relatives.
This is an open thread. The people here, as far as I know, are not dead but engage in real dialogues. Feel free to talk about food (particularly what’s for dinner), politics, geography, current events, the weather, pets (pooties, woozles, and others), and whatever else is on your mind. If you talk to dead people, let us know.