Although it is a relevant issue in the Spiritist daily life, the moment and the process of the emergence of mediumship still needs a deeper discussion, and this motivated the authors to write this controversial article, which is also a guideline with the purpose of increasing the number of debates about this subject, and, also, to aid the workers of the Spiritist youth regarding this discussion.

The Book of Mediums (Chapter XVII) discusses the exercise of mediumship, in its development through experimentation, but this point that refers to the awakening is not a subject of great discussions by Kardec. It is mentioned in the work “Quality of mediumistic practice”, by the team born in the city of Salvador: Manoel Philomeno de Miranda, which uses excerpts from works, psychographics by the medium Divaldo Franco, showing that this emergence appears at any age, social position or religious denomination, and that it can happen in an explosive or subtle way, information that go towards common sense.

But the restless authors decided to seek more empirical bases for this discussion and decided to ask the mediums, and in the first semester of 2018, through great dissemination on social networks, the narratives of 38 ostensive mediums, working in Brazil, were collected, adults, who answered the questions:

i) How did my mediumship emergence?

ii) How troubled was this process? and

iii) What did you do to balance yourself in this process?

Regarding the process of emergence, the narratives indicated that the first ostensible manifestations occurred between 13 and 17 years of age, with some reports of sparse manifestations in childhood, not perceived as mediumship.

This age group reinforces the importance of filling the gap in specialized literature aimed at the juvenile public on the topic of mediumship, and also the importance of the preparation and perception of Spiritist youth workers regarding this subject.

The symptoms listed - in general, in spontaneous and somewhat troubled processes - were accompanied by direct manifestations of clairaudience, spiritual unfolding, psychophony or clairvoyance, i.e., the juvenile begins to be in the state of passiveness in a confused order, and without control.

There were also narratives of strange thoughts, anguish, confused dreams, tachycardia, crying, feeling the presence of Spirits, not understanding who is incarnated or not, and, to a lesser extent, premonitions and feeling strange odors.

It is noticed that there is a period of inflection, in which this mediumistic phenomenon really arises in the young person, and that it is a tense and conflictive period, as is the phase of youth. A minority group manifested itself in the sense that their mediumship came later, in the work of the mediumistic education house, of course.

Regarding the extent to which the process was troubled, most said that yes, it was a process of suffering, painful, with description of discomforts such as: fear, including being alone; apprehension; sadness; difficulty identifying your own emotions; becoming a laughing stock within social groups; feel ashamed; waking up all of a sudden in the middle of the night; scares; escape from agglomerations; in addition to fainting, tachycardia, shortness of breath and dizziness.

Based on the mediums' narratives, we can sense their suffering in this process, and many still feel it today. Some of those, who answered the questions, reported having been taken to non-mediumistic religions, imputing to them imbalances or denial of what they felt, and some even reported having undergone psychological and psychiatric treatments due to the effects of this process, and also due to the parents' lack of knowledge.

This suffering, if taken into consideration, can drive the young person, with the mediumship emergence, away from the appropriate assistance to be given to him, even more because the majority of those who answered the questions informed that they managed to balance themselves by attending a Spiritist or a Spiritualist house, which is a bias of the present research, given that, because they use practicing mediums, they are people who somehow adhered to a form of treatment, and it was not taken into consideration the countless people who suffer for not understanding what is happening to them in this process.

In fact, the lack of understanding of how exchanges between incarnates and disincarnates take place is one of the great challenges to be overcome, not only for the mediums’ balance, but also for the good use of mediumship itself, which, if well conducted, brings important growth possibilities.

As mediumship is still little worked outside the Spiritist and Spiritualist environment, an idea that this is something supernatural hangs over the issue.

Many people, therefore, who are not familiar with the issues surrounding mediumship, when they start to feel the so-called mediumistic “symptoms” - including those reported by the mediums interviewed for this article - end up suffering.

Without knowing what is going on with them and without finding answers in conventional medicine that bring them well-being and a better quality of life, these people often seek help in a Spiritist or Spiritualist house.

In the Spiritist houses, these people reported that they were allocated in the efficient “basic package” of doctrinal study and Spiritual treatments, including specific meetings of the so-called mediumship education, and, according to what was said by these mediums, this solution proved effective, bringing balance and functionality to them.

Also highlighted in the process of balance are constant prayer, uplifting reading and, still, what we will call self-observation of the phenomenon, which is a knowledge gradually constructed of how mediumship is processed in itself, given that, despite the regularities, this process has a peculiarity to each person. Therefore, each individual feels the contact with the Spirits in a different way.

The process of awakening from the mediumistic force can be a source of suffering, be it due to concomitant obsessive causes, or even due to the lack of experience in handling this faculty, which sometimes comes with the power of a mighty river.

There were also some reports mentioning thoughts that arrived in a disordered or disconnected way, causing, therefore, a kind of mental confusion in the individuals whose mediumship was in emergence. But this is a natural process of mediumship itself and already raised by the Spirits in The Book of Spirits, Question 459, when they say that the influence of the Spirits in our thoughts is frequent and, often, it is difficult to identify what is our idea and what is the idea of​​another intelligence.

An element remembered with certain constancy by the interviewees, regarding the emergence of mediumship, was the fear expressed in its most diverse forms; from places with many people, which produced / produces physical discomfort, to the fear of being alone or of losing control of the situation.

By the way, in the case of places with crowds of people, one of the hypotheses for the physical discomfort felt by mediums is the heterogeneity of the thoughts of those present, which can produce fluids of the most varied types, many of which are antagonistic to those of the medium, thus generating organic discomfort.

More sensitive to environments, thoughts, emotions and feelings emanating from a given location, which may, in fact, be even the home itself, mediums feel the need to protect themselves; for this reason, even unconsciously or in response to the inspirations of the Spirits who dedicate affection to them, they create their own methods of protection, which include uplifting reading, work in the Spiritist house and so many other activities that occupy their time in a healthy way, creating a lighter atmosphere to live and work mediumship.

Due to these organic constraints, too, many mediums reported that they would not like to be mediums and to feel, perceive, see and hear, in short, to feel the mediumistic experiences that they were and are going through, which is quite understandable.

However, it is not possible to stop being a medium willingly, because, as Allan Kardec teaches, mediumship resides in the individual's own organism, being an innate faculty that is not subordinated to our will.

What can you do then?

As the answers provided by the interviewees themselves suggest, a factor of relief and good direction for mediumship is to seek, through good literature, what is the best way to deal with mediumship and extract elements for their own improvement.

Another important point to highlight is the welcome to those who arrive at the Spiritist or Spiritualist home with mediumship already well developed. In addition to the study, participating in a cohesive and harmonic group represents a great encouragement to the medium who arrives at a Spiritist home, as already stated in this text, in a process of doubts, pains and discoveries typical of mediumship.

Considering the idea of ​​the paragraph above, it is possible to understand the importance of the work well done by the Spiritist leaders with regard to the balance of those with mediumistic sensitivity to the surface.

Also, we highlight the work in the social field that is developed by mediums and that, according to the reports, collaborated to restore balance.

There are many points on the topic discussed here and, of course, they have not been exhausted; on the contrary, because the approach based on the answers provided by the mediums only lifted a corner of the veil of an exciting and important issue for all of us.