Mediumship can be distinguished into three basic types:

• Mental Mediumship

• Trance Mediumship

• Physical Mediumship

Mental mediumship involves the relating of information, through communication, via the varied aspects of thought transference, or mental telepathy. Mental telepathy is the relaying of information via thought, without using any of the five physical senses although the communicator (spirit person) can and does rely on the medium's 'clair' senses (clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, etc) to facilitate the understanding of the evidence with the medium.

Mental mediumship takes place within the consciousness of the medium - utilising the mind, clair-senses and also emotionally through the medium. The results are expressed verbally and must pass through the medium's mouth. Because of its telepathic nature, mental mediumship is sometimes referred to as telepathic mediumship.

In a demonstration of mental mediumship, it is the medium who hears, sees, and feels what the spirit communicators are relating. Furthermore, it is the medium's function to relate the information, with minimum personal influence and prejudice, to the recipient of the message, also known as the sitter. The medium receives this information under various states of awareness.

Trance mediumship requires the medium to go into a deep meditative state and give permission to a spiritual energy to inhabit their physical space. The spirit can manipulate the medium on a cellular as well as auric level to provide insights, inspiration and also healing to those present. This is NOT possession of the body or mind, it is a reverent and cooperative effort between the medium and the spirit and requires a great deal of training and expertise to allow this to occur. Sitters (i.e. those viewing a trance mediumship demonstration) may see a shadow cast across the face or body of the medium and there may be changes to the medium's physical appearance superimposed across their face or body. This is called 'shadowing', to experience this to full effect and for the comfort of the medium, trance mediumship is often conducted in darkened rooms.

Most reputable trance mediums take many years to develop their skills and relationship with the spirit world - trance mediumship cannot be learned in a short or weekend workshop, not does every medium have the ability to develop as a trance medium. It takes time and dedication from both the developing medium as well as reliable and discerning sitters - often who are mediums themselves, to facilitate a true trance medium state.

Physical mediumship involves the manipulation and transformation of physical systems and energies. The spirit operators, in this case, are causing something to happen upon the Earth plane. What it is that actually happens varies with the style of mediumship involved, but the results can be seen and heard by others including ectoplasm phenomena which can exude from any orifice on the medium's body (hence the requirement to eat lightly on the day of the demonstration) but usually from the mouth or nose. The ectoplasm may form into the shape of the spirit communicator, depending on the skills of the medium.

Other phenomena can include the movement of objects in the room and the appearance of objects from either the spirit world or from other rooms of the building (called apports). Children's toys are often used in a physical mediumship demonstration - child spirits enjoy playing with toys as much as living children! Trumpets are also often used - these can be used by the spirit communicator to speak through to the recipient. There are reports of trumpets moving independently in the room to hover in front of the recipient, this allows the actual voice of their loved one to speak to them.

There are a small number of reputable physical mediums in the world today - unfortunately this aspect of mediumship is rare at this time and unfortunately fraudulent 'demonstrations' have further discredited this form of mediumship and associated phenomena.