Speaking To The Dead: Why Americans Still Seek Out Mediums
Ask your neighbor whether they have sought out a psychic for advice or a message from a dead loved one. You might be surprised by what you hear.
While the tradition of consulting seers and oracles for insights into what happens after death is as old as the ancient Greeks and the Hebrew scriptures (in 1 Samuel 28, King Saul seeks out a medium to communicate with his dead mentor), spiritualism in America really took off in the middle of the 19th century.
While it was practiced before the Civil War, seeking to communicate with the dead really blossomed in its wake. By the 1880s, according to Abbott Kahler, a contributor to the Smithsonian Magazine, there were about eight million practitioners in the United States and Europe.
READ: How Supernatural Beliefs Vary In The U.S.
Approximately 700,000 soldiers died during the war, leaving hundreds of thousands of widows, siblings and children to mourn them and wonder if they could communicate with them.
But that wasn’t the only reason for the rise of interest in spiritualism, according to University of Pennsylvania humanities professor Justin McDaniel, who heads the Department of Religious Studies.
Other factors included the rise of evolutionary theory and an attempt to square that with belief in the supernatural. During the 19th century, a huge influx of immigrants arrived in America, many bringing new ideas about the place of the occult. Meanwhile, as settlers moved westward, they were less likely to encounter established churches, he added.
“It was the perfect storm of factors that led to the rise of new forms of religion, one of them being spiritualism,” McDaniel said.
One fascinating aspect of the 19th-century spiritualist movement is its connection to the women’s suffrage movement. For the first time in American history, women lived alone or in “women-only spaces”, due to the large number of Civil War widows, McDaniel said.
“You had lots of conversations about faith and how to raise your children, and the meaning of life, he said. “That really infused a lot of new ideas into the American religious landscape.”
If women could think independently, why not vote? If women could talk about their beliefs, why weren’t there female ministers?
“You’re just going to have more and new ideas circulating,” he said.
Interest in communicating with the dead has continued to thread itself through contemporary American life.
In 2023, a Pew Research Center survey found that more than 53% of adults reported dreams or other interactions with dead loved ones. Approximately one-third (more women than men) believed that they themselves had a “psychic experience,” such as predicting the future.
In the 21st century, women are still more likely than men to subscribe to a belief in supernatural phenomena, including belief in the efficacy of psychics. In times of grief or loss, a number of contemporary Americans turn to mediums.
A 2017 YouGov.com survey found that approximately one-fifth of American adults had consulted a medium or psychic, though many Americans are highly skeptical of the ability of mediums to contact the dead (interestingly, skepticism is higher among adults over 55 than it is among millennials).
Not everyone consults a medium to receive a message from relatives or other loved ones who have died (some are seeking dating advice or career help, among other things), but many of those who do are looking for assurance that “loved ones are still with them,” said Brittany Saccento, a medium who lives with her family in northeastern Pennsylvania.
On her website, Brittany’s Path, Saccento says that her purpose for those seeking healing or advice is: “to serve Spirit. To support healing. To share one message at a time.”
A married mother of “three children, two dogs, and a lizard,” Saccento’s own experience of loss, the suicide of her brother several years ago, was part of the impetus for her own work as a psychic, she recalled.
The day her brother took his life, she said, he was supposed to spend time at her house. “I was in the bathroom doing my hair and makeup, and I just felt ultimate peace. I didn’t realize that was him coming to say goodbye.”
Later, when her husband told Saccento that her brother was gone, she started to scream for a sign that, somehow, he was still able to contact her.
“Then I started noticing all these signs. I was so desperate to find comfort in my grief. I must have read every single grief and self-help book.”
When her mother told her she was considering going to see a medium, said Saccento, she freaked out. “You’re crazy,” she told her. “Just let him rest in peace.”
But a visit from her late brother one night while she was sleeping changed her mind. “I was like, I have to go see a medium,” she said.
The relief and sense of closure she got from that visit inspired her to want to emulate her, and help other people who are grieving.
When she sees a client, she encourages them to be “a little skeptical. Question me if something is not making sense, but be open-minded.”
Eventually, she says, the atmosphere lightens up, and they start sharing stories about their loved ones. Unlike television mediums, she sets strict boundaries, choosing to focus on love and clarity. She has never encountered an angry spirit.
“It’s always about love.”
Grieving mother Heather Quinn, who lives in the hamlet of Sparrowbush, New York, said she felt that sense of calm when she went to see Saccento for a private reading after her son Steven and his best friend died in an ATV accident a little more than nine months ago.
It wasn’t her son who “came through” first, though, she said. Instead, it was her grandfather, who had died ten years ago. At the time, her grandmother was in hospice care and entering her last days. Her grandfather reassured Heather Quinn that he and Steven Quinn would be waiting for her when she died, Heather Quinn said.
“It was very comforting to know that she would be okay, and that they would be greeting her,” she said.
When Steven Quinn communicated with her via Saccento, said Heather Quinn, he was aware of an airplane trip that the family was about to take. “How comforting is it that they are watching what you are doing?” she asked.
That’s the kind of reassurance grieving family members are seeking, suggested Saccento.
“People want to know their loved ones are still with them, and that any suffering that was felt in the physical is no longer happening.”
Erin Furgeson had Saccento’s information pop up in an Instagram algorithm normally focused on parenting. To Furgeson, it felt like a message – from her recently deceased dad.
While Furgeson wasn’t raised in a religious household, she remembered many chats with her father about what happens after death, she said. Furgeson said, was especially close to him. “Literally, my dad was my best friend, and effectively, a co-parent” to her two-year-old daughter.
Though she believed that, in more normal times, it was possible to access her own intuitive side, his sudden death devastated her. A month and a half after his passing, she made an appointment with Saccento. Furgeson was having teddy bears made for her daughter and niece from some of her dad’s t-shirts.
“He really appreciates the teddy-bear thing,” Saccento told her.
Furgeson was so impressed with what she heard that she told her half-brother. He also signed up for a session.
In addition, Furgeson enrolled in one of Saccento’s mediumship classes. Despite their different personalities, she said, the participants all encouraged and supported each other.
At the moment, said Furgeson, “I’m not any better [at] communicating with my dad. I'm still, I'm overwhelmed with things to do, and a toddler and life, so but, gosh, I needed [Saccento]. And she said, you know, your dad says he's just going to have to be the listener. I know he talks back. You know, you're used to that, but he's going to be the listener for a while.”
Saccento also mentioned, several times during their session, that Furgeson should consider restarting therapy, which she did.
Like many other Americans with spiritualist practices, Saccento said she also subscribes to a more traditional faith as well. “I am a Christian, a big believer in God and Jesus,” she said. “I just think…there are other things.”
Her journey into mediumship and her work with clients, which started just a few years ago, she said, “makes me feel like my brother’s passing has a purpose. “
At the same time, the sadness and emptiness of losing a loved one do not vanish with messages from a more spiritual world.
Indeed, the hardest part about being an intermediary between the physical world and the spiritual one, said Saccento, is not being able to give people what they really want, which is “their loved one back in the physical. But I do feel it brings a sense of hope.”
Elizabeth Eisenstadt Evans is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Religion News Service, National Catholic Reporter, Sojourners, Christian Century, The Washington Post and Philadelphia Inquirer.