Theodor Prinz, A Ghost, c.1900, Germany, gelatin silver print, 22.8 x 17 cm, private collection. (Image from The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult, a catalog of photos from the exhibit of the same name at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, in 2005. Published by Yale University Press, 2004.)

My father died unexpectedly this past spring. He donated his remains to medical research; there was no body, no wake. We survivors held a simple funeral mass. Later the same day, I attended the "blessing" of a friend's business, where a medium reputedly able to communicate with those who have passed into spirit officiated. Afterward, the medium embraced me, surges pulsing through my body as she pronounced, "He's fine." Releasing me and passing her hand over her abdomen, she added, "I'm getting something right here—maybe a ruptured appendix." No autopsy had been performed on my father, but my family suspected an intestinal aneurysm was the cause of death.

Father's birth date was the obverse of auspicious: October 29, 1929. So he liked to substitute Allhallows, when a portal purportedly opens between the realms of life and death . Can entities pass between opposite sides of this imposing boundary? Yes, claim recent scientific studies. In Paranormal Experience and Survival of Death (SUNY University Press, 1993), Carl B. Becker reviews empirical evidence and counterarguments in this debate, distinguishing among various phenomena implying survival after death: hauntings, ghostly apparitions, memories of past lives, and out-of-body experiences (OBEs), including so-called "near death." Extrapolating from quantum physics (the study of minute energies), he posits life after death as a continuing OBE, "producible experimentally and confirmed by independent testing agencies." Researchers investigating the survival-after-death hypothesis also study mediumship, the ability to enter an altered or heightened state—either conscious (aware and able to recall) or trance (unaware and not able to recall)—and psychically receive information from disembodied intelligences. Sometimes called "channeling," mediumship was popularized in the 19th century by "Poughkeepsie Seer" Andrew Jackson Davis and is practiced today in various forms, including by adherents of the Spiritualist Church, who "affirm" in their creed the continuity of "personal identity after death" and who acknowledge "communication with the so-called dead [as] fact, scientifically proven by the phenomena of Spiritualism."

Marisa Anderson, acclaimed psychic and spiritualist medium based in Newburgh, extrapolates from her understanding of astrophysics (the study of stars, including electromagnetic energy) when describing the passageway between physical and nonphysical existence. "You can be on both sides of the universe at the same time. In physics, it's not an impossibility or an improbability that we can be crossing a city street and be somewhere else; it happens naturally in other dimensions of time and space." She adds that, similar to videotaping, "you can relive events or transmute thoughts in time and space. An event in history can actually be replayed over and over again in time and space if certain circumstances are occurring." Mediums tap this cosmic network, and for those who think that idea far-fetched, Anderson contends, "A videotape would have been insane 200 years ago."

Anderson, a member of the American Society for Psychical Research, New York Academy of Sciences, and American Association for the Advancement of Science, has appeared on radio and television and has helped solve numerous homicide cases. Her interest in this ethereal landscape evolved from having "died" by drowning as a child. "I didn't get beyond a particular corridor—not into the Beyond," she explains. But she perceived "death" as an abandonment of the corporeal body combined with an awareness  "that there are limitless actions in time and space. People do not die; they go somewhere."

While some mediums practice in the privacy of religious or family settings, others offer their services to a wider public. Though séances are now passé, some mediums still offer public demonstrations by initiating contact with spirits, then delivering their messages to specific audience members. Others provide "readings" at small-group parties; some work with law enforcement to aid in solving homicides; most conduct private sessions with individual clients, either in person or over the phone. A private, one-hour session can range in cost from $50 to $150. Mediumship is not credentialed, though the field is moving towards professional certification, chiefly through the apprenticeship system. For instance, Tannersville-based Adam F. Bernstein has completed courses in channeling and advanced mediumship with internationally renowned medium/author Sharon Klinger at Lily Dale, a longtime spiritualist assembly thriving in far-western New York State.