Editor’s Note (September 2026): This article was originally published in February 2021 and reflects the research available at that time. It has since been reviewed for accuracy and clarity. Terminology describing voice-hearing and spiritual experiences has been clarified without changing the historical context of the article.
Key Takeaways
- A British study found that Spiritualist mediums reporting clairaudient experiences scored higher on measures of auditory hallucination-proneness and psychological absorption than a general population comparison group.
- Many participants reported experiencing clairaudient voices before becoming involved with Spiritualism, suggesting that their beliefs may have provided a framework for interpreting experiences they were already having.
- The study examined non-clinical voice-hearing experiences and did not establish that Spiritualist mediums had a psychiatric disorder or that spiritual beliefs caused hallucinations.
A Medium
People have reported hearing voices attributed to spiritual or supernatural sources across different cultures and historical periods. Researchers have increasingly studied such experiences to understand why some people regularly report hearing voices without necessarily experiencing the distress or impairment associated with psychiatric illness.
Researchers from Durham University and collaborators examined this question by studying Spiritualist mediums who reported “clairaudient” experiences—auditory experiences they attributed to spirits.
The study, published online in January 2021 in Mental Health, Religion & Culture, investigated whether traits such as psychological absorption and hallucination-proneness were associated with these experiences.
Mediums Showed Greater Absorption and Auditory Hallucination-Proneness
The study included 65 Spiritualists who reported clairaudient experiences and compared them with 143 people from the general population.
Participants completed questionnaires measuring several characteristics, including absorption, hallucination-proneness, paranormal beliefs and aspects of identity.
Absorption describes a person’s tendency to become deeply immersed in thoughts, mental imagery, sensory experiences or activities.
Researchers found that the Spiritualist participants scored higher than the general population group on both absorption and auditory hallucination-proneness.
Among the Spiritualist participants, those reporting daily clairaudient experiences also scored higher on measures of absorption and auditory hallucination-proneness than those who experienced them less frequently.
These findings represent associations and do not establish that absorption causes voice-hearing experiences.
Many Reported Experiences Before Discovering Spiritualism
One particularly interesting part of the research concerned when participants began having these experiences.
The researchers examined whether Spiritualists reported unusual sensory experiences before or after encountering Spiritualism as a belief system.
Their findings suggested that many participants experienced clairaudient phenomena before becoming involved with the Spiritualist movement.
This raises the possibility that some people encounter Spiritualism after already having unusual auditory experiences and subsequently adopt a spiritual framework through which those experiences can be understood.
In other words, the findings do not necessarily suggest that belief in Spiritualism causes people to hear voices.
Spiritual Beliefs Alone Did Not Explain Voice-Hearing
Researchers also examined paranormal and spiritual beliefs among participants from the general population.
Within that group, spiritual beliefs were associated with greater absorption. However, the association between spiritual beliefs and hallucination-proneness was weak and was not statistically significant.
This distinction is important because it suggests that simply holding spiritual or paranormal beliefs does not adequately explain why some people report clairaudient experiences.
The researchers instead highlighted a potentially complex relationship among individual psychological characteristics, unusual sensory experiences, personal identity and the ways people interpret those experiences.
Hearing Voices Does Not Necessarily Mean Mental Illness
The term “hallucination-proneness” can easily be misunderstood.
The researchers used standardized psychological measures to investigate participants’ tendencies toward particular perceptual experiences. The study was not designed to diagnose the Spiritualist participants with psychosis or another psychiatric disorder.
Voice-hearing can occur in both clinical and non-clinical populations. Whether such experiences indicate a medical or psychiatric problem depends on factors including their context, associated symptoms, distress and effects on everyday functioning.
The study therefore provides insight into unusual auditory experiences without determining whether the Spiritualists’ interpretations of those experiences were objectively supernatural or establishing that the experiences represented mental illness.
Final Thoughts
This research offers an interesting look at why some people may experience voices that they interpret as communications from spirits.
Spiritualist mediums reporting clairaudient experiences demonstrated greater psychological absorption and auditory hallucination-proneness than members of the general population. More frequent clairaudient experiences were also associated with higher scores on these measures.
Importantly, many participants reported these experiences before becoming involved with Spiritualism. This supports the possibility that spiritual beliefs may sometimes provide a framework for interpreting pre-existing unusual sensory experiences rather than being their cause.
The study does not establish whether spiritual explanations for these experiences are true or false, nor does it show that mediums have psychiatric disorders. Instead, it contributes to research examining the relationship between voice-hearing, psychological traits, beliefs and the ways people make sense of unusual experiences.
Reference
Powell, A. J., & Moseley, P. (2020). When spirits speak: Absorption, attribution, and identity among spiritualists who report “clairaudient” voice experiences. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 23(10), 841–856. https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2020.1793310
