Terms used to describe a spirit, ghost, or other non-physical or non-material entity contacted during a séance or other sitting by a medium. Discarnate entities once had an earthly body (incarnate existence) but now they are dead they have become discarnate – from the Latin dis ‘without’ and caro, ‘flesh’. This is in contrast to other entities, which have just existed in the spirit realm. They are called ‘disembodied spirits’.