"All men are mediums ; all have a spirit-guide who, if they listen to him, directs them in the right way. It matters little that some men communicate directly with their spirit-guide by means of their own medianimity, while others only receive the counsels of their guide through his occult action on their heart or on their mind; in either case, it is their familiar spirit who gives them counsel. Call it as you will - your familiar spirit, inspiration, reason, intelligence -it is always a voice that answers the inner voice of your soul, and addresses to you wise counsel, though you do not always profit thereby. All men are not yet able to follow the suggestions of reason; I refer, not to the reason that grovels and crawls in its devotion to worldly things, and that loses itself in the care of gross material interests, but to the reason which raises a man above himself; the reason which transports him to unknown regions, the sacred flame which inspires the artist and the poet, the divine thought which elevates the mind of the philosopher, the vital impulsion which carries forward not only individuals but peoples, the reason which the vulgar cannot comprehend, but which lifts man ever nearer and nearer to God, the reason which leads him on from the known to the unknown, and enables him to achieve the sublimest results. Listen to the monitions which come to you incessantly, and your perceptions will gradually be opened to the voice of your guardian-angel, who holds out to you a helping hand from the celestial heights. The inner voice which speaks to the heart of every man is the voice of the good spirits around him; and, from this point of view, it may be truly said that all men are mediums." "CHANNING."
XI
"The medianimic faculty is as old as the world. The prophets were mediums ; the mysteries of Eleusis were founded on medianimity; the Chaldeans, Assyrians, Egyptians, and all the peoples of antiquity, had their mediums Socrates was directed by a spirit whose voice he heard, and who inspired him with the admirable principles of his philosophy; the inspirations of Joan of Arc were the voices of the beneficent spirits who guided her. This faculty, which is now becoming generalised, was comparatively rare in the Middle Ages; but it has never ceased to exist. Swedenborg has had many successors.
"The France of the last few centuries - irreverent, carried away by philosophical systems which, aiming at the destruction of the abuses of religious intolerance, stifled under ridicule all aspiration after the ideal - could not but repel spiritism, which, nevertheless, did not cease to maintain itself in the North. This struggle of Positivism against Spiritualism was permitted by Providence, because Spiritualism had become fanatical; but now that the progress of industry and science has developed the arts of life to such a point that material tendencies have become predominant, God wills that interest in the soul should be re-awakened in the minds of the spirits incarnated upon the earth, and that the perfecting of the moral being should become, as it ought to be, the recognised end and object of human life. The human spirit follows a foreordained and necessary line of march, image of the gradations undergone by all the beings that people the visible and invisible universe. Each new step of progress is accomplished at the appointed time; the epoch fixed for the moral elevation of the human race has now come; and, although this elevation will not be fully accomplished in your present life-time, you may be thankful that you are permitted to witness the dawn of the glorious new day." "PIERRE JOUTY." (The Medium's Father.)
XII
"Sent by the Highest with a message to those who are favoured with the gift of medianimity, I come to remind them that the greater the favours which have been granted them by His Providence, the greater is the danger they will incur by any misuse of their gift. The faculties possessed by mediums attract to them the admiration, adulation, and felicitations of men; therein lies their danger. Let all mediums remember their primitive incapacity, and let them never attribute to their own personal merit what they owe to God alone. When mediums lose sight of this truth, they are abandoned by good spirits, and, having no longer a guide to direct them, they become the sport of evil ones. Those who attribute to themselves a value which is not theirs, are punished by the withdrawal of a faculty which could only be fatal to them.
"I cannot too strongly urge upon all mediums the necessity of maintaining a constant communication with their guardian-angel, that he may be able to help them to keep clear of the pride which is their worst enemy. Bear constantly in mind, O you who have the happiness of being the interpreters between spirits and men, that, without the support of our Divine Master, you are in danger of laying up for yourselves punishment that will be severe in proportion to the greatness of the medianimic faculty that has been confided to you. May this communication have the effect of inducing all mediums to avoid the rock of offence on which they are in danger of making shipwreck - pride." "JEANNE DARC."
XIII
"If you would receive communications from superior spirits, you must prepare yourselves for this favour by concentration of thought, purity of intention, and sincere desire to help forward the cause of progress; for selfishness is a barrier between you and them. Remember that, if God permits you to receive the inspiration of those of His children who have earned the happiness of comprehending His infinite goodness, it is in order that you may advance, and aid others to advance, on the appointed path of progress. Therefore, O mediums! it is incumbent on you to make only a good use of the faculty that has been given you. Confiding in, and emulating, our Master's kindness, let your charity, your tolerance for all about you, be inexhaustible. By scrupulously regulating your action according to your conscience, you will increase a hundred-fold your own happiness in your quickly-fleeting earthly life, and you will have prepared for yourselves a thousand-fold greater happiness in the life to come.
"Let every medium, who does not feel in himself the moral strength that will enable him to consecrate his faculty to the noblest use, withdraw altogether from the work of mediumship; for he who, being favoured with special light, allows himself to enter upon a wrong path, incurs the heavier retribution reserved for those who have gone wilfully astray." "PASCAL"
XIV
"Bear with me while I call your attention to the disinterestedness which, with modesty, should be the characteristic accompaniment of medianimity. God has given to mediums the faculty which enables them to be the intermediary between spirits and men, in order that they may employ that faculty in spreading the truth, but not that they make it a matter of traffic. And, in saying this, I refer, not merely to those who turn their medianimity to pecuniary account as they would any ordinary talent, and who set up as mediums just as others set up as dancers or singers, but to all who use their medianimic faculty for the furtherance of personal ends. Is it reasonable to suppose that spirits of high degree, who condemn cupidity in the ratio of their elevation, would consent to be shown off as a spectacle, putting themselves, like so many play-actors, into the hands of a contractor for spirit-phenomena? And is it in any respect more reasonable to suppose that such spirits would favour the views of vanity and ambition? God permits spirits to communicate with men in order that they may help men to raise themselves out of the mire of materiality, but not that they may serve as the instruments of mundane passions and those mediums who pervert the faculty bestowed upon them by God will be punished for such a desecration with a severity proportioned to the heinousness of their offence." "DELPHINE DE GIRARDIN."
XV
"All mediums are called to serve the cause of spiritism in the measure of their faculty; but so few of them escape the wiles of self-love that, out of a hundred mediums, hardly one is to be found, no matter how slight his medianimic gift, who does not, especially in the early days of his mediumship, believe himself to be destined to the accomplishment of some great mission. Those who fall into the snare of this vainglorious belief-and they are many-become the prey of obsessing spirits, who subjugate them by flattering their pride; and, the greater has been their ambition, the more pitiable is their fall.
"Great missions are only confided to picked men, who are placed, not by any seeking of their own, but by the leadings of Providence, in the position in which their action will be most efficacious. Inexperienced mediums cannot be too distrustful of what may be said to them, by flattering spirits, as to the importance of the part they are called to play; for, if they take all this flattery seriously, they will reap disappointment, both in this world and in the next. Let mediums remember that they can do good service, even in the most obscure and modest sphere, by helping to convince the incredulous, or by giving consolation to the afflicted. If it be their mission to go beyond this narrower range of medianimic action, they will be guided onwards, into a wider sphere of activity, by an invisible hand that will open their way before them and bring them forward, so to say, in spite of themselves. Let all mediums bear in mind these words: 'He that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.' " "THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH."
