THE MEDIUMS’ BOOK

223. 1. " Is the medium, at the time of exercising his faculty, in a perfectly normal state ? "

" He is sometimes in a state of crisis more or less pronounced ; this is what fatigues him, and why he needs rest ; but more often his state does not sensi bly differ from the normal state, especially in writing mediums."

2. " Can written or verbal communications also pro ceed from the spirit incarnated in the medium ? "

"The soul of the medium may communicate, like that of any other ; if it enjoy a certain degree of lib erty it recovers its qualities of spirit. You have the proof of this in the soul of living persons who come to visit you, and communicate to you by writing, often without your calling them.

" For you must know that among the spirits you invoke, there are some who are incarnated on the earth ; then they talk to you as spirits, and not as men.

3. " How may it be known if the spirit who answers is that of the medium, or a foreign spirit."

" By the nature of the communications. Study the circumstances and the language, and you will distin guish. It is more particularly in the state of som nambulism, or ecstasy, that the spirit of the medium manifests itself, because it is then more free ; but in the normal state, it is more difficult. Besides, there are answers it is impossible to ascribe to him : this is why I tell you to study and observe.

" Remark. When a person speaks to us, we readily distinguish what comes from him, or what is only an echo ; it is the same with mediums.

4. " As the spirit of the medium may have acquired knowledge in his former existences, which he has for gotten under his corporeal envelope, but which he remembers as spirit, can he not draw from his own sources the ideas that seem to surpass the breadth of his instruction ? "

" That often happens in the somnambulic or ecstatic crisis ; but even then there are circumstances that admit no doubt ; study long and meditate."

5. "Are the communications coming from the medium always inferior to those that -might be made by foreign spirits ? "

" Not always ; for the foreign spirit may himself be of an order inferior to that of the medium, and then speak less sensibly. It is seen in somnambulism, for then it is most often the somnambulist's spirit who manifests himself, and who yet says some very good things."

6. " Does the spirit who communicates by a medium transmit his thought direct ; or has he the spirit in carnated in the medium as an intermediary ? "

" The spirit of the medium is the interpreter, be cause he is bound to the body that serves us to speak, and a chain is necessary between you and foreign spirits who communicate, as an electric wire is neces sary to transmit news from afar, and at the end of the wire an intelligent person, who receives and trans mits it."

7. " Does the spirit incarnated in the medium influ ence the communications he has to transmit from for eign spirits ? "

" Yes ; if he is not in sympathy with them, he may alter their answers, and assimilate them to his own ideas and inclinations ; but he does not influence the spirits themselves ; he is only a bad interpreter."

8. " Is this the cause of the preference of spirits for certain mediums ? "

" There is no other ; they seek the interpreter who best sympathizes with them, and who renders most exactly their thought. If there is not sympathy be tween them, the spirit of the medium is an antagonist, who brings a resistance, and becomes an ill-willed, and often unfaithful, interpreter. It is the same among you when the advice of a wise man is transmitted by a blunderer or an insincere person."

" It is not always so, for often he perfects in one existence what he began in a preceding one ; but it may happen that a transcendent faculty sleeps during a certain time, to leave another more free to be de veloped ; it is a latent germ, which will be found after ward, and of which there always remain some traces, or, at least, a vague intuition."

224. The foreign spirit doubtless understands all languages, as languages are the expression of thought, and as the spirit understands by thought ; but to ren der this thought he needs an instrument ; this instru ment is the medium. The soul of the medium who receives the foreign communication can transmit it only by the organs of his body ; and these organs can not have the same flexibility for an unknown language which they have for the one familiar to them. A medium who knows only French might, incidentally, give an answer in English, for instance, should it please the spirit to do so ; but spirits, who already find the human language too slow, considering the rapidity of thought, though they abridge as much as they can, are impatient of the mechanical resistance they experi ence ; this is why they do not always do it. This is also the reason a novice medium, who writes laborious ly and slowly, even in his own language, usually ob tains but very brief and undeveloped answers ; so the spirits recommend that only simple questions be asked through him. For those of higher bearing it needs a formed medium, who offers no mechanical difficulty to the spirit. We would not take for our reader a scholar who spells. A good workman does not like to use poor implements.

Let us add another consideration of great gravity in what concerns foreign languages. Trials of this kindare always made from curiosity and for experiment, and nothing is more antipathetic to the spirits than fhe trials to which persons endeavor to subject them. The superior spirits never lend themselves to it, and leave as soon as this is begun. Inasmuch as they like use ful and serious things, in so far they dislike to be engaged in frivolities and things without motive. Skeptics will say, " It is to convince us ; and that is a useful motive, since it gains believers to their cause." To that the spirits answer, " Our cause has no need of those who have so much pride as to consider them selves indispensable: we call to us those whom we wish, and they are often the least and the most hum ble. Did Jesus perform the miracles demanded of him by the scribes, and what men did he use to revolu tionize the world ? If you desire to be convinced, you have other means than by tricks ; begin first by sub mitting yourselves : it is not in order that the scholar should impose his will upon his teacher."

It thus results that, with some exceptions, the medi- , um renders the thoughts of the spirits by the mechani cal means at his disposal, and that the expression of this thought may, and most often must, partake of the imperfection of these means ; thus, the uncultured man, the peasant, might say the most beautiful things, ex press the most elevated, most philosophical thoughts, speaking as a peasant, for it is well known that with the spirits the thought is all.

This answers the objections of some critics on the subject of the incorrectness of style and of orthography with which they may reproach the spirit, and which may come from the medium, as well as from the spirit. It is frivolous to care for such things. It is not less puerile to take great pains to reproduce such faults with minute exactness, as we sometimes see done. They may be corrected without scruple, at least, un less they be a characteristic type of the spirit who communicates, in which case it is useful to preserve them, as proof of identity. Thus, for instance, we have seen a spirit constantly write Jule (without the s) in speaking to his grandson, because, during his life, he wrote it in this way, and though his grandson, who served as medium, knew perfectly well how to write his name.

225. The following dissertation, given spontaneously by a superior spirit who revealed himself by communications of the highest order, recapitulates, in the clearest and most complete manner, the question of the role of mediums : " Whatever may be the nature of writing mediums, whether mechanical, semi-me chanical, or simply intuitive, our processes of com munication with them do not essentially vary. In fact, with the incarnated spirits themselves, as. with the spirits proper, we communicate solely by the radi ating of our thought.

"Our thoughts do not need the clothing of words to be understood by spirits, and all spirits perceive the thought you desire to communicate to them, simply by your .directing the thought toward them, and this by reason of their intellectual faculties ; that is to say, a certain thought can be comprehended by certain ones according to their advancement, while to certain others the thought, awakening no remembrance, no knowledge in the depths of their heart or brain, is not perceptible to them. In such case the incarnated spirit who serves us as medium is more fit to render our thought for other incarnated beings, even should he not comprehend it, than a spirit decarnated and but little advanced could be to do so, were we forced to have recourse to his intervention ; for the terrestrial being puts his body at our disposal, which the wander ing spirit could not do.