Note IX.

It could never be overemphasized how important is the manner of asking questions and, perhaps even more, the nature of the questions. There are some that the Spirits cannot or must not answer for reasons unknown to us, so that it is useless to insist. But what must be avoided above all are the questions that have the aim of putting their perspicacity to the test. When the thing exists, it is said, they must know it; now, it is precisely because such a thing is already known to you, or because you have the means of verifying it yourselves, that they do not take the trouble to answer; suspicion irritates them and nothing satisfactory is obtained; it always drives away the serious Spirits, who speak willingly only to people who address them with confidence and without ulterior motives. On Earth one would not have spoken to them except with deference; with all the more reason should we do so now that they are well above what they were here. Do we not have an example of this every day among us? Would superior men, who are conscious of their worth, amuse themselves by answering all the foolish questions intended to subject them to examination, as is done to mere schoolboys? The desire to make such or such a person a convert is for the Spirits no reason to satisfy vain curiosity; they know that, sooner or later, conviction will come, and the means they employ to convince are not always those we imagine. The order and the manner of conducting ourselves in evocation sessions should correspond to the seriousness of the intention of the people gathered together. Spirits of an elevated order cannot regard as serious meetings in which there is neither silence nor recollection; where the most futile and often most ridiculous personal questions cross incessantly with the gravest questions; in which each one comes to place in the basket his little secret on a folded slip of paper, as in the urn of destiny. It would be the same as drawing one’s lot with the soothsayer of the public square.

Suppose a serious man, occupied with useful and serious things, importuned at every moment with the puerile questions of a child, and you will have a just idea of what the superior Spirits must think of all the silly things people go to tell them. Let it not be concluded from this that we cannot obtain, on the part of the Spirits, useful instructions and, above all, good advice, relating to private interests; they answer, however, according to the knowledge they themselves possess, the interest we merit from them, the affection they feel for us, and finally according to our purpose and the usefulness they see in the matter; but if we limit ourselves to imagining them as sorcerers, they cannot have a deep sympathy for us; from then on their appearances are brief, and they often manifest ill humor at being needlessly disturbed (See The Mediums’ Book, 2nd part, chapter XXVI, “Questions that may be asked of the Spirits”).