MORAL INFLUENCE OF THE MEDIUM.

Various questions.

— Dissertation by a Spirit on moral influence.

Various questions.

— 1st Does the development of mediumship bear any relation to the moral development of mediums?

“No; 2 the faculty properly so called is rooted in the organism; it is independent of moral character.

The same, however, does not hold with regard to its use, which may be good or bad according to the qualities of the medium.”

2nd It has always been said that mediumship is a gift of God, a grace, a favor. Why, then, is it not the privilege of men of goodwill, and why does one see unworthy persons who possess it in the highest degree and who make ill use of it?

“All faculties are favors for which the creature should render thanks to God, for there are men who are deprived of them.

You might likewise ask why God grants magnificent eyesight to evildoers, dexterity to thieves, eloquence to those who use it to say harmful things. The same is true of mediumship.

If there are unworthy persons who possess it, it is because they have more need of it than others, in order to improve themselves.

Do you think that God refuses means of salvation to the guilty? On the contrary, He multiplies them along the path they tread; He places them in their hands. It is for them to make use of them.

Did not Judas the traitor work miracles and heal the sick, as an apostle? God permitted that he should have this gift, so as to render the more odious in his own eyes the betrayal he committed.” 3rd Will mediums who make bad use of their faculties, who do not employ them for good, or who do not turn them to account for their own instruction, suffer the consequences of that fault?

“If they make bad use of them, they will be doubly punished, because they have an additional means of enlightening themselves and do not avail themselves of it.

He who sees clearly and stumbles is more blameworthy than the blind man who falls into the ditch.”

4th There are mediums to whom, spontaneously and almost constantly, communications are given on the same subject, on certain moral questions, for example, on particular defects. Does this have some purpose?

“It does, and that purpose is to enlighten him on the frequently repeated subject, or to correct them of certain defects. That is why to some they will continually speak of pride, to others, of charity. It is because only satiety can at last open their eyes.

There is no medium who makes bad use of his faculty, out of ambition or self-interest, or who compromises it on account of a capital defect, such as pride, selfishness, frivolity, etc., who does not, from time to time, receive admonitions from the Spirits.

The worst of it is that most often they do not take them as directed to themselves.”

NOTE. Spirits frequently use circumlocutions in their lessons, giving them in an indirect manner, so as not to deprive of merit the one who knows how to profit by them and apply them. But such are the blindness and pride of some persons that they do not recognize themselves in the picture set before their eyes. Still more: if the Spirit gives them to understand that it is they who are meant, they grow angry and call him a liar, or malicious. This alone suffices to prove that the Spirit is right. 5th In the lessons dictated, in a general way, to the medium, without personal application, does he not figure as a passive instrument, for the instruction of others?

“Often the warnings and counsels are not addressed to him personally, but to others to whom we can address ourselves only through him, who, nevertheless, should take the part that falls to him in such warnings and counsels, if self-love does not blind him.

“Do not believe that the mediumistic faculty is given only for the correction of one or two persons, no. The aim is higher: it concerns Humanity.

A medium is a very unimportant instrument, as an individual. That is why, when we give instructions that are to profit the generality of men, we make use of those who offer the necessary facilities.

Let it be held for certain, however, that a time will come when good mediums will be very common, so that the good Spirits will have no need to make use of bad instruments.” 6th Since the moral qualities of the medium keep away imperfect Spirits, how is it that a medium endowed with good qualities transmits false, or coarse, answers?

“Do you, perchance, know all the recesses of the human soul?

Moreover, the creature may be frivolous and trifling, without being vicious.

This also happens because, at times, he has need of a lesson, in order to keep himself on guard.”

7th Why do the superior Spirits permit that persons endowed with great power, as mediums, and who could do much good, should be instruments of error?

“The Spirits of whom you speak seek to influence them; but, when these persons consent to be drawn into a bad path, they let them go.

Hence they make use of them with repugnance, since the truth cannot be interpreted by falsehood.”

8th Is it absolutely impossible that good communications should be obtained through an imperfect medium?

“An imperfect medium may sometimes obtain good things, because, if he is possessed of a fine faculty, it is not rare that the good Spirits make use of him, for want of another, in special circumstances; 2 but this happens only momentarily, for, as soon as the Spirits find one who suits them better, they give the preference to him.”

NOTE. It should be observed that, when the good Spirits see that a medium ceases to be well assisted and becomes, through his imperfections, the prey of deceiving Spirits, they almost always bring about circumstances that lay bare his defects and remove him from serious and well-intentioned persons, whose good faith might be ensnared.

In this case, whatever faculties he may possess, his removal is not to be regretted.

9th What medium might be qualified as perfect?

“Perfect, ah! you well know that perfection does not exist on Earth, otherwise you would not be on it.

Say, therefore, a good medium, and that is already much, for they are rare.

A perfect medium would be one against whom the evil Spirits would never dare an attempt to deceive him.

The best is he who, sympathizing only with the good Spirits, has been the least deceived.”

10th If he sympathizes only with the good Spirits, how do these permit that he be deceived?

“The good Spirits permit, at times, that this should happen to the best mediums, in order to exercise their judgment and to teach them to discern the true from the false.

Then, however good he may be, a medium is never so perfect that he cannot be attacked on some weak side.

This should serve him as a lesson. The false communications that he receives from time to time are warnings that he should not consider himself infallible and should not become proud.

For the medium who receives the most remarkable things has no reason to glory in it, any more than has the hand-organ player who obtains beautiful airs by turning the crank of his instrument.” 11th What are the conditions necessary in order that the word of the superior Spirits may reach us free from any alteration?

“To will the good; to repel selfishness and pride. Both of these things are necessary.”

12th Since the word of the superior Spirits does not reach us pure, except under conditions difficult to find fulfilled, does this fact not constitute an obstacle to the propagation of the truth?

“No, because the light always reaches the one who desires to receive it.

Whoever wishes to enlighten himself should flee from the darkness, 3 and the darkness is found in the impurity of the heart.

“The Spirits whom you consider as personifications of the good do not readily heed the appeal of those who bear a heart stained by pride, by cupidity, and by lack of charity.

“Let those, then, who desire to enlighten themselves purge themselves of all human vanity and humble their intelligence before the infinite power of the Creator. This is the best proof they can give of the sincerity of the desire that animates them. It is a condition that all can satisfy.”

If the medium, from the point of view of execution, is no more than an instrument, he nevertheless exercises a very great influence, under the moral aspect.

For, in order to communicate, the disincarnate Spirit identifies himself with the Spirit of the medium, and this identification cannot take place except where there is, between the one and the other, sympathy and, if it is permissible so to say, affinity.

The soul exercises over the free Spirit a kind of attraction, or of repulsion, according to the degree of the resemblance existing between them.

Now, the good have affinity with the good and the bad with the bad, whence it follows that the moral qualities of the medium exercise a capital influence over the nature of the Spirits who communicate through him.

If the medium is vicious, around him come to group themselves the inferior Spirits, ever ready to take the place of the good Spirits evoked.

The qualities that, by preference, attract the good Spirits are: goodness, benevolence, simplicity of heart, love of the neighbor, detachment from material things.

The defects that drive them away are: pride, selfishness, envy, jealousy, hatred, cupidity, sensuality, and all the passions that enslave man to matter.

All the moral imperfections are so many doors open to the access of the evil Spirits.

The one, however, that they exploit with the most skill is pride, because it is the one that the creature least confesses to himself.

Pride has lost many mediums endowed with the finest faculties and who, but for that imperfection, might have been able to become remarkable and very useful instruments, whereas, as the prey of lying Spirits, their faculties, after having been perverted, were annihilated, and more than one found himself humiliated by the bitterest disappointments.

Pride, in mediums, is revealed by unmistakable signs, on which it is so much the more necessary to insist as it constitutes one of the strongest causes of suspicion regarding the veracity of their communications.

It begins with a blind confidence in those very communications and in the infallibility of the Spirit who gives them.

Hence a certain disdain for all that does not come from them: it is that they think they have the privilege of the truth.

The prestige of the great names with which the Spirits held to be their protectors adorn themselves dazzles them and, as their self-love would suffer if they had to confess that they are duped, they reject any and every counsel; they even avoid such counsels, keeping away from their friends and from whoever might open their eyes.

If they condescend to listen to them, they set no value on their opinions, for to doubt the Spirit who assists them would be almost a profanation.

They take offense at the least contradiction, at a simple critical observation, and go at times to the point of conceiving hatred for the very persons who have rendered them service.

Because they favor this isolation into which they are dragged by the Spirits who want no contradictors, those very Spirits take pleasure in preserving their illusions, for which purpose they make them regard the most fleshy absurdities as sublime things.

Thus, absolute confidence in the superiority of what one obtains, contempt for what does not come from them, unreflecting importance attached to great names, refusal of all counsel, suspicion regarding any criticism, withdrawal from those who can express disinterested opinions, credit given to their own aptitudes, despite being inexperienced: such are the characteristics of proud mediums.

We must also agree that, very often, pride is awakened in the medium by those who surround him.

If he has somewhat transcendent faculties, he is sought after and praised and comes to think himself indispensable. He soon takes on airs of importance and disdain when he lends someone his assistance.

More than once we have had occasion to deplore praises that we bestowed upon some mediums, with the aim of encouraging them.

Alongside this, let us set in evidence the picture of the truly good medium, the one in whom one can have confidence.

We will suppose him, above all, to have a very great facility of execution, which permits the Spirits to communicate freely, without encountering any material obstacle.

This being granted, what most matters to consider is of what nature are the Spirits who habitually assist him, for which we should not hold to the names, but to the language.

He should never lose sight of the fact that the sympathy that the good Spirits show him will be in direct proportion to his efforts to keep away the bad.

Persuaded that his faculty is a gift that was granted to him only for the good, he in no way seeks to take advantage of it, nor to present it as a demonstration of merit on his part.

He accepts the good communications transmitted to him as a grace, of which it behooves him to become ever more worthy, by his goodness, by his benevolence, and by his modesty. The first [no. 228]

is proud of his relations with the superior Spirits; this other humbles himself, considering himself always beneath that favor.

[Dissertation by a Spirit on moral influence.]

The following instruction was given to us, on the subject, by a Spirit of whom we have inserted many communications:

“We have already said it: mediums, merely as such, exercise only a secondary influence in the communications of the Spirits; their role is that of an electric machine, which transmits telegraphic dispatches from one point of the Earth to another distant point.

Thus, when we wish to dictate a communication, we act upon the medium as the telegraph employee acts upon the apparatus, that is, in the same way that the click-clack of the telegraph traces, thousands of leagues away, upon a strip of paper, the signs reproducing the dispatch, so too we communicate, by means of the mediumistic apparatus, across the immeasurable distances that separate the visible world from the invisible world, the immaterial world from the carnal world, that which we wish to teach you.

But, just as atmospheric influences act, often disturbing, the transmissions of the electric telegraph, likewise the moral influence of the medium acts and disturbs, at times, the transmission of our dispatches from beyond the tomb, because we are obliged to make them pass through a medium that is contrary to them. Nevertheless, this influence is often nullified, by our energy and will, and no disturbing act manifests itself.

In fact, dictations of high philosophical import, communications of perfect morality are sometimes transmitted by mediums unfit for those superior teachings; while, on the other hand, little edifying communications also arrive, at times, through mediums who are ashamed to have served them as conductors.

“As a general thesis, it may be affirmed that Spirits attract Spirits who are similar to them and that rarely do the Spirits of the elevated Pleiades communicate through poorly conducting apparatuses, when they have at hand good mediumistic apparatuses, good mediums, in a word.

“Frivolous and not very serious mediums attract, then, Spirits of the same nature; that is why their communications show themselves full of banalities, frivolities, truncated ideas and, not rarely, very heterodox ones, spiritistically speaking.

Certainly, they may say, and at times do say, useful things; but in that case, principally, a severe and scrupulous examination becomes necessary, for, mingled with those useful things, hypocritical Spirits insinuate, with skill and preconceived perfidy, facts of pure invention, lying assertions, in order to dupe the good faith of those who give them attention.

One must then strike out, without pity, every equivocal word, every equivocal phrase, and keep of the dictation only what logic can accept, or what the Doctrine has already taught.

Communications of this nature are only to be feared by the Spiritists who work in isolation, by new groups, or those little enlightened, since, in the gatherings where the adepts are advanced and have already acquired experience, the jackdaw wastes its time adorning itself with the peacock's feathers: it always ends up unmasked.

“I will not speak of the mediums who take pleasure in soliciting and receiving obscene communications. Let us leave them to delight in the company of cynical Spirits. Besides, the authors of communications of this order themselves seek solitude and isolation; for they could cause only contempt and disgust among the members of philosophical and serious groups.

Where, however, the moral influence of the medium really makes itself felt is when he substitutes, for the ideas that the Spirits strive to suggest to him, those that are personal to him, and also when he draws from his imagination fantastic theories that, in good faith, he judges to result from an intuitive communication. It is then a thousand to one bet that this is no more than a reflection of the medium's own Spirit. There even occurs the curious fact that the medium's hand moves, almost mechanically at times, impelled by a secondary and mocking Spirit.

This is the touchstone against which ardent imaginations come to break themselves, for, carried away by the impetus of their own ideas, by the tinsel of their literary knowledge, mediums fail to recognize the modest dictation of a judicious Spirit and, abandoning the prey for the shadow, replace it with a bombastic paraphrase.

Against this terrible reef likewise come to dash themselves the ambitious personalities who, for want of the communications that the good Spirits refuse them, present their own works as being from those Spirits.

Hence the necessity that the directors of Spiritist groups be endowed with fine tact, with rare sagacity, in order to discern the authentic communications from those that are not, and so as not to wound those who deceive themselves.

“When in doubt, abstain, says one of your old proverbs.

Admit, therefore, only what is, in your eyes, of manifest evidence. As soon as a new opinion comes to be put forward, however little it may appear doubtful to you, make it pass through the crucible of reason and logic, and reject undauntedly what reason and good sense reprove.

It is better to repel ten truths than to admit a single falsehood, a single erroneous theory.

Indeed, upon that theory you might build a complete system, which would collapse at the first breath of truth, like a monument built upon shifting sand, whereas, if you reject today some truths, because they are not demonstrated to you clearly and logically, later a brutal fact, or an irrefutable demonstration will come to affirm to you their authenticity.

“Remember, however, O Spiritists! that for God and for the good Spirits there is only one impossible thing: injustice and iniquity.

“Spiritism is already sufficiently widespread among men and has already sufficiently moralized the sincere adepts of its holy doctrine, so that the Spirits are no longer constrained to use bad instruments, imperfect mediums.

If, then, now, a medium, whoever he may be, becomes an object of legitimate suspicion, by his conduct, by his customs, by his pride, by his lack of love and of charity, repel, repel his communications, for there will be a serpent hidden among the grass.

This is the conclusion at which I arrive concerning the moral influence of mediums.” Erastus.

[1]

[This golden rule of Spiritism, given, as is seen, by the Spirit Erastus, a disciple of Paul, spread as being from Kardec himself and in a different form, namely: it is better to reject ninety-nine truths than to accept one lie. It was for this reason that we emphasized it in the text. It is, indeed, a rule that must be constantly observed in Spiritist works and studies (This note was taken from The Mediums' Book published by LAKE. It is the 11th footnote of the translator J. Herculano Pires for this same chapter of the cited book; we have placed it here on account of the importance of the clarification it contains).]