Introduction.

Every day experience brings us the confirmation that the difficulties and disappointments that many encounter in the practice of Spiritism originate from ignorance of the principles of this science, and we feel happy to have been able to verify that our work, done with the aim of guarding adherents against the pitfalls of a novitiate, has produced fruits, and that to the reading of this work many owe their having managed to avoid them.

Natural it is, among those who occupy themselves with Spiritism, the desire to be able to place themselves in communication with the Spirits. This work is intended to smooth the path for them, leading them to take advantage of our long and laborious studies, for a very false idea would be formed by anyone who thought it sufficient, in order to consider oneself an expert in this matter, to know how to place one's fingers upon a table in order to make it move, or to hold a pencil in order to write.

He would be equally mistaken who supposed he would find in this work a universal and infallible recipe for forming mediums. Although each one carries within himself the germ of the qualities necessary to become a medium, such qualities exist in very different degrees, and their development depends upon causes that no one is able to bring about at will.

The rules of poetry, of painting, and of music do not cause those who lack the genius for any of these arts to become poets, painters, or musicians. They merely guide those who cultivate them in the employment of their natural faculties. The same happens with our work. Its object consists in indicating the means of developing the mediumistic faculty, insofar as each one's dispositions permit, and, above all, in directing its employment in a useful manner, when it exists. This, however, does not constitute the sole end we have proposed for ourselves.

Alongside the mediums properly so called, there is, growing daily, a multitude of persons who occupy themselves with the Spiritist manifestations. To guide them in their observations, to point out to them the obstacles they may and must necessarily encounter in dealing with a new order of things, to initiate them into the manner of conferring with the Spirits, to indicate to them the means of obtaining good communications, such is the circle we must embrace, under penalty of producing an incomplete work. Let no one, then, be surprised to find in it instructions that, at first sight, may appear out of place; experience will bring out their usefulness. Whoever studies it carefully will afterward better understand the facts of which he may become a witness; the language of certain Spirits will appear less strange to him.

As a repository of practical instruction, therefore, our work is not destined exclusively for mediums, but for all who are in a condition to see and observe the Spiritist phenomena.

There will be no lack of those who would wish we had published a very succinct practical manual, containing in few words the indication of the processes that must be employed in order to enter into communication with the Spirits. Such persons will think that a book of this nature, given the possibility of its being spread profusely at a modest price, would represent a powerful means of propaganda, through the multiplication of mediums. In our view, such a work, instead of being useful, would be harmful, at least for the present.

The practice of Spiritism shows itself beset with many difficulties and is not always free from inconveniences, which only serious and complete study can obviate. It was, then, to be feared that a very abridged indication might encourage experiments lightly attempted, of which the experimenters would come to repent. These are things with which it is neither fitting nor prudent to trifle, and we believed we would render a bad service by placing them within the reach of the first reckless person who found it amusing to converse with the dead.

We address ourselves to those who see in Spiritism a serious objective, who understand all its gravity and do not make of communications with the invisible world a pastime.

We had published a Practical Instruction with the aim of guiding mediums. That work is today out of print and, although we made it with a grave and serious end, we shall not reprint it, because we do not yet consider it complete enough to give clarification concerning all the difficulties that may be encountered.

We have replaced it with this one, in which we have gathered together all the data that a long experience and conscientious studies have permitted us to collect. It will contribute, at least so we hope, to imprinting upon Spiritism the serious character that forms its essence, and to preventing anyone from seeing in it an object of frivolous occupation and amusement.

To these considerations we shall yet add another, very important one: the bad impression produced upon novices by experiments lightly performed and without knowledge of the cause, experiments that present the inconvenience of generating false ideas concerning the world of the Spirits and of giving occasion to mockery and to a criticism almost always well founded. From such gatherings, the incredulous rarely emerge converted and disposed to recognize that in Spiritism there is something serious. To the erroneous opinion of a great number of persons, far more than is thought has been contributed by the ignorance and the levity of various mediums.

For some years, Spiritism has made great progress; immense, however, is the progress it has managed to make from the moment it took a philosophical direction, because it began to be appreciated by educated people. At present, it is no longer a spectacle: it is a doctrine at which those who scoffed at turning tables no longer laugh. Striving to lead it onto that ground and to keep it there, we nourish the conviction that we win for it more useful adherents than by provoking right and left manifestations that would lend themselves to abuses. Of this we have daily proof in the number of those who have become Spiritists solely through the reading of The Spirits' Book.

After having set forth, in that book, the philosophical part of the Spiritist science, we give in this work the practical part, for the use of those who wish to occupy themselves with the manifestations, whether to perform them personally, or to acquaint themselves with the phenomena it may be given them to observe. They will see, there, the obstacles they may meet with and will also have a means of avoiding them.

These two works, although the second constitutes a continuation of the first, are, up to a certain point, independent of each other. But to whoever wishes to treat the matter seriously, we shall say that he should first read The Spirits' Book, because it contains basic principles, without which some parts of this one would perhaps become difficult to comprehend.

Important alterations for the better have been introduced in this second edition, much more complete than the first.

Adding to it a great number of notes and instructions of the greatest interest, the Spirits corrected it with particular care.

As they reviewed everything, approving it, or modifying it at their will, it may be said that it is, in great part, their work, for the intervention they had was not limited to the articles that bear signatures.

Few are those articles, because we appended names only when this seemed to us necessary, in order to point out that certain somewhat lengthy citations came from them textually.

Otherwise, we would have had to cite them on almost every page, especially following all the answers given to the questions that were put to them, which appeared to us of no usefulness.

Names, as is known, matter little in such subjects. The essential thing is that the whole of the work corresponds to the end we aim at.

The reception given to the first edition, imperfect though it was, makes us hope that the present one will meet with no less receptivity.

As we have added to it many things and many entire chapters, we have suppressed some articles that would have remained duplicates, among others the one that dealt with the Spiritist Scale, which is already found in "The Spirits' Book."

We have likewise suppressed from the "Vocabulary" what did not fit well within the framework of this work, advantageously replacing what was suppressed with more practical things.

This vocabulary, moreover, was not complete, and we intend to publish it later, separately, in the format of a small dictionary of Spiritist philosophy. We have kept in this edition only the new or special words pertinent to the subjects with which we occupy ourselves.