Different modes of communication.

— The intelligent communications between Spirits and men can occur by means of signs, by writing, and by speech.

Signs consist in the significant movement of certain objects and, more frequently, in the noises or blows struck. When the phenomena comport a meaning, they leave no doubt as to the intervention of an occult intelligence, for, if every effect has a cause, every intelligent effect must have an intelligent cause.

Under the influence of certain persons, designated by the name of mediums, and sometimes spontaneously, any object whatever can execute agreed-upon movements, strike a determined number of blows, and thus transmit answers by yes and no, or by the designation of the letters of the alphabet.

The blows can also be heard without any apparent movement and without any ostensible cause, whether on the surface or in the very fabric of inert bodies, in a wall, in a stone, in a piece of furniture, or in any other object whatever. Of all these objects, because they are the most convenient, by the mobility and ease with which we place ourselves around them, tables are the most frequently used: hence the designation of the phenomenon in general by the rather trivial expressions of talking tables and dancing of the tables, expressions that ought to be banished, first because they lend themselves to ridicule, and then because they may lead into error, making one believe, in this particular, that they have a special influence. To this mode of communication we shall give the name of Spiritist sematology, an expression that gives a perfect idea and comprises all the varieties of communications by means of signs, movements of bodies, or rappings. One of our correspondents even went so far as to propose to us that this last means, that of the rappings, be specially designated by the word typtology.

— The second mode of communication is writing. We shall designate it under the name of psychography, likewise employed by a correspondent.

To communicate by writing, the Spirits employ, as intermediaries, certain persons endowed with the faculty of writing under the influence of the occult force that directs them and who obey a power evidently beyond their control, since they can neither stop nor continue at will and, most often, are not conscious of what they write. Their hand is agitated by an involuntary, almost feverish movement; they take up the pencil despite themselves, and they lay it down in the same way; neither will nor desire can make it continue, should it not do so. This is direct psychography. Writing is also obtained by the mere imposition of the hands upon an object suitably arranged and furnished with a pencil or some other instrument appropriate for writing. Generally, the objects most employed are the planchettes or the baskets, suitably arranged for this effect. The occult force that acts upon the person is transmitted to the object, which thus becomes an appendage of the hand, imparting to it the movement necessary to trace the characters. This is indirect psychography. The communications transmitted by psychography are more or less extensive, according to the degree of the mediating faculty. Some obtain only words; in others, the faculty develops through exercise, and they write complete sentences and, frequently, developed dissertations on subjects proposed or treated spontaneously by the Spirits, without any question having been put to them.

Sometimes the writing is clear and legible; at other times, it is decipherable only by the one who wrote it and who reads it by a kind of intuition or second sight.

Under the hand of the same person, the writing changes, in general, in a complete manner, with the occult intelligence that manifests, and the same type of handwriting is reproduced each time the same intelligence manifests. This fact, however, has nothing absolute about it.

The Spirits sometimes transmit certain written communications without direct intermediary. The characters, in this case, are traced spontaneously by an extra-human power, visible or invisible. As it is useful that each thing have a name, in order that we may understand one another, we shall give to this mode of written communication that of spiritography, to distinguish it from psychography, or writing obtained through a medium. The difference between these two words is easy to grasp. In psychography the soul of the medium necessarily plays a certain role, at least as an intermediary, whereas in spiritography it is the Spirit that acts directly, by itself.

— The third mode of communication is speech. Certain persons undergo in the vocal organs the influence of an occult power that makes itself felt in the hand of those who write. They transmit, by speech, what others transmit by writing.

Verbal communications, like written ones, sometimes occur without a corporeal intermediary. Words and sentences can resound in our ears or in our brain, without any apparent physical cause. The Spirits can likewise appear to us in dream or in a waking state, and address words to us in order to give us warnings or instructions.

To follow the same system of nomenclature that we adopted for the written communications, we ought to call the speech transmitted by the medium psychology, and that originating directly from the Spirit spiritology. But the word psychology already has a known acceptation, and we cannot distort it. We shall, therefore, designate all verbal communications under the name of spiritology: the first by the words mediate spiritology, and the second by those of direct spiritology.

— Of the different modes of communication, sematology is the most incomplete; it is very slow and lends itself only with difficulty to developments of a certain extent. The higher Spirits do not willingly make use of it, either because of its slowness or because the answers, by yes and no, are incomplete and subject to error. For teaching they prefer the more rapid means: writing and speech.

In effect, writing and speech are the most complete means for the transmission of the thought of the Spirits, whether by the precision of the answers or by the extent of the developments they comport. Writing has the advantage of leaving material traces and of being one of the means most suited to combating doubt. Besides, one is not free to choose; the Spirits communicate by the means they judge appropriate: this depends on the aptitudes.