Self-interested mediums.

— In our article on the pitfalls of mediums we placed cupidity among the defects that may give shelter to imperfect Spirits. Some developments on this subject will not be useless. We must place in the front rank of self-interested mediums those who would make a profession of their faculty, giving what are called paid consultations or sessions. We do not know any such, at least in France, but as everything can become an object of exploitation, there would be nothing surprising if one day people wished to exploit the Spirits. It remains to be seen how the Spirits would confront the fact, should such a speculation be attempted. Even partially initiated into Spiritism, one understands how debasing such a speculation would be; nevertheless, whoever knows a little of the difficult situations the Spirits face in order to communicate with us knows how little is needed to drive them away, just as he knows their repugnance for everything that represents selfish interest; for this reason, they can never admit that the superior Spirits would submit themselves to the caprice of the first comer who comes to evoke them, at such or such an hour; simple good sense repels this supposition. Would it not also be a profanation to evoke the father, the mother, the son or a friend by such a means? No doubt one can obtain communications in this way, but God alone knows from what source! The frivolous, lying, mischievous, mocking Spirits and the whole rabble of inferior Spirits always come; they are always ready to answer everything. The other day Saint Louis told us, at the Society: Evoke a rock and it will answer you. He who desires serious communications must, before all else, inform himself about the nature of the medium's sympathies with the beings of beyond the tomb. Now, those that are given for payment can inspire only a very mediocre confidence. Self-interested mediums are not solely those who would exact a material remuneration; interest is not always expressed in the hope of a material gain but also in ambitions of any nature, upon which personal hope may be founded; it is yet another anomaly that the mocking Spirits know very well how to take advantage of, and with a dexterity and an effrontery that are truly remarkable, lulling with deceptive illusions those who thus place themselves under their dependence. In short, mediumship is a faculty given for good, and the good Spirits withdraw from whoever would transform it into a springboard for attaining anything whatsoever that does not correspond to the designs of Providence. Egoism is the wound of society; the good Spirits combat it and, therefore, one must not imagine that they make use of it. This is so rational that it would be useless to insist further on this point.

— The mediums of physical effects are not in the same category. As such effects are produced by inferior Spirits, little scrupulous as to moral sentiments, a medium of this nature who wished to exploit his faculty might find someone to assist him without much repugnance. But here too another drawback presents itself. The medium of physical effects, like the one of intelligent communications, did not receive this faculty for his own pleasure; it was given to him on the condition of using it suitably: if he abuses it, it may be withdrawn or bring him harm because, definitively, the inferior Spirits are at the orders of the superior Spirits. The inferior ones love to mystify, but they do not like to be mystified. If they willingly lend themselves to jokes and curious questions, just like the others they do not like to be exploited, proving at every moment that they have a will of their own and acting how and when it best suits them; this makes the medium of physical effects even less sure of the reality of the manifestations than the writing medium. To claim to produce them on a fixed day and hour would be to give proof of the most profound ignorance. What, then, is to be done in order to earn one's money? Simulate the phenomena; this is what may happen not only to those who make a declared profession of it, but also to apparently simple persons, who limit themselves to receiving some remuneration from the visitors. If the Spirit produces nothing, the medium himself supplies its deficiency: the imagination is so fertile when it is a question of earning money…! It is a thesis we develop in a special article, with a view to preventing fraud. From all that precedes, we conclude that the greatest guarantee against charlatanism is the most absolute disinterestedness, since there are no disinterested charlatans; if this does not always assure the excellence of the intelligent communications, it removes from the bad Spirits a powerful means of action and closes the mouth of certain detractors.