Special mediums.

— Experience proves daily how numerous are the varieties of the mediumistic faculty, but it also proves to us that the various shades of that faculty are due to special aptitudes not yet defined, abstraction made of the qualities and knowledge of the Spirit who manifests.

The nature of the communications is always relative to the nature of the Spirit and bears the stamp of its elevation or its inferiority, of its learning or its ignorance. But, considering the same merit from the hierarchical point of view, there is in it, incontestably, a propensity to occupy itself with one thing rather than another. The rapping Spirits, for example, hardly ever go beyond physical manifestations. Among those who give intelligent manifestations, there are poet Spirits, musicians, draftsmen, moralists, scholars, physicians, etc. We speak of Spirits of a middling order, since, having reached a certain degree, the aptitudes merge into the unity of perfection. But, alongside the aptitude of the Spirit, there is also that of the medium, who, for the former, is a more or less convenient instrument, more or less flexible, and in whom it discovers particular qualities that we cannot appreciate.

Let us make a comparison: A very skilled musician has several violins in his hands; to the common person they are all good, but among them the consummate artist makes a great difference. He grasps shades of extreme delicacy, which lead him to choose some and reject others, shades that he understands by intuition but is incapable of defining. The same occurs with regard to mediums: for identical qualities in the mediumistic force, the Spirit will give preference to this one or that one, according to the kind of communication it wishes to give. Thus, for example, we see people who write, as mediums, admirable poetry, though in ordinary conditions they have never managed to compose a verse; others, on the contrary, are poets, but, as mediums, write only prose, despite their desire. The same occurs with drawing, music, etc. There are also those who, without scientific knowledge of their own, have a quite particular aptitude for receiving scientific communications; others, for historical studies; others more easily serve as interpreters to the moralist Spirits. In a word, whatever the flexibility of the medium, the communications it receives most easily generally have a special seal. Some, indeed, do not go beyond a certain circle of ideas and, when they depart from it, obtain only incomplete, laconic, and frequently false communications. Aside from the causes of aptitude, the Spirits also communicate, with more or less goodwill, through this or that intermediary, according to their sympathies. Thus, considering the same equality of aptitudes, the same Spirit will be much more explicit through certain mediums, by the simple fact that these suit it better.

— Therefore, we would fall into error if, by the simple fact of having a good medium at hand who wrote with ease, we could, through this person, obtain good communications of all kinds. The first condition for obtaining good communications is, without contradiction, to assure oneself of the source from which they emanate, that is, the qualities of the Spirit who transmits them; but it is no less important to take into account the qualities of the instrument offered to the Spirit. It is necessary, then, to study the nature of the medium, as one studies that of the Spirit, for there are the two essential elements for obtaining satisfactory results. There is a third that plays an equally important role: the intention, the inmost thought, the more or less praiseworthy sentiment of the one who questions; and this is conceivable. For a communication to be good, it must emanate from a good Spirit; for that good Spirit to be able to transmit it, a good instrument is necessary; for it to wish to transmit it, the aim must suit it. Reading the thought, the Spirit judges whether the question put to it deserves a serious answer and whether the person who directs it is worthy of receiving it. Otherwise, it does not waste time in sowing good seed on unsuitable ground; and it is then that the frivolous and mocking Spirits take advantage of the field, left free, since, caring little for the truth, they do not hesitate to do so, and are generally very little scrupulous as to ends and means.

— In accordance with what we have just said, it is understandable that there must be Spirits, by taste or by reason, more especially occupied with the relief of suffering humanity; that, in parallel, there must be mediums more apt than others to serve them as intermediaries. Now, since these Spirits act exclusively with a view to good, they must seek in their interpreters, besides the aptitude that might be called physiological, certain moral qualities, among which figure, in the first rank, devotion and disinterestedness. Cupidity has always been, and will always be, a motive of repulsion for the good Spirits and a cause of attraction for the others. Is it admissible that good sense can accept that the superior Spirits lend themselves to all the combinations of material interest and that they are at the orders of the first comer who claims to exploit them? The Spirits, whatever they may be, do not wish to be exploited; and, if some seem to be in agreement, if they even anticipate certain overly worldly desires, they almost always have in view a mystification, at which they later laugh, as at a good trick played on very credulous people. Moreover, it is perhaps not useless that some burn their fingers, so as to learn that one must not trifle with serious things. This would be the occasion to speak here of one of those privileged mediums whom the healing Spirits seem to have taken under their direct patronage. Miss Désirée Godu, who resides at Hennebon (Morbihan), enjoys, in this regard, a truly exceptional faculty, which she uses with the most pious self-denial. About this we have already said a few words in a report of the sessions of the Society, but the importance of the subject deserves a special article, which we shall have the satisfaction of devoting to her in our next issue. Apart from the interest attached to the study of every rare faculty, we have always considered it a duty to make good known and to do justice to those who practice it.