The role of mediums in communications

Whatever the nature of the writing mediums, whether mechanical or semi-mechanical, whether simply intuitive, our processes of communication with them do not essentially vary. In fact, we communicate with incarnate Spirits in the same way as with Spirits properly so called, solely through the radiation of our thought.

Our thoughts do not need the garment of the word in order to be understood by Spirits, and all of them perceive the thoughts that we wish to transmit to them, it being sufficient that we direct those thoughts to them, and this in proportion to their intellectual faculties. That is to say that such a thought can be understood by such or such Spirits, by virtue of their advancement, whereas, for such others, since they awaken no remembrance, no knowledge slumbering in the depths of their heart, or of their brain, those same thoughts are not perceptible to them. In this case, the incarnate Spirit who serves us as a medium is more apt to express our thought to other incarnates, even if he does not understand it, than a disincarnate Spirit, but little advanced, were we forced to make use of him, since the earthly being places his body, as an instrument, at our disposal, which the wandering spirit cannot do. Thus, when we find in a medium a brain populated with knowledge acquired in his present life and his Spirit rich in latent knowledge, obtained in previous lives, capable of facilitating communications for us, we make use of him by preference, because with him the phenomenon of communication becomes much easier for us than with a medium of limited intelligence and of scant previously acquired knowledge. We are going to make ourselves intelligible by means of a few clear and precise explanations.

With a medium whose present or prior intelligence is developed, our thought communicates instantaneously from Spirit to Spirit, by a faculty peculiar to the very essence of the Spirit. In this case, we find in the medium’s brain the elements proper to give to our thought the garment of the word that corresponds to it, and this whether the medium be intuitive, semi-mechanical, or entirely mechanical. This is the reason why, whatever the diversity of the Spirits who communicate with a medium, the dictations he obtains, though proceeding from different Spirits, bear, as to form and coloring, the stamp that is personal to him. Indeed, even if the thought is entirely foreign to him, even if the subject is outside the sphere in which he habitually moves, even if what we wish to say does not proceed from him, the medium nonetheless exercises an influence, as regards the form, through the qualities and properties inherent in his individuality. It is exactly as when you observe diverse panoramas through tinted spyglasses, green, white, or blue; although the panoramas, or objects observed, are entirely opposed and absolutely independent of one another, they nonetheless take on a tonality that comes from the colors of the spyglasses. Or, better: let us compare mediums to those glass vessels filled with colored and transparent liquids that are seen in the display cases of pharmaceutical laboratories. Well then, we are like the lights that illuminate certain moral, philosophical, and inner panoramas, through the mediums, blue, green, or red, in such a way that our luminous rays, obliged to pass through panes more or less well faceted, more or less transparent, that is, through mediums more or less intelligent, reach the objects we wish to illuminate only by taking on the coloring, or, better, the manner of expression proper and particular to those mediums. Finally, to conclude with a last comparison: we Spirits are like composers of music, who have composed, or wish to improvise, an air and who have at hand only a piano, a violin, a flute, a double bass, or a ten-cent harmonica. It is incontestable that, with the piano, the flute, or the violin, we will execute our composition in a manner much more intelligible to the listeners. Although the sounds produced by the piano, the double bass, and the clarinet are very different from one another, the composition will nonetheless be identical on any of these instruments, abstraction made of the shades of sound. But, if we have at our disposal only a ten-cent harmonica, or any improvised instrument whatever, there lies the difficulty for us. In effect, when we are obliged to make use of mediums little advanced, our work becomes much longer and more painful, because we find ourselves forced to resort to incomplete forms, which is for us a complication, since we are constrained to decompose our thoughts and to dictate word by word, letter by letter, this constituting a fatigue and an annoyance, as well as a real hindrance to the promptness and development of our manifestations.

This is why we like to find mediums well trained, well equipped, furnished with materials ready to be used, in a word: good instruments, because then our perispirit, acting upon that of the one whom we mediumize, has nothing more to do than to impel the hand that serves us as a pencil, or pen, whereas, with insufficient mediums, we are obliged to undertake a work analogous to that which we have when we communicate by means of raps, that is, forming, letter by letter, word by word, each of the sentences that translate the thoughts we wish to transmit to you.

It is for these reasons that we address ourselves by preference, for the dissemination of Spiritism and for the development of the writing mediumistic faculties, to the cultured and instructed classes, although it is in those classes that the most incredulous, most rebellious, and most immoral individuals are found. It is that, just as today we leave, to the jesting and little-advanced Spirits, the exercise of tangible communications, of raps and transports, so too men who are little serious prefer the spectacle of the phenomena that affect their eyes or their ears, to the phenomena purely spiritual, purely psychological. When we wish to transmit spontaneous dictations, we act upon the brain, upon the archives of the medium, and we prepare our materials with the elements that he furnishes us, and this without his knowledge. It is as if we took from his purse the sums that he may have in it and placed the coins that compose them in the order that seemed most convenient to us.

But when it is the medium himself who wishes to interrogate us, it is good that he reflect upon this seriously, in order to put his questions to us with method, thus facilitating for us the work of answering them. Because, as we have already said in a previous instruction, your brain is frequently in inextricable disorder and, not only difficult, but also painful does it become for us to move about in the labyrinth of your thoughts. When it is a third party who is to interrogate us, it is good and fitting that the series of questions be communicated beforehand to the medium, so that he may identify himself with the Spirit of the one who evokes and become, so to speak, impregnated with it, because then we others will have more facility in answering, by effect of the affinity existing between our perispirit and that of the medium who serves us as interpreter. Without doubt, we can speak of mathematics, making use of a medium to whom these are absolutely foreign; but, almost always, the Spirit of that medium possesses, in a latent state, knowledge of the subject, that is, knowledge peculiar to the fluidic being and not to the incarnate being, since his present body is an instrument rebellious, or contrary, to that knowledge. The same holds with astronomy, with poetry, with medicine, with the various languages, as well as with all the other knowledge peculiar to the human species.

Finally, we still have, as a painful means of elaboration, to be used with mediums completely foreign to the subject in question, that of the gathering of the letters and the words, one by one, as in typography.

As we said above, the Spirits do not need to clothe their thoughts; they perceive and transmit them, reciprocally, by the mere fact of the thoughts existing within them. Corporeal beings, on the contrary, can perceive thoughts only when they are clothed. Whereas the letter, the word, the noun, the verb, the sentence, in short, are necessary to you in order to perceive, even mentally, ideas, no visible or tangible form is necessary to us.

Erastus n and Timothy. n Protecting Spirits of mediums.

[1] Translator’s note: See The Mediums’ Book, Part 2, Chapter XIX, item 225.

[2] [v.

Thomas Erastus.]

[3]

[v. Timothy.]