Study on mediumship

One must not erect into systems those poorly conceived and poorly expressed dictations, which totally distort mediumistic inspiration, if indeed such inspiration ever existed. I leave to others the care of explaining the theory of progress, for it is useless that all mediums deal with the same subject. I am going to occupy myself with mediumship, that inexhaustible theme of research and study.

Mediumship is a faculty inherent in the nature of man; it is neither an exception nor a favor, and it is part of the great human whole. As such, it is subject to physical variations and to moral inequalities; it suffers the dreadful dualism of instinct and intelligence. It has its geniuses, its multitude, and its anomalies.

One must never attribute to the Spirits—and by these I mean those who are elevated—those baseless and formless dictations, which add to their nullity the ridicule of being signed with illustrious names. Serious mediumship invests itself only in brains furnished with sufficient instruction or, at least, tested by the struggles of the passions. The best mediums are the only ones to receive the spiritual influx; the others suffer only the material fluidic impulse, which moves their hands without making their intelligence produce anything that it did not already possess in a latent state. They must be encouraged to work, but the public must not be initiated into their lucubrations. Spiritist manifestations must be carried out with the greatest reserve; if it is indispensable to accumulate, for personal dignity, all the proofs of a perfect good faith around physical experiments, at least it is important to preserve spiritual communications from the ridicule that attaches itself so easily to ideas and systems derisively signed with celebrated names, which are and will always remain strangers to those productions. I do not call into question the loyalty of persons who, receiving the electric shock, confuse it with mediumistic inspiration. Science has its pseudo-scholars, mediumship its false mediums, in the spiritual order, of course. I am attempting here to establish the difference that exists between mediums inspired by the spiritual fluids and those who act only by the corporeal fluidic impulse, that is, those who vibrate intellectually and those whose physical resonance leads only to the confused and unconscious production of their own ideas, or of vulgar ideas of no consequence.

There exists, therefore, a very clear line of demarcation among writing mediums: some obeying the spiritual influence, which leads them to write only useful and elevated things; others, suffering the material fluidic influence that acts upon their cerebral organs, as physical fluids act upon inert matter. This first classification is absolute, but it admits a number of intermediate varieties. Here I indicate the principal traits of an important study, which other Spirits will complete. We are the pioneers of terrestrial progress, and in solidarity with one another. In the spirit phalanx we form the nucleus of the future. Georges.

Observation. – The sentence in which the Spirit says that he leaves to others the care of explaining the theory of progress is motivated by various questions that had been put forward on the subject during the session. When he says that mediumship is an inexhaustible theme of research and study, he is perfectly right.

Although the study of this integral part of Spiritism is far from being complete, we are already far from the time when it was believed that it sufficed to receive a mechanical impulse to call oneself a medium and to judge oneself fit to receive communications from all Spirits. This would be tantamount to thinking that the first person who plays a little air on the piano must necessarily be an excellent musician. The progress of the spirit science, which daily enriches itself with new observations, shows us to how many different causes and delicate influences, which were not suspected, the intelligent relations with the spiritual world are subject. The Spirits could not teach everything at once; but, like skillful teachers, as the ideas develop, they enter into greater detail and unfold the principles which, given prematurely, would not have been understood and would have confused our thinking. Mediumship therefore requires a serious study on the part of whoever sees in Spiritism something serious. As the true mechanisms of this faculty become better known, we shall be less exposed to disappointments, because we shall know what it can give and under what conditions it can do so. The more there are persons enlightened on this point, the fewer victims there will be of charlatanism.