Mental mediumship.

— One of our correspondents writes to us from Milianah (Algeria):

“…With regard to the release of the Spirit, which occurs in everyone during sleep, my spiritual guide exercises me while awake. While the body is numb, the Spirit transports itself far away, visits the people and places it enjoys, and then returns without effort. What seems most surprising to me is that, while I am as if in catalepsy, I am aware of this release. I also exercise myself in inner gathering, which affords me the pleasant visit of sympathetic Spirits, both incarnate and disincarnate. This last study occurs only at night, around two or three o'clock, and when the body, having rested, awakens. I remain for a few moments in expectation, as after an evocation. Then I feel the presence of the Spirit through a physical impression, and at once an image arises in my thought that makes me recognize it. A mental dialogue is established, as in intuitive communication, and this kind of conversation has something adorably intimate about it. Often my incarnate brother and sister visit me, sometimes accompanied by my father and mother, from the world of the Spirits. “A few days ago I had your visit, dear master, and by the sweetness of the fluid that penetrated me, I thought it was one of our good celestial protectors. Imagine my joy when I recognized in my thought, or rather in my brain, as it were the very timbre of your voice. Lamennais gave us a communication on this subject and must encourage my efforts. I could not tell you of the charm that this kind of mediumship gives. If you have near you some intuitive mediums, accustomed to inner gathering and to mental concentration, they too can try. One evokes and, instead of writing, one converses, expressing the ideas well, without verbosity.

“Often my guide has remarked to me that I had a suffering Spirit, a friend who comes to instruct himself or to seek consolation. Yes, Spiritism is an inestimable benefit; it opens a vast field to charity, and he who is inspired by good sentiments, if he cannot come to his brother's aid materially, can always do so spiritually.”

— This mediumship, to which we give the name of mental mediumship, is certainly not fit to convince the incredulous, because it has nothing ostensive about it, nor any of those effects that strike the senses; it is entirely for the inner satisfaction of the one who possesses it. But it must also be recognized that it lends itself greatly to illusion and that one must beware of appearances. As for the existence of the faculty, it could not be put in doubt; we even think that it must be the most frequent, because the number of people who, in a waking state, undergo the influence of the Spirits and receive the inspiration of a thought which they feel is not their own is considerable. The agreeable or painful impression that one sometimes feels at the sight of someone seen for the first time; the foreboding one has of the approach of a person; the penetration and the transmission of thought are so many effects that pertain to the same cause and constitute a kind of mediumship that may be called universal, for each one possesses at least its rudiments. But to experience its marked effects, a special aptitude is necessary, or rather a degree of sensitivity more or less developed according to the individual. In this respect, as we have said for a long time, all are mediums, and God has disinherited no one from the precious advantage of receiving the salutary effluvia of the spiritual world, which translate themselves in a thousand different ways. But the varieties that exist in the human organism do not permit everyone to obtain identical and ostensive effects. This question having been discussed in the Society of Paris, the following instructions on the subject were given by various Spirits:

I.

— The spiritual sense can be developed, just as one daily sees an aptitude develop through constant work. Now, you know that the communication of the incorporeal world with your senses is constant; it occurs at every hour, at every minute, by the law of spiritual relations. Let the incarnate dare here to deny a law of Nature itself!

It has just been told you that the Spirits see and visit one another during sleep, and of this you have many proofs. Why would you wish that this should not occur while awake? The Spirits have no night. No; they are constantly at your side; they watch over you; your dear ones inspire you, awaken thoughts in you, guide you; they speak to you and exhort you; they protect your labors, help you to work out your designs formed by half, your dreams still undecided; they take note of your good resolutions, they struggle when you struggle. There are those good friends, at the beginning of your incarnation; they smile at you in the cradle, enlighten you in your studies; then they intervene in all the acts of your passage here on Earth; they pray when they see you preparing to go and meet them. Oh! no, never deny your daily assistance! never deny your spiritual mediumship, because you blaspheme God and you will be charged with ingratitude by the Spirits who love you.

H. Dozon.

(Medium: Mr. Delanne.)

II.

— Yes, this kind of spiritual communication is indeed a mediumship, just as, moreover, you still have others to observe in the course of your Spiritist studies. It is a kind of cataleptic state, very agreeable for the one who is its object; it affords all the joys of spiritual life to the imprisoned soul, which finds there an indefinable charm that it would like to experience always. But one must somehow return; and, like the prisoner who is allowed to take the air in a courtyard, the soul re-enters constrained into the human cell.

It is a very agreeable mediumship, this one that allows an incarnate Spirit to see its old friends, to be able to converse with them, to communicate to them its earthly impressions and to be able to expand its heart in the midst of discreet friends, who do not seek the ridiculous in what you confide to them, but rather to give you good advice, if it is useful to you. This advice, given thus, has more weight for the mediums who receive it, for the Spirit who gives it, showing itself to them, has left a deep impression on their brain and, by this means, has engraved better in their heart the sincerity and the value of this advice.

This mediumship exists in an unconscious state in many people. You know that there is always near you a sincere friend, always ready to sustain and to encourage the one whose direction is entrusted to him by the Almighty. No, my friends, this support will never fail you. It is up to you to know how to distinguish the good inspirations among all those that collide in the labyrinth of your consciences. Knowing how to understand what comes from your guide, you cannot stray from the right path that every soul aspiring to perfection must follow.

Protecting Spirit.

(Medium: Mrs. Causse.)

III.

— It has already been told you that mediumship would reveal itself in different forms: this one that your President has qualified as mental is well designated. It is the first degree of seeing and speaking mediumship.

The speaking medium [psychophonic] enters into communication with the Spirits who assist him; he speaks with them; his spirit sees them, or rather divines them; only he does nothing but transmit what they tell him, whereas the mental medium can, if he is well formed, direct questions and receive answers, without the intermediary of the pen or the pencil, more easily than the intuitive medium, for here the Spirit of the medium, being more released, is a more faithful interpreter. But for this an ardent desire to be useful is necessary, to work in view of the good with a sentiment pure of all thought of self-love and of interest. Of all the mediumistic faculties, it is the most subtle and the most delicate: the slightest impure breath suffices to stain it. Only under these conditions will the mental medium obtain proofs of the reality of the communications. Before long you will see arise among you speaking mediums who will surprise you by their eloquence and by their logic. Wait, pioneers who are in a hurry to see your works growing; new workers will come to reinforce your ranks, and this year will see the first great phase of Spiritism come to an end and another no less important one begin.

And you, dear master, may God bless your works; may He sustain you and preserve for us the special favor He has granted us, allowing us to guide you and to sustain you in your task, which is also ours.

As Spiritual President of the Society of Paris, I watch over it and over each of its members in particular, beseeching the Lord to spread upon you all His graces and His blessings.

Saint Louis. n (Medium: Mrs. Delanne.)

IV.

— Surely, my friends, the mediumship that consists in conversing with the Spirits, as with people living the material life, will develop more as the release of the Spirit takes place with more facility, through the habit of inner gathering. The more morally advanced the incarnate Spirits are, the greater will be this facility of communications. As you say, it will not be of very great importance from the point of view of the conviction to be given to the incredulous, but it has for the one who is its object a great sweetness and helps him to dematerialize himself more and more. Inner gathering, prayer, that surge of the soul toward its Author, to express to Him its love and its gratitude, and also to claim His help, are the two elements of spiritual life; it is they that pour into the soul that celestial dew which helps the development of the faculties that are there in a latent state. Then, how unfortunate are those who say that prayer is useless because it does not change the designs of God! Without doubt, the laws that govern the diverse orders of phenomena will not be disturbed at the pleasure of this one or that one, but prayer will have no other effect than to improve the individual who, by this act, raises his thought above material preoccupations; for this reason he must not neglect it. It is by the partial renewal of individuals that society will end by being regenerated, and God knows whether it needs it!

You are revolted when you think of the vices of pagan society, at the time when Christ came to bring his humanitarian reform; but in your days the vices, being veiled under more marked forms of politeness and of urbanity, do not for all that cease to exist. They do not have magnificent temples like those of ancient Greece, but, alas! they have the heart of the greater part of men and cause among them the same harm that they occasioned among those who preceded the Christian era. It is not, then, without great usefulness that the Spirits have come to recall the teachings given eighteen centuries ago, for, having forgotten them or poorly understood them, you cannot profit from them and spread them according to the will of the divine crucified one. Give thanks, then, to the Lord, all you who have been called to cooperate in the work of the Spirits, and may your disinterestedness and your charity never weaken, because it is by this that the true Spiritists are recognized among you.

Louis of France. n (Medium: Mrs. Breul.)

[1]

[see Saint Louis.]

[2] [Although the list of the kings of France with this name is enormous, we believe it to be the same Saint Louis, or Louis IX of France.]