Identity of the Spirits in particular communications.

— Why do the Spirits evoked by a sentiment of affection often refuse to give sure proofs of their identity?

One understands all the value attached to the proofs of identity on the part of the Spirits who are dear to us; this sentiment is very natural, and it seems that, since the Spirits can manifest themselves, it must be very easy for them to attest their personality. The lack of material proofs, especially for certain persons who do not know the mechanism of mediumship, that is, the law of the relations between the Spirits and men, is a cause of doubt and of cruel uncertainty. Although we have treated this question several times, we are going to examine it anew, in order to answer some questions that are addressed to us.

We have nothing to add to what has been said about the identity of the Spirits who come solely for our instruction and who left the Earth some time ago. It is known that it cannot be attested in an absolute manner and that one must limit oneself to judging the value of the language.

Identity can be ascertained with certainty only for the Spirits departed recently, whose character and habits are reflected in their words. In these, identity reveals itself through a thousand particularities of detail. Sometimes the proof springs from material, characteristic facts, but most often from nuances of the language itself and from a quantity of little nothings which, though slightly salient, are no less significant.

Often communications of this kind contain more proofs than one thinks, which are discovered with more attention and fewer preconceptions. Unfortunately, most of the time one is not content with what the Spirit wants or can give; one wants proofs in one's own manner; or one asks it to say or do such a thing, to recall a name or a fact, at a given moment, without thinking of the obstacles that sometimes oppose this and paralyze its good will. Then, having obtained what one desires, one often wants more; one finds that it is still not conclusive enough; after one fact, one asks for another and yet another. In a word, they are never sufficient to convince. It is then that the Spirit, often fatigued by this insistence, ceases completely to manifest itself, waiting for conviction to come by other means. But often, too, its abstention is imposed upon it by a superior will, as a punishment to the too-exacting solicitor, and also as a test for his faith, for, if through some disappointments and through not obtaining what he wants, he were to come to abandon the Spirits, these in their turn would abandon him, leaving him plunged into the anguish and tortures of doubt, fortunate when their abandonment has no graver consequences. But, in an immensity of cases, the material proofs of identity are independent of the will of the Spirit and of the desire it has to give them. This is owing to the nature, or to the state, of the instrument through which it communicates. There is in the mediumistic faculty an infinite variety of nuances, which render the medium apt or unfit for the obtaining of such or such effects which, at first sight, seem identical and which, nevertheless, depend on different fluidic influences. The medium is like an instrument of multiple strings: it cannot give sound through the strings that are lacking. Here is a remarkable example:

— We know a medium who may be classed among those of the first order, both by the nature of the instructions he receives and by his aptitude to communicate with almost all Spirits, without distinction. Several times, in particular evocations, he obtained irrefutable proofs of identity, through the reproduction of the language and the character of persons he had never known. Some time ago, he made for a person who had just suddenly lost several children the evocation of one of these latter, a little girl. The communication reflected perfectly the character of the child and was all the more satisfactory in that it answered a doubt of the father concerning her position as a Spirit. However, in a certain way the proofs were only moral; the father thought that another child could have said the same thing; he wanted something that only the daughter could say; he was astonished, above all, that she called him father, instead of the familiar nickname she gave him, which was not a French name, according to the idea that if she said one word she could say another. The father having asked the reason, here is the answer that the medium's guide gave in this regard: “Although entirely detached, your little daughter is not in a condition to make you understand the reason why she cannot make the medium express the terms you know and which she whispers to him. She obeys a law in communicating, but does not understand it enough to explain its mechanism. Mediumship is a faculty whose nuances vary infinitely, and the mediums who ordinarily deal with philosophical subjects obtain only rarely, and always spontaneously, those particularities that make the personality of the Spirit recognized in an evident manner. When mediums of that kind ask for a proof of identity, in the desire to satisfy the evoker, the cerebral fibers, tensed by their own desire, are no longer pliable enough for the Spirit to make them move at its will. From this it follows that the characteristic words cannot be reproduced. The thought remains, but the form no longer exists. There is nothing, then, surprising in your daughter having called you father, instead of giving you the familiar qualification you expected. Through a special medium you will obtain results that will satisfy you; it suffices to have a little patience.” A few days later, this gentleman, being in the group of one of our associates, obtained from another medium, through tiptology, and in the presence of the first, not only the name he desired, without his having specially asked for it, but other facts of remarkable precision. Thus, the faculty of the first medium, however developed and flexible it might be, did not lend itself to that kind of mediumistic production. It could reproduce the words that are the translation of the transmitted thought, and not terms that require a special labor; this is why the whole of the communication reflected the character and the form of the Spirit's ideas, but without characteristic material signs. A medium is not an instrument suited to all effects; just as one does not find two persons entirely alike in the physical and the moral, there are not two mediums whose faculty is absolutely identical.

— It is to be noted that the proofs of identity come almost always spontaneously, at the moment when one least thinks of it, whereas they are given rarely when asked for. A caprice on the part of the Spirit? No; there is a material cause. Here it is:

The fluidic dispositions that establish the relations between the Spirit and the medium offer nuances of extreme delicacy, imperceptible to our senses, and which vary from one moment to another in the same medium. Often an effect that is not possible at a desired instant will be so an hour, a day, a week later, because the dispositions or the energy of the fluidic currents will have changed. It happens here as in photography, where a simple variation in the intensity or the direction of the light is sufficient to favor or prevent the reproduction of the image. Will a poet make verses at will? No; he needs inspiration. If he is not in a favorable disposition, however much he scrutinizes his brain, he will obtain nothing. Ask him why? In the evocations, the Spirit left to itself avails itself of the dispositions it finds in the medium, takes advantage of the propitious moment; but when these dispositions do not exist, it can do no more than the photographer in the absence of the light. Therefore, it cannot always, in spite of its desire, instantly satisfy a request for proofs of identity. This is why it is preferable to await them rather than to solicit them. Moreover, it must be considered that the fluidic relations that must exist between the Spirit and the medium are never established completely from the first time; the assimilation is not made except with time and gradually. From this it results that, initially, the Spirit always experiences a difficulty that influences the clarity, the precision, and the development of the communications; but, when the Spirit and the medium are accustomed to one another, when their fluids are identified, the communications take place naturally, because there are no more resistances to overcome.

From this one sees how many considerations must be taken into account in the examination of communications. It is for lack of doing so and of knowing the laws that govern these types of phenomena that one often asks for what is impossible. It is absolutely as if someone, who did not know the laws of electricity, were astonished that the telegraph could experience variations and interruptions, and concluded that electricity does not exist.

The fact of ascertaining the identity of certain Spirits is an accessory in the vast whole of the results that Spiritism embraces; even if such ascertainment were impossible, it would in no way prejudge against the manifestations in general, nor against the moral consequences arising from them. One would have to pity those who deprived themselves of the consolations it provides, for not having obtained a personal satisfaction, for that would be to sacrifice the whole to the part.