Genuine Mediumship; or, The Invisible PowersAtkinson, William Walker
Religion
Genuine Mediumship; or, The Invisible Powers
Atkinson, William Walker
Mediums
The young medium, however, should beware against striving too hard to be
the instrument of the phenomena of spirit impersonation. For a too
intense anxiety, and desire to please sitters, frequently tends to
produce a cloudy mental state in which the ideas in the mind of the
medium blend with the spirit communication, and thus produces a most
unsatisfactory result, and one which is apt to confuse the minds of the
sitters and sometimes actual arouse suspicion that the medium is trying
to practice deception. For this reason the young medium should not seek
the attendance of persons desiring "test seances;" at least, such should
be his course until he has learned not to be carried away with his
desire to please or to satisfy such persons attending his circles. He
should endeavor to cultivate a mental condition of calmness, and a
determination not to influence or to interfere with the spirit
communications in any way whatsoever, but, instead, to allow himself to
become a passive instrument for the communication. The medium should
remember that he is not a dealer in merchandise "warranted to please,"
but is, instead, a medium of communication between the spirit and those
still in earth-life.
Demand Proof of Spirit Identity.
A certain degree of care and caution, and the employment of honest
powers of discrimination, is necessary on the part of the sitters in
cases of spirit impersonation. This not because of any lack of honesty
on the part of the medium, but because of the habit of a mischievous
class of dwellers on the planes of spirit life to falsely impersonate
other spirits as such seances. As all investigators of the subject know
very well, it is not an infrequent thing for such mischievous and
meddlesome spirits to endeavor to pass themselves off as the relative or
friends of those in the circle, or even to falsely impersonate some
great historical personages. In such cases the sitters should insist
upon the spirit positively identifying himself, just as they would in
case of doubt regarding a person speaking to them over the telephone and
claiming to be such-and-such a person. And the proof demanded should be
similar to that which would be sought from the suspected telephone
talker. An honest spirit communicator does not object to such demands,
and is only too ready to do his best to furnish the right kind of proofs
concerning his identity.
The "Trance Condition."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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