MYSTERIES OF MEDIUMSHIP--TO PROVE THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL--PASSIVITY AND HARMONY AT SÉANCES--HONEST AND CANDID SCEPTICISM--IMAGINARY AND SELF-INDUCED MEDIUMSHIP--DECEPTIVE COMMUNICATIONS--CAUTIONS--RAPPINGS--SPIRITS MADE VISIBLE--BEWARE OF FRAUDULENT MEDIUMS--NOT ALL SPIRITS RELIABLE--CABINETS. Mediumship is a great mystery. Some persons are found to possess the gift (often from ancestral derivation, as in the case of the "second-sight" in the Scotch Highlands), while others are totally devoid of it. There are also many varieties both in the forms and phases of it, and in the degrees in which different persons possess the strange--I may say, abnormal--gift. There seem to be also great variations of _degree_ in which it is possessed by different persons, constituting differences of mediumistic power. I am satisfied that there are few families in which some one or other of its members does not possess it, at least in latent condition, more or less developed or undeveloped; and that, if they will sit patiently and _passively_ (without anxiety or eagerness) round a table, without being discouraged and exhausted of patience by weeks or even months of failure, the manifestations will generally at last come, whether in the form of rappings, or that of tilting of the table, or in other phenomena inexplicable on the ground of the ordinary laws of physical nature, and compelling the recognition of the presence of extra-natural beings or forces--_i.e._, "Spirits"--as the only explanation of the manifest and incontestable facts. Again, apart from the various degrees of the faculty in the mediums, there is mystery hanging over the question of the various degrees of ability of Spirits who may be present--high, low, or of intermediate grade and character--to act through or with a particular medium. And still again, there is mystery over the influence of the members of the circle present, both upon the sensitive medium and upon the Spirits present. And upon the fundamental point of what constitutes mediumship, on what qualities, physical, mental or spiritual, it depends, hangs the greatest mystery of all. One thing seems certain, namely, that at least in the present age or "dispensation," the Spirits about us seem desirous of communicating with us, human Spirits still in the flesh, and glad of the opportunities afforded them through the mediums for doing so. "Psychics," or "sensitives," have been suggested as more suitable designations than "mediums," but that of "medium" seems to have got too strongly rooted in popular usage to be now easily changed.