I think those people who desire to gain the utmost good they can out of clairvoyance should be more ready to listen and learn, and less to cavil and to question. Many who have heard me relate the results of my experience have rushed off pell-mell to the same medium, perhaps, and came away woefully disappointed. Were they to review the interview they would probably find they had done all the talking, and supplied all the information, leaving the clairvoyant no work to do whatever. To such I always say, whether their aim is to obtain advice in their business, or news of a lost friend, _Be perfectly passive_, until the medium has said all he or she may have to say. Give them time to become _en rapport_ with you, and quietude, that he may commune with the spirits you bring with you; for it is _they_, and not _his_ controls, that furnish him with the history of your life, or point out the dangers that are threatening. When he has finished speaking, he will probably ask if you have any questions to put to him, and _then_ is your turn for talking, and for gaining any particular information you may wish to acquire. If these directions are carried out, you are likely to have a much more satisfactory _séance_ than otherwise. CHAPTER XXI. PRIVATE MEDIA. People who wish to argue against Spiritualism are quite sure, as a rule, that media will descend to any trickery and cheating for the sake of gain. If you reply, as in my own case, that the _séances_ have been given as a free-will offering, they say that they expected introductions or popularity or advertisement in exchange. But what can be adduced against the medium who lends his or her powers to a person whom he has never seen, and probably never will see, and for no reason, excepting that his controls urge him to the deed? Such a man is Mr. George Plummer of Massachusetts, America. In December, 1887, when my mind was very unsettled, my friend Miss Schonberg advised me to write to this medium and ask his advice. She told me I must not expect an immediate reply, as Mr. Plummer kept a box into which he threw all the letters he received from strangers on spiritualistic subjects, and when he felt impressed to do so, he went and took out one, haphazard, and wrote the answer that was dictated to him. All I had to do was to enclose an addressed envelope, not a _stamped_ one, in my letter, to convey the answer back again. Accordingly, I prepared a diplomatic epistle to this effect. "Dear sir,--Hearing that you are good enough to sit for strangers, I shall be much obliged if you will let me know what you see for me.--Yours truly, F. Lane." It will be seen that I transposed the letters of my name "Lean." I addressed the return envelope in the same manner to the house in Regent's Park, which I then occupied, and I wrote it all in a feigned hand to conceal my identity as much as possible. The time went on and I heard nothing from Mr. Plummer. I was touring in the