291 - (17). May we ask counsel of spirits?

"Yes, certainly; good spirits never refuse their aid to those who invoke them with confidence, especially in regard to all that concerns the soul; but they repel the hypocrites who pretend to ask for light, while preferring darkness."

18. Can spirits give us advice on private matters?

"Sometimes; according to the motive of your demand, and the nature of the spirits to whom you apply. Advice concerning private life is best given by familiar spirits, because they attach themselves to individuals, and interest themselves in whatever concerns the individual life of those whom they protect. The familiar spirit is your personal friend, the witness and confidant of your most secret thoughts; but you sometimes weary him with questions so ridiculously stupid that he ends by leaving you. It is as absurd to ask for advice of an intimate nature from spirits who are strangers to you, as it would be to ask counsel of the first person you met in the street. And you should never forget that puerility in the questioner is incompatible with superiority in the spirit who replies. You must also take into account the qualities of the familiar spirit himself, who is usually good or bad according to the qualities which cause him to sympathise with the person to whom he has attached himself. The familiar spirit of a bad man is necessarily a bad spirit, and his counsels will naturally be pernicious; but he will be compelled to withdraw and to give up his place to a better spirit, as soon as the man himself begins to improve. Like goes with like."

19. May familiar spirits promote our material interests by making revelations to us for that purpose?

"They are sometimes permitted to do so, and they very often assist you, in regard to those interests, as circumstances arise; but be assured that good spirits never lend themselves to the desires of cupidity and of greed. Bad spirits dazzle you by holding out a thousand temptations, in order to lure you on and to deceive you afterwards. And you must remember that, if your purification requires you to undergo such and such vicissitudes, although your spirit-protectors may aid you to bear them more resignedly and may sometimes mitigate them, they are not permitted - and this for your own sakes, and in view of your best interests in the future - to deliver you from them. It is with your guardian-angel as with a wise and affectionate father, who neither gives his child all he asks for, nor allows him to shirk a necessary task."

Remark - Our protecting spirits often show us the road we had better take, but without keeping us in leading-strings; if they did more than simply counsel us, leaving us free to do or not to do, we should lose our power of initiative and should not dare to take a step without them, which would be prejudicial to our advancement. In order to progress, we need to acquire experience, and often at our own expense; our spirit friends, therefore, even while giving us counsel, leave us to our own resources, as does a skilful teacher in dealing with his scholars. In the ordinary affairs of life, they counsel us by inspiration, and thus leave to us all the merit of our action, when we go right, and all the responsibility of our error, when we go wrong.

To ask advice of our familiar spirits, at every moment and in regard to the common affairs of daily life, as is done by some persons, is to impose on their kindness, and to mistake the nature of their mission. There are mediums who incessantly appeal to them for a decision in regard to the most trifling things. Such an abuse of medianimity denotes pettiness of ideas on the part of the medium; and it is moreover, presumptuous to suppose that we have a good spirit always at our command, as a servant, and with nothing better to do than to be perpetually looking after the trumpery interests of our earthly lives. On the other hand, such an annihilation of our own judgement, such a reducing of ourselves to a state of passivity, renders our present life profitless, and is therefore prejudicial to our future. If it be puerile to question spirits about futile things, it is no less puerile on the part of spirits to busy themselves about the petty details of our daily life; such spirits may be well-intentioned, but they must evidently be very little above the earthly level.

20. If one who is deceased has left his affairs in a state of confusion, is it permissible to ask his spirit to assist in getting them into order, and to question him in regard to the property he may have left behind him, in cases when such property is not known, and the information is needed in the interests of justice?

"You seem to forget that death is deliverance from earthly cares; do you suppose that a spirit, who is rejoicing in the recovery of his liberty, will voluntarily come hack and resume his chain, by occupying himself with things that he no longer cares for, in order to satisfy the cupidity of heirs who are perhaps rejoicing in his death, from the hope that it may be to their pecuniary advantage? You talk of justice; but there may be justice in the disappointment of covetous expectations, as a commencement of the punishment that Providence has in store for all who are greedy of earthly things. On the other hand, the embarrassment sometimes caused you by such a death may be a part of the appointed trials of your life; and, from these, it is not in the power of any spirit to release you, because they have been imposed upon you by the decrees of Providence."

Remark - The foregoing answer will doubtless disappoint those who imagine that spirits have nothing better to do than to serve us as sharp-sighted guides and helpers, not on the road to higher realms of being, but on that of earthly prosperity!

Another consideration lends additional force to this reply. If a man, during his life on earth, has allowed his affairs to fall into confusion through his own want of care, he is not likely to give himself more trouble about them after his death; for, in all probability, he is delighted to be delivered from business-worries, and, if he have any elevation of mind, he will attach even less importance to earthly things, now that he is a spirit, than he did when he was a man. As to any property that he may have left, unknown to his heirs, he may have no motive for interesting himself on behalf of persons who would perhaps not give him a thought if they did not hope to get something from his estate; and, if we suppose him to be still imbued with human passions, we may even imagine him as taking a malicious pleasure in witnessing their disappointment.

When a spirit thinks it useful to make revelations of this character, either in the interest of justice or from affection for certain persons, he makes them spontaneously.

In order to receive such a revelation, it is not necessary to be a medium, nor to have recourse to knowledge to the parties concerned, through seemingly fortuitous circumstances; but he is never led to do this by any demand on the part of the persons interested, because no demand can do away with the trials appointed by Providence for any human being. Such demands, on the contrary, would be more likely to aggravate those trials; and, as they would generally be prompted by covetousness, the spirit would see that he is only evoked from greediness and selfishness, and would therefore be all the more indisposed to reply to such an evocation (295).