191. First Division. - According to the mode of execution.

 

PSYCHOGRAPHIC MEDIUMS: those who have the faculty of writing under spirit influence.

 

MECHANICAL WRITING MEDIUMS: those whose hands are acted upon by an involuntary impulse, and who are unconscious of what they write. Very rare (No179).

 

SEMI-MECHANICAL MEDIUMS: those whose hands are made to write involuntarily, but who are conscious of the words or the phrases thus written by them. These are the commonest of all (No 181).

 

INTUITIVE MEDIUMS: those with whose thought the spirit communicates, but whose hands are guided by their own will. They differ from inspirational mediums inasmuch as the latter do not necessarily write, while the intuitive writing-medium writes the thought which is suggested to him at the moment, on some subject previously determined upon (No 180).

"These are very numerous, but are also very subject to error, because they are often unable to discriminate between what comes from the communicating spirit, and what proceeds from their own brain."

 

POLYGRAPHIC MEDIUMS: those whose writing changes with the spirit who communicates, or who reproduce the handwriting of the spirit when in the flesh. The first of these are very common; but those who obtain the reproduction of the handwriting are much less than 50 (No 219).

 

POLYGLOT MEDIUMS: those who have the faculty of speaking or writing in languages that are unknown to them. These are very rare.

 

ILLITERATE MEDIUMS: those who write, as mediums, without knowing how to read or write in their ordinary state.

"These are still rarer than the preceding; there is a greater physical difficulty to be got over in their case." [1]

 

192. Second division. - According to the development of the medianimic faculty.

 

NOVICE MEDIUMS: those whose medianimic faculty is not yet completely developed, and who lack experience.

 

UNPRODUCTIVE MEDIUMS: those who obtain only insignificant results, such as monosyllables, letters, or mere strokes (See Chap. XVI I. Formation of mediums).

 

FULLY FORMED MEDIUMS: those who medianimic faculties are completely developed, and who transmit spirit-communications easily, quickly; and without hesitation. It is evident that this perfection cannot be obtained without practice; in the case of novice mediums, the transmission is usually slow and difficult.

 

LACONIC MEDIUMS: those who, though easily influenced, obtain only short and undeveloped communications.

 

EXPLICIT MEDIUMS: the Communications obtained by these mediums have all the length and amplitude that could be arrived at by a writer of first rate ability.

 

"This aptitude depends upon the expansibility and facility of combination of the fluids required. Spirits seek for mediums of this nature, for treating of subjects which demand full development."

 

EXPERIENCEED MEDIUMS: facility of writing, drawing, etc., is a result of habit, and is often quickly acquired; while experience is the result of a serious study of all the difficulties of practical spiritism. Experience gives to the medium the tact necessary for judging of the quality of the spirits who manifest themselves, ascertaining their good or bad qualities, and discovering the tricks of deceptive spirits who falsely assume the appearances of truth. The importance of this quality is easily understood, for, without it, all others are useless. Unfortunately, many mediums confound experience, the fruit of study, with aptitude, the result of organisation, and fancy themselves to be perfect, because they write with facility; they often reject counsel, and become the prey of hypocritical and lying spirits, who lay hold of them by flattering their vanity (See Chap. XXIII. Obsession).

 

FLEXIBLE MEDIUMS: those whose faculty enables them to lend themselves with great facility to a great diversity of communications, and through whom, all spirits, or nearly all, are able to manifest themselves, spontaneously, or in response to evocation.

"This variety of mediums differs but slightly from sensitive mediums."

 

EXCLUSIVE MEDIUMS: those through whom one spirit manifests himself to the exclusion of all others, and answers for all the other spirits that may be called for through the intervention of the medium.

"Such exclusiveness is always the result of defective flexibility on the part of the medium. A good spirit may attach himself to a medium from sympathy, and for a laudable end; but, when the spirit is an evil one, he does this invariably with the view of keeping the medium dependent upon him. Such exclusiveness should be avoided, as it borders too closely on obsession " (See Chap. XXIII. Obsession).

 

MEDIUMS FOR EVOCATIONS: flexible mediums are naturally the fittest for obtaining this kind of manifestation, and for queries of detail that may be addressed to spirits.

"The answers of such mediums are almost always confined within a very narrow compass, incompatible with the treatment of general subjects."

 

MEDIUMS WHO RECEIVE SPONTANEOUS COMMUNICATION: they are used for the transmission of information spontaneously given by spirits who come without having been evoked. It is always difficult, and often impossible, to make the evocation of any given spirit through mediums in whom this aptitude exists as a special faculty.

"Nevertheless, these are better provided with medianimic tools than the mediums previously named. This expression, provided with tools refers to brain-material; for a larger amount of intelligence on the part of the medium is needed for spontaneous dictation than for evocations. By "spontaneous dictation" I mean communications worthy of the name, and not mere fragmentary sentences, or a few commonplace thoughts such as may be found in all human heads."

 

193. Third division. According to the kind and the specialty of communications

 

VERSE MAKING MEDIUMS: those who most easily obtain communications in verse. Inferior rhyming is common with mediums of this class; but good poetry, extremely rare.[2]

 

POETIC MEDIUMS: without obtaining verse, these mediums usually get vaporous and sentimental communications. Such mediums are specially fitted to convey tender and affectionate messages. They are often, however, rather vague, and it would be useless to seek any definite instructions from them. This sort of mediumship is very common.

 

POSTIIVE MEDIUMS: their communications have usually all the clearness and precision required for the transmission of circumstantial details and exact information.

Mediums of this class are rare.

 

LITERARY MEDIUMS: they have neither the vagueness of poetic mediums, nor the dryness of positive mediums. Their dissertations show sagacity; their style, always correct and elegant, is sometimes remarkable for its eloquence.

 

INOCRRECT MEDIUMS: they sometimes obtain sensible and moral communications, but their style is diffuse, ungrammatical, and loaded with repetitions and ill-assorted terms.

"Decided inelegance of style arises generally from a defect of intellectual culture on the part of the medium. A medium with this drawback is therefore not, in this respect, a good instrument for a spirit to work with; but to this the spirit often attaches comparatively little importance, provided he can get his thought correctly conveyed, that being for him the essential point. When he can secure the correct expression of his meaning, a spirit generally leaves you free to turn your sentences in your own way. It is different with regard to the false or incoherent ideas which a communication may contain; for these always indicate inferiority on the part of the communicating spirit."

 

HISTORICAL MEDIUMS: those who have a special aptitude for treating of historical subjects. This faculty, like all the others, is independent of the medium's knowledge; for ignorant persons, and even children, are often made to treat medianimically of subjects far beyond their natural grasp. This is a very rare variety of the positive medium.[3]

 

SCIENTIFIC MEDIUMS: these, even though very ignorant, are especially adapted for obtaining communications relating to scientific subjects.

 

MEDICAL MEDIUMS: their specialty is to act with greater facility than others, as interpreters of spirits for medical prescriptions. We must not confound these with healing mediums, for they do nothing more than transmit the spirit's thought, and possess no curative influence whatever. They are frequently met with.

 

RELIGIOUS MEDIUMS: they usually receive communications of a religious character, and are employed by spirits to treat on religious questions, sometimes in opposition to their own beliefs and mode of worship.

 

PHILOSOPHICAL AND MORALISTIC MEDIUMS: the communications of this class of mediums have generally moral and philosophical questions for their object. Mediums who treat of morality are especially numerous.

"All these shades indicate varieties of the aptitudes of good mediums. As for those who have a special aptitude for obtaining communications of a scientific nature, whether medical, historical, or other, in advance of their present knowledge, you may rest assured that such mediums have possessed, in a former existence, the scientific knowledge they transmit; that this knowledge has remained with them, although latent; and that it constitutes a portion of the cerebral capacity which fits them for the use of the manifesting Spirit by facilitating the communication, on his part, of kindred ideas. Such mediums are, for the communicating spirit, instruments more intelligent and manageable than an uncultivated intellect could be.” 

ERASTES

 

MEDIUMS FRO TRIVIAL AND OBSCENE COMMUNICATIONS: this qualification sufficiently indicates the sort of communications which certain mediums habitually receive, as well as the nature of the spirits who control them. Whoever has studied the various ascensional degrees of the spirit-world is aware that there are spirits whose perversity equals that of the vilest of men, and who delight in expressing their thoughts in the coarsest language. Others, less abject, content themselves with communicating absurdities. We can well understand that mediums should wish to be delivered from so undesirable a preference, and that they should envy those who, in the communications they receive, are never troubled with unseemly words. Only through a strange aberration of mind, and an utter want of common sense, could such language be supposed to proceed from good spirits.

 

194. Fourth Division. - According to the physical qualities of the medium

 

CALM MEDIUMS: these always write slowly, and without showing the slightest agitation.

 

RAPID MEDIUMS: these write with greater rapidity than they could do, voluntarily, and in their ordinary state.

Spirits communicate through them with the swiftness of lightning; there would seem to be in them a superabundance of fluid, enabling spirits to identify themselves instantaneously with their organism. The rapidity with which these mediums write has sometimes the inconvenience of rendering their writing very difficult to read for any but the medium himself.

"Moreover, it is very fatiguing for the medium, because it causes a useless expenditure of fluid on his part."

 

CONVULSIVE MEDIUMS: they become excited almost to feverishness; their hand, and sometimes their whole person, is agitated with tremblings which they are unable to control. Much of this excitement may doubtless be attributable to their organisation; but it also depends, to a considerable degree, on the nature of the sprits who communicate through them. Good and kindly spirits always produce a gentle and agreeable impression; the bad, on the contrary,

excite a painful one.

"Such mediums should exercise their faculty but rarely; for a too frequent repetition of such excitement might injure their nervous system." (See Chap. XXIV., Identity, Distinction between good and bad spirits.)

 

195. Fifth Division - According to the moral qualities of the medium

 

We merely allude to these mediums in this place; reserving the fuller description of them for the chapters on The moral influence of mediums, on Obsession, on the Identification of spirits, and other topics to which we ask especial attention, in regard to the influence exercised by the good and bad qualities of mediums upon the reliability of the communications received by them, and the indications which enable us to decide between imperfect mediums, and those whom we may rightly consider as good mediums.

 

196. Imperfect Mediums

 

MEDIUMS WHO ARE OBSESSED: those who cannot rid themselves of importunate, deceptive spirits, but who are fully aware of; and regret, this obsession.

Fascinated mediums; those who are acted upon by deceptive spirits, but who are not aware of this obsession, and who are consequently under a delusion as to the nature of the communications they receive.

 

SUBJUGATED MEDIUMS: those who are under the moral, and sometimes the physical, domination of evil spirits.

 

FRIVOLOUS MEDIUMS: those who do not regard their faculty in a serious light, and who exercise it only for amusement or for futile objects.

 

CARELESS MEDIUMS: those who derive no moral profit from the instructions which they receive, and whose conduct and habits are not improved thereby.

 

PRESUMPTUOUS MEDIUMS: those who assume themselves to be the only ones who are in communication with superior spirits. They believe themselves to be infallible, and regard as worthless and erroneous whatever does not come through themselves.

 

Proud mediums; those who feed their vanity with the communications which they receive, imagine themselves to have nothing more to learn in regard to spiritism, and do not apply to themselves the lessons often read to them by spirits. Not contented with the medianimic faculties they possess, they imagine themselves to possess all the others.

Touchy mediums; they are a variety of the proud ones, and are hurt at the criticisms of which they are the object; they take offence at the slightest contradiction, and, if they show what they obtain, they do so in order to be admired, and not at all to profit by the opinion of the listeners. They generally take an aversion to those who do not applaud them unreservedly, and desert the meetings in which they cannot take a leading part.

"Let them go and play the peacock where they can obtain a more sympathetic hearing, or let them retire altogether; the meetings which they deprive of their presence lose but little by their withdrawal."

 

MERCENARY MEDIUMS: those who make their faculty a source of pecuniary gain.

 

AMBITIOUS MEDIUMS: those who, without putting a price upon the exercise of their faculty, seek to turn it to their own advantage, social, or other.

 

DISHONEST MEDIUMS: those who, possessing some genuine medianimic faculties, simulate others which they do not possess, in order to give themselves importance.

 

SELFISH MEDIUMS: those who use their faculty only for personal ends, and who keep to themselves the communications they receive.

 

JEALOUS MEDIUMS: those who are vexed at seeing other mediums better developed, and more highly appreciated, than themselves.

 

All these bad qualities of mediums have necessarily their counterparts in good ones.

 

197. Good Mediums

 

SERIOUS MEDIUMS: those who only use their faculties for good and really useful ends, and who would regard it as a profanation to use them for the satisfaction of the curious and indifferent, or for any futile purpose.

 

MODEST MEDIUMS: those who make no merit of the communications they receive, however good they may be they look upon themselves as being only the instruments of others, and do not regard themselves as infallible. Far from shunning disinterested counsel, in regard to the exercise of their medianimity, they seek it.

 

DEVOTED MEDIUMS: those who understand that the true medium has a mission to fulfil, and that he must be ready, when necessary, to sacrifice his tastes, habits, pleasure, time, and even his worldly interests, to the good of others.

 

SAFE MEDIUMS: those who, in addition to their power, are worthy of confidence on account of their personal excellence and the elevated nature of the spirits who assist them, and who are thus the least likely to be deceived. We shall see hereafter that this security does not depend in any way upon the honourability of the names assumed by the communicating spirits.

"You must understand that, by thus classifying mediums according to their good and bad qualities, you are exposing yourself to the animosity of some of them; this, however, is of no importance. The number of mediums is increasing daily, and any who should take offence at these remarks would prove one thing, viz., that they are not good mediums, in other words, that they are influenced by inferior spirits. But, as I have already said, all this is only for a short time; and mediums who misuse their faculties will undergo the painful consequences of their acts, as has already occurred to some of them; they will learn, to their sorrow, the cost of turning, to the satisfaction of their earthly passions, a gift of God, accorded to them only for their moral advancement. If you are unable to bring them back into the right road, pity them, for they will have to undergo a heavier expiation.

ERASTES

 

"This table is of great importance, not only for the mediums who seek sincerely and honestly, by studying it, to preserve themselves from the stumbling-blocks to which they are exposed, but also for those who make use of mediums, because it will give them the measure of what may be reasonably expected from them. This table should be constantly before the eyes of everyone who occupies himself with spirit manifestations; it embodies all the principles of the doctrine, and will contribute, more than you think, to keep Spiritism on its true road.

SOCRATES

 

198. All these varieties of medianimity present innumerable degrees of intensity; many of them, strictly speaking, are but different shades of the same colour, but they are nevertheless the result of special aptitudes. Although the faculty of a medium is rarely circumscribed within a single specialty, and although the same medium may possess several aptitudes, he has always one predominant aptitude, and that is the one he should cultivate, provided it be a useful one. It is a serious mistake to endeavour to force a medium to acquire faculties he does not naturally possess. We should cultivate those of which the germ is seen to exist; but the attempt to develop faculties which we do not possess is, in the first place, a loss of time, and, in the second place, the surest way to weaken, and perhaps to lose, those which we do possess.

 

"When the germ of a faculty exists, it always shows itself by unequivocal signs. By keeping to his own specialty, a medium is more likely to obtain useful and satisfactory results; he who tries to do everything, does nothing well. The desire to enlarge indefinitely the circle of one's medianimic faculties is a vainglorious pretension which will not be allowed to go unpunished; good spirits always abandon the presumptuous, who thus become the sport of liars. It is, unfortunately, no rare thing to see mediums discontented with the gifts they possess, and aspiring, from vanity or ambition, to the possession of exceptional faculties, which might bring them into prominence; a pretension which robs them of their most precious quality, that, viz., of being safe mediums.

SOCRATES

 

199. The study of the specialty of mediums is absolutely necessary, not only on their own account, but also for those who make use of them for evocations. According to the nature of the spirits we desire to evoke, and the questions we wish to put to them, should be our choice of the medium whom we employ for the particular requirement we have in view; to take for this purpose the first we meet with is to expose ourselves to get unsatisfactory and erroneous answers. Let us take a couple of illustrations of this point from every-day life. We should not trust the first person we came across to draw up a document, or even to copy one, merely because he knows how to write. A musician desires a song of his to be sung; he has at his command several singers, all skilful; nevertheless he does not choose at random, but selects, as his interpreter, the one whose voice, expression, and general qualities, are most likely to do justice to his composition. Spirits do the same in regard to their mediums; we cannot do better than follow their example.

 

It should be further remarked, that the shades presented by medianimity, and of which we might add others to those classified above, are not always identical with the character of the medium himself; thus, for example, a medium, naturally gay and jovial, may habitually receive serious communications, and vice versa; which fact is an evident proof that he is acted upon by the impulsion of an influence exterior to himself. We shall return to this subject in treating of The moral influence of the medium (Part Second, Chap. XX).