286. Too much importance cannot be attached to the manner of addressing questions to spirits, and to the nature of the questions addressed to them. In regard to the questions we address to Spirits, two things are to be considered, viz., their form and their purport. As regards their form, they should be conveyed with method, clearness, and precision; complexity should always be avoided. But there is another point not less important, viz., the order in which our questions should be arranged. When a subject requires a series of questions, it is essential that these should be made to follow one another in regular sequence, so that they may grow naturally out of one another; spirits answer questions, when put in this way, much more easily and clearly than when they are asked at random, jumping abruptly from one subject to another. For this reason, it is always well to prepare our questions beforehand, and only to intercalate, during the sitting, such new ones as may be suggested by the circumstances of the moment. Not only are our questions likely to be better stated by being drawn up when our mind is in a state of repose, but this preparatory labour, as previously remarked, is a sort of anticipatory evocation, at which the spirit may himself have been present, and which will have disposed him to respond to our call. Those who adopt this plan will find that the spirit evoked, frequently answers a question as though he had foreseen it; thus proving that he had been aware of it beforehand.

The purport of a question requires even more careful attention than its form; for it is often the nature of the question that determines the truth or falsehood of the reply. There are questions to which spirits, for reasons unknown to us, are unable, or are not permitted, to reply; and, in such cases, it is useless to insist, as the answer, if given, can only be from lower and unscrupulous spirits.

287. As previously remarked, some persons think it better not to put any questions to spirits, but to await their spontaneous communications. To the considerations we have already opposed to this view of the matter, we add, that spirits do, undoubtedly, make spontaneous communications which are often of great interest and value, and which it would be wrong to neglect; but there are explanations for which we should have to wait a long time, if we did not elicit them by our inquiries. The Spirits' Book, and The Mediums' Book, for instance, would be still to be written, or, at least, would be far less complete, had we not addressed to spirits the questions which, with the answers given to them, we offer in these works to the attention of our readers; and the weighty problems involved in them would be still awaiting the solutions that have been thus obtained in response to our inquiries. The questioning of spirits, carefully, thoughtfully, and respectfully, with a view to obtaining such information as they are able and permitted to give us, is of very great utility. And it is, moreover, by questioning them closely, that we are able to unmask the deceptive spirits who are so apt to present themselves spontaneously under assumed names, and with pretensions to superior knowledge of which the falsity is thus made apparent.

If what has been already said in the present work has been correctly understood by the reader, some idea of the limits within which questions to spirits should be confined will already have been formed by him; nevertheless, for greater certainty, we now give the statements of various enlightened spirits in reference to the points on which they are usually questioned by beginners.