MEDIUMSHIP: ITS PHYSICAL, MENTAL AND SPIRITUAL CONDITIONS 

IN this lecture we take up the consideration of a most important subject, that of mediumship. To enable us to do the matter as much justice as possible, we have decided to divide the subject into two sections, dealing with mediumship in this lecture in regard to its physiological, mental, and spiritual conditions in the individual; while in the next lecture we shall deal with its development and dangers, and some other matters of importance, by which we hope to put you in possession of a tolerably clear, but necessarily condensed, statement of the laws and philosophy of mediumship. 

There are many people who consider that mediumship is the greatest possible blessing that can come to them, while others would not have it under any circumstances, considering it to be dangerous and inimical alike to health and morals. We are by no means satisfied that mediumship is either an undisguised blessing or an unlimited curse, for there are so many things to be considered in regard to it that any harsh or absolute judgment of this kind would be most improper. When asked to consider whether mediumship is a thing to be sought for, and an experience that is calculated to benefit all individuals, our judgment is clear and decided—it is not a thing to be sought for, and it cannot always be considered a blessing to the person who experiences it. 

BE NATURAL 

It must always be borne in mind that those characteristics of your life’s expression that are spontaneously made manifest are the best for you in their expressions and in their results, while those expressions that have to be forced into activity, and require constant nursing and care to maintain in operation, entail such drains upon body, mind and spirit, that they are very questionable benefits to you in the end. When mediumship comes or expresses itself spontaneously, manifesting itself by reason of its own inherent power, then there can be no question, that, rightly used and with proper and rational limits, the exercise of mediumship can be made a means of great blessing to the individual; not only to the individual, but to the community as well. 

Mediumship, must be accepted, then, as an illustration of latent possibilities within the character of the medium and as another avenue towards the occult side of life. But the persistent effort to cultivate mediumship, or to force it into activity, should be always discouraged and discountenanced. There are so many other things, so far as the practical necessities of human life are concerned, that press thick and fast upon you on every side for attention and doing, that, in our judgment, in the present condition of human development and human society, it is better to attend to the pressing needs of this world’s life, education, and development, than to squander the precious powers and energies in order to develop a flower that, perchance, may bloom a little season, and then wither and die, leaving scarcely a memory of its hue and fragrance behind it. 

MEDIUMSHIP AND HEALTH 

The first thought we have to consider in relation to mediumship is its physiological conditions. These are of two kinds the strictly nervous, and the strictly psychical. In the first instance we consider the highest degree of physical health perfectly compatible with the very best manifestation of mediumship; and where mediumship results in personal deterioration or in the destruction of physical health, then it is most unwise and extremely pernicious to continue to utilize such part of your nature, because it emphatically means that such part is being exercised at the expense of other powers. 

Therefore, the first caution we would suggest is, that whenever and wherever the exercise or development of mediumship results in continued ill health, it is wisest and safest to abandon its exercise, because it is maintained at the expense and injury of your physical well-being. Our ground is strong and sure here. Physical health is one of the greatest blessings that infinite Intelligence has rendered possible for finite humanity; it is far too precious a thing to be cast lightly aside or trampled beneath your feet. But distinctly understand what we mean by physical health. It is this: that personal condition wherein all the functions of the body are in their natural, normal, harmonious operation; wherein you are “sound in wind and limb,” to use a homely expression. If the mediumship continually lessens the functional activities of your nature, then emphatically an injury is being done to you. 

At first, almost invariably, incipient mediumship, or mediumship in its early stages, will result in severe physiological derangement, nervous prostration, and many altogether strange experiences in body and mind, which frequently cause the frightened beholders to believe that the individual is surely going out of his mind. Nothing of the sort. If judicious care be exercised in these earlier stages, the resulting disturbances may be successfully overcome, reduced to order; and harmony being re-established, such extreme disturbances will be very unlikely to recur again. The causes of these physiological disturbances are various. 

MEDIUMSHIP STIMULATES THE BODY 

All people are born with certain tendencies, and with certain weak spots in their physiological natures, and whatever psychical power descends upon them will most certainly search out that weak spot first; because there will be the line of least resistance, and that being the case the first disturbance will be manifested in that direction. Is the heart weak in its action? Is there weakness in the circulatory system? Then the result of the influx of psychic power will be to affect the actions of the heart and circulatory system. 

While, as concerning the brain, it may be that some particular part of the cerebral structure may be stimulated into abnormal activity, and people may suppose (when they know no better) that mediumship has unhinged the person’s mind and affected his brain; whereas the real fact is, that the possibilities of the affection existed prior to the development of the mediumship, and the development of the mediumship has only brought to the surface the latent possibilities. 

Here is a most important lesson. If the influx of psychological power and the development of what is called mediumship results in making plain the weak spots of the physiology, then the information thus presented should be utilized so that you be taught to direct your mind to the building up, strengthening, and rounding out of these weaker parts, that they may come into the fine of general health with the remainder of the system. 

There is another side to this physiological aspect of mediumship. It occasionally acts in such a manner that it becomes a stimulant to every organ and function of the system, and the individual becomes excited, nervous, and irritable, so that people say the development of mediumship “is just burning that man right up”; this is true, for the functions of his bodily existence are all so accelerated, that, though he eats and drinks as usual, he appears to get no benefit therefrom, the fact being that he is really wasting away, because the great stimulus that has fallen upon him is exhausting his vitality quicker than it can be recuperated. 

Here, then, must be laid down the law. The greater the acceleration of physiological function, as the result of psychical influences upon the human body, the more need of caution and restraint in every department of physiological life. Thus the lesson is clearly borne home upon you, that under no circumstances can you afford to allow the functions of the body to be your master; and if you feel the physical nature is gaining the mastery over you, then plant your foot firmly and say, “I will be the master of myself “ 

IT HELPS TO SELF-MASTERY 

Viewed from the physiological standpoint the results of the development of mediumship are of two characters. If on the one hand it is judiciously prosecuted and applied, it results in the improvement of the entire physiology, in the building up, ultimately, of its weak parts, strengthening and sustaining them, and imparting a degree of excellence of operation and a healthy character to the entire body that the individual had perhaps, previously been a stranger to. Much depends upon the means that are used in order to produce these results; indeed so many things are involved in it, that it requires the greatest care in the development of the medium to lead up to the results just mentioned. 

On the other hand, if the vital powers are depleted, the great organs of the body deprived of their necessary vital power, their magnetic and spiritual influences drained out and exhausted, and they become torpid and congested, so that they do not adequately fulfil their functions, then the truth is presented that mediumship does develop a class of poor, hollow-voiced, and pale-faced creatures that the world calls mediums—people, in fact, who never ought to have had anything at all to do with mediumship. 

But there is no real reason why such results should be presented. The only reason for such results is ignorance and the injudicious use of these powers. How to utilize this mediumship properly does not come before us in this lecture; we are only dealing at this point with the physiological peculiarities that are associated with mediumship in regard to health and the general character of the functional operations of the system. We must now, then, take another step, and consider it from the interior point of view; for what we have already dealt with are purely matters that lie in the external. 

When we go beneath the outward operations of the system we come in contact with, respectively, the muscular and nervous forces of the physiology. These muscular and nervous forces fulfil important functions, as of course you know, in regard to the bodily or animal existence; and the development of mediumship will disturb them by stimulating and exciting them, because the unfoldment of mediumship in every case presupposes and implies the absorption of a foreign spiritual and magnetic element, a quickening force. The doctrine of the Holy Ghost descending upon you is not quite so fictitious as some hard-headed people would have you believe nowadays. 

There is a spiritual force directed by the attendant spirits that is brought to bear upon the developing medium, that, as it were, insinuates itself into the muscular and nervous forces of the subject, and necessarily stimulates and sometimes irritates these two departments; and by that stimulation and irritation leads to a cerebral excitement which may rest within the brain simply in the external sphere, or may proceed into the interior spiritual nature, and there produce other results upon the higher planes of mediumship. Now, this agitation of muscular and nervous force will be attended by more conspicuous development of the mentality of the individual than has been induced hitherto. Therefore, working up towards the sphere of the mind and the will, all kinds of ideas, all kinds of thoughts and speculations, may pass before the inner eye of the mind. 

PHYSICAL REACTION TO SPIRIT POWER 

Here we are trying to draw the line between the physiological and the mental department of the subject. Before we enter into that mental department, let us consider the physiological in another direction. The physiological development of mediumship may result in the development of mediumship which is solely related to external phenomena—to those phenomena which transpire outside of the personality of the medium, but yet are dependent upon the presence of the medium; in a sentence, physical mediumship. Then we have, first, visible phenomena, associated with mental and muscular susceptibility; which give you those effects which are related to the personality of the medium and depend upon the functions of the medium, since they take place within the personal sphere of the medium. 

Here we have impersonation, those manifestations of individual possession, as they are called, whereby you are able more or less distinctly to individualise the communicating intelligence. Now this phase of mediumship is the most valuable phase of mediumship you can cultivate, and for these reasons, briefly: You may have the most remarkable phenomena produced by the spiritual world for your edification and instruction, and as Spiritualists you may be benefited and blessed as a consequence, but the spiritual world owes a duty to the sceptical world as well as to the Spiritualistic world. 

Spiritualists have crossed the threshold and come into the Temple, and are enjoying all the benefits and blessings therein to be found, but the inquirer is without the sacred precinct; he would like to enter, yet he fears he may find no means to enable him to do so. But when by the aid of the personating medium he is enabled to see his beloved friends, and they make themselves actual and visible in the personality of the medium, plain to his consciousness and understanding, and tell him specifically points and facts of their identity and experience that were utterly beyond the power of any other intelligence to tell, then he has something borne in upon him through the senses of sight, of hearing and understanding, that appeals to him without any of the appearance of jugglery and conjuring that other forms and manifestations from the spiritual world naturally suggest to the prejudiced and hostile inquirer. 

Therefore, we repeat, that the personating medium is one of the most valuable mediums you can present to inquirers. We know that in making this statement we are open to considerable criticism; but we still adhere to it, and reiterate that the phase of mediumship we have referred to appeals in the deepest and the clearest manner to the inquirer, of any phase of mediumship that can be mentioned. 

We assert that here we have the most useful form of physiological mediumship, and when the individual is thus controlled the purely muscular and mental nervous forces are being used by the operating spirits; and if those forces are judiciously used and proper attention is paid to them, and the necessary period for recuperation that should always follow every exercise of mediumistic gifts or powers is allowed, the individual will not then experience any very serious disadvantage from the prosecution of his mediumship. But if mediumship is pursued day after day without any attention or consideration being bestowed upon the bodily system, and without any attention to the laws of psychical recuperation, then mental disaster and physical distress and inharmony will result in every case on the outward plane. 

FACTORS IN MENTAL MEDIUMSHIP 

We now take a step from the physiological side to the more interior department of the mental state. The mental character of mediumship is not sufficiently understood by Spiritualists at large. A great many things are expected of the mental department of mediumship that are practically impossible in the great majority of cases, while a great many things that appear to belong to mediumship in the mental departments are attributed to spirits which do not really belong to them. In the first place there are three factors concerned in this kind of mediumship: the spirit controlling, the mental atmosphere and characteristics of the medium controlled, and the mental atmosphere of the people constituting the company surrounding the medium when he is controlled. 

These are three very important points; and much of the confusion, doubt, and difficulty that has beset the pathway of mediumship in its mental development should have been cleared UP and relieved by an understanding of two of the factors—the mental atmosphere of the medium and that of the sitters. We are leaving of course, now all consideration of what are called test controls, for they really come practically within the lines of the consideration we have formerly mentioned. We shall have to deal hereafter with the mental characteristics in the operation of spirits from the spiritual world and its effect upon the subject, and the reactionary results of that effect as affecting the medium and the control. 

INNATE AND LATENT FACILITY 

Experimental observation shows us that there is proceeding from every individual a certain mental atmosphere, and that this mental atmosphere contains or comprises within itself, is made up, in fact, of the mental and intellectual life of the individuals tinged, coloured, and characterized by all the thoughts, education, experiences, reflections, and mental observations of the individual; it contains within itself, too, all the potencies that were born with the individual, and these have to be seriously reckoned with by the spirit world. For instance, a certain manner of living inclines an individual to certain forms of thought, when by natural inheritance and disposition he is inclined to thought in another direction; but the overwhelming influence of temporary circumstances binds down the latent thought, crushes it, in fact, and prevents its expression. 

When a spirit encounters a mind thus situated, it is more than likely that the spirit thought, descending upon the mentality of the medium, piercing and penetrating the conventional acquisitions, will go right down to the bottom, so to speak, and touch the inherited tendencies, and quicken them into life and stimulate them into action; and so control the operation of that mentality, that, seemingly, a new mental character will be developed as a consequence of the unfoldment of mediumship upon the mental side. Then, if you are unacquainted with the process we have just referred to and the circumstances belonging to it, you will say the medium has imbibed the mind of the spirit and become like the forces controlling him; whereas the real fact is that the spiritual influx has quickened the latent possibilities of the medium’s mentality and brought it into active operation. 

THE GROUND MUST BE CLEARED BEFORE PLANTING 

Now this may be advantageous or disadvantageous. Generally speaking, it is disadvantageous, for this reason: nearly all the inherited experiences that you receive by birth are upon certain general lines, general fines of ignorance concerning spiritual matters; then, if the spirit world, by the aid of the mental side of mediumship, endeavours to give correct interpretations to the mortal world, it is absolutely necessary that all the old and erroneous opinions inherited by the medium shall be driven out, so that the mind may be clear. A practical illustration will make this matter more intelligible to you. When our medium was first developed, he was precisely in the conditions we have just referred to; the circumstances of conventional life had forced his mind in a certain direction, but inherently the character of his mind was quite different. It had inherited a somewhat religious inclination and direction, and somewhat of spiritual feeling or character, mainly of what might be called the ordinary orthodox conventional Christian form. 

But when the spiritual influx affected his mental sphere, it had to penetrate the two conditions—the conventional opinions in which he had been trained, and then reach down to the inherited tendency that was underneath. His whole character had an orthodox tinge or hue; and he would tell you that when he first realized mediumship it was to him something of an orthodox religious character, as he understood it, and he felt that at last he was going to become a good Christian. But having stimulated these latent errors of the mind into action, we, by judicious processes, gradually ejected them, and at last cleared the mind of the residuum we found at the bottom of it; and then, having cleared the mentality, we were free to train his mind in the direction of the larger and wider ideas that we have endeavoured to express to humanity for so many years past. 

NATURAL APTITUDE REGULATES RESULTS 

When the mental sphere has been purified, much will depend upon the character of the mind, as to what use can be made of it. In some cases it becomes clairvoyant perception, in other cases it becomes inspirational; then there is an intuitive comprehension of spiritual principles, which, descending into the mind, stimulates it to activity, and enables it to intelligently express in glowing and beautiful phraseology the principles of the universe, of life and being; in other cases, there being organic and physiological susceptibility to entrancement, the individual becomes a “trance” medium through whom individual spirits may express themselves, or through whom certain particular spirits, or a particular spirit, may continue to manifest for a length of years for the purpose of exalted training and teaching humanity at large. 

Thus you see there is the same breaking-up process, the same stimulating and purifying processes taking place in the mental sphere when the mediumistic development reaches this department, as have taken place in the physiological department; and the result in both cases, where the mediumship is judiciously developed and carefully prosecuted, is the establishment of mental harmony, order, peace, and stability, as well as physical healthfulness; and these ought to be the results of every proper and orderly development of mediumship. 

One stage further remains for our consideration, which is the spiritual side of the question. Here we have to consider two important things. First, the effect of the mediumship upon the spiritual body, and secondly, its effect upon the spirit itself, the essential me. The effect of the spiritual side of mediumship must be a continuation of its development from the mental sphere on to the spiritual brain, from the external side to the internal side. If the spiritual consciousness is to be reached, it can only be through the spiritual organism, just as the mental consciousness was reached through the physical organism. 

THE SPIRIT BODY IS THE INTERMEDIATE 

Then we have to bear in mind that this spiritual organisation is a fact in existence now, and is being elaborated by the human body while it is living here in this world, that it is the intermediate condition between the outer body which is related to the external world, and the innermost of you—your essential nature—which is related to the inner world of everlasting being; it is, as it were, the body of the soul, even as the physical body is the outer envelope of your present being. This inner body duplicates the outer one) and the effects that are possible with the outer body upon the external plane are possible with the inner body upon the inner plane; and when you can stimulate these latent subjective possibilities into operation, you are getting on to that road which takes you out of mediumship and brings you into the department where the individual exercise of your own powers becomes a possibility to you; for we may now tell you, that the true cultivation of mediumship is a stepping-stone to the exercise of your own spiritual powers. 

Where it goes on always being mediumship, where the individual is always the subject of a dominant and controlling power, the day of tutelage is indefinitely prolonged, and no real advantage to the individual accrues. But when you can go progressively forward and reach that spiritual consciousness of the existence of the powers belonging to your own spirit, and can learn how to utilize them and project them through their counterparts in the material body, then you open the door of the occult for yourself and are able to perform these marvels; and being able to intromit yourself into the spiritual state, you can express through the outer life what you gather therein. 

MEDIUMSHIP A STAGE TOWARDS SPIRITUAL COMPANIONSHIP 

Mediumship, then, is a tutelage that leads you forward from the recognition of the fact that there are possibilities in you that others can utilize, to the understanding of the greater fact that you can utilize these possibilities for yourself. Mediumship, if you will foster and nourish it and follow it intelligently, will at last place the key in your hands; and the benign and beneficent intelligences of the spiritual world will say to you, “My brother (or my sister), open thou the gate for thyself; we will be there to help and to aid you, now that you have reached that point where you are capable of walking alone; you have taken the first two steps in due and proper form; we have led you forward, we have opened the veils one and two for you, and now here stands the third already parted; take thou the step with earnest heart and hand, and steady foot; we will help you and lead you, but now your day of tutelage is almost done, and you can stand crowned with the glory and consciousness of individual culture, and the mysteries, as they are called of the subjective realm are open to You. 

“Ah!” some will say, “that is all very well; but we see mediums utterly oblivious to all this, who have no other thought of the value of mediumship than the material wealth they can accumulate by its exercise, and who degrade the higher faculties you are referring to by stultifying them to all unworthy purposes, by pandering to ignorance, and generally doing their very best to degrade the very exalted functions they fulfil.” Ignorance is the mother of many abominations, and ignorance is responsible here; for true knowledge never vitiates the divine realities of its possibilities nor disgraces the functions with which it is bound up by development and education. 

THE WONDERFUL FIELD OPENED UP 

Briefly, then, very briefly and all imperfectly, we are fain to confess, we have passed in review before you the physiological, mental and spiritual developments pertaining to the unfoldment of mediumship; and we have reached the last great conclusion, that mediumship leads on to a recognition of the “adeptship,” so to speak, a personal, practical knowledge of how to utilize your interior latent spiritual powers; and when you have attained this plane of spiritual development you are in harmony with wise and thoughtful intelligences and may be by them inspired, and by that inspiration your mind will be illuminated and your soul expanded, and you can stand up firmly, conscious in the reality and presence of the angels; for their thoughts will infilter into yours, your being will thrill with spiritual forces, and you will be rounded, developed, and strengthened in character and nature, and you can become a healer, a helper, a teacher of the world, aided by the powers of the immortal life that shall work within you, and in all such exercise find perfect health of body, perfect soundness of mind, perfect purity of moral nature, perfect cleanliness of soul. These are the sure and certain results that shall crown your efforts, as you march up through the pathways of mediumship into the better and more delightful ways of true, spiritual growth and unfoldment. 

Here, then, let us pause. Remember all we have said; take its cautionary parts dearly to your judgment and understanding; and remember in every case that success entails effort, for something will always have to be given or done if something is desired in return. There is no royal road. The greatest warning we can give you is, that in no case should this mediumistic development unduly be sought; but wherever it spontaneously and naturally presents itself, then carefully pursue it, and apply the experiences and knowledge thus obtained to assist you in making greater advancement and further advantage as you proceed upon the road of personal unfoldment. As we have often said before, it is better to perform the humblest and most menial tasks of life successfully and be a benefit to the world than waste your time in unwise endeavours to develop occult possibilities in your natures, when your present mortal conditions allow you scarcely any possibility of either success or usefulness therein.