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CHAPTER XVIII.

DIFFICULTIES AND DANGERS OF MEDIANIMITY.

Difficulties and dangers of Medianimity - Influence of Medianimity on the health, on the brain, and on children.

221. -

1. Is the medianimic faculty an indication of a morbid state of health, or is it simply abnormal?

"It is sometimes abnormal, but not morbid. Some mediums are very robust; those who are weakly are so from other causes."

2. Does the exercise of the medianimic faculty cause fatigue?

"A too prolonged exercise of any faculty causes fatigue it is the same with medianimity, especially when employed for the obtaining of physical manifestations, which necessarily occasions fatigue, because it is a loss of fluid that is only to be restored by rest."

3. Is the proper exercise of medianimity (we do not speak of its abuse), injurious to health?

"There are cases in which the physical or moral state of a medium may render it prudent, or even necessary, to abstain from exercising it, or, at least, to exercise it with great moderation. A medium is generally warned, when this is the case, by his own feeling; and he should always abstain from using his medianimity when he is conscious of fatigue in so doing."

4. Is the exercise of medianimity more likely to he injurious to some persons than to others?"

"I have already said that this depends upon the physical

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and moral state of the medium. There are persons whose temperament renders it necessary to avoid all causes of over-excitement; and mediumship may be of the number" (188, 194).

5. Can the exercise of medianimity produce madness?

"No more than anything else may produce it, when there is a predisposition to brain-disease. Mediumship will not produce madness, where the germ of madness does not exist; but, where that germ exists (which is easily known), commonsense should suffice to show you the necessity of avoiding every kind of mental excitement."

6. Is it imprudent to develop the medianimic faculty in children?

"It is not only imprudent, but very dangerous to do so; for the frail and delicate organisation of childhood would be too much shaken, and the youthful imagination too much excited, by such attempts; parents should therefore keep these ideas from their children, or, at least, should only speak of them in reference to their moral aspect."

7. Yet there are children who are mediums by nature, not only for physical manifestations, but also for writing and for visions; is there danger for such as these?

"No; where a child's faculty is spontaneous, it belongs to his temperament, and his constitution is prepared for its exercise; it is a very different thing when you attempt to develop medianimity artificially, and thus subject the child's nervous system to overexcitement. It is also to be remarked that a child who is naturally subject to visions is generally but little impressed by them; they appear so natural to such a child, that he pays but little heed to them and easily forgets them; and in after-years, if these visions recur to his memory, he is not apt to be painfully affected by the remembrance of them."

8. At what age may we attempt to develop the faculty of medianimity without danger?

"There is no rule in regard to age; it depends partly on the physical, and still more on the moral, development of the individual; there are children of; say, a dozen years of

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age, who would be less affected by the attempt than many grown persons. I am now speaking of medianimity in general; but physical medianimity is that which is most likely to cause fatigue to the organism. Writing, however, in the case of a child, has another danger, owing to his inexperience, viz., the mischief which might result to his health, if he took to writing when alone, and should thus make an amusement of it."

222. Practical spiritism, as we shall see more clearly the more we know of it, demands our utmost tact and discretion to avoid being taken in by deceitful spirits; if grown people are in danger of being deceived by these, children and young persons are evidently, on account of their inexperience, still more exposed to this danger. We know, too, that concentration of thought and feeling is absolutely necessary for obtaining the concentration of serious and benevolent spirits. An evocation made rightly and jokingly is a profanation which gives easy access to mocking and maleficent spirits; and as we cannot expect a child to possess the seriousness necessary for such an act, it is to be feared that he would make a mere amusement of it if left to himself.

Even under the most favourable conditions, it is highly desirable that a child who is endowed with the medianimic faculty should only exercise it under the eyes of experienced persons, who may inspire him, by their example, with the sentiment of respect that should always preside at the evocation of souls who have quitted the earthly life. The question of age, as I have said, is subordinate to conditions of temperament as well as of character; and you should not only avoid forcing the development of this faculty in children, where it is not spontaneous, but its exercise, in every case, should be conducted with very great circumspection, and should neither be excited nor encouraged even on the part of grown persons, if they are weak in body or in mind.

Those who show the slightest symptoms of mental eccentricity or weakness should be dissuaded from its exercise by every possible means; for there is, in such persons, an evident predisposition to insanity, which any and every species of excitement would

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tend to develop. Spiritist ideas are not more likely to produce cerebral excitement than any others; but madness brought on by spiritist ideas would take its character from them, just as it would assume the character of religious mania, if it had been brought on by the excitement attendant on an excess of devotional practices, and spiritism, in such cases, would naturally, though unjustly, be held responsible for that result. The best thing to be done, with every one who shows a tendency to fall under the influence of a fixed idea, is to direct his attention to something altogether different from that idea, so as to give rest to the organs which are the seat of the excitement (See Introduction to The Spirits' Book, Par. 12.)