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CHAPTER XXII.

MEDIANIMITY OF ANIMALS.

234. Can animals be used as mediums?

This question has been often asked, and the observation of certain facts appeared to suggest the possibility of an affirmative answer; this opinion being mainly accredited by the remarkable intelligence of some of the creatures of the lower reigns, when trained to perform feats which seem to imply a reasoning co-operation, if not a sort of second-sight, on their part. We have studied the exhibitions referred to with the greatest care; but, although we cannot refuse to admit the possession of a relative intelligence by animals, what we found to be most conclusively proved by their seeming lucidity is the skill and perseverance that must have been bestowed on their training. We have also witnessed feats of conjuring that imitated the facts of somnambulism and second-sight so ingeniously as to astonish the uninitiated, but which, nevertheless, to the eyes of those who are practically acquainted with somnambulism, showed an egregious ignorance, on the part of the conjurors, of its most elementary conditions.

235. The evidences of artifice afforded by the exhibitions of trained animals, birds, and even insects, do not, however, dispose of the question we are considering; for, just as the tricks of sham somnambulism prove nothing against the existence of the somnambulic state, so the fact that the feats just referred to are merely mechanical, and are not the result of the faculties of second-sight or of reason, proves nothing

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against the possibility of the existence of those faculties in animals. What we have to ascertain is, therefore, whether animals are capable, like men, of serving as intermediaries to spirits for the transmission of intelligent communications.

It might seem, at first sight, only reasonable to suppose that a living being, endowed with a certain portion of intelligence, would be better adapted for this purpose than an inert body without vitality of its own, such as a table, for example; but this is not the case.

236. The question of the medianimity of animals is completely settled in the following dissertation by a spirit whose profundity and sagacity our readers have already been enabled to appreciate by preceding quotations. In order to perceive the full force of his reasoning, we must bear in mind the explanation given by him of the part performed by the medium in the transmission of communications (225).

Dissertation on the question of the medianimity of animals, dictated spontaneously after a discussion of the subject at a meeting of the Parisian Society of Psychologic Studies.

"I am about to address you on the question of the medianimity of animals, brought up, and affirmatively argued, by one of your most fervent members, who asserts, in virtue of the axiom, 'He who can do the greater can do the lesser' - that it is possible for us to medianimise birds and other creatures of the animal reign, and to use them as our instruments in communicating with the human race. The argument brought forward by him is, however, purely and simply what your logicians call a sophism. He argues, that, as we can vitalise inert matter, - a table, a chair, a piano, etc., we ought, a fortiori, to be able to medianimise matter already living. This, however, is not, and cannot be done.

"But, first of all, let us be agreed as to our facts. What is a medium? - The being, the individual, who serves as the connecting-link which enables disincarnate spirits to communicate with incarnate spirits, that is to say, with

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men. Consequently, without a medium, you can have no ostensible communication with spirits, whether tangible, mental, scriptive, physical, or of any other kind.

"There is one principle which, I am sure, is admitted by all spiritists, viz., that similars act with, and as, their similars. But what are the similars of spirits, if not spirits, whether incarnate or disincarnate? Your perispirit and ours are derived from the same source, are identical in nature, are, in a word, similars; they possess the properties of assimilation, more or less developed, and of magnetisation, more or less vigorous, which enable us, spirits and men, to enter quickly and easily into relation with each other. In fine, what appertains specially to mediums, what constitutes the very essence of medianimity, is a special affinity, and, at the same time, a force of expansion peculiar to them, which nullifies in them all refrangibility, and establishes between us and them a sort of current, a kind of fusion, which facilitates our communications. It is this absence of refrangibility that constitutes a medium; just as it is the refrangibility of their material envelope which prevents the development of medianimity in those who are not mediums.

"Men are prone to exaggeration in everything; some (and I am not now alluding to professed materialists) deny that animals have a soul, while others insist upon it that they have a soul like ours. Why will they confound what is perfectible with what is not? Be quite sure of this, viz., that the fire which animates the beasts, the breath which makes them act, move, and speak in their special language, has not, in their present phase of development, any aptitude for mingling, uniting, blending, with the divine breath, the ethereal soul, in a word, the spirit which animates the essentially perfectible being, man, the king of terrestrial creatures. Is it not this very quality of perfectibility that constitutes the superiority of the human race over the other terrestrial species? Let it, then, be distinctly understood that you cannot assimilate to man, who alone is perfectible

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in himself and in his works, any individual of the other races living upon the earth.

"Is the dog, whose superior intelligence among animals has rendered him the friend and messmate of man, capable of attaining to perfection, in himself, and of his own personal initiative? No one would dream of making such an assertion, for the dog neither progresses nor makes his fellow-dog progress; the best-taught dog has always been trained by his master. Ever since the world was made, the beaver has built his hut over the stream, according to the same proportions, and by the same invariable rule; the nightingales and the swallows have never made their nests otherwise than did their parents before them. A nest of sparrows, before the deluge and at the present day, is always the same nest, built under the same conditions, with the same interweaving of the same materials, gathered in the Spring, at the season of love. The bees and the ants, in their little household-republics, have never varied in their provident habits, propensities, ways, or productions. The spider still weaves his web just as he always wove it, at every period of the earth's development.

"On the other hand, if you look for the leafy huts, and rude tents, of the early ages of the human race, you will find, in their place, the palaces and habitations of modern civilisation; tissues of silk, and ornaments of gold, have taken the place of man's primitive clothing of undressed skins; and evidences of the incessant advance of humanity in every department of progress meet you at every step.

"From the onward movement of the human race-constant, invincible, undeniable - and from the persistently stationary position of the other species of animated beings, you should conclude, with me, that, while certain principles, viz., breath and matter, are common to all that live and move upon the earth, it is none the less true that you alone, you, spirits incarnated in earthly bodies, are placed under the action of the inevitable law of progress which urges you, necessarily, and for ever, onward. God has

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placed the animals by your side as auxiliaries, to feed you, to clothe you, to second you, and has given them a certain portion of intelligence, because, in order to aid you, they must, to a certain extent, comprehend you, and their intelligence has therefore been proportioned to the services which they are called upon to render; but, in His wisdom, He has not placed them under the same law of progress as yourselves; such as they were created, such they have remained, and such they will remain until the extinction of their races.

"It has been said; 'Spirits medianimise inert matter, such as chairs, tables, pianos, etc., and make them move. Yes, we make them move; but, as to medianimising them, no! For, I repeat it, no spirit-phenomenon can be produced without a medium. What is there wonderful in the fact that we should, with the aid of one or more mediums, make matter move, seeing that it is inert and passive, and is therefore fitted, just because it is inert and passive, to obey the movements and impulsions with which we impress it? In order thus to impress it, we require a medium; but it is not necessary that the medium should be present, or conscious of our action; for we are able to act with the elements furnished by him, without his knowledge, and away from his presence, especially in cases of tangibility and carryings. Through the uniting, blending, combining of our fluidic envelope - more imponderable and subtle than the most imponderable and subtle of your gases - with the fluidic but animalised envelope of the medium, which possesses an expansibility and penetrability unimaginable by your gross senses and inexplicable for you, we are enabled to move objects, and to break them to pieces, even in uninhabited rooms.

"Spirits can render themselves visible and tangible to animals and the sudden terror with which the latter are sometimes seized, and for which you can perceive no reason, is caused by their seeing one or several spirits bearing ill-will towards their owners, or towards some of the persons present. You frequently see horses that will neither

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go forwards nor backwards, or that rear or shy at some obstacle unseen by you, and which is often a spirit, or a group of spirits, terrifying the animal, out of malice, or by way of a joke. Remember how Balaam's ass, seeing an angel before her, and frightened at his flaming sword, stood obstinately still; the angel, before making himself visible to Balaam, having appeared first to the animal only. But, though we can render ourselves visible to animals, we cannot medianimise them any more than we can medianimise inert matter; the conscious or unconscious co-operation of a human medium is always a necessary condition of our intercommunication with men, because, for this, we require the union of similar fluids, which do not exist either in the animals or in inert matter.

"The advocate of the idea I am combating says that he magnetised his dog; but what was the result of that magnetisation? The death of the dog; for the unfortunate animal died, after having fallen into a state of atony and languor, the consequence of his magnetisation. By inundating the dog with a fluid of an essence superior to the essence proper to its nature, he killed it; for he acted upon it just as lightning would have done, only more slowly. Therefore, as no assimilation is possible between our perispirit and the fluidic envelope of animals, properly so called, we should kill them instantly if we attempted to medianimise them. This point being clearly established, I fully admit that there exist in animals various aptitudes; that certain sentiments, certain passions, identical with human passions and sentiments, are developed in them; that they possess consciousness, and are affectionate and grateful, or vindictive and full of hatred, according to the way in which they are treated by you; and that those, especially, that are intended to be the companions or the servants of man, have been endowed, by God, with a capacity, for entering into sociable relations with him, of which the wild beasts of the desert are almost entirely destitute. But, between this, and the power of serving as intermediaries for the transmission of a

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spirit's thought, there is a great gulf, viz., the difference of natures.

"You know that we draw, from the brain of the medium, the necessary elements for giving to our thought a form that may be visible and tangible for you. It is with the aid of the materials possessed by him that the medium is able thus to translate our thought into human words; but what elements for such translation could we find in the brain of an animal? What animal's brain could furnish us with words, letters, numerals, or signs of any kind, similar to those which are in use among even the most backward of mankind?

"'Still,' you may say, 'animals comprehend men's thoughts; they even divine them.' True, trained animals do understand certain thoughts of the people about them; but did you ever know them to reproduce or transmit those thoughts? No; then you must admit that animals cannot serve as interpreters of the thoughts of spirits.

"To sum up: Ostensible Spirit-action upon men cannot take place without the conscious or unconscious co-operation of a medium; and it is only human beings, who are spirits like ourselves, that can be used as such by us. The training of dogs, birds, or other animals, to perform certain feats, is a matter of merely human ingenuity, with which we have nothing to do. *

"ERASTES."

* The Revue Spirite of September 1864, gives details of the method employed by the trainers of learned birds, showing how to make them draw the cards that are named from the pack, etc.