MEDIUMSHIP:  HOW INTELLECTUAL MEDIUMSHIP WORKS 

Introduction | Two Basic Concepts |
Components of Mediumistic Transmission: Fluidic Affinity & Mental Tuning

Two Components of Mediumistic Transmission:
Fluidic Affinity & Mental Tuning

Mental Tuning, Part 1 of 3:  How it Works

It is through the process of mental tuning that the medium captures the thoughts and ideas of the communicating spirit, to some degree of accuracy, depending on the experience and potential of the medium, the surrounding environment, and the level of affinity between the spirit and medium.

To understand how the medium is able to capture the spirit's thoughts, remember that the perispirit of a spirit (either incarnate or discarnate) acts as a transmitter of the spirit's thoughts that, upon emission, travel through space, in waves, carried by the spiritual fluids.  In the same way, the perispirit of one spirit can act as a receiver of thought waves originating from another spirit.  Thus, the communication of spirits by way of thought takes place through the emission and reception of what spirit author, Andé Luiz refers to as "mento-electromagnetic" waves (i.e. thought-waves).

To help us understand this process, Andé Luiz provides us with the analogy of a television transmitter and receptor.   The antenna of a television station sends out, simultaneously to many locations, signals that are encoded in electromagnetic television waves, which carry images, colors, movements, and sounds that we cannot naturally perceive. These waves can, however, be captured by a TV antenna and then decoded by the television set, whereby they can be perceived and understood by human beings.  In a similar way, the medium is able to capture and decode, to some degree of accuracy, the thought waves of a communicating, discarnate spirit.  

This process can be initiated automatically, since the medium is like an antenna, more or less sensitive, capturing signals transmitted by other minds; however the process of mental tuning, in other words, the willingness of the medium to receive the message and effort to accurately transmit it, depends on the directed will of the properly educated medium, who is conscious of the spiritual influence.  This points out an important educational need that is answered by Spiritism, which teaches the conscious medium how to control his faculty so as to exercise it in the proper time and place, and helps the unconscious medium, as well as those of us without an ostensive mediumship, to recognize the signs of spiritual influence.