MEDIUMSHIP: A TRUE INTERPRETER 

Introduction | Mental or Intellectual Influence | Moral Factor |
Spirit’s Choice | Medium’s Responsibility

 The Moral Factor

The moral influence of the medium refers to the law of moral affinity, which says that, by the moral nature of their thoughts and behaviors, mediums, like all of us, attract spirits of a like character.  This will determine, therefore, the kind of spirits who will habitually communicate through them and influence their thoughts through intuitive suggestions.

Similarly, the degree of tuning obtained between the medium and the spirit affects the medium's ability to capture the spirit's communication.  That degree of tuning, in turn, stems from the affinity between the two.  When there is no affinity between them, the spirit of the medium becomes an antagonist and produces resistance;  he is an unwilling interpreter.  Should a communication occur, the interpretation will most likely be unfaithful.  Likewise, there is a danger, especially with non-vigilant mediums, for the involuntary substitution of the medium's own ideas in place of that which the communicating spirit endeavors to suggest. 

Again, we present an excerpt from "The Mediums' Book" , item 225, from a dissertation made by the same spirit that we quoted previously.  In comparing the communication of a spirit through a medium to that of a telegraph clerk acting on his machinery, this spirit writes:

"Just as atmospheric influences act upon and sometimes disturb the transmission of a telegraphic dispatch, so the moral influence of the medium acts upon, and sometimes disturbs, the transmission of our dispatchers from the world beyond the grave, when we are obliged to transmit those dispatches through a medium who is sympathetically or intellectually opposed to their tenor.

This opposing influence is, however, often annulled by the energy of our will, whereby messages of high philosophic import and elevated morality are sometimes conveyed through mediums but little fitted for their transmission, while on the other hand, very unedifying communications are occasionally introduced through mediums who are grieved and ashamed to have been used for their transmission.

However, not withstanding these occasional exceptions, it may be affirmed, as a general proposition, that incarnate spirits attract discarnate spirits of similar nature and advancement, and that spirits of high degree rarely communicate through mediums who are bad conductors, when they have at hand good medianimic machinery, that is to say, good mediums."