MEDIUMSHIP: SEEING MEDIUMS

Clairvoyant and Somnambulic Mediums | Important Distinctions |
At the Mediumship Sessions | Mental Influence

Important Distinctions

We must be careful to distinguish, as Kardec points out, the difference between the accidental and spontaneous sight of apparitions and the faculty of mediums, properly so called.  The first is frequent, especially at the moment of death of a loved one who comes to make us aware of their departure; similarly a loved one who has passed on may come to warn us against danger, give us good council, or ask us for help. It is an isolated fact, which always has an individual and personal character.  The latter, the faculty, consists in the possibility of seeing different spirits who come near the medium, even though they are perfect strangers.

Kardec makes yet another distinction between those mediums who only see the evoked spirits and describe, in detail, the spirits' gestures, expressions, features, appearance, sentiments, etc., and those in whom the faculty is more general.  The latter perceive the spirit-population around us and and see spirits coming and going, performing acts of their routine life.

It is not to say, however, that mediumistic sight is present or active in the medium at all times.  It can occur in intervals, or in certain moments or situations that are independent of the medium's will.  These spaces of inactivity, however, are actually beneficial to the medium, since a continuous perception of the presence of spirits would interfere with and disrupt the daily life of the medium.