259. One means employed, sometimes with success, to be assured of identity when the spirit who communicates is suspected, consists in making him affirm, in t/te name of Almighty God, that he is the one he pretends to be. It often happens that he who usurps a name would recoil before a sacrilege, and after having begun to write, / affirm, in the name of—, he stops, and traces some insignificant lines, or breaks the pencil in anger : if he is more hypocritical, he eludes the question by a mental reservation, writing, for instance, / certify that I have told you the truth ; or, / attest, in tlie name of God, tluxt it is I who speak to you, &c. But there are some not so scrupulous, and who swear whatever you want. One of them communicated to a medium, calling himself God; and the medium, highly honored by so high a favor, did not hesitate to believe him. Invoked by us, he did not dare sustain his imposture, and said, " I am not God, but I am His son." " You are, then, Jesus ? That is not probable; for Jesus is too high to employ subterfuge. Dare then to affirm, in the name of God, that you are the Christ." " I do not say I am Jesus: I say I am the son of God, because I am one of His creatures."
We may conclude that the refusal on the part of a spirit to affirm his identity in the name of God, is always a manifest proof that the name is an imposture, but that the affirmation is only a presumption, and not a certain proof.
