Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1866

Allan Kardec

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Questions and Problems

Identity of the Spirits in Private Meetings


Why the Spirits evoked by a feeling of affection, many times refuse to provide with incontestable proofs of their identity? It is understandable the whole value associated to the identity from the part of the Spirits that are dear to us. Such a feeling is very natural, and it seems that for the fact that the Spirits can communicate it must be very easy for them to attest their personality. The lack of material proof, to certain persons and even more so to those that do not know the mechanism of mediumship, that is, the law of relationships between Spirits and men, it is a cause of painful uncertainty. Although we have already treated this question several times, we will examine it again, to respond to some questions that are addressed to us.

We have nothing to add to what has been said about the identity of the Spirits that come exclusive for our instruction, and that had left Earth some time ago. We know that it cannot be attested in absolute terms, and that we must limit ourselves to judging the value of the language.

The identity cannot be verified with certainty except for Spirits that departed recently, whose character and habits reflect from their words. For those, the identity is revealed in a thousand details. The proof, sometimes, sticks out from material, characteristic facts, but more frequently from nuances of the language itself and a number of little details that, although not much evident, are not less significant.

Communications of this kind often contain more proofs than one think, and that we discover with more attention and less prevention. Most of the time, unfortunately, people are not satisfied with what the Spirit wants or can give; they want proof their own way; ask them to say this or do that; that they remember a name or a fact, and that in a given time, without thinking about the obstacles that sometimes oppose to that, and paralyze their good will. Then, after obtaining what they wished, they frequently want more. They think that it is not concluding enough; after one fact, they request another, and another. In short, they never have enough to be convinced. It is when the Spirit, often fatigued by such insistence, stops completely communicating, expecting that the conviction will come by other means. But very often also, their abstention is imposed by a superior will, as a punishment to the very demanding claimer, and also as a test to his faith, because if after a few disappointments and the failure to obtain what he wants and by the way he wants, if he ended up abandoning the Spirits, these in turn would abandon him, leaving him overwhelmed by his anguishes and in the tortures of doubt, fortunate when his abandonment does not have more serious consequences.

However, in a number of cases, the material proofs of identity are independent from the will of the Spirit and the desire that the Spirit has to provide them. This is due to the nature or to the state of the instrument through which the Spirit communicates. There is an infinite variety of nuances in the mediumistic faculty that make the medium apt or improper for the obtainment of these or those effects, that at first sight seem identical, but that depend on different fluidic influences. The medium is like an instrument of many strings, who cannot emit sound through missing cords.

Here a remarkable example:

We know a medium that may be placed among those of first order, as much for the nature of the instructions that he receives as for the skills in communicating with almost all Spirits, without distinction. Time and again, in private evocations, he received irrefutable proofs of identity, by reproducing the language and character of persons that he had never known. Some time ago he made an evocation, for a person that had just suddenly lost several children, evoking one of the last ones, a girl. The communication reflected the character of the girl perfectly and was even more satisfactory because it responded to a question of the father about her position as a Spirit. However, those were only psychological proofs, in a way. The father thought that another child could have responded the same thing; he wanted something that only the daughter could say; he was surprised, above all, for the fact that she called him father, instead of the family nickname that she gave him, and that was not a French name, considering that if she said one word she could also say the other. Having the father asked the reason why, here is the response given by the guide of the medium about it:

Although entirely detached, your little child would not have the conditions to make you understand, because she cannot make the medium repeat the terms that are familiar to you in the transmission. She obeys a law, when communicating, but she does not understand it sufficiently to explain its mechanism. Mediumship is a faculty whose nuances vary to infinity, and the mediums that typically handle philosophical matters, only rarely obtain, and always spontaneously, these particularities that allow the positive identification of the personality of the Spirit. When mediums of that kind request a proof of identity, with the desire of satisfying the evoker, the cerebral fibers of the medium become tense due to the desire and are no longer flexible enough for the Spirit to move them at will. It follows that characteristic words cannot be reproduced. The thought remains, but the form no longer exists. There isn’t, therefore, anything strange in the fact that your daughter called you father, instead of providing you with the familiar qualification that you expected. Through a special medium you will obtain results that will satisfy you. All that is needed is patience.”

After a few days, that gentleman was in a group of one of our members, and obtained by tiptology and in the presence of the first medium, not only the name that he wanted, and without having asked for that in particular, but also other facts of remarkable accuracy. Thus, the faculty of the first medium, however developed and flexible it was, was not adequate to this kind of mediumistic production. He could reproduce the words that are the translation of the transmitted thought, and not the terms that require special work. For that reason, the whole communication reflected the character and the disposition of ideas of the Spirit, but without characteristic material signs. A given medium is not the appropriate mechanism to every effect. As we cannot find two persons that are physically and psychologically identical, there aren’t two mediums whose faculties are identical.

It is noticeable that the proofs of identity almost always come spontaneously, at the time when one thinks the least about it, whereas they are rarely given when requested. A caprice from the part of the Spirit? No; there is a material cause, as follows:

The fluidic dispositions that establish the relationships between the Spirit and the medium offer nuances of extreme subtleness, unappreciable by our senses and that vary from a moment to the next in the same medium. Often, an effect that is not possible at a given time, will be in one hour, one day or a week later, because the dispositions or the energy of the fluidic currents would have changed. It happens here what happens in photography, in which a simple variation of light direction or intensity is enough to favor or preclude the reproduction of the image. Does a poet create verses at will? No. He needs inspiration; if he is not in favorable conditions, however much he digs up the brain nothing will be obtained. Ask him why. In the evocations, when the Spirit is left at ease, he makes use of the disposition that he finds in the medium, taking advantage of the appropriate moment. But when these dispositions do not exist, he cannot do better than the photographer with the absence of light. Despite his desire, therefore, he cannot always instantaneously satisfy a request for proofs of identity. That is why it is preferable to wait for them instead of requesting them.

Besides, one must consider that the fluidic relationships that must exist between the Spirit and the medium never establish completely since the first time, for the assimilation only happens gradually and with time. From that it follows that, initially, the Spirit always has a difficulty that influences the clarity, accuracy and development of the communications, whereas when the Spirit and the medium are used to one another, when their fluids are identified, the communications happen naturally, because there is no more resistance to overcome.

That shows how many considerations must be given to the analysis of the communications. It is for not doing it, and for not knowing the laws that rule those types of phenomena that frequently the impossible is demanded. It is absolutely like someone that did not know the laws of electricity and became surprised that the telegraph could experience variations and interruptions, then concluding that electricity does not exist.

The fact of verification of identity of certain Spirits is an accessory, in the vast universe of results that Spiritism encompasses. If such verification were impossible, it would not pass a prejudgment against the manifestations in general, nor against the moral consequences that derive from them. One would have to feel sorry for those that precluded themselves from the consolations that they give, for the fact that they did not get a personal satisfaction, for this would be the same as sacrificing the whole for the part.

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