So much has been said here about mediumship that perhaps it
would be well to consider this curious condition a little more
closely. The question of mediumship, what it is and how it acts,
is one of the most mysterious in the whole range of science. It
is a common objection to say if our dead are there why should we
only hear of them through people by no means remarkable for
moral or mental gifts, who are often paid for their
ministration. It is a plausible argument, and yet when we
receive a telegram from a brother in Australia we do not say:
"It is strange that Tom should not communicate with me direct,
but that the presence of that half-educated fellow in the
telegraph office should be necessary." The medium is in truth a
mere passive machine, clerk and telegraph in one. Nothing comes
FROM him. Every message is THROUGH him. Why he or she
should have the power more than anyone else is a very interesting
problem. This power may best be defined as the capacity for
allowing the bodily powers, physical or mental, to be used by an
outside influence. In its higher forms there is temporary
extinction of personality and the substitution of some other
controlling spirit. At such times the medium may entirely lose
consciousness, or he may retain it and be aware of some external
experience which has been enjoyed by his own entity while his
bodily house has been filled by the temporary tenant.
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