PAID OR COMMERCIAL MEDIUMSHIP

 

Most just that the laborer receive his wages, and that reward be given for the time expended. Yet mediumship is entirely unlike any other labor with which it is compared. No medium can tell beforehand whether the seance will be satisfactory or of any value. It may be all that is required or nothing. To have the power to commune with the departed is too priceless to be sold in the market. It really has no place in trade, and ought not to be made a profession. I have in mind a noted medium, one who was so far as tests go, genuine, who demanded five dollars from a sorrowing mother before he would give the seance in which she could hear from her beloved child. Twice she paid him, and on applying the third time, she not having the fee, he cruelly turned her away! He was a medium but not a Spiritualist. Most sincerely do I believe, and it has been the constant teachings of the spirit world, that the highest and best mediumship must be free. Its reward must be freely given.

 

There is one feature which strikes the student of the history of religions, and that is the unselfish devotion of their advocates. The contrast with spirit mediums is too of ten to the latter's disadvantage.

 

The religious teacher went forth without expecting earthly reward. The followers of Jesus, as portrayed in the narrative, furnish examples paralleled in all religions.

 

Their "Lord" sent his disciples out as beggars "without purse or scrip." Their wants were few, and they asked only for their daily bread. They were not promised high salaries, or places of honor, but martyrdom, and the promise was fulfilled. They shrank not from their fate but bravely went to their tasks. It is written that Mark was dragged by the Alexandrians through the streets till dead; James the Eider was murdered by Herod; Peter after "manifold sufferings for his Master, died;" Andrew was crucified; Philip died a martyr; Bartholomew preaching to the Albanians on the Caspian, was flayed alive and crucified; Thomas suffered martyrdom; Simon and Jude were murdered in Persia, and Saul was beheaded by Nero.

 

Such is the story of devotion to a cause, of self-sacrifice a tithe of which being brought to the support of Spiritualism by its leading minds and medium exponents, would place it in the front of all the religious and moral systems of the world.

 

The tendency of mediumship conducted as a business is to supplement the genuine with fraud, when genuine communications or manifestations cannot be obtained. It does not follow, however, that all commercial mediumship is unreliable. Excellent mediums have a fixed price for seances, and usually this is so low that it little more than pays for actual time expended. There are those honest and reliable. There is, however, constant temptation to assist the manifesting intelligence. The demand for bizarre manifestations, such as the true medium cannot have, is a constant incentive to the latter to supply it.

 

What is a great deal more, I believe most unequivocally that Spiritualism comes to spiritualize mankind and not to materialize spirits. In the very nature of things, an able business man, conversant with the affairs of the world is better able to judge of business relations than a spirit removed therefrom, and granting that a spirit may communicate something valuable, it would do so through the brain of such a business man, (unconscious perhaps to him) for his brain is the most sensitive to this phase of thought.

 

I have seen a man wise in affairs, ask advice of his spirit mother about the prospective value of stocks and grain. Yet when that blessed spirit was in mortal garb, she did not know Michigan Southern from Northern Pacific! There are instances, which may be called great occasions, when some spirit friend would right a wrong, or assist in great need, that there is interference.

 

They, who trusting in this, consult "business mediums," are certain of disappointment. The spirits who assist—if they do—are on the most selfish and gross plane, and do not care whether they are truthful or not, if the avarice of the medium is satisfied.

 

I know an "eminent business medium" who was consulted by members of the Board of Trade. Her "controls" had a large block of worthless gold mine stock—left with the medium to sell—which they glowingly recommended to those who consulted her. She readily sold it and received a third. When one broker wanted her to advise him what to buy, she would tell him, and the next one she would advise what to sell—and the most wonderful test—tell him to whom he could sell, and quietly pocketed commissions on both transactions!

 

In the home circle, where spirit friends, intimate, interested and loving, come, the affairs of home life may be introduced, at times, yet always without dragging the spirits down to the business of this life, unless they voluntarily enter therein.

 

This reliance on spirit advisers comes from the past superstition that they are infallible. That "a dead man knows more than all the living." This is a most mistaken belief, for in many things mortal knowledge is superior, and must so remain. When you consult spirits on business or detective work, remember that whoever purports to communicate, you ask them to come down to the lowest plane, if they are not already there. You go to a phase of spirit life which must be unreliable, and you pervert every worthy principle uttered by those who are worthy of consultation.

 

It is to be regretted that Spiritualism does not mean more, stand for more, with many professed Spiritualists. To illustrate: One came to me, one who claimed to be an "old pioneer Spiritualist," and desired a seance. I replied that my work was in a different direction, and could not comply with his wishes. He was persistent, and at last I said: "Well to accommodate you, if it really is so urgent, if you think the occasion so necessitous, I will do what I can, but first, what is your trouble?"

 

"Trouble enough!" he exclaimed, "last night some one stole my hog, and I want to know who did it?"