INSANITY AND MEDIUMSHIP

 

It has been constantly reiterated that mediumship tended to mental aberration, but the statistics furnished by the insane asylums show that this is an unfounded assertion. With the incentive of bigotry to make their reports unfavorable, while religion is the cause of by far the greater number of cases, Spiritualism is held responsible for scarcely one. A comparison of the state of mediumship with that of insanity shows how distinct they are. The state of mediumship is one of exaltation of the intellectual faculties, and a sensitiveness enabling the mind to receive impressions from another mind. Insanity is a result of derangement of the brain as a whole, or in part. Hence the difference between these two states is too great to admit of comparison.

 

If the autopsy of an insane person exhibited no indication of disordered action it was because those who made it did not complete their investigation, a very minute lesion in the brain, the pressure of a minute tumor may so impede the connection between that organ and the mind, as to produce distortion, which is insanity.