Should the spirit refuse to communicate at the end of twenty minutes, the manipulators may be sure that an “unbeliever” is in their midst, or that the whole assembly has too small magnetic power. When this happens, other persons should try their skill.
As mediums are not uncommon, there will probably be one among them, and a brief waiting at the table will prove that this is the case.
A good experiment to spare further waste of time is for the circle of attendants to decrease until only sufficient are left to maintain the chain. In this way the medium is discovered. A good medium creates movement in five minutes or less, and, with a tiny tea-table, it has often been shown that, when once set in full motion, all may withdraw except the medium under whose magnetic touch the table will continue to gyrate for several minutes.
The spirit has many characteristics, and sometimes tires of the part expected of it, and, yielding to a frivolous mood, will dance or jump all over the floor, sometimes carrying its ministers out of the room to the passage. At others it remains true to the rôle of dignified sage, philosopher, and seer; but its moods are complicated, and these depend a great deal upon the amount of concentration and will that dominate it.
Constant peals of laughter provoke it to giddiness or abrupt, curt “answers,” while not infrequently, after several hours in which inquiries have been constantly fired at it, it shows a most discourteous inclination to remain stolidly non-committal and motionless. Then the medium with gentle coaxings may restore its good temper and patience, but only for a short period.
Perhaps the real reason for this reserve is to be found in the players themselves, whose magnetic power becomes exhausted, and fails to act as spontaneously as during the early hours of the evening. At any rate, when the medium asks courteously, “Are you very weary, O Spirit?” the table will frequently reply with two most emphatic bobs.
Another means of discovering a medium and an “unbeliever” (the latter term does not imply a cynic, but simply an individual with an insufficient supply of magnetism) is to ask the spirit to spell out the name of the person it loves best. In nine cases out of ten, it will spell out the name of the medium, and it will be found that it is as quick to reveal the person it hates, viz., the “unbeliever”—no matter if he is far removed from its vicinity.