I. How is it, then, that in returning to communicate with us mortals, the alleged spirits of men who were great and wise while living on the earth, almost uniformly appear to have degenerated as to their mental faculties, being seldom, if ever, able to produce anything above mediocrity? And why is it that the speaking and writing purporting to come from spirits, are so generally in the bad grammar, bad spelling, and other distinctive peculiarities of the style of the medium, and so often express precisely what the medium knows, imagines, or surmises, and nothing more?
P. That your questions have a certain degree of pertinence, I must admit; but in making this estimate of the intelligence purporting to come from the spiritual world, have you not ignored some things which candor should have compelled you to take into the account? Think for a moment.
I. Well, perhaps I ought to have made an exception in your own favor. Your communication with me thus far has, I must admit, been characterized by a remarkable breadth and depth of intelligence, as well as ingenuity of argument.
P. And what, too, of the style and merits of the communications purporting to come from spirits to other persons and through other channels—are they not, as an almost universal rule, decidedly superior to anything the medium could produce, unaided by the influence, whatever it may be, which acts upon him?
I. Perhaps they are; indeed, I must admit I have known many instances of alleged spirit-communications which, though evidently stamped with some of the characteristics of the medium, were quite above the normal capacity of the latter; yet in themselves considered, they were generally beneath the capacity of the living man from whose disembodied spirit they purported to come.
P. By just so much, then, as the production given through a medium is elevated above the medium’s normal capacity, is the influence which acts upon him to be credited with the character of that production. Please make a note of this point gained. And now for the question why these communications should be tinctured with the characteristics of the medium at all; and why spirits can not, as a general rule, communicate to mortals their own normal intelligence, freely and without obstruction, as man communicates with man, or spirit with spirit. But that we may be enabled to make this mystery more clear, we had better attend first to another question which I see you have in your mind—the question as to the potential agent used by spirits in making communications.
THE MEDIUM—THE DOCTRINE OF SPHERES.
I. That is what we are anxious to understand; electricity, magnetism, odylic force, or whatever you may know or believe it to be—give us all the light you can on the subject.
P. Properly speaking, neither of these, or neither without important qualifications. Preparatory to the true explanation, I will lay the foundation of a new thought in your mind by asking, Do you know of any body or organism in nature—unless, indeed, it be a dead body—which has not something answering to an atmosphere?
I. It has been said by some astronomers that the moon has no atmosphere; though others, again, have expressed the opinion that she has, indeed, an atmosphere, but a very rare one.