Allan Kardec - The Book on Mediums

THE
BOOK ON
MEDIUMS

A GUIDE FOR MEDIUMS
AND INVOCATORS

By Allan Kardec

The Book on Mediums

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This edition copyright 2010 White Crow Books

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Hardback ISBN 978-1-907661-77-8

Paperback ISBN 978-1-907661-75-4

eBook ISBN 978-1-907661-76-1

BODY, MIND & SPIRIT / Parapsychology / ESP

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T HE SECOND VOLUME of the Kardec series, which the translator has now the satisfaction of placing within the reach of English readers, treats of the experimental application of the theoretic principles laid down in The Spirits Book, the first volume of that series.

Not only do these two books mutually elucidate each other,but each of them may be said to imply the other as its necessary complement. For, if the principles laid down in The Spirits Book are true, the phenomena treated of in The Mediums Book must occur as a matter of course; while, if the phenomena treated of in The Mediums Book really occur, their occurrence proves the truth of the principles laid down in The Spirits Book, because those phenomena are, at once, inexplicable by any other theory, and easily explicable with the aid of the theoretic principles laid down in that work.

The Mediums Book is not addressed to Materialists, who must be brought from Materialism to Spiritualism, if at all, by their personal ascertainment of the reality of the modern spiritist manifestations and by the proof they give of the continued existence of the souls of the deceased men and women by whom they are produced. It is addressed exclusively to those who already believe that there is, in man, a principle of conscious individuality which survives the body, and who consequently admit, 1st, the action of LAW in the evolution of human life, and, 2nd, the existence of the Inscrutable creator of the universe, of whose Wisdom and Will that LAW is the expression, and who are therefore prepared to admit, Still further, that the Providential Ordaining may be expected to proceed, for the advancement of our knowledge of our extraterrestrial relations, as IT does for that of the sciences which deal with the various departments of our terrestrial life.

The science of mathematics, for instance, is open to every human being; yet it is only through the mind of a Euclid that its fundamental principles are given to the world.

Astronomy, Chemistry, Electricity, etc., are open to the study and investigation of all men; yet the basis of each of those sciences, as of all others, has been furnished, not by the multitude of seekers, but by the insight of some mastermind, on whose foundations succeeding inquirers have continued to build.

The most superficial glance at the world around us suffices to show us that the people of the earth are, as yet, in point of intelligence as of morality, of very slight average attainment; and they therefore need to be helped forward, in every department of intellectual inquiry, by spirits from worlds of greater advancement, who are incarnated among them, from time to time, for the purpose of assisting them to progress more rapidly in some given direction.

Owing to their mental and moral backwardness, men are slow to recognize the superiority of these Providentially given pioneers, and prone to resent, as offensive to their self-love, the suggestion that any such superiority can exist They therefore usually stone the prophets, before accepting their clearer insights; but as they always end by perceiving that those insights are the true ground on which the further development of each branch of science must be worked out, the progress of human knowledge, though slow, is sure. But at what rate would that progress be accomplished if every student, ignoring the groundwork furnished by the masterminds of the past, undertook to build up his own department of science, ab initio, for himself? If every mathematician, for instance, regarded it as derogatory to his mental dignity to accept the help of a riper intellect than his own, and considered it incumbent upon him to evolve for himself, from his own cogitation, his own Euclid?

Applying this reasoning to the system of religious philosophy contained in the Kardec books, it is to be remarked that, although the domain of thought and experiment, in regard to the existence of spirits and the information they may have to give us, is open to all, the aid of some Providentially given basis of truth is even more imperatively needed in this new department of inquiry than in any other; and for the following reasons.

In the first place, because the spirits who communicate most frequently and habitually with men are precisely those who are nearest to them in ideas and in feeling, and who, consequently, knowing little more than the human beings with whom they are in sympathy, can only put forth short-sighted, discrepant, and erroneous statements; and, in the second place, because the true explanation of human life to which the phenomena of spirit-intercourse are intended to lead us, is to be found in its connection with other modes and realms of existence that can only be made known to us by intelligences who have reached a higher degree of knowledge and purity, and who not being at the command of men will only transmit their teaching according to Providential ordering, in a centre already prepared for its reception, and with the aid of the mastermind selected by themselves as the channel of that teaching; a teaching which will necessarily differ from the various discrepant statements of the great mass of less enlightened spirits. And the proof that such teaching is what it claims to be, viz., information given by superior spirits in regard to matters essential to our progress, but which, in the nature of things, we could not find out for ourselves and which they have therefore been charged by Providence to bring to our knowledge can only be found in the light which it throws on the nature and aim of human life, on the ways of Providence, on duty, and on destiny.

All those who have made a serious study of the theory of existence which Allan Kardec was employed to elaborate, have arrived at the conviction that it presents the proofs of authenticity and superiority just set forth as conclusive; and they therefore accept it, as the fundamentals of all sciences are accepted by students: that is to say, not as exhaustive, but as the true basis of further discovery not as a matter of arbitrary authority, but on the broad ground of its intrinsic reasonableness, and the satisfactory solutions it gives of the great problems of life, insoluble by any other theory.

The high moral tone of The Mediums Book, as of all the writings of Allan Kardec, is in unison with the assertion so often repeated by the spirits whose communications he has coordinated with such exceptional Clearness and reach of thought, that the aim of the open intercourse which is now being established between spirits and men is not the mere gratification of Curiosity, not the mere enlargement of the Sphere of interesting inquiry, not even the mere giving of the certainty of our continued existence beyond the grave; but that