THE MEDIUMS’ BOOK

152. The development of the spiritist movement has been unusually rapid; for although we are separated only by a few years from its primitive manifestations, so often contemptuously alluded to as "table-turning," we are already enabled to converse with spirits as easily and rapidly as men converse with each other, and by the very same means, viz., by speech and by writing. Writing has the special advantage of furnishing a permanent evidence of the action of occult power; one which we are able to preserve as we preserve letters received from correspondents in the flesh. As previously remarked, the first method employed was the use of small baskets and planchettes with a pencil attached to them; which method of correspondence we will now briefly describe.

153. We have said that a person endowed with a special aptitude can impress a movement of rotation to a table or any other object whatever; take now, instead of a table, a little basket (either of wood or of willow ; no matter which, the substance is indifferent). If a pencil is passed through the bottom of it and solidly fastened, the point outward, then, holding the whole squarely on the point of the pencil placed on a sheet of paper, resting the fingers on the edge of the basket, it will begin to move; but instead of turning, it will carry the pencil in various ways over the paper, whether in insignificant characters or in writing. If a spirit is invoked, and he desires to com- municate, he will answer, not by rappings, as in typtol- ogy, but by written words. The motion of the basket is no longer automatic, as in the turning tables ; it becomes intelligent. In this way, when the pencil reaches the end of the line, it does not return to begin another; it continues circularly, so that the lines of writing form a spiral, and the paper has to be turned several times to read what is written. The writing thus obtained is not very legible, the words not being separated; but the medium, by a sort of intuition, easily deciphers it. For economy, a slate and slate pencil can be substitut- ed for the ordinary paper and pencil. We call this basket corbeille-toupie. For this basket is sometimes substituted a card, the pencil forming the axis of the teetotum.

154. Other ways have been thought of to secure the same end. The most convenient is that we shall call corbeille-d-bec (basket with a beak), which consists in adapting to the basket an inclined piece of wood in the position of the bowsprit of a vessel. Through a hole pierced in the end of this stick or beak a pencil is passed, long enough for the point to rest on the paper. The medium having his fingers on the edge of the basket, the whole machine is moved, and the pencil writes as in the above case, with this difference, that the writing is, in general, more legible, the words separated, and the lines are not so spiral, the medium easily taking the pencil from one line to another. Dissertations of several pages are obtained in this way as rapidly as with the hand.

155. The intelligence that acts is often manifested by other unequivocal signs. Having reached the end of the page, the pencil makes a spontaneous movement to turn ; if he wish to refer to a preceding passage in the same page, or in another, he seeks it with the point of the pencil, as with the finger, then underlines it. Should the spirit wish to address one of the assist- ants, the end of the beak of wood is directed toward him. To abridge, he often expresses the words yes and no by the sign of affirmation and negation, as we do with the head ; if he wish to express anger or im- patience, he strikes forcibly with the point of the pencil, often breaking it.

156. Instead of a basket, some persons use a kind of little table made for the purpose, with three feet, one of which carries a pencil; the other two are rounded, or furnished with a little ivory ball, to make it glide smoothly over the paper. Others use a simple planchette, triangular, oblong, or oval; on one edge is an oblique hole for the pencil; placed to write, it is inclined, and rests by one side on the paper ; this side is sometimes finished with two little rollers to facilitate the movement. It may be readily imagined that there is nothing absolute in any of these arrangements; the most convenient is the best.

With all these machines, two persons are almost always necessary; but it is not necessary that the sec- ond person should be endowed with the medianimic faculty : it is only to maintain the equilibrium, and diminish the fatigue of the medium.

157. We call the writing thus obtained indirect psychography, in opposition to direct or manual psy- chography, obtained by the medium's self. To understand the last, it is necessary to notice what happens in this operation. The spirit who is communicating acts on the medium, who, under this influence, directs his arm and hand to write, without having (at least in ordinary cases) the least consciousness of what he writes ; the hand acts on the basket, and the basket on the pencil. Thus, it is not the basket that becomes intelligent; it is an instrument directed by an intelli- gence ; it is, in reality, but a pencil-holder, an appen- dage to the hand, an intermediary between the hand and the pencil; suppress this intermediary, and hold the pencil in the hand, and you will have the same result, with a mechanism much more simple, since the medium writes as he does in normal conditions, so every one who writes with the aid of a basket, plan- chette, or other object, could write directly.

Of all the means of communication, writing with the hand— called by some involuntary writing — is, with- out contradiction, the most simple, the easiest, and the most convenient, because it requires no preparation, and because, as in ordinary writing, it can be used for the most extended development. We shall return to this in speaking of mediums.

158. In the beginning of the manifestation, when there were less exact ideas on this subject, several writings were published, headed Communications of a Basket, of a Planchette, of a Table, &c. All that is insufficient and erroneous in these expressions is now understood as a not sufficiently serious view of their character. In fact, as has been seen, tables, plan- chettes, and baskets are only unintelligent instruments, though momentarily animated with a factitious life, which can communicate nothing of themselves ; it is taking the effect for the cause, the instrument for the principal; as well might an author add to the title of his work that it was written with a steel pen or a goose quill.

Besides, these instruments are not absolute; we know one person who, instead of the basket we have described, used a funnel with a neck, through which he put the pencil. It might have been said communica- tions of a funnel, or of a stewpan, or a salad dish. If they were given by rappings, and these rappings were made by a chair or cane, it is no longer a talking table, but a talking chair or cane. What is necessary to know is, not the nature of the instrument, but the method of obtaining. If the communications take place by writing, let the pencil-holder be what it may, for us it is psychography; if by rappings, it is typtology. Spiritism, having taken the proportions of a science, requires a scientific language.