o have been
thus assured that their loved one was still in actual existence on a
higher plane of being. These results, however, are possible only when a
very close rapport condition has been established between the spirit and
the medium. In cases in which such a close rapport condition is
obtained, and a high degree of harmony developed, the spirit will be
able to positively establish his identity by causing the medium to utter
his exact words, and to give names, dates, and close details of
incidents occurring in his earth life, and often to employ his exact set
phrases and verbal tricks of speech, so as to bring to the consciousness
of the sitters the realization that they are in the actual presence of
the decarnate spirit friend.

The Proper Mental Condition.

The young medium, however, should beware against striving too hard to be
the instrument of the phenomena of spirit impersonation. For a too
intense anxiety, and desire to please sitters, frequently tends to
produce a cloudy mental state in which the ideas in the mind of the
medium blend with the spirit communication, and thus produces a most
unsatisfactory result, and one which is apt to confuse the minds of the
sitters and sometimes actual arouse suspicion that the medium is trying
to practice deception. For this reason the young medium should not seek
the attendance of persons desiring "test seances;" at least, such should
be his course until he has learned not to be carried away with his
desire to please or to satisfy such persons attending his circles. He
should endeavor to cultivate a mental condition of calmness, and a
determination not to influence or to interfere with the spirit
communications in any way whatsoever, but, instead, to allow himself to
become a passive instrument for the communication. The medium should
remember that he is not a dealer in merchandise "warranted to please,"
but is, instead, a medium of communication between the spirit and those
still in earth-life.

Demand Proof of Spirit Identity.

A certain degree of care and caution, and the employment of honest
powers of discrimination, is necessary on the part of the sitters in
cases of spirit impersonation. This not because of any lack of honesty
on the part of the medium, but because of the habit of a mischievous
class of dwellers on the planes of spirit life to falsely impersonate
other spirits as such seances. As all investigators of the subject know
very well, it is not an