Experimental investigation of the spirit manifestations, [electronic ...

160 OP MEDIUMSniP.810. It will be perceived that my spirit father, in reply to the queriesput in relation to this mystery, asks,^^Ifov: do you move your limhs— carrythe hody iclicresocvcr itfjoctJi? how does God cause the movements of astronomicalorhsf' (457.)811. Evidently some instrument must intervene between the divine willand the bodies actuated thereby, and in humble imitation between thehuman will and the limbs. Upon the viscera our will has no influence.The heart moves without the exercise of volition.812. As there is an ethereal medium by means of which light movesthrough space from the remotest visible fixed star to the eye, at therate of two hundred thousand miles per second ; as through an affectionof the same ether frictional electricity moves, according to "Whcatstone'sestimate, with a velocity exeeding that of light,—so may we not infer thatthe instrument of Divine will acts with still greater velocity, and that inmaking man in this respect after his own image, so far as necessary to anavailable existence, gives him one degree of power over the same elementwhile in the mortal state, and another higher degree of power in the spiritualstate.But if there be an clement through which a spirit within hismortal frame is capable of actuating that frame, may not this element ofactuation be susceptible of becoming an instrument to the will of anotherspirit in the immortal state?813. The aura of a medium which thus enables an immortal spirit to dowithin its scope things which it cannot do otherwise, appears to vary withthe human being resorted to ;so that only a few are so endowed with thisaura as to be competent as media. Moreover, in those who are so constitutedas to be competent instruments of spiritual actuation, this competencyis various. There is a gradation of competency, by which the nature of theinstrumentality varies from that which empowers violent loud knockingand the moving of ponderable bodies without actual contact, to the gradewhich confers power to make intellectual communications of the higherorder without that of audible knocking. Further, the power to employthese grades of mcdiumship varies as the sphere ofthe spirit varies.814. It has been stated that mortals have each a halo perceptible tospirits, by which they are enabled to determine the sphere to which anyindividual will go on passing death's portal.Spirits cannot approach effectivelya medium of a sphere much above, or below that to which they belong.815. As media, in proportion as they are more capable of serving forthe higher intellectual communication, are less capable of serving for mechanicaldemonstration, and as they are more capable of the latter are lesscompetent for the former, spirits likewise have a higher or lower capacityto employ media. It has been mentioned that having made a test apparatus,my spirit sister alleged that it could not be actuated by her withoutassistance of spirits from a lower sphere. I inquired whether she couldnot meet me again, accompanied by the requisite aid. The reply was in