Mediumship According to the Spiritist Doctrine
Gift of Healing
"Restore health to the sick, raise the dead, heal those who have leprosy, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give." (ST. MATTHEW, 10:8.)
“Give freely what you have freely received,” Jesus tells his disciples. With this recommendation, he prescribes that no one should be required to pay for something for which he has not paid anything. Now, what they had received freely was the ability to heal the sick and to cast out demons, that is, evil spirits. God had given them this gift freely, for the relief of those who suffer and as a means of spreading the faith; Jesus, therefore, recommended that they not make it an object of commerce, nor of speculation, nor of a means of livelihood.
Modern mediums – since the apostles also had mediumship – have also received a free gift from God: that of being interpreters of the Spirits, for the instruction of men, to show them the path of good and to lead them to faith, not to sell them words that do not belong to them, the mediums, since they are not the fruit of their conceptions, nor of their research, nor of their personal work. God wants the light to reach everyone; He does not want the poorest to be deprived of it and to be able to say: I have no faith, because I could not pay for it; I have not had the consolation of receiving the encouragement and testimonies of affection from those I mourn, because I am poor. This is the reason why mediumship is not a privilege and is found everywhere. To make it paid for would therefore be to divert it from its providential objective.
Anyone who knows the conditions under which good Spirits communicate, the repulsion they feel for anything that is of selfish interest, and knows how little is needed to make them turn away, will never be able to admit that superior Spirits are at the disposal of the first person who comes along and summons them to so much per session. Simple common sense rejects such an idea. Wouldn't it also be a profanation to evoke, for money, beings that we respect or who are dear to us? There is no doubt that manifestations can be obtained in this way; but who could guarantee their sincerity? Frivolous, lying, playful Spirits and the whole horde of inferior Spirits, who are not at all scrupulous, always come to them, ready to answer whatever is asked of them, without worrying about the truth. Anyone, therefore, who desires serious communications must, first of all, ask for them seriously and, then, learn about the nature of the medium's sympathies with the beings of the spiritual world. Now, the first condition to gain the benevolence of good Spirits is humility, devotion, selflessness, and the most absolute moral and material disinterest.
Alongside the moral question, there is a no less important consideration, which concerns the very nature of the faculty. Serious mediumship cannot and will never be a profession, not only because it would be morally discredited, immediately identified with that of fortune tellers, but also because there is an obstacle to it. This is because it is an essentially mobile, fleeting and changeable faculty, whose permanence, therefore, no one can count on. It would therefore constitute an absolutely uncertain source of income for the exploiter, of a nature that could fail him at the exact moment when it is most needed. A different thing is the talent acquired through study and work, which, for this very reason, represents a property from which it is naturally lawful for its possessor to take advantage.
party. Mediumship, however, is not an art, nor a talent, and therefore cannot become a profession. It does not exist without the assistance of the Spirits; without them, there is no longer mediumship. The aptitude may subsist, but its exercise is nullified. Hence, there is not a single medium in the world capable of guaranteeing the obtaining of any spiritist phenomenon at a given moment. Exploiting someone's mediumship is, consequently, disposing of something of which one is not really the owner. To affirm the contrary is to deceive the one who pays. What is more: it is not himself that the exploiter disposes of; it is the assistance of the Spirits, of the souls of the dead, which he puts at the price of money. This idea causes instinctive repugnance. It was this traffic, degenerated into abuse, exploited by charlatanism, ignorance, credulity and superstition that motivated Moses' prohibition. Modern Spiritism, understanding the serious side of the issue, due to the discredit it has brought to this exploration, has elevated mediumship to the category of a mission. (See: The Mediums' Book, Part 2, chap. XXVIII. – Heaven and Hell, Part 1, chap. XI.)
A mediunidade é coisa santa, que deve ser praticada santamente, religiosamente. Se há um gênero de mediunidade que requeira essa condição de modo ainda mais absoluto é a mediunidade curadora. O médico dá o fruto de seus estudos, feitos, muita vez, à custa de sacrifícios penosos. O magnetizador dá o seu próprio fluido, por vezes até a sua saúde. Podem pôr-lhes preço. O médium curador transmite o fluido salutar dos bons Espíritos; não tem o direito de vendê-lo. Jesus e os apóstolos, ainda que pobres, nada cobravam pelas curas que operavam.
Procure, pois, aquele que carece do que viver, recursos em qualquer parte, menos na mediunidade; não lhe consagre, se assim for preciso, senão o tempo de que materialmente possa dispor. Os Espíritos lhe levarão em conta o devotamento e os sacrifícios, ao passo que se afastam dos que esperam fazer deles uma escada por onde subam.