Page:The astral world, higher occult powers; (IA astralworldhighe00tiff).pdf/135

 experience on this subject. If this Spirit wants to be very accurate in telling you a name, he gets you to write down a list of names, and as your finger runs down the list, he raps when you come to the right one. If he knows the name, why does he not spell it out? This is a very reasonable question. Permit me to explain how these questions are often answered. In mesmerism there is at times a certain relation of the operator to the subject called rapport, in which condition the operator can transmit his mental motions to the subject. In case a Spirit comes into rapport with yourself, he answers all the questions you ask, even mental questions, and you come to the conclusion that you are really conversing with the one who purports to answer. If you ask whether you have a father, mother, brother, or sister in the Spirit-land, he will answer according to your perceptions; and the tests seem to be very good, though the Spirit is constantly answering directly from your own mind. This often occurs in public circles. Another individual, sitting next to you, who is very anxious to get equally good tests from his Spirit-friends, gets no correct answers unless he hands his written questions to one who has been found to be in rapport with the Spirit. I once knew an instance of this kind. A doctor came into a circle with about thirty mental questions, to which he desired to get responses; but he could get no answers, it seeming impossible for the Spirits to get the questions from his mind; but upon his writing them out, and handing them to a lady, who shortly before had succeeded in getting answers, they were all replied to without difficulty. The simple explanation of this fact is, that the