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EXPERIENCES IN SPIRITUALISM WITH MR. D. D. HOME. BY VISCOUNT ADARE, [Windham Thomas Wyndham-Quin 1841-1926] WITH INTRODUCTORY REMARKS BY THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN. [Viscount Adare's father]  [1869]

Home spoke to me in a trance about the difficulties of mediumship and communicating.

"Mediumship is of very slow growth; people are too hasty, and. Expect to get everything at once. They are often also told things to make them persevere, spirits are so anxious to communicate, and it is such a joy to find people to communicate through, that they rush in, as it were, and try to encourage the medium by promises that apply rather to mediums in general, than to any one individually; promises also which may take years in their fulfilment, instead of days, as mortals in their impatience suppose.

You think too much of the individuality of mediumship. Supposing a person is told that he is to be a great healer, that he is to go forth teaching the nations, and to be as a king among men ; that person would consider it all as applying solely to himself : it applies rather to the whole subject, to all mediums.

Mediums should be as kings, in the true sense of the word ; they have a wonderful gift, a weighty responsibility, and they should if possible, set themselves apart and lead pure, simple, unworldly lives, that they may use their gift to the best advantage.

This mistake as regards promises, viz.: supposing them to apply to a single individual instead of to mediums in general, is an important fact bear it in mind. The discerning of spirits is important.

Now if a dark, cold, low spirit came into the room Dan would know him and he could not stay ;  he would feel mean and out of place, and would have to go. Another person might not perceive what he was - to use a homely simile, it is something like a man making faces at you behind your back; he would not do so if he knew there was a mirror in which you could see him; when St. Paul spoke of discerning spirits, he did not mean seeing them only, but discerning the differences between them, judging between the pure and the impure.....

Mediums, while being developed, must be very cautious, very prayerful, very guarded against deceit; very patient, humble, and quietly receptive of what may come to them; very careful and pure in life; for a calm and prayerful state 'of mind is necessary for the 'influx of a high spiritual influence, while lower influences can more easily impress themselves - are more in their element, as it were, with natures more disturbed, and less exalted and pure in mind and body. If those who are being developed as mediums will remember and act up to this, they will arrive at a state in which they will Know at once the pure from the impure, and be able to judge of the influences about them."