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Florence Marryat – The Spirit World

" Try the spirits whether they be of God.'' And, should they talk frivolously, or wickedly, have nothing more to do with them. If they refuse to leave the table, get up and leave it yourself. They will soon understand it is useless attempting to gull you.

Don't imagine, because they may swear or abuse you, that they must be, necessarily, emissaries of the devil. They are no more so than the men you meet sometimes in this world — half- brutalized, blaspheming sinners, who hate everyone who tries to be a little better than themselves. If you were thrown in the society of such men in this life, you might be tempted to try and do them a little good. In like manner, you may often do the poor spirits good, by helping them to wish for better things ; but not when you are first commencing to investigate Spiritualism — not until your higher controls have taken possession of your circle, and cast their protection around it, and are able to keep evil influences from coming too near you. If these careless spirits got the ascendancy first, they might never give it up again. You cannot be too particular on this subject.

And the way to protect yourselves is to commit your little circle to the protection of God, and ask him not to allow any spirit to approach you, but such as will do you good, instead of evil.

At the period I have before alluded to, when I knew but little of such matters, and was in the habit of sitting, without respect to the surroundings of the sitters, a great many young men " about town '' used to drop in for a seance. But, after a while, I found they brought the spirits of so many "unfortunates" in their train, that my table was literally infested with them. They came for nothing, apparently, but to ask me to pray for them ; but they almost excluded every spirit of a higher condition from my table.

This is not to be wondered at, when one remembers that each one of us is surrounded by a band of influences, not only those who have been given the charge of us, but such as have been attracted to us by a similarity of taste and living. The spirits of drunkards congregate round the man who, in spite of all warning, insists upon killing himself by indulgence in his fatal habit ; because they derive some slight pleasure from the refraction of his sensuality ; and their influence, unconsciously acting upon him, drives him on and on, until he has lost all restraint over himself.