The Proper Mental Condition
The young medium, however, should beware against striving too hard to be
the instrument of the phenomena of spirit impersonation. For a too
intense anxiety, and desire to please sitters, frequently tends to
produce a cloudy mental state in which the ideas in the mind of the
medium blend with the spirit communication, and thus produces a most
unsatisfactory result, and one which is apt to confuse the minds of the
sitter
and sometimes actual arouse suspicion that the medium is trying
to practice deception. For this reason the young medium should not seek
the attendance of persons desiring "test seances;" at least, such should
be his course until he has learned not to be carried away with his
desire to please or to satisfy such persons attending his circles. He
should endeavor to cultivate a mental condition of calmness, and a
determination not to influence or to interfere with the spirit
communications in any way whatsoever, but, instead, to allow himself to
become a passive instrument for the communication. The medium should
remember that he is not a dealer in merchandise "warranted to please,"
but is, instead, a medium of communication between the spirit and those
still in earth-life.