The Book on Mediums


The Book on Mediums or Mediums and Evokers' Handbook, is a book by Allan Kardec published in 1861, second of the five Fundamental Works of Spiritism — the spiritualist philosophy Kardec had been publishing — being the tome in which the experimental and investigative features of the doctrine were presented, explained and taught.

Scope

It is intended to be an actual for would-be mediums, containing doctrine and practices that one must master in order to become a medium, an elementary course on theories and basic methods to assess the new light that had never been tried by rational inquiry before: the interaction of the physical and spiritual worlds.
The Book on Mediums set the bases and the terminology that guided Parapsychology and Paranormality for quite sometime. In its pages one will find a classification of paranormal phenomena, with a special focus on those capable of communicating messages, and thorough descriptions of the mechanisms that — according to Spiritism — were involved. It also contains serious warnings against unguided use of the gift of mediumship, especially without the necessary seriousness.

Contents

The book's signature is its focus on theory instead of practice: not a single line of ritual is given, unless one consider recommendations for prayer as "ritual". In its first part, there is an overall introduction to the fundamental points of Spiritism. The following topics are examined within the book:

First Part (Preliminary Topics)

This part appears to contain a defense of Spiritism on empiric and logical grounds.
This last aspect shows that ever since the beginnings of Spiritism there were "deviant" groups with a different interpretation, some of which tried to identify themselves with the term Spiritism, which Kardec claimed to be an original term created by him to avoid such confusion.

Second Part (Manifestations of Spirits)

This part first describes and categorises the kinds of phenomena that are related to spirits, like:
Then it goes into explaining how to deal with the intelligent manifestations. It is noteworthy that very little is "taught" on how to produce the spiritist phenomena, as in Kardec's view these were natural and spontaneous. Kardec regards as more important the correct understanding and the tight control of conditions during and after the phenomeon took place. He thought it was wiser that the would-be medium knew what to expect and how to behave before he was given any instructions on how to engage on evocation. There were, apparently, some cases of mania or personality disorder related to prolonged infatuation with Spiritism, which he was careful to advise how to avoid.
Among the main advice we find:
In the final chapters Kardec present the rules and the statutes of the Spiritist Society he had helped found in Paris, which he hoped could be useful as models to other societies worldwide.

Important concepts developed or introduced in this Book

The Book on Mediums repeats, develops and extends into detail some broad concepts about Spirits found in The Spirits' Book. It also introduces some new ones.