How a passion for the unknown and unattainable takes hold of men is illustrated by the search for the universal solvent, by the mysteries of the Rosicrucians, by the patronage of fortune-tellers, even.  Wholly absorbed in spiritual researches,—­having, in fact, no vital interest in anything else,—­I soon developed into what is called a Medium.  I discovered, at the outset, that the peculiar condition to be attained before the tables would begin to move could be produced at will.[7] I also found that the passive state into which I naturally fell had a tendency to produce that trance or suspension of the will which I had discovered when a boy.  External consciousness, however, did not wholly depart.  I saw the circle of inquirers around me, but dimly, and as phantoms,—­while the impressions which passed over my brain seemed to wear visible forms and to speak with audible voices.

I did not doubt, at the time, that spirits visited me, and that they made use of my body to communicate with those who could hear them in no other way.  Beside the pleasant intoxication of the semi-trance, I felt a rare joy in the knowledge that I was elected above other men to be their interpreter.  Let me endeavor to describe the nature of this possession.  Sometimes, even before a spirit would be called for, the figure of the person, as it existed in the mind of the inquirer, would suddenly present itself to me,—­not to my outward senses, but to my interior, instinctive knowledge.  If the recollection of the other embraced also the voice, I heard the voice in the same manner, and unconsciously imitated it.  The answers to the questions I knew by the same instinct, as soon as the questions were spoken.

If the question was vague, asked for information rather than confirmation, either no answer came, or there was an impression of a wish of what the answer might be, or, at times, some strange involuntary sentence sprang to my lips.  When I wrote, my hand appeared to move of itself; yet the words it wrote invariably passed through my mind.  Even when blindfolded, there was no difference in its performance.  The same powers developed themselves in a still greater degree in Miss Fetters.  The spirits which spoke most readily through her were those of men, even coarse and rude characters, which came unsummoned.  Two or three of the other members of our circle were able to produce motions in the table; they could even feel, as they asserted, the touch of spiritual hands; but, however much they desired it, they were never personally possessed as we, and therefore could not properly be called Mediums.