(2) You should be careful to keep your self consciousness active and alert when entering trance. Do not give yourself up completely or allow the mind to become a blank at first. Give yourself up in every other way but this. You must always keep in the background of your mind the thought: “I am I … I am so-and-so (your name) … I will remain in my body. … I am strength and power … I will not be influenced against my will by forces other than good. … I can always return to myself when I want to.”
These and similar suggestions you must give to yourself, and hold them in your mind as a central point of force while entering trance, even when allowing yourself to become passive in every other way. If you do this, you will avoid a great deal of difficulty and danger.

(3) If you can in any way assure yourself that you have a band of spirits or controls “on the other side” who are ready and willing to help you, this would mean much. A good medium or clairvoyant could probably tell you whether this is the case, and the nature of the intelligences who are trying to influence and act upon you.

If these are described as evil, you had best postpone your development until this condition changes. If, on the contrary, they are described as good and helpful, you may proceed, subject to the above precautions and advice.

The oncoming of trance is often signified by certain physical and psychical manifestations, which must not alarm you when they appear as they sometimes but not always do.

Hiccoughs, sudden and spasmodic pains and cramps, a feeling of “all-goneness,” nausea, flashes of light, or the sensation of faintness and that everything is turning black before you these are a few of the symptoms which you are liable to experience during your early development and, though they may not be pleasant, you had better be warned of them in advance and not be alarmed when they appear.

Sometimes, however, none of these signs are manifest only a delightful sensation of falling asleep upon a bed of roses. In these cases, the psychic has developed himself properly and systematically and his guides or controls are also wise and helpful.

These are the fortunate but unhappily rare cases but it is hoped that, by following our advice many more will be enabled to develop in this wholesome manner.

10. Finally, you must teach yourself to express what you feel. Often this is most difficult. You may feel a thing, and feel inclined to say it, but something seems to hold you back until it is too late. Overcome this restrictive feeling. It is important you should do so, for this is one of the most important things to learn in the cultivation of mediumship. When you have learned to express your impressions, you have progressed far along the road.
These practices in the cultivation of sensitiveness are the most valuable you can have as a preparation for the cultivation of true mediumship. At the same time, they are safe exercises to follow. Practise them, therefore, before you attempt any definitely mediumistic exercises; and you will be rewarded by a safe and sane increase of your inner, spiritual faculties.

One of the greatest difficuIties, doubtless, in the cultivation of sensitiveness, is how to distinguish true from false hallucination from reality. At first, this will doubtless be next to impossible, and many false steps will have to be taken before you find, from actual bitter experience, what is true and what is not. But as the inner sense becomes developed, you will find that it not only gives you the knowledge in question, but that it also enables you to distinguish one from the other true from false, and illuminates the whole subject so that mistake is almost impossible. This certainty, which you will then have, cannot be communicated to another; it is often impossible to prove to one who does not experience this inner vision of reality that what you receive is true, none the less!

This is the function of the Mystic Sense to do, aided by the full complement of inner faculties. In a measure the Mystic Sense, like the bodily senses, acts automatically, but like them it needs special training in order to separate phantasm from reality, to determine values, and to grade and classify ideals until they reveal themselves to be ordered unity, not less but more mysterious because more intelligible … to the whole man.” It is because of all this that long training in psychic development is necessary and sudden jumps or leaps into full possession of this knowledge is impossible.

To return, however, to the early development of mediumship: Soon after these early impressions have been noticed, the subject may note for the first time that his mind is peculiarly susceptible to influences of all kinds. He feels as if his mind has been “skinned,” so to speak, and that he is now exposed to the psychic breezes from every direction ! He may become erratic and irritable and develop “moods” which he himself cannot understand. Peculiar buzzings in the head are sometimes heard, sometimes cloudlike masses seem to form in space before him, twisting and turning and moving up and down, and round about with a very irregular motion.
As a rule, these clouds appear to be of the consistency of vapour, though they may in time become more and more solid, until they become built up into definite forms. Of this however later.

At this phase of the development the subject may feel cool breezes blowing upon his hands and face from
various directions breezes whieh appear to be perfectly physical in character. He may also experience a peculiar sticky sensation on his hands and face as though cobwebs were applied over the bare skin which is exposed. This cobwebby sensation is very common, and is not limited, as many think, to mediums who obtain materialization.

These are the first sensations of oncoming mediumship.
Very often they are not pleasant for the first few weeks, but if this period be passed, the unpleasant sensations will as a rule vanish, and the subject will then develop true mediumship of one character or another.