He does not know exactly whence the sounds
come which he hears; and, according as tempests, wars or riots
happen to be uppermost at the moment, he attributes them to the
winds, to tramping soldiers or to frenzied crowds. In other words
and speaking without metaphor, it is the medium who draws from
his habitual language and from that suggested to him by his
audience the wherewithal to clothe and identify the strange
presentiments, the unfamiliar visions that come from some unknown
region. If he believes that the dead survive, he will naturally
imagine that it is the dead who speak to him. If he has a
favourite spirit, angel, demon or god, he will express himself in
its name; if he has no preconceived opinion, he will not even
allude to the origin of the revelations which he is making. The
inarticulate language of the subconsciousness necessarily borrows
that of the normal consciousness; and the two become confused
into a sort of shifting and multiform jargon. And our unknown
guest, which is not thinking of delivering a course of lectures
upon its entity, but simply giving us as best it can a more or
less warning or mark of its existence, seems to care but little
as to the garments in which it is rigged out, having indeed no
choice in the matter, for, either because it is unable to
manifest itself or because we are incapable of understanding it,
it has to be content with whatever comes to hand.
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