A Common Question
What principles should guide the way evidential information is handled?
Answer
Begin by representing the experience as faithfully as possible.
Do not make information more specific because specificity would be useful.
Do not turn an interpretation into fact because it seems likely.
Do not change what you originally said simply because recipient feedback suggests a better answer.
Do not present unconfirmed information as though it has been established.
And when you realize that you have gone further than the experience supported, correct yourself.
Evidential discipline is not the pursuit of certainty.
It is the willingness to let information remain exactly as strong, incomplete, specific, uncertain, or unresolved as it actually is.
Introduction
A piece of information can change considerably between the moment it first becomes perceptible and the moment it is spoken.
An image appears.
The medium identifies what they think it represents.
Another association follows.
A likely explanation forms.
The recipient reacts.
The medium adjusts.
Within seconds, something relatively simple may have become a much larger statement.
That development may be appropriate.
It may also introduce something that was not present originally.
The difficulty is that the transition can happen so quickly that the medium no longer knows which parts belonged to the original experience and which entered afterward.
This is why evidential communication requires principles.
Not rules designed to make every sitting identical.
Principles that help the medium remain accurate about what occurred and what is subsequently being presented.
The human participant does not need to manufacture the communication.
But human participation matters greatly in what happens next.
Information has to be perceived.
Put into language.
Interpreted.
Expressed.
At times, clarified.
At times, corrected.
And eventually considered in relation to what it actually supports.
That is where evidential responsibility enters.
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