Spiritualism-A Delusion of the Devil by S. C. Littlepage, D. D.

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 7, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 39.

Spiritualism—A Delusion of the Devil.

By S. C. Littlepage, D. D.

It is a significant fact that Spiritualists, as a class, deny the existence of a personal devil, while many of the more advanced and philosophic among them deny the existence of a personal God.

The existence of Spiritualists as a class of deceivers is a fact of prophecy, and therefore confirms the truth of the Bible. St. Paul says: “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy. Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats.” 1 Tim. 4:1–3. This prophecy is not only fulfilled in the rise and character of Spiritualism, but the philosophy of the delusion is given; no one was ever carried away by it who did not first “depart from the faith.” A desire for other evidence than God has been pleased to give, has been the entering-wedge of many a heresy, and for such there seems to be a proneness in our fallen, human nature. The apostate Jews required a sign of Christ while the very works of God were taught in their midst by him. If the best measures fail, inferior ones are useless; since God has revealed himself, his will and grace bring life and immortality to light in the gospel. For a man to turn from his word and Spirit, and seek through mediumistic agencies to ascertain the truth of what he declares, is to insult his veracity, wisdom, and love, grieve the Holy Spirit, and enter the dominion of the devil as the willing dupe of his deceptive power.

Now I have no faith in the devil, but I have a knowledge of his devices which has cost me dearly, and gladly would I recover any one from his snares. The apparently ugly and uncharitable caption of this article is selected in all kindness. The truth is, I entered upon the investigation of Spiritualism, in Central America, in the summer of 1869, and continued my researches for several successive years in the cities of Washington, New York, St. Louis, and elsewhere, for the purpose of saving a beloved brother with whom I was associated, and who was anxious to believe it true. I was anxious, if it were true, to ascertain the fact, with a strong persuasion that it was a delusion of the devil, from the fact that it antagonized every vital principle of Christianity.

I prosecuted my investigations by ascertaining the mental and moral processes by which a belief in the theory is reached, and its effect on the moral character of those who embrace it. This was done by free personal contact and conversation with the most cultured and advanced Spiritualists I could find in my extended travels; and my judgment is, that no tree in the moral universe bears so uniformly such evil fruit as Spiritualism. It germinates in doubt of God’s truth, and ripens the blank negations of atheism as its maturest fruit. It is more to be deplored than atheism, if possible, from the fact that it so frequently leads to insanity. Indeed, it has been decided by many physicians to be a species of insanity.

The faith faculty of the human soul, by which, alone spiritual truth can be ascertained, when it turns from God and his word, and seeks to ascertain spiritual things through this diabolical agency, becomes perverted, and is open to the temptations of the devil, and there is no limit known to his seductive wiles. The marvelous gullibility of a soul in such a state is one of the most marked phenomena of all that accompanies this delusion. Hence the widespread effects following the performances of tricksters, who do not scruple to resort to any method that enables them to gull the people and drive their own business; and though their tricks have been detected and their frauds exposed, still the people will believe “there must be something in it.” This desire to believe the doctrine true, in most cases arises from a desire to ignore a sense of personal responsibility to a just and holy God. This is instigated by the devil, “who was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth,” and has been murdering and deceiving on to the present.

A most remarkable illustration of the truth of this proposition came under my own observation, in the city of New York, in the winter of 1869. My brother C. V. L. had been ill for some days, when very quietly turning to me he remarked, “My wife is dead.” I asked him why he thought so. “I think nothing about it,” said he, “I know it, for she is here with me, and has been for several days.” I reminded him that he was sick. He replied, “I know I am somewhat ill, but I am in my right mind; test me in any way you please. If I am not as rational as I ever was in my life, I am very much mistaken;” and, indeed, he appeared to be so, as far as I could determine.

I tried to dispel the illusion from his mind, but could not. He said, “I see her as plainly as I see you; I have been conversing with her as intelligently as I ever did in my life, and then she has described the circumstances attending her death so naturally that it is impossible for me to be deceived. Besides, she gives the philosophy of the spirit state in such perfect accordance with my conception of it that I am fully satisfied. She now looks upon you, and smiles to see you so gross as not to be able to apprehend her presence. She has been trying to attract your attention for some time; says you will become so developed as to be able to converse with her. She tells me that she started from her mother’s near Austin, Texas, to visit our former home in San Marcos, but on entering the San Marcos River, the horses became frightened, upset the buggy, and she and two of our children were drowned. As soon as she entered the spirit state, she knew my condition, and came immediately to my relief, and has been with me ever since, except during a brief visit made to her sisters in Guatemala, C. A.; but traveling almost with the velocity of thought, her absence was scarcely appreciable.” I tried to divert his attention from the subject, and urged the importance of his recovery, when he manifested some impatience and replied, “This will not interfere with my recovery. I cannot say that I regret her death; it is all right. I shall miss her in the flesh, of course, if I get well, but she will be with me in her spirit form all the while.” Upon my suggesting the possibility of hallucination, he replied, “If a man cannot believe the concurrent testimony of three of the five senses, what can he believe? I see her with my natural eyes, I hear her with my natural ears, I feel her hand in mine as sensibly as I ever did, and this during several successive days. Don’t talk to me about delusion in such a case as this!” There was no meeting such arguments; the truth is I was silenced and astounded, for he was a man of a strong analytical mind, and “the very soul of honor,” and I had never seen him appear more calm and rational than at this time. His interviews with his wife appeared to be continued through several successive days, and to be very gratifying to him; of course I could do nothing; . . . but within about ten days we received a letter from his wife, from which we learned that she had never made the contemplated trip to San Marcos, knew nothing of her husband’s sickness in New York, nor the “philosophy of the spirit state.”

Strange to say, my brother would not talk of this New York hallucination, but sought other “tests,” as is usually the case. Whether he ever became convinced, I never knew, as he died in the city of Guatemala a few years since, while I was stationed at Houston, Texas.

Of course I would not draw on the privacy of family history, but for the hope of saving some endangered soul from the snare of the devil.

Now let us admit the doctrine of “total depravity,” and accept the truth of Scripture, that men “love darkness rather than light,” can any man suppose that this insatiable hunger for anything but the bread of life; that this restless, impatient grasping for everything that is false in science, philosophy, and religion, can be accounted for on any other hypothesis than the active agency of a personal, malignant devil, “the accuser of the brethren,” and the deceiver of the world, who used to go about “as a roaring lion,” but now generally as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or a squat at pine tables, as Milton’s toad at the ear of Eve? I confess I cannot. I think too much of our poor, and fallen nature, bad as it is, to hold it capable of such greed of self-deception but for the influence of this malignant foe.

Let any man take a seat, sit mum and unknown for half an hour, as I have done at some headquarters of Spiritualism, and listen to the talk of a group of itinerant lecturers, mediums, physical and spiritual, if he wishes to become convinced that these are the apostles of the prince of darkness. Or if one could set before us the statistics of ruined fortunes, blighted homes, crazed brains, and lost virtue, traceable to Spiritualism alone, who could resist the conviction that the enemy who hath sown these tares among the wheat of the Lord’s planting is the devil? While the good that Spiritualism has done could be written in bold characters on the blank side of a postage stamp.—S. C. Littlepage, D. D., in Wilford’s Microcosm.