SPIRITUALISM A SATANIC DELUSION.
SPIRITUALISTS DEIFY MORTAL MAN.
"WHO changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator." Rom. 1:25. "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things." Rom. 1:21-23. In a Spiritualist work by A. J. Davis, entitled, "The Educator," pp. 303, 526, we find the following:— "This being called God exists, organically, in the form of the being called man. . . . Man is God's embodiment—his highest, divinest outer elaboration. God, then, is man, and man is God." About six thousand years ago, Satan, the father of lies, said, "Ye shall be as gods," and now we see Spiritualists preaching the same old lie. They take the side of the devil every time. In the last National Convention of Spiritualists at Chicago, Ill., Mr. Pope said:— "I am further convinced by my inspiration that whereas the devil, in the garden of Eden, declared if man, in his compound condition of Adam and Eve, would disobey the prohibition against eating of the tree which was adapted to his tastes and his conditions, he should become as God, knowing good from evil, that voice has gone on until, in the latter days, we hear it repeating, 'Ye are gods.' We know that this divinity in humanity, that this God is manifest in the flesh. . . . When we know that we are gods, and that we have the power, we shall advance to that position in which we shall become judges." "The soul is a god of itself."—Spiritualism, vol. i, p. 10. Almost the first thing the spirits do with their converts is to destroy their confidence in the Bible. Why is this? Evidently because the Bible so fully advertises and warns against Satan's latter-day deceptions. Because the Bible is against the spirits, the spirits are against the Bible. One spirit said, "The book of Genesis is the skin of the old serpent. . . . There are three hundred lies in that book alone." Dr. Hare says: "The Old Testament does not impart a knowledge of immortality, without which religion were worthless. The notions derived from the gospel are vague, disgusting, inaccurate, and difficult to believe." Spir. Sci. Dem., p. 209. In the testimony of a spirit, given in the Banner of Light, Nov. 23, 1861, it is said:— "Many times before we have said that we cannot place implicit confidence in that which we find between the lids of the Bible." A spirit, claiming to be Rev. John Moore, says:— "My friend asks, 'Do you believe the Bible?' I answer, No; I do not. I cannot believe one word of it as the word of God." A spirit who claims to be Timothy M. Baker, says:— "I've got folks in Montpelier, and . . . I want them to get my sister where I can talk to her straight as I do to you, and I'll knock her God and Bible all to nothing." THEY JUSTIFY SIN AND CRIME.
In the Crucible of April 22, 1871, Mr. S. C. Huddleson justifies the transgression of mother Eve:— "She has been of more benefit to humanity than any other person that ever existed, God not excepted; for it appears to be his intention to keep man in shameful ignorance? Just imagine for a moment what a pitiable set of blind, naked, idiotic babies we would have been if mother Eve had obeyed God's command." "The divine use of the ten commandments is in their violation, not in their observance."—Better Views, pp. 28, 29, 128. The following paragraph is from a discourse, reported in the Banner of Light, from J. S. Loveland, once a Methodist minister:— "With God there is no crime; with man there is. Crime does not displease God, but it does man. God is in the darkest crime as in the highest possible holiness. He is equally pleased in either case. Both harmonize equally with his attributes—they are only different sides of the same Deity." It is claimed that Spiritualism is a better guide for human conduct than the Bible! Strange guide indeed! It is always pointing the wrong way. It can only be a guide in the sense, that it is tolerably safe to go exactly opposite to what it teaches! THEY ARE AT WAR WITH MARRIAGE.
Spiritualists openly war against the marriage institution, and advocate the doctrine of "affinities" and "free love." A leading Spiritualist writer, in a letter to the N. Y. Herald, says:— "All advancing Spiritualists—though few may have the courage to confess it—repudiate marriage in its legal sense, and believe in the doctrine of affinities." Dr. Child, on marriage and religion, says:— "The present laws of marriage, that now give birth to regrets and sorrows unnumbered, to prostitution, with its long train of curses and agonies, will be abandoned for a holier, purer, diviner revelation that will ere long be given to the people. . . . A religion more spiritual will be discovered and acknowledged . . . resting upon no uncertain outside standard of rectitude, upon no dogma of another, no purity of earthly life, no glory of earthly perfection. . . . This religion is simply desire. With every one, desire is spontaneous and sincere, pure and holy; no matter what the desire is, whether it be called good or bad, it is the natural, God-given religion of the soul."—Christ and the People, pp. 27-29. At a Spiritual convention, held in Ravenna, Ohio, July 4 and 5, 1858, a Mrs. Lewis said:— "To confine her to love one man was an abridgment of her rights. Although she had one husband in Cleveland, she considered herself married to the whole human race. All men were her husbands, and she had an undying love for them. What business is it to the world whether one man is the father of my children, or ten men are?" Mrs. V. C. Woodhull, who was re-elected President of the National Association of Spiritualists in America, is reported by the N. Y. Herald as follows:— "Yes! I am a free-lover! I believe I have an inalienable right to change my husband every day if I like. I trust I am understood, for I mean what I say, and nothing else. I claim that freedom means to be free." Judge Tilden, of Cleveland, Ohio, and the reporter, inquired of Mrs. Woodhull if the Herald reported her correctly, and she replied, "Yes; I said those words, and meant what I said." Dr. Potter, who has had a long experience in Spiritualism, thus speaks of its nature and tendency:— "Parting husbands and wives is one of the notorious tendencies of Spiritualism. . . . When one of the most eloquent trance speakers left her husband, he came out and stated that he knew sixty cases of media leaving companions. We heard one of the most popular impressional speakers say to a large audience that she was compelled by spirits to secede from a husband with whom she was living very happily. We lately heard a very intellectual, eloquent, and popular normal speaker say, in an eloquent address to a large convention of Spiritualists, that 'he would to God it had parted twenty where it had parted one.' In short, wherever we go, we find this tendency in Spiritualism." "After years of careful investigation, we are compelled, much against our inclination, to admit that more than one-half of our traveling media, speakers, and prominent Spiritualists, are guilty of immoral and licentious practices that have justly provoked the abhorrence of all right thinking people."—Spiritualism as it Is, pp. 10, 11, 20. SUBLIMITY (?) OF SPIRITUALISM.
Spiritualists have much to say about the "beauties" of their "sublime philosophy," and loudly rant against the Bible, as containing absurd and ridiculous things. We should suppose, from their talk, that the visions and doctrines of Spiritualism were a perfect model of dignity and sublimity. Let us judge them by their fruits. Dr. Gridley describes the sufferings inflicted by the spirits upon a medium sixty years of age in Southampton, Massachusetts. "These spirits would pinch and pound him, twitch him up and throw him down, yell and blaspheme, and use the most obscene language that mortal can conceive; they would declare that they were Christ in one breath and devils in the next; they would tie him head to foot a long time together, in a most excruciating posture; declare they would wring his d——d neck off because he doubted them or refused obedience."—Astounding Facts from the Spirit World, pp. 253, 254. Judge Edmonds is taken away in vision and shown some of the beauties (?) of their heaven. Among other things he sees an "old-fashioned" house, stairway, rag carpet, and a new-fashioned saw-mill! He also saw an old lady, in an old-fashioned cap, busy churning. After an interesting visit with the old lady he left and thus describes his departure:— "We turned to take our leave, for it was time for me to go. The matron invited me to call on her again, and she would, she said, give me a drink of buttermilk"!!!—Spiritualism, vol. ii. pp. 135-144. The judge also describes a "dark, gloomy country" that "looked as if the air was full of that black sand, and a smoke, as if from bituminous coal, was all over it." After describing a "dirty-looking hovel," and "two men fighting," he gives the following:— "I observed what seemed to be a full-grown boy, who had caught a dog, had split open his tail and put a stick in it, merely to enjoy the sport of seeing his suffering. He then turned the dog loose, and stood enjoying the scene. The attention of the owner of the dog was drawn to the cries, and, discovering the cause, he beat the boy, who being as cowardly as he was cruel, fled, but was pursued, and beaten, and kicked far up the road."—Ibid., pp., 181, 182. Amherst, in Spiritual Telegraph, No. 182, declares that he has "seen mediums rolling on the floor, uttering grunts like swine; giving vent to the most hideous yells; and at times beating their bodies and tearing their hair like lunatics." They have communications, and unmistakable identifications from "woodchucks," the "dog Pip," and "Balaam's ass." A. J. Davis says the evil spirits are the "diakka," and W. F. Jamieson, in Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly, calls the diakka "a troop of devils," and then quotes Judge Carter: "There is one thing clear, that these diakka or fantastic or mixed spirits, are very numerous and abundant, and take any and every opportunity to obtrude themselves." Hudson Tuttle, one of their leading writers, refers to a "communication through a noted medium from his dog Pip,' to Gerald Massey, the said Pip 'licking the slate,' and writing with a good degree of intelligence," and adds, "Mr. Davis would say that 'Pip,' was a 'diakka,' and to-morrow he will communicate as George Washington, Theodore Parker, or Balaam's ass. This diakka is flesh, fish, or fowl, as you may desire."