p. 272 | Untitled article by W. C. G.

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, October 8, 1867

PROGRESS OF SPIRITUALISM.

By W. C. G.

In an article under the above heading, the Banner of Light gives the following statistics relative to the rapid increase of Spiritualism:

“In a work recently published in New York, by the Appletons, entitled ‘Christianity and its Conflicts, ancient and modern,’ the Spiritualists of the United States are set down at six millions, three hundred and thirty-three thousand. A convocation of Roman Catholic Bishops at Baltimore, last spring, brought out the estimate, made from the statistics furnished by each Bishop from his own diocese, that there were above ten millions of Spiritualists in this country, with fifty thousand mediums. It likewise appeared that the sum total of Romanists and Protestants in the country is not quite nine millions, with forty-five thousand priests. Judge Edmonds’ estimate, which we have spoken of before, puts the whole number at ten or eleven millions.”

Those who are disposed to ridicule the manifestations of Spiritualism as “trickery and humbug,” can find food for reflection in the astounding fact that ten millions of people in the most enlightened country in the world, and some of these men and women of the greatest intelligence, have been “humbugged” into this belief.

Had they not better accept the Scriptural solution of the mystery, that they are the “spirits of devils, working miracles,” and give up the popular fable of the soul’s immortality, which is the basic foundation for this gigantic error? W. C. G.