The Spreading Plague of Eastern Philosophy by William Ambrose Spicer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Mar 24, 1904

The Spreading Plague of Eastern Philosophy

By William Ambrose Spicer

Present-Day Revivals of Ancient Errors—No. 1

The Spreading Plague of Eastern Philosophy

THE second chapter of Isaiah bears a warning message for the last days. Of corrupting influences at work the prophet said: “Thou hast forsaken thy people the house of Jacob, because they be replenished from the East, and are soothsayers like the Philistines, and they please themselves in the children of strangers.”

It is an evident fact that Christendom is being replenished, or filled up, with the bewitching philosophy of the East. Ancient teachings of the Gentile, or heathen, peoples are being revived under new modes of expression. The ideas are spreading with a swiftness that would be surprising if we had not the warnings of the prophetic word to prepare us for just such developments in these “perilous times.” In the ancient world the religion of human nature and false philosophy developed until the Lord could no longer endure Babylon upon the earth. So now again the modern world-Babylon is becoming “the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.”

Twelve years ago, in a Testimony entitled, “The Crisis Imminent,” we were told:—

We are standing upon the threshold of great and solemn events. . . . Prophecies are being fulfilled, and stormy times are before us. Old controversies which have apparently been hushed for a long time will be revived, and new controversies will spring up; new and old will commingle, and this will take place right early.

The commingling of new and old, of ancient and modern systems of philosophy and unbelief, has appeared as the characteristic feature of religious thought in our day. In an article on theosophy, appearing in the January East and West, a literary and scientific review published in Bombay, an Indian writer says of the trend of thought in the West:—

We now have the spectacle of a general intellectual movement in directions strangely parallel with Oriental philosophy.

A Buddhist observer says of the Eastern doctrine:—

Its thoughts are stealing unseen through the whole West. We see its

effects in the great, leading lines of Western thought.

The attitude of modern religious thought toward science teaching and nature study, leads an English theosophical writer to declare:—

Unless we mistake the signs, the day is approaching when the world will receive the proofs that only ancient religions were in harmony with nature, and ancient science embraced all that can be known.

We need not be surprised at the suggestion that it is possible in “this enlightened age” for men to plunge into the darkness of bygone ages. Great light shines in our time, but if that light be turned to darkness, “how great is that darkness!” Men to-day are capable of going as deeply into folly as in the days when the ancients, professing to be wise, as Paul says, became fools. Archdeacon Farrar truly says of our own time:—

Every variety of blasphemy and folly has its apostles. Every negation, however audacious and desolating, has its defenders on the platform and press. Every superstition, however grotesque and discredited, has its fanatical partizans and devotees.

No greater mistake could be made than to assume that heathenism necessarily means a low plane of intellectual life. The idea of associating heathenism with ignorance has come from observing the degraded condition of the heathen world. But this condition is the full fruitage of the most refined and subtle intellectual conceptions of God and nature. No keener minds ever existed than those who, professing to be wise, became fools in the things of God. One writer says:—

If we investigate early paganism by the light of recent discoveries, we soon perceive that its chief strength lay in its intellectual attractions, and that many of its priests and initiates were distinguished as philosophers and men of science. But—still more strange!—if, after our investigation, we glance at the world of to-day, we see the men of this nineteenth century returning to the wisdom of long-past ages, and modern thought sustaining its flight upon the wings of ancient lore. Nay, almost every characteristic of antiquity seems to be reappearing.

Truly, new and old are commingling, and every wind of doctrine is blowing. Christendom is being replenished from the East. The modern revival of mysticism and rationalistic philosophy comes from India, just as does the bubonic plague. The West may quarantine against the plague, but there is no quarantine against the more terrible pestilence of a soul-destroying philosophy. India is called the “mother of superstitions.” It is the home of refined heathen philosophy. From the same source came the inspiration of the philosophical movement that leavened the early church after apostolic days, and developed the mystery of iniquity. The Alexandrian movement was a commingling of the old and the new. Its philosophy of God came from India. Alexandria has aptly been called, “The great mixing bowl of East and West.” The early church drank itself to spiritual death from that bowl. The world is drinking the same wine of Oriental corruption in the religio-scientific teaching and rationalism of the new-thought movement.

In India we hear much boasting by Hindu and Buddhist leaders concerning the progress their ideas are making in the West. Most missionaries are too busy trying to save souls from the frightful wreckage of heathen systems to pay much attention to boasts about the progress of the mystical philosophy and pretty sayings in the West. But it is a revelation to one returning to this country, to see how these ideas are indeed pouring in a mighty flood from the book and magazine and newspaper press. As surely as we have a message from God to the great heathen world over the seas, we must raise the warning cry against the same evil principles in Christendom.

With every wind of doctrine blowing, and the most subtle deceptions coming in like a flood, we must keep the feet firmly planted on the eternal foundations. The influences working all about us would replenish this people also from the East. The ideas one meets on every hand in current literature are knocking at our own doors. Soon after returning from India I heard teaching concerning God in nature at one of our educational institutes that made my heart tremble, so familiar were the sound and suggestiveness of the phraseology used to one fresh from the Eastern home of pantheism. I apologized for it in my own mind as an unfortunate use of scientific terms where Scriptural terms only could express the true thought of the power of God working in the things that are made. But the history of the past year or two teaches plainly enough that we are guilty before God if unwatchful and indifferent in these times when a false philosophy is laying a snare for the feet of all.

After that institute the same phraseology was unwittingly carried into one of our schools, and young people in the class room, quick to catch the natural conclusion from the terms used, were thrown into great confusion of mind. Some said, “It means there isn’t any God.” An adult and experienced believer present told me that it seemed all at once that the presence of an evil influence could be felt in the room. By a study of the Word and the spirit of prophecy the truth concerning the person of God was soon made plain. But this modern philosophy of God and of religion which is sweeping the world into its meshes would delight to capture our schools and ruin our youth. As a recent Testimony has told us, these views, fully developed, make God “as nothingness” in the minds of those who accept them.

To set forth in plain terms the dangerous tendencies of the new philosophy carries no suggestion of personal controversy. These ideas belong to no individuals. What has been heard of them in our midst is but a repetition of what in various and similar phrase, one may read in the current literature of the new movement. It has now leavened every denomination, more or less, except ours. Only God can keep the pestilential theories from slaying souls among us. The bubonic plague is still slaying its thousands in India. The community where it started may long ago have been purged from it. But there was a vitality in the germ that has caused it to sweep down multitudes during the last six years.

There is a fascination and a vitality in the new philosophy that give to the very ideas wings and power of self-propagation. Thoughts are planted in minds to develop later into the full fruit. Souls off guard are infected by the contagion without knowing it. It is not a question of men or of books, when once the thought germs of the evil system are spread abroad. The evil thing itself must be faced and fought in our own hearts and minds, and we must join in setting forth God’s message for this perilous time with a new vigor and directness of aim. Old controversies have been revived. New and old are commingling together. All the religious world is being replenished from the East. But the simple third angel’s message that has made us a people is God’s shield and protection in the closing hours of the great controversy. W. A. S.