A Plain Talk on Spiritualism by William Edward Biederwolf

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park, Washington, D. C. · Sep 11, 1916

A Plain Talk on Spiritualism

By William Edward Biederwolf

The Testimony of Learned Men

“Twelve months have now passed since my boy died, in almost every week of which I have been cheered and comforted by messages from him who is nearer and dearer to me than ever before.” —William T. Stead, English journalist.

“I have seen a phantom form come from a corner of the room, take an accordion in its hand, and glide about the room playing the instrument.” —Sir Oliver Lodge, eminent English scientist.

“During a period of twelve years I have had communications with the spirits of those who have been for some time dead.” —Prof. Richard Hodgson, LL. D., American scientist.

“I have talked with the spirit of Katie King scores and scores of times, saw her form appear and disappear, and photographed her many times.” —Sir William Crookes, the world’s greatest chemist.

And Professor James, the most eminent of America’s recent psychologists, and Professor Ulyslop of Columbia University, and others of world repute, now dead, like Fichte the philosopher, and Professor Hure the first American chemist of his day, and Challis, and scores of others of the most noted in every branch of science, have committed themselves to the fact of this thing we call Spiritualism; until a large part of the scientific world is saying with Flammarion, the celebrated French astronomer, that “any scientific man who declares spiritualistic phenomena to be impossible is one who speaks without knowing what he is talking about.”

Now with an array of testimony before us like that, it is utter nonsense to say that there is nothing in Spiritualism. It is easy enough to pooh-pooh, but that neither proves your own intelligence nor gets rid of the stubborn facts before you.

We used to sneer at the mere mention of Spiritualism, and call the whole thing a fraud and a fake from A to Z; and the public was entertained—and so it is today—by traveling magicians who explained to us the tricks of the trade and performed for us practically all of the supposed spiritualistic phenomena in vogue.

Is the Whole Thing a Fraud and a Fake?

Well, you can put it down as a . . . sure thing that about nine tenths of it is just that, and a bigger set of liars and fakers never lived than the majority of these mediums and clairvoyants and clairaudients and slate writers and table tippers and other ghostly manipulators.

One of their tricks is to join hands in a circle, and then the medium in the circle pulls the hands of those she holds together and slips her own out, and then reaches around and pulls the ear of the one next to her. They put their toes on top of each other, but the medium has steel uppers on her shoes, and she can slip her feet out, and you will never know they are gone; and so sometimes she gets out of the circle altogether, and runs around in the dark and performs all sorts of spiritualistic stunts. She will wave phosphorescent cards or bits of cloth soaked in Balmain’s luminous paint, at the end of a telescopic rod, and the dupes in the circle will have their cheeks tickled with a feather duster, and then go out and swear they felt the caress of their dead baby’s hand. These séances are always held with the lights turned down.

But what if nine tenths of it is a fake and a fraud? If one tenth is genuine, yes, if in all the range of so-called spiritualistic phenomena there can be proved one single instance of genuine spirit manifestation, then the fact of Spiritualism is established, a great field of fascinating investigation is opened up to the man of science, and we shall have to admit that Gladstone was right when he said that spiritualistic phenomena was to prove the most important subject for scientific investigation of the twentieth century.

Well, has there ever been a single instance of genuine spiritualistic phenomena?

I never saw any. I don’t know. I can’t affirm, but in the face of such testimony from men of such renown in the scientific world who are honestly seeking for truth, it seems like a piece of unwarranted folly to deny.

There was a schoolgirl, Florence Cook by name, who was a remarkable medium, and the spirit who operated through her was known as Katie King. Sir William Crookes, the renowned chemist, after witnessing many marvelous things in a number of séances with Florence Cook, asked her to come to his own laboratory, and she consented, and here scores of times, this great scientist declares, he saw the spirit of Katie King materialize; he photographed this spirit forty times with five different cameras; he talked with the spirit, clasped it and found it apparently to be a real living woman, and he declares that every scientific test was applied to eliminate every possibility of fraud, all of which experiments were confirmed by other equally prominent scientific men who were present.

All sorts of remarkable doings are on record. Sir Alfred R. Wallace, the great naturalist, gives a summary of them under a twofold division, physical and mental.

Physical Phenomena

Among the physical there are—

1. The simple physical. Raising bodies into the air; passing them through curtains and into closed rooms, etc. 2. Chemical. Preserving from the effects of fire. A medium will take from the grate a red-hot mass of coal in his hands without experiencing any unpleasant effect. 3. Direct writing. A pencil will rise up and write apparently of itself. Sometimes drawings of many colors have been produced, and the colors found to be wet. Sometimes a slate is laid over a bit of slate pencil, and the sound of writing is heard, and all sorts of messages are received, and poems are written and philosophical dissertations are made. 4. Musical. All kinds of musical instruments are played without human agency. 5. Materialization. The spirit will assume a human form, and you recognize some one of your departed loved ones and can touch him and talk with him. They usually appear in flowing robes, and pieces have been cut from their garments, which in a short time melt away.

6. Spirit photography. Sir William Crookes declares he photographed the spirit form of Katie King forty times with five different cameras in one séance. Mr. William Howitt declares he made a visit to the studio of the celebrated Mr. Hudson, and received two photographs, perfect and unmistakable, of his sons who had died some years before. Everything, they declare, was done scientifically, and without any chance for deception.

Mental Phenomena

Professor Wallace then mentions the mental phenomena:—

1. Automatic writing. The medium’s hand is automatically guided, and she writes in languages unknown to her; she writes and predicts future events. Sometimes she lays her hand on a heart-shaped piece of planchette with little rollers on it, and a pencil stuck in its point, and then the spirit guides the planchette, as they call it. 2. Clairvoyance. The medium sees and describes the form of some sick person unknown to her, so minutely that his friends at once recognize him. They read sealed letters in any language. 3. Trance speaking. The medium goes into a trance, and then in her speech displays marvelous knowledge far beyond her own natural powers. Mr. Wallace says he has heard an ignorant bartender discourse in the most beautiful style on subjects of psychology, and hold his own in an argument with a party of philosophers, on reason and foreknowledge, and such profound and unfathomable themes. 4. Impersonation. In this case the medium seems possessed by another being, and speaks, looks, and acts the character in a most astounding way. 5. Healing. The medium heals by mesmeric power, or in a trance will discover the remedy for some disease.

Spiritualism Not Modern

Now, like all modern outbursts of religious vagary, this thing is not so modern after all. In fact, I think we had the first case of it in the garden of Eden.

All ancient history is full of it.

You know the famous test put by Croesus, the king of Lydia, to the oracle at Delphi. Herodotus, the great historian, tells how the medium there told the messengers what their master the king was doing at a particular moment many miles away.

You know the famous story of the king of Egypt going down into the spirit world and playing dice with Demeter. But what was that, if anything, but the experience of a mesmeric trance?

The shrine of Isis was celebrated for the prescriptions dictated by the clairvoyants just as they are today.

Tacitus, the Roman historian, tells how Vespasian, at the shrine of Serapis, saw the spirit of Basilides materialize in his presence.

Clement of Rome, when he was a heathen, was troubled about the immortality of the soul, and in one of his famous works he says, “What should I do but this? I will go to Egypt, inquire for a magician, and induce him with a large sum of money to call up a soul from Hades by the art which is termed Necromancy.” In this same book he enumerates the wonders of Simon, the magician mentioned in the book of Acts, and says “he produces phantoms of every conceivable shape, causes vessels in the house to be seen moving about, rolls himself upon fire and is not burned, and sometimes he even flies.”

And so we could go on for hours. Another Roman historian, Marcellinus, tells us that in the reign of Valens, two spiritualists were arrested for trying to discover his successor by means of magic. They had a table which they caused to move, and a dish with an alphabet around its rim and a suspended ring, which the spirits caused to spell out the words by darting it against the various letters—the same old alphabet communications we have today.

Indeed, we find from the Word of God that even in the earlier ages of mankind Spiritualism was not a thing unknown. In the Old Testament you will find a great variety of words each designating some particular phase of spiritualistic phenomena. It would take too much time to explain their meaning here, but I counted no less than nineteen such words.

There were all sorts of mediums and magicians and sorcerers and diviners in those days. When Joseph’s cup was found in Benjamin’s bag, the heathen steward said, “Is not this in which my lord drinketh, and whereby indeed he divineth?” What is that but modern crystal gazing or gazing into a cup filled with water? It doesn’t say Joseph did it, but it does show that the steward knew that the custom prevailed.

And then the well-known instance of Saul paying a midnight call on the witch of Endor shows that the custom of consulting the dead was also a somewhat prevalent and at least a well-known one.

Spiritualism Not a Divine Manifestation

Now since we have admitted the fact of Spiritualism, we must account for it. . . .

That God had anything to do with the business in general is not at all likely for several reasons, among which the two following are entirely conclusive:—

1. The teaching of Spiritualism is anti-Christian, out and out, and utterly subversive of the Christian faith, as we shall shortly see, and therefore God cannot be a party to it. 2. God plainly forbids Spiritualism in Scripture, and he is not going to encourage what he has forbidden on pain of death.

Does the Bible forbid Spiritualism?—It most emphatically does. It forbids any one inquiring of the spirits of the dead.

“But whereas,” says Isaiah, “they will say unto you, inquire of them that have familiar spirits and of the wizards that peep and mutter: should not a people inquire of their God? For the living, should they inquire of the dead?” Isa. 8:19. What the Bible calls a “familiar spirit” is what Spiritualists today call a “control.” It is the spirit which controls the medium.

Moses said, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.” Ex. 22:18. Webster defines a witch as “one who possesses supernatural or magical power by compact with evil spirits.”

In Deuteronomy 18 we read, “There shall not be found among you any one that useth divination, or an enchanter, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer, for all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord;” and in Leviticus 20 we read, “The soul that turneth unto them that have familiar spirits, I will set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people,” . . .

No Communication with the Dead

Let us now inquire a little further.

If Spiritualism is a fact, as we have admitted; if all the spiritualistic phenomena are not to be explained by fraud and deception; and if, as we have seen, God not only has nothing whatever to do with it, but positively forbids it, we are then compelled to ask the following question:—

May it not be possible that these mediums, or dealers with familiar spirits, as the Bible calls them, are themselves responsible for these weird spiritualistic doings by cooperating with the spirits of the dead for their return to the earth and their operation through the mediums while here?

To this question it only remains to be said that everything in Scripture points to the contrary.

Job said, “I shall go the way whence I shall not return.”

David said of his son, “I shall go to him but he shall not return to me.”

In Job 7:9 we read, “He that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.”

The Work of Demons

What then is there to conclude but that the devil is at the bottom of the whole thing. That the devil has always been contending against the Almighty for the allegiance of man, goes without saying. Indeed, there is much evidence in Scripture that the idolatry of the heathen was nothing less than the worship of demons. It is repeatedly asserted, at any rate, that Israel in her apostasy offered her sacrifices unto demons, and Paul,

First Corinthians, declares that the Gentiles do the same thing.

Demons, we are to understand, are a species of fallen angels, and are the servants of the devil and do his will.

Now when God goes after this dealing with spirits, he pours his anathemas upon the whole unholy business. In one breath, over and over again, he puts together and pronounces the curse of death upon the witch, the wizard, the consulter with familiar spirits, and the necromancer. The word “witch,” if the Hebrew is translated literally, means “a woman who is mistress of a demon.”

Demon possession was a well-known thing in New Testament times. In Matthew 4 it is said they brought the demonized to Jesus. In Matthew 8 Jesus met two men possessed with demons, and they recognized him and cried, “Art thou come hither to torment us before our time!” showing that they are aware of what awaits them, and dread it.

Mediums sometimes declare that several spirits control them, and Luke tells of a woman who had seven demons, and also of a man who had “many demons.”

This strange practice of demons is not only hoary with age, but Paul expressly prophesied this unusual modern outburst of it. In the fourth chapter of First Timothy we are told, “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of demons; speaking lies in hypocrisy, forbidding to marry,” etc.

This modern revival of Spiritualism therefore not only seems to lend evidence that we are living in what Paul calls “the latter times,” but Paul seems to intimate rather strongly that the spirits which are around in the séances and sittings of the present day, or rather night, are not the spirits of our loved ones at all, but spirits whose distinguishing features are a cloven hoof and a forked tail and a lying tongue.

Demon possession does not, of course, always manifest itself in the same way, but always with one purpose, and that is to seduce man from the worship of God. . . .

Now when we admit that there is something supernatural about spiritualism, as science seems to compel us to do, and at the same time deny both that the Spirit of God has anything to do with it or that the spirits of the dead can communicate through the mediums, then assembling it, as by a process of elimination we are compelled to do, to the working of demons, it becomes evident at once from this very fact why the child of God must have nothing to do with it whatsoever.

Three Black I’s of Spiritualism

Some one has said there are three black I’s that go with Spiritualism, and these will give you a comprehensive reason why you should shun it as one of the most dangerous and unholy heresies of the day.

The First Black I is Insanity

Dr. Winslow, the Oxford lecturer on mental diseases, says the prevalence of madness owing to Spiritualism is on the increase.

It stands to reason that it is ruinous to the mediums. Sir William Crookes himself says, “After witnessing the painful state of nervous and bodily prostration in which many of the experiments have left the medium fainting, pale, breathless, I cannot doubt but that the violence of psychic forces means a corresponding drain on the vital forces.”

Professor Harris said, “The most remarkable case of mediumship I have met with was that of a lady who commenced with a little seemingly innocent table-turning at a children’s party, and finished up by death in a madhouse.”

But it is likewise ruinous to its disciples. There is hardly a madhouse between the oceans but where the torn and bleeding victims of this awful curse are to be found. Go and ask, “What is the matter with this poor, demented man? What is the matter with this poor, sobbing, and moaning woman?” and they’ll say, “Spiritualism did it.”

Ask that poor, gaunt, and ghostly fellow, dying by a wound from his own hand, what he did it for, and he says, “The spirits told me to.”

Judge Edmonds in a lecture in behalf of Spiritualism admitted all this in so many words. He said, “There is a fascination about consulting with the spirits of the dead that has a tendency to lead people off from their right judgment, and to instill into them a fanaticism that is revolting to the natural mind.”

Spiritualism has swept into mental midnight some of the brightest intellects of the world. It comes to those who are in trouble, who have had misfortune, and especially to those who have lost some loved one. The trial is keen, everything is dark, the separation is insufferable; and Spiritualism says, “Come and we will open the unseen world for you and bring your loved one back.” And in a highly wrought state of mind, with your nerves all unstrung, you yield to its subtle whisperings, and once within its strange and fascinating grip you find it impossible to extricate yourself, and you need not be surprised if your whole nervous system goes to wreck and ruin.

The Second Black I of Spiritualism is Immorality

No system of teaching that advocates free love and pours contempt on the divine ordinance of marriage can intelligently claim anything else than immorality as its natural outgrowth.

I know that some of them teach that the unmarried state is the higher condition for this life, and they talk about a spiritual marriage by which they are united in wedlock to some spirit in the other world.

They talk about “elective affinities,” and “spiritual matches,” and “affinital relations.” No matter how many times you are married here, you have an affinity who will be your spouse through all eternity.

Some of them declare that marriage should be snapped asunder as soon as it becomes the least bit wearisome to either one of the contracting parties. As soon as an affinity comes into a man’s life, he is at liberty to throw his lawfully wedded spouse aside; thus homes are broken up, as the record shows, young women are pushed into profligacy, and human desire becomes law instead of the inspired Word of the living God.

The Third Black I of Spiritualism is Infidelity

Talmage once said, “First, it makes a man a quarter of an infidel; then it makes him half an infidel; then it makes him a whole infidel.” And that’s usually the way, unless a man is acquainted with the whole of its blasphemous teaching from the start; and then if he swallows it, he has to be a whole infidel to begin with.

Spiritualism doesn’t beat around the bush or make any bones about it, but with the most blasphemous bombast it hurls its shafts of unholy criticism straight into the very heart of every vital doctrine of the faith.

The mediums call back John Wesley, and he testifies that the faith he preached was all a mistake. They call back Tom Paine, and he says he is stopping in the same house with John Bunyan. They call back Lorenzo Dow, the noted evangelist, and he testifies that a man who worships Christ is an infidel.

But we will be more specific.

Spiritualism Denies the Inspiration of the Bible

The author of “Outlines of Spiritualism for the Young” says: “To assert that the Bible is a holy and divine book and that God inspired the writers to make known his divine will, is a gross outrage on, and misleading to, the public. The truth is, the Old Testament is neither more nor less than Jewish history. The New Testament is made up of traditions and theological speculations by unknown persons. A book so full of errors requires to be read with care.”

Andrew Jackson Davis, the most notorious of all Spiritualists, declared that the Bible was only “one of the pen-and-ink relics of Christianity.”

Spiritualism Denies the Scriptural Doctrine of Prayer

If prayer is answered, it is not because it was offered to God in the name of Christ, but as Mr. Wallace, in his essay on “Modern Spiritualism,” puts it, “the men who pray most frequently, most earnestly, and most unselfishly, attract toward them a number of spiritual beings who sympathize with them, and who, when the necessary mediumistic power is present, will be able, as they are often willing, to answer the prayers.” He cites the case of George Müller and his orphanage, and says George Müller’s “mediumship powers enabled the spirits to work for him by influencing others to send him money and food and clothes.”

What a poor exchange! all this balderdash for the rich promise of our Lord and the sweet experience of the child of God in regard to the blessed privilege of prayer.

Spiritualism Denies the . . . Personality of the Devil

. . . In a spiritualistic book entitled, “Whatever Is, Is Right,” the writer says, “There is no devil and there are no evil spirits.” To the Spiritualist the devil is merely an abstract principle of evil. How absolutely opposed to the teaching of the Word of God is all this, we do not need to be told.

Spiritualism Denies the Scriptural Doctrine of the Holy Spirit

It teaches that God is dual, and that the Holy Spirit is the mother-side of God. One of their most noted writers says that Holy Spirit means nothing more than holy breath, and that Jesus meant no more than this when he made mention of this supposed holy personality; while Gerald Massey says that the “other Comforter” that Jesus promised to send was quite as naturally the spirit of a departed loved one comforting the bereaved here on earth!

Multitudes who are trifling with Spiritualism have no idea where its pernicious teaching is leading them.

Spiritualism Denies the Scriptural Doctrine of the Hereafter

The Word of God says, “Now is the day of salvation,” but Spiritualism extends this day beyond the grave and out into the other world.

There are seven spheres into which the spirits of the departed go. The spirits of the wicked dwell in the lowest sphere, in places of darkness and misery, until repentance begins to take hold on them, and then they rise into the sphere above, and so on until they dwell as pure spirits in the higher regions.

Can a Christian believe in such bombastic nonsense?

Spiritualism Denies the Christian Doctrine of the Atonement

Salvation it always proclaims as a thing of personal merit. Oftentimes in a séance one of these devilish spirits representing himself as a spirit of the higher sphere will tell of his visit to the lower spheres to awaken and help the unrepentant. But what does he tell them? Not, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,” even if such a thing were possible then, but, “Repent, Look up, Strive, Be sympathetic and helpful to your fellow spirits in darkness.”

And so in this life sin can be expiated only by personal suffering. One of their noted writers, M. A. Owen, says, “Sin is remediable by repentance and atonement and reparation personally wrought out in pain and shame, and not by coward cries for mercy.”

In one of their weird books called “Ghost Land,” the spirit of a murderer says, “There too I saw the still living and glorious soul of my old pastor, Michael H. Sternly, and sorrowfully he told me of the crime I had committed, and said, ‘All crime is unpardonable and can be wiped out only by personal and not by vicarious atonement,’ as he had falsely taught whilst on earth.”

And in another spiritualistic book, by Mrs. Britten, the narrator exclaims, “Great heaven! if this be indeed a true picture of the life hereafter, should it not make us afraid of doing wrong? But, above all, what a wicked and soul-destroying delusion has been the clerical farce of salvation by a vicarious atonement!”

And Lastly, Spiritualism Denies the Deity of the Lord Jesus Christ

He was a Social Reformer, he was an honored Teacher, but he was not the Son of God, only in the sense that any other man can be.

From the lips of the familiar M. A. Oxen we are told to “discriminate between God’s truth and man’s guesses,” and to know that the divinity of the Lord Jesus is “a fiction which he would disown, and which man has forced upon his name.”

The notorious Gerald Massey, the poet Spiritualist, wrote: “I do not find that Christ claimed for himself more than he held out as possible for others. When he identified himself with the Father, it was the oneness of mediumship. He was the great Medium, or Mediator.”

The best they can do for your Lord is to make a medium out of him! Dr. Wisse declares that “all testimony received from advanced spirits only shows that Christ was a medium or reformer in Judea; that he is now an advanced spirit in the sixth sphere, but that he never claimed to be God and does not at present.”

This is Spiritualism and what it thinks of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Could blasphemy, could profanity, go farther?

Paul says, “There is one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Spiritualism says, “The man Christ Jesus was only a medium, and that anybody can be what he was.”

Drink Not from “the Cup of Demons”

My friend, avoid this hellish heresy as you value your soul; for once you put your hand in the hand of the witch of Endor, and she will lead you finally into a denial of everything you now hold sacred concerning your faith, and in the end will take you with herself, hand in hand, into the bottomless pit of perdition.

It is an affair of darkness; and what fellowship can a child of light have with the powers of night? “Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons.”

It is a system of lies, and it arrays itself against the Lord of heaven. Stay out of its séances, and don’t tamper with it lest you bring upon yourself the severe judgments of God.

“My God, my God!” cried a Spiritualist who was once a Christian, “can I ever get back my faith?”

Yes, you may get it back. Go alone with God—you don’t need any medium—and listen to the whisperings of his blessed Spirit, and he will guide you home.

OUR “ADVERSARY THE DEVIL,” “SEEKING WHOM HE MAY DEVOUR”