SPIRITUALISM A SATANIC DELUSION.
“And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God; and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.” 1 John 4:3. “But there were false prophets also among the people; even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them.” 2 Pet. 2:1. “Denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.” Jude 4. “Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist that denieth the Father and the Son.” 1 John 2:22. The following is from the Spiritual Telegraph, No. 37:— “What is the meaning of the word Christ? ’Tis not, as generally supposed, the Son of the Creator of all things. Any just and perfect being is Christ. The crucifixion of Christ is nothing more than the crucifixion of the spirit, which all have to contend with before becoming perfect and righteous. The miraculous conception of Christ is merely a fabulous tale.” The R. P. Journal of Feb. 20, 1869, says:— “Q. Are there any beings superior to Jesus Christ? A. Oh! yes; very many. Q. Have they been men? A. Yes; so I believe. He was ‘never resurrected from the dead as your record affirms.’ Q. Then the Jews were right in saying the disciples had stolen him away? A. They were right, certainly.” Dr. Weisse, before the investigating class of Spiritualists in New York city, said:— “Friend Orton seems to make rather light of the communications from spirits concerning Christ. It seems, nevertheless, that all the testimony received from advanced spirits only shows that Christ was a medium and reformer in Judea; that he now is an advanced spirit in the sixth sphere; but that he never claimed to be God, and does not at present. I have had two communications to that effect. I have also read some that Dr. Hare had. If I am wrong in my views of the Bible, I should like to know it; for the spirits and mediums do not contradict me.” While Christ is represented as being in the sixth sphere, Thomas Paine is by the spirits put into the seventh sphere! Considering their views of progression, and that Christ has been in the “spheres” more than eighteen hundred years, and Paine less than one hundred, it is easy to see that they place the latter very far in advance of the former. 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—a religion without written laws, without commandments, without creeds—a religion too sacred to be spoken, too pure to be defiled, too generous to be judged, resting upon no uncertain outside standard of rectitude, upon no dogma of another, no purity of earthly life, no glory of earthly perfection—a religion that every soul possesses by natural endowment, not one more than another. “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 Spiritualist 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 has been 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 these words, and meant what I said.” “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 mediums 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 mediums, 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. BEAUTIES 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. By their fruits ye shall know them. Dr. Gridley describes the sufferings inflicted by the spirits upon an aged medium in 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! The judge describes his departure from the happy place:— “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 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, 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.” Now let us see how Judge Carter regards this troop of devils:— “We must not judge or condemn these diakka; they occupy an important place in the economy of the spirit world, and the earth, and their relations. They are great and useful iconoclasts, if not instructors and constructors; they are revolutionists, if not reformers in religion, society, government, and politics; and the old must be brushed away to give room for the new. They have their uses in the best sense that Emanuel Swedenborg, in his works, gives to that term.” 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.”