THE progress of Spiritism has been likened by some to a tidal wave sweeping over the world. Séances and ouija board parties are now in evidence in practically every locality. So great has been the demand for ouija boards (planchettes) in America, that one great firm in America that does nothing but manufacture them has recently been compelled to add greatly to its factory and equipment in order to supply its customers. Many religious journals have come to understand something of the menace of this revival of ancient occultism. Now and then we find that some secular papers also are sensing the danger and issuing warnings. The following, clipped from the Thrice-a-Week World (New York), of April 19, 1920, is one of these:— “Education is the vaccination that confers immunity, but it does not always take,” says the Journal of the American Medical Association in expressing its amazement that a mind like that of Sir Oliver Lodge—“of superior training, especially in scientific discipline”—should believe in spirits “on evidence that it is difficult to conceive as convincing to any but a prejudiced will to believe.” That authoritative journal feels it its duty to submit the present-day leaders of the spiritist cult to a clinical diagnosis. It is not astonished that an imaginative mind like that of Maeterlinck should “find in the occult an additional outlet for his fancies”; that he accepts “square-rooting horses” as genuine may indicate a lamentable lack of logic, but nothing more serious clinically. It is somewhat surprised that Conan Doyle, who was formerly a physician, should be caught in the same web, but when it comes to Sir Oliver Lodge it is so staggered that only by applying Freudian principles is it able to explain the mystery. The stresses and strains to which the minds of men have been put in recent years, the real satisfactions that have been denied to their desires, the longings they404have had to repress, find some compensation, some perverted outlet, some mode of relief, in Spiritism, and Lodge’s public addresses are “that explicit act of confession which Freudians recognise as helpful to ingrowing ailments.” Even great thinkers, deeply learned in the lore of materialistic science, are evidently subject to psychoses, and no disciple of Freud will deem it strange that mere education has failed to confer immunity. If, then, the inhibited longings of a mind like Lodge’s need an outlet in confession of faith in spirits, need we wonder if a vast number of less disciplined minds seize with avidity upon ouija boards and table-rappings and trance mediums as media through which to obtain satisfaction for the desires they have been obliged to repress? A great alienist asserts that these things are signs of an abnormal mind, but we should not forget that abnormality does not necessarily mean weakness; it often means extraordinary strength. And, as every specialist in mental diseases can testify, it takes a strong mind to flirt with spirits and not become obsessed. We might also remark that even the strongest minds will become obsessed once they have opened the door to the inroads of Spiritism, as instance the names given in the above extract. The warnings given in the Bible against attempts to communicate with the dead; the plain declarations of the Bible in reference to the unconsciousness of man in death; and the unequivocal declaration of that Book of truth to the effect that God alone possesses immortality—these ought to be sufficient to protect us from this overwhelming delusion. It is sufficient for those who believe the Bible; but for those who do not believe it, there is no sure protection. It was Satan’s master stroke to fill the world with infidelity, evolution, and higher criticism, and then send forth this deluge of Spiritism. It is capturing millions, but it need not capture you. Let the Bible speak to your soul and lead you in the way of life.