Contrary to all the teachings of Spiritism and Demonism the soul's help lies in the Christ who suffered and died to save us from sin and death.
THE deceitful and malevolent nature of Spiritism is perceived and pointed out not only by the sincere Christians who come in contact with it, but also by many able scientific observers of these so-called “psychic phenomena.” The eminent writers who are in sympathy with Spiritism—such men as W. T. Stead, Dr. Savage, the great naturalist Wallace, Professor Lodge, and many others—rarely mention the evils of Spiritism; or if they do, it is nearly always with some scientific apology and explanation. They will tell us, for example, that the moral as well as the intellectual dilemmas encountered in the investigations of Spiritism, are due to some “tremendous inhibitions” that the spirits experience when they attempt to communicate with this world. But there are many eminent students of these latter-day miracles who openly, without apology, bring to light everything experienced by them in the “séances.” Sometimes it is necessary to point out the “fruits” of spiritual movements that sway the world, before some minds can see the real character of these forces. I will here quote some observations of honest writers on these matters; then, with these impartial statements of these eminent thinkers before us, we can contrast the fruits of Spiritism with the experiences of God’s prophets and His true children.
The True Nature of Spiritism
The noted writer B. O. Flower, altho very friendly to Spiritism, was forced to write the following statement: “It does not appear that MORAL RECTITUDE ON THE PART OF THE PSYCHIC [medium] is necessary for the manifestation of at least some of the phases of psychical phenomena.” This sentence occurs in an article which he wrote in defense of Spiritism. And that acknowledgment is virtually the admission that morality is immaterial in the spiritistic transactions.
Dr. J. K. Funk says:
“I have seen psychic cobwebs—if cobwebs they be—tangle the feet of even intellectual giants.” “It is true that deception, duplicity, fraud of every description surround and saturate Spiritualism. The ease with which a large proportion of the advocates of Spiritualism are duped, and the depravity of some of the so-called mediums and their hangers-on—a depravity so extreme as to take advantage of the holiest sentiments and the most sacred griefs that the human heart knows—are reason efficient if not sufficient for the contempt in which a very large proportion of the intelligent public hold Spiritualism. “An ordinary cheat, as a policy sharper or a three-card monte fraud, or other swindler in games of chance, is virtue itself in comparison with the medium who will take the advantage of the unreason of grief to coin into ready cash the yearnings of a mother’s heart for her loved one who has passed beyond the valley of the shadow, or of a wife for a husband, or of a husband for a wife, or of a child for its mother. And this kind of humbuggery is continent-wide, world-wide.” “My experience is that mediums often degenerate morally. I would not vouch for the future truthfulness of any medium.”
The Original Medium
Dr. Funk had some “sittings” with Mrs. Margaret Fox Kane, one of the celebrated Fox sisters with whom the phenomena of Spiritualism are said to have started in 1848. He says that this woman, altho addicted to strong drink, “still possessed her mediumistic powers;” and that “so low had this unfortunate woman sunk that for five dollars she would have denied her mother, sworn to anything. At that time her affidavit for or against anything should not be given the slightest weight.” And still, this pioneer of modern Spiritism, this degenerate, continued to have her spirit communications. Dr. Funk says that many of the earlier mediums degenerated in the same way.
The French astronomer Flammarion, a very prominent investigator of Spiritism, gives many examples in his studies, of moral degeneration of the mediums. The following quotations will give us a little idea of how perplexing these things are even to worldly scientists:
“It is infinitely to be regretted that we can not trust the loyalty of the mediums. They almost all cheat. This is extremely discouraging to the investigator, and the constant perplexity of mind we feel during our investigations renders them altogether painful. When we have passed several days in these inexplicable researches and then turn to scientific work,—to an observation or to an astronomical calculation, for example, or to the examination of a problem in pure science,—we experience a sensation of freshness, calmness, relief, a serenity which gives us, by contrast, the most lively satisfaction. We feel that we are walking on solid ground, and that we have not got to distrust anybody. “I believe that there is only one way to assure ourselves of the reality of the phenomena, and that is to put the medium under conditions in which trickery is impossible. To catch her in the very act of deceit would be extremely easy. It would only be necessary to give her free rein. . . . Really, one must be endowed with most unweariable perseverance to enable him to devote to those studies hours which would be much better employed even in doing nothing at all. However, when one has the conviction that something real exists, he always returns, in spite of incessant trickery. “I have seen unpaid mediums, men and women of society, cheat without any scruple, from pure vanity, or for a purpose still less fit to be avowed,—for the mere pleasure of trapping some one. The séances of Spiritism have been made to serve useful and agreeable ends in fashionable society, and more than one marriage has originated there.” Many of the mediums “are imposters whose moral sense has become so blunted by the4habit of fraud that they seem to be incapable of appreciating the heinousness of their criminal abuse of the confidence of those who apply to them for instruction or for consolation.”
M. Flammarion observes also the “rivalries of mediums”—each one regards every other medium as an impostor, while there is only “one absolutely trustworthy,” and that is the one that is speaking.
Duplicity, Malevolence
Professor Schiaparelli, the noted Italian astronomer, in writing to Professor Flammarion on some of his experiences with Spiritism, used the following words:
“Nothing is more offensive than these games of hide-and-seek to which we are obliged to submit. All that kind of thing excites distrust. Having passed all my life in the study of nature, which is always sincere in its manifestation and logical in its processes, it is repugnant to me to turn my thoughts to the investigation of a class of truths which it seems as if a malevolent and disloyal power was hiding from us with an obstinacy, the motive of which we can not comprehend. [Italics mine.] In such researches it is not sufficient to employ the methods of natural philosophy, which are infallible, but very limited in their action. We must have a recourse to that other critical method, more subject to error, but more audacious and more powerful, of which police officers and examining magistrates make use when they are trying to bring out a truth in the midst of disagreeing witnesses, a part at least of whom have an interest of hiding the truth.”
Besides deception and immoralities at the séances, Professor Flammarion tells of experiences like the following:
“I was struck several times in the side, touched on the head, and my ear was smartly pinched. I declare that after several repetitions I had enough of this ear pinching; but during the whole séance, in spite of my protestations, somebody kept hitting me.”
Demoniacal
This kind of foolery at the séances is reported by many observers; and here is the description of the condition and behavior of the most celebrated medium, Eusapia Palladino, in some of her trances:
“Eusapia utters repeated cries, a kind of rattling in the throat. She writhes nervously, and, as if she were calling for help, cries, ‘The chain! the chain!’ Then, just as if she was defying some monster, she turns, with inflamed looks, toward an enormous divan, which thereupon marches up to us. She looks at it with a satanic smile. Finally she blows upon the divan, which goes immediately back to its place.”
“She begins to sigh deeply, then yawns and hiccoughs. A series of varied expressions pass over her face. Sometimes it takes on a demoniacal look, accompanied by a fitful laugh very much like that which Gounod gives to Mephistopheles [Satan] in the opera of Faust, and which almost always precedes an important phenomenon. Sometimes her face flushes, the eyes become brilliant and liquid, and are opened wide. The smile and the motions are the mark of erotic ecstasy. She says ‘My dear,’ leans her head upon the shoulder of her neighbor, and courts and caresses when she believes that he is sympathetic. It is at this point that phenomena are produced, the success of which causes her agreeable and even voluptuous thrills.”
This is the medium that convinced so many of the European savants of the reality of Spiritism. Undoubtedly the last quoted scientist does not believe in the personality of Satan; and yet the best that he can do in describing the behavior of the most celebrated spiritistic medium in some of her trances is to use the traditional terminology that mankind knows for the description of the worse phases of fallen character, namely, “satanic,” “demoniacal.” Elder Uriah Smith, in his book on Spiritism, devotes a chapter to the “Dangers of Mediumship.” It is simply appalling to read to what depths of moral, mental, and physical degradation the mediums fall, when given up to this satanic control.
We are told by scientists that altho the medium may be ever so honest at first, yet when she is under the control of these spirit personalities her honesty vanishes, and there is no certainty of truth in anything she says. From this we can see that those spirits behind the scenes are of such a character that “deceivableness of unrighteousness” is simply an attribute of their nature—they can’t help deceiving. Impartial survey of the history of Spiritism shows this conclusively.
The Class Attracted by Spiritism
We are also told by the students of these phenomena that the people who attend those séances are not persons who are seeking “that they may grow in love to God and man, in humility, in holiness.” But many, very many “Spiritualists seem to care for communion with the spirits only that they may more surely keep physically well, and earn their bread and butter and clothing easier, and at best, be assured that after they ‘shuffle off this mortal coil’ they will continue to be.” “Again and again in these séance circles we hear inquiries like the following: ‘Have I opened my mine on the right side of that hill?’ ‘Will I strike oil where I am now boring?’ ‘Can I win the hand I am seeking?’ ‘Is the horse whose name I have written on this slip of paper the winning one?’ ‘I have lost my pocket-book. Can you tell me where it is?’—ad nauseam.”
Spirits Temporarily Insane
Some scientists try to explain the deceptions of Spiritism on the theory that the conditions of communication between the two worlds are such that they bring about a temporary insanity in the spirits that wish to communicate. Hence we have such intellectual and moral confusion in the séances. The Spiritist’s explanations, however, for all these evils, are that the spirit world is just such a world of mixed characters as we find here; and when deception and immorality are manifested, they come from evil spirits.
Counterfeits of God
It would not be true to say that evil is all that there is in Spiritism. No; Satan is not a fool. He must have some sugar coating on the pill, and it is the flashes of the good and the true and the beautiful that keep the scientists so riveted to this great delusion.
In the marvelous light of God’s Word, and of the uniform experiences of the prophets and the children of God, we can clearly see the utter badness of Spiritism. There is no gradation of character in the spiritual world, but an absolutely fixed boundary between the good and the bad spirits. Natural immortality of man is a lie. Even the worldly scientists are beginning to suspect that the spirits purporting to be the souls of the dead are not the souls of the dead.
How Unlike God’s Work
But when we survey the history of God’s work among the children of men; when we behold its holy, exalted, and beneficent character, its wondrous influence on the human heart; when we remember that nowhere can we detect the least shadow of wrong in all the experiences of God’s messengers in their spiritual revelations; when we remember how absolutely insulating is sin to the divine currents as exemplified by the experiences of all the holy prophets of the Lord—then we can see the hopeless unrighteousness of Spiritism.
“And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” Isa. 8:19, 20.
“Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they be of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” 1 John 4:1.
“Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits.” Matt. 7:15, 16.
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith.” Gal. 5:22.
