Character of Its Teachings
By W. A. Colcord
Character of Its Teachings.
What has been the character of the teachings of Modern Spiritism during the last half century? How do they harmonize with the Bible? 1. In its earlier teachings, especially, Modern Spiritism was strongly atheistic and infidelic. In 1871, Mr. W. F. Jamieson, a noted Spiritualist, said, “I do not believe in a personal God, no great ‘First Cause, no Creator.’” The Banner of Light, of Aug. 8, 1868, a Spiritualist journal, said, “It is just as sensible to pray to the ocean or the sun as to the Jewish ‘unknown Jehovah’ or the Christian’s ‘God.’” Of later years Spiritism has, in many quarters, become more refined in its utterances, and assumed a more religious aspect; but it has left on record these infidelic utterances, the insidious evils of which still remain and inhere in the system. 2. It denies the divinity and incarnation of Christ. Thus in the Spiritual Telegraph (No. 37), we read:— 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 Bible says, “Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God.” 1 John 4:3. Spiritism, therefore, is not of God. 3. It teaches unbelief in the Bible. One Spirit says, “The ‘book of Genesis is the skin of the old serpent. There are three ‘hundred lies in that book alone.’” Dr. Hare, in “Spiritual Science Demonstrated,” p. 209, says, “The Old Testament does not impart ‘a knowledge of immortality, without which religion were worthless. ‘The notions derived from the Gospel are vague, disgusting, inaccurate, and difficult to believe.’” The Bible being against the spirits, the spirits are naturally against the Bible. Some may profess faith in portions of it, but upon close examination it will be found that they will flatly contradict and utterly repudiate other portions. 4. It teaches men and women to consult with mediums, clairvoyants, or those who have, or are controlled by, familiar spirits, or spirits that “come at a call.” This is directly contrary to the teaching of the Bible. To His ancient people God said:— “When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, thou shalt not learn to do after the abominations of those nations. There shall not be found among you any one . . . that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, 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 because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee.” Deut. 18:9–12. God is no less particular now. It is just as wicked, just as dangerous, and just as much an abomination now as it was then to consult with those who profess to reveal secrets, divine fortunes, and foretell future events by the aid of “spirits,” and “pretended communications with the dead.” 5. Its tendencies are to laxness in morals and looseness in the marriage relationship. A leading Spiritualist writer in the New York Herald says, “All advanced Spiritualists—the few may have the courage to confess it—repudiate marriage in its legal sense, and believe ‘in the doctrine of affinities.’” And Mrs. Victoria C. Woodhull, several times elected President of the National Association of Spiritualists in America, in the same paper, said, “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.” This is a plain letting down of the restrictions of the seventh commandment. 6. It admits that the spirits with which it has to do will lie and deceive. Dr. Child, in the Banner of Light, says that some “will ‘deceive us for their amusement,’ and that others, which he calls ‘wise spirits,’ ‘will designedly deceive us for our good.’” So upon their own admissions, the spirits connected with Spiritism are pretty much all deceivers. They are not good spirits, therefore. 7. It teaches that there is no such thing as death; that the dead are not only conscious, but that they can return and communicate with earth’s inhabitants; and that the spirits of the departed dead are the spirits which operate in spiritistic manifestations. This is the one fundamental doctrine, the one great corner-stone, of Spiritism. And this is false. It contradicts the plainest teachings of the Bible, which says that the dead are “asleep” (1 Thess. 4:13); that they “know not anything” (Eccl. 9:5); that when man dies “in that very day his thoughts perish” (Ps. 146:3, 4); that “his sons ‘come to honor, and he knoweth it not; and they are brought low, ‘but he perceiveth it not of them’” (Job 14:21); that “the dead praise ‘not the Lord, neither any that go down into silence’” (Ps. 115:17); and that the place of the dead is a “land of forgetfulness.” Ps. 88:12. The Bible says, “The wages of sin is death.” The first lie ever told on earth was a contradiction of this. God told our first parents that if they transgressed they would “surely die.” Satan, through the serpent, denied this, and said, “Ye shall not surely die.” This was a lie, the first lie, told by “the father of lies,” and through a “medium;” and modern Spiritism is perpetuating this falsehood, and performing all its great wonders upon the hypothesis that the falsehood is true—that the dead are not really dead. Let none be deceived. The spirits of Spiritism are not the spirits of the departed dead, but are fallen angels. All these knockings and tappings and the table-tippings of Modern Spiritism are but the peepings and mutterings of ancient sorcery, necromancy, and witchcraft revived. Have nothing, therefore, to do with these manifestations, under whatever guise they may appear. They are deceptive and misleading, and place one under unhallowed influences and upon dangerous ground. Life and immortality are brought to light through the Gospel, not through Spiritism. The hope of the dead, and the Christian’s hope of meeting those fallen in death, is the hope of a resurrection from the dead, and not the materializations of Spiritism, however genuine they may appear to be. The extent, insidious workings, and dangers of modern Spiritism will be the subject of the next article of this series.