NOT “TRICKERY AND FRAUD.”
THAT versatile and incisive writer, Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox, recently and truly said:— “In these days, when science is giving spirit-phenomena its serious attention, it savors of ignorance and obstinacy for an individual to declare all such manifestations are the result of trickery and fraud.” But she is just as truly in error in saying:— “After much investigation, I am satisfied that communication with disembodied spirits is possible—is an established fact, as established as wireless telegraphy, but much less satisfactory, and rarely resulting in positive good to the recipient.” She then recalls two satisfactory experiences which remain with her— “convincing, and comforting: for what can be more to the human mind than the belief that dear ones who have passed into the Silence may at times come near with words of warning and counsel? Nevertheless, I am confident it is not in harmony with God’s plan to call back these emancipated spirits; it delays their progress and interferes with our character-building.” And there is much more of the same character. How is Mrs. Wilcox right and how wrong, judged by the Word? 1. We answer the last question first. There are no disembodied human spirits that men can call back. “The living know that they shall die; but the ‘dead know not anything. . . . Also their love, ‘and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; ‘neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.” Eccl. 9:5, 6. “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, ‘in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, ‘he returneth to his earth; in that very day his ‘thoughts perish.” Ps. 146:3, 4. And so the apostle bases all the hopes of the future life on the resurrection from the dead; and if there be no resurrection, even “they also that are fallen asleep in ‘Christ are perished.” 1 Cor. 15:18. 2. The Bible reveals another class of beings not clothed in flesh, but spirits. These spirits are divided into two classes—good angels, at the head of whom is Christ, and evil angels, or demons, at the head of whom is Satan. In the great controversy which has waged between good and evil the fiercest contentions have been between these forces in the spiritual realms. Rev. 12:7-9. Satan is a deceiver; his angels are deceivers with him. He appears as an angel of light, and his ministers as ministers of righteousness. Knowing all about our friends in life, they come after these friends are dead, claiming to be their disembodied spirits. And that is the reason, as Mrs. Wilcox says, and the wrecking of many minds and lives testifies, that communication with these professedly human spirits is not only of no benefit, but contrary to God’s will, and of positive damage to the characters of those who admit them to companionship. All the spirits which are summoned at human bidding by some medium are the demons of the bottomless pit, tho they assume the guise of the dear and the holy. 3. God has His ministering spirits, the good angels. Heb. 1:14. They ever are doing for the race, rarely being seen, ever losing sight of self in their ministrations, ever calling the soul away from the creature to the Creator, away from the human to the divine, away from man to God and His Word. 4. The whole false conception of spirit-phenomena is based upon the erroneous belief of man’s immortal soul or spirit, capable of existing as a conscious, intelligent entity apart from the body. But this theory has no foundation in the Word. Spirit (or soul), as connected with man, means life. It came from God as life alone; it returns to God as life. The individual entity involves the whole man. Turn from all these spirit-phenomena to the Word of God. In the words of the prophet: “Should not ‘a people seek unto their God? On behalf of the ‘living should they seek unto the dead? To the law ‘and to the testimony’ if they speak not according ‘to this word, surely there is no morning for them.” Isa. 8:19, 20, R. V.