HYPNOTISM AND “PSYCHIC HEALING.”
THIS great world and its inhabitants are sick unto death, and healing is eagerly sought in every quarter, from every promised source. Because of the much sickness and the anxious and highly proper desire for healing, patent-medicine proprietors and venders wax rich, and a multitude of “healers” have sprung up, many of whom feed fat upon a longing and oftentimes credulous public. Marvelous cures are reported and credited to “Christian Science,” “Hypnotism,” “Magnetic Healing,” “Psychic Healing,” “Faith Healing,” etc. Hypnotism is practised by many regularly-licensed physicians. Yet, notwithstanding claims and results, there are many, not a few of whom are sufferers, who question these methods, and fear the principles and influences which, apparently, are inherent in them. We write especially to help this class, as well as the still larger number who have given but little thought to the matter. One of the interested ones, after speaking of the claims of psychic healers, thus voices the anxieties of many. “What I wish you to do is to tell me if it is a fact that a perfect stranger from any distance, without ever having seen or spoken to another person, can affect, or, as is claimed, use psychic healing on, that other person, who may be ill? And if so, can these hypnotic, mesmeric, or psychic doctors (by whatever name they choose to call themselves) affect a person always afterward, no matter where that person may happen to be; that is, of course, should the person who treats the patient so choose?” These questions mean much. They can not, with profit and clearness, be answered dogmatically. Other things should be considered, and in this consideration, necessarily brief, we ask the attention of our readers. 1. God is infinite in every attribute of good. He is good in the exercise of all wisdom, power, and authority. He has all wisdom to direct, all power to execute, all love to control. 2. He is the “fountain of life.” All life comes from Him, the center, pulsing out to all parts of His created universe. Every creature lives by His life. “In Him we live, and move, and have our being.” That life flows normally, as life and blessing and health, in harmony with God’s holy law. That, being in perfect harmony with God, in absolute submission to His law, can not die. 3. Infinite Love could not keep the conscious, unnumbered blessings of life to Himself; He must share with others. He therefore created conscious, intelligent beings, upon whom He conferred the power of absolute choice, that their union with Him might be voluntary, their obedience to His requirements the service of love. Only so can there be continuance of life and health and blessing. If these have been lost, only so can they be restored. How many such beings there are, into how many classes divided, we know not. The Bible presents before us two, sufficient for our knowledge in this fallen state. 4. The first of these in priority of time and scale of being are the shining hosts of the messengers of God, known by the general term “angels.” But “angel” simply means “messenger.” The Word speaks of them as “ministering spirits,” as “ministers of His, that do His pleasure.” At their head, the highest of all created beings, in whose creation was sealed up the sum, who was “full of wisdom and perfect in beauty,” was the “covering cherub,” named “Lucifer,” “the son of the morning.” (See Eze. 28:12–19; Isa. 14:12–14.) The other class of beings are those who were created to dwell upon this earth, for whom the earth was created. Isa. 45:18; Ps. 115:16; Matt. 5:5. 5. It was the privilege of Lucifer to retain his glorious beauty and wisdom and light by choosing God’s ways. It was his privilege to perpetuate the life, the light, the wisdom, which God placed in him and continually poured upon him, from the ministry of others7in the service, and to the glory, of God, to himself, and what would seem to unbelief, his own benefit. Only by free choice can character—eternal, unswervingly loyal, loving, and lovable—be formed. And God must take the risk of sin in giving the right of choice. But He did it under such conditions that no soul at the last can charge God with injustice or partiality. 6. Lucifer, “the son of the morning,” not satisfied with the abundant gifts and blessings bestowed of God, sought even the place of God Himself. He proposed: “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; and I will sit upon the mount of the congregation, in the uttermost parts of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds [of angels]; I will be like the Most High.” Isa. 14:13, 14, R.V. Into this rebellion he drew a third part of the host of heaven, imbued with the same selfish, unholy ambition of dethroning God. But good perverted becomes evil, and so the covering cherub became Satan, the adversary, the devil (diabolus); the “son of the morning” became “the prince of darkness,” “the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience;” his wisdom became craft and guile; his object became destruction instead of salvation, and the host of shining spirits who followed him in his rebellion became the angels of the devil, his messengers of evil, the demons, “the spiritual hosts of darkness.” These were cast out of the presence of God. (See Rev. 12:4, 9; Eph. 2:2; 6:11, 12, and many other passages.) 7. When man was created, the prince of darkness came to this earth, seduced our first parents, and thus brought sin and “death into the world, and all our woe.” Man chose the evil, turned from the good ways of God, perverted all His blessings, and chose the way of sin, and has reaped, and is reaping, the resultant curses. 8. The rest, the greater part, of the angels remained loyal to God. They chose by faith the way of God, believing that the everlasting ages to come would demonstrate the truthfulness and eternal goodness of God. 9. Not alone in the visible realms of this world, therefore, has waged the fierce conflict between good and evil, between righteousness and sin, between the hosts of light and the hosts of darkness, between life and death. Ranged under their two leaders are the two hosts of spirits. On the one hand is Michael (“who is like God”), the Son of God, with all the angels of light, and on the other hand is Satan, with his demon spirits (in our version rendered “devils,” plural), the angels of darkness. And since man was created, the great controversy has gone on in this world. 10. Joyfully, loyally, the hosts of God’s messengers go forth “to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation.” Heb. 1:14. Not one soul will be saved in which Christ shall rejoice alone. He gives His angels (and human children also) a portion of the work. They share in the labor, the anxiety, the conflict; they will share in the joy of the harvest home. Read the entire Bible and mark God’s providential dealings with man. How frequently are mentioned the presence of His angels! They, by His power, save from disaster, comfort the sorrowing and despairing, strengthen the weak, overcome the hosts of evil, heal the sick, raise the dead, and give to God all the glory. Every thoughtful person, of large and varied experience, has seen in his own observation where, apart from all human effort or influence, life-saving suggestions have been given, conscience aroused, danger averted, and life saved. Sometimes warnings have come as tho an audible voice had uttered them. It was God speaking thru His ministering angels. Even as they ministered to the divine Son of man from His fasting in the desert to His agony in Gethsemane, so will they minister to every child of God who desires their ministry and instruction. 11. Satan’s host of ministering angels are abroad in the earth, ministering darkness and sin and death to every soul whom they can reach. If they seem to minister light, it is like the ignis fatuus, that treacherous “will-o’-the-wisp,” which leads to trouble and death in fathomless morasses and quagmires. “Satan fashioneth himself into an angel of light;” “his ministers also fashion themselves as ministers of righteousness.” 2 Cor. 11:14, 15, R.V. He will work in the last days “with all power and signs and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish.” 2 Thess. 2:9, 10. His ministers “shall show great signs and wonders; so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.” Matt. 24:24, R.V. Satan is the great deceiver. The deceivableness of unrighteousness is making unrighteousness to appear as righteousness. The working of lying wonders is the doing of false, wondrous things which appear true. He will do seeming good that he may do more effectual evil. He afflicts the body and the mind, as he did when Christ was upon the earth, and induces people to charge the sickness to God. He withdraws the afflicting spirit thru one of his agencies; the person seems to be healed, and man or Satan’s agency gets the glory. And because of these workings, even of miracles (Rev. 16:13, 14), in “the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils [demons].” 1 Tim. 4:1. And these spread abroad the fame of the false, human-exalting, spirit-exalting miracles; and their victims are many among those who receive not the love of the truth that they may be saved. 2 Thess. 2:10. 12. Thus we have presented before us in the Word of God, as in a panorama, what is now actually true, the great invisible army of darkness fighting for the souls of men and the discrediting of God. There are “miracles” wrought on both sides. There are wonders false and true. The true is ever the same in principle; the false assumes every guise but that of the absolute and altogether true. How may we decide between them? We can not learn the multitude of Satan’s wiles; his perversions are ever changing. We must learn the straight way of God. Principles of God’s Working.
13. First of all, then, (a) God always ministers His life in harmony with His holy law in Christ Jesus. Whatever power or influence is antagonistic to the law of God’s government, honored and magnified by His Son in His life and death, we may know is not of God. a. God’s servants and agencies always give the glory to Him. The one failure of “Moses, the man of God,” to do this, deprived him of having a part in the earthly Canaan. When John, the beloved apostle, fell at the feet of the glorious angel who had shown such wonderful revelations of God, the angel forbade him, declaring that he was but one of John’s fellow-servants, even as he, the angel, had been a fellow-servant of the prophets; and he enjoined John to “worship God.” Rev. 22:8, 9. When they sought to worship Peter, he commanded, “Stand up; I myself also am a man.” Acts 10:26; 14:8–10; 14:15. And Jesus Himself declared that He could do nothing of Himself, but that the Father did the works. John 5:19; 14:10. Everywhere, at all times, whether angels or men, God’s true servants have given the glory to Him. This is divine unselfishness. b. They took no price for their work. Miracle-working and healing were gifts of the Spirit of God, and the gift of God can not be purchased with money. Acts 8:20. All God’s blessings are the free gifts of His matchless grace. d. The servants of God, among whom we may number Jesus our Lord, never advertised their power to work miracles or to heal. They healed not according to their will or desire, but according to the faith of the needy, and as the Spirit indicated; for the Spirit works, and true faith is according to the will of God. Jesus could “do no mighty work” in one place because of the people’s unbelief. And Paul, from whose body handkerchiefs healed the sick, and who raised the dead, had to write of a beloved fellow-laborer, “Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick.” All of which is very clear, in the light of the Gospel, that the gifts of the Spirit are divided, and exercised, not as man, the servant, will, but as the Spirit will. 1 Cor. 12:4–11. e. God respects the freedom of all. He leaves the sinner free to sin. He may restrain him from bringing evil upon others, but He leaves him free to sin on and on to the end. When He frees that sinner from his sins, He still leaves him free to continue in righteousness or return to sin. Whom the Son and the truth make free is free indeed. John 8:32, 36. It is God’s desire that no soul in all His realm shall be in slavery or bondage to any others, or other, save God, the Infinite One. Not so with Satan. Whomsoever he binds with sin, can by no power of his own break those bands. Satan would make men submit to the creature, to evil angels and to men. Hence all the bondage in the world. The conclusion, then, from all the foregoing facts and principles, is evident, that all agencies, systems, methods of healing, which demand the yielding of the soul, the absolute submission of the God-given will, or the subjection of the faculties to the creature, are not of God, but all of the evil one. All these, “Spiritualism,” “Christian Science,” “Hypnotism,” “Psychic Healing,” etc., demand submission or subjectiveness or passiveness of the will and mind to the one who heals. This may not be literally asked, but it is not the less necessary, and is obtained in some way. But man is not the healer. All the marvelous cures, all the healing that is done by these “doctors” at a distance, is wrought thru the power of the fallen angels, who come as ministers of good, even professing to be spirits of those who are dead. When the will is once brought under their power, when it has been made passive to Satan’s influence, it is weakened, and is much more susceptible to future yielding. Only God can deliver from the snare, and outside of His power the same demon and the same human agent, oftentimes others, find the one of weakened will an easy victim to subsequent attempts, even tho at a distance. The connection between the two is made by the demon. In the light of all these considerations, our correspondent and others may decide. Will they yield absolutely to God, to do His will and be free, forever free, or will they yield to the subtle delusions of Satan? Sooner or later all the world will be ranged under one banner or the other. Satan’s workings are becoming so marvelous and convincing to those who are separate from God, that those who receive merely the theory of the truth will be deceived by them. We must know not only the truth, but must receive the love of it. And then, when God’s healing power is known in the soul, He can trust us with healing power in the body. “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”