Note and Comment

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 11, 1902

THE annual convention of the national association of Spiritualists was held recently in Boston, Mass. Speaking of the occasion, the New York Sun says that while Christian science and the “new thought” have of late years been more prominent in the public eye, the devotees of Spiritualism remain “as full as ever of hope and enthusiasm.” “This national association,” says the Sun, “was incorporated in 1893, and it lays claim to having six hundred and seventy local and subsidiary associations included in it, they being scattered through this country and Canada, and containing ‘a bona fide membership of two hundred and fifty thousand,’ besides whom, its president asserts, that there are a million and a half of people ‘interested in Spiritualism.’”

The tendency of Spiritualists to-day, the Sun observes, is toward a church organization, this being indicated at the convention by speeches calling for a centralized system of ordination, a properly authenticated ministry to perform valid marriages, and ritual forms for marriage, burial, and other ceremonial services.

The prevalence of Spiritualism cannot be measured by figures pertaining to the outward organization. In its very nature Spiritualism is a religion of darkness and occult forces, and may constitute the essence of that which in name and organization seems wholly distinct from it. There is no doubt that Spiritualism, in the various forms of communication with the occult realm now known and practiced, is increasingly prevalent in the world.