Present Standing of Spiritualism by Joseph Harvey Waggoner

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 18, 1873

Present Standing of Spiritualism.

By Joseph Harvey Waggoner

When we prepared the last edition of our pamphlet on “The Nature and Tendency of Modern Spiritualism,” it was said by many that we were uncharitable and censorious. Some even yet claim that we, as a people, do injustice to Spiritualists by calling them “free lovers,” and accusing them of the intention to abolish the marriage rite, and destroy the family relation. We must confess that the charge is a severe one, but its greatest severity consists in the fact that it is true and just. The following remarks are from the Boston Daily Globe:—

“The pernicious theories disseminated by those who profess to be and are looked up to as the leading lights of Spiritualism were explained with startling frankness at a meeting recently held at Vineland, N. J. Over two hundred deluding misleaders were assembled on this occasion, and after the usual quantity of transcendental cant, the customary allowance of blasphemy and the inevitable laudation of Communism, the main business of the gathering was attended to. Free love, atheism, ignorance and presumption were the most noticeable features of the addresses then and there delivered. There were numberless affinities, and few legally joined husbands and wives. The grand speech of the occasion was delivered by the notorious Victoria Woodhull. It was characterized by almost revolting coarseness, and hurled defiance at every precept that social law has enacted for social decency. This was no more than was to be expected from such a woman, and the fact would scarcely be worth the chronicling were it not that it was warmly applauded throughout by her listeners, who only too plainly showed the goal whither Spiritualism was tending. She calmly advocated the abolition of marriage, and was proclaimed by Mrs. Laura Cuppy Smith as the ‘Redeemer,’ while virtue and respectability were stigmatized by the same eloquent creature as ‘the two thieves on the cross.’ It was argued that every married couple should separate, and the wife was denounced as a creature worse than the street-walker. This woman announced that she has declared relentless warfare against marriage, and has sworn to wage it ‘until the last vestige of this remnant of savagery shall be wiped from the otherwise fair face of present civilization.’ She did not state how she was going to do it, or whether she had entered into a special contract with death to spare her until her vow was accomplished. We do not for a moment imagine that she hopes to accomplish her aim by ranting before an assemblage of fanatics and people of loose principles. As well might thieves hope to abolish prisons by holding indignation meetings against them.”

“These reformers who defy God and society assume the tone of philanthropists and pretend to work for the good of their entire species, but, after all, they simply attempt to defend their own vicious practices by advocating a general indulgence to them. Nobody has the slightest objection to this sort of people carrying out their theories in their own persons, and, if anybody had, it would make but little difference to them. The streets are nightly filled with wretched creatures who practically exemplify the advanced stage toward which Mrs. Woodhull and her Spiritualistic admirers would have the world progress; and though the law occasionally steps in to assert its authority, it is quite powerless to prevent the ranks of the progressionists from being continually recruited. After having blasphemed religion, laughed at the decencies of social life, scoffed at marriage, and advocated universal prostitution, this notorious woman concluded by stating that it was the sublime mission of Spiritualism to free the human race from the thralldom of matrimony and to establish sexual emancipation. There was not one word of dissent from her listeners. On the contrary, the filthy theories and the disgusting arguments were applauded to the echo. No woman was shocked and no man offended by the upholding of a theory that would reduce humanity to the level of beasts.”

“We would not dwell upon this revolting subject were it not for the fact that the sentiments so boldly uttered by Mrs. Woodhull were fully indorsed by a large body of Spiritualists. We do not intend to enter upon the question of the truthfulness or the falsity of Spiritualism. We simply take its teachings as here exemplified, for the past fifteen years. What the few timid hangers-on to the skirts of this great delusion may do

or believe is nothing to the point, while it is indubitable that the leaders give their support to the vilest and most destructive of doctrines. It matters not how many tables may have jumped about the room, how many raps have been heard upon the wall, how many folded papers may have been read unopened, or how many people have been told things that nobody but themselves could have known; the fact is undeniable that the most disgusting theories are accepted by Spiritualists, and that the most advanced advocates of the ‘new religion’ receive the vicious ravings of a Woodhull ‘with cheers and enthusiasm unbounded.’ Lord Brougham, Louis Napoleon, Bulwer, Lytton, and a score of other eminent men, may have been believers in the manifestations, but their belief will in nowise palliate the fact that immorality and Spiritualism go hand in hand. Even as we write we learn that one of the leading female lights of Spiritualism has just eloped with another woman’s husband. In this case, it is evidence that Spiritualism is progressing, since her three previous ventures she submitted to matrimony. There must be something wrong in a religion that accepts a Woodhull as its high priestess, and numbers a Cora L. V. Hatch Daniels Tappan among its most active proselytes and propagandists.”

It is a most disagreeable task to note the follies and vices of our fellow-creatures, especially when they assume a form to meet the words of the apostle in Eph. 5: 12: “For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.” We cannot record their actions, even in their own language; but justice to the truth requires that the warning should be given, and that those who have been slow to believe that our ideas of the signs of the times, of the fulfillment of prophecy, and of the nature of the coming perils, were correct, may be convinced by what is now transpiring before their eyes.

In our pamphlet on Spiritualism, published in 1866, is this remark: “They may go some further in practice than they have gone, but the theory of lawlessness is fully developed.” It was also remarked that people do not generally rise above the level of their teachings, or their aim. Lawlessness, or freedom from restraint, to the fullest extent, has been taught for years by all the leading Spiritualists; now they are openly avowing the practice of what they have been teaching.

The recent Convention of Spiritualists at Chicago has caused us to take a look at this subject, which we have for several years laid aside, and we must express our deep astonishment at their progress in evil.

The subject, and almost the only subject, of discussion in their papers and at their convention is that of freedom from the marriage tie; freedom to carry out their evil passions without social or civil restraint. Only a few years ago this subject was introduced as a kind of side issue, to be tolerated in their meetings; and their papers expressed doubts of the propriety of suffering it to be introduced in their conventions. Now, scarcely anything else is talked of among them; with them the grand reform of the age, and that which is to purify society from all its present evils and abuses, and elevate humanity above what it has ever yet attained unto, is the abolition of marriage, and of all laws against promiscuous sexual intercourse! The fact is startling and horrifying. Regard for decency will not permit us to publish the worst of their words, but the facts ought to be known, that this sign of the times may be understood and appreciated. We copy the following brief extracts from the Chicago Times’ report of the Chicago Convention:—

“Mrs. Woodhull contended that the issue was before them clearly. They had to vote whether they were in favor of free sexual relations, unrestricted by law, or whether they were in favor of tyranny.”

“The speech was received throughout with cheers from the thronged galleries, and the delegates in the body of the hall.”

And accordingly they adopted the Woodhull platform by a very large majority. In her lecture she said:—

“She defined freedom to be in general terms, that each and every individual has the right in his or her own proper person to make use of all his or her powers and capacities as he or she may elect to do.”

“It is simply none of your business what other people do, nor any of the business of society what any of its members do, unless they interfere with somebody else without his or her consent.”

“What does it matter whether the child or any one knows who is the father? Is he, or is society, any the better for the knowledge?”

“If it cannot be determined what will become of the children, that fact should not be held as an obstacle to freedom, if it be proved that freedom itself is right.”

“Relationship in the future will be based upon kindredness of spirit, rather than upon ties of blood; while family clanship, like all similar cliquisms, the remnants of barbarisms, will be forever banished from the earth.”

“They say I have come to break up the family. I say, Amen, to that with all my heart. I hope I may break up every family in the world that exists by virtue of sexual slavery.”

“Mrs. Loomis, of Battle Creek, wanted to read a poem on ‘progression.’ She did so, and at its close announced that copies could be had for 25 cents each. There was an immediate rush to get copies. The poem was rather blasphemous.”

“Mr. B. Todd, of Michigan, also was moved by the spirit. His address was devoted chiefly to proving that no law prevented the free use of his eyes, his hands, and his feet; that it was wrong altogether to impose any restrictions upon the use of his sexual organs.”

“Laura Cuppy Smith ascended the platform and delivered a thrilling address, in which she defied all the elements of society, religion, politics, &c.”

A delegate charged Mrs. Woodhull with resorting to prostitution to advance the cause she was advocating. To this, Mrs. Woodhull replied in terms which we do not wish to publish, that it was nobody’s business what she had done; and she was not ashamed of anything she had done.

At the meeting in Vineland, referred to by the Boston Globe, a Dr. Fairfield said:—

“The Jews needed a Moses to lead them out of Egyptian bondage; so we need a Victoria C. Woodhull to lead society from the bondage of the marriage relations.”

And the same speaker, professing to be “inspired” by the spirit of Lorenzo Dow, dismissed the meeting with the following “benediction”:—

“And now may the life and power, the wisdom, love, and mercy, of Victoria C. Woodhull save us from all our married curses, and bring us into individual and universal freedom, with love and good-will for all. Amen.”

These are not the utterances of a few ultra-fanatical Spiritualists, but they are the words which received the assent and the cheers of the whole body, with comparatively few exceptions. To prove this, Mrs. Woodhull contrasts the last with other meetings in Vineland. Formerly, the conservative element prevailed, and they, she says, “were numbered by fifties;” in this were hailed “with yells of delight the most extraordinarily radical speech ever uttered,” and its attendants were counted “by thousands.”

When Moses Hull renounced the faith of the gospel for Spiritualism, having had an intimate acquaintance with him, I wrote to him, calling his attention to the tendencies of that system of error, and expressed my fears for the result on himself, and the pity I felt for Elvira, his wife, because his temperament was such, his nature so impulsive and erratic, that he needed the restraints of Christianity to keep him from the paths of destruction. For this I received a letter from his wife which is best described by the term “waspish,” and Moses himself complained that no one had used him so ill, or spoken so insultingly to him as I had, in intimating that he would descend to such a depth of degradation. He shall speak for himself as to which of us best understood the tendency of Spiritualism; and his own words shall prove the necessity of the Christian faith to preserve the soul from the bondage of sin and corruption. He has recently published a letter in Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly, in which he avows not only the principles, but the practice, of “free-love.” His disavowal of “promiscuous” lewdness is of no consequence, for he is only yet “progressing,” and if he does not know the result of an utter disregard of the laws of marriage, it is another evidence of his blindness. Who shall define the limit of evil where no restraint nor duty is recognized, and where “desire,” of whatever nature, is regarded as the true “religion of the soul”?

A few sentences will give a fair idea of his position:—

“I lived years ‘in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity,’ especially the bond that said: ‘Forsaking all others I will cleave unto thee.’”

But he is now free from those bonds, and the reasons he urges in justification of his course are sickening and sometimes blasphemous. For what is it but blasphemy to denominate the depraved lusts of the flesh, “the law of God written in the heart?” See the following as an instance:—

“Several years have passed since the first choice between the law of God and the law of man, and I have never regretted the step, but have continued to repeat the offense against man-made institutions whenever God’s law in me commanded.”

Of his home relations, he says:—

“My wife, so far as I am concerned, has had the same privileges I had taken. Whether she used them or not is not for me to say.”

But his wife is not willing that he and the public should remain ignorant on this point. In a letter on the subject, dated Aug. 20, 1873, published in Woodhull & Claflin’s Weekly, she says:—

“I am a firm believer in the doctrine, and my friends who know me best will say that I will not preach what I dare not practice.”

We do no injustice to the parties in publishing these extracts. They have given them to the world over their own signatures. Nor do we take any pleasure in recording them. We deplore the fact that men are departing from the faith, “giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.” But it is a fact, and while the prophecy is so plainly being fulfilled it is our duty to note it.

Mr. Hull also does an act of justice which is worthy of notice. The Banner of Light, which said of Dr. Child’s book that it was “born of spiritualism,” and that “through sacrifice and sin it shows the open gate of Heaven for every human being,” now denounces Mr. Hull for avowing his practice. But it should be remembered that Dr. Child’s book said that “all sin is for spiritual good,” and that “no matter what the desire is, whether it be called good or bad, it is the natural God-given religion of the soul.” This the Banner commended, as also it did Mr. Hull’s work on “Love and Marriage,” which advocated the same ideas in theory. The Banner, without the least regard to consistency of statement or of fact, says of Mr. Hull’s avowal:—

“If such ideas are an integral part of the church to which he some time belonged, he had better go back to it again. Spiritualism has no affinity with such grossness.”

To which Mr. Hull replies:—

“Why does Luther make a dash at the church of which we were once a member? More than ten years since, we renounced that for Spiritualism, where we found just what we preach, write, and practice.”

In view of the general teachings of Spiritualist authors and speakers for several years past, and of the well-known practices of some of the most celebrated mediums and lecturers, their condemnation of Mr. Hull would seem beyond explanation. But he gives a reason, as follows:—

“The result was that every spiritual society with whom I had a contract, broke its engagement. In every instance where the reason was assigned, it was not my course of life, but its publication. I was very thankful to learn by bitter experience the expense of being honest. I have more than two score of letters on file now, indorsing my course, yet condemning its publication. Hundreds have said: ‘This is right for you, and it is right for me, but it is not right for the world.’ My crime was, not that I urged others to believe and practice as I did, but that I published my experience.”

That Mr. Hull does not misjudge the body of Spiritualists is fairly proved by the action of the Chicago Convention, which elected Mrs. Woodhull president, indorsing her full avowal of the same doctrine both in theory and practice. The last State Convention of Michigan indorsed Mrs. Woodhull and her doctrines; also a large convention in New Jersey before mentioned.

A few words of Scripture application must close our remarks. Mr. and Mrs. Hull, and numerous others quoted by him, rejoice in the stand they have taken, and assume all the resignation of veritable martyrs when they are blamed. They are the exact counterpart of those described by Paul, “whose glory is in their shame.” Phil. 3: 19.

Again, Mrs. Woodhull and her followers talk long and loud of the tyranny of the marriage tie, and they clamor for “freedom” and “social rights” with as much boldness as if right was on their side. They have no higher idea of freedom than that of following their own inclinations without legal or social restraint. They make no distinction between liberty and licentiousness. They are not only fitly characterized, but, we believe, directly referred to, by the apostle Peter in his letter which speaks so much of the last days and of the coming of Christ:—

“For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption.” 2 Pet. 2: 18, 19.

It is enough to make the stoutest heart tremble to think how the flood-gates of corruption are opened upon the earth. And the churches, boasting of their progress and their conquests, preaching that the world is becoming better and purer, substituting form for power, “eating and drinking with the drunken” in “socials” and “church festivals,” instead of hungering and thirsting after righteousness, are blind to “the signs of the times,” and fail to give any warning of Satan’s power and working. And they who “know these things and are established in the present truth” (2 Pet. 1: 12), too often “hold the truth in unrighteousness” by reason of their lukewarmness, and thus the whole world seems drifting to destruction. Oh! that believers in the final message could and would realize the world’s danger and their own responsibility, and “sound the alarm,” that the inhabitants of the land might tremble and be led to seek a full preparation “to stand before the Son of man.”

J. H. Waggoner.