p. 119 | Spiritualism as It Is: Testimony of Dr. Wm. B. Potter

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 29, 1874

Spiritualism as It Is: Testimony of Dr. Wm. B. Potter

By Joseph Harvey Waggoner

Spiritualism.—No. 9.

The testimony of Dr. Wm. B. Potter of New York, is of unusual weight and importance, as he not only gives the result of fifteen years of experience and observation, but he gives it as a friend to, and advocate of, spiritualism. He did not give these facts because he had renounced spiritualism, for he had not; but he gave them in the hope that spiritualists might be induced to reform. In an article headed, “Astounding Facts,” and in a tract entitled, “Spiritualism as it Is,” he gave lengthy accounts of what had fallen under his observation. The following are only brief extracts, but they are sufficient to show that spiritualism is indeed the most monstrous of all abominations:—

“Fifteen years of critical study of spiritual literature, an extensive acquaintance with the leading spiritualists, and a patient, systematic, and thorough investigation of the manifestations, for many years, enable us to speak from actual knowledge, definitely and positively, of ‘spiritualism as it is.’ Spiritual literature is full of the most insidious and seductive doctrines, calculated to undermine the very foundations of morality and virtue, and lead to the most unbridled licentiousness.

“We are told that ‘we must have charity,’ that it is wrong to blame any one, that we must not expose iniquity, as ‘it will harden the guilty,’ that ‘none should be punished,’ that ‘man is a machine and not to blame for his conduct,’ that ‘there is no high, no low, no good, no bad,’ that sin is a lesser degree of righteousness, that ‘nothing we can do can injure the soul or retard its progress,’ that ‘those who act the worst will progress the fastest,’ that ‘lying is right, slavery is right, murder is right, adultery is right,’ that whatever is, is right. . .

“Hardly can you find a spiritualist book, paper, lecture, or communication, that does not contain some of these pernicious doctrines, in disguise, if not openly. Hundreds of families have been broken up, and many affectionate wives deserted by ‘affinity-seeking’ husbands. Many once devoted wives have been seduced, and left their husbands and tender, helpless children, to follow some ‘higher attraction.’ Many well-disposed but simple-minded girls have been deluded by ‘affinity’ notions, and led off by ‘affinity-hunters,’ to be deserted in a few months, with blasted reputations, or led to deeds still more dark and criminal to hide their shame.”

In the early days of spiritualism no one of its adherents and mediums was better known than “Rev. T. L. Harris.” He was the author of several books, and the editor of one paper, if not more. As early as 1860 he renounced it on account of its immoral tendency and lewdness. The following extracts from a speech which he made in London are quoted from the London Advertiser as copied in the N. Y. Tribune:—

“We went to the place from a sense of duty, expecting, as did all the 300 or 400 spiritualists who were present, that we should hear the most masterly vindication of spiritualism that could be given; and hoping that having once heard its ablest defense, we should be the more fitted, as opportunity offered, to expose with greater success the iniquities, the dangers, and the disastrous results, morally, socially, and physically, of this latest and most insidious form of pantheism.

“Mr. Harris held up to the eyes of his audience the system of spiritualism as the most hideous and horrible thing which had ever come from the nether world. He said that he himself was a living proof of the danger, mentally and physically, of cultivating the so-called science of spiritualism. He mentioned that only a few years ago, it had taken so absorbing a possession of his mind, and had obtained so complete a mastery over him, that it gave rigidity to the muscles of his frame, and a terrible unearthly expression to his countenance. He added that he had seen and known many others—excellent and amiable persons before they became spiritualists—from whom the power which the demonical system had acquired over them had taken away their appetites, had unfitted them for the ordinary duties of life, crushed all their energies, mental and physical, deprived them of sleep at night, and caused their bodies to waste away, as if the victims of some fell disease which set all medical skill at defiance. Others he had known and seen, whose arms and legs had become as cold and rigid as those of a marble statue, while the expressions of their countenances were so horrible as more to resemble those of demons than of human beings. The spiritualists of America, he further stated, are not only as a body pantheists, rejecting alike the idea of the Scriptures as a divine revelation, and of the existence of a God, but they are gross sensualists, and utterly immoral in their conduct in all the relations of life.

“Mr. Harris added that this was not only true of the transatlantic spiritualists as a body, but that it was true of every 999 out of 1000 of their number. Thousands of persons had died in America during the fifteen years that he had been a spiritualist, who had notoriously lived most immoral lives, and yet the spirits of every one of these persons affirmed that they were all perfectly happy. The spiritualist literature of America, Mr. Harris also stated, was, with one or two exceptions in a thousand cases, pantheistic, feeble, driveling, nay, almost idiotic. The spiritualists were utterly selfish, as well as sensual and grossly immoral. They were destitute of all human sympathies, and never were known to perform a single benevolent action. They fully believed that, in a future state, they would live the same licentious lives as they had done on earth. The American spiritualists were in reality a body of pagans, worshiping, like the ancient pagans, obscene, and in every respect grossly licentious deities. And as regards the spirits with whom they held communion, they resembled the sorcerers and demons who took possession of men and women in the days of Christ, and are so frequently referred to in God’s word—that word which is the only sure foundation of our faith, and the only safe rule of our conduct.

“There were a few Christian men who had been deluded into the adoption of the system, but only in a modified degree, and so long as their spiritualism was kept in subjection by their Christianity, the observations he had made did not apply to them. But these exceptions were so few as to be hardly worthy of notice. He begged to impress on the minds of his audience that all that he had said of the system of spiritualism, which he characterized as an infernal system, was the result of his own personal knowledge and experience. He mentioned some individual cases, of which he was an eye-witness, in which the demon of spiritualism had obtained so entire a mastery over its victims as to throw them down on platforms and other public places, just as the evil spirits did of which we read in the New Testament.

“The marriage vow imposes no obligations in the view of spiritualists. Husbands who had for years been so devotedly attached to their wives that they have said nothing in the world but death itself could part them, have abandoned their wives and formed criminal connections with other females because the spirits had told them that there was a greater spiritualist affinity between these husbands and certain other women than between them and their lawful wives. Wives, too, the most devoted, and loving, and true to their husbands that had ever contracted the marriage obligation, had left their husbands and children, and lived in open immorality with other men, because the spirits had told them that they ought to do so, on the ground of there being a greater spiritualist sympathy between them and these men than between them and their husbands.”

This is a description of spiritualism as it was known to its friends and mediums over fourteen years ago. And the exposures of Dr. Hatch and Mr. Whitney were written before this. The teachings and practices of Mrs. Woodhull and others present no new phase of spiritualism. Such has been its character from the beginning. Dr. Potter wrote at a later date, and as he was still an adhering spiritualist, and said he admitted the facts against his inclinations, we may be assured that he did not overdraw the scene. We give the following additional testimony from him:—

“So strong has been the free-love tendency, and so numerous and influential, media, speakers, and spiritualists, of free-love proclivities and practice, that we do not know of a single spiritualist paper that has paid expenses, that has not had their assistance and promulgated their doctrines.”

“One of the oldest if not the most influential papers has several noted free-lovers and libertines as special and honored correspondents.”

“Parting husbands and wives is one of the notorious tendencies of spiritualism. The oldest and most influential teacher of spiritualism has had two wives, each of whom he encouraged to get divorced before he married them. When one of the most eloquent trance speakers left her husband, he came out and stated that he knew sixty cases of media leaving companions. We heard one of the most popular impressional speakers say, to a large audience, that she was compelled by spirits to secede from a husband with whom she was living very happily. We lately heard a very intellectual, eloquent, and popular normal speaker say, in an eloquent address to a large convention of spiritualists, that ‘he would to God that it had parted twenty where it had parted one.’ In short, wherever we go, we find this tendency in spiritualism.”—Spiritualism as it Is, pp. 10, 11.

“After years of careful investigation, we are compelled, much against our inclinations, to admit that more than one-half of our traveling media, speakers, and prominent spiritualists, are guilty of immoral and licentious practices that have justly provoked the abhorrence of all right-thinking people.”—Id. p. 20.

At a convention in Ravenna, Ohio, in 1858, a Mrs. Lewis of Cleveland said:—

“To confine her to love one man was an abridgment of her rights. Although she had one husband in Cleveland, she considered herself married to the whole human race. All men were her husbands, and she had an undying love for them. What business is it to the world whether one man is the father of my children, or ten men are? I have a right to say who shall be the father of my offspring.”

And in the same year at a convention in Rutland, Vt., a Mrs. Branch of New York said:—

“I am aware that I have chosen almost a forbidden subject; forbidden from the fact that any one who can or dare look the marriage question in the face, candidly and openly denouncing the institution as the sole cause of woman’s degradation and misery, are objects of suspicion, of scorn, and opprobrious epithets.

“The slavery and degradation of woman proceeds from the institution of marriage; by the marriage contract, she loses the control of her name, her person, her property, her labor, her affection, her children, her freedom. Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Rose, and others, go back to the mother’s influence. I go back further, and say that it is the marriage institution that is at fault; it is the binding marriage ceremony which keeps woman degraded in mental blight—negro slavery. She must demand her freedom; her right to receive the equal wages of man in payment for her labor; her right to have children when she will and by whom.”

This was copied from the report of the proceedings of that convention, as it was given in the Banner of Light, without a word of dissent from that paper. And that it was not a stray thought in the convention is shown by the following resolution which was presented and warmly defended:—

Resolved, That the only true and natural marriage is an exclusive conjugal love between one man and one woman; and the only true home is the isolated home based on this love.”

People have thought that love led to marriage, but according to the above, love is marriage; so whenever they love they are married—naturally married! and of course when they cease to love, this relation ceases; they are no longer married—naturally divorced. And of course this may be repeated as often as love finds a new “attraction.” And this view was openly avowed by a spiritualist paper which said that no law was needed for either marriage or divorce, as they depended entirely on the will of the parties.

Some years ago Moses Hull published a pamphlet entitled, “Love and Marriage,” from which the following is extracted:—

“Now, with no other ken than that of human sagacity, we look not a score of years into the future, and see a rebellion, a war before which the commotion through which our nation has just passed sinks into insignificance. Not a war of flesh and blood. No; blood is not pure and precious enough to purchase the results of the coming war; an element as much purer than blood as spirit is finer than matter, will be the price with which redemption from marital slavery will be bought. Think not, dear reader, that we are overdrawing the picture—it cannot be done. Whoever sees the opening of the twentieth century will say that the picture was not half drawn. It is said that ‘conceit is as good for a fool as an emetic.’ So it is for any one. Whether there are wrongs in the marriage relation or not, people are very generally getting the idea that it is so. The idea is proving contagious, and when the American mind gets started, who can tell where it will stop? Nothing short of a revolution—of anarchy—of an opposite extreme, even to the total annulling of the marital tie, will be the result. . . .

“When we look at the commotion ahead merely as a revolution, we pray, ‘O God, stay the elements;’ but when we look at it as being the work of disintegration, the preparatory work for the soul-union, the true marriage that shall follow, we say, ‘Let the battle rage, and if necessary put us in the front.’”

The Banner of Light recommended this as “a very worthy pamphlet,” and now that the battle is raging, and Mr. Hull is in the front, we cannot see the reason of its complaining, as it has given its influence to bring on the conflict.

Now in the face of all these facts, and of the well-known tendencies of spiritualism to lead its deluded followers from the Bible and from every principle of morality, we should be astonished, did we not know spiritualists and spiritualism so well, to find a paper among them recommending a free-lover to go back to the church, and affirming that spiritualism had no affinity for such grossness. Spiritualism is the only system in existence among civilized people which publicly and privately indorses and upholds such grossness. Did any church in the land ever publicly resolve that it would not hear charges against its members? or teach that men and women are not to be praised or blamed for their conduct? Was the instance ever known of such immoralities being advocated without rebuke in any assembly of Christians?

But enough. Religion is low in the land, we admit. The churches do not exemplify the spirit of the gospel as they should. But it is cause for thanksgiving that there is yet enough of the leaven of Bible truth in them to preserve them from the depths of error and iniquity into which spiritualism leads its votaries with unerring certainty.

In his later writings, Mr. Hull says that he knows that such practices are common among spiritualists, including lecturers and mediums. He also says that he has received many letters from influential spiritualists who blame him, not for his life, but for the publication of his experience, and who say they think the time has not yet come for them to take the stand he has taken. Everybody knows that there is nothing in spiritualism or in its literature to discountenance such a course. If they believe in the doctrines which they send out to the world, their refusal to indorse Mr. Hull’s course must be dictated by policy, not by principle. J. H. WAGGONER.