THE UNCLEAN SPIRITS by D. T. Taylor

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 28, 1877

THE UNCLEAN SPIRITS.

By D. T. Taylor

Going Forth to the Kings of the Earth and Causing Madness.

The following statements seemingly well authenticated are very alarming, as exhibiting the wide prevalence of demonolatry, and the increase of insanity thereby:—

The London correspondent of the New York Times (Feb. 3) writes: “Slade slipped away for Russia. It is said that the Czar’s chamberlain and Dr. Slade are spiritualistic friends, and although this is asserted as ‘chaff,’ there may be more truth in it than scoffers imagine; for the late Emperor of all the Russias received Mr. D. D. Home at his court with great marks of friendship, made him presents, and actually became godfather to his child. Spiritualism is fashionable at more than one of our European courts, though the pope had Mr. Home expelled from the ‘Eternal City.’ . . . Mr. Slade is now supported by what is called the ‘British National Association of Spiritualists.’”

Again, William Howitt says, “It would startle some people to discover in how many royal palaces in Europe spiritualism is firmly seated, and with what vigor it is diffusing itself through all ranks and professions of men, who do not care to make much noise about it—men and women of literary, religious, and scientific fame.”—Boston Journal, March 15.

A cultured physician of England, Dr. Forbes Winslow, has recently said that the asylums of our country contain ten thousand persons who have been made insane by spiritualism. This is doubted by many; but the following evidence from so eminent authority as the New York Medical Review (written previous to Dr. Winslow’s utterance) seems to well-nigh confirm the awful figures of the English doctor. It says, “Of all mental ailments none seems to yield to treatment so reluctantly as spiritualism. I have watched many cases of genuine spiritualism, but do not remember to have seen a chronic case permanently cured. I have seen typical cases pass regularly through their successive stages and terminate in open insanity, and have never been able to mitigate the symptoms nor avert the result. Spiritualism is the most uncompromising complaint with which the physiologist is called to meet. No epidemic of modern times can compare with it. It is a delusion which has existed twenty-five years, and attacked in the United States alone nearly three millions of people. The last census informs us that there are in this republic twenty-four thousand insane, and it is believed that out of this number seven thousand five hundred cases may be traced directly to spiritualism.”—Medical Review, April, 1874.

These proofs of the havoc this Satanic system is making are borne out by the previous statement of Professor Grimes, who in public lectures in 1853, when the delusion was but six years old, asserted that seventeen suicides and five hundred and seventy-one lunatics were already the legitimate fruits of spiritualism. I pronounce the facts and figures herein stated to be most startling and alarming to an evil world. But with Wesley we sing:—

“Whatever ills the world befall, A pledge of endless good we call, A sign of Jesus near!”

—D. T. Taylor.