Modern Spiritualism by Editor

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Nov 20, 1879

Modern Spiritualism.

By Editor

THEY OPPOSE MARRIAGE.

(Continued.)

At the National Convention of Spiritualists in Chicago about three years since, almost the only subject of discussion was that of free love and freedom from the restraints of marriage. The following extracts from the report of that convention, given in the Chicago Times, give a good idea of the spirit of the meeting:—

"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."

"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 cliqueisms, the remnants of barbarism, 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. Tod, 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, etc."

A delegate charged Mrs. Woodhull with resorting to prostitution to advance the cause she was advocating. To this she 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.

This convention was largely attended from all parts of the country, and did not lack in intelligence. But Mrs. Woodhull was the leading spirit; the platform adopted fully indorsed her position, and she was elected president of the National Association of Spiritualists. Soon after that, the State Convention of Michigan also indorsed her.

The following we take from the Boston Daily Globe, being extracts from a report of a meeting in Vineland, N. J.:—

"Free love, atheism, ignorance, and presumption were the most noticeable features of the addresses then and there delivered. 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 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.'"

"These reformers, who defy God and society, assume the tone of philanthropists, and pretend to work for the good of their species; but, after all, they simply attempt to defend their own vicious practices by advocating a general indulgence to them. . . . 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 thraldom 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 no wise 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 evident 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."

At this meeting 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 "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 was hailed "with yells of delight the most extraordinary radical speech ever uttered," and its attendants were counted "by thousands."

Moses Hull, in a letter in Woodhull and Claflin's Weekly, avowed that he was practicing what so many were avowing in theory. A few sentences will give an idea of the whole:—

"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 informed me commanded."

Of his home relations, he said:—

"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."

His wife, in the same paper of date Aug. 20, 1873, avowed the same position; and she said:—

"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."

The Banner of Light, seeming to forget its indorsement of Dr. Child's book, denounced Mr. Hull for avowing his practice. It said:—

"If such ideas are an integral part of the church to which he some time since 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 for several years past, and of the well-known practices of some of the most celebrated mediums and lecturers, the condemnation of Mr. Hull would seem beyond explanation. But he gives a reason, as follows:—

"The result was the 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 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."

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, 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.

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, again, 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."

Marriage and the marriage institution are much abused; this all must regret. If the Spiritualists were aiming to correct these abuses of a beneficent institution we should heartily second their efforts. But they are not; they are seeking to destroy the institution itself, because it is abused; and this they call reform! as reasonable, and no more so, as to abolish the laws against theft because some men steal! Why, the fact that men show a disposition to abuse the institution and to commit adultery, is sufficient reason why there should be laws to restrain them, and thus protect society from their outrages. And this necessity for laws on this subject not only exists, but it is increasing by the increasing restlessness and lawlessness of the vicious, who are incited on to this "rebellion" and "anarchy" by just such teachings as we quote from Moses Hull, Warren Chase, and others. They are lighting the torch which must "result in a conflagration." They are opening the flood-gates of iniquity; and when we think what lies before us; of our Saviour's prophecy that the last days will be as the day when Lot went out of Sodom; of the youth and children growing up surrounded by such influences, we can but earnestly cry, "Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly."

EDITOR.