p. 7 | Modern Necromancy by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Feb 19, 1914

Modern Necromancy

By F. M. W.

NECROMANCY is defined by Webster to be “pretended communication with the dead.” It was a familiar practice among the nations of the ancient world, and had a standing even in the courts of kings, where its exponents and teachers were revered and honored as the wise men of earth. See Dan. 2:2.

It led to ancestor worship, hero worship, and to the deification of the dead. Later when the church of Christ had departed from its simplicity, and become corrupted by the false doctrines and practices of the heathen, necromancy found many devotees among professed Christians.

During the last century there has been a revival of this ancient belief. Under the names of spiritism, occultism, psychical research, etc., it has made rapid advancement.

A recent number of the Chronicle contains an interesting article on this subject, describing some of the experiments of a “psychical expert,” Mr. Rampert, and giving his estimate of the influence exerted and the fruit borne by this system of error. Mr. Rampert formerly was an English clergyman. He early began investigations into spirit phenomena. He was a close student of the experiments conducted by Sir William Crookes, the late Professor Lombroso, the late Professor James of Harvard, and other leading authorities. “There is no man in this country,” declares the Chronicle, “who is more steeped in the whole practice and philosophy of Spiritualism.” He is therefore competent to speak of the manifestations of modern necromancy. We are indebted to the New York Times of February 1 for his statements as published in the London paper.

Of the widespread influence of this evil system, Mr. Rampert declares:—

Apart from that encouragement [the recent utterances of Sir Oliver Lodge] there has been during recent years an immense amount of spiritualistic proselytizing under the guise of higher thought, theosophy, and other forms of belief which endeavor to establish communication with the spirit world.

All classes of society have been induced to dabble with these mysteries. Among the intellectuals there are thousands of men and women who, after abandoning Christianity, have, in the search for some kind of spiritual life, which is an essential craving of the human heart, plunged into the dark labyrinths of occult science with little knowledge and less discretion. Society women and shopgirls, scientists and city clerks, clergymen in large numbers, and young men with a smattering of self-taught culture are indulging in séances, crystal gazing, table turning, automatic writing, and the invocation of spirits by one means and another, to an extent which is incredible to those who, so far, have not come within this sphere of influence.

Of Mr. Rampert’s own experience the Times says:—

Mr. Rampert was present at many séances, where all the usual “phenomena” occurred—such as musical instruments played without visible agency, materialization of forms and faces, recognized by those present as in the likeness of dead friends or relatives, and flowers or fruits brought into the rooms in spite of locked doors. On one occasion a lot of lilies were deposited in a room which had been thoroughly searched and locked against all intruders,

and the spirits asserted through the medium that they had been plucked from a neighboring greenhouse. The party instantly searched, and saw, truly enough, where the flowers had been broken off their stems.

This writer offers the following interesting explanation of spirit materialization:—

In New York Mr. Rampert himself was photographed, and upon the plate being developed he saw his portrait surrounded by vague faces which he recognized as belonging to people, living and dead, with whom he had been closely related. But one curious fact struck him. Among the faces was one in the likeness of a woman whom he had known many years before at Beckenham. But it was a portrait of her in her young womanhood, as he had then seen her, and not changed by the time that had passed. It was obvious that in some mysterious way the plate had produced the images not of the actual faces, but only as they were remembered in the subconsciousness of Mr. Rampert himself.

It was this, among scores of other experiences, which led Mr. Rampert to believe that the spirits of the dead are not actually materialized, but that the spirits of evil draw upon the subconsciousness or subliminal self of those who call upon them, and use the knowledge so gained to imitate the personality of the departed. Spiritualists, he says, have utterly failed to prove identity. The spirits are able to give some facts relating to a deceased person with whom they claim identity. But these are generally of a superficial and trivial character, and are apparently gathered from the minds of the experimenters themselves.

As a result of his investigations this authority on Spiritualism has become thoroughly convinced that the influence of the system is evil, and only evil. While admitting its extraordinary phenomena, “Mr. Rampert denounces the practice of Spiritualism as belonging essentially to the ‘black art.’”

Throughout the whole of his experience, he says, he obtained proofs that the character of these spirits is immoral and of blighting influence upon their victims.

Although for a time they dictate high moral principles to those who indulge in automatic writing, they invariably degenerate into sinister, blasphemous, or obscene suggestions. They throw out hints that morality is a matter of conventionality, that certain instincts are implanted in us in order to be gratified. They suggest to women who have lost their husbands that these men will become materialized in other forms, and that they may indulge in free love with certain individuals without sin. Mr. Rampert asserts that he has known many women ruined utterly in body and soul by these debasing immoralities urged upon them when their will power has been destroyed by opening the doors of their mind to evil suggestion.

Concrete examples of this demoralizing influence are cited:—

In one case the wife of an eminent professor in New York was obsessed by the habit of automatic writing, and wandered forth into the streets in her nightgown to seek the man who, she was told, was her true affinity.

Another case investigated by Mr. Rampert is described in the victim’s own words. Having got in touch with a spirit which impersonated a dead friend, “I asked for tests of identity. But all were false; nothing but lies were told.” For a time the spirit tried to avoid giving definite proofs of identity by cajolery and vague explanations. “Then I said, ‘I am tired of humbug and of being deceived. I am not a fool. You are not R—. You don’t love me; you always seek to lead me wrong. . . . You are a devil.’ The pencil was gripped in my hand with superhuman force, and I could not unloose my hand. It wrote the most vile language and the most terrible curses. It was just a thunderstorm of hatred and obscenity.”

Of the harvest which many of the devotees of Spiritualism are reaping and of the terrible danger to the human family which its extension affords, it is declared:—

Mr. Rampert says the end of these experiments is in hundreds of cases the sanatorium or the asylum. Yet, in spite of the frightful danger to the nation, there is no attempt to check the propaganda of Spiritualists, who, even though they may be inspired by high motives or by scientific ideals, are inducing men and women to adopt a passivity of mind which opens the mystical doors of the soul to the evil spirits who prey upon weak-willed men and women, sapping their ethical and physical health, and driving them into vice and lunacy and moral death.

Fittingly do the Scriptures of Truth represent this work of evil spirits as one of the great, overmastering delusions of the last days. By the working of miracles it will seek to enforce its claims. It will go out to the kings of the earth, stirring them up to battle and conflict. Read Rev. 13: 14; 16: 13, 14.

That it is doing this evil work even men of the world recognize. Let us pray that from among its followers may be found many who will recognize its evil source, and before it is too late turn from its subtle, hypnotic power. And let us who recognize by the revelations of the prophetic word its evil character and the leading part it is to play in the final controversy between truth and error sound abroad the warning, seeking to recover those who have been taken captive by its snares, and saving others from coming under the power of its deadly destroying influence. F. M. W.