Spiritualism a Satanic Delusion.
A LONDON paper says that according to prophecy there is soon to be a "perfect avalanche of spirit manifestations, one of the most astonishing interventions, or influxes, the world has ever known." Mr. J. M. Peebles, in an address at Minstrel Hall, San Francisco, describes his three days' experience with the Eddy Brothers in Vermont. He said that "eight spirits materialized and walked the stage." One of the spirits was weighed on a Fairbanks' scale. "The first time she tipped the beam at eighty-eight pounds, and the second at sixty-five pounds, proving that she can change her material weight at will. The spirits affirmed that within a year or two they would be able to appear as public lecturers, and after the delivery of an oration to vanish from the stage in full view of the audience." Madame Blavatsky, a Russian lady of high rank, witnessed the materializations at the Eddy performances, and in "fourteen nights saw one hundred and nineteen spirit forms, recognized seven of them, and talked with them in Georgian, Persian, Russian, Tartar, German, English, etc." Mr. B. L. Ford., of Denver, Colorado, reports in the R. P. Journal the new phenomena witnessed at his hotel. He says:— "A face appeared. I advanced toward it, and asked for the name, which was given as Gen. Bledsoe. I asked whom he wanted. He replied 'Bill Bright,' a gentleman who was present at the time. Mr. Bright recognized Mr. Bledsoe, and they had a pleasant conversation for ten minutes. The recognition was mutual and positive. "Following this, nine spirit faces were materialized and seen by all of the persons present. My father came, and I did not recognize him; he gave his name verbally and correct. I asked if it was my father. He replied 'Yes.' I then asked if my mother was present. 'Yes,' and then the curtain parted and I saw her face, talked with her, and knew her as certainly as ever I had in life. She held her face near me and caressed me. She died in Greenville, South Carolina, in July, 1870, at 87 years of age, which is a matter of record in our own family Bible. Mr. Mott gave seven seances here, at which I saw fifty-five spirit faces. . . . . We had a glorious time, and a heavenly pentecost. Fathers met their sons, husbands their wives, grandmothers their grandchildren, and knew them as they were known. The grandchildren wept as though their relations had just died. One of our associate Judges met his mother twice, and knew her. They held a long conversation. He told the circle, 'This is certainly my mother,' and then bid her good-bye very much affected." Mr. J. J. B., of Ohio, is converted to Spiritualism by seeing the materialized form of his wife's father. "From this phenomenon, we learn that some unseen intelligence was present to collect material and develop the life-like form of the father, as he appeared a short time before his death. That it was his spirit, is very likely, if not altogether certain, from the fact that it succeeded so well in developing a fac simile of his person. If it was his spirit, we learn that he was still living in spirit-life, some thirty-eight years after the death of his physical body, and that he came and stood before his daughter and showed himself to her husband, who had never seen his earth-life form before. This wonderful phenomenon has removed all suspicion from my mind with regard to future life. It has settled the question with me that man is positively a spiritual being, destined to live beyond the death of his physical body. If one who left the physical form some thirty-eight years since still lives, why not all? If one can return and materialize so as to be seen, why not others, conditions being equal?" Robert Dale Owen spoke of the new manifestations as follows:— "All my former experience in Spiritualism, favored as I have been, pales before the new manifestations witnessed by me in the course of last month. After the strictest scrutiny, with every facility promptly afforded me by the mediums to detect imposition had it been attempted, I here avow my conviction that the phenomena are genuine; that I have again and again, on more than twenty occasions, seen, heard, touched, forms to appearance human and material, and to sense tangible." MODERN SPIRITUALISM IDENTICAL WITH ANCIENT HEATHENISM.
Floating in the air.—At the house of Dr. Gray, New York City, "Mr. Henry C. Gordon, a medium, was taken up bodily, and conveyed about the room, without any visible power to support him. . . . He would float about the room in the air for several minutes."—Three-fold Test, p. 64. Iamblichus, on ancient mysteries, says:—
"The inspiration is indicated by the motions of the whole body, and of certain parts of it. . . . the body likewise is seen to be elevated, or increased in bulk, or to be borne along sublimely in the air."—Iam. Dem. Myst. Speaking Mediums.—"He (the spirit) sometimes makes some stupid man to speak wisely, etc."—Idem. Divine for Money.—"At Corinth, a certain Chaldean stranger is just now disturbing the whole city with his wonderful replies to questions asked him, and is disclosing the secrets of the Fates to the public for payment."—Apuleius, Met., lib. 2. Mediums mostly Females.—"Those who are precedaneously inspired by the mother of the gods, are women; but the males that are thus inspired are very few in number, and such as are more effeminate."—Iam. Dem. Myst. Fire Test.—"Their energies likewise, are not at all human; for inaccessible places become accessible to those that are divinely inspired. They are thrown into fire, and over rivers, like the priests in Castabalis, without being injured!"—Idem. The Planchette.—They also had in those days a spirit machine (as described by the same authors) which had a circular plate, on which was "skillfully engraved the twenty-four letters of the alphabet:" the pointer, "falling at regular intervals upon single letters, composed heroic verses conformable to the questions asked," etc. This reminds us of the modern "Spiritoscope" invented by Dr. Hare, and the "Planchette." Thus we see that modern Spiritualism is only a revival of the spirit wonders of ancient heathenism, and that the demons are at their old tricks, for their own amusement in deceiving men, and exciting them to behold, wonder, adore, and perish. Similarity of appearance.—A Platonic philosopher and disciple of Porphyre, of the third century, in his Book of Mysteries gives the following description of spirit mediums as they appeared among the Egyptians, Assyrians, and Chaldeans:— "Some are agitated throughout the whole body; others in some of their members; others, again, are entirely quiet. Sometimes there are pleasing harmonies, dances, and according voices, and sometimes the reverse. Again the body either appears taller, or larger, or is borne aloft through the air, or is affected by the opposite of these. . . . The true cause is no other than illumination emanating from the very gods themselves, and spirits coming forth from them, and an obsession by which they hold us fully and absolutely, absorbing all our faculties even, and exterminating all human motions and operations, even to consciousness itself." 1. They reject the Bible as unworthy of confidence, because they say it is contradictory, and then blindly cling to a system composed of absurdities and contradictions which are beyond all description! 2. They declare the God of the Bible to be unjust, because in his general judgments he destroyed infants, etc. But they exalt the God of nature manifested in various sublimities, "tiny flowers," etc.; forgetting that their god, nature, in the fury of tornadoes, earthquakes, pestilences, and famines, has swept off hundreds of millions of innocent mothers and infants! 3. They teach that "whatever is, is right," and yet condemn in the most unsparing terms those who expose their deceptions! Let not Spiritualists think they have grounds to complain of unfairness, for our quotations are from many of their best writers and speakers. Many of the utterances were published in their leading papers without protest. They are not the hasty utterances of excited speakers in the heat of debate, but they were coolly written out and published by their own men; We do not rely upon testimony of their enemies, but, "out of their own mouths, they are condemned." "Their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges." Deut. 32:31. Spiritualists are very ready to refer to the fall of any one who was professedly a Christian, as a palliation. But there is no parallel in the case. Spiritualists of note openly advocate and practice abominable things, and are fellowshiped by the body, and are known from year to year as leading writers and speakers. They teach immoralities openly and boldly, with so few exceptions that it must be regarded as general! 4. They ridicule the idea of the Creator raising up again the same particles composing human bodies, after they have been dissolved and scattered, and yet they teach that the soul of man is composed of particles like condensed steam, and that it resurrects itself! A. J. Davis says:—
"How can one (spirit) extricate itself from the depths of an avalanche where it has been buried? how shall it escape from the mountain of earth and stones? To this question I am impressed to answer that when a human being is overwhelmed by such a catastrophe—is thus fearfully buried, thus crushed to death, as it is termed—the spirit escapes the body and the mass of materials, according to the law of gravitation, to a position above the earth, where the re-organization of the elements can, without obstruction, easily take place."—Philosophy of Spiritual Intercourse, pp. 128, 129. Mr. Davis saw (as a clairvoyant seer) the spirit of a man buried in a well resurrect itself in three hours' time. He says:— "Particle sought particle, atom sought atom, element sought element, principle sought principle, etc. . . . In due order of progression, I saw developed the perfect development of the head, body, limbs, etc."—Id. p. 131. He describes it as rising up in appearance like "smoke or steam," having evaporated up through twenty feet of earth, a thin, gaseous, steam-like cloud, and then, by a quivering process, it resurrects itself! O blind Credulity!! to what ridiculous shifts art thou driven when opposed to the right way! 5. They warn us against the Bible as if it was fatal to our eternal interest to follow it, and yet admit that we shall all share the progressive spheres after death! If Spiritualism is true, we are just as well off as they at last; but if the Bible view is true, they are lost. They being judges, we have a double assurance. If there be a doubt (which we do not admit), we are on the safe side of that doubt. Let every Bible believer hold on to the sure foundation.