SPIRITUALISM:
Its Origin and Character.
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WE cannot wisely pronounce that trivial which we have not yet
thoroughly comprehended. Today, amid all
the perplexities, the passions, the prayers, the creeds and the counter-creeds,
the conflicting cries which confuse the judgment of the most far-sighted, a
body of opinion has arisen - a body of opinion quite foreign to the thought of
its time, invoking, as it does, the aid of the supernatural; grotesque,
ill-defined, and super-facially trivial, yet silent and very effectual in its
working; either an infinite fraud, or a sign of unsurpassed significance. For its conspicuous tenet is no less than a
claim to be able to communicate with the dead.
It is a revival, backed by alleged experiment, of very ancient and
practically universal opinion and practice.
If the claim be well founded, a revolution must follow in modern
thought. If there be revealed a deep and
significant underlying relation, of a spiritual nature, between groups of similar
phenomena that have appeared in every period of history, it is clear that the
whole current of contemporary opinion must be not so much diverted as suddenly
arrested and forced into a widely different bed. The elaborate theses written to prove the growth
of religions as ethical systems of various completeness out of the needs and
terrors of man, with no more reality in their dreams than a disordered
imagination could supply, or a critical science pronounce mythopoeic,-
must become little else than a waste of speculation.
For it would be seen that whatever might have been the purpose
in their working, or whatever the effect upon the untrained fancy of primal
clans, supernatural powers set in motion, and winged with astonishing speed,
the vast religious systems that have moved men like a convulsion. [Page 4] It would be seen why the belief of all ages recurred obstinately to the
supernatural. Once more our ears would
catch the reverberations of deep meaning in the ancient title, the gods of the
nations (Ps. 96:
5), and all anxious thought, all passionate
inquiry, would centre once again in the greatest of human researches, directed
to the finding of Him the Omnipotent, the only God.
TESTIMONY THE BASIS OF THE SUPERNATURAL
But, it may be said, the notion of the supernatural is but a
dream whereby men cheat themselves into a belief in immortality. It may be,
some one will say; but I cannot conceive the idea of
spirit; I cannot define it. Nor,
friend, can I - wholly. You believe in
the activity of life, thought, force - kindly define
them. What can you rip out of the heart
of these, so to speak? Nothing. You can
show, partially, how they act; but you cannot prove what they are. They are as hands moving over the key-board
of life, but you cannot see the organist beyond. One hypothesis props up all astronomy; that the particles of the stars in the milky way give
infinitesimal pulls to the particles on our earth. You call this Attraction, and spell it with a
capital letter, for erudite appearance: do you destroy, or merely hide, your
ignorance by the term? You say natural
phenomena inductively prove Attraction: so with the spiritual. You can define a spirit, as you can define
Attraction, only by the phenomena that are the results of its working. You find intelligence in the spiritual
phenomena; then the cause of them cannot be less than intelligent. This intelligence you find to be like your
own in kind. But you know of no such
intelligence which is separate from self-consciousness, and no
self-consciousness which is separate from personality. Your spirit, then, is a person; and you find
that, though you cannot satisfactorily define spirit, you can conceive the idea of
it. When this has been conceded, the
question becomes, not whether a spirit can exist; but whether it does
exist; which can be proved, not by abstract reasoning, but by appeal to fact
and testimony of fact. Metaphysics will not show you that Caesar
made
THE EVIDENCES OF
SPIRITUALISM
Around the phenomena alleged in modern times has grown up a
religion. Spiritualists1 are of all classes, all ranks; no land is devoid of them; numerous
magazines in various languages embody their somewhat varying opinions; and it
is certain that their numbers are considerable.2
Spiritualism is a force to be reckoned with; [Page 6] none the less so, because it works underground, and, owing to its present
unpopularity, is often nursed in secret.
It is a religion that is an outgrowth of the alleged phenomena. Thus inquiry must concern itself with two
things: the alleged facts, and the superstructure which has been built upon
them as a temple. Both may be false; or
one only; or neither. Now the literature
in which the facts are embedded is a large and remarkable one. To excerpt its most striking features would
be to fill many pages. Some of the best
evidence (in English) - elaborate, cautious, and ample when taken together - is
to be found in the works of Professor de Morgan;1 the London Dialectical Society;3 Mr. R. D. Owen;4 Professor Zo1lner;5 Sir A. R. Wallace, F. R. S.;6 Sir W. Crookes,
F. R. S.;7 Judge Edmonds;8 Mr. F. W. H. Myers;9 Professor W. F. Barrett, F.R.S.;10 Sir Oliver Lodge, F.R.S.;11 and Sir A. Conan
Doyle.12 Almost without exception, this body
of evidence is put forward by men of intelligence, integrity, courage, and
sound sense, who began as firm sceptics, and fully aware that a decision in
favour of the genuineness of the phenomena must result in loss of caste, and be
declared, by authoritative men of science, a brilliant proof of their
inability.
1 Spiritualism is the specific
term, where spiritism is the generic: as ill
formed as materialism, it would be equally
pedantic to discard it: usage has set it apart to express the intercourse with
extra-mundane intelligences claiming to be the dead.
2 The numerical status of Spiritualism is difficult to
ascertain. Its birthplace -
3 From Matter to
Spirit, Preface;
4 Report of Committee on Spiritualism
;
5 The Debatable Land
between this World and the Next,.
6 Transcendental Physics, translated by C. C. Massey;
7 Miracles and Modern Spiritualism.
8 Researches into the Phenomena of Spiritualism.
9 Letters and Tracts
on Spiritualism:
10 Human Personality:
11 On the Threshold of
the Unseen;
11 The Survival of Man;
12 The New Revelation;
EXAMPLE OF EVIDENCE
A brief example of the evidence may be
useful; though it must be vastly less convincing than a perusal of a greater
portion. I do not know a report on a trance-medium [Page 7] more full, accurate, and impartial
than Dr. Hodgsons on Mrs. Piper. This
lady is accustomed to pass into a trance - genuine, as was demonstrated by the
application of ammonia to the nose without effect;1 and in that is controlled by what calls itself a deceased Dr. Phinuit.
We need not enter on the detailed narrative of how Dr. Hodgson fortified
himself against fraud; how sitters, wholly unknown to Mrs. Piper, received
information outside her ordinary knowledge; how Phinuits
intelligence appeared perfectly isolated from that of Mrs. Piper; nor how many
various lights converged to establish these points. After exhaustive investigation, Dr. Hodgson
found himself in entire agreement with a
former report by Professor Oliver Lodge.2 In trance she talks volubly, with a manner and voice quite different from her
ordinary manner and voice, on details concerning which she has had no
information given her. In this abnormal
state her speech has reference mainly to peoples relatives and friends, living
or deceased, about whom she is able to hold a conversation, and with whom she
appears more or less familiar.
Occasionally facts have been narrated which have only been verified
afterwards, and which are in good faith asserted never to have been known;
meaning thereby that they have left no trace on the conscious memory of any
person present or in the neighbourhood, and that it is highly improbable that
they were ever known to such persons.
She is also in the trance state able to diagnose diseases and to specify
the owners or late owners of portable property, under circumstances which
preclude the application of ordinary methods. On her methods of obtaining unknown
information, admittedly abnormal, Professor Lodge says: I can only say with certainty that it is by none of the
ordinary methods known to Physical Science. Phinuit gave Dr. Hodgson
himself references to a conversation, of a very private nature, held with a
lady who had died eight years previously; references of a kind which the lady
was very unlikely to have repeated before her [Page 7] death.3 Dr. Hodgson concludes that, in some
of the incidents at least, the hypothesis of direct thought-transference from
the sitter is inadequate;4 and when the possibilities of
telepathy between the living are thus exhausted, would-be scientific explanations
are dumb.
1 Proceedings, Society for Psychical Research, vol. viii.,
P. 4.
2 Proceedings S.P.R., vol. vi.,
P. 443.
3 Phinuit claimed to converse with
several dead persons; but for various reasons - whether inability to spell
their own names (vol. viii., p. 113), or ignorance of events perfectly known to
them when alive (p. 70), or a huge mistake on the part of Phinuit as to who was
dead (p. 15) - Dr. Hodgson finds no sufficient proof of converse with the
deceased. Twice detected in lies (pp.
49, 61), Phinuit disavowed any knowledge or interest in religious matters (p.
30). Mrs. Pipers recovery from the
trance state, says a spectator, was, perhaps
the most shocking sight I ever witnessed (p. 97).
4 Vol. viii., P. 23.
HYPOTHESIS OF FRAUD
But this evidence attempts to establish so much, and is so
startlingly novel to modern tendencies of thought, that it is exposed, and
rightly, to much doubt and to close criticism.
Spiritualism is said to have originated in fraud; to be aided by clever
conjuring and ambitious imposture; and to be fed by the never-failing stream of
popular superstition and credulity.
Mediums are classed as clever or dull, but all are taken for rogues at
heart miracle-mongers, who batten off our ignorant yearnings after knowledge
of the unseen. But this easy solution
meets with great difficulties. After all
allowance has been made - and this must cover a generous margin - for clever
imposture, credulity, superstition, it will be seen that certain evidence must
still be accounted for, that observers like Mr. de Morgan ,and Sir Alfred
Wallace may be dupes, but they are not knaves.
Apart from the spurious phenomena put forward for the purpose of raking
in dollars, there is a body of apparent proof which some may conceive to be the
result of the working of unknown, natural law, but which is certainly not
explicable on the hypothesis of fraud.
It is with this residuum that the present pamphlet is concerned. The pages of Sir Alfred Wallace and Mr. Owen,
of Professor Zo1lner and Mr. Stainton Moses, are of a kind to make fraud alone
an impossible hypothesis in the minds of those [Page 9] who have studied them. This is rendered more certain by the
admission of Mr. Maskelyne,1
and other experts in conjuring,2 that there is more in the phenomena
than can be produced by consummate trickery.
It is through hypnotic phenomena that many suppose spiritism explicable.
1
2 See Massey, Trans. Phys., pp. 259, 265.
HYPOTHESIS OF HALLUCIATATION
We are not concerned here to determine how far hypnosis has
been, on occasion, an instrument in the hands of spiritists,
ancient or modem. But, does it solve the
problem of the preceding evidence? Does
it affect it as evidence? Certain of
the physical phenomena it leaves untouched; the tying of Professor Zo1lners
knot,1
for example, was no induced hallucination, for the knot remained. In
some experiments in Milan, a table was photographed suspended, without perceptible support, in
mid air.2
For the rest, all turns on whether spectators of a sιance can be, there and then, under hypnotic
influence; if this is disproved, resort must be had to some other cause for the
plentiful and varied effects of mediumship.
We observe that (1) the two classes of phenomena are distinct. I need hardly say,
Dr. Lloyd Tuckey observes, that
medical hypnotism has nothing in common with spiritualism, and it is a curious
thing that in this country some persons seem to think them associated.3 In spiritistic manifestations is
revealed something fitful, independent, intelligent; hypnotic phenomena, in the
ordinary stages, are strictly under control, and are therefore experimental,
and normal. (2) It would seem that
hypnosis without either a conscious hypnotiser, or a subject expecting to be
hypnotised, is impossible. For hypnotism
is a purely experimental science; spontaneous phenomena, according to data so
far gathered, seem to be exceedingly limited, and that to definitely diseased
patients. But, presuming the honesty of
investigators, some such notion is required if [Page 10] hypnosis is to explain the sιance.4 (3) Again, not more than one person in
ten can be hypnotised at the first time;5
yet a successful first sιance is by no means rare. (4) Hypnosis cannot be exercised on a body of
people by a single operator, without individual attention being given to each,
unless the company is in a condition expectant of hypnosis. (5) It is not easy for a subject, much less a
roomful of people, to be under hypnotic influence, and show no symptom of
it. Yet spectators at sιance, in
the words of Sir Alfred Wallace, do not lose all
memory of immediately preceding events; they criticise, they examine; they take
notes; they suggest tests,6 -
none of which things the mesmerised patient ever does.7 Even were all hypnotised by self-suggestion, it is incredible that the
hallucinations of all would be identical; for certainly not all expect the same
phenomena, and, in at least every other sιance not exclusively composed of Spiritualists, many are convinced of
nothing beyond fraud. Finally (6), the
Dialectical Society made an experiment to elucidate the point. While the manifestations under observation
were in course of display, a neighbour was introduced on a sudden by members of
the sub-committee. He came immediately, the
manifestations continuing without break or
interruption, and presenting to him the same aspect that they did to ourselves, notwithstanding that he at any rate must have
been free from any antecedent influence, mesmeric or
otherwise.8 Hypnotism, therefore, though
doubtless often operative in mediumship, cannot be held to afford us a solution
of the problem.
1 Transcendental Physics, p. 20.
2 Proceedings S.P.R., part
xxiv.
3 Psycho-Therapeutics, p. 7;
4 Even hypnosis
without the subjects consent is only doubtfully possible. Accustomed patients
of Dr. Tuckey informed him that until they entirely give up their minds to the operation, no
soporific effect is produced. Psycho. Th., p. 56. Dr. Moll says I know of no well-authenticated case in which
sense-stimulation has produced hypnosis by a purely physiological action.
- Hypnotism, p. 34;
5 Moll, Hypnotism, p. 42.
6 Compare with this, Dr. Moll:- But in hypnotic experiments the
most absolute avoidance by those present of any sign of mistrust is
necessary. The least word, a gesture,
may thwart the attempt to hypnotise.-
Hypnotism,
p. 42.
7 Mir. and Mod. Sp., p. 123.
8 Report, p. 18.
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HYPOTHESIS OF SUBCONSCIOUSNESS
The exactness and width of the investigations of the Society
for Psychical Research, the ability of its leading researchers, and the time
spent in the inquiry, all render its labours important; and in the Proceedings, if anywhere, we may expect to find the
preceding observations and conclusions either modified or negatived. Perhaps we
may single out Mr. F. W. H. Myers hypothesis on what he calls the subliminal consciousness, as indicative of the line
of thought which, in the minds of many, may cancel, or at least defer, the
necessity of resorting to the hypothesis of spirit. But this hypothesis does not clash with much
of the evidence, or, where it does, reveals itself - if it should be pressed as
an explanation - as inadequate. The
physical wonders of the Dialectical Society and Professor Zollner;
the writing in Sir Alfred Walfaces closed slates, not provably automatic;1 his photographs, from negatives not apparently tampered with;2 the planchette experiment of Professor Crookes;3 even the apparitions of Mr.
Livermore;4 - it is difficult to suppose these
properly attributable to subliminal agency.
Even were there a telekinetic
force under subliminal control, by which matter could be moved without contact,
it is extremely difficult to suppose that it could manufacture phantasms, and
animate them with the aspect of life.
Nor is the theory sufficient to explain even such automatic script as
that of Mr. Dean, 5 or such communications on identity as
those of Mr. de Morgan 6 and Mr. Stainton Moses.7
For (1) is the subliminal consciousness, while replete with
information never apparently gathered, and cognisant even to the borders of
premonition,8 under a chronic and profound delusion
on its own identity? In cases such as I
have referred to, it obstinately declares itself a spirit, and is [Page 12] angered by contradiction or doubt.9 Also (2), if the intelligence is
subliminal, and it claims to be a separate spirit, it is guilty of falsehood;
and, as it is, the names of scholars and thinkers are
affixed to the most ungrammatical and weakest of bosh.10 Now, even if it should become established
that telepathy from one uninfluenced mind to another does occur - even so, the
conditions are rare, and the cases rarer- could we suppose that one subliminal
consciousness could, or would, busy itself by imparting to another, or to the
supraliminal, information, like Mr. Deans, wholly fanciful and untrue while
calmly reasoned, or exercise itself in presenting falsehood, as to Professor de
Morgan and Mr. Moses, shaped in a form at once ingenious and convincing? 11 But (3) Mr. Myers himself admits the presence and active operation of
extraneous intelligence. Indeed, his
posthumous work Human Personality is probably the ablest presentment of
Spiritualism yet issued, and by far the most likely to disarm the hostility of
materialistic science. So also Professor
Barrett, a co-founder with Mr. Myers of the [Page 13] Society for Psychical Research, says:- I do not hesitate to affirm
that a careful and dispassionate review of my own experiments, extending over a
period of forty years, together with the investigation of the evidence of
competent witnesses, compels my belief in Spiritualism.12
12 On the Threshold of
the Unseen, p. 10.
1 The Spectator,
Oct. 6, 1877.
2 Mir. and Mod. Sp., p. 191.
3 Researches, p. 96.
4 Owen,
5 Proceedings American S.P.R., p. 556.
6 From Matter to Spirit, p. 43.
7 Spirit Identity, p. 53.
8 Proceedings S.P.R., vol. vii., p. 355 ;
vol. viii., pp. 348, 381.
9 We may not assume that the
intelligence is that of a dead person because itself asserts it, for obviously
a spirit may simulate; but if in a thousand sιances - and, if report
be true, this is verifiable fact - a thousand mediums, supraliminally
unconscious, give utterance to an intelligence that calls itself a separate
spirit, is it not extravagant to suppose this the outcome of a thousand
under-currents of consciousness?
10 Proceedings American
S.P.R., p. 556.
11 Sir Alfred Wallace, who, as a
Spiritualist, would not care to exaggerate the evil element in the
communications, advanced the same objection to the Psychical Congress at
12 On the Threshold of the Unseen, p. 10.
ATTITUDE OF INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATORS
If the explanation of the phenomena lay, as writers often
assume, in a union of hypnotism, telepathy, and exceedingly clever fraud, it
would be reasonable to expect to find this confirmed by leading
investigators. But this is not so, and
the slow yielding of prejudice, and the sapping of the foundations of unbelief,
are visible on every hand. Professor
James writes:- Of course,
the great theoretic interest of
these automatic performances, whether speech or writing, consists in the
questions they awaken as to the boundaries of our individuality. One of their most constant peculiarities is
that the writing and speech announce themselves, as from a personality other
than the natural one of the writer, and often convince him, at any rate, that his organs are played upon by some one not
himself. This foreignness in the personality
reaches its climax in the demoniacal possession which has played so great a
part in history, and which, in our country, seems replaced by the humaner
phenomenon of trance-mediumship, with its Indian or other outlandish control,
giving more or less optimistic messages of the Summerland. So marked is it in all the extreme instances
that we may say that the natural and presumptive explanation of the phenomenon is
unquestionably the popular or spiritualistic one, of control by another
intelligence. It is only when we put the
cases into a series, and see how insensibly those at the upper extreme shade
down at the lower extreme into what is unquestionably the work of the
individuals own mind in an abstracted state, that more complex and would-be
scientific ways of conceiving the matter force themselves upon us. The whole subject is at present a perfect
puzzle on the theoretic side.1 It is quite impossible, Professor [Page 14] H. Sidgwick assured the Society for Psychical
Research, to exaggerate the scientific importance of
these phenomena, if only a tenth part of what has been alleged by generally
credible witnesses can be shown to be true; and though I do not myself at
present regard the theory of un-embodied intelligences as the only hypothesis
which will account for known facts, I admit that it is the hypothesis most
obviously suggested by some of these facts.2 In both these opinions of skilled
inquirers, a distinct leaning towards spiritism is manifest; an uncertainty,
which only awaits more data; rather than a ready belief in the semi-scientific,
semi-fraudulent make-up which is the popular conception of the phenomena. It must be granted that the failure of the
keenest critics to shake the evidence as a whole, or to discredit much of the
phenomena that are of daily occurrence, is a fact that cannot be ignored with
safety. Is it credible that lapse of
memory, or want of observation, will explain all the evidence; failing that, is
it honest to presume dishonesty in the investigators? Each reader must decide this for
himself. The tenacity with which the
hypothesis of spirit is resisted in some quarters is seen in the comments of
Professor Richet on certain sιances in
1 Proceedings American S.P.R.,
p. 555.
2 Borderland, July, 1893.
3 Borderland, July, 1893.
4 Proceedings S.P.R.., vol. 9., p 224.
ANCIENT AND MODERN PHEOMENA
Not the least noteworthy proof of the supernatural origin of
the phenomena is their likeness to productions of the Divine power, or
manifestations of magical art, occurring in times almost pre-historic, and now
forgotten by all but the learned or the curious. Conspicuous miracles, such as the raising of'
the dead, are not reproduced or imitated; but many mysterious phenomena in
Scripture, the force of which has been missed by expositors who have lost the
ready perception of superhuman things, are abundantly explained by their modern
reproduction or mimicry. It is
incredible that there should be a world-wide conspiracy of mediums to press on
the attention of the public a revival of ancient errors and elaborate arts
which that public has forgotten or never understood. Nor can it be a chance resemblance. It would be a very
curious thing, says Professor de Morgan, if,
in a country in which knowledge of antiquity does not flourish, persons of no
information should have hit upon striking resemblances to old forms of delusion
or fraud. 1 To one who accepts the truth of the
Biblical narratives, and the simple reality of the miraculous occurrences
recorded in them, but one conclusion seems open; a conclusion which ascribes
both the old and the new wonders to invisible intelligences, from whichever
kingdom of light or darkness they may emanate.
I give here some of these remarkable parallel phenomena; by reference
only, for economy of space. Luminous
points of light settle on the heads of men (Acts 2:
3).2 Cures are effected by laying on of hands (Acts 9: 17). 3 Spirit-forms [Page 16] are seen by some and unseen by others
(Dan. 10:
7).4 Hands are impressed to write (1 Chron. 28: 19).5 Men speak in tongues unknown to them (Acts 2:
11).6 Cloudy phantasms appear (Job. 4: 13-16).7
Luminous hands write (Dan. 5: 5).8 Past events of a private nature are repeated (John
4: 17, 18,
29).9
Thoughts are read (1 Cor.
14: 25).10 Unknown persons are suddenly told
their names (1 Sam. 28:
12).11
Men become clairvoyant (Acts 16: 9).12
Remotely distant objects are rapidly collected (Ex. 8: 7).13 Abnormal wisdom may be imparted by
possession (Acts 16: 17).14 Crystal vision appears based on the
principle of the oracular Urim. and Thummim. (Num. 27: 21).15 Persons are carried by invisible hands
through air (Acts 8: 39).16
Certain
mediums can pass through fire, unburned (Deut.
18: 10).17 Dreams foretell events, sometimes
falsely (Jer. 23: 32).18 Also, old forms of sorcery are
revived. Divination is practised with
water and mirrors, as of old with cups (Gen.
44: 5).19 Divining rods are used (Hos. 4: 12)20 Planchette and luck-boards are consulted, as of old the teraphim (Ez. 21: 21).21 Astrology is revived, and consulted for the telling of fortune (Dan. 5: 7).22
That these things occur in every country and every clime, and are
historical to the verge where history becomes tradition, and tradition itself bears
record of their frequent occurrence, must clearly diminish the necessity for a
kind of evidence [Page 17] on the modern phenomena which is
flawless and irresistible; nor do Christians, already resting on Divine
revelations of a spirit-world, require the kind and degree of evidence which
compelled Sir Alfred Russell Wallace, brought up a philosophic sceptic, and
after four years investigation, to exclaim - The
facts beat me! That evidence may
not be out of the reach of powerful and honest criticism; but when we recollect
how universal and obstinately recurring are the phenomena to which it bears
witness, and how emphatically the Divine Word has treated them as real, it is
difficult to conceive how a believer in that Word and in the capacity of mankind
to bear adequate testimony can regard them otherwise than at least genuine in
part, and the latest chapter in the volume of human communications with the
unseen. Professor Hyslop,
of
1 From Matter to Spirit, p. 11.
2 Crookes, Researches, p. 91.
3 Wallace, Mir. and Mod. Sp., p. 202.
4 Ib., p. 186.
5 Moses, Sp. Teach.,
p. 3.
6
7 Owen,
8 Ib., p. 294.
9 Proceedings S. P. R., vol. viii., p. 64.
10 Ib., p. 14.
11 Borderland, Oct., 1893, p. 143.
12 Zollner, Trans. Phys.,
p. 51.
13 Olcott, Theosophy,
p. 251.
14 Wallace, Mir. and Mod. Sp., p. 201.
15 Howitt, Dialectical Report,
p. 184.
16 Davies, Mystic
17 Hall, Use Of Sp, p. 57.
18 Borderland, July, 1893, p.
80.
19 Ib., Oct., 1893, p. 126.
20 Wallace, Mir. and Mod. Sp., p. 57.
21 Crookes, Researches,
p. 91.
22 Review of Reviews, Dec., 1892, p.
571.
NATURE OF THE SPIRITS
The inquiry is not, as I take it, whether the
inhabitants of the invisible spaces do really come hither or no, but who
are they who do come?1 I Who crowd the interstellar spaces,
rank over rank, beyond mans sightless vision?
The spirits of table and rap, of utterance and vision, claim to be the
dead, who have discovered, it appears, methods of communication hitherto
unknown. But it also appears that their
word is startlingly untrustworthy. The power that writes, says one experienced in
automatic writing, sometimes tells the truth, but
often lies.2 Well we
know, write, Mr. S. C. Hall, that evil
spirits are perpetually about us.
Spiritualism brings only closer and more conclusive evidence that they
are ever ready and eager to instil poison into heart and mind, to induce
corrupt thoughts, to excite impure desires, to suggest wrongful acts, to
palliate sin, and supply excuses for iniquity. 3 We are told that earth-bound and undeveloped spirits, who [Page 18] have not yet risen into higher spheres, form the chief part of those with whom we
have intercourse; and guilty spirits, says
Mr. Owen, 4 seem the
most frequently to be earth-bound.5 The spiritual air is thick with
falsehoods. Some
spirits will assent to leading questions, and, possessed apparently with a
desire to please, or unconscious of the import of what they say, or without
moral consciousness, will say anything.6 Such motiveless lying bespeaks a
deeply evil nature. Nor are the lies
confined, as some Spiritualists assert, to those who shake the rooms in which
they communicate, or betray themselves by paroxysms of anger or lust. The spirits, though
they continued to manifest whenever invited, and breathed nothing but kindness,
goodwill, and affection, yet spoke so many falsehoods that he was disgusted
with the exhibition. On being asked for
explanations as to their false statements, they could give no explanation.7 Their word, therefore, cannot be held to decide their
identity. Their claim to be the dead,
put forward with persistency, and in itself not unattractive to a sceptic newly
convinced of the presence of unseen intelligences, must be sifted quite apart
from their mere assertion, and ought to be susceptible of some proof. The characters manifesting are thoroughly
untrustworthy. Still
more embarrassing, says Sir A. Conan Doyle, is
the fact that the same medium may upon one day deliver a message which proves
to be absolutely true, and on the next day, or even in some cases at the same
sitting, will deliver another which is a detailed fabrication. Moreover, we are perplexed by its
inanity. For what worth in itself has
Spiritualism revealed? The world has
known modern Spiritualism for seventy years: yet not one enduring piece of
literature has been produced by a spirit; not one discovery enriching science
has been made [Page 19] by a spirit; not one criminal mystery
in a great law case has been cleared up by a spirit; not one revelation from
the other world that on the face of it is even probable has been made by a
spirit. All this was exactly true of the
demons in the time of our Lord, and throughout all the ages of Paganism. The history of
Stainton Moses, writes Mr. Frank Podmore, will show us a man of good education, recognized social
position, and unblemished repute, exhibiting to a circle of intimate friends feats which must pass for some of the cheapest and
most paltry miracles ever offered to human credulity. It is true that nothing in Spiritualism is
trivial that is really crucial: that is, however trifling a miracle may be, it remains
a miracle, and establishes enormous facts: nevertheless, after intercourse is proved, what is revealed
is a revelation of the revealer. Paltry
miracles backing a paltry message reveal a paltry character. Intellectually
inane, says Mr. Charles Beecher, their
mediocre wares are all the cast-clothes of living minds of small calibre, or
mummy-wrappings from the catacombs.
As Mr. H. L. Hastings has said: - These
spirit-beings have talked and rapped, they have materialised and
dematerialised, they have entranced and exhibited; they have told us many
things which we knew before, many things which we do not know yet, and many
other things which it was no matter whether we knew or not; but when we come to
real instruction, reliable information, or profitable and valuable knowledge,
Spiritualism is as barren as Sahara, as empty as a hollow gourd.
1 De Foe.
2 Proceedings American S.P.R.,
p. 558.
3 Use Of Spiritualism, p. 39;
4 Deb. Land, p. 324. So Sp. Teach., p. 236; and Drayson, Address before
5 Spiritualism is, of all religions, the most materialistic; for
only if it hears and handles the dead will it believe that they survive; and
for the Word of God it substitutes a materialism so gross that God is denied
unless He become physically visible.
6 Spirit Identity, p. 54.
7
PROOF OF THE PRESENCE OF THE DEAD
But it is admitted that the likeness of apparitions to the
dead is valueless as proof. The resemblance, Mrs de Morgan informs the London
Spiritualist Alliance, seems never to be perfect, and
to consist of fragments of similarity, or even identity, rather than of a
strong general presentation of the whole being.1 Imperfect presentation of the dead, so far from being proof of their
presence, is not without implication of a drama played by imperfect actors; and
it is deeply to be regretted that the careful [Page 20] analysis of phenomena, which delayed
conviction in many eminent Spiritualists for years, should be cast aside when
the investigation passes from spiritual presence to spiritual identity. The shifts to which Spiritualists are reduced
in meeting the baffling problem of identity would be amusing if they were not
so tragic. The almost total
unfamiliarity with names and dates which the spirits reveal their estimate of time, says Sir A. Conan Doyle, is almost invariably wrong.2
- Sir
Arthur frankly acknowledges. The spirits have the greatest difficulty in getting names
through to us, and it is this which makes many of their communications so vague
and unsatisfactory. They will talk all
round a thing, and yet never get the name which would clinch the matter.3 Such an imperfect grasp of detail, inexplicable if it be the dead themselves,
squares perfectly with a drama imperfectly rehearsed. In spite of their
eager desire to enter into relation with us, says Professor Lombroso, the spirits show a
strange aversion to revealing their names; in typological communications they
almost always give false names, or
refuse to give their exact appellation.4 Nor do any present themselves but the contemporary dead.
Oliver Cromwells chaplain, says Sir
A. Conan Doyle, is the
oldest spirit who is on record as returning:5 that is, only personations likely to
appeal to the living are presented, and whose cases can be got up by
observation through recent decades. Most mediums, says Sir Oliver Lodge, are able to convey a name only with difficulty.6 It is manifest that the spirits shirk
the trouble of assuming a personality which it will take infinite pains to
sustain. The
enormous difficulty, says Professor Barrett, of
verifying the identity of the intelligence with that of the deceased person it
professes to be, is vastly increased when the claimant is invisible, when
personation seems to be a common practice, when telepathy is admitted, and when the evidence is of a fitful
and fragmentary character.7
1 Address, 1886, p. 9.
2 The New Revelation, p. 121.
3 Ibid., p. 118.
4 After Death-What ? p. 339.
5 The New Revelation, p. 95.
6 Raymond, p. 360.
7 On the
Threshold of the Unseen, p. 171.
[Page 21]
Sir Alfred Wallace grants that Romish apparitions of shrine
and grotto are false representations. Spirits whose affections and passions are strongly excited in
favour of Catholicism, produce these appearances of the Virgin and of saints,
which they know will tend to increased religious fervour. The appearance itself may be an objective
reality; while it is only an inference that it is the Virgin Mary - an
inference which every intelligent spiritualist would repudiate as in the
highest degree irriprobable.1 But this is just
the inference drawn from what are apparently phantasms of the dead. Nor is the evidence given
by the spirits to prove their
identity adequate. It is significant, are the startling words of Prof.
W. F. Barrett, that we seldom, if ever, receive any
truth-telling messages from the many saintly souls who have passed to the
unseen.2 Sir A. Conan Doyle savs:- There
is nothing more puzzling than the fact that one may get a long connected
description with every detail given, and that it may prove to be entirely a
concoction.3 Mr. Moses, it is true, says that some of those who so come I had known during their life on
earth, and was able, not only to verify their statements, but also to note the
little traits of manner, peculiarities of diction, and characteristics of mind,
that I remembered in them while in the body.4
But it is also Mr. Moses who admits elsewhere 5 that all the information ever given him in proof of the presence of the
departed might, in harmony with his experience of the spirits, have been first
obtained and then imparted by a false intelligence. It must be obvious that among spirits capable
of observing closely and reporting faithfully, many of whom are admittedly and
flagrantly untruthful, minute verification of detail must, in common caution,
be exacted, before their identity could be, by themselves, established. This
verification is exactly what cannot be got.
Usually, in the writers experience invariably,
says Mr. C. C. Massey, in these communications any
attempt to pursue the test [Page 22] by further probing the
memory and intelligence of the supposed spirit results in failure.6 Mr. Owen admits that he has found no
proof of identity in the case of any spirit, once celebrated either for
goodness or talent, returning, after centuries, to enlighten or reform
mankind.7
1 Mir. and
Mod. Sp., p. 209.
2 Contemporary Review, Nov., 1922.
3 The New Revelation, p. 123.
4 Sp. ld., p. 50.
5 Sp.
6 Trans. Phys., p. 33.
7 Deb. Land, p. 324.
Nothing is more amazing than the
credulity of the Spiritualist which survives his own complete exposure of the
spirit-beings with whom he is dealing. Occasionally, says Sir Oliver Lodge, there are direct impersonations.1 The conditions of intercourse are so controlled by the unknown
intelligence; the intelligent operator at the other
end of the line is so isolated from our sphere of life; we are so
simply recipients, and nothing more, that to prove the identity of the unknown
communicator from evidence he chooses to produce is simply impossible. It is as true
to-day, says Prof. W. F. Barrett, as it was
sixty years ago, that the messages are not what we should expect from our
departed friends.2 Meanwhile our inferences must drift against the hypothesis that these
trivial, impish rappers are the departed when we find, by constant
contradictions in the messages, failures of memory, instances of palpable
hypocrisy,3 that deliberately misleading, personation is frequent and
flagrant. Spiritualists simply silence
each other. A
devil, says Mr. Myers, in the face of a1l this mass of evil in the sιance,
is not a creature
whose existence is independently known to science; and the accounts of the
behaviour of the invading devils seem due to mere self-suggestion:4 against which we put Sir A. Conan Doyles words,-
we have, unhappily, to deal with absolute cold-blooded
lying on the part of wicked intelligences.5 Indeed the more powerful intelligences,
apparently impelled to admit the fact of personation by the palpable failure of
less skilled actors, warn against such, who, they say, delight in hypocrisy,
and have the power, under certain conditions, of
carrying out elaborate deception. [Page 23] Here is a remarkable admission from
the same source: Most of the stories current of such
return of friends are due to the work of these spirits. These are they who infuse the comic or
foolish element into communications.
They have no true moral consciousness, and will pray readily, if asked,
or will do anything for frolic or mischief.6
1
2 Contemporary Review, Nov., 1922.
3 See SP. Id., pp. 41, 45; Davies, Mystic
4 Human Personality, vol. ii.,
p. 199.
5 The New Revelation, p. 123.
6 Sp. Teach., p. 243.
7 Raymond, p. 347.
8 Dr. Nevius, Demon Possession,
p. 328.
STATE OF THE SOUL IN HADES
From the quicksands of modern intercourse it is wise to pass
to the sounder basis of Revelation;
for in the Scriptures we obtain momentary glimpses, purposely given to inform,
of the locality and conditions of the abode set apart for the use of the dead between
death and resurrection; [Page 24] in these hints shed light on the
identity of earths visitants. Where are
the dead and may they roam? All go to
one place (Eccl. 3:
20; 1 Sam.
28: 19),
Sheol or Hades. This temporary abode is
separated into two compartments, which together bear seven names; the one is
reserved for the spirits [and
disembodied souls] of wicked men, the other for the
blessed dead. The evil side is called
Death (a place; Rev. 1: 18; Prov. 5: 5, 7: 27; Rev. 20: 13), and Destruction (or Abaddon,
Prov. 15: 11, 27: 20; Psa. 88: 11; Job 26: 6), the
Abyss or bottomless Pit (Rev. 9: 1, 20: 3,
&c.), and once Tartarus (2 Pet. 2: 4); and it
shares the ultimate fate of the entire abode of the dead (Rev. 20: 14; cp. Hos. 13: 14, marg. R.V.). Sleepers in Christ are also in Hades (a term
sometimes confined to their compartment, Rev.
1: 18),
in the upper portion or
1 He was free among the dead (Psa. 88: 5, A.V.),
and so both fulfilled his promise to the thief (Luke
23: 43), and descended lower to the
imprisoned spirits (1 Pet. 3: 19) in
Tartarus (2 Pet. 2:
4).
2 No return of a disembodied soul has been pleasing to God. He suffered Samuels return; but Sauls
summons of the prophet was a sin. Elijah
never died (2 Kings 2: 11), and is still embodied; the burial of Moses
was unique (Dent. 34:
6), a dispute took place over his body (Jude 9),
and he probably appeared on the Mount in flesh.
Others have appeared, but in their bodies (Matt. 27:
52).
So far, therefore, as Spiritualism is what it claims to be, necromancy,
it is offensive to God.
3 Do not these verses locate Hades with sufficient clearness? - Matt. 12: 40; Num. 16: 30, 32, 33;
Dent. 32: 22; Job. 26:
5; Amos 9:
2; Eph. 4: 9; Psa. 63: 9. So Scripture speaks of descending into it (Prov. 1: 12; Isa. 5: 14; Ezek. 31: 15, 16), and of
rising up out of it (1
Sam. 2: 6;
Psa. 30: 3; Prov. 15: 24; Rom. 10: 7).
ANGELIC MINISTRY
But,
though we are thus led to believe that the dead rarely communicate, it may be
asked, not without some reason, whether angels sent by God may not now hear His
messages to men, as of old, and make their ministry
(Heb. 1: 14; Matt. 18: 10)
visible. If the influence in mediumship is exhilarating,
and the tone of the communications, though unscriptural, is pitched in a
religious key, many conclude that they are face to face with such. Several prominent Christian teachers pave the
way for this conception, and others actually endorse it. Dr. Joseph Parker writes to Mr. Stead: When inspiration, so-called, ends in nothing but amazement
or amusement, it is not Divine inspiration: when it ends in high-mindedness, in
sympathy, and in loving service to others, it is an inspiration which has come
immediately from God. Dr. Parker
further says: The Church ought not to look upon
Spiritualism when the processes are honestly conducted, with any but a friendly
eye, because the Church well knows that every step in that direction means
advancement towards the sublime fact that God is a Spirit, and that He is
willing to communicate every day with those who wait upon Him in faith and love.1 But such an attitude ignores the Divine tests. No apparition, or inspired utterance, can be
of God which denies the Christs advent in the flesh (1
John 4: 1-3):
and this denial is universal among the intelligences which speak through
Spiritualism. Other considerations are
nearly equally conclusive in support of the belief that, whatever God may
suffer in Apocalyptic days, no angels of His have yet manifested
themselves. (1) These declare themselves
the dead. If they speak truth, they are
not angels; if they lie, they are not holy angels. (2) I believe that Scripture records no
instance of an angel appearing [Page 27] as a result of human invocation. Angels are Gods messengers; only familiar
spirits are at the beck and call of humanity.
(3) The substance of an angels message is wise and
worthy; not weighted with the frailty and folly of human speech, or of demonic,
that often ranks lower; nor does an angel resort to tables for the deliverance
of a Divine message. (4) Before
our Lord had revealed His Father, angels frequently bore Gods word to man; but
the Son, and the completed Word, now adequately reveal Him. (5) Nor have angelic visits been frequent in
the Gospel age. The reason of this is
clear. God had promised to His people
something infinitely superior to angelic communion; consequently, after
Pentecost, at which this promise received fulfilment (Acts
1: 4, 8;
2: 16),2 the visible
service of angels became rare. The
Churchs Comforter is the Holy Ghost, and to attempt to recall open angelic
intercourse, so long as the day of grace shall last, is unbelief. If angels persist in coming, they are not angels
of good (cp. Psa. 78:
49).
It is of profound significance that, in the two tests of the occult
given for our dispensation (1 John 4: 1-3; 1 Cor. 12: 1-3), the sole alternative to Powers of Darkness, named
as possibly present, is the Holy Ghost.
1 Morning newspaper, Dec. 31, 1892.
2 Those whose thoughts turn, in this
returning cycle of the supernatural, to the manifested presence of
the Holy Ghost (1 Cor.
12: 7; Mark 16: 17, 18; Acts 2: 33, &c.), might consult Irvingism
and the Gifts of the Holy Ghost and Earths
Last Pentecost (Thynne).
PROOF OF THE PRESENCE OF DEMONS
If the sιance room is crowded neither with good angels nor with the departed, in
whose hands is this elaborate network of intercourse? So far back as the eighteenth century Swedenborg,
the progenitor of Spiritualism, warned of the perils of personation. Spiritualists themselves have not been
without suspicion of an agency wholly evil.
Sir A. Wallace writes:- When the influence [on the medium] is violent or painful, the effects are such as have been in
all ages imputed to possession by evil spirits.1 Of the votaries of Spiritualism there
are few who have not at some time felt impelled to leave it alone and have
nothing [Page 28] more to do
with it.2
There are more plausible reasons than many
imagine, once wrote Mr. Owen, for the opinion
entertained by some able men, Protestants as well as Catholics, that the
communications in question come from the Powers of Darkness, and that we are
entering on the first steps of a career of demoniac manifestations, the issues
whereof men cannot conjecture.3 Finally, we
are either of God or of the devil, say the spirits themselves .4 Darkness is helpful to most
manifestations - these then are spirits of darkness (Eph. 6:
12); lies abound - they are lying, spirits (1 Kings 22: 22);
they possess men, as in the time of our Lord (Matt.
12: 43, 45); they lead away from faith in Jesus, and are
thus seducers (1 Tim.
4: 1). All these are characteristics of demons. This, I admit, is an inference of appalling
gravity. It led Mr. Gladstone, who
became profoundly convinced of its Satanic origin, to
pronounce it far the most important work being done
on the planet to-day. But
further considerations support it forcibly.
The tests given of God (1 John 4: 2, 3; 1 Cor, 12: 3), when
applied, reveal evil spirits.5 Amid much that is vague and trivial, the
underlying motive of the communications reveals an organised design. Mr. Moses writes:- Ever since I became intimately acquainted with the subject,
I have been deeply impressed with some serious questions respecting it. One is, that there
is an organised plan on the part of spirits who govern these manifestations -
of which all that we can get is but a fragmentary view - to act on us, and on
the religious thought of the age.
Another is, that as soon as we escape from the
very external surroundings of the subject, we are brought in some way into
relation with this plan, or some phase of it.6 It is a movement directed by the hands
of active, cautious and militant intelligence. Spirits, good and bad alike, are
subject to the rule of commanding intelligences. 7 Why the dead should be thus drilled
and aggressive is not obvious. If
demonic, the habitual deception in mediums, so puzzling to the investigator, is
explicable; for the medium, handled in an unclean grasp, becomes at once dupe
and knave?8 Spiritualism, born in ill odour, has never
been able to free itself from charlatanry and fraud: nevertheless it is certain
that it embodies an enormous movement launched from the unseen, charged with
incalculable consequences to the human race, and using the ablest men as mere
puppets. My
activities in Spiritualism, says Sir Conan Doyle, have
passed beyond my control; I may head a movement, but there is
something ahead which is leading me.
Isolated efforts at intercourse culminated appropriately in our modem
organised and predicted (1 Tim. 4: 1)
sorcery. The rapping demon of Wesley;
the utterances of Camisards and Shakers; the violent
outbursts of demonism at Morzine; - such were only
foreshadowings of the quieter, far more extensive, more intelligent approach
that has shaped itself into Spiritualism and Theosophy an approach quiet with
the stillness of death, and white with the pallor of spiritual leprosy. An experienced Spiritualist, possessed of a
wide acquaintance with his sect, says: For a long
time I was swallowed up in its whirlpool of excitement and comparatively paid
but little attention to its evils, believing that much good might result from
the openings up of the avenues of spiritual intercourse. But
during the past eight months I
have devoted my attention to a critical investigation of its moral, social, and
religious [Page 30] bearings, and I stand appalled before the
revelations of its awful and damning realities, and would flee from its
influence as I would from the miasma which would destroy both soul and body.9 Eminent doctors add their
warning. Three
of my friends, says Dr. Beattie Crozier, men of eminence who really believe in Spiritualism, have
told me they have forbidden the very name of it in their homes, as if it were a
thing accursed; because by the black magic which is always a part of it, it
so often leads to insanity and death.
Science has no more right to transgress the laws of God than Adam had to
discover, experimentally, the exact qualities lodged in the Forbidden Tree, and
so to learn that Gods prohibition was wise; knowledge which destroys the
investigator, temporarily or eternally, it is wickedness to acquire. No gain to science,
Professor Barrett acknowledges, would ever justify
experiment heedless of a risk so great; and he acknowledges that the
prohibition of all psychical inquiry by the Jewish prophets
was most wise and rational: nevertheless he
stultifies himself with the conclusion that the perils which beset the ancient
world in the pursuit of psychical knowledge do not apply to scientific investigation to-day. 10
1 Mir. and
Mod. Sp., p. 202.
2 M. and Dr. Thcobald, Address before L. S. A., Nov., 1888.
3 Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World, p. 18 It seems
not improbable, says Professor Barrett (On the
Threshold of the Unseen, p.
113), that many of the physical manifestations witnessed in a Spiritualistic sιance are the product of human-like, but not
really human intelligences - good or bad daimonia they
may be, elementals some have
called them, which aggregate round the medium.
4 Sp. Teach., p. 136.
5 I have been present when a spirit has solemnly denied our
Lords appearance in the flesh. 1 John 4: 2, 3, is to
be applied to the spirit; 1 Cor.
12: 3, to the prophet, or inspired person, while demonstrably
speaking in the power. I have never
heard of a right answer being given by the Spiritualistic utterance when thus
put to proof. See Tests
for the Supernatural (Thynne).
6 Spirit Identity, p. 30.
7 Sp. Teach., p. 14.
8 Dr. Tylor
notes the same of all sorcery; Primitive Culture,
vol. i., p. 134. Scarcely any famous medium has escaped,
if not the proof of fraud, at least a circumstantial allegation of it: as Eglinton, exposed by Professor Lewis; Slade, and Professor Lankester; Blavatsky, and Dr.
Hodgson; the
9 Dr. B. F. Hatch, quoted by Miles Grant, Spiritualism
Unveiled, p. 38. In a more alluring, and widely influential,
communication, Spirit Teachings, all turns, as Mr. Moses recognised,
upon the identity of his familiars; and, after continued endeavour to ascertain
it, he admits his complete failure.
Admitting that they dominated his mind with a kind of hypnotic sway (pp.
72, 80, 244), and were at pains to root from it all distinctly. Christian precepts (pp. 101, 198), he is yet
satisfied to say, in confessing that he was ignorant who or whence were his new
teachers, I did not then know, as I do now, that the
evidence of conviction is what alone is to be had (p. 92). They betrayed their origin by denial of our
Lords return in person (p. 151; 2 John 7). You will see, they said that
we have preached to you a nobler gospel revealing a diviner God than you had
previously conceived (p. 207); nor does Mr. Moses seem to have recalled
the words of Paul But though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach unto you any gospel other
than that which we preached unto you, let him
be anathema (Gal. 1: 8). Beings whom he does not trust for a moment
concerning their own identity or character, the Spiritualist trusts without
hesitation when they tell him that God is a myth and Christ an imposture.
10 On the Threshold of the Unseen, pp. 32, 261.
[Page 31[
DOCTRINES ON DEATH AND RESURRECTION
If we are to trust constant and unvarying reports from
witnesses competent and the reverse, from palace and hut, alike in centres of
culture and haunts of barbarism, an active, independent consciousness guides
the manifestations; sometimes welcome and sought after, at others disliked and
mistrusted, or even exorcised. The body
of teaching put forth, wholly independent as it is of the religious environment
in which the medium has been educated, not only confirms this, but points to a
unity of underlying thought amid much diversity of detail. It seems,
says Professor James, exactly as if one author
composed more than half of the trance messages, no matter by whom they were
uttered.1 On minor points there is infinite
contradiction; and this alone is sufficient to disprove that the source of the
inspiration is Divine. But on such
matters - vital in the light of Christianity - as death, resurrection, the
future state, the incarnation and atonement, inspiration of Scripture, the
personality of the Holy Ghost and of Satan, and the accessibility of God, the
pronouncement is unanimous.2
We need not enlarge upon these; 3 to prove both the extraneous source
of the [Page 32] mediums utterance, and the antagonism of Spiritualism
to the faith of Jesus, it is sufficient to show that into the very fibre of
spiritistic teaching enters some single doctrine universally enunciated, and
irreconcilable with our Faith. In trance
utterances on death and resurrection we obtain this dual proof. In strictness, there
is no death.4 The spirit is the man,
the body is a clog, a prison, a garment to be cast away. Man is a spirit, temporarily
enshrined in a body of flesh.5 At death the spirit quits the body for ever.6 Death, therefore, is the gateway of life.7 Hence death is resurrection; or,
since it is the casting off of the perishable part of man, and the severance is
final, there is no resurrection. The humanity is dead, and the spirit
alone survives. The soul thus liberated
roams the air at large, and starts on the first rounds of an endless
progression. Even the worst are surely if slowly progressing.8 This doctrine is universal among Spiritualists.* Throughout
the manifestations - in every form and in every language - whatever the
discrepancies, uncertainties, and contradictions on other topics, on this of
the nature of mans future existence, all coincide and harmonize.9
1 Principles of
Psychology, vol. 1., p. 394.
2 Dr. A. C. Dixon says:-
Do you believe in the atoning work of the Lord Jesus
Christ for salvation? Do you believe
that the atoning blood removes the guilt of sin from the sin-stained soul? Ask the medium that. I
have been asking that question all over the world for forty years: if there
is any Spiritualist under the stars who believes that the blood of Jesus Christ
cleanses from all sin, and if I can find one who does, I am willing to
apologize for all that I have said. I
have never met one yet.
And here is the answer of Sir A. Conan Doyle:-
The whole doctrine of original sin, the Fall, the
vicarious Atonement, the placation of the Almighty by blood - all this is
abhorrent to me. The spirit-guides do not insist
upon these aspects of religion.
3 It is in strict accord with Pauls prophecy (1 Tim. 4: 1-3) that flesh and wine are widely prohibited,
especially for aspirants to mediumship; as also among sects founded on alleged
intercourse with spirits, as Shakers, Mormons, American Perfectionists,
Theosophists, Mohammedans, and Buddhists.
Marriage also is frequently superseded either by celibacy or by free
love. For these are seducing spirits. Of evil spirits
other than human, says Mr. Myers (Human Personality, vol. 2., p. 203), there is no news whatever. Masked burglars do not lay their
visiting-cards on the table.
4 Owen, Deb. Land.,
p. 123 ; S. C. Hall, Use of
Sp., p. 86.
5 Moses, Higher Aspects,
p. 83; Sp. Teach., pp. 77, 154, 245; Kardec, Heaven and Hell,
p. 126.
6 Wallace, Mir. and Mod. Sp., p. 109 ; Sp.
Teach., p. 249.
7
8 Wallace, Mir. and Mod. Sp., p. 109.
[*
And also among many regenerate believers today! Ed.]
9
Now is all this in consonance with Scripture? (1)
The definition of man is not; nor the definition of death. Gods Word regards
man, not
as a spirit temporarily incarnate, but as a composite being made up of
body, soul, and spirit, the separation of which is temporary, abnormal, a
terror to man himself, and a punishment inflicted by
God. Life is the harmonious working of
the three; death is their [Page 33] decomposition into two.1 Death, Scripture regards as a temporary dissolution (2 Cor. 5: 1), an unclothing (verse
4), a taking down of
the tent (2 Pet. 1: 13, 14), a departure (Phil. 1:
23; 2 Tim.
4: 6). So resurrection is the becoming incorruptible
(1 Cor. 15: 42, 53, 54); a
re-clothing (2 Cor. 5:
4); a building
again (John 2: 19-22); a return (John 5:
28, 29) -
that is, of the body. Death is a
punishment for primal sin (Gen. 2: 17; Rom. 5: 12). To say there is no death is to repeat the
serpents falsehood : Thou
shalt not surely die. The spirit
[i.e., the disembodied soul] is incarcerated in Hades, and the body
sees corruption; thus, not until the resurrection is death robbed of its sting,
and Hades vanquished (1 Cor.
15: 54, 55). (2)
Scripture asserts, to the contradiction of the Spiritualist, that the body
which was dissolved is to come together again, and be re-united with soul and
spirit (John 5: 28,
29).
Christs resurrection is the type of ours (2 Cor. 4: 14; Phil. 3: 21). The
wounded body, that lay in Josephs tomb, left it empty on the resurrection
morn, still marked and scarred (Luke 24: 3). It was a body of flesh and bones, such as a [angelic] spirit does not possess (Luke 24: 39). The animal body - that is, the body fitted for animal purposes and ruled by
animal appetites, is cast as seed into earth and after lapse of time, possibly
many ages, springs up a spiritual body - that is, a body adapted to spiritual environment and ruled
by the spirit in place of the soul (1 Cor. 15: 44). The
moment of casting into the ground need not be, by many ages, the moment of
up-springing. The moment of death is not
the moment of resurrection. Thomas knew
that the imprinted body of the risen Lord was that which had been laid in the
sepulchre; the same, yet now suited to new purposes; eating (Luke 24: 43),
yet capable of visibility or invisibility at choice (Luke
24: 31, 36). The chrysalis is the source and substance of
the butterfly; yet how different! So shall
it be when corruption has put on incorruption, the mortal immortality. Jesus Christ has taken the manhood into God. He redeemed man, not only the spirit of man,
and so will present believers, body, soul, and spirit, to His
Father (1 Thess. 5: 23). Not unclothing [Page 34] to die, but clothing on for eternal
life, is the Christians sure hope (2 Cor. 5: 4). On the resurrection of Christ, which is
earnest of our own, rests our faith; and the Spiritualist denies it: His body has not indeed been raised;2 were it so, our faith were futile, our sin unforgiven (1 Cor. 15: 14). Thus, as Mr. Myers says, corroborated by all
Spiritualists, - We do not find that support is given
[by the spirits] to any special scheme of
terrene theology;3 for this unanimous voice, on
resurrection, negativing the whole Christian Faith, is demonic; AND I WOULD NOT
THAT YE SHOULD HAVE FELLOWSHIP WITH DEMONS (1 Cor. 10:
10).
1 The second death is a lake (Rev. 20: 14, 21: 8) in which the wicked are plunged after
resurrection.
2 Sp. Teach., p. 245.
3 Human Personality, Vol. 2., p. 287.
MIRACLE AND DOCTRINE
So this modern peril, incalculably great, has had a
safe-guarding revelation all to itself.
If a prophet arise in the midst of thee - the first mention of false prophets
actually within the people of God - and he give
thee a sign or a wonder - real miracles actually performed; signs of an unseen presence wonders,
for they surpass the possibilities of the natural and the
sign or the wonder come to pass whereof
he spake unto thee - a miracle deliberately given to authenticate a
doctrine - saying, Let
us go after OTHER GODS (Deut. 13: 1) - miraculous
support of apostasy. Our Saviour warns, not only of false Christs, supported by false prophets, working great miracles (Matt.
24: 24),
but of prophets who are wolves in sheeps clothing (Matt. 7: 1-5) -
demon-led or demon-inspired men who, claiming to be [regenerate* and] Christian, bankrupt the Faith. So
Jehovah says:- THOU SHALT NOT HEARKEN TO THE WORDS OF
THAT PROPHET (Deut. 13: 3). That is,
doctrine confirms, or disproves, miracle, as surely as miracle, doctrine. Gods body of truth has already been
established by miraculous proofs (at Sinai and by Christ and the Apostles)
overwhelmingly greater than any Satan can or does show: any counter-revelation,1 therefore, [Page 35] cannot conceivably be from God: its miracles, however real or marvellous,
are necessarily Satanic. God has not
only given evidence, but a kind and amount of evidence, finally decisive. For the Lord your
God PROVETH YOU to know whether ye
love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul (Deut. 13: 3).
Miracle, which was designed to be an aid to faith, Hell transforms into
a peril to faith, and Heaven again over-rules into a test of faith. False prophets, working real miracles, are a
touchstone of the Church; and their enormous increase at the end reveals the
deep dissatisfaction of the Most High with His Churches: he who truly loves God
will choose the truth rather than the miracle, the Scripture rather than a
Satanic cure.
[* See 1
Kings 13: 18:
I also am a prophet as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the
word of the Lord
R.V. cf. 2 Tim. 2: 18. How many are misleading the Lords people
astray today, as regards the time of our Resurrection, and of Messiahs
promised inheritance in the Age yet to come, (Psa. 2: 8; 110: 1-3, etc.)?]
1 Spiritualism, says Sir Conan
Doyle, is a new revelation which constitutes by far
the greatest religious event since the death of Christ.
NATURE OF THE DEMONS
Scripture reveals the nature and, to some extent, the work of
the demons, though their origin, unlike their destiny, is wrapped in the
deepest shade. They are all unclean
spirits;1
varying, however, in depths of guilt (Matt. 12: 45). They are not the fallen angels.2 These probably supervise demonic work, and inspire the wide intelligence
of the so-called wisdom-religions, which affect to despise the inanities of elementary spirits; but, when mentioned alone,
appear engaged in a conflict vaster in kind and different in locality (Rev. 12: 7; cp. Job 1: 6; 1 Kings 22: 19). Their
evil work extends to other spheres, and even to the throne of God. The time of their casting down and
confinement to our firmament is not yet (Rev.
12: 7-10). The
demons appear in quite different character.
They are trivial, malicious, impish. Tables become facetious under their hands,
spell communications of the lowest intelligence, and turn to jesting with a
clownish [Page 36] wickedness.3 Their Puck-like tricks may have been
the germ of truth in much of mediaeval folk-lore. They appear to take a delight
in possession (Matt. 12: 44). We have no record of such a desire in an
angel: he appears capable of sudden appearances in strict bodily form (Heb. 13: 2), not requiring the ominous aid of darkness to
fashion it; (with a capacity of eating and drinking: Gen.
19: 3; cp. Psa. 78:
25); perhaps his own body in quick
condensation, clearly not the hollow phantasmagoria of demonic
manufacture. The demons love desert
places (Matt. 12:
43), and
perhaps the neighbourhood of tombs (Luke 8: 27). They recognised
Christ immediately on His appearance (Mark 1:
11, 34). They had sinned before He appeared, and their
punishment had been announced (Matt. 8: 29). They are beyond repentance (1 Tim. 4: 2).4 Knowing the just and inexorable
nature of an offended God, they await torment with shuddering hearts (James 2: 19). Such is their lost nature, this but spurs
them to wider effort of evil, [Page 37] foreshadowing the death-flicker of
final energy in Beelzebub, prince of the demons (Rev.
12: 12). Beside great strength (Mark 5: 3) they
display great cruelty (Luke 9: 39), and
it is only by Divine sufferance that they haunt earth, rather than are plunged
in the horrors of the abyss (Luke 8: 31). In
anticipation of the end (Isa.
24: 21),
we see them, both in Scripture records and in modern phenomena, drowning terror
in errands of evil involving ceaseless activity. All the evil hosts thus confront us. For our wrestling
- our wrestling-bout, our pitched battle - is not
against flesh and blood, but against -
fleshless, bloodless enemies far more difficult to fight the principalities, the powers,
the world-rulers - no vulgar horde of fiends,
but invisible princes, world-lords - of this darkness
- the heavy moral night that rests on mankind - the
spiritual hosts of wickedness - in trained and aggressive ranks - in the heavenly places (Eph.
6: 12). Spiritualism proves Heaven by disclosing
Hell.
1 (Luke 8:
33), (8: 29), and (Matt.
8: 31)
are all applied to the possessors of the Gadarean. Devil is confined in Scripture to
Satan (Rev. 22:
2) and Judas Iscariot (John 7: 70).
2 This distinction was recognised by the Jews (Acts 23: 8, 9).
3 This triviality is frequently used as an argument against the
genuineness of modern communications.
But neither in our Lords day was discovery
anticipated, nor dignity displayed, among demoniacs; yet are we therefore to
deny that His exorcism was real? The teasing, mystifying controls,says Mr. Myers, suggest - nor can we absolutely disprove
the suggestion - a type of intelligences inferior to human. It is exceedingly improbable that this low
mentality, occasionally bordering on idiocy, is Gods original creation:
rather, the habitual sin which in human beings is found to disintegrate the
intellect as surely as it rots the body, prolonged over thousands of years, is
sufficient to account for the pitiful
wrecks that haunt the sιance. The
intelligence of these discarnate personalities, says Professor Lombroso (After Death - What?
p. 347), is but fragmentary
and incoherent.
4 For proofs that 1 Tim. 4: 2 applies to
the spirit-seducers, see Govetts Future Apostasy (Thynne): How
horrible a forecast of Rev. 13: 15
Spiritualism can be is revealed in this description of materialization by Sir A. Conan Doyle (Strand magazine,
Nov., 1920):- When
Eva is at her best, there forms a complete figure; this figure is moulded to
resemble some deceased person; the cord which binds it to the medium is
loosened; a personality which either is or pretends to be that of the dead
takes possession of it; and the breath of life is breathed into the image so
that it moves and talks and expresses the emotions of the spirit within.
DEMON POSSESSION
The descent of one or more spirits into a human personality -
which has come to be called possession: an invasion, that is, involving some measure of ownership -
whether the Holy Ghost or other spirits, is a fact full of mystery, but full of
certainty. The whole scheme of Christian
redemption is based upon it. The Holy
Spirit of God enters in, to possess; the human then becomes a sanctuary of God,
an abiding temple of the Holy Ghost; and the transforming powers of God - from
simple regeneration, up through sanctification, and including the highest forms
of inspiration - all move on this cardinal pivot alone. And the consequent truth revealed throughout
the Bible, of an importance utterly impossible to exaggerate, is a truth (so
far as I know) never stated. All
entrance of one spirit into another, all
invasion of one personality by another, save only by
that of the Holy Ghost, is not only wholly forbidden, but is charged with evil
of infinite power. And the reason is obvious. The sanctities of our inmost life the
exquisitely delicate mechanism of our Godlike parts: can safely be entrusted
only to Him who made them; Who [Page 38] is Love; and Who, when He enters, enters only to perfect the marvellous
instrument he has made.
It is exceedingly remarkable that psychology and psychical
research, as it studies multiplex personality,
frankly reaffirming the ancient belief, now boldly uses the word possession.
Mr. F. W. H. Myers says:- The result broadly
is that these phenomena of possession are now the most amply attested, as
well as intrinsically the most advanced, in our whole repertory: the
evidence does in the end insist on all that the ancient term implies. The
mans own consciousness is absolutely in abeyance, and every part of his body
is utilized by the invading spirit or spirits; so far as the mans organism is
concerned, the invasion seems complete. It is exceedingly impressive
that psychical research, while totally differing in interpretation from our Lord, arrives at an identical
conclusion in fact. We are standing
at a crisis, Mr. Myers says, of enormous
importance in the history of life on earth.
The spiritual world is just beginning to act systematically upon the
material world. A change seems to be impending, of a type not known until now.1
1 Human
Personality, vol. 2., pp. 190, 196, 274.
So also Spiritualism reports such facts that Spiritualism
itself acknowledges what for six thousand years has been known as
devil-possession. Professor Barrett says:- Experience shows that there is a
very real danger of an invasion by alien and often malignant intelligences,
sometimes resulting in what appear to be genuine cases of obsession. I am convinced that some cases of the
demoniacs recorded in the New Testament cannot be explained away as due to
insanity, epilepsy, or dissociation of
personality. In fact, our body can
become the temporary, or intermittent, tenement of more than one soul.1.
Demon Possession is thus frankly
acknowledged by Spiritualism itself. When I hear people
talk of evil spirits as a figure of speech, or as diseases, says
Charles Kingsley, I cannot help thinking how pleased
the Devil must be to hear people talk in such a way.
1 Contemporary
Review, Nov.,
1922.
Now one key unlocks the whole problem of possession. Possession can be voluntary; when it is
called [Page 39] mediumship, or (in Scripture) false prophecy: or it
can be involuntary; when the resistance of the human spirit, in conflict with
the malignant possessor, produces the horrible convulsions of the demoniac. Sir A. Conan Doyle says:-
It is not I - it never is I. It is always the compelling power which is working through me, giving
that message which, sooner or later, is going to alter the whole world. On the other hand, it can be a violent
collision of wills. For about three months, says Mr. H. M. Hugunin, I was in the power of
spirits, greatly tormented. I could not
get rid of them. Their blasphemy and
uncleanness shocked me. They tempted me
to suicide and murder, and to other sins.
I was fearfully beset and bewildered.1 Scripture profoundly differentiates
between the false prophet and the demoniac.
It is exceedingly remarkable that our Lord exercised no exorcism when
Satan, entered into Judas at the Last Supper.
The demoniac is to be pitied: the medium is to be dreaded. Both possessions have common
characteristics. (1) Demon possession always reveals a new personality radically
distinct from the occupied human, acting simultaneously. It is always the spirit, not the medium or demoniac, that insists on his own separate personality, and
is angered by contradiction or doubt. (2) Demon possession constantly betrays
a knowledge of facts altogether outside the horizon of the medium or the
demoniac. This often takes the form of
speaking in languages totally unknown to the man possessed. (3) Demon possession always involves a
change of character, accompanying the change of personality, and always a
change of character for the worse. In
the amazing admission of the Italian criminologist, Professor Lombroso:- If the medium is not specially wicked, he
becomes so in the trance.2 Voluntary possession, or
mediumship, can easily pass, [Page 40] and often does, into involuntary and
hopeless demon possession.3 Mr. Reader Harris, K.C., accompanied his
father (a lawyer) to the deathbed of D. D. Home, Englands greatest medium, to
draw up his will; but, Mr. Harris says, it was
impossible to proceed, because of the rapping of spirits, and general turmoil
among the furniture of the room. Demons
were already there in all their power to claim their victim, who had long
yielded to them.
1 J. G. Rauperts Modern
Spiritism, p. 178.
2 After Death-What? p. 121. Dr. B. F. Hatch, the husband of a medium in
the front rank, says (J. G. Rauperts Modern Spiritism, p. 180):- I have known many whose
integrity of character and uprightness of purpose rendered them worthy examples
to all around, but who, on becoming mediums, and giving up their individuality,
also gave up every sense of honour and decency.
3 Very awful, but deeply instructive are the words of one once a
medium, then a lunatic, and finally delivered (J. G. Rauperts
Modern Spiritism, p. 166):- The entry of the spirit into
the human body is so subtle in its action that it is not noticeable by any but
the developed medium, who knows the sensation of entry and leaving. Even where the possessed one is ignorant of
being possessed, the obsessing spirit can, by suggesting thoughts, order the
action of the victim, so that he or she will act quite differently to their
normal manner - indeed, act against their own nature.
But there comes a sudden burst of sunshine with the tremendous
power and infinite grace of Christ. In
the solemn words of an old divine:- It is easier to keep Satan out than to cast him out;
and Mr. Coulson Kernahan,
after an observation of forty years, says,- I do not
know of any who, having entered upon the road of Spiritualism, have turned back. Nevertheless it is certain that exorcism is
as surely a fact as possession; and exorcism by no incantation, or magic
enchantment - for if so attempted, it fails (Acts
19: 13) - but through simple command,
in faith, through the name of Christ. The common term for the command to the demons to come out,
used by our Lord, is one in which the idea of severe reproof is implied
(Olshausen). For the Lord Jesus came to
destroy the works of the Devil (1 Jn. 3: 8): the very
first promise in His departing commission was that His disciples should cast out demons (Mark 16:
17); and the sole disciple faithful in the
greatest crisis the world has yet known was one out of whom had gone seven
devils. For the best evidence yet
accumulated on modern possession thus sums up the missionary experience of the
world:- Many cases of demon
possession have been cured by prayer to Christ, or in His name, some very easily, some with difficulty. So far as we
have been able to discover this method of cure has not failed in any case,
however stubborn and long [Page 41] continued, in which it has
been tried. And in no instance, so far
as appears, has the malady returned, if the subject has become a Christian, and
continued to lead a Christian life. 1
1 Dr. J. H. Neviuss Demon Possession and Allied Themes, p. 145:
THE TESTIMONY OF THE SPIRITS
No question could be more thrilling or momentous than this:- What does the evil spirit-world think of Christ? who do they say that He is?
These unseen powers have scanned human faces for thousands of Years;
their information is as vast as the continent and oceans; their knowledge is
the knowledge of another world:- what do they think of
the Lord Jesus? And straightway- the
moment the Lord opened His mouth in the synagogue: the mere magnetism of Christ
rouses Hell and throws the other world into a tumult, without His having
addressed to them a word; the mere presence of Christ unmasks demons - there was in their synagogue - for a devil can be inside the church
- a man with an unclean spirit - a spirit
that had lost its first purity; the spirit of an unclean demon (Luke 4: 33): and he cried out, saying,
I KNOW THEE WHO
THOU ART1 - these visitants from another world
knew Christ perfectly in that other world; and had learned the secret of the
Incarnation - the Holy One of God (Mark 1: 23). At this time our Lords Messiahship was
almost totally unknown, and His Godhead (probably) absolutely so: moreover, the
words of the Gadarean demon are utterly strange on
Jewish lips: the Holy One of God is never
applied to our Lord before Pentecost; and the Son of
the Most High God is an expression confined to the spirit-world, from
which we hear it again in the spirit of Python
in Philippi (Acts 16: 17). All
Hell witnessed, spontaneously and throughout His ministry, to the Divine
Sonship: the unclean [Page 42] spirits, whensoever they beheld Him, fell down before Him and cried, THOU ART THE SON OF
GOD (Mark 3: 11).2
1 During my thirty-five years
connection with Spiritualism, says Dr. J. M. Peebles (Jesus, Man, Medium, Maryyr,
p. 30), I have met fully 3,000 mediums: and not so
much as one intelligent
spirit has denied the existence of Jesus Christ.
2 The nature of these unclean spirits is
betrayed by their effects on mediums, thus described by a physician, once himself
the president of a Spiritualist society (Dr. C. Williams Spiritualism
and Insanity, p.
31): - Sometimes, when the lights are turned up,
the medium is found with mouth
drawn, lips and cheeks perfectly livid, quite unconscious, and yet breathing so
heavily that to the eye of a medical man, he or she presents all the symptoms
which are present in an apoplectic fit.
In what is called a developing circle, I have over and over again seen
this condition, although more often still the somewhat similar condition where
the person, also unconscious, grinds his teeth, foams at the mouth, and
presents almost every symptom of a true epileptic seizure. To those who have witnessed this process, and
seen the repulsive bodily contortions, muscular twitchings, frightful grimaces,
and horrible, unnatural sounds which so frequently accompany the process, the
thought must surely occur that this, even by itself, is highly corroborative of
a Satanic nature and origin.
A profound and complete revelation is now made by the demons
of their own exact relationship to Christ, What have
we to do with Thee, Thou Son of God? literally, What
is common to us and you?; that is to say, a moral gulf, unbridgable, so
yawns between them and Christ that, on their own statement, they have nothing
in common: Christ and these unclean spirits are mutually exclusive,
mutually destructive, without any community of interest or character. But that does not exhaust the
relationship. The demons continue:- ART THOU COME HITHER TO TORMENT US BEFORE THE TIME? With the Gospel, and all the grace and
salvation of the First Advent, they have nothing to do: in the Second Advent,
and the judgment of all worlds, they are profoundly and fearfully involved. In this spontaneous cry lies a whole revelation
of the future, published by the mouth of Hell itself. The demons also
believe and shudder (Jas. 2: 19): they expect torment; they know that the date
of it is fixed, while they themselves are ignorant of the date; they judge, and
rightly, that the Lords First Advent is not that date; and they are perfectly
aware that the Lord Jesus is their judge - the judge, that is, of all worlds,
as well as of all men. Not only is their
empire in jeopardy, but it is already doomed, and doomed at the hands of
Christ: art Thou come to destroy us? (Mark 1: 21). Moreover [Page
43] they were in dread of immediate apprehension by Jesus, human as
He was. I
adjure Thee by God, torment me not (Mark 5: 7): do not touch me now! so
confessing their complete and instantaneous subjection to Him. Inexpressibly solemn is it that they do not
ask never to be tormented, but not to be
tormented yet; nor do they see salvation for any demon Art Thou come to destroy us? Liable to be dismissed to the Abyss at any
moment, where Dives was already in torment, torment sooner or later, by
their own confession, is
their only future. It is little wonder
that our Lord says:- Rejoice
not that the spirits are subject unto you
(Luke 10: 20):
as we behold their horrible wickedness, and dread doom, we stand on the brink
of an ancient, unutterable tragedy; and we hear (in spirit) what Mr. Stainton
Moses heard in fact, - a most weird sound, of unrest,
wailing, and woe: we all felt awestruck; we had never heard so awful a sound.1
1 Proceedings, S.P.R., part 37., p. 62.
But the most wonderful revelation yet remains. The maniacal fury of these Gadarene demoniacs made the road impassable; exorcism can
be most dangerous to the exorcist: nevertheless, neither these powerful demons,
nor any our Lord met afterwards, ever attempted a direct physical assault on Him:
strength which snapped steel like thread never dared to touch Christ. Still more impressive, when the Lord spoke to
the most powerful Princes of the unseen, they invariably OBEYED. He cast out the spirits with a word (Matt. 8: 16): He made them inarticulate; when He said -
Silence, quit, begone, crying
with a loud voice, he came out of him (Mark 1: 26): He
even controlled a spirits future action and enter no
more into him (Mark 9: 17). In one of the exorcisms of Blumhardt, we read:- a fearful outcry was heard by hundreds of people penetrating
to a great distance, as the demon yelled, Jesus is victor! and departed. For attempting to cast out one demon,
seven Jews were driven out naked and wounded (Acts
19: 16): yet our Lord mastered two
thousand (for they entered two thousand swine); and when He says even to
Satan, Get thee behind me, he
does. The Jews were deeply [Page 44] startled, as well they might be, at the instant
obedience of the unseen world to Christ.
They were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What is this? a new teaching! with authority He
commandeth even the unclean spirits, and they
obey Him (Mark 1: 27). The
wonder sprang not so much from the substance of what He taught, as from its
effect; a new dominion over the unseen world disclosed a fresh revelation from
God: a conclusion which our Lord also Himself definitely drew:-
If I, by the Spirit of
God, cast out demons, THEN IS THE KINGDOM
OF GOD COME UPON YOU (Matt. 12: 28).
Why did our Lord refuse the testimony of the unclean
spirits? He suffered not the demons to
speak, because they knew Him (Mark 1: 34): rebuking them,
He suffered them not to speak, because they knew that He was THE CHRIST (Luke 4: 41). The
testimony was inopportune: an almost identical command the Saviour made two
years later, to the Apostles, the same reason operating: Jesus had to reveal
Himself sufficiently to save individuals, but not so overwhelmingly as to
defeat Calvary. Indeed a premature
testimony from Hell may actually have been purposely designed to upset Gods
plans, and to thwart Christ; either by conferring on Jesus the crown instead of
the cross, or by compromising the Saviours character through appearing to be
in collusion with Him. More probably,
however, it was because testimony, even if it be true, is worthless from lying
lips: proved perjury, in a law court, invalidates even correct witness: only
after the truth has been established by Divine Apostles and Prophets is it
permissible to dwell on the statements thus suddenly surprised out of the
unclean spirits as they recoiled in tumult before the Lord. The demons have rarely, if ever, attested
our Lords Deity since. With an authority which brooks no
contradiction, and a power that meets no resistance, Jesus speaks; no protest
is heard, no refusal allowed; and even the direction of their departure (Matt. 8: 31) is under His absolute command: and the
response of the demons is as absolute and unquestioning - for they confess that
Christ controls the legions of Hell; that He can send them anywhere He chooses;
that He can compel the Abyss to [Page 45] receive whom He will; and that He can
dismiss souls of angels or men into the Eternal Torments. Devils would make us doubt Christ, but
they never doubt Him themselves: they deny Hell, yet they know it.
And with their headlong departure, the veil drops again: our further
curiosity is left ungratified: the less we know of Hell, once it has been
revealed, denounced, expelled, the holier and safer for us and for all mankind.
SORCERY
So are thousands of inquirers pushing a path, regardless of consequences,
and out of sight of old landmarks, into phenomena declared to be produced by
spirits, confessedly beings of unknown character and undiscovered design. Hundreds of thousands to-day are being lured
on to rocks which they do not see, and conducted to a goal from which their
opened eyes would recoil in horror. For
it is written:- Woe unto him that
saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone,
Arise, it shall teach! (Hab. 2: 19). How
extraordinary is this admission by Mr. C. C. Massey, a confirmed Spiritualist:- I have come to the conclusion
that there is extramundane opposition to the lifting of the normal veil between
the seen and the unseen; that the lifting of the veil in the way of external
manifestations is disorderly, and cannot expect furtherance from divinely
spiritual powers.1 For the law of Jehovah stands forever
athwart the path of the Spiritualist; and though we are not under the Law - or else we should have to put
the medium to death (Ex. 22: 18) - we
find Gods mind on spirit-intercourse in the Law. One that practiseth
augury, or an enchanter, or a sorcerer, or a charmer,
or a consulter with a familiar spirit, or a wizard, or a necromancer
(that is, an invoker of the dead), whosoever doeth
these things IS AN ABOMINATION UNTO THE LORD (Deut. 18: 10). In the
[Page 46] words of Hugh Benson: To go to sιances
with good intentions is like holding a smoking concert in a
powder-magazine on behalf of an orphan asylum.
It is not the least protection to open the concert with prayer: we have
no business to be there at all. We are
blown up just the same. The
final Apostasy will enter through spiritism; for the Spirit saith expressly that in later times some shall
fall away from the faith, GIVING HEED TO SEDUCING SPIRITS (1 Tim. 4: 1) a religious scheme,
as Sir Conan Doyle says, founded upon human reason on
this side, and upon spirit inspiration upon the other.2 It is exceedingly remarkable that Isaiahs great Immanuel chapter reveals
(as Paul does in 1 Tim. 4: 1-3) that, immediately before our Lords return,
there will be a vast revival of the Black Arts.
Blackstone, the greatest of commentators on the laws of
1 Contemporary
Review, Nov., 1922.
It is a portent of the end that, perhaps with the exception of Dr. Neviuss Demon Possession, Mr. G. H. Pembers Earths Earliest Ages is the only adequate work, almost the only work, countering Spiritualism
for the last three quarters of a century.
See also Mr. Coulson Kernahans
Black, Objects and Spiritualism (Religious Tract Society), for some
vivid and pungent criticism.
2 The New
Revelation, p. 129.
3 The Times, Nov., 12, 1913.
NECROMANCY
But it is not only Sorcery which Isaiah foretells, but
especially its allied art, Necromancy, or the invocation of the dead: they seek unto THE DEAD. At the present moment the great questions of
the world beyond the grave are pressing upon us from every side; and myriads
are seeking their loved and lost in the consulting-rooms of the
Necromancer. Even before the War an
office was opened, some years ago, at Mowbray House, near the
1
For what is their peculiar sin? It is leaving
the Word of God to seek the dead. On behalf of the living should they seek unto the dead? To the law and to the
testimony! If they speak not according to this word - the Word
of God - surely there is no light in them. When faith departs, superstition always
enters like a flood; of the false prophets - the mediums
- the Apostle John says: They are of the world:
therefore speak they as of the world, and the world heareth them (1
John 4: 5). It is the sin of Saul, who, when he left God,
became a necromancer; he turned his back on the Divine Word, and in the day of
his desperate sorrow, invoked Samuel from the grave. For all wounded hearts, who yearn for the touch of a vanished hand and the sound of a voice that is
still there is a better way. Should not a people seek unto their God? Shall the living seek unto the dead, instead
of to the living God? Is it not a colossal
blunder to seek life among the dead, and to invoke sinners like ourselves whose
day of probation is over, rather than the Lord of all life? [Page 49] (See Isa. 38: 18). Moreover, in all defences of necromancy there
is a studied ignoring of the perils of wicked spirit-beings, whose activity is
nevertheless fully acknowledged; our power to withdraw in time is assumed,
contrary to appalling evidence; and the will and word of the Most High are
completely ignored. For a long while, says Mr. Myers, one of Mr. Stainton Moses main stumbling blocks lay in the
lofty and un-provable claims of his familiars, so lofty that they have
never been divulged: ultimately he came to believe
even in these identities. Yet the guides themselves expressly state, Mr. Myers
adds, that spirits can refer to books for their own
biographies: this admission of course leaves us with nothing more than their
word to prove that the persons represented were in reality present.1 All that David Brainerd - one of Professor Barretts evidential cases - is
concerned about, on returning, is the exact location of a gold mine!2 The Devil dead can be a more
dangerous foe than the Devil alive.3
Spiritualism, says Dr. T. L. Nichols,
a distinguished Spiritualist, meets, neutralizes, and
destroys Christianity. A Spiritualist is
no longer a Christian.
1 Human Personality, vol. ii.,
pp. 227, 229.
2 On the
Threshold of the Unseen, p. 215.
3 A Christian worker says (The Warfare with
Satan, p 59):- I had been a
Christian for many years, and knew experimentally conversion and
consecration. One day I found that
letters of the alphabet would form themselves before my eyes into remarkable
revelations, messages purporting to come from my dear one in
[Page 50]
SUMMARY
So, to sum up,
any indirect value of Spiritualism as proof demonstrating an unseen world is
far out-weighed by the peril and the terror of that world. Even the least
enlightened theologian, says Professor Barrett,
must surely recognize that the work in which
psychical research is engaged is destroying the very foundations on which
materialism has built its shallow and discredited philosophy.1 But
it destroys all Christian foundations also. It merely takes us back into the demon
world. Mr. Myers frankly admits it. Now this seems a
strange doctrine to have reached after so much disputation. For it simply brings us back to the creeds of
the Stone Age. We have come round again
to the primitive practices of the shaman and the medicine-man; - to a doctrine
of spiritual intercourse which was once ecumenical, but has now taken refuge in
African swamps and Siberian tundras and the snow-clad wastes of the Red Indian
and the Esquimaux.2
1 Contemporary
Review, Nov., 1922.
2 Human Personality, vol. ii.,
p. 191.
But in one Bible character there stands forth a golden
solution of the Spiritualists problem.
Manasseh is unique in the record of his extreme wickedness, his deep
repentance, his thorough reformation, and his experience of amazing grace; and
Manasseh is the outshining Spiritualist of
the Bible. He practised
augury, and used enchantments, and practised sorcery, and dealt with them that
had familiar spirits, and with wizards: he wrought much evil in the sight of
the Lord, to provoke Him to anger (2 Kings
21: 6). One curious phase of his sorcery - he also made his children to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom
(2 Chron. 33: 6) - is
practised to-day in demon-ridden lands. Mr.
G. E. Hall, Turkish consul-general in
1 Journal, Society for Psychical Research, Nov., 1901.
Then the crash came. The Lord brought upon [Israel]
the captains of the host of the King of Assyria:
Manasseh, with upper or under lip perforated, a ring hooked through and dragged
by a thong, arrives in Babylon; and when [Page 52] he was in distress, he besought the Lord his God, and humbled
himself greatly before the God of his fathers (2 Chron.
33: 12). It is a cameo of grace: man sinning - God
warning; man persisting - God punishing; man repenting
- God restoring; man obeying - God enthroning.
And God brought him again into his kingdom:
then Manasseh knew that the
Lord he was God.
So one of the greatest of the medieval Occultists, Cornelius
Agrippa (1529), renounced his arts, and says:- As a young man I composed a fairly large work in three books
on magic, which I entitled Occulta Philosophia. In
that book my too-curious youth propounded many erroneous opinions, which I
desire, now that I have gained a riper experience, to withdraw in this
recantation. I have spent upon these
vanities only too much time and money.
Still, I have attained a knowledge, through
which I am able to warn others against misfortune. He who dares to prophesy and foretell events,
not through the truth and power of God, but as a plaything of demons, and with
the aid of evil spirits; he who, by magical delusions, exorcisms, adjurations,
love-potions, invocations, and other demonic works, practises heathenish
abominations, or creates dream-images, phantasms, and swiftly-passing miracles,
is destined, like Jannes and Jambres,
and like Simon Magus, for the fire of Hell. One thing alone remains. And not a few of
them that practised curious arts brought their books together - occult
parchments steeped in hellish influences and aura - and
BURNED THEM in the sight of all: and
they counted the price of them, and found it
fifty thousand pieces of silver (Acts 19:
19) - if in Jewish coinage, £7,000. In other sins we deal with impulses which
grace can master: in sorcery we deal with
persons who can follow us: every bridge between must
be destroyed. Ye
cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons. OR DO WE PROVOKE THE LORD TO JEALOUSY? (1 Cor. 10: 21).
* *
*
[Page 53]
1. NOTE ON THE GOSPEL AND
THE DEAD
The dead
Patriarchs answer to a dead man (Luke 16: 25) closes all hope for him: so Dives exclaims, -
But if Lazarus cannot be sent to me, let him be sent to my brothers; if he
cannot cross the impassable gulf, he can at least return to the earth he so
lately quitted. In other words, only let
the
dead preach the gospel; let
one warning of solemn testimony as to the fact of hell-fire be given by one who
has felt it, and a message arrive from one actually in it, and men will believe. Thus, clearly, it is the heart of an
unbeliever still, who is speaking; for the implication is, If only I had had
sufficient evidence that such a place of torment exists - if only I had been
warned clearly enough of the awful consequences of impenitence, I should never
have been here; even the ulcered beggar at my gates would be a preacher good
enough for my brothers and me if only he had actually come back from the dead.
Now let us first thoroughly grasp what Abraham in reply does not say: he does not say that no occupant
of Hades can ever return. Between the
saved and the lost in Hades, a gulf is fixed, yawning, fathomless, bridgeless,
which cannot be overleaped, either by pity on the one side, or lawlessness on
the other; but no impassable barriers are stated to exist between Hades and the
earth. The way the [disembodied] soul went, it can come back. Moreover, Abraham does not say that no
intelligent communication could be established; or that if a spirit returned,
it would be unrecognizable. On the
contrary, of beheaded martyrs whose disembodied souls were in the other world,
John, himself in the body, says: I saw the souls of them that had been
beheaded (Rev. 6:
9); and when the discarnate spirit of Samuel
reappeared, Saul perceived that it was Samuel(2 Sam. 28: 14). The [disembodied] soul is an exact counterpart of the body, and the body
is the physical manifestation of the soul - there is no physical impossibility
in the dead returning and communicating with the living. Necromancy is a real and forbidden sin (Deut. 18: 11).
[Page 54]
What then does
the dead Patriarch say? He says: They have Moses and the prophets, let them
hear them. How
remarkably this comes from Abraham!
Abraham, who lived before a single book of the Bible was written,
testifies, in the other world, that it is the Book of God; and that salvation
is through it alone. Sir Conan Doyle
utters the very sentiment of Dives: In recent years
there has come to us from Divine sources a new revelation which constitutes by
far the greatest religious event since the death of Christ. When one knows, as I know, of widows who are
assured that they hear the loved voice once again, or of mothers whose hands,
groping in the darkness, clasp once again those of the vanished child, and when
one considers the loftiness of their intercourse and the serenity of spirit
which succeeds it, I feel sure that a fuller knowledge would calm the doubt of
the most scrupulous conscience.1 But the Book itself has come from the other
world; therefore I need no
apparition from the dead, the Book came from heaven, not hell - a message from
God, not a message from the dead; they may lie, God
never. Even if, with Paul, we could
return from
1 Daily Express, Oct. 31, 1916.
To the second appeal of Dives Abraham
now makes a stronger statement. He says:
If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, if one rise [out] from the dead.
God is appealing to the consciences of men, not to their astonishment: God
has laid out the future, including this very scene which Dives begged
might be sent to the world, in
His Holy Word; and with it has given ample directions, so that no mortal need
ever arrive at the place of torment. Not
only do we need no fuller revelation, but the revelation Dives suggests would
not effect his purpose. Am I likely to believe in the under-fires
reported by a wandering spirit, when I will not believe in them at the mouth of
God? And if I did believe it, can a
messenger from Hades cleanse my soul, or purify my life, or pardon my sin, or
open to me the gates of
Dives prayed that Lazarus might
revisit the earth as a departed spirit, to witness to men that there is a place
of torment: now the return of Samuel is the solitary case, in the whole Bible,
of a God-sanctioned return such as [Page 56] Dives prayed for;1 not the return of a person risen from
the dead - we have the records of eight such; nor the return of the living
rapt, such as Elijah to the Mount of Transfiguration; but of the spirit of the
dead man, returning again to witness to the living. Nor could any case be imagined more
favourable to the contention of the modem Spiritualist. Of all the recent dead Samuel was the
holiest; he was one of the great prophets of God; his counsel, when alive, had
been Sauls richest asset; and the kings position was now desperate:- if the dead could ever help or save, it must be in such a
case as Samuels.
1 It is as certain as language can make it that the inspired writer asserts the actual
return of Samuel; and the more modern orthodox
commentators are unanimous in the opinion that the departed prophet did really appear, not, however, in consequence
of the magical arts of the witch, but through a miracle wrought by the
omnipotence of God (Keil and Delitzsch).
Let us therefore attend the midnight sιance on the mountains of Gilboa, enveloped
in a darkness which has been significantly essential to the most powerful sιances
ever since. Saul says: Seek me a woman - the great majority of mediums have
been women down all the ages that hath a familiar spirit: and his servants
said, Behold there is a woman at Endor (1 Sam. 28: 7). Endor means the well of the
circle; and the very first instructions given to Spiritualistic
inquirers is on how to form a circle - that
is, a sιance. Now look closely at the prototype of all
Spiritualists of all ages. Saul is a [Holy] Spirit-abandoned man.* The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul; and the Lord answered him not, neither
by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets. The Holy Ghost had fallen finally silent,
because there was no heart-cry in Saul after holiness or heaven or God. We hear the wail of sorrow - I am sore distressed - but that is the only wail we
hear. This is how a sιance is born. Necromancy
is a counsel of despair, and is born of a great silence; not the silence of the
desert, nor the silence of midnight, nor the silence of the sea; but a far more
awful silence - the silence of God: not a silence because God cannot hear; but because, through persistent
and impenitent sin, He will not hear. It is when heavens door is shut that man [Page 57] begins to knock at the door of hell.
The Rev. W. H. Clagett, himself an ex-medium,
says:- I have yet to meet the first Spiritualist of
whom I did not find one of two things to be true - either they were renegade
church members who had given up their faith, or they were persons who at one
time had been under deep conviction from the Holy Spirit, and had driven away
their convictions. I do not say it is
true of all Spiritualists; but I have never met one (and I have met a great many)
of whom it was not true.1
Saul had
received the Word of God through Samuel again and again, and he had finally
abandoned it: he consulted the dead only when he was deserted by God. God is departed from
me, he cries to Samuel; therefore I have called thee.
He is perfectly conscious that he is doing a forbidden thing: cloaked
and disguised, that for which he had himself inflicted capital punishment is
the practice to which he now resorts.
[* See G. H. Langs The Personal Indwelling of the Holy Spirit
and The Rights of the Holy Spirit in the House of God.]
1 The Mask Torn Off, p. 5; 5th ed.,
Now see the act of necromancy from the side beyond the
grave. And
Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted
me, to bring me up? It is not
said that any incantation of the witch evoked the prophet: her sudden cry of
alarm revealed her own surprise that Samuel, but Samuel in the midst of a
sudden splendour of angels, and not her familiar demon, had appeared: God
(since the Lawgiver has power to make exceptions to His own laws) had sent back the instructor of the king to
announce his doom. So Samuels words
are a revelation to all who would harass and disturb the dead. Death, for the child of God, leaves the [disembodied] soul conscious but quiescent,
and the body asleep; a holy quiescence which, as Samuel complains, should not
be broken.
Now in this solitary example of an invocation of the dead
which God has sanctioned 1 as a warning and instruction for
after ages, what message does the dead man bring, [Page 58] who himself, when alive, was the
channel of Gods revelation to his generation? He says:- The Lord hath as He spoke by me: it is the
Scriptures you should have regarded; and it is the Scriptures which are your
doom: because thou obeyedst
not the voice of the Lord,
hath the Lord done this thing unto thee this day.
The utmost that even a dead prophet can
do is to point to the Living Oracles; and he who rejects the Scriptures will
have all the holy dead against him; for, as saith the Holy Ghost, though an angel from heaven - much less a disembodied
[soul or] spirit from
Hades - preacheth unto you any other gospel than that
which ye received, let him be anathema
(Gal. 1: 8). It is
only the wicked dead who will tell the living wicked what they want to hear. Why should the dead have any spiritual knowledge - as apart from a knowledge of Hades itself - not
accessible to the living? They that go down into the pit cannot hope for Thy truth
(Isa. 38: 18). Saul heard no new doctrine from the dead; he
was told only what he already knew or feared; he had asked Samuel what he was
to do, but on that Samuel is as silent as God; no effort for his conversion is
made by the dead prophet; and the fresh revelation he receives is only the
exact date of his doom. We may appeal
from God to man, but if it be a holy man, the answer will be the same; we may
turn from living prophets to dead prophets, but we shall only find all the
prophets against us: there is only one Bible in heaven or on earth or under the
earth. Sauls whole sin had sprung from
disregard of what Samuel had said - that is, disobedience to the Word of God, a sin in which, in his very
necromancy, he still persisted: so
the messenger from the other world has no pity or mercy in his voice: the
apparition leaves the soul as lost as it found it.
1 Two acute modern problems are solved by Saul and Dives. Invocation of Saints - (of which these two
cases stand alone in the Bible) collapses under the point blank failure, in
both cases, of the invocation; so also prayers for the dead, for the dead man
himself is told that prayer is now too late. Christ prayed for the yet unborn (John 17: 20)
but he never prayed for the dead.
Thus we arrive at the final answer, out of an actual
historical experience, to the plea of Dives.
If one go to them from the dead, they will
repent. What was the effect of this
embassy from the dead? Then Saul fell straightway his full length upon the earth,
and was sore afraid; and the next day, Saul took his sword, and fell
upon it (1 Sam. 31: 4). With neither repentance nor [Page 59] remorse; without fear or cry; with no sorrow for disobedience, no sign of
even a wish for a better life, he falls into a dead swoon through terror, and
passes into the other world* a suicide. If we force God to break the silence of His
wounded Spirit, His response can only be judgment. How significant that there is no more tragic
dirge in the whole realm of music than the Dead March in Saul! And what is the epitaph the Holy Spirit writes
upon the tomb-stone of this great prototype of the Spiritualists of all ages ? So Saul died, because of the Word
of the Lord, which he kept not;
and also for that he asked counsel of one that had a
familiar spirit: THEREFORE THE LORD SLEW HIM (1 Chron. 10: 13). A
genuine communication from the dead (the very claim of the Spiritualist) was
one of the two sins for which Saul lost his life at the hands of God and at his
own. For the mocker will die mocking; as
Henry Labouchere, when a lamp was accidentally upset beside his dying bed, and
he saw the sudden flare, exclaimed, Flames? not yet, I think; and with this pitiful joke he
passed into the awful silences of eternity. Saul, in spite of a messenger sent direct from
the dead, died as he had lived - an unrepentant, unpurged, unvitalized soul.
[* That is, into Hades / Sheol - the Underworld, containing the disembodied souls
of the dead in the heart of the earth (Matt. 12: 40; 16: 18): For David ascended
not into the heavens(Acts 2:
34); and Hymenaeus
and Philetus; men who concerning the truth have
erred, saying that the resurrection is
past already, and overthrow the faith of
some: (2 Tim. 2: 17b, 18, R.V.).]
How pathetically is the Rich Mans family like myriads of families to-day! It
was a family one of whom was a lost spirit: it was a family in which all the
surviving brothers were unbelievers*:
it was a family which had all the power to be saved in its hands, and
did not use it: it was a
family whose lost brother in hell [Hades] would have saved them if he could, but he could not. No special crime is charged against Dives
and his brothers; what he had been, they are simply worldlings; and now he
discovers that a time comes when soul-winning work is too late. And what is it that the dead man is trying to
get to the hearts of his brothers? That
the [scriptural] doctrines he had slighted in life, are
now found to be actually true beyond death; that the Bible is effective for salvation
only among the living; that the terrors of hell are no fictions of designing
ecclesiastics, but tremendous and appalling realities; that a man may die an
infidel, but that he wakes up - too late - a believer; and that the faith to
which he wakes is the [Page 60] faith of the devils - who believe and shudder (Jas. 2:
9). The
tragedy is that men do not know: the criminality is that they will not believe.1
[* That is, unbelievers of Gods place reserved in the
Underworld for the disobedient and unrepentant disembodied souls in
Hades. There is nothing in Scripture to
suggest they were unregenerate!]
1 How remarkable also
is it that the very thing which the Spiritualist says that the dead constantly
do - return to help their relatives - is the very thing which Dives finds
impossible.
Nor is it less impressive to learn what the message of a dead
man is on the salvation of a soul. Dives, unconsciously laying bare his soul,
gives us a diagnosis of the lost. He
says: Nay, father Abraham - the Scriptures
are not
enough, for they never influenced my own life; and thus he confesses
tacitly that the Book was in his hands, and yet he is in the place of torment: but
if one go to them from the dead - a ghost [i.e., an evil spirit] will do
what the Bible never did, which reveals what he thinks of the Bible, and its
power - they will repent - which is a frank
confession that he never repented. But
what a world of instruction for the living is here! What does a dead man think the living need? Repentance. What does a lost soul say can alone
deliver the living from the place of torment? Repentance.
What gospel does a man already in
hell-fire preach? Repentance. Dives knows that [wilful]* sin alone brought him there; that nothing but a clean cut with sin can
ever save; and that no such repentance is now possible for him. It is to the living only that the words are
addressed: God commandeth all men everywhere
to repent (Acts 17: 30); and the sobbing soul gets home. O fellow-preachers, Lazarus was not sent to
tell the awful truth of [Hades
and] hell** because you and I are!
[* For -
in Gods book it is written to believers - if we
sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth,
there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain fearful expectation of Judgement, and of fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries. 28 A man that hath set at nought Moses law dieth without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses: 29 of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged
worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of
God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant,
wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done
despite unto the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know him that said, Vengeance
belongeth unto me, I will recompense. And again, The Lord shall judge his people. 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living
God: (Heb. 10:
26-31,
R.V.).
Those who teach that we can ascend into the presence of God
immediately after the time of death; and appear in His heavenly presence, as a
disembodied spirit, void of a resurrected soul, clothed with an immortal and
glorified body (like that of our Lords resurrected and glorified body of
flesh and bones, Luke
24:39, R.V.) are being deceived! Which begs the question: Deceived by whom? Certainly not by the Holy Spirit!
Furthermore, we learn that there is more than one judgment
mentioned in the Scriptures! In Heb. 9: 27 it is written:
it is
appointed unto men once to die, and after this {i.e., after the time of death} cometh judgement.
This future judgment will determine who, from amongst the dead in
Hades, will rise in the First Resurrection, to reign with their Lord in
His coming Kingdom. Rev. 20: 4-6. cf.
Rev. 20: 15, R.V.]
** See FOOTNOTE on the word Hell.
* *
*
[Page 61]
2 NOTE ON THE
DISCRIMINATION OF SPIRITS.
The profound importance of rightly discriminating on the
threshold of the spirit-world Paul (1 Tim. 4: 1-3) has indicated once for all. For the spirits who will approach us at the
end, the originators of the Apostasy foretold, are described as seductive
in the manner and effect of their approach. Their real character is concealed. They accommodate themselves to the known
belief and disposition of men. A form of
demonic activity to which the heathen were always, and are still, subject,
would, in time, show a new outbreak among people who had become identified with
the Christian Faith.1 What adepts at deceptive personation
modern demons can be Professor Lombroso bears witness:- incarnaters, who rapidly
impersonate by word and look, etc., one or more deceased persons, one after the
other. Such a medium is Randone, of
1 Dr. Neviuss Demon Possession,
p. 415.
2 After Death-What? p. 125.
No case of wilful deception is more impressive, nor more fully
acknowledged by Spiritualists themselves, than the familiars
of Swedenborg - the prince of spiritists, - to the
Spiritualist, as Mr. F. W. H. Myers admits, a
uniquely gifted, but uniquely dangerous, precursor. The great bulk of
his teaching - that is, of his revelations,
his intercourse with innumerable angels, and
their own entire exposition of the Bible - has
undergone a singularly unfortunate downfall. Swedenborgs wildnesss were based upon a
definite foundation which has definitely crumbled away. And yet, on the face of it, was not all this
error more amply accredited than any of the utterances of possession or the
recollections of ecstasy which I shall be able to cite from modern sensitives? Swedenborg
was one of the leading savants of
Moreover, claims the most daring, and the loftiest
assumptions, are inevitable as the Church is confronted with demonic seductions
under cover of the last shadows. For
such men are FALSE APOSTLES,
deceitful workers, fashioning themselves into apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for even Satan himself fashioneth himself into an ANGEL
OF LIGHT (2 Cor.
11: 13). People talk of
Pentecost, says Sir A. Conan Doyle, as
something mystical. I and my wife have
been in an upper room in
1 Human Personality, vol. ii.,
218: my italics.
2 Daily Express,- Oct. 16, 1922.
The crisis, therefore, is critical and grave. Thus confronted, it is both useless and
dangerous to take refuge in the averted face, or in a cultivated ignorance; and
much more dangerous to accept any revelation
whatever on its surface claim. We cannot be sure where these messages come from, as
even Professor Barrett assures the Church Congress (1922); the Apostolic warnings are well to
remember. Moreover, it is the
direct command of God - PROVE the SPIRITS (1 John 4: 1):
thus we have no option: no spirit-movement
or spirit-action must ever be accepted without submission to,
and authentication by, the Divine Tests. These Tests, therefore,
rule the situation: shorn of miracle, as the Church has been for seventeen or
eighteen centuries, and therefore unpossessed of any present [Page 63] miraculous gift of discernings of spirits
(1 Cor. 12: 10) - and,
much more, wholly incapable of discerning un-miraculously - we depend
absolutely on the applied Word of God, prescribed for the purpose in an
ungifted Church.1
1 It is remarkable that evil intercourse can be suppressed by prayer.
Bishop Wilberforce, of
For it must be carefully observed that spirit-visitants can be
directly challenged. That a spirit can be
so isolated from the person controlled that
the spirit-being, and not the human medium, both receives the challenge and
gives the response, a summary of mediumship by Professor Lombroso
will reveal:- there are speaking mediums; pneumatographers,
who call forth direct writing without making use of a pen; evokers of phantasms;
photographers, who print the forms of invisible spirits upon photographic
plates, even in the dark; glottologues, who speak unknown tongues; intuitive
writers, who hear in the brain a voice dictating to them what they shall write;
and acoustic mediums, who hear with their ears the voice of spirits.1
1 After
Death-What? p. 124.
So we arrive at the main Test.
If I myself find some personality other than
myself employing my vocal chords, to utter words intelligible or unintelligible
- or employing any other member of my body to manifest himself - I must at all
costs test him thoroughly by Gods appointed tests, before I sanction his further
use of my members. If I find no
supernatural answer in plain, straightforward terms, then I am to hold the
fortress against him; for I know that God will answer without shuffling or
circumlocution. And if a fellow-Christian
should be the agent of a spirit, I must also test this spirit; and the Christian speaking in tongues ought to co-operate
with us to let the spirit establish his identity. A Spiritualist sits before a planchette, he
asks the spirit a definite question, and he gets a definite answer; and he
takes every care he can imagine to prevent any living human personality supply in [Page 64] the information
he seeks from the spirit. So in table-rapping: Spiritualists succeed
in isolating the spirits they communicate with, without troubling at the outset
who the spirit is. Alas, it is not so
with Christians!1
A Christian, of his own volition, will always give a
correct answer to the test; but no spirit, except the Holy Spirit, will. 2 If we are
not absolutely satisfied that we have attained this clear separation, by means
of question and answer, between the spirit and the person he is using, we ought
to regard it as revealing an enemy. The
failure to convey certainty to our honest judgment is itself the working of the
test (G. H. Ramsay).
1 None of us, a prominent
adherent of the Tongues Movement writes to me, could
do it [put the Test], for it would be false and ridiculous for us to do so.
2 Or good angels.
EVERY SPIRIT WHICH CONFESSETH THAT JESUS CHRIST IS COME IN
THE FLESH IS OF GOD: AND EVERY SPIRIT WHICH CONFESSETH NOT JESUS IS NOT OF GOD
(1 John 4: 2).
It would seem that Gnostic demons,
Swedenborgian demons, Irvingite demons, and
overwhelmingly so demons in the Tongues Movement, have made the profession but not the confession: that is, an
evil spirit can, of his own accord and when untested, state a perfectly correct
theology; but when confronted with this specific challenge by the disciple of
Christ, strategy or hate or Divine embargo compels a self-revelation. BELOVED, TRY THE SPIRITS.3
3 See Tests for the
Supernatural (Thynne).
-------
TWO FOOTNOTES
1
Hades occurs eleven times in the Greek Testament, and is improperly
translated in the Common Version ten times by the word HELL. It is the word used in
the Septuagint as a translation of the Hebrew word Sheol, denoting the abode or
world of the dead, and means, literally, that
which is in darkness, hidden, invisible, or obscure. As the word Hades did not come to the Hebrew from any classical source, or with
any classical meanings, but through the Septuagint as a translation of their
own word sheol,
therefore, in order to properly define its meaning, recourse must be had to the
various passages where it is found. The
Hebrew word sheol is translated by hades in the Septuagint sixty times out
of sixty-three; and though sheol in
many places - such as Gen. 35: 35, 42: 38; 1 Sam 2: 7; 1 Kings 2: 6; Job 14: 13, 17: 13-16 - may signify keber, the
grave, as the common receptacle of the [bodies of the] dead,
yet it has the more general meaning
of death -a state of death, the dominion of death. To translate hades by the word hell,
as it is done ten times out of eleven in the New Testament, is very improper, unless it has the Saxon
meaning helan,
to cover, attached to it. The primitive signification of Hell, only
denoting what was secret, or concealed, perfectly corresponds with the Greek
term hades, and its Hebrew
equivalent sheol;
but the theological definition given to it
at the present day by no means expresses it. (The Emphatic Diaglott.)
Dr Seiss, doubtless the ablest
expounder of the Book of Revelation that has written in this country or this
age, says on Hades in Revelation:
There is a word used
sixty-five times in the original Hebrew of the Old Testament which our English
translators in thirty-one instances render hell, in thirty-one instances grave,
and in three instances the pit.
That word is Sheol,
uniformly rendered Hades in the Greek of the Old Testament, and wherever the
New Testament quotes the passages in which it occurs. By common consent the Greek word hades is the exact equivalent of the
Hebrew sheol. It occurs eleven times in the New Testament,
and always in the same sense as the Old Testament SHEOL.
To all intents and
purposes, therefore, sheol and hades denote one and the same
thing. But sheol or hades is never used to denote the hell of final punishment. Neither is it used to denote the mere receptacle
of the body after death - the grave. Nor
yet is it ever used to denote the mere state of being dead as to the body, and
still less to denote the pit or abyss, as such.
A careful inventory of all
the passages conclusively proves that sheol
or hades is the name of a place in the
unseen world, altogether distinct
from the hell of final punishment, or
the heaven of final glory. Its true and ONLY MEANING is the place of
departed spirits* - the receptacle of souls
which have left the body. To this place
all departed souls, good and bad went.
In it there was a department for the good - called paradise by the
Saviour on the cross - and another department for the bad. Thus, both the rich man and Lazarus went to hades when they died; for the word is in hades he lifted up his eyes, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. Lazarus
was then, too, in hades, as well as Abraham, and the only difference between
them and Dives was, that the good were separated from the bad by an impassable
gulf, and that Lazarus was comforted and Dives tormented.
So we plant our feet on rock in the words of Professor Max
Miller: No one
who watches the intellectual atmosphere of
2
[How history keeps repeating
itself! The
intellectual atmosphere of
There will be those, who question why God has not, before now,
intervened and returned to stop the ever increasing evil. But, the fact of the matter is, our world is
not yet bad enough: and God is still patiently waiting not wanting
anyone to perish. His Grace and
Love are presently available for all (Matt.
5: 45):
and until our Lord Jesus returns (in bodily presence) to claim His inheritance here
(Psa. 2: 8), and establish
His reign of righteousness and lasting world-peace (Dan. 2: 44; Rom. 8: 21, R.V.), world events will continue as prophesised:
The Spirit saith expressly, in later times some shall fall away from the faith,
giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons,
through the hypocrisy of men that speak lies
(1 Tim. 4: 1, 2, R.V.).]