SEEKING UNTO THE DEAD

It is exceedingly remarkable that Isaiah’s great Immanuel chapter reveals (as Paul does in 1 Tim 4: 1-3) that, immediately before our Lord’s return, there will be a vast revival of the Black Arts. Blackstone, the greatest of commentators on the laws of England, declares that “to deny the possibility, nay, the actual existence of witchcraft, is at once flatly to contradict the revealed Word of God.” So also a shrewd and widely experienced man of the world, Sir Walter Besant, says:- “We are now” - this was written many years ago, when the evil was far less developed – “on the verge of another outbreak of belief in magic to which, perhaps, all the preceding outbreaks will be mere child’s play.” Thus the world itself asserts that Witchcraft is an absolute certainty of the Bible, and that mankind are on the verge of a vaster outbreak of it than in all the preceding ages of human history.

Isaiah says:- “They (the unbelievers) shall say unto you (the disciples of Messiah, whether Christian or Jewish), ‘Seek unto them that have familiar spirits’ - that is, an attendant spirit peculiar to each medium, and familiar to his beck and call - ‘and unto the wizards’” (Is. 8: 19); that is, in days of gloom and sorrow and judgment, the people are foreseen flocking to the consulting rooms of the Sorcerer, and seeking to take the people of God with them, to inquire into an ominous future.

Never perhaps in modern days has Witchcraft been more boldly and unblushingly endorsed than it has been by one of the first of modern writers, Oliver Madox Hueffer. “Unimaginative people are proud that they live in ‘an age of enlightenment.’ Did they but realise it the age of Witchcraft had very great advantages. The witch herself was emphatically a person to be envied. She had - what other women at all times have wished above all else - power. She was the ally and intimate friend of the second most powerful potentate in the universe. That she believed in her own powers is a fact undeniable, and in so believing she believed also that she would in due course reap the reward promised her by her friend and partner, the Devil. As one who has long hoped for it a new lease of life, I am grateful to the author of The Witch for leading the way towards what may be a renaissance of the black arts” (Times, Nov. 12, 1913.)

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 it is probable that since earth began there have never been so many dying as now; and myriads are seeking their loved and lost in the consulting-rooms of the Necromancer. An office was opened, years ago, at Mowbray House, near the Strand, for a regular exchange of messages with friends beyond the grave. Of this so-called “bureau” Miss Stead remarks:- “In all, over 600 persons received help and consolation during the three years of the bureau’s activity, and were confident that they had been brought into communication with their loved ones who had passed on before.” It is exceedingly striking that Sir Oliver Lodge, himself a Spiritualist, has discovered the atmosphere of tragic gloom that fills this world of the reputed dead, but of actual demons, who, without compunction, trifle with the most sacred emotions of bereaved souls by personating their dead.

“I should judge,” Sir Oliver says (Strand Magazine, Dec., 1916), “that remorse is rather a notable feature of the discarnate mental state; and that the feeling may be akin to that sadly felt by us in the night-watches.” Even if and when it is a genuine communication with the dead, then it is necromancy, and an abomination to God.

For the doom of the Necromancer is assured - if unrepentant because of what he is. “There shall not be among you a consulter with a familiar spirit, or a wizard, or a necromancer; for whosoever doeth these things is an ABOMINATION unto the Lord.” (Deut. 18: 11). The terrible Day of the Lord awaits the Necromancer. For Isaiah continues:- “They shall fret themselves” - be deeply angry, - “and they shall curse their king” - as anarchists – “and their God” - as blasphemers; the lawlessness and blasphemy of to-day spring from the unseen; “and turn their faces upward” - hurling blasphemies at the rapt saints (Rev. 13: 6), in rage and defiance; “and they shall look unto the earth and behold, distress and darkness” - dizziness produced by calamity; distress of circumstances, and despair of heart – “the gloom of anguish”; for as in Egypt the judgment boils burst out on the magicians themselves; “and into thick darkness” - darkness of darkness, like the felt pitch of Egypt – “they shall be driven away.” Not only is Sorcery named as one of the great sins of the last days (Rev. 9: 21), but one of the eight classes occupying the Lake of Fire are Sorcerers also (Rev. 21: 8).

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 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. The Rev. W. H. Clagett, 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” (The Mask Torn Off, p. 5.)

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? (See Is. 38: 18). Even in Heaven only one Mediator is known. A letter from a Pembrokeshire officer in the Air Service says:- “I have already seen three officers killed by aeroplanes falling; one of them lived, poor chap, for half an hour after coming down. As he lay on the ground (he could not be moved) we were standing around him; suddenly he opened his eyes and looked upwards, and (he told us this) he saw an angel in the sky who asked him, ‘Halt, who comes there?’ He answered, ‘A friend.’ The angel asked him for the password he replied, ‘Jesus Christ.’ The angel replied, ‘Pass, friend,’ and ‘all’s well.’ This we gathered from him before he died; of course we saw nothing, but we heard him speaking. Probably he saw a vision; it was a great end, and I daresay he passed through all right with his pass-word.” “I am the door; through Me if any man enter in, he shall be saved” (John 10: 9). And if we thus seek God through Christ, shall we find Him? “Ye shall seek for Me, and find Me, WHEN YE SHALL SEARCH FOR ME WITH ALL YOUR HEART” (Jer. 29: 13).

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