SPIRITUALISM: ITS ORIGIN AND CHARACTER.
We
cannot wisely pronounce that trivial which we have not yet thoroughly
comprehended. To-day, 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 superficially 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.
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
keyboard 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. Spiritualists 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. Spiritualism is a
force to be reckoned with; 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‑elaborate, cautious, and ample when taken together
is to be found in the works of Professor
de Morgan; the London Dialectical Society; Mr. R. D. Owen; Professor Zollner; Mr. A. R. Wallace, F.R.S.; Mr. W.
Crookes, F.R.S.; Judge Edmonds;
and the Society for Psychical Research. Almost without exception, this body of
evidence is put forward by men of intelligence, 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.
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” more full, accurate, and
impartial than Dr. Hodgson’s
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; 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 Phinuit’s 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. 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 people’s
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 death.
Dr. Hodgson concludes that, in some of the incidents at least, the
hypothesis of direct thought transference from the sitter is inadequate; and
when the possibilities of telepathy between the living are thus exhausted,
would-be scientific explanations are dumb.
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 Mr. 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 Mr. Wallace and Mr. Owen,
of Professor Zollner and Mr. Stainton Moses, are of a kind to
make fraud alone an impossible hypothesis in the minds of those who have
studied them. This is rendered more
certain by the admission of Mr.
Maskelyne, and other experts in conjuring, that there is more in the
phenomena than can be produced by consummate trickery. It is through hypnotic phenomena that
many suppose spiritism explicable.
HYPOTHIESIS OF HALLUCINATION
We are not concerned here to determine how far hypnosis
has been, on occasion, an instrument in the hands of spiritists, ancient or
modern. 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 Zollner’s knot, for example, was no induced
hallucination, for the knot remained. In recent experiments in
[* Even hypnosis without the subject’s 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.]
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’ unfinished
and brilliant series of papers 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, so far as I understand Mr. Myers,
his 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 Mr.
Wallace's closed slates, not provably automatic; his photographs, from
negatives not apparently tampered with; the planchette experiment of Professor Crookes; even the apparitions
of Mr. Livermore; 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, or such communications on
identity as those of Mr. de Morgan
and Mr. Stainton Moses. For (1) is the subliminal consciousness,
while replete with information never apparently gathered, and cognisant even to
the borders of premonition, 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 angered by
contradiction or doubt.* 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.” 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. Dean's, 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?** But (3) Mr. Myers himself admits the presence and active operation of
extraneous intelligence. Indeed, this discovery, by scientific methods, of
discarnate mind he regards as the great goal of experimental psychology - “some
statement in terms as scientific as may be possible of the ancient belief in a
spiritual universe, co-existing with, and manifesting itself through, the
material universe which we know.”
[* 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 séances – and if report be true, this is
verifiable fact - a thousand mediums, supraliminally unconscious, give
utterance to an intelligence intelligence that calls itself a separate spirit,
is it not extravagant to suppose this the outcome of a thousand under-currents
of consciousness?
** Mr. 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
ATTITUDE OF PSYCHICAL RESEARCHERS
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. I have not the means at hand to give a summary of the opinions -
perhaps they may not yet be called conclusions - of recent inquirers; but, not
unfairly, we may take the attitude of psychical researchers as represented in
the words of Professor William James
and Professor Henry Sidgwick. 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-mediuniship, 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 individual’s
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.” Says Professor Sidgwick:- “And though I
do not myself at present regard the ‘theory of unembodied
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.”
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. The contributions of Mrs. Sidgwick and Messrs. Davey and Hodgson,
for example, in the Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, though
exceedingly able, discover these many and grave sources of error in the reports
of seances
as commonly given, rather than discredit that higher evidence to which I have
averted. Is it credible that lapse
of memory, want of observation, will explain that 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 seances in
ANCIENT AND MODERN PHENOMENA
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.” 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). Cures are effected by laying on of
hands (Acts 9: 17). Spirit forms are seen by some and unseen
by others (Dan. 10: 7). Hands are impressed to write (1 Chron. 28: 19). Men speak in tongues unknown to them (Acts 2: 11).
Cloudy phantasms appear (Job 4: 13-16). Luminous hands write (Dan. 5: 5). Past events of a private nature are
repeated (John 4: 17, 18, 29). Thoughts are read (1 Cor. 14: 25). Unknown persons are suddenly told
their names (1Sam. 28: 12). Men become clairvoyant (Acts 16: 9).
Remotely distant objects are rapidly collected (Ex.
8: 7). Abnormal wisdom may be imparted by
possession (Acts 16: 17).
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?” Who crowd the interstellar spaces, rank
over rank, beyond man’s 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.” “Well we
know,” writes 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.” We are told that
“earth-bound” and “undeveloped” spirits, who have not yet risen
into higher spheres, “form the chief part of
those with whom we have intercourse; and guilty spirits,” says Mr. Owen, “seem the most frequently to be earth-bound.” 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.” 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.” 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.
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.” 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
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. Mr. 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 improbable.” But this is just the inference drawn
from what are apparently phantasms of the dead. Nor (2) is the evidence given by the
spirits to prove their identity adequate. 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.” But it is also Mr. Moses who admits
elsewhere 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 writer’s experience invariably, in
these communications any attempt to pursue the test by further probing the
memory and intelligence of the supposed spirit results in failure.” 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.” 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.
Meanwhile our references 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, that deliberately misleading personation is frequent and
flagrant. 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.” 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.”
STATE OF THE SOUL IN HADES
From the quicksands of modern data 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;
and these hints shed light on the identity of earth’s visitants. Where
are the dead; and may they roam?
All go to one place (Ecc. 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 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; PS.
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
[*
He was “free among the dead” (Ps. 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).]
Conversation
is possible, Recognition is certain (5: 23; cp. 14:9).
God’s retribution does not in all cases wait for the judgment (verse 24; cp.
Jude 7). Memory is still active (verse 27, Rev. 7: 10; thou cp. Ps. 88: 12; Ecc. 9: 5). But the soul is in a quiescent state;
Samuel complains to Saul, “Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up?” (1 Sam. 28: 15). Believers are said to “sleep” (Matt. 27: 52),
to “fall asleep” (John 11:11, 14; Acts 7: 60) in Jesus (1 Thess. 4: 14). Unbelievers also “sleep” in death (Dan.
12: 2; Job 14: 12). Light
sleep, in which is vivid dreaming, appears the closest, though possibly an
inadequate, analogy. As in dreams
the spirit’s vision in Hades is fully alive, while action and reflection
are exceedingly limited: “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there
is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, whither thou goest” (Ecc. 9: 10).
Passivity reigns, not activity.
As life is the
harmonious working of body, soul, and spirit, so is death their dissolution
and consequent paralysis. The body
is the instrument of the human spirit’s action, and activity ceases when
the body falls corrupt. The affairs
of earth are veiled from the sight of the disembodied: “His sons come to honour, and he knoweth it not; and they are
brought low, but he perceiveth it not of them” (Job 14: 21; cp.
Ecc. 9: 5, 6). Not
that the return of the dead to earth’s surface is revealed by the
Scripture to be impossible. The
contrary is assumed in the prohibition of necromancy (Deut. 18: 11), and in God’s warning against
seeking to the dead (Is. 8: 19).* But the departed do not swarm in
earth’s atmosphere,** as the
Spiritualist asserts; and if any return it is by aid of the powers of darkness,
acting in antagonism to God.
[*
No return of a disembodied soul has been pleasing to God. He suffered
Samuel’s return: but Saul’s summons of the prophet was a sin. Elijah never died (2 Kings 2: 11), and is still embodied; the burial
of Moses was unique (Deut. 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 5). So far,
therefore, as Spiritualism is what it claims to be, necromancy, it is offensive
to God.
**
Do not these verses locate Hades with
sufficient clearness? ‑ Matt. 12: 40; Num. 16: 30, 32, 33; Deut. 32: 22; Job. 26:
5; Amos 9: 2; Eph. 4: 9; Ps. 63: 9. So Scripture speaks of descending into it (Prov. 1: 12., Is. 5: 14; Ezek. 31:15, 16),
and of rising up out of it (1 Sam. 2: 6;
Ps. 30: 3; Prov. 15: 24; Rom. 10: 7).]
ANGELIC MINISTRY NOT NOW PERCEPTIBLE
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 bear 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.” But such an attitude ignores the Divine
tests. No apparition, or utterance,
can be of God which denies the Christ’s advent in the flesh (1 John 4.); and this denial is universal in
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 as a result
of human invocation. Angels are God’s messengers; only familiar spirits
are at the beck and call of humanity.
(3.) The substance of an angel’s 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 God’s 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; 11, 16),* the visible service of angels became rare. The Church’s
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.Ps. 78: 49).
[*
Those whose thoughts turn, in this returning cycle of the supernatural, to the mantifested presence of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. 12: 7; Mark 16: 17, 18; Acts 2: 33,
&c.), would do wisely to consult Mr. Govett’s tracts (Fletcher,
PROOF OF THE PRESENCE OF DEMONS
If
the seance room is crowded neither with good angels nor with the departed, in
whose hands is this elaborate network of intercourse? Spiritualists themselves
have not been without suspicion of an agency wholly evil. Mr.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.” Of the
votaries of spiritualism “there are few who have
not at some time felt impelled to leave it alone and have nothing more to do
with it.” “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.” Finally, “we are either of God or of the devil," say
the spirits thtntselves. 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 (1Tim. 4: 1). All these are characteristics of
demons. This, I admit, is an inference of appalling gravity. 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.* 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.” 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.” 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. Isolated efforts at
intercourse culminated appropriately in our modern 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 ‑ 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 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.” **
[* Dr. Tylor notes the same of all
sorcery; Primitive Culture, v. 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
** 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,
8o, 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 do now, that the evidence of conviction is what alone is to be had”
(P. 92). They betrayed their origin
by denial of our Lord’s return in person (p. 151; John 2: 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).]
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.” 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. We need not expand upon these;* to prove both the extraneous
source of the medium’s 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.”
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. At death the spirit
“quits the body for ever.” Death, therefore, is the “gateway of life.” 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.” 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 man’s future existence, all
coincide and harmonise.”
Is it in consonance with Scripture? (1.) The definition of man is not; nor the definition of death.
God’s 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
decomposition into two.* Death, Scripture
regards as a temporary dissolution (2 Cor. 5:1), an unclothing
(5: 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); are 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 serpent’s falsehood: “Thou shalt not surely die.” The spirit [i.e., the
disembodied soul – Ed.] 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). Christ’s
resurrection is the type of ours (2 Cor. 4: 14;
Phil. 3: 21). The wounded body, that lay in Joseph’s 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 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 (1Thess. 5: 23). Not
unclothing to die, but clothing on for eternal life, is the Christian’s
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;” were it
so, our faith were futile, our sin unforgiven (1Cor.
15: 14).
[* The second death is a lake (Rev. 20: 14, 21: 8)
in which the wicked are plunged after resurrection.]
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; varying,
however, in depths of guilt (Matt. 12: 45). They are not the fallen angels. 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 together, 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 wickedness.** 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 capacity of eating
and drinking (Gen. 19: 3; cp. Ps. 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). 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, 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 (Is. 24: 21), we see
them, both in Scripture records and in modern phenomena, drowning terror in
errands of evil involving ceaseless activity.
[* The love of possession they betray may give us a
gleam of light. Are they disembodied spirits of another race? On our Saviour
not commanding them to the abyss, they took refuge in the sea (Luke 8: 3‑33). Elsewhere we have mysterious
references to the dead that are in the sea (cp.
Rev. 5: 13), who tremble responsible,
intelligent beings in the waters (Job 26: 5). These are given up for the judgment,
together with the dead of humanity from their intermediate abodes Death and
Hades (Rev. 20: 13). Perhaps this is the
reason of the uncleanness before God, for which it is annihilated (Rev. 21: 1), ocean’s as Death and Hades are
cast into Gehenna (Rev. 20: 14). If dead, they must have been once incarnate. Are these mysterious beings the
demons? Cp. Mr. Pember, Earth's Earliest Ages, p. 68.
** This triviality is frequently used as an argument
against the genuineness of modern communications. But neither in our
Lord’s day was discovery anticipated, nor dignity displayed, among
demoniacs; yet are we therefore to deny that His exorcism was real?]
SUMMARY
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 being 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.) One shining hand moves
amid the manifestations. His
was the iniquity of the covering cherub, that was dragged from amidst the
stones of fire, in the garden of God (Ezel, 28: 14);
‑ he dazzled the woman with a shining lie, until behind her flamed the
remorseless Sword and Seraphim; ‑ his ingenuity drew down a dual curse on
the snake, footless groveller of this age, eater of dust in the restored
Paradise of God (Is. 65: 25). In
the midst of the modern world is a tree planted: its fruits are goodly to look
upon, and lovely in the lust of a thousand eyes; men and women pluck down the
branches of it, and caress the drooping clusters: and only through snatches of
light in the gloom can be seen, as it were, the faces of sorrowing angels, and
the uplifting woes of Seraphim. The
Tree is called Sorcery, and its fruits are the forbidden secrets of the unseen
world. What God bath hidden, let none dare uncover. These things are His mysteries; and none
that tear aside, with impious hand, the secrets of the dead, or follow, with
drunken eyes, the vain, elusive flicker of demon torches, can hope to pass into
the gates of the City of
-------