Demon possession and allied themes; being an inductive study of phenomena of our own times

CHAPTER XVII: SPIRITUALISM.

The number of "Spiritualists" in the world has been reckoned at 20,000,000. This is probably an overestimate. Making all allowance for exaggeration the number is very large, and, until recently at least, has been rapidly increasing. As early as 1875 spiritualists had forty periodicals advocating their peculiar views. Besides these, they have their book literature, their lecture halls, and their popular conventions.

Spiritualism—or more properly spiritism—is avowedly based on communications with disembodied spirits. As one of the great intellectual forces entering into modern thought and civilization, it challenges our serious consideration. In the present chapter it is not proposed to enter upon an elaborate examination of it; such an undertaking being foreign to the object and scope of this work.
We assume that the phenomena which spiritualism presents have a large substratum of truth. This conclusion is adopted because the Scriptures imply that physical phenomena resulting from the agency of spirits are in accordance with natural laws, and may be expected as ordinary events of experience; because large numbers of educated men have been influenced by the evidence which it presents to acknowledge the reality of certain of its phenomena, and to add their names to the increasing numbers of its adherents; and also because experts and specialists in Germany, France, England and the United States, have carefully examined its alleged facts, and declared to the world that they have found phenomena which could not be explained by any known physical laws.
The above assumption is not invalidated by the not infrequent discovery of fraud among the adherents of spiritualism. A score of impostures will not overthrow the evidence of one fact. Though it may be admitted that the existence of numerous impostures tends to produce a presumption that all is imposture, it is equally true on the other hand, that on the supposition of the phenomena of spiritualism being real, imposture is to be expected. This is true to a greater or less degree of almost every known science. For instance, how much fraud, imposture and failure to effect promised results are found in the history of medical practice? Spiritualism is not the only system in which untrained and incompetent persons, bring reproach upon themselves and those of whom they are the self-appointed representatives. Even persons who have facts to present, often add to these facts and phenomena meretricious accessories, in order to increase their attractions and make them more startling to the public eye. We must remember that the deceit of the fictitious accessories may be detected, and the author of them unmasked, while the actual facts remain unaffected.
The British "Society for Psychical Research," and the more recently organized "American Psychical Society," have, by their investigations elicited many facts that illustrate this discussion. But the facts which they gather from the credible testimony of others who have witnessed them in their ordinary surroundings, are, in general, much more striking than those which the investigating committees witness in the course of their own experiments.
In 1887 there was published in Philadelphia, by J. B. Lippincott Co., A Preliminary Report of the Commission Appointed by the University of Pennsylvania to Investigate Modern Spiritualism, in Accordance with the Request of the Late Henry Seybert. The well-chosen members of this commission took much time and care to arrive at satisfactory evidence and explanation of spiritualistic phenomena. But it is hardly to be wondered at that their efforts did not result in any very decided conclusions. On the supposition that spiritualism is only a system of delusion and deception, no results were to be expected. On the supposition that spiritualistic phenomena, when genuine, are produced by demons, it is hardly reasonable to suppose that these demons would voluntarily, gratuitously and without restraint, submit themselves to an examination which might only serve to disclose their actual character, instead of confirming false pretensions, or might thwart the very object of their manifestations.
Any experiment to be successful must conform to all the conditions of the case. An experiment with spirits can never be like one made in chemistry or physics. A spirit is an intelligent and moral being who may be supposed to have some choice as to where and how to exhibit its presence and power. A spirit must be sensitive to the moral conditions and atmosphere that surround it, and must be governed by moral affinities and antipathies. Things that a spirit will do in one company it cannot or will not do in another. If spirits have anything to do with these phenomena they have some purpose in what they do, and are seeking to accomplish some end. They will naturally do most where the conditions are most favorable to this end.
We may suppose some medium, or witch, or pythian oracle to be powerfully possessed by a familiar spirit, and both the spirit and its subject eager to exhibit that power in pursuit of its usual aims. Yet in the presence of persons in whom there may be recognized a sufficiently pronounced moral antagonism, the medium or spirit may be utterly helpless, or so guarded that nothing is done. If evil spirits are the agents in question, then obviously they would show forth their true character principally in those communities or companies most congenial to them, and most thoroughly under their sway, and they would suit their wonders to their hopes of securing the confidence and subserviency of their witnesses. But if mankind is so beset by evil spirits we may herein gratefully recognize our source of safety, being sure that those have least to fear who are most indwelt and possessed by the Holy Spirit of Christ and of God. And just as an evil spirit will come to those who seek it, so the Holy Spirit is sensitive and responsive to our faith.
"Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world."¹⁹⁰
"You may then," to use the words of Dr. Austin Phelps,¹⁹¹ "take the crude mass of the phenomena alleged, and set aside a certain proportion, large or small, as you please, to the account of the rascality which the system somehow attracts to itself as a ship's bottom does barnacles. Strike off another portion, as probably due to the honest exaggeration of credulous or prejudiced observers. Cancel another section, as explicable by electric laws, or by principles of the animal economy, and especially by laws of disease well known to science. Ignore, if you must, everything else which is purely physical, as likely to be one day explained by physical laws yet to be discovered. Eliminate something more for the incertitude of psychological research, when pressed beyond the facts of the general consciousness. After all these deductions, spiritualism is apparently right in claiming that a residuum of fact remains, which goes straight to the point of proving the presence and activity of extra-human intelligence. For one, I must concede that, at least, as a plausible hypothesis."¹⁹²
The above admission will no doubt be regarded by many as a dangerous concession to spiritualists. We, however, concede nothing which is peculiar to spiritualism, but only the existence of certain phenomena with which the world has been familiar in all ages, and to which multitudes at the present day are eye-witnesses in all lands. The effect of denying the existence of these phenomena is to lose influence over those who witness them; to confirm the assertion of spiritualists that we are only blind guides, and to leave those who are honestly seeking an explanation of facts of consciousness to the instruction and guidance of spiritualists. Dr. Phelps well remarks "that no very attenuated hypothesis of any kind, in explanation of the phenomena in question, can meet the case as it presents itself to the popular mind. Shadowy conjectures on the subject will seem so glaringly inadequate, that they will only shift the charge of credulity to ourselves."
Proceeding on the assumption that communications are received from spirits, the question remains, "From what kind of spirits do they come?'' Are they good spirits, or are they bad spirits? Do they tell us truth or falsehood? Is it their object to benefit or to injure us?
It would be difficult to find any discussion of this subject more candid, or more thorough, than the nine lectures delivered by Joseph Cook in Boston in 1880.¹⁹³
In these Mr. Cook remarks¹⁹⁴ that "Two points are in debate concerning spiritualism—the reality of communications between spirits and men, and the trustworthiness of these communications as a source of religious knowledge." . . . "The great error of our time in dealing with spiritualism is that we do not sufficiently emphasize the fact that the question between the biblical view and the spiritualistic view of the world is not as to the reality of communications of spirits with men, but as to their trustworthiness."
This issue can be determined only as moral tests are used, as well as those which are physical, and rational.
In comparing the phenomena of spiritualism, alleged or actual, with those of demon-possession as presented in previous chapters, we are struck with the remarkable correspondence between them. Some obvious points of resemblance may be given in general as follows:
1st. The use of a medium for the purpose of holding communication with spirits.
2nd. Necromancy, or professed communications with the dead by the intervention of a medium.
3rd. The invoking or summoning of spirits by means of hymns or prayers.
4th. Receiving communications from spirits by writing, through methods more or less direct and immediate.
5th. Gradual "development" or training by which the medium or subject, and the spirits, are brought en rapport, so that the medium becomes ready and responsive in performing his new functions.
6th. Obtaining prescriptions and healing diseases by spirits, though the intervention of a medium.
7th. Carrying on communications with spirits through a medium by the use of spoken language, or by raps, or other arrangements and devices.
8th. The mysterious appearance and disappearance of lambent lights and flames.
9th. Levitation, suspension in the air, and transference from one place to another of crockery, household utensils, and other objects, including also men, either in a conscious or unconscious state.
10th. Haunted houses, mysterious opening and shutting of doors, and other similar phenomena.
11th. The moving of furniture and other objects without physical contact.
12th. Rappings, clattering of dishes, and unusual noises and disturbances, without any physical cause which can be found.
13th. Impressions by unseen hands, sometimes gentle, and sometimes violent, producing physical pain and injuries.
14th. The nervous and muscular symptoms peculiar to the demoniac, and often to the medium during possession, or its initial stage.
The above points cover the general phenomena connected with what is called "spiritualism," and show that it is in accordance with the demonism of China, and other countries, and of the Bible. We have seen that the Scriptures categorically and authoritatively attribute such manifestations to demons, the agents of the devil.
It is a striking fact that the Chinese uniformly attribute these phenomena to evil spirits whom they fear and hate. To be possessed by an evil spirit they consider a misfortune and a disgrace. Mediums, those who invoke and hold intercourse with spirits, are, from a supposed necessity, often consulted, but are never regarded with respect or affection. The general name given to all forms of spirit manifestations is sie, a term which combines the ideas corrupt, injurious,demoralizing, debasing.
Spiritualists will no doubt insist that the assertion that the phenomena in question are the work of evil spirits, and none others, is both gratuitous and malicious. Is not "mediumship", however, in the very nature of the case evil? I believe it to be but another name for demon-possession. What are the moral accompaniments and sequences of mediumistic practices? Who does not know them? What is their moral tone? What is their final tendency? What type of character most widely prevails among confirmed and persistent spiritualists? How do they stand related to the New Testament Christ?
The Bible teaches us that to have intercourse with a "familiar spirit" is a voluntary act of disloyalty to, and rebellion against God. It is forsaking God, and holding intercourse with, and becoming the agent of his avowed enemy, the devil.
There were instructions given in the New Testament, specific, simple and infallible for determining the character of spirits holding communications with men. There was a command, "Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God; because many false prophets are gone out into the world."¹⁹⁵ And a test was given "Every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God."¹⁹⁶
But in applying this Scripture test to spiritism in the present age, we meet at once with difficulties. First, because some spiritualists may not deny the fact of our Saviour's having come in the flesh; and secondly, from the want of such an authorized presentation of the tenets of spiritualism as will be accepted by its adherents. Spiritualists have never, so far as we are aware, published an authoritative statement of their beliefs. Their representative literature, however, furnishes evidences of its tendency and temper which are unmistakable. From a mass of this kind of material a few specimens only can be given here.
In a long article in a spiritualist Weekly Journal, there appeared the following under the title "The Genuine Teachings of Jesus, the Synoptical Gospels and John, Jesus and the Talmud," etc.
"It is to Paul, not to Jesus, we owe the abrogation of the law; it was to Paul's influence that the writer of Hebrews opposed sacrificing bulls and goats. Jesus had nothing to do with it." . . . "Jesus had defects and imperfections like all other men." . . . . "It is an absurd idea that Jesus was a perfect man, or any more Divine than any other man. He was a simple Jewish enthusiast and religious reformer, foolishly supposing himself the Messiah, thereby coming to an untimely death."¹⁹⁷
A letter to the editor of the same Journal presents the claims of spiritualism as a new and better religion than Christianity in these words: "How can professed spiritualists scout the idea that spiritualism is a religion? Has not spiritualism done a thousand fold more for us than theology or 'Christ and him crucified,' in opening the portals, and giving us real glimpses of the life to be, giving us line upon line of philosophy of existence in both spheres?"
The following extracts are from a somewhat elaborate work on Moral Philosophy highly recommended by spiritualists. Speaking of Christian obedience the writer says: "To believe the Bible and obey the Christian church is the obedience intended. We unqualifiedly say that a man owes no such obedience, and has no such duties." . . . "The slow relinquishment of the personality of God has left this doctrine in a most precarious state, and with its fall Christianity ceases to exist."¹⁹⁸
The following gives the author's estimate of Christ's work of atonement.¹⁹⁹ "Slaughtered oxen, hecatombs of human victims, or ten thousand bleeding Christs will not atone for the least transgression of the laws of our being." . . . . "The true redemption is not through the blood of Chrishna of India, a pilgrimage to the shrine of Mohammed, or the efficacy of Christ's blood, but by compliance with the laws of the physical and spiritual worlds." "Terrible is the significance, and humiliating to the student of history are the words, 'peace with God,' 'lost from God,' 'reconciled unto God,' 'atonement,' 'salvation through the blood of the lamb,' 'regeneration, ' an endless vocabulary which is fossilized ignorance, credulity, folly, selfishness, fear and rascality."
Quotations of this kind might be multiplied indefinitely.
There is little room for doubt that spiritualism antagonizes all the distinctive doctrines of Christianity, especially the doctrine that "Jesus Christ has come in the flesh," though it adapts itself to the moral and religious state, for the time being, of those whom it would influence; and many would not be entrapped in its snare if at times, it had not, at least, an outward veneering of Christianity. This however is for the timid novitiate not for the advanced spiritualist. Dr. T. L. Nichols, a distinguished spiritualist, says: "Spiritualism meets, neutralizes, and destroys Christianity. A spiritualist is no longer a Christian in any popular sense of the term. Advanced spirits do not teach the atonement of Christ; nothing of the kind."²⁰⁰
It is an important fact that spiritualists do themselves acknowledge that the world is full of lying spirits, that they themselves are constantly deceived by them; and the difficulty of determining whether they are or are not being deceived, troubles them not a little. A spiritualist writing on "Test Conditions" says:
"This is a topic on which a great deal has been said, and is still being said, within the ranks of the spiritualists. Those outside know nothing of 'test conditions' beyond their own crude ideas of the manner in which spirits should manifest, if there be any spirits, which they doubt or deny. A 'test condition' with them is that which brings the phenomena of spiritualism within the category of physical miracles. Many so-called spiritualists are on the same plane."
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"With the believing spiritualist it is different. He is supposed to have passed beyond the mere test plane. He is thoroughly and finally convinced that there are spirits, and that they do communicate and manifest. Then what are physical "test conditions" to him? He wants truth. He knows that deceiving spirits exist by millions, that some spiritual tramp may come and personate his father, for example, and, hence, he wants a spiritual condition that will prevent this.
"Locking or tying up the medium will not accomplish this, for material bonds are nothing to spirit power. The lying, deceptive spirit in the medium, if it exist, must be exorcised. Who wants to spend his time and money for such Dead Sea fruits as catering to the sports or tricks of low, deceptive spirits? Here is a medium, for example, that is discovered in a palpable fraud, the forgery found upon her being publicly exhibited; and yet spiritualists sustain her, because she is really a medium; and it is, they say, the spirits that perpetrate the fraud, while the poor medium is innocent. Her mediumship hallows all she does, whether good or bad. Let me ask, is fraud any less a fraud because it is perpetrated by a spirit ?
"If Spiritualism is to be a cloak and an excuse for crime, away with it; and if mediums are to be sustained in lying, cheating and swindling, let it all perish. This constant cry of 'Sustain the mediums, right or wrong,' because they are mediums, charging all their offences— their low disgusting trickery—on the spirits, is a delusion and a snare, and will, if it is continued, sink our great cause so low that the sun of truth and righteousness will never be able to shine upon it?"²⁰¹
Another writer says: "For seven years I held daily intercourse with what purported to be my mother's spirit. I am now firmly persuaded that it was nothing but an evil spirit, an infernal demon who, in that guise gained my soul's confidence, and led me to the very brink of ruin."²⁰²
The law of moral affinities precludes the idea that these rapping, roistering, table-tipping, lying spirits invoked by modern spiritualists are in any sense good spirits. Good spirits would instinctively shrink from such companionship and methods. The good "demon" of Socrates is an appellation made use of by writers who succeeded Socrates, and was not used by Socrates himself. He spoke of this mysterious guiding influence as the inward "voice." It seems to have been conscience, or the voice of God, which was to him so distinct and authoritative that he was almost disposed to attribute to it personality. Dean Stanley speaks of the extraordinary disclosures which Socrates has himself left of that "divine sign" which by later writers was called his demon, his invoking genius, but which he himself called by the simpler name of his prophetic or supernatural "voice."²⁰³
The connection in which Marcus Aurelius uses the word demon shows clearly that it is only a personification of conscience.
We have endeavored to present the real tenets of spiritualism by extracts which are typical and representative. For a fuller and more minute presentation of its doctrines the reader is referred to its own publications, a careful perusal of which will leave no room to doubt that spiritualism, off its guard, denies the existence of a personal God, utterly rejects the Bible as a Divine revelation, and especially denies the Divinity of Jesus Christ, and His work of atonement.
As to the adaptiveness of spiritualism to its ends, let me quote again from Dr. Phelps— "Senseless as it seems to sedate and Christian logic, it is very crafty as a compound of temptations. Look at the ingredients. What are they? Here are some truths for the honest ones, converse with the dear departed for the bereaved, gushing messages for the affectionate, marvels for the curious, revelations for the credulous, gossip for the idle, mummery for the frivolous, swelling words for the mystical, a loosening of marriage-ties for the impure, and an anti-Christian supernaturalism for minds famished by lifelong skepticism. Surely, so far as it goes, it is a cunningly-laid snare. Very foolish it may be to be caught in it, yet it is a subtle thing in the hands of the fowler. Considering the material he has to deal with, is it not worthy of the great hierarch of evil?"
It has been reserved for inhabitants of cultivated and nominally Christian nations of the 19th century to court that intercourse with spirits from which many of the more intelligent heathen shrink with aversion. They present the spectacle of thousands and millions of men and women, many of whom have been reared in Christian homes, and are possessed through heredity, education, and national and social ties, with all the advantages of Christian culture, who have adopted a religion ignoring a personal God, who have "changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator."²⁰⁴ Avoiding communion with the infinite, ever-present Spirit of Holiness, and in flagrant disobedience to His will, they deliberately throw themselves open to the access and incursion of miserable, wandering, finite spirits, that work in darkness, abound in deeds that are either paltry or vicious beyond expression, and who, even when they seem to confer a benefit, show by results that they do it that evil may come. This is a religion which, notwithstanding its vaunted intercourse with the spirit-world for many years, has added nothing to our knowledge of truth or virtue, or to our motives to a better and higher life.
I cannot think that I fail in the duty of Christian charity in affirming my belief as I have already done, that the phenomena of spiritualism are plainly referable to demons, in the main identical with phenomena which have been referred to demons by the common consent of all nations, and are declared to be such by the authoritative teachings of Scripture.
To briefly sum up all: It would seem that every age and country present phenomena which exhibit, in some variety of form, the reality of demon intercourse with men, and of demon-possession.
The demoniac is an involuntary victim of possession. The willing subject becomes a medium. This general term includes others more specific, and is often but the modern name for witch and sorcerer.
History is full of facts which illustrate the demonology of the Bible, and seem to find in that neglected doctrine their only sufficient explanation.