The Nature and Tendency of Modern Spiritualism

THEY DENY GOD

To destroy all just ideas of God is surely to destroy his worship—to dishonor him. This is Satan’s great aim, and the teachings of Spiritualism in this respect fully prove its Satanic origin. In the Banner of Light, Feb. 3, 1866, the “controlling spirit,” through Mrs. Conant, medium, said:— NTMS 40.1

“It should be understood that there are as many Gods as there are minds needing Gods to worship; not only one, two, or three, but many.... The noble forest trees, sun, moon, and stars, all things are Gods to you; for they minister unto the needs of your soul. It is vain to suppose you can all bow down to, and truly serve, one God.” NTMS 40.2

By the same medium, and in the same paper of Dec. 2, 1865, it was said:— NTMS 40.3

“We understand God to be life, simply life; that is everywhere, no more in one place than in another.” NTMS 40.4

Spiritualists talk a great deal about the love and goodness of God, but when we examine their teachings, we find that they all tend to Pantheism or Atheism. Those who are most intimately acquainted with them, having been long connected with them, say that such is their tendency. NTMS 40.5

Joel Tiffany, a Spiritualist lecturer and publisher, in his Monthly of June, 1858, said:— NTMS 40.6

“In an article entitled ‘Spiritualism,’ published in the December number of the Monthly, among other faults and errors, I charged that its influence had tended to create a kind of moral and religious Atheism—that these modern developments had not awakened religious aspirations in the minds of those who bad been the subjects or them. To this charge many took exceptions, as being too severe. I have carefully investigated its truth since that time, and find the charge to be just. My experience has been, go among Spiritualists where you will, and, as a general thing, they have no faith in a living, conscious, intelligent Deity, possessed of love, volition, affection, etc., as an object of religious aspiration and worship. They feel no demand for worship themselves, and they denounce and ridicule its exercise in others. On an examination, both of their theoretical and practical faith in God, you will find that it amounts to nothing but an indefinite and incoherent Pantheism.” NTMS 40.7

Dr. Randolph, after eight years’ experience as a spiritual medium and lecturer, said:— NTMS 41.1

“Harmonialism robs God of personality, converts him into a rarefied gas many million times finer than electricity! according to Davis, and elevates Reason to the throne of the Universe by deifying human intellect. God, Nature, Love, Panthea, Rarefied Gas, Sublimated Oxygen, and Ether, are, by this lexicon, convertible terms and essences.” ² NTMS 41.2

The above charge is strictly true, and the standard works of Spiritualism will justify it. The “Healing of the Nations” says:— NTMS 41.3

“If God is one, all must be fractional parts of him, and he alone be all.” Page 297. NTMS 41.4

This is Pantheism, through the mediumship of Charles Linton, published by N. P. Tallmadge. J. C. Woodman says:— NTMS 41.5

“I believe in one God, and that God exists in one person; that the universe is filled with an immense ocean of life or spirit, which is the body of God.”—Reply to Dwight, page 81. NTMS 41.6

A spirit, in the Banner of Light, says:— NTMS 41.7

“God’s face is seen in the violet, and man may well worship this tiny flower.” NTMS 41.8

A. J. Davis, in his “Pantheon of Progress,” says:— NTMS 41.9

“But it is the central principle, the Idea of Ann Lee, for which we now reverently inquire. That principle, in brief, is this: God is dual—‘He and She’—Father and Mother! Hindoo teachers obtained a golden glimpse of this impersonal truth. Forming and destroying principles, male and female energies and laws, were perceived and taught by the early inhabitants. But not one person, from God Brahma to President Buchanan, has done what Ann Lee did for this world revolutionizing Idea. She centrifugated it in a thousand forms of expression. It took wings in her spirit. Better than the Virgin Mary’s saintly position in the ethical temple, is the simple announcement that God is as much woman as man, a oneness composed of two individual equal halves, Love and Wisdom, absolute and balanced eternally.”—Great Harmonia, Vol. v., page 196. NTMS 41.10

In the same work is “the author’s vision of Paul’s teachings,” in which is the following:— NTMS 42.1

“Yesterday I thought, with Paul, that God was hidden from me except through the medium of a particular ‘Jesus,’ and all at once I beheld immeasurable quantities of worthlessness in every direction. Of the swarming millions that had lived, are now on earth, and will be, only a poor group here and there, felt any faith adequate to the imperative demand. Death and destruction, like the demons of universal despair, went arm-in-arm into every part of the world. Gloom and dimmed glory filled the whole land with suffocating clouds. Amid all, I tried to behold the great mercy and wisdom of ‘Our Father,’—to be thankful for love I did not behold, and for knowledge I did not possess. Presently, as I walked the fields, the curtain was lifted mountain-high. ‘Incarnation’ of an infinite Father was nowhere particular. His manifestations in material organizations, and in combinations, were like himself impersonal. The sun shone with a thousand-fold more splendor. The wave of barbarism had rolled away. My whole spirit breathed from the roots of the superanimal consciousness. Like a rose, I felt glad in the sunlight, and my thoughts swept like uncaged birds through the fragrant air. Mysterious beauty held me as by a psyohological spell. Every tree from top to germ was a divine image; it was just so much true incarnation of the Infinite Duality. Animals, insects, creeping things, no longer offended and detracted from my soul’s dignity and happiness. My fellow-men all were unfallen demi-gods. I beheld their spiritual interiorness, their susceptibility to the common divinity.” Pages 129, 130. NTMS 42.2

It is difficult to tell whether the “interiorness” of this and of the majority of spiritualistic writings is Deism, Pantheism, or Atheism. They are rather a strange mixture of all together. When speaking of the God of the Bible they use the most irreverent and blasphemous terms. The editor of the Truth Seeker, answering a correspondent, said:— NTMS 42.3

“Our columns are open for a fool or a wise man; for the orthodox devil or God, or for those who are more friendly and kind to each other than this God and devil dare be.” NTMS 43.1

The Scriptures reveal God as not only a kind Father, but a Supreme Ruler, and a just Judge. The attribute of Justice and character of Judge are entirely ignored by Spiritualism, which denies probation, and substitutes fatalism in an eternal and necessary progression. We have given Dr. Hare’s testimony on this point; Judge Edmonds says:— NTMS 43.2

“I believe that man is the creature of progression—that it is his destiny from his birth to progress on to eternity, toward the Godhead—that no man is exempt from this destiny.”—Reply to Bishop Hopkins, page 10. NTMS 43.3

As the “Healing of the Nations” says that every man is his own judge, weighed in his own scales, so it is said Paine was told on his arrival in the seventh sphere:— NTMS 43.4

“Your own minds are white thrones. As you are now pure, you can judge. But no mind will judge you. All judgment is with you. Each mind will judge itself, and not another. The judgment, will be pure, because purity resides in you. The judgment will be right, because it is the judgment of self.... The throne is within you. On that white throne determine your works. It is your inalienable prerogative. It belongs to no one else.”—Pilgrimage, page 223. NTMS 43.5

Hon. J. B. Hall, in a lecture, reported in the Banner of Light of Feb. 6, 1864, says:— NTMS 43.6

“I believe that man is amenable to no law not written upon his own nature, no matter by whom it is given.... By his own nature must he be tried—by his own acts he must stand or fall. True, man must give an account to God for all his deeds; but how? Solely by giving account to his own nature—to himself.” NTMS 43.7

In the Banner of Light of July 23, 1864, the controlling spirit gives the following answers:— NTMS 44.1

“Q. Are all human beings parts of one great Spiritual Being? NTMS 44.2

“A. Yes, certainly. NTMS 44.3

“Q. From whence does the Infinite Spirit derive its principles of life? NTMS 44.4

“A. You are constantly giving to all things, and receiving from all things. This, then, proves that God, or the Great Infinite Spirit, has as much need of you as you have need of him.” NTMS 44.5

Yet Dr. Hare praises Spiritualism because it gives us exalted views of God! NTMS 44.6

The Western editor of the Banner of Light, J. M. Peebles, who once believed and preached the Bible, but now finds therein no higher object of worship than the spirit of a dead man, under date of April 4, 1866, says:— NTMS 44.7

“The ‘God of Israel’ that spake to Moses; the ‘wrestling angel’ of Jacob; the ‘Redeemer’ of Job; the ‘Gabriel’ of Daniel; the ‘young man clothed in a long, white garment’ of Mark; the faithful witness’ of John on Patmos; the ‘demon’ of Socrates; the ‘Apollo’ of the Grecians; the ‘My Father’ of the Nazarene; the ‘Lord’ of Swedenborg; the ‘guardian angels’ of the Catholics, and other similar phrases, have, with slight shades of difference, the same primal meaning. In this age of Spiritualism, we term them ‘ministering spirits,’ ‘spirit guides,’ and ‘spirits.’” NTMS 44.8

In the Banner of Light, Nov. 4, 1865, are the following question and answer; the answer by the “controlling spirit” through Mrs. Conant:— NTMS 44.9

“Q. Do you know of any such spirit as a person we call the devil?” NTMS 44.10

“A. We certainly do. And yet this same devil is our God, our Father.” NTMS 44.11

This is surely an honest confession. See John 8:44. So it was not without meaning that the Spiritualist lecturess in Boston opened her meeting with a prayer to the devil! NTMS 44.12

Candid reader, are we not right in saying that this “harmonial philosophy” instead of elevating, is awfully degrading? Under its influence, multitudes are relapsing into the grossest heathenism, even to worshiping the devil! and that openly and confessedly. Sun, moon, stars, trees, self, everything is worshiped but the true and living God. Truly, the words of inspiration are being fearfully fulfilled; the truth is abhorred, and “doctrines of devils” are received with greediness. NTMS 45.1