Again Paul says: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against
principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this
world, against spiritual wickedness [margin, ‘wicked spirits’] in high
places.” Eph. 6:12. And he adjures his readers to put on the whole armor
of God to be able to resist them.
The apostle Peter exhorts to the same purpose: “Be sober, be vigilant;
because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about,
seeking whom he may devour: whom resist steadfast in the faith.” 1 Peter
5:8, 9. If our ears do not deceive us, a good deal of this roaring is
heard in the ranks of Spiritualists, where, by invisible rapping, agitated
furniture, clairvoyance, clairaudience, writing, speaking, marvels, and
wonders, he seeks to set the world on tiptoe of curiosity and expectation,
and bewilder men into a departure from the faith and the acceptance of the
doctrines of devils. He is cunning enough not to “roar” in a way to
frighten and repel, but only to attract attention, and lead multitudes,
through an overweening curiosity and wonder at the marvels, to come
thoughtlessly within the sphere of his influence.
The prophet Isaiah also has something to say directly upon this subject:
“And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar
spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people
seek unto their God? for the living to the dead?” Isa. 8:19. That is, is
it consistent for living people to go to dead ones for their knowledge?
The following verse shows where we should go for light and truth: “To the
law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is
because there is no light in them.” The time has certainly come when many
are saying just what the text points out, and seeking to the dead, to
familiar spirits, and wizards, for knowledge. Those practices which in the
Bible are enumerated as “charming,” “enchantment,” “sorcery,”
“witchcraft,” “necromancy,” “divination,” “consulting with familiar
spirits,” etc., are more or less related, and are all really from one
source. So in modern times different names indicate substantially the same
thing. Thus Mr. Hudson, in “Psychic Phenomena,” p. v, says:—
“It has, however, long been felt by the ablest thinkers of our
time that all psychic manifestations of the human intellect,
normal or abnormal, whether designated by the name of mesmerism,
hypnotism, somnambulism, trance, spiritism, demonology, miracle,
mental therapeutics, genius, or insanity, are in some way
related.”
Seven, at least, of the foregoing names are no doubt in the warp and woof
of Spiritualism; and he might have added mind-reading and Christian
Science. And Spiritualists admit that their work is the same as that
described by the Bible terms above quoted. Thus, Allen Putnam, a
Spiritualistic writer, says:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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