Spiritism, Ancient And Modern

( Originally Published 1919 )

Spiritism and Immortality—The Cult does not Prove Immortality for the Soul of Man—Seeking Truth from the Dead—St. Paul's Statement—Spiritists Cannot Prove that the Dead Appear or Answer Questions—Statements of Mr. James H. Hyslop—Spiritists on the Divinity of Jesus Christ—Spiritism Condemned by the Judaic and Catholic Churches—The Old and New Testaments and Evocation of Spirits—The Wonders of Spiritism—Spiritism and Christianity.

Many modern writers on Spiritism, amongst them scientific men of high standing, maintain that Spiritism proves, by experimentation with the dead, the immortality of the soul.

Believers in the dangerous and occult heresy of Spiritism have been insisting on this immortality argument or proof since Robert Dale Owen wrote his "Footfalls on the Boundary of

Another World." Even the orthodox reviewer who, a few years ago, reviewed for the "Catholic World" Father Searle's treatise on "Spirit Phenomena," leaned to the opinions of Owen and the scientists mentioned.

This immortality plea was also Daniel Homes' defense when accused of holding communication with the devil, and is today repeated, iterated and reiterated by Spiritists in their literature, lectures, and conversations.

Until it be proved that the spirits which answer the call and hold converse with human beings are souls of men or women who once lived in the flesh, and are not companions of those who said to our Blessed Lord: "What have we to do with thee, Jesus, Son of God ? " this immortality claim of Spiritists does not convince minds well informed on the history of necromancy or evocation of the dead. If the immortality of the soul rested on no better authority than the statements of those whom St. Paul denounced as "lying spirits," the belief in its reality would long ago have disappeared from the minds of all peoples.

Strange, is it not, that thousands who profess to believe in the immortality of the soul, on the testimony of what they call "disembodied spirits," refuse to accept the resurrection of Jesus Christ on the testimony of men who were eye-witnesses to the Crucifixion of the Son of God, who spoke with Him after He had risen from the tomb, and were so positive and convinced that it was the same Christ whom they saw hanging on the cross that they suffered martyrdom rather than deny His resurrection. Faith in the divinity of our Lord and His doctrines is dead in the brain and hearts of men and women who abandon themselves to "seeking the truth from the dead."

They are the legitimate descendants of the apostates from the Church of Ephesus, of whom St. Paul said: "They have departed from the faith and are now giving heed to spirits of error and to doctrines of devils."

Conceding the phenomena and spirit communications alleged by Spiritists in favor of their cult, there is absolutely no proof that the spirits which respond to the questions of the mediums or others, or who materialize and appear at the seances, are the souls of deceased persons. Spiritism, then, contrary to the pretensions of its votaries, proves neither that the dead live again nor that the soul survives the body. It does not even prove that there is in man a soul distinct from the body. I call particular attention to this statement, which merits more consideration than it has hitherto received.

We need no ghost from hell or elsewhere to convince us that the immortality of the soul follows necessarily from the immateriality of the soul, for that is demonstrable from reason, and was so understood by nearly all heathen philosophers. What was not believed by the heathen, and is not provable from reason, is the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of our bodies.

This, the supernatural life, and the Incarnation, the spirits and the Spiritists do not teach and do not pretend to teach. We are on fairly intimate terms with Italian, French, and English literature dealing with the three broad divisions of Occultism and Spiritism, but we have nowhere found in that literature a statement of belief in the Incarnation of the Second Person of the Trinity, in the "resurrection of the body," or in the "life everlasting" of the Apostles' Creed.

A few years ago, James H. Hyslop, formerly a member of the faculty of Columbia University and, after his resignation, secretary of the American Society for Psychical Research, gave the public his views on Occultism. Mr. Hyslop is a Spiritist, and the society of which he is the secretary, is experimenting with occult science and with the world beyond the grave. Lombroso, Stead, Miles Grant, and an army of French, English, Italian, and German experimenters have anticipated Mr. Hyslop by many years. He and his society can tell us nothing new, or advance any theory bearing upon the spirit world that was not known to Jews and Christians before the redemption of the Anglo-Saxons from barbarism.

The substance of Mr. Hyslop's statements, framed in secular English, is that :

1. Heaven and Hell are only states of the mind.

2. The members of the American Society of Psychical Research are Spiritists, not Spiritualists, who are fakers.

3. Ghosts, in many instances, are simply phantoms or creatures of the imagination.

4. Communications between disembodied souls and human beings of this earth are established facts.

5. Spirits or disembodied souls have all the physical organs which were theirs when on earth, but these organs in the spirit sphere are now etherealized.

Except the substitution of the correct word Spiritism for Spiritualism Mr. Hyslop's presentation of the Society's views suggests nothing new or indeed interesting. For the man who professes to believe in the Divinity of Jesus Christ, that is in the accepted Christian sense, which Spiritists do not, the position and line of action of such a man, face to face with the awful mystery of the unseen world, and with necromancy or evocation of the dead, is settled for all time. For those of us who are members of the Judaic or of the imperishable Catholic Church, the grave question of Spiritism is forever answered and our attitude clear and intelligible. The Judaic and Catholic Churches have officially and authoritatively declared that the belief in, and practice of, Spiritism, consulting spirits and entering into communication with them, evocation or calling up the deadnecromancy—are unlawful and against the command of God. The Catholic and Judaic Churches condemn Spiritism and everything intimately or remotely associated with it, and this condemnation is extended to planchette and ouija board. And these ever ancient and ever new churches know what they are doing, for they have in their keeping the knowledge and experience of the human race back to the days of Abraham.

The Jew or Catholic who mixes himself up with Spiritism is a fool, and though he may not now admit his folly, he will do so before he is through with the spirits. We know of no more fruitful cause of insanity and immorality than Moses, by command of God, entreated the Israelites—the Jewish people—to abstain from all intercourse with spirits or fallen angels.

Read this extract from Deuteronomy, Chap. XVII: "Neither let there be found among you anyone that consulteth spirits, or that seeketh the truth from the dead." This warning was delivered about three thousand six hundred years ago to human beings like ourselves, who, "professing themselves to be wise, became fools."

Once again let us consult the word of God :

"And when Jesus was come to the other side of the water, into the country of the Gerasens, there met him two men possessed of devils, . . . and behold they cried out saying, 'What have we to do with thee, 0 Jesus, Son of God?' " (Matt. VIII). Who told the spirits who possessed these men that Jesus was the Son of God, and why did they openly declare that they were not on His side?

Notwithstanding the claims put forward by Spiritists that their cult has opened to the understanding and knowledge of man a mine of information about himself, his latent and hitherto undeveloped faculties, the state of disembodied souls and man's control over the dead,

we are not persuaded that they have added anything to the sum of information already held by men familiar with the history of the human race.

The apparition of spirits, clairvoyance or illumination of mental sight, mechanical phenomena such as the production of light, heat and sound, aerial transportation, oracleism or the disclosure of the future, table lifting, levitation, suspension of vital functions, acceleration of respiration and of the circulation of the blood, clairaudi ence, automatic writing, speaking unknown and foreign languages, forming human faces, human limbs, or entire bodies, alteration in weight of bodies, and all the other phenomena of modern Spiritism were known to the Chaldeans and Egyptians in the time of the Pharaos.

Spirit manifestations and spirit wonders are not more frequent now than they have been in past ages. They are not peculiar to our times.

They were more common among the polished Greeks and all-conquering Romans than they are in any American and European nation today. Tertullian, Origen, and many of the ante-Nicene Fathers warned Christians not to be deceived by them. If we may credit the statements of Mr. J. P. Sinnet, the theosophist, in his "Occult World," the Thibetan mystics and Mahatmas of India claim to inherit from immemorial times extraordinary psychic powers and an intimate acquaintance with transmundane spirits. The Catholic Church has in every age, since the Redemption, encountered them, and she has uniformly associated them with Satan and his angels.

Spiritism is a heresy with which the members of Christianity have nothing in common. And yet men and women of high aim, sincere and honest, if not always of avowedly Christian belief, are every day enmeshed in the subtleties of this pernicious deception. For Catholics, and indeed for all Christians, the Catholic Church answers satisfactorily and conclusively every appeal of the soul over our present life and our future destiny. Away from her side there is nothing positive, nothing dogmatic, nothing trustworthy in any of our notions as to whence we came or whither we go when the light of human existence dies out in us. Away from her there is darkness, confusion, and despair of the future.