ODOLOGY;
OR, THEOLOGICAL MESMERISM WITCHCRAFT REVIVED ANEW.
So much for the strongest argument for the existence of spirits separate from material bodies—an argument which with all its strength is but general debility in the presence of God's testimony, and Messrs. Karsten and Draper's experiments of the coins. Separate spirits! —mere spectral impressions on magnetic haloes! —hidden, indeed, from light-stimulated optics; but disclosed to electro-magnetically excited brains! How are the "wise" with the ignorant entrapped in their own foolishness! And the "pious" too—the "great and good divines," with their adorers—how are they taken in the craftiness of their own pietism! Oh the worth of the immortal soul, who can calculate it! —of that soul evoked from the magnetic halo of a clairvoyant's sensorium! Such is the phantom-soul, for whose salvation from Pluto's realm of fire and brimstone, the whole machinery of clerical superstition has been erected in ages past; and is now maintained at the expense of the liberty, intelligence, and wealth of the nations; and is sought to be imposed upon all semi-barbarians and savages as a means of introducing the long-looked for millennium upon earth! A mighty superstition—a great mountain filling the globe—a stupendous fabric of moonshine—a pious cheat for the salvation of a magnetic spectre! Still out of evil God educes good; for if he did not, where on earth would the good come from? Even this vast imposition on human credulity He turns to a good account. The generations of mankind having yielded themselves to their propensities; or, as the scripture expresses it, "instruments of unrighteousness to serve sin"—their intellectual and moral sense has become so darkened and unfeeling, that they cannot comprehend or appreciate the goodness of God, so that order in the absence of the divine majesty might be maintained among them by its influence over them. There is, therefore, but one of two things remaining—either the earth must be left a prey to anarchy, which would be "hell;" or, order must be established by acting upon the fears of the multitude. The existence of "hell" here would defeat the divine plans destined to eventuate in blessedness upon all nations. The world became hell before the flood. It was therefore destroyed to become heaven: therefore, order was elaborated; and "the powers that be," as they appeared from time to time from amid the storm of human passion, were controlled and ordered of God. Without approving their words, He permits them to exist as a terror to evil-doers until the appointed time arrives to punish them for their wickedness, and to set up His own kingdom in the earth which shall rule over all, administering His will in truth and righteousness over all nations. At present the popular superstitions are an important element in "the terror" by which evil-doers are restrained. The clerico-priestly dogmata of immortal disembodied ghosts; heaven in a spirit-world; hell somewhere; and the necessity of faith in these wares as administered by an ordained ministry, or "sacred order," on pain of the soul's exclusion from the joys of the one, and eternal fiery torment in the other—are the staff of the spiritual police, which co-operating with the imperial sword, keeps the world in awe, and maintains order until the Lord comes. It is the fear of punishment, not the love of truth and hope of reward, that makes men behave with social decency and order. This is the general rule, to which doubtless there are exceptions; but they are such as to establish the rule.
Our worthy correspondent thinks that the answers obtained by the dead-seekers from the spectres before the medium's sensorium is "the strongest argument for the existence of spirits separate from matter." I grant it. It is doubtless the strongest, and but weak at that. It is the argument of a dream to prove a fact. But the argument cannot be received as valid; for the dream-answers are not always right, as he testifies in the case of the second gentleman. Answers from God are infallible. His spirit never makes mistakes; nor is it presumable that any intelligences of a true spiritual nature, in harmony with His spirit, are ever guilty of untruthful utterances. The "spirits," therefore, whatever they be, are neither of God, nor of "the just made perfect." But, may they not be the spirits of the wicked or unjust; if they be, then, the disembodied existence of spirits is as much proved as though they were the spirits of the just? Granted. If by a spirit is to be understood no more than a spectral impression on a medium's sensorium, mesmerically evoked by the thinking of the dead-seeker, I grant that such spirits do exist separately from the persons they represent, as the spectral impression of the coin exists on the halo of the mirror separately from the coin itself. All the phenomena observed belong to spirits of this class, and prove only their existence under mesmeric excitation. Before their evocation before the medium's sensorium, they exist only as images before the seeker's mind when he thinks of them. I can now see before my recollecting faculty a child of three years old, standing with a ruler in his hand with which he had just struck me over the head. This child, a little brother, has been dead over thirty years. I see his image, and if I were placed en rapport with a medium I could make him see the child's appearance; but would it be logical to conclude that he saw the child himself, or the real individual, which a spirit is supposed to be? If the spectral impressions, or spirits, seen, were real persons, and had cognisance of human affairs, they would make no mistakes in their responses; they would speak truth only, unless they were wicked persons. It is admitted that they err, and on theological subjects it is notorious that the mediums utter the most stupid nonsense; hence I conclude, that they are not of God, nor of his saints, whatever they be.
Now, it is not my business to prove that these lying spectres are not real persons. I do not undertake to prove negatives. I have shown that they may be philosophically accounted for. It is for the spirit-mongers to prove that the forms observed by their clairvoyants are realities, and therefore not appearances only; and that they were formerly embodied in human clay, and lived in the world as men, women, and children, now exist therein. The kind of proof must be different to anything they have produced yet however. The declaration of the spectres through the clairvoyants cannot be received; because in a multitude of instances they have proved themselves to be liars, and therefore unworthy of credit; besides that unsupported self-testimony is incredible. It may be true, and it may not. If, then, the spectres say they lived in human clay as its animating, thinking principle, let them give us proof from God that their assertion is true. Jesus Christ, the sinless man, did not require his unsupported testimony to be received; shall we then admit the self-testimony of the lying spectres of the wicked dead? Perish the thought! "If," saith the Lord, "I testify concerning myself my testimony is not credible" (John 5: 31). We demand, therefore, confirmation of spectral assertions strong as Holy Writ; because assertion is no proof. They tell us, or rather mediums do, that they are the ghosts, or spirits, of dead men, and that they know a great many things, and much more than the living. But upon this point the word of God gives them the lie direct. It testifies, that "the dead know not anything;" (Ecclesiastes 9: 5) and that "there is neither knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol," (Ecclesiastes 9: 10) whither we go. Now "divines" make this word Sheol equivalent to Hades, which they say is "the place of departed spirits." Well, let us accept their definition for the present; how then reads the latter text? Even thus:"There is neither knowledge nor wisdom in the place of departed spirits," which theological mesmerists term "the spirit-world"! This is, with me, authority outweighing the testimony of all the spectres in creation, with all the opinions to boot of the 30,000 simpletons in the east, judges, lawyers, doctors, parsons, and less distinguished dupes, who vainly imagine they converse with living spirits from the vasty deep.
Our correspondent thinks, that "the whole system promulgated in our writings goes down, if the claims put forth by these spirit-mongers be established." By established he means proved to be God's truth; or else, established as true in the estimation of all men. If the latter be his meaning, the system we advocate only goes down in regard to mere human opinion. Its truth is not at all affected by mankind's opinion of it; because men who are ignorant of the true Bible-doctrine, judge according to the thinking of the flesh, which knows not the things of the spirit, because they are spiritually discerned; (1 Corinthians 2: 9-15) that is, they are discerned by the light shed upon them by the spirit in the prophetic and apostolic testimony, or writings. We advocate the system exhibited in this testimony, which went down in the estimation of their contemporaries, in whose judgment the spirit-mongers of the apostles' day established the notion, that the spectres seen by the clairvoyants in the idol temples were the disembodied immortal souls of the dead. As this notion went up, the apostolic doctrine of the immortality of the body at the resurrection went down, as at this day. It ate out the truth of immortality at resurrection only, as a gangrene; (2 Timothy 2: 15-18) and left in its place nothing but a fetid, ill-conditioned ulcer, which has reduced the patient to a gasping state. The gangrene is everything; the apostolic doctrine scarcely to be found beyond the lids of the Bible. On the other hypothesis it is doubtless true, that if the spirit-mongers' claims be proved to be God's truth, the system we advocate will be exploded. No doubt of it. It ought to be; for if their claims be true, the system we exhibit must be false, utterly and entirely false. There is no agreement between spirit-worldism and the Bible; so that if mesmerized theology be God's truth, God is not the author of the Bible; and, as we advocate the things taught in this book, which are all together at variance with the spectre-revelations of clairvoyants, we must go down with the Bible, and share with it the misfortune that peradventure might befall it. But such an hypothesis is monstrous. God can be the author of no doctrine at variance with bible teaching. This He has plainly declared in the text below (Isaiah 8: 19-20). The Bible is not to be tested by the peepings and mutterings of familiar-spirit mediums, and the table-tappings of mesmeric circles; but their utterances on the contrary, by its word, which is the truth. We stand or fall by this; and feel no apprehension of the result, though a thousand millions of spirits, a thousand times told, pronounce the reveries of the possessed, the infallible and eternal truth of God.
THE QUESTIONS ANSWERED.
In conclusion, I present the following replies in brief to the questions propounded through our correspondent:
1. To question No. 1, I respond, that I have nothing to do but to believe Matthew's testimony in regard to the Transfiguration and its attendant circumstances. I have nothing to do with the claims of spirit-mongers in the case. Matthew says nothing about "forms," or "souls," or "spiritual bodies," being seen there. He says, "there appeared unto Peter, James, and John, Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus”—Matthew 17: 3. Luke testifies substantially, the same thing, saying, "There talked with him two men, who were Moses and Elijah, who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem. But Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep: and when they were awake, they saw his glory, and the two men that stood with him"--Luke 9: 30-32. Now I ask any man, not crazed by spirit-worldism or "theology," when he is awake in the midst of a crowd on court days, what does he take those living things to be which he sees around him? Would he not reply, "men to be sure?" Suppose, I were to say to him, "No; they are spirit-forms, or souls, that once inhabited human bodies; they are not men, but the ghosts of men, which became "spiritual bodies" when the hearts of their old bodies ceased to beat”--would he not say I was either a madman or a fool? Or, if neither, that, on the supposition of his being a dupe, I was amusing myself at his expense? If rational, would he not argue that they must be men, because they presented to the eye all the marks by which men are ordinarily known? The apostles were matter-of-fact men, and reasonable withal. They judged of Moses and Elijah as they did of other men, and therefore called them by the right words, styling them "two men." Whatever quibble might be raised about Moses, because he died, cannot at all affect Elijah, who never died; and therefore never experienced a resolution into two parts. But we need add no more. Moses died, and must have been raised from the dead, or he could not have appeared as a man before three witnesses wide awake who called him such. There is no difficulty or mystery in the case, except with those whose minds are spoiled by "philosophy and vain deceit."
2. The sudden appearance and disappearance of the Lord's body, or the Lord rather, for the Lord and his body are one and the same, was the result, not of any change upon him, but of an effect produced by him upon the eyes of his disciples. "Their eyes were holden that they should not know him," until he thought proper to release their sight from the restraint. Mary saw Jesus but did not know him for the same reason. (Luke 24:16; John 20:14; 21:4) The eyes of the disciples going to Emmaus were holden. The meaning of this is given in the words, "And their eyes were opened, and they knew him." Hence to hold the eyes is to shut the sight, so that though the lids be unclosed, certain objects shall be invisible. I have performed an experiment similar to this upon the eyes of a person now in this city in the presence of many witnesses. I first mesmerized him by looking at him steadily in the eye. By this process the lids were closed so that he could not open them. I allowed him to remain in this state for some time, and then brought him out of it by a wave of the hand upwards and backwards. He could now see, and converse with anyone. I told him to look at my finger which I held before him, and about six inches above the level of his eyes. While he was doing this I carried it obliquely upwards and forwards as far as I could conveniently reach, and then suddenly withdrew it from the line of vision. This left him staring with the eyes wide open upon vacancy, with a countenance as blank and inexpressive as a corpse. He was now in the state of ecstasy. His eyes "were holden" completely; for he could see nothing. In proof of this a lighted candle was passed almost near enough to singe the lashes, but without causing a wink. Everything in the room vanished from his view with the jerk of my finger from the line of vision; and appeared again as suddenly as I waved my hand upwards before his eyes, which "opened them" to the objects by which he was surrounded. The Lord Jesus, who understood man's physique better than all the living, operated upon the disciples more skilfully. He could close their sight upon some objects at once, while he left them capable of discerning others. In this way he made himself invisible to them, and entered with them unseen into their room, where he continued to hold their eyes until they shut the doors for fear of the Jews, when he opened them and was discovered standing in their midst to their no little amazement, as may be supposed. When he parted with the disciples at Emmaus, he did not vanish as a figure from a magic lantern; but as the margin of the text reads, "he ceased to be seen of them;" that is, he took his departure. Just men, made perfect at the resurrection, will doubtless have the same power over mortals to make themselves visible or invisible as they please, by holding or opening their eyes; for of them, it is testified, "they shall be like him." He was never seen so as to be recognized by others than his disciples, because it was contrary to God's plan that he should be seen by any others. He was only to be seen by witnesses, that his resurrection might be a matter of testimony and faith, that believers might walk by faith and not by sight; therefore, the eyes of all men were holden except "the witnesses chosen of God," (Acts 10: 40-41) and the Roman guard.
3. Elisha's servant saw on the mountain near Dothan "horses and chariots of fire," such as Elijah ascended to heaven in. They descended to Elisha, and at his instance, in obedience to Jehovah's command, their riders smote the Syrian host with blindness. The servant's eyes were made more open, and the Syrians' were closed by the same spirit. The patriarchs and prophets saw angels as they saw men, by their natural sight. When men do not see them, it is either because there are no angels present to be seen; or because their natural sight is holden that they may not see.
4. Paul was not removed from earth when he saw Paradise. When he is writing about the Third Heaven and Paradise, he tells us he is treating of "Visions and Revelations of the Lord;" that is, of things represented and communicated to him by the Lord, as they were of old time to the prophets, and afterwards to John in Patmos. He was so absorbed in the contemplation of what he saw and heard, that he was altogether unconscious of his present existence. He had a Vision of Paradise, or a Vision of the Third Heaven, in which he heard things not communicated for utterance. He did not see Paradise or the Third Heaven, but a representation of them as they will be when the Kingdom is established by the God of heaven in the land promised to Abraham, and shall be in continuance after the thousand years shall have passed away. The "heaven of angels" is their abode in some of the stars. Hence they are styled "the Morning Stars;" but which of the heavenly bodies is not testified; therefore I cannot tell. Paul's body could have been taken any where God pleased; but, as I have said, it, that is, he never left the earth. He was wrapt in vision unconscious of where he was.
5. In his argument with the Sadducees, Jesus meant to prove the resurrection of the dead from Moses' writings; and he did prove it triumphantly. He does not even hint, much less affirm, that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob "are already risen." He said, "that the dead are raised even Moses has shewn at the bush, when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, etc.;" that is to say, "that there is to be a resurrection of the dead, Moses teaches in calling Jehovah Abraham's God." How so? Because Jehovah is not a God of dead men. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are dead men; therefore, for Jehovah to become their God they must become living men; for Jehovah is a God of the living, not of the dead. Hence their resurrection is necessitated, as that is the only way in which the dead can become living. This being so, He is called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, while they are actually dead, "because they all live to him" in the sense of rising from the dead to live; for "God who makes alive the dead, calls ta me onta things not existing as though they were" (Romans 4:17). The Lord of glory dealt not in "catches" nor "dishonesty;" these are the weapons of spirit-mongers, and of those who have more respect for the foolishness of men, than the words of the living God.
EDITOR.
