What is spiritualism?

This complex character had some knowledge of God — alas, no heart knowledge! He brought the name of the one true God into his nefarious practises in order to give them an air of respectability. Also, many persons would be more easily duped by his use of the name of God. Balaam was what is now called a "Spiritualist." A very misleading name really; "Spiritist" or "Demonist" would be more correct. Modern Spiritualists seem to be divided into two classes; there are those who leave God quite out of their pretensions (which is at least honest); and there are also those who call themselves "Christian Spiritualists." The latter class are particularly dangerous; for these are not Bible-reading days, and many souls are easily led astray by the use of the word "Christian." In quite a number of cases the clergy tamper with this great evil and even recommend it as a useful adjunct to "preaching." The truth is, there is no possible connection between Christianity and Spiritualism. God in His word — notably in Deut. 18:9-14 — unsparingly condemns this iniquity in all its forms. It is apostasy — a turning away from God and His revealed truth. It is intercourse with demons, ruinous to all who practise it. The land of Canaan was full of this when the hosts of Israel marched in, and they were divinely charged to utterly exterminate it. Indeed, the prevalence of this particular evil was one of the principal reasons why the holy and righteous God could tolerate the seven Canaanitish nations no longer.

From the foregoing we see in the Old Testament, that Spiritualism is sternly forbidden by God. Spiritism is sternly forbidden by God. It is defiling. Its followers God would destroy. Its mediums the people were commanded to stone to death. It is no new thing. The serpent’s form was assumed by Satan in the garden of Eden, and his myriads of demons have been busy at their work of deception ever since. It is not an advance on Christianity, as some affirm, but a backward movement to the worst features of heathenism.

Isaiah 8:19-20, is especially conclusive and interesting, as plainly showing it is wrong for the living to seek the dead, rather than God Himself. Spiritualism is the setting aside of God Himself; hence of morality, uprightness and every true principle.

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." (v. 18.) The essential idea of a witch was commerce with spirits, which finds its counterpart in the spiritualism of the present day. Hence in Leviticus she is described as "a woman that hath a familiar spirit." (Lev. 20:27.) The witch of Endor is the exemplification of her kind; for we read that Saul went to her and said, "I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring him up whom I shall name unto thee." (1 Sam. 28:8.) This is the very thing that spiritualists profess to do — to bring the inquirer into communion with departed spirits. Like Saul, unable to obtain communications from God, they seek information concerning things unknown and unseen through the agency of spirits. It is in fact a turning from God to Satan. The whole system, whether in Israel or our own day, is Satanic. A witch therefore was to be destroyed; and this shows the utter antagonism of her vocation to God; and the spiritualism now in vogue is no less hateful, and, if persisted in, no less destructive to souls.

In the land of Canaan the evil of the nations had risen to an intolerable level: their iniquity was full: therefore God was judging them before Israel. So God warns Israel against adopting any of the evil practices that caused His judgment. These included making sons or daughters pass through the fire (v.10), a thing the nations considered a religious ceremony (Deut.12:31), sacrificing their children to idols. To quote from Fausset's Encyclopedia (p.485), "Kimshi represents Moloch as a hollow brass human-like body with ox's head, and hands stretched forth to receive. When it was thoroughly heated the priests put the babe into its hand whilst drums were beat to drown the infant cries, lest the parents should relent." Is seems hard to understand how such wickedness could be justified by religious zeal, yet such is the seduction of satanic power.

Practicing witchcraft or soothsaying was also firmly forbidden, as well as the claim of interpreting omens, that is, anything that appeared to be unusual, to which superstition might attach some hidden meaning. One who pretended to have discernment to interpret such things was the victim of satanic deceit. Sorcery, also forbidden, is the practice of delving into spiritism by the use of drugs.

Verse 11 adds to this the evil of conjuring spells, that is, hypnotism, and also the wickedness of one acting as a medium, which means one who is a go-between, bringing messages from an evil spirit to another person. A spiritist is similar, that is, one having contract with evil spirits. One who calls up the dead is one who claims to actually bring a dead person in contact with a living person. This is deception, for it is actually a familiar spirit who impersonates the dead person. The witch of Endor was asked by King Saul to bring up Samuel (1 Sam.28:11), but when the woman saw Samuel she was terrified (v.12), for she was accustomed to the deceit of a familiar spirit. But God intervened in this one case to make a striking exception.

All those engaged in such contracts with evil spirits were "an abomination to the Lord," and it was because of such things that God was driving them out of the land before Israel (v.12). Let Israel therefore avoid every such thing, and be blameless before the Lord (v.13).

Where can we obtain light concerning this great question? Man is admittedly powerless here. Of himself he can know absolutely nothing outside his present environment. Some will tell us that they obtain a lot of information concerning the invisible world by attending spiritualistic seances. There, they say, they get into communication with the departed, and learn direct from them the truth as to the spirit realm. No greater delusion was ever prepared by the Devil for the children of men. It is not denied that persons do hold conversation with spirits, but it is not with the dead they thus speak, but with demons who personate them. This awful sin is sternly denounced is Isaiah 8:19-20 and elsewhere in Holy Scripture. The Spirit of God asks indignantly, "Should not a people seek to their God?" Only from God, through His Word, can we learn anything reliable concerning the world beyond.

Let us briefly consider the circumstances of King Saul. His forty years' reign of self-will and disobedience to God was now ending. The Philistines had declared war against him, and he was to meet them in battle on the morrow. Filled with foreboding, the unhappy King appealed to God, but without avail. Then he inquired for someone possessed of a familiar spirit, and learning that there was such a person at Endor, he went by night in a disguise and asked her to bring up Samuel. Some will perhaps say: "That is somewhat like what Spiritualists do to-day." They do absolutely nothing of the kind. The claim to put the living in communication with the dead is a monstrous fraud. The keys of Hades are in divine hands alone. Neither the just nor the unjust can be disturbed by Spiritualistic mediums. Yet it is not denied that such persons are in communication with the invisible world, but it is with demons they have to do; and it is with demons the mediums link up their miserable dupes.

In our days the masses of professing Christendom are wholly indifferent to these truths. Others openly oppose them, sneer at them and reject them as superstitions. Well has it been said, "No one but an unbeliever can overlook and despise them." Behind all these denials and sneers, coming from the camps of higher criticism and the new theology stands the dark shadow of Satan. The rulers of darkness of this world, the wicked spirits, do all in their power to keep a lost world, with its supposed progress and scientific discoveries, in ignorance and darkness about themselves. And occultism, known by the names of spiritualism and Psychical research, tries to establish communion with departed spirits. In reality it is communion with the wicked spirits in the heavenlies, who use this unlawful intrusion to delude their victims and make them doubly secure for the impending doom.

By this parable the notion that the soul sleeps at death until the resurrection is shown to be false; and that more pernicious teaching that the dead will have a second opportunity of salvation is exposed, and that still further lie that the spirits of the dead are anxious and able to communicate with the living is shattered. I am sure that some spirits do communicate through mediums at Spiritistic seances, for not all is fraud in those circles, but they are evil spirits — demons such as possessed men and women when the Lord came to earth, these impersonate the dead to deceive souls.

Not for a single moment will He ever surrender them. He is Lord of the dead as well as of the living (Rom. 14:9). The believing dead are described in Scripture as "present with the Lord" (2 Cor. 5:8), and it is not within the power of evil persons called mediums to disturb their repose for the sake of a fee. The unbelieving dead are "spirits in prison," and no one can get past Christ in order to communicate with them.

"But," some will say, "words are actually proceeding from the spirit world." This is probably true, but who are the speakers? Not the dead, but evil spirits who personate them. The aim of these malignant beings is to gain the confidence of the living, in order to compass their everlasting destruction.

He asks the woman to bring up for him a person who had died. This is what mediums profess to do. But it Is false. They only contact an evil spirit who impersonates the dead person's. The spirit knows something of the dead person's past, and may refer to this to persuade the inquirer that he is actually the dead person.