Golden Age, March 30, 1932
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ake Golden Age
A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE
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in this issue
DEMONISM
IN ITS LATEST ASPECTS
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE RADIO ESPIONAGE
"NO WAR IN MANCHURIA”
WORTH! .F.SS INFANTILE PARALYSIS SERUM
VACCINATION EXPERIENCES
MAN’S EVERLASTING HOME
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every other WEDNESDAY
five cents a copy one dollar a year Canada & Foreign 1.25
Vol. XIII No. 327 March 30, 1932
CONTENTS
LABOR AND ECONOMICS
Wisconsin Unemployment Insurance
Cleveland's Waves of Depression 402
8,300,000 Unemployed in United
States
SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL
Facets of the Day
Worst Sufferers Make Least Protest
Million People Migrated to Cities in 1931
Black Mountain Coal Corporation 403
Opacity of Untransparent Crystals 404
MANUFACTURING AND MINING
Philippines May Become Large Gold Producer
FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION
General Electric in Australia . 401
Business Failures in 1931 . . . 402
Largest Financial Institution in
World
Australia-to-Britain Air Mail . . 402
European Train Service Cuts . . 403
Reconstruction Finance Corporation
Postal Savings Bank
Railway Earnings Off One-Third 414
Rise and Fall of American Business Activity
POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN
Big Business as an Executioner 404 “No War in Manchuria” . . .405 Why the Japanese Grabbed Man
churia
HOME AND HEALTH
Worthless Infantile Paralysis Serum
No Such Thing as Vaccination . 408
Vaccination Experiences in Cleveland
Vaccination (Cartoon) . . .
Approved Form of Certificate of
Vaccination
Low Infant Mortality in Palestine ......... 410
Poisoned 39 Patients
TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY
11,500,000 Married Children . . 402
Tortures in Polish Prisons . . . 403
Items from Russia
RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY
Demonism in Its Latest Aspects (Part I)
Christian Science Radio Espionage 397
Australian Clergy Admit the
Facts
Union with Rome
Why AH This Struggle? . . .
Man’s Everlasting Home . . . 411
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Golden Age
Volume XIII Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, March 30, 1932 Number 327
Demonism in Its Latest Aspects (in two Parts)
Part I
MOST of the readers of The Golden Age are well posted on the subject of demonism. In bygone years they made a study of it in the light of the Scriptures, the only standpoint from which it can be understood. Calamities of any kind cause millions to grope for help from unseen powers which man’s very nature leads him to believe, exist. Of those who thus grope, some few are the humble and contrite ones who ‘feel after God if haply they might find Him’. We have faith to believe that the readers of The Golden Age are mostly of this sort. We get our light from the Bible, not from the demons.
An impression has been widely spread, and has gained a large measure of acceptance, that the frequent references in the Scriptures to the casting out of demons are to be understood as concessions by the Lord to the ignorant people of His times, who had the. thought that insanity, sickness, etc., were the work of evil spirits, but that actually there are no such things. A correlated thought is that every person has a demon, constantly associated with him and really a part of him, his worse self, in other words. Neither of these thoughts is correct.
Not Everybody Has a Demon
A little reflection would show that if our Lord gave His apostles the power to cast out demons, and that if they exercised that power, as they did, and that if our Lord also exercised that power, obviously those out of whom the demons were cast were without demons at the end of that experience, anyway.
But we have the most positive evidence that Christ Jesus, who while on earth was a man, a perfect man, a perfect substitute for father Adam, not only did not have a demon, but indignantly resented as unwarranted and untrue the suggestion that He did have a demon.
In the eighth chapter of John’s Gospel our Lord had been presenting to the. Jews the evidence that He came from heaven. In the fortyfourth verse He told them something of Satan: that he was a man-killer from the beginning of human history; that he is a liar, and the father of “it”, the father of the original lie of all lies, that a dead person is not really dead, that “ye shall not surely die”. (Gen. 3:1-5) He told these Jews who refused to believe His truthful message that He came from our God, that they were showing Satan’s characteristics, that they had murder in their hearts toward Him, and that they, too, preferred a lie to the truth. (So do many people to this day.)
Then answered the Jews, and said unto him, Say we not well that thou art a Samaritan, and hast a devil? Jesus answered, I have not a devil; but I honour my Father, and ye do dishonour me.—John 8:48,49.
This would be sufficient testimony, but there is other and stronger evidence.
Earlier in our Lord’s ministry there was another somewhat similar experience, at Capernaum, the one just narrated having happened at Jerusalem only six months before His crucifixion. In the incident at Capernaum our Lord had but just begun His ministry. The fame of His wonderful works had spread, and the scribes of the Jewish religion had come down from Jerusalem to see what could be done to destroy His influence. Noting that He was casting out demons, they protested to the people that He was doing this because He was under the control of Beelzebub, the. prince of devils.
Jesus called these wicked men to Him and explained to them in great kindness, and with great plainness of speech, that they were standing on the threshold of the second death because they were telling the people what they must have known was not true, in accusing Him of being obsessed by an evil spirit, when they must have known that His works were good works and that therefore His claims that this
strange power working through Him was the holy spirit of Jehovah God were correct. His statement was:
Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme; but he that shall blaspheme against the holy spirit [maliciously attributing to an evil source what could not be denied as a good work, free from sin, selfishness or ambition] hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation; because [says Mark] they said, He hath an unclean spirit.—Mark 3:28-30.
Matthew’s account goes more into detail, showing that the scribes were not to think that the reason why they were in danger of the second death was that they had said something against Jesus Christ. Our Lord even tells them that they might speak against the Son of man and have it forgiven, but that their act of accusing Him of having an evil spirit when they knew such was not the case was such an act of malice as to make it questionable whether they could ever be recovered to a right spirit. In this incident we have the proof of what constitutes one sin unto death; it is malice, a bitter heart so filled with its own devices that it resists the holy spirit and even imputes evil to it.
Demons Dwell in the Mind.
Although the demons can and do exist outside of human minds, yet in some way they have learned how to intrude upon the minds of certain persons, generally such as are of nervous temperament or those who because of some physical or mental shock, such, for example, as shell shock, have come into a condition where their powers of mental discernment or mental resistance have for the time become lessened. Occasionally, but rarely, the demons have been permitted to have access for a time to some of the Lord’s true people, to touch them, so to speak, but not to do them injury.
The Lord gives a very lucid explanation of conditions in the spirit world, such as might come about where a mind freed from demon control or oppression neglected to become filled with the holy spirit, with the good things which would make it sound and well. He said:
When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places [not necessarily hot places; there is no mention of brimstone here], seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.—Matt. 12:43-45.
It is easy enough to see how the last state of such a man would be worse than the first. It would be bad enough to act as landlord for one demon at any time; but to have eight demons, each struggling or bidding for a chance to use a man’s mind, while he himself was still trying to hang on to it and use it for his own purposes, could result only in an insanity which would be hopeless except for the relief which the Great Physician alone could provide.
There is an instance in the Scriptures where one poor woman had seven of these demons in her mind—Mary of Magdala, a good woman, too. She was one of the noble band of women (Luke 8:2, 3) which included Susanna and Joanna the wife of Herod’s steward, who followed our Lord from city to city, ministering unto Him of their substance, providing food, doing washing and mending, and arranging home comforts and necessities for the King of kings and Lord of lords. What an opportunity! Mary was one of the faithful ones that followed Jesus even to Calvary itself (Matt. 27:56,57), was at His tomb "when it was yet dark” (John 20:1), and may have been the first one to whom Jesus revealed himself.
Perform Acts of Mental Malice
It seems difficult to believe that any creature in the universe could be so malicious as to wish to deprive another of the powers of speech and of sight, especially when that person had not injured the transgressor in any way, but had himself been the injured person. But the Scriptures credit just that degree of malice to these evil spirits.
Thus we read, in Luke 11:14, of an instance in which the Lord "was casting out a devil, and it [the obsessed man] was dumb [the demon being unwilling to speak itself or to allow the organism which it had seized to do so]. And it came to pass, when the devil was gone out, the dumb spake; and the people wondered”. It is small wonder that they wondered.
Two similar instances are recorded in the Gospel according to Matthew. The one recorded in Matthew 9:32-34 is probably the same incident as that just narrated; but the case cited in Matthew 12:22 is a still more aggravated one, where sight was withheld as well as speech.
“Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind and dumb; and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw.”
A different instance is that of the daughter of the Syrophenician woman, the account of which we find in Mark 7:24-30. There we are not told what were the particular acts of uncleanness which the demon performed, but are merely informed that this “young daughter had an unclean spirit”. The uncleanness may have manifested itself in causing the girl to wear unclean clothing, or to be unclean in person or unclean in language. Quite likely the uncleanness was manifested in all of these ways.
Demons Hear and Understand
In Luke’s Gospel (10:17-21) we have the story of how the seventy returned to the Lord with joy, announcing that through the use of His name even the devils were subject unto them. This* is still the most effective weapon that can be used against them. A Christian man reports that though troubled by the demons more or less all his life he is always able to get relief by going and kneeling before the Lord in prayer and then saying in a firm tone of voice to these evil angels, “I command you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to depart.” On such occasions they always depart. Both of these items show that the demons can hear.
The preceding chapter (Luke 9:37-42) narrates an incident of how a man cried out to the Lord, calling His attention to the fact that a demon had been in the habit of imposing himself upon his child, bruising and tearing him, and causing him to foam at the mouth; and even as he was yet speaking “the devil threw him down, and tare him. And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child, and delivered him again to his father”. The Lord addressed himself not to the child, but to the demon that was in the child.
The account in Mark 7:24-30, where Jesus caused the devil to depart from the daughter of the Syrophenician woman without ever seeing the daughter, shows either that the demon must have had such acute powers of hearing as to understand Jesus’ words from a distance, as is now done by the radio apparatus, or else that the message must have been carried to the demon by some unseen messenger who had heard Jesus’ statement to the poor mother, that because of her faith “the devil is gone out of thy daughter”.
Demons See and Speak
Early in our Lord’s ministry He removed to Capernaum and, as was His custom, went into the synagogue, and taught the people. An incident occurred there which illustrates the ability of the demons to see and hear and reason. We quote the passage, with a few explanatory words thrown in:
And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he [the demon, not the man, though he no doubt used the man’s vocal organs] cried out, saying, Let us [demons] alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I [the spokesman for myself and other demons] know thee who thou art [I knew you for centuries in the courts of heaven while I was still a holy angel], the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him [the demon, not the man], saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him. And when the unclean spirit had torn him [his victim], and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him.—Mark 1: 23-26.
Farther down in the same chapter (verse 34) appears the statement that our Lord “cast out many devils; and suffered not the devils to speak, because they knew him”. He was not willing to accept any testimony from such a source. This power granted to Jesus by the heavenly Father, that, though He was human, He yet had power over these spirit creatures, and that they dared not and perhaps could not disobey Him, is a most remarkable thing.
But they were manifestly obedient only for a time; for a little later we read that “unclean spirits, when they saw him, fell down before him, and cried, saying, Thou art the Son of God. And he straitly charged them that they should not make him known”. (Mark 3:11,12) It may be that these were different demons from those addressed in the preceding chapter. Probably so.
We know that there were several incidents of this kind; for Luke in his account (Luke 4:41) explains that “devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And he, rebuking them, suffered them not to say that they knew him to be Christ”. (See marginal reading.)
One of the most instructive cases of our Lord’s contact with the demons is the account of the poor man of Gadara, in Luke 8 : 26-40 and Mark 5:1-20. This man had been troubled with demons for a long time; and though bound with chains, he had broken all his fetters and escaped to the mountains, where he ran about naked, cutting himself with stones and crying aloud.
When Jesus came in sight the demons within this man “saw Jesus afar off” and “ran and worshipped him”, begging Him not to cast them into the “deep” (the same word rendered ‘bottomless pit’ elsewhere in Scripture). Our Lord asked: “What is thy name?” Back came the answer, “My name is Legion; for we [the number of demons in this poor man] are many.” Then our Lord, at the request of these demons, permitted them to enter a great herd of about two thousand swine. They did so; and the swine became insane, and perished in the waters of Galilee. (According to their law the Jews had no right to keep pigs.)
Observe that these demons were completely under the Master's control, and that they could not invade even swine without His consent. Manifestly they could see and speak. The poor man who had been obsessed by this legion of demons became sane immediately upon their leaving him, and became the Lord’s ambassador throughout all that country.
Paul had experiences with the demons somewhat similar to our Lord’s. For many days he was followed by a certain damsel possessed of demons. These demons persisted in calling out, “These men are the servants of the most high God, which shew unto us the way of salvation.” (Acts 16:17) Paul rebuked the spirit or spirits, commanding them to come out of her, in the name of the Lord Jesus. For this act of mercy he and Silas were imprisoned; and perhaps this was the end which the demon had in view.
Some Demons Have Some Honesty
While the demons as a whole are called “lying spirits” because nothing they may say is to be believed, yet the Scriptures say of some of them that “the devils also believe, and tremble”. (Jas. 2:19) There seems to be some Scriptural ground for hope that some of these may at length be saved when “in the dispensation of the fulness of times”, in the Millennium, Christ shall gather together in one all who are willing to accept the proffered salvation, “both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him.” (Eph. 1: 10) There would seem to be no object in making known “unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places” through the church “the manifold wisdom of God” unless that wisdom is to be used in some way for the salvation of those of them who are worth saving.—Eph. 3:10.
There is a hint of honesty on the part of one of these that is refreshing, when we compare it with the hypocritical way in which some of these modern human disbelievers in the Bible, these haters of saints, these murderers of boys in khaki, these blasphemers of God, these longfaced, whining, begging individuals clothed with the soft garments of the clerical profession, face the truths the Bible contains. We cannot do better than to give this incident in the words of the Scriptures themselves:
Then certain of the vagabond Jews [at Corinth], exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We [unconverted sinners] adjure you by Jesus, whom Paul preacheth. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? And the man in whom the evil spirit was, leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.—Acts 19: 13-16.
The Scriptures show that the demons have a table and a cup, the counterfeit of the table and cup of the Lord. (1 Cor. 10:21) The table is the wafer which, in the sacrifice of the mass, ‘represents Christ’. The cup is the cup which the priests drink, but which they do not share with the laity. The apostle explains in the preceding verse that much which passes for worship is really offered to demons and is accepted by the demons as offered to them.
The demons also have their own special doctrines. (1 Tim. 4:1) Prominent among these is the original lie that when a man dies he is not dead but more alive than ever. Joined to this is the doctrine of eternal torment, its necessary corollary. If a person cannot die, but must live on forever, then, of course, the wicked must continue in some unhappy state somewhere. But if they can and do die, as the Scriptures scores of times declare is the case, then all the religions that have been based upon the lie are false; and by that test the church organizations of Christendom are false and are the Devil’s churches instead of God's. Search the matter out, and you will find that this is so.
“Talking with the Dead?”
Mankind in general Satan seeks to lead astray; and so successful is he that, the Scriptures declare, “the whole world lieth in the wicked one.” Six thousand years of experience backed by the cooperation of myriads in his organization, visible and invisible, have given him a good knowledge of the methods by which humanity can be turned away from Jehovah God and His worship and service, and turned directly or indirectly toward himself, but “we are not ignorant of his devices”.
After the World War, millions of fathers, mothers, sisters and sweethearts sought consolation regarding the fate of the more than ten million young men slain on the battlefield; and the truth that the dead are. really dead having been carefully concealed from them by 200-odd varieties of ministers of the Devil’s religion, they sought contact with their missing loved ones by methods that are everywhere forbidden in the Scriptures.
Among the multitude of journals that fell into the trap thus prepared by the Devil was The Ladies Home Journal, which unwittingly circulated millions of copies of Satan’s own propaganda in communications purported to come from a dead soldier to his mother, but which Jehovah’s witnesses know came from one of the Devil’s representatives falsely claiming to be the dead soldier, which said soldier was then and is now and will be as dead as though he never had been until such time as he is awakened from the sleep of death in the resurrection morning.
Some of the early subscribers of The Golden Age will well remember Judge Rutherford’s masterly presentation of both sides of this subject in his book of January, 1920, entitled Talking with the Dead? or Can the Living Talk with the Dead? We do not give these arguments here. Those who desire proofs that the dead are dead are advised to read Judge Rutherford’s books The Harp of God and Creation, published subsequently. Either one of these extremely valuable helps to Bible study will be sent to any address upon receipt of thirty cents.
The Blue Ribbon Liars of Creation
In this article, we henceforth confine ourselves principally to a general review of spiritism as it appears in the public press. Satan and his cohorts are always finding some new way to influence the human mind, though many of the newest ways are merely revivals of some of the oldest ones, for the practice of which Jehovah God pronounced the sentence of death against all the nations that inhabited the land of Canaan at the time Joshua and his forces crossed the Jordan.
Not a word that the big Devil or the little devils say on any subject can be believed, regardless of whether the message comes through a spirit medium, visions, the clairaudient ear, a ouija board or any other board. Persons who have used ouija boards have admitted that these ouija boards lied to them until they can believe nothing that they say.
A ouija board told a mother that the ship on which her son was drowned was bombed by a zeppelin, when it was known that the ship was torpedoed by a submarine. A Chicago woman who was told clairaudiently to go to Danville, after she had packed up to go was told elairau-diently not to go.
Another refined and educated Chicago woman was clairaudiently told she had been appointed to marry a certain man she had only met once. In spite of the protests of her family, she prepared the wedding supper for a set date. The man did not come. She was told he would come the next day, and this was continued from day to day for weeks.
She was finally convinced that she had been married on the spirit plane. At length she was told that her spiritual husband would be at a certain place at a certain time. She went to meet him, but he was not in. She finally found that he was being detained at a sanitarium. So she went to the sanitarium to see him, and finally was sent to one herself.
A demon who had clairaudiently induced his victim to believe that he was the Almighty himself, and who at length was caught in a lie, admitted to his victim that he and his comrades take delight in trying to infuse infidel or atheistic thoughts into the minds of the God-fearing.
Demons Hate the Scriptures
A reference to the columns of spiritistic papers shows that their editors and contributors hate and fear the Bible and ridicule it, which, it will be noted, is exactly the same spirit that animates a considerable section of the ministry of so-called “organized religion”.
A favorite line of ridicule of both of these parallel lines of demonism is the Scriptural account of the creation of the earth and of man upon it; another is that of salvation through the blood of Christ. A poor demonized Korean woman shrank away in terror from a Bible when it was placed against her head, but laughed when a hymn book was placed there instead, saying it could not hurt her.
There is not a word in the Scriptures justifying prayers for the dead, yet several varieties of ministers of organized religion encourage such prayers, and a minister of the Church of England, Dean Welldon, in a congress of his church openly advocated “spiritism” and, in the same breath, “intercessions for the departed,” showing that in his judgment the two naturally go together, as, in fact, they actually do.
Moral Scum of the Universe
Though these demons, when they have gained control of the minds of their victims, have gone so far at times as to claim to speak as the voice of the Almighty, yet they not only have lied like troopers, but have encouraged and advocated loose morals, and not only have shown no interest in mankind, but have done nothing for mankind; have supplied them neither wisdom nor comfort, and have produced evil and only evil effects.
The demons are inordinately sexual in the contents of their minds. They encourage selfish acts and endorse theories and principles which, when carried out, enable men who manufacture a necessity of modern life, such as the electric current, for less than three-tenths of a cent per kilowatt hour to charge poor miners $12 a year apiece as a “ready to serve charge” before they give them any current at all, and then for the current they actually consume charge them seventeen times as much as it costs to produce it. Their suggestions debase men, making them little better than brutes.
As these devils who impersonate the dead gradually progress with their work of deception their language changes and becomes more impure, immoral, sinister, blasphemous and obscene. Hints are thrown out that morality is a matter of conventionality. Many women as well as men have been ruined utterly by these debasing suggestions urged upon them when their will power has been destroyed by opening the doors of the mind. Giving heed to seducing spirits makes for hysteria, neurasthenia, insanity and a loose mode of living and free love.
In a world which by his own efforts and with the aid of these, his accursed imps, Satan is always helping to make worse every day that we live, these wicked demons, while pretending to have high moral principles, insult, scold, curse and swear, create discord and confusion and take advantage of people when they are sick, worn out and morbid. In our files we have proofs that these demons have descended to so low a plane as to frighten horses and even cows.
Persistent and repeated efforts to terrify a troop of Italian soldiers by apparitions finally caused four of the poor men to go insane.
Silly Deeds of Poltergeist
Every encyclopedia is obliged to acknowledge the existence of Poltergeist. (The word is of German origin, defined in the dictionary as “a noisy ghost”.) From time to time we have mentioned some of these manifestations in The Golden Age, and will continue to do so as they are brought to our notice.
In October, 1927, at Konnersreuth, North Bavaria, Theresa Neumann was, and perhaps still is, at intervals attacked by wounds not made from without but fashioned from within. These wounds, falsely called “the stigmata of Jesus on the cross”, appear on the hands and feet, side and forehead, and are accompanied with tears of blood.
In October, 1928, at Booysens, a suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa, stones fell repeatedly through the roof in a house but did not leave a hole in the roof. One of these stones, thrown by an invisible hand, struck one of four children. The family moved to Bospoort, another suburb, and similar experiences were repeated. One child in such home is probably obsessed.
In July, 1930, at Rochbique, France, in the home of Jean Bossier, invisible hands slapped the faces of members of the family and even of the police and scientists who undertook to make investigations. Furniture was tumbled about, beds were unmade, fires in the cookstove were extinguished, the faces of the children were scratched, and noises like the rumbling of thunder came from the attic.
Our files contain information from Dublin, Ireland,- of instances where bricks fell down the chimney, hit the floor, and disappeared. Windows and ornaments were broken, pots were smashed; and while the frightened householder was looking at his clock, the hands of the clock disappeared.
In a Minneapolis home, eleven fires were started by demons within a period of thirty hours.
They have been known repeatedly to command their victims to commit suicide, and in some instances their victims have been known to become so infatuated that they have done so in order that they might ‘enter the spirit world’ that much sooner. It is well known that many murders are committed under the direct orders of the demons.
The demons always endeavor to hide their own identity, and in their orders to their victims to commit suicide or murder or what not, they masquerade as friends or guides or, as previously stated, sometimes even as Jesus or the Almighty himself.
How Demons Collect Information
Out of the passive minds and memories of their victims they obtain the information needed to carry on their work of deception, but they occasionally make a slip and reveal the dismal depths of their moral depravity, though even then they are sometimes able to cover it up for years under a mass of platitudes and high-sounding phrases, such as one can hear at any time at a funeral discourse, or from Cadman when he is on the radio.
Because, they were well acquainted with our dead friends and because they have superior powers, the fallen angels well know how to imitate the voices and mannerisms of those who have departed this life. And because they hate Jehovah God they take a special delight in buffeting and hindering, in every way in their power, those who are committed to witnessing to the honor of God’s name; but they are really helpless to do them any harm.
That in most cases the only information the demons can get respecting the affairs of those who come to them for assistance is from their own minds is suggested by the experiences of a man whose letter was published in the London Daily News of January 12, 1929:
Fifty years ago I was persuaded to join some friends in a table-rapping seance. The table responded nobly, lifting one side three times for “Yes” and once for “No”. When my turn came, I asked to speak to my paternal grandfather. Was he there? Three raps. As a test, I asked him how many children he had. The table rapped out “Four”. That was right, my father, his brother and two sisters. Wonderful! I wrote to my father an account of the sitting and he suggested that I must have got hold of the wrong grandfather, as his family included eight children, but four had died young. I had known of only four, and it seems evident that my mind, through magnetism or some other force, was the ruling factor.
Satan Actually Worshiped as Such
In some parts of the earth the demons try to blind the minds of their dupes to the facts by denying the existence of Satan, but certainly in Paris and perhaps in other places there are chapels where Satan is worshiped as such and is called upon by his ancient names of Lucifer, Beelzebub, Ashtaroth and Moloch. We quote a dispatch from Paris which appeared in The News, a New York paper:
A survival of sorcery, witchcraft and the black masses, which were practiced in the days of Cagliostro and the Marquis de Sade, is now sweeping many parts of France. . . . Although these ceremonies occur in various parts of the country, it is said they are all carried out in the same manner. A circle is generally drawn in which the worshipers gather on their knees after marking cabalistic signs on the ground before them. Then bowls of incense are lighted and the priest, standing before a candle-lit altar, invokes the evil spirits. As a rule the invocations are blasphemous in the extreme. Hymns of praise are sung to the devil. Then the Mephistophelian one is asked to bestow worldly riches upon his followers or to fulfill their sinful desires. In return, they promise to give him their souls for eternal damnation.
From those who have sought to investigate the occult or to seek occult help in the cure of disease, we have the testimony that the demons aye evidently as plentiful as the microbes of disease. There seems to be no limit to their number. At times they impress the brain from without, and sometimes from within. That is to say, sometimes in communicating they use the outer ear, and sometimes the inner ear.
Access by Mental Suggestion
When messages from the demons are received, they may at first be recognized as coming from one’s own mind; but after the demons obtain fuller possession of the mind, messages come which are from an unknown source. The more frequently the mind is invaded, the easier of access it becomes. At first the victim is his own master, but gradually loses control and becomes possessed. The mind becomes more and more passive, the control of the demons greater and greater, and the final result is insanity.
The demons evidently have no power to read the minds of those whose wills are strong or of persons who are wholly in harmony with God’s will; but if for any reason the will is weak or not wholly in harmony with God’s will, or if it is willing to disobey God and to turn toward the occult, then there is no question that demons can and do read the mind and take out of it what they please for use as they please.
Those who have been in contact with the demons sometimes describe the invasion of their minds as accompanied by a blending of all the lights which flame the avenues of sense. These lights may be bluish, greenish or precipitous, bursting luminaries. Sometimes these lights are outside of the brain, or seem to be. The so-called “star of Bethlehem” was such a light, and at various other times and in recent years great balls of fire have accompanied “revivals” in Wales and the movements of troops in Italy.
Collective Hallucination
Upon the minds of those whom the demons have been able to bring within their power they are able to produce, pictures which the eye does not see. Prophetic News tells of a man who, after he became rebellious at their testimony, saw and heard himself tried and condemned by a council of fallen angels.
In India mass hypnosis, or collective hallucination, is a thing very commonly practiced by the so-called “fakirs”. In the magazine Asia for August, 1931, a writer tells of having heard one of these fakirs addressing a crowd, speaking very rapidly and explaining at some length what he intended to do, namely, set fire to his assistant and watch him go up in smoke. We give his account of what happened:
When the flames had been burning for two or three minutes, a very curious thing happened. A large fly settled on the baek of my neck and instinctively I shook my head and put up my hand to brush it off. The momentary jerk broke the hypnotic spell to which, without knowing it, I had been subjected. I looked at the burning man. He was standing a few feet from me and he was not burning at all! I could scarcely believe my eyes. Then, as suddenly as it had left me, the spell returned and took possession of my senses. It was irresistible. Again I saw the man surrounded by flames, and presently he was consumed and reduced to a little heap of ashes. His comrade stepped forward and picked up some of the ashes and let them flutter to the ground. Suddenly he clapped his hands and stamped his foot, and in front of us was the assistant — exactly as we had first seen him. Neither his clothes nor his person showed the faintest trace of having been in contact with fire so hot that we who had been standing some feet away from him had felt it on our faces.
It may be that the walking across white-hot stones elsewhere described in this issue is to be similarly explained. Mass hypnosis is common in India.
Though it is often claimed that hypnotism is a “scientific” phenomenon, yet there is evidence that the science, if it is a science, is wholly based upon the wisdom of this world, which the apostle truthfully says is “earthly, sensual, devilish”.
There, is no evidence that hypnotism is ever exerted without the aid of demonism, but there is plenty of evidence that the two are closely related.
Thus, when the. American psychologist William James was studying the problem of hypnosis he used in connection with his experiments a ouija board, and when such experiments are now conducted automatic writing is also used in connection therewith, and automatic writing most certainly is demonism.
It is said to be easier to hypnotize an entire group than to hypnotize individuals. Various methods are used, among which are a series of sentences spoken in a monotonous and commanding tone. The constant repetition of creeds, etc., creates a hypnotic condition. Another method of producing hypnosis is by fixing the gaze intently upon some small object, as a coin or the point of a pencil or the nearest point on a crystal.
Effects of Hypnosis
Hypnosis, which is the willing subjection of one mind to another mind, produces the same results as the domination of a mind by demons. It brings forth out of the mental storehouse, whatever is contained therein, even though the legitimate owner might have been, prior to the period of hypnosis, unable, of his own accord to remember the items thus brought to light.
A gentleman reports that at Nice, France, in February, 1929, he was walking along the street when a stranger asked him a direction and then suggested coffee at a nearby cafe. The gentleman says:
We chatted for about five minutes, when suddenly I felt queer, though I had not touched my coffee. I remember distinctly answering his questions regarding my money, and was powerless to remain silent. We then went to my employer’s office, where I drew a month’s salary and handed it to him. He then told me to take him to my home and get my check book. At the bank I withdrew 6,000 francs and handed it to him. Then I sat on a sidewalk bench, where he left me. It was two o’clock before I regained my will power, although all the time I realized what I had done.
When the man regained his normal control of himself he went to the police with his story and they in turn took him back to the bank. There the tellers verified his story and said the man seemed to be sleep-walking but they could not refuse him his own money when he insisted upon having it.
In December, 1930, after studying the whole subject of hypnotism, the French Academy issued an opinion condemning public exhibitions of it, advising that they be forbidden throughout France on the ground that such public exhibitions could not help having a bad influence.
It is stated that only about one person in four can with comparative ease be completely hypnotized, i.e., put into what is sometimes called the “somnambulistic” state. This indicates to us that the human family still has a measure of the will power originally conferred by our great and wise Creator as its protection against encroachment by others.
The “Materialization” Deception
The power which the demons have of influencing the mind through the. organs of sight and hearing to believe that they actually see and hear what they do not as a matter of fact either see or hear, has on numerous occasions led to what were, supposed by the victims to be, but were actually not, materializations. The deceptions of eye and ear are sometimes extended also to the sense of touch, so that in addition to seeing and hearing, the victim is able also to touch.
A doctor in Chicago was visited in a dimly lighted apartment by his supposed dead sweetheart. Concerning this crooked old fraud (the impersonating demon) that had been lying to people for thousands of years, this poor man says, “She told me that she must go, but first kissed me, and then I put my arms about her and kissed her, but as I did so the young woman, who was as completely material as anything could be, melted away in the atmosphere.”
In other words, after this hoary old son of Satan had convinced this poor man that his sweetheart was still alive, which he did by deceiving him in his organs of sight, hearing and touch, he resumed his usual condition of invisibility, probably continuing to hang around the poor man, who by now is doubtless insane.
McClure’s Magazine narrates a similar case, a very sad one, from every point of view, in which a clergyman was deceived by the supposed materialization of his dead wife, in answer to his entirely unscriptural and, therefore, improper prayers:
“Well, eleven months passed after her death and she did not come to me, in spite of my prayers and longings, and although she was never out of my thoughts for a single day; then one night she came. I was lying in bed and the room was dark, but I saw her as plainly as I see you and I was wide awake, as sane as I am at this moment. I saw my wife! I touched her: I felt her caresses. I heard her voice with its pretty Southern accent that was so familiar. ‘Will, I am here. I have come! ’ These were the first words sho spoke.
“ She stayed there with me for half an hour and we talked about many things, just as we used to talk in real life—about the children, about my work, about my grieving for her. I asked about her condition in the spirit world, but she would tell me nothing; she said she was not allowed to do so.
“It was a different body, a shadowy body, but I could feel it, nevertheless. I could feel it penetrating me, and I recognized her face, her form. It was she! Wait! Listen! Just as you are startled, and, before I knew what I was doing, I had turned on the electrics and in the flood of light I saw that she had disappeared. ‘Oh, dear God, forgive me!’ I cried out. ‘Let her come back!’ Then I turned out the lights in an agony of hope and fear and—my wife came back.
“ ‘Isn’t it possible you dreamed all this?’
“No, no, no! I tell you my wife was there. It is a matter of absolute certainty, just as I am certain that you are there. And she has come back to me again in the same way on four other occasions in the past seventeen years. Each time I have touched her, talked to her, heard her voice plainly. There is no possible doubt about it. There is nothing in my life as certain as this.’’
Please notice that this is the well-considered utterance of an active and successful New York clergyman who preaches twice every Sunday to large congregations, and lectures through the week, a broad-shouldered citizen full of rugged health and vigor, a doctor of divinity, a kind-hearted and trustworthy man, if I am any judge. He declares that his dead wife has come back to him five times, that he has touched her each time, talked with her each time, received precious counsel and comfort from her each time.
The Hideous Actual Materializations
There are, however, actual materializations. These occur by a power which the demons possess of being able to draw out of a medium’s body connected streams of the cells of which her body is composed, and then changing the form of these living cells into any desiredappearance. They thus transform the medium into a hideous octopus-like creature, and this is the reason seances occur in a dimly lighted room with the medium in a cabinet so that the circle of investigators cannot discern the horrible scene as it really is.
These streams of cells sometimes come from the finger-tips of the medium; sometimes from the ears; sometimes from her nose; but mostly from her mouth. This stuff which “scientists” have called "ectoplasm” is clammy to the touch, like a snake, and has a certain amount of weight. It is sometimes wet, sometimes dry, sometimes hard and sometimes soft. As ectoplasm exudes from the body of a medium the weight of the medium is reduced to exactly one-half.
The demons use the ectoplasm thus exuded or drawn out of the medium to perform all their phenomena of table-tipping and spirit-rapping, the playing of tambourines and trumpets, the ringing of bells, etc. When a ten-pound table is lifted by a medium, the weight of the medium is increased by approximately the weight of the table.
Those who have read and understood the foregoing can see why the misty clouds were used in the following seances, as recorded in a letter published in The Watchtower:
“After my mother’s death my father married a woman who was a spirit medium, and has since tried to convince me of spiritism. He has given me, repeatedly, accounts of materializing seances which he has attended both in his own home and in other places. He says he has seen as many as fifteen spirits developed at one time, both adults and infants, while the medium sat in her cabinet in view of her audience. He says that sometimes he has seen a misty cloud appear near the ceiling and gradually descend to the floor, taking form as it came down, until it stood upon the floor a solid, tangible human [creature], and would clasp his hand. The hand felt as tangible in his grasp as my own would feel. He says his dead daughters (my sisters) and other friends who are dead have thus appeared to him robed in pure white. Sometimes they would materialize a sparkling lace shawl and hold it up and shake it before him; they would sit down by his side or in his lap and put their arms around his neck and converse with him of their heavenly home, its beauties, its lovely flowers, etc., and of his own future, and of their care for him. Finally they would say, ‘Well, I must go and the hand clasped in his, and which he was holding tightly, would begin to sink out of his grasp, the body would grow thin until objects across the room could be discerned through the almost transparent body; then it would disappear, sometimes going down through the floor. ’ ’
The “Queer-Smelling” Ectoplasm
Despite the fact that the scientists Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir Alfred Wallace, and others who have been flirting with spiritism for years, must know the truth that the ectoplasm is really a part of the medium’s body, yet apparently they like to try to make themselves and other people think that such is not the case, and therefore in one of his writings we find Sir Alfred Wallace narrating at length how in a sealed room he saw eight different representations of people, one of whom was supposed to be a baby which he kissed.
As a matter of fact, what Mr. Wallace kissed was a bunch of cells that belonged to the. body of Mrs. Ross, the medium, which had been dragged out or pushed out of her body for the purpose by one of the old frauds that has been a disgrace for thousands of years.
The novelist H. G. Wells says of this ectoplasm that “it is queer-smelling stuff”. It may be that old Mr. Wallace’s smelling apparatus is not good any more, or maybe in his anxiety to believe a lie he was not as particular as he might be. Be that as it may, we would not enjoy the taste left in his mouth after he had kissed the “baby”.
Scientific Accuracy of the Bible
Dr. James Hyslop, for many years Secretary of the American Society of Psychical Research, said on this point:
We find the estimate of Biblical times more accurate than that of modern science. In other words, we learn that many of these sufferers are literally “possessed of devils, ’ ’ that is, are controlled by bad or mischievous spirits. The evil spirits seem to be as disconcertingly plentiful as the physical disease germs; unable to affect normal human [creatures] they seem to seek as prey those weakened by outside troubles (as disease or disaster) of the sort which disturb relationships between mind and body. Of the existence and persistence of these evil or malicious spirits there is a mass of evidence such as cannot be controverted. The point is that real sins are of the will.
No credence can be placed in anything they say, but they have made the statement respecting themselves that they are composed of one of the so-called “noble” gases (four varieties of these are now known to chemists), i.e., gases which are noninflammable. They claim to be able to see to the limits of the universe and through solid bodies.
At the time this statement was made they were reported in World’s Problems as saying, “It takes time to be able to leave the earth’s influence.” Since that statement was made we have the light on God’s Word showing that since 1918 Satan and his hosts are no longer able to leave the earth’s influence at all and that accounts for the awful multiplying of evils of every sort which we now see going on about us.
(To be continued)
— But see next four pages.
Christian Science Radio Espionage
ALTHOUGH, in the year 1926, the number of Christian Scientists in the United States
■was but 202,098, according to the United States Church Census, and that makes it one of the smallest and least important of the denominations, yet this little band of people maintains the most perfectly organized espionage system and the only actual censorship of free speech now operating in America.
In every important state in the Union the Christian Science people maintain what they call a “Christian Science Committee on Publication”, which watches with meticulous care every public expression of any kind in which the words Christian Science occur. If used in a commendatory way all is well, but if a single word that could be construed as a reflection upon Christian Science is used, then, in violation of every principle of American life and law and custom, an attempt is made to revert to the Dark Ages and to close the mouth of the one who has spoken or written.
The censorship maintained is so strict that, on page 44 of its by-laws, The Church Manual provides that “A member of this church shall not patronize a publishing house or book store that has for sale obnoxious books”. Ponder this rule for a few minutes; it virtually compels every bookseller to be an open or secret Christian Science spy and employee, or else lose their trade.
In the year 1929 the great publishing house of Scribner’s attempted to put out a merely historical and not unfriendly but truthful book entitled Mrs, Eddy, and booksellers all over the country were intimidated by letters from Christian Science churches, notifying them, “We will have to desist from patronizing your company unless the book be removed from sale.”
Readers of The Golden Age are reminded of the experience of R. II. Barber, narrated in Golden Age No. 273. At the conclusion of a lecture in which he did not even mention Christian Science by name, but in which he did observe that “some people who have spent their lives in pain or illness desire a religion that will give them health, and so Satan has several of these to appeal to their weakness”, the alert representative of the “Christian Science Committee on Publication” for the state of Ohio concluded that the shoe fitted; so he first called up Station WHK in verbal protest and followed with a letter in which he sought to prevent Barber from any longer expressing over the air what he believes to be the truth on this subject.
Not many years ago the Christian Science people had a wonderful row among themselves, and a faction of them were fearful of everlasting destruction if they even looked inside of their own papers, yet with unexampled bigotry and effrontery they can and do undertake to close the mouths of other people in no way connected with them, and succeed very well, too, to the shame of America be it said.
Franklin Ford’s station WHAP, New York, is known as a Christian Science station; the attacks which it makes upon the Roman Catholics are the most severe now made in the United States or perhaps in the world. They are relentless and persistent, yet we have never heard of the Roman Catholics’ trying to get the station off the air. The unfairness of such a course, were it attempted, and its utter lack of even the elements of principle, to say nothing of Christianity, is perfectly apparent to everybody. The Christian Science people should have the manliness to take their own medicine.
In one of Judge Rutherford’s talks, broadcast throughout the world recently by means of electrical transcription, he made some observations which he had a perfect right to make and which we reproduce here.
In California the Christian Science “espionage bureau” now functions under the high-sounding name of “Commission on Publication” instead of the somewhat less imposing “Committee on Publication” used by the “bureau” in Ohio. The “commission” in California covered this case, however, in the usual manner. Its letter, signed by Edgar McLeod, was sent to a number of radio stations in northern California. That letter is reproduced here; also the reply to it by Judge Rutherford. (Note that he mentions also station KROW, indicating a general assault.) We are sure all our readers will enjoy it.
THE LETTER FROM THE ESPIONAGE DEPARTMENT
January 21, 1932.
Manager, Station------,
-------, California.
Dear Sir:
Several reports have reached me of an address by Judge Rutherford attacking Christian Science, which was broadcast by electrical transcription from your station at 5 o’clock last Tuesday evening, January 19. I have secured a verified transcript of that portion to which I refer, which reads as follows:
“To deceive the people, Satan brings forth a false remedy. First he induces men to teach that there is no death. You know that many men have long thought that. Jesus said that such was Satan’s first lie. Then Satan gets up a religious organization, falsely attaching the name of Christ thereto, in order to mislead the people. This organization—and I speak with all kindness—is called Christian Science, and teaches that there is no death and that ill health and sickness is a mental conclusion and that men and women can heal and give health to all who exercise faith in the so-ealled ‘science’.
“Each one of these announced remedies is in full contradiction of God’s work, and His announced purpose through Christ. This shows that many persons of good will have been inveigled by the Devil into his trap of so-called ‘Christian Science’ and bodily healed.
“It is true that Jesus did some healing of the sick when He was on earth, but He stated that such was done merely as an example to foreshadow the great work He would do in His kingdom. It has also served to establish faith in the people in Him as the Messiah.
“Insofar as it is possible, Satan uses his power to cause some healing from sickness, and his object is to turn the people away from God and the truth.
“One thing all must admit, that no one who claims to have been healed by so-called Christian Science methods has stayed healed continually, but, in the course of time, sickened and died. Even the healers themselves grow sick and die in like manner. ’ ’
I do not need to call your attention to the fact that the above-quoted remarks were offensive not only to Christian Scientists but to that large body of fair-minded people among your audience who deplore religious controversy. Further, such an address is directly contrary to the announced policy of the Federal Radio Commission that their purpose is to regulate broadcasting in behalf of the public interest, convenience and necessity.
While I assume that you may have been unaware of the character of Judge Rutherford’s address until it was actually put on the air in this particular instance, nevertheless, the matter has been so deeply offensive to Christian Scientists in the Pacific Coast states, and so wholly contrary to public interest, that I desire to be very explicit in informing you that a repetition of a similar broadcast from your station will compel me to file a definite protest with the Federal Radio Commission.
Yours very sincerely, Edgar McLeod
Christian Science Commission on Publication for Northern California
When anybody calls in question anything we or our friends have said, and especially, as in this case, when they have gone to the trouble of securing what purports to be “a verified transcript” of something Judge Rutherford is supposed to have said, it becomes a matter of interest to some of us to know exactly what he did say. The electrical transcription which was broadcast in California is the same as we have here at Brooklyn. We took the trouble to “verify” this ourselves, and we certify that what Judge Rutherford actually said is as below.
To deceive the people Satan brings forth a false remedy. First he induces men to teach that there is no death. You know that many men have long taught that very false doctrine. Jesus said that such was Satan’s first lie. Then Satan gets up a religious organization and falsely attaches the name of Christ thereto in order to mislead the people. This organization— and I speak with all kindness—is called Christian Science, and teaches that there is no death and that ill health or sickness is a mental conclusion, and that men and women can heal and give health to all who exercise faith in the so-called “science”.
Each one of these announced remedies is in full contradiction of God’s Word and His announced purpose through Christ. This shows that many persons of good will have been inveigled by the Devil into his trap of so-called “Christian Science” and bodily healed.
It is true that Jesus did some healing of the sick when He was on earth, but He stated that such was done merely as an example to foreshadow the great work that He would do in His kingdom. It has also served to establish faith of the people in Him as the Messiah.
Insofar as it is possible, Satan uses his power to cause some healing from sickness, and his very object is to turn the people away from God and the truth.
One thing all must admit, that no one who claims to have been healed by the so-called ‘ ‘ Christian Science ’ method ever stayed healed continually, but in the course of time sickened and died, and even the healers themselves grow sick and die in like manner.
A comparison of these two “verifications” is of interest. In the third sentence, instead of merely saying, “You know that many men have long thought that,” Judge Rutherford made the much more important statement that “you know that many men have long taught that very false doctrine”. The word “taught” is a much more important word than “thought”, and by some peculiar circumstance the last three words of Judge Rutherford’s expression were entirely omitted; “very false doctrine” is what he said, and so it is.
In the fourth sentence one word is omitted that Judge Rutherford said, and one word is changed. In the fifth sentence one word is changed. In the sixth sentence one word is changed. In the eighth sentence one word that Judge Rutherford said was omitted. In the eleventh sentence two words were omitted and two words were changed.
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