Golden Age, April 13, 1932

Download: PDF — Golden Age, April 13, 1932

Golden Age

A JOURNAL OF FACT HOPE AND COURAGE

...............................in.....in...........................

in this issue

DEMONISM

IN ITS LATEST ASPECTS

RAINDROPS

EVENTS IN CANADA

TRUTH CAME QUICKLY

WORLD PEACE

llllllllllillllllllllllllllllllllllllllEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIHII

every other

WEDNESDAY ...........

five cents a copy one dollar a year Canada & Foreign 1.25

Vol. XIII - No. 328

April 13, 1932

CO N T E N T S

LABOR AND ECONOMICS

Utility Bills Paid Under Protest 432 Pasadena's Municipal Plant . . 432 2% Own 60% of Wealth . . . 433 Agricultural Prices Cut in Half 434 National Wealth of United States 434 Bet urn to Customs of Generation

Ago .........434

Sharp DeHine in Employment . 436

Milwaukee Not Hard Up .... 441

SOCIAL AND EDUCATIONAL

Rmnurops.........432

Prohibition Industry in New York 432 1931 the Warmest Year .... 433

Aviation Industry in United States 433 Bombmaker Dies in Horror . . 434 When the Flowers Open . . . 435 "Wise Professor Patton .... 437

VfiiAT Villard Would Do . . . 442

FINANCE—COMMERCE—TRANSPORTATION

Those Peruvian Bonds .... 431

Oil Concessions in Colombia . . 432

Let's Get Somebody from Canada 432

The Financial Dictatorship . . 433

POLITICAL—DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN

Justice in Philadelphia .... 435

Fifteen Years for an Apple . . 435

Life Sentence for Stealing Shoes 435 The Two-Billion-Dollar Relief

Corporation

Missouri Legislators in Bad Busi

ness

Events in Canada

AGRICULTURE AND HUSBANDRY

Turken Has Possibilities . . . 432

Crops Grown near Arctic Circle . 433

Alabama Will Raise Alfalfa . . 433

SCIENCE AND INVENTION

New Use for Aluminum Sheets . 432

Electrified Cucumber Bed . . . 434

Buildings on the Moon .... 434

HOME AND HEALTH

Truth Sometimes Comes Quickly 442

TRAVEL AND MISCELLANY

Hawaii’s Polyglot Population . 434

No Man’s Land in Colorado . . 437

Getting Ready for Trouble in

India.........437

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

Demonism in Its Latest Aspects (Part II)........419

New York’s Spiritual Food . . 434

Europe Buying More Bibles . . 436

Proposed Rededication of Tomb 436

Prayers for Creative Spirit . . 441

Another Rooster Heard From . . 443

Radio Witness Work.....443

World Peace........444

A Commendable Pastoral . . . 447

Published every other Wednesday at 117 Adams Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., U. S. A., by WOODWORTH, KNORR & MARTIN

C'oyaitncrs and rroyiietois Address; 117 Adams Eircct, lirooltlyn, .V. 1',, V. 8. .1. CLAYTON J. WOODWORTH . . Editor ROBERT J. MARTIN.. Business Manager NATHAN H. KNOllR. . Secretary and Treasurer

Five Cents a Copy—$1.00 a Year Make Remittances to THE GULDEN AGE Notice to Subfw ibcrx: For your own safety, remit by postal or express money order. We do not, as a rule, send acknowledgment of a renewal or a new subscription. Renewal blank (carrying notice of expiration) is sent with the journal one month before the subscription expires. Change of address, when requested, may be expected to appear on address label within one month.

Published also in Esperanto, Finnish, German, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Swedish. Offices in Other Countries

British............34 Craven Terrace. London, W. 2. England

Canadian...........40 Irwin Avenue, Toronto 5, Ontario, Canada

Australasian......7 Beresford Rd., Strathfield, N. S. W., Australia

Eouth African..........G Lclle Street, (’ape Town, South Africa

Entered as second-class matter at Brooklyn, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879.

Golden Age

Volume XIII Brooklyn, N. Y., Wednesday, April 13, 1932 Number 328

Demonism in Its Latest Aspects (in tuo Parts)

Part II

A DEMON-CRAZED WORLD

ONE of the first steps toward being entrapped in demonism is to place reliance upon “signs” and thus to stray away from reliance upon God and His Word and seek guidance otherwise, that is, from the demons. It is astonishing in what a variety of forms demonworship has manifested itself. We mention some of the ancient and modern forms alphabetically, and we do not claim that the list is complete. It is not.

Aeromancy: Divination (invocation of the demons; prophesying) by the state of the air or from the atmospheric substances.

Alectryomancy (or Alectoromancy): Divination by means of a cock encircled by grains of corn placed on the letters of the alphabet, the letters being then put together in the order in which the grains were eaten.

Aleuromancy, Alphitomancy: Divination by flour or meal.

Anthropomancy: Divination by the entrails of a human sacrifice.

Arithmancy: Divination by numbers.

Aruspicy or Ilaruspicy: Divination by interpretation of lightning and natural prodigies.

Astrology: Divination by the stars and planets.

Austromancy: Divination by the observance of winds.

Axinomancy: Divination by a balanced ax or hatchet.

Belomancy: Divination by arrows.

Bibliomancy: Divination by passages of Scripture taken at random.

Bletonism: Divination by power of locating subterranean waters, as by sensation. Named after Bleton, a Frenchman, who early in the 19th century claimed this faculty.

Botanomancy: Divination by herbs.

Capnomancy: Divination by smoke from the altar.

Cartomancy: Divination by means of playing cards.

Catoptromancy: Divination by mirrors.

Ceromancy: Divination by dropping melted wax in water.

Chaomancy: Divination by appearances in the air.

Chartomancy: Divination by written paper. Chiromancy: Divination by the hand.

Cleromancy: Divination by dice or throwing lots.

Coscinomancy: Divination by the balanced or suspended sieve.

Crithomancy: Divination by the. dough of cakes offered in sacrifice.

Crystallomancy: Divination by crystal gazing. Dactyliomancy: Divination by finger rings. Extispicy: Divination by the entrails of animals sacrificed.

Geloscopy: Divination by the mode of laughing.

Genethliacs: Divination by the stars at birth. Geomancy: Divination by aspects of the earth. Gyromancy: Divination by walking in a circle.

This is performed by drawing a ring or circle and walking in or around it until the walker falls from dizziness, the prognostication being drawn from the place of the fall.

Halomancy: Divination by salt.

Hieroscopy: Divination by observing the objects offered in sacrifice.

Hydromancy: Divination by water.

Hypnotism: Control of one mind by another, probably by intentional or unintentional invocation of the aid of demons. The hypnotized person is put into a state resembling sleep, but hypnosis differs from

normal sleep and breaks down the human will.

lehthyomancy: Divination by fishes’ entrails. Lithomancy: Divination by precious stones. Meteoromancy: Divination by meteors.

Myomancy: Divination by movements of mice. Necromancy: Divination by pretended talking with the dead.

Nomancy: Divination by letters.

Numerology: Divination by numbers, as by day of birth or month of birth, etc.

CEnomancy: Divination by the color and peculiarities of wine.

Onieromancy: Divination by dreams.

Onomancy: Divination by the letters forming the name of the person.

Onychomancy: Divination by the finger nails as reflecting the sun’s rays.

Ophiomancy: Divination by observation of serpents.

Orniscopy, Ornithomancy: Divination by observation of the flight of birds.

Palmistry: Divination by the hand.

Pegomancy: Divination by springs and fountains.

Pessomancy: Divination by pebbles.

Potiomancy: Divination by the making of love potions.

Psychoanalysis: The Modern Confessional; an explanation of the mysteries of life resting on a sex basis. A so-called “scientific” method of polluting the minds of women and girls.

Psychomancy: Divination by “ghosts”. Pyromancy: Divination by the sacrificial fire. Rhabdomancy: Divination by means of a wand or rod. It is interesting in this connection to note that divining rods are said to be always made of wilchhazel; a curious thing, to say the least, if the demons have nothing to do with divining rods.

Scapulimancy: Divination by reading the cracks and burnt spots after scorching the animal’s shoulder blades over coals of fire.

Sciomancy: Divination by consulting the shades of the dead.

Sideromancy: Divination by observing straws burning on red-hot iron.

Sortilege: Divination by drawing lots.

Stichomancy: Divination by lines or passages from books.

Tephromancy: Divination by the ashes of the altar on which a victim has been consumed in sacrifice.

Theomancy: Divination by the responses of oracles.

Voodooism: A form of sorcery, which, in its worst forms, includes murder, human sacrifices and cannibalism.

Felinomancy—Tunicomancy—lehthyomancy

In Burma and Siam cats in the heathen temples are believed to enshrine the spirits of the dead. In Japan they are credited with the power to bewitch humans. Chaliapin, the Russian singer, was unwilling to perform in any theater where he saw a black cat.

In ancient Sweden the demons kidded the old Vikings into thinking that in the place where they were going, Valhalla, they would need their best battle clothes, and so it is still the idea in some parts of Sweden that when a man dies after having been a faithful husband, the shirt in which he was married goes to heaven with him. What happens if he wears this shirt out in the strenuous battle of life, is not stated. If his wife dies first and he is married again, he must destroy his first shirt on the eve of his second wedding.

In June, 1931, a woman, evidently laboring under a form of ichthyomancy brought into the State Hospital, Far Rockaway, a suburb of New York city, a four-month-old baby evidently choking to death. The doctor held the baby by the legs and shook her; a goldfish fell from her mouth, whereupon the mother said she had fed the child the goldfish as a cure for whooping cough. She expected that the cough would leave the child and enter the goldfish.

Catoptromancy—Potiomancy—Voodooism

In its issue of August 28, 1929, the New York Times gives the following interesting suggestion as to how people became involved in this particular form of deception:

When people came to use polished metal instead of a woodland pool for a mirror, you can be sure they treasured these as a very intimate part of their own personality. And when glass came into use, what more logical belief could they have than that when their precious mirrors were broken their ghost self too was destroyed? So, if you broke a mirror, you were out of luck with no kind friend working for you in the land of spirits, dreams and mystic hidden things. You would have to wait until a new self was created in the physical world so that there would be a corresponding new self in this world of reflection. In other words, you would have to wait seven years.

So generally did people come to believe that breaking a mirror brought bad luck that they forgot all the explanation lying back of their belief.

In its issue of April 19, 1931, the New York Times narrates the following which took place in Czechoslovakia:

The disinterment of the body of a child from a cemetery for the preparation of a love philter marked an almost unbelievable ease of superstition in Zipser Neudorf. A widow named Andrejcak who had a love affair with a railroad employee, Joseph Koory, thought she detected signs that her admirer's affection was cooling. On the advice of a gypsy she went one night to the cemetery and disinterred the body of a child which had been buried the day before. A gendarme meeting her accidentally on her way home arrested her. On hei’ confession that she intended to use the body for secret ceremonies incidental to the preparation of a love potion, both she and the gypsy who had advised her were committed for trial.

Referring to voodooism, in its issue of December 23,1928, the New York Times says:

The so-called Leopard Society and the Society of the Tiger bear strong resemblance to the medieval werewolf superstition, which was the belief that witches had the power to change their forms into those of animals. The initiates dress themselves in the skins of animals when they are about to embark upon their mischief. Prominent among the voodoo rites is the inducement of trances and frenzies by the beating of tomtoms, by monotonous chanting, by rhythmic dancing, by fasting and by the use of drugs. So firm is the belief of the savagery in the efficacy of the witch doctors’ power that the mere warning that he has been appointed to die at a certain time is said to be sometimes sufficient to kill him.

Epistolomancy—Capsulomancy—Biombomancy

In its issue of April 26, 1931, the Atlanta Journal tells of the president of a department store as personally taking the time to forward a chain letter. This letter was in his own handwriting and contained the following sentences, and the other man in this case was simpleton enough and coward enough and enough under the influence of the demons that he did not dare say nay: ‘‘Send this letter to twelve friends within twenty-four hours. If you don’t do this, serious trouble will follow. If you do send it, you may expect good luck.”

The soothsayers of East India break eggs against a board and study the size of the bits of shell and the positions into which they fall to foretell events.

It is well known that the most beautiful screens sold throughout Christendom come from China. In its issue of December 23, 1928, the New York Times says on this:

The original use of China’s beautiful screens was to obstruct and confound devils. It seems that a Chinese devil can travel only in a straight line. It cannot turn a corner. So when it meets a screen across its path there is nothing for it to do but to retire in confusion and embarrassment.

Mussolini a Cartomancer

The Atlanta Journal of April 26, 1931, says: “It is well-known that Mussolini never makes an important move without first consulting the cards, which he deals himself.” There are gamblers who refuse to play cards if a dealer is lefthanded.

In addition to the foregoing, it is believed that Mussolini's reluctance at receiving guests is prompted by his fear of being cursed by the “evil eye” known in Italy as “la jettatura”. The Catholic Review in its issue of December 8,1928, says:

In Italy especially the evil eye has been believed in and guarded against for centuries. It is known as “la jettatura” and many persons were, and still are known as “jettatori”, or possessors of the evil eye, who have the quality of injuring all on whom they look, even against their own will. Those who meet them cross their fingers or make the sign of the cross or touch some charm against the evil eye.

Miscellaneous Superstitions

Ancient contracts for the purchase of real estate have been brought to light which show upon their faces that the curse of the king of heaven and earth, the sun god, and other gods, were written into contracts.

There are some superstitions that seem to have a shred of common sense about them, as, for instance, the one against passing under a ladder. It stands to reason that one is less likely to be hit with something dropped from a ladder if he goes around it than if he goes under it.

The hot cross-bun has no reference to the cross of Christ, but dates back to offerings made, to the gods in the days of Pharaoh.

In parts of Great Britain it is regarded as unlucky for a mine if a woman enters it or if a miner meets a woman when first leaving a mine or leaving his home to enter one.

Some people are superstitious about two-dollar hills; some think a hangman’s rope is lucky; some actors think Shakespeare's play Macbeth is unlucky; some theater managers refuse to allow yellow costumes in their plays; some think it is unlucky to open an umbrella in the house; some think iron is magical; some are careful to make no gifts of knives; some actors will not sit on a trunk; some dancers refuse to discard old shoes until completely worn out; some think the touch of a gold ring will cure a sty; some think that one who turns over a mattress on Christmas day will die in the ensuing year; some think a book placed at the head of a newly born child will make him quick at reading; some think toothache can be avoided by putting the right stocking on before the left; some gamblers think they change their luck by walking around their chair; some think the four-leaf clover is lucky; some old sailors think the sound of the waves foretells certain events; some persons in the coal mining regions think that when the clothing of a child is buried, the evil spirits go out of it; and some persons think that if a baby cries at its christening it wards off the Devil, but if a baby does not cry it will grow up wicked and cross-tempered.

All Kinds of Bait

But now see what you can get when you are willing to go farther, for just one magazine offers to provide its readers with a training in the following subjects: crystals, ouija boards, yoga philosophy, clairvoyance, occult powers, seership, mediumship, sex regeneration science, dynamic thought, mind power, personal magnetism, mental science, psychoanalysis, metaphysics, ‘‘new thought,’’ mental healing, suggestive therapeutics, constructive occultism, esoteric philosophy, Rosicrucian philosophy, psychic research, theosophy, astrology, numerology, etc.

But that isn’t all. There is a widespread belief in charms of all kinds. Some of these are as follows: Garlic is used as a charm against vampire bats in Bolivia, where they really have vampire bats and where it is perhaps some protection to the people to have strings of it around their necks or the necks of cows, horses and mules; but the odd thing about it is that in Hungary, in the Middle Ages, the people hung garlic over their beds because they believed in human vampires. Quite likely the demons carried this information from the wilds of Hungary to the wilds of Bolivia before there was any visible connection between the two countries.

Widespread Belief in Charms

The Romans, Greeks, Egyptians and Orientals believed that a precious stone, a piece of writing or a ring tied around the neck would ward off all evil, and though they do not know it, that is probably the reason why to this day women wear wreaths and trinkets around their necks, and why every good Catholic is supposed to do so. In other words, this is a bid for demoniacal protection.

In rural Denmark, before a new-born infant is put into its cradle, the women place amulets there to prevent evil spirits from hurting the child. Along with the amulets are placed bread, garlic and something made from steel. These are just so many recognitions of and just so many bids to the demons.

During the World War, hundreds of thousands of men went into battle carrying charms supplied by their friends and relatives. Some of these were written charms; all of them, in effect, bids to the demons, and therefore recognition of them.

In the occult magazines there are advertisements of talismanic jewelry. These talismans are made in accordance with old alchemic laws in which each metal is supposed to focus the rays of the beneficent planets. This point will be discussed under the heading of astrology when we get to it, shortly.

Gamblers are such believers in luck, that is, in the powers of the demons to control their affairs, that some of them have watch chains famous for their size, and for the charms depending from them. Some gamblers have been known to have a charm depending from every link. Tigers’ claws, rabbits’ feet, engagement rings, lucky stones, medicated rings, love charms and magic squares are all charms that have their devotees to this day.

A magic square is an arrangement of numbers in the form of a square so that in every column and in each of the two diagonals all the numbers add up alike; and this brings us to numerology, which will also be mentioned elsewhere.

Ouija Boards and Planchettes

One of the first steps in the road to ruin by the evil angels is the use of the ouija board or planchette. These apparently innocent devices, freely advertised as games and sold everywhere, have led thousands of people into demonism. Husbands and wives working together over these things have both gone insane.

A woman who became a planchette medium and then a writing medium finally became obsessed. She experienced pains at the base of the brain, her sleep was interrupted, her health began to fail, and the intelligence that had communicated with her took full command of her body so that she no longer was a free agent. Voices sounded in her head, sometimes as many as four at once, talking with one another and freely conversing about her. Some commended her conduct; others blamed her, swore at her, cursed her and called her names so vile that she could hardly bear them. At length they urged her to commit suicide.

In the London Daily News of January, 1929, a gentleman tells us about his experiences with the planchette. He says:

I did not believe all the planchette wrote, and one evening, shortly after I had found out that it did not always tell the truth, I told the company present that I had finished with it and that it was of the Devil and that I was going to tell it so. I did, and you may imagine our surprise when it bounded out of my hand, flew across the room, and bounded back again into the wall, as if it were in a temper. I consider spiritualism to be a serious menace to mind and body. For days after using the planchette I could scarcely use my arm, such power had gone out of it.

The Devil is always bringing out something new to help those who are willing to surrender to him. Thus The Fellowship Forum of September, 1930, describes the invention of a Belgian professor for receiving supposed messages from the dead, consisting of two glass prisms, a dry battery and an electric bell. This, of course, is merely a modified form of the ouija board.

Automatic Writing

From using the mechanical devices of demonism, it is an easy step to spirit writing, but when a man whose own hand the. demons used to produce a beautifully drawn picture of his mother became angry and took the picture and threw it into the flames, he was immediately subjected to torments and was also ordered to commit suicide.

The Watchtower tells us that there are two kinds of writing mediums: one in which the control is what is termed 'mechanical control’, and then the connection between arm and brain is entirely severed and yet the manifestation is made through what is called the nervous fluids, a certain portion of which is retained in the arm for the purpose of action; but when the manifestation is what is called an 'impressional manifestation’, then the brain and the entire nervous system is used.

Basil King, in the Cosmopolitan Magazine, says of himself:

“In writing these articles, I am little more than an amanuensis, and I am at liberty to take a detached and appraising view of this presentation of a great topic for the sheer reason that the presentation is not mine.”

He goes on to say, in effect, that these evil spirits are good Christian Scientists and that they are the ones really responsible for the silly chatter that “all is good, there is no evil”; for when asked why they never expressed themselves on what human creatures call 'faults’, the demons said: “We do not know them. We look upon you and see all the good, never any evil. We cannot perceive evil and are conscious only of blanks when it is present.” This shows that these are not from God; for God declares that His eyes are in every place “beholding the evil and the good”.

The demons not only have produced writing and painted pictures, but have composed poetry and drawn architectural details. A woman in St. Paul, Minn., in March, 1928, who had never studied Egyptian mythology or had a lesson, revealed a definite knowledge of the days of the Pharaohs. She did not know whence the knowledge came, but we can tell her that it came from one of those old birds that were practicing this same game of deception in Egypt itself while Pharaoh was still alive and on the job.

Charles Hanson Towne, in a copyrighted article in the New York American of November 24, 1931, tells of his experiences in connection with automatic writing:

One Sunday afternoon I happened to be reading a book in my rooms and was quite alone. Suddenly, and for no reason which I have ever been able to explain, I was seized with an impulse to try automatic writing. I closed my novel and went solemnly to my desk. I remember feeling a little foolish as I picked up pencil and paper, for the sunlight was streaming in at the windows. My hand moved indolently across the paper, and the pencil made curlicues for a long time. Then, as if through some force beyond my will, words began to form; indeed, they raced across the page. The letters came faster than I have ever been able to write: “Do not be afraid. I am Cas [the nickname of one of my deceased friends].” I was naturally not a little frightened, but I kept on. “Do not be afraid,” the writing continued, “your sister Minnie has just come through.” Really alarmed now, I asked aloud: “Do you mean that my sister is dead?” “Yes,” the paper revealed. ‘1 She had pneumonia. ’ ’ Then it was that I made note of the time, as I was sure I had something of importance for the Psychical Research Society. I had such a sister in the far West, from whom I had not heard in a long time. So I put pencil and paper aside, rushed out of the house to the nearest telegraph office, and wired to my sister, inquiring how she was. The answer came in a short while, “Never better. What is the matter with you?” This happened in 1918 and mjT sister is still alive. Who can account for such a bewildering experience? I am sure now that Theodore Dreiser was right when he told all us younger people, so long ago, hearing of our “experiments”, not to go on with them. “That way madness lies,” he quoted. And yet, in the light of what occurred that sunny afternoon, one cannot help wondering. I am wondering still.

The cerebellum of the brain is the power house of the body, and it is from this center that the evil spirits seek control over the reasoning faculties located in the cerebrum, and over the whole body. Contact with these demons causes the victims to lose sleep, to become dizzy, and to have a constant headache in the base of the brain. A gentleman who got into the trap through a ouija board and became a writing medium said:

I was ashamed to go to a doctor, so I simply had to weai1 this uncanny spell off. In my sleep I was tortured by hot, strangling fumes, and a sensation as if something was pushing me headlong over a cliff, and would wake from the sound of pencils rattling. To abuse or bruise the mind or make it the tool of unknown and unscrupulous agents is unhealthy and dangerous business.

Spirit Pictures and Levitation

The demons have power to draw and paint pictures, and they can do this either through using the human hand or through making use of the ectoplasm exuded from the medium. They have directed the staging of a play, and they play musical instruments, such as guitars, harps and bells, and produce a variety of other sounds. They do various lifting feats, such as the elevation of tables and chairs off the floor. A mechanical engineer who attended a seance gives the following data:

Although a heavy man sits upon the table, it moves about the floor with great ease; or, the table being levitated, a strong man pushing from the top cannot depress it to the floor; or the table moves to the side of the circle farthest from the medium, and an experimenter is asked to lay hold of it and try to prevent its return to the center, but he is totally unable to do so; or the table’s weight can be temporarily so much increased that it cannot he lifted, or, on the other hand, so much reduced that it can be raised by an upward force of an ounce or two; or the table, being turned upside down on the floor, cannot be raised by a strong pull on the legs, being apparently fastened to the floor.

The same writer, after recording a number of experiments seeming to show the use of levers and suckers of great power emanating from the body of the medium, said respecting the sitters at the seance:

The sitters supply most of the energy required for the manifestations, and this energy is taken in some unknown form from their bodies. If a person is in poor health the drain of vital energy may be disastrous.

After such an experience as above it is noted that the medium comes to himself with feeble, uncertain, scarcely perceptible pulse, a little deaf, extremities cold, sensationless, taking some time for recovery. Sometimes a medium has to cease from seances altogether for a period of weeks.

Control of Voice and Sense of Smell

Demons have power over the voices of those they obsess and have vocal powers of their own. A gentleman who had experience with them says:

They could imitate the manner of speech peculiar to my relatives and acquaintances, and so exactly did they give the particular intonation and inflections of voice that I would have been compelled to believe the imitation to be the real had they not also imitated the voices of some whom I knew to be living. Upon one occasion that occurs particularly to my mind, the voice, style of address, and intonation were so exactly personified that for the moment I felt positive that the gentleman and the lady represented had deceased, and that their disembodied spirits were before me. But when I knew by the evidence of my physical senses that it was not the case, I was then convinced that the spirits were presenting assumed characters. All my experiences with these creatures who surround us in the air sum up this distinct conclusion: that they delight in evil as their chief object, and especially that branch of evil called deception. If any one thing pleases them more than any other, it is to make those in the earth-life believe the most monstrous and absurd theories.

The, Watchtower contains a story of a fine singer who was approached clairaudiently by evil spirits who promised that, if she would surrender her will to them, they would make her the finest singer in the world. Alarmed, she refused, and her voice shortly began to fail until now its beauty is all gone; but the Lord gave her the truth instead.

As the demons have the potver to produce impressions on the organs of sight, hearing and touch, so they are also able to affect the sense of smell, and. there are several well authenticated instances where at seances and at time of death and even in insane asylums they did produce odors recognized as sandalwood, roses, violets, and what have been lyingly put as the “sweet, wild odors of the heaven land”, but the truth of the business is that when the origin of these odors is known, the worst-kept barnyard would, to the nose of any honest person, be attar of roses by comparison.

Demonism at the Capital

In February, 1929, Washington, D.C., was said to have seventy-two astrologists, card readers, clairvoyants, cosmologists, crystal gazers, fortune tellers, letterologists, metaphysicians, palmists, tea leaf readers, trance mediums and witch doctors. The licenses cost $25 apiece and are good for a year. Their offices are said to be well filled with prominent people much of the time. If they have only 100 clients apiece, that would still represent 7,200 families, or approximately 30,000 people, and shows the very large influence that the occult has in Washington.

The Washington Star of February 10, 1929, discussing the various occult (demonistic) practitioners then practicing in Washington, has the following to say about tea leaf reading:

Up-to-date tea rooms now have professional fortune tellers on their staffs and a reading of tea leaves is thrown in with a meal. This childish practice seems to have gripped the imagination of a part of the feminine public. It probably was not at first intended to be taken seriously, but the fact remains that many patrons in expensive fur coats do take it seriously and go back again and again. The claim is that the “vibrations” of the patron’s hand in holding the teacup serve to arrange the leaves in symbolic designs which, interpreted by a specialist, are significant of the past and future. The tea-leaf reader usually is a clairvoyant, and if the curiosity of the customer is sufficiently whetted by the revelations of the leaves she will reveal more of the designs of the infinite at a private sitting.

Crystal Gazing—Chiromancy—Halomancy

There is in the National Museum at Washington a globe of glass fourteen inches in diameter and weighing 110 pounds, which it is known that several senators and representatives regularly visit on certain days of each week. What would you think of a “statesman” sent to Washington to safeguard the interests of the people who would spend any time looking in a glass ball trying to find which way he should jump when the party whip cracks ?

In July, 1931, there were iu New York city and vicinity 200 palm-reading gypsy camps, or groups of chiromancers.

The New York Times says that no one knows how Hallowreen originated, but it gives the following information as to how divination was originally practiced on Halloween night:

A man who put a spoonful of salt in his mouth, drank no water and walked away in silence to a place where three crossroads met and sat thereon on a threelegged stool, was rewarded at midnight by hearing a sepulchral voice announce the name of the neighbor who would die within the year. On his return to his home and the water bucket it was his privilege to make the news known, and with the victim’s wife sewing on the shroud, the preacher asking him to prepare and the neighbors inquiring solicitously about his health, it often came to pass that the prophecy was fulfilled. In Scotland to this day the housewife empties a thimble of salt on every breakfast plate before going to bed, and if in the morning the salt has fallen out of shape on any plate it is believed that that individual might as well get ready, for the bell has rang for him.

Astrology—Divination by the Stars

The idea of the astrologer that Saturn and the moon are evil ‘planets’ and Jupiter and Venus are good ones is, of course, perfectly silly, as is also the theory that all the children born in a given area at a given time will have exactly the same conditions of life, death, love and disaster, yet to our day tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of people are interested in astrology.

There are a number of magazines devoted to it; some newspapers make references to it in every issue; and some of the so-called great financiers of Wall Street (who are responsible for getting the world into the jam in which it now is) will do nothing of consequence until they have consulted their astrologer to determine whether the move is going to be lucky or unlucky. Some astrologers charge $50 a reading. Some clients are furnished with a daily service suggesting the exact hours which are lucky or unlucky for them. There are astrologers that make incomes of $50,000 a year.

Throughout much of 1931 a tooth paste company employed a wmman to broadcast lectures on this worse than nonsense over the Columbia network. A book from this woman went through four editions in two months. In the ten-cent stores, millions are invited to purchase little books and to “read the answer in the stars”.

God, the Bible, Jesus, and everything else that has any real hope for humanity, is missing from astrology. People look as they look and are what they are because they were or were not born under the influence of certain planets I

Early in 1928 a large department store in New York city featured astrological silk scarfs, each scarf having “your sign and birth mark hand-embroidered in the corner”. One could also buy zodiacal hats, shoes, hosiery, belts, jewelry and handkerchiefs.

Astrology in the White House

One reason for the current interest in astrology is given by the Washington Evening Star in its issue of February 12, 1929:

Three strange ladies called at the home of an astrologer in the spring of 1920 and asked to have their horoscopes cast. They did not give their names. She told one of them that her husband would be the next president of the United States. This lady -was the late Mrs. Warren G. Harding.

No doubt Harding had already been nominated at the time the above-mentioned interview took place, and, without a doubt in our minds, the astrologer either knew Mrs. Harding from her public photographs or was a spirit medium, and the demon in control of her identified Mrs. Harding and the guess that Harding would be elected turned out to be a good one.

The spiritists claim that Abraham Lincoln was a spiritist; that he frequently attended seances and that the Emancipation Proclamation was the result of advice received at a seance. We doubt this, and think it likely that this is merely another one of their lies.

However, we do know that today there are relatively few of the so-called great men of the world who have any real faith in Jehovah God or in the Bible as His Word. Practically the whole world has been led astray on this subject and is leaning for help upon the doctrines of demonism.

Astrology a Bunk Science

The modern science of astronomy had its rise in astrology. Long after the astronomers knew there is no truth in astrology they continued to make some recognition of it because only so could they obtain from wealthy patrons the means wherewith to continue their honest scientific investigations.

No one denies the potent influence of the sun and, to a lesser extent, of the moon, upon earth’s affairs and that they pour down sufficient light to make a difference in respect to crops, tides, weather, etc.; but all attempts to identify the stars or planets as having any appreciable influence on earth’s affairs are futile.

There is a custom among foresters that timber cut while the moon is waning is less liable to rot than if cut at other times. It is doubtful if this custom rests on any scientific basis.

In July, 1927, the Astrologer’s Guild undertook to prognosticate by the stars from day to day the weather for the month of August of that year. The result was a complete failure, as the guesses were right in only six out of a possible thirty-one.

The so-called “astrological tables” are entirely inaccurate, and, indeed, as the ancient astrologers were unfamiliar with the precession of the equinoxes, their months are now some ten days askew.

Astrology Is Sun Worship

The widespread buying of swastikas a few years ago was a recognition of the interest aroused in America by that branch of astrology commonly called “sun v’orship”, inasmuch as the swastika is the Egyptian symbol of it.

In the Middle Ages astrologers were assistants to the doctors and surgeons. They studied the skies and fixed the hour wffien the patient could have his arm or leg chiseled or sawed off with the least danger. One of the ancient astrologers advised the faithful that the best time to take a bath is in May. We recommend this to present-day enthusiasts.

Mesmer, the hypnotist, vyas originally a student of astrology and naturally and gradually v’ent over into that form of demonism with which his name is associated.

Traces of astrology are to be found in the unwillingness of certain actors to start a new play on Friday or of business men to start a trip on Friday or of certain people to call in a doctor' on Friday.

Superstitions respecting the doing or not doing of certain things in certain phases of the moon rest upon a somew’hat similar basis, but some of these it maybe suspected have a moiety of truth in them.

The reason a horseshoe is considered lucky is that it bears a partial resemblance to the moon in the second quarter. The horseshoe stands for good luck everywhere, in Hindustan as well as in Europe and America.

We read the other day of a man’s coming out of his own house wThere he had himself tacked a horseshoe over the door. He slammed the door a little too hard; off came the horseshoe and hit him on the head, knocking him senseless. Just how that horseshoe brought him good luck, we leave it for others to explain.

Witchcraft and Bug Worship

The demons have distorted and misused everything in connection with God's wonderful creation. Thus they deceived many of the ancients into believing that the rainbow is a bridge or road by which the spirits of the departed reach their home in the heavens.

That the demons are back of witchcraft in its various forms is proven by the beliefs and rituals that are common to all who practice it, whether among the Negroes of Africa, the hill tribes of East India, the Devil worshipers of Tibet, the shamans of Siberia, or some of the German farmers of Pennsylvania. Concerning these practices the New York Times of February 23, 1928, says:

One practice invariably found in all centers of magic, despite the barriers of land, sea, language or race, is that of modeling in clay, wax or some other substance the effigy of the person whom the witch doctor wishes to destroy, and burning the image, sticking pins into it, or otherwise maltreating it. The idea is that the practice will cause the person to suffer and eventually to die.

As showing the meanness and smallness of soul of the demons, consider how they have deceived the poor Hindus into thinking that if they kill a bedbug they may have put out of business the reincarnated soul of an ancestor. A wealthy Hindu recently left $100,000 for the building and endowment of bug houses in central India. Poor travelers are allowed to sleep over night in these bug houses and are even paid a small sum for doing so on condition that they let the bugs feed upon them, but if they retaliate by actually killing even one bug, they are at once ejected by the attendants and forfeit their sleep money. There are 200 such bug houses throughout India. The demons seem to have exhausted their ingenuity to see how unhappy they could make the poor people of India.

Nobody but the big Devil or the little devils or the big and little ones together could possibly be responsible for the hideous customs that prevail throughout Africa, where ■women distort their lips, noses and ears until they lose all semblance of humanity. Surely the demons responsible for this do it to reproach the Creator.

Psychoanalysis Rottenness

One of the most diabolical manifestations of demonism is tin; modern curse of psychoanalysis. It is well-known that in the Roman Catholic confessional something like 90 percent of all confessions deal with sexual subjects. The psychoanalysts outdo the confessional. They do not ■wait for confessions, but interpret everything in terms of sex. They have been instrumental in breaking up many happy homes, poisoning the minds of many poor girls, and even spoiling the minds of innocent children and adolescents. For a complete presentation of this phase of demonism, see The Golden Age No. 188.

Some of these psychoanalysts transfer to themselves the confidence and affections of both married and unmarried women, the same as often happens as a result of the supposed sacred but actually filthy confession. There are said to be in the United States about J,000 practitioners of this peculiar system of metaphysics. There is nothing good that can be said for this system. It is wholly evil, and there is no end of harm it has done.

Numerology—from Egypt’s Ancient Mysteries

At the present time, numerology is the form of demonism which has the greatest number of adherents. The practitioners frequently admit that this is a survival of the mysteries of ancient Egypt. In other words, it is demonism pure and simple. The patient is flattered, is shown a table in which each letter of the alphabet has a numerical value. From this table is obtained the key number which is supposed to show that certain definite characteristics influence such an individual’s mind. There are said to be more than a thousand professional numer-ologists in the United States at present. Numerology is a branch of astrology, and both depend upon the foolish philosophy that everything on the earth is in some way tied up with the other planets and the stars.

A mere detail of the numerology swindle is the superstition regarding the number thirteen. Napoleon, Bismarck, and Victor Hugo were all afraid of the number thirteen. There are skyscrapers in New York city which have no thirteenth floor. There are no number thirteen berths on the London & Northeast Railway sleeping cars. The people on Thirteenth Street, Far Rockaway, asked to have the name of their street changed. At a state luncheon in Paris in June, as thirteen guests were about to take their seats, the minister of finance rushed out and got an extra guest so that there would be fourteen at the table instead of thirteen.

The Path to Insanity

Observers who have paid attention to the experiences of others have noted that those who dally with demonism in any form always lose rather than gain by the process and are eventually left fit for nothing. Even after a disease is temporarily healed by these evil creatures, yet in the end the victims are driven to insanity. Human brains are not capable of withstanding continued contact with these superior and devilish intelligences.

Thousands of the insane hear voices of demons. They see faces, too, but the faces which they see are not the faces of their loved and lost ones, but, whatever they seem to be, are nothing less than the faces of devils. Surely none but a devil would stoop to harassing poor unfortunate humans who had landed in an insane asylum.

Having gotten the confidence of their victims, spirit mediums frequently show that they are in the control of devils by the unprincipled things which they do. They are frequently brought into court for inveigling property away from those who have fallen into their clutches.

In the London News Chronicle of July 8, 1930, Adrian Conan Doyle, referring to the death of his father, said:

We shall always know when he is speaking, but one has to be careful because there are practical jokers on the other side as there are here. It is quite possible that they may attempt to impersonate him. But there are tests which my mother knows, such as little mannerisms of speech, which cannot be impersonated and which will tell us that it is my father himself who is speaking.

The reason for our quoting the foregoing is that it provides the evidence that even those who are most fully committed to the practice of communication with the evil spirits have found from experience, as this young man has found, and as his father most certainly found, that nothing that comes from them is to be believed.

A spiritist hymn book contains a warning not to hold seances more than twice, or at the most, three times a week, as to do it oftener has a tendency to weaken the will. That statement is of itself a confession that demonism is the Devil’s own business from start to finish.

Malignancy of the Demons

Some idea of the malignancy of the demons can be gathered from the fact that once a year at Puri, in Arissa, India, on the roadway leading to the great temple of Jagannath, scores of poor demonized creatures are buried alive as the barbaric car passes. Some remain buried for half an hour, some for a day or more, with their arms sticking out of the ground like so many rows of posts. Who but a devil could want to see any human put through such an experience?

These devils, both in the Catholic Church and out, make their victims sometimes sleep on beds of spikes. In India they go a step farther and make them pierce their cheeks with iron skewers. Who but the Devil would ever have put it into the hearts of the medicine men of Mexico to pull the heart out of their victim while he still breathed? This horrible thing is still done in Siberia to appease the spirits, but a horse is used instead of a human creature.

A man who ran amuck in a Polish village and killed six persons and wounded five stated when he was finally overpowered that a devil had placed in his hands the bayonet with which the killing was done. Quite likely he told the truth.

A Chicago sea captain who was convicted of murder gave as his excuse that in a dream the previous night he had seen his dead mother, his grandmother and God and had been told that if he went into the street and saw a desperate burglar he was to shoot to kill, which he did.

Dishonesty and Incapacity

The cures performed by demons are worthless. The London Daily Express of February 10, 1931, told about a medium pouring a stream of power into the body of Rev. G. Vale Owen, a spiritist preacher. A medium placed his hands on him and told him he was going to get well, and the London News Chronicle of March 9, 1931, showed that this preacher didn’t live thirty days.

The German police have tried to use clairvoyance in the detection of criminals, but have been able to accomplish nothing, and it is good for the rest of us that they have not been able to accomplish anything. Imagine the conditions that would prevail if the common people, with all the other troubles they have, had to fight for their rights in the public courts against the testimony of these demons, whose word on anything is worse than nothing at all!

Despite the fact that he knew that the demons could not be trusted, the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (brought up a Catholic) wanted to see clairvoyance used in police work.

The legislators of New York state are so convinced of the dishonesty of the spirits and of their inability to prognosticate that there is now a fine of $250 in that state for pretending to tell fortunes for profit or where lost or stolen goods may be found.

Abuses of Prayer

The British have had to take steps to bring spiritism within bounds. John Bull, in its issue of January 18,1930, said:

Next week the House of Commons will be asked to give a second reading to a Government bill compelling individuals and organizations who collect money from the public to register and to be accountable to the Charity Commission. A better opportunity has never been provided to put a stop to the money-making methods of a gang of pseudo-religious apostles of faith-healing who for years have obtained immense sums of money from the public, and have never divulged what happens to the revenue. They call themselves pastors, and their leaders are three brothers. These men were once miners at Maesteg, in South Wales, but they forsook the perils of the pit for the profits of the pulpit, and ever since have played and preyed upon humanity’s wreck. . . . Sensitive and highly strung people are reduced to a state of psychic intoxication under the influence of the presiding pastor, whose every word and movement is white-hot with hypnotic suggestion. They are seized by a form of catalepsy and incoherent mutterings are heard from them during their shakings and convulsions. Then the pastor proceeds to interpret their mutterings, which he declares to have been uttered by a divine voice: “I am in the midst of thee. Thou shalt give my servant [here the name of the pastor is mentioned] the sum of £----.

Prayer, unless it is addressed to Jehovah God and is presented in the name of Jesus Christ by one who has the right to use that name, may go to the demons instead of to God; for a certain London spiritist publication advises its readers that before commencing a seance they should always pray for protection and guidance.

In London, in January, 1931, the ministers of all denominations were discussing spiritism and had made arrangements for a future seance.

Impostors and Frauds

The demons take a peculiar delight in making humans believe the most unreasonable and impossible doctrines. Conan Doyle and numerous otherwise capable and intelligent men were deceived by those impostors into believing that everybody is in heaven. Among them, Jefferson, the friend of Tom Paine, the confessed atheist, Mark Twain, the confessed agnostic, and Napoleon I, the master murderer. Roosevelt and Washington, according to these demons, were in the same heaven with Jefferson, Mark Twain and Napoleon. The demon who represented Washington presented to mankind the following gem through a spirit medium whose cheeps were published in the Wichita Eagle:

Since that time the world has went forward in the arts and sciences by leaps and by bounds. You have bread up better statesmen, you have far greater advantages for education.

The thoughtful who are familiar with Washington’s stately writings will at once sense that if this report is true then “St.” Washington, not having been properly “bread up” in heaven’s schools, has not “went forward” in grammar.

Conan Doyle and his colleagues in demonism were led on from one stage of foolishness to another until they acknowledged having been told the idiocy that heaven has among its attractions undulating hills and verdant slopes, purling streams and fragrant flowers; meandering rivulets and glassy lakes, with the wealth of field and forest, grotto and lawn; with sportive lambkins and paradisaical birds; with towns and cities, hamlets and villages, brotherhoods and associations, schools and sanatoria, colleges and laboratories, museums and observatories, newspapers and libraries, theaters and art galleries, temples and towers, chateaux and palaces, rural cottages and stately mansions.

Telepathic Achievements

With their superior powers of observation and memory, the demons seem to some people to have very much greater powers than they actually possess. Thus there is on record the case of a father attending a seance who was told by a medium that at 11: 25 a. m., when he supposed his daughter in a distant city was at school, she was instead playing a piano. He telegraphed home and found it true (though he might as well have found it false, because these liars are so absolutely untrustworthy), but he did as a matter of fact find that she was playing at just that hour, having been detained at home with a cold.

Acting upon this and other similar bits of information, Prof. Hyslop, investigator of psychic phenomena, came to the conclusion that telepathy is not a matter of thought waves, but that messages are carried from mind to mind by the spirits.

We do not know that it is true, hut are informed by the Manchester Guardian that a telepathist, Gaston Ouvrieu, when completely blindfolded has driven a motor car through crowded streets with nothing to guide him except the mind of another person, a passenger in the car. We charge this up to demonism.

On one occasion we had a subscriber who desired to present to us evidence that he had discovered that telepathy is a true science. Drawing him out by inquiry we found that in his own case he could obtain telepathic results only when the experiments were carried on with those of the opposite sex. This looked fishy to us, and its having the general appearance of demonism made us conclude not to publish his article. If telepathy is a bona fide, legitimate achievement of man it ought to be operable between man and man as well as between man and woman.

Conan Doyle claims that he and his wife were told of the Japanese earthquake the night before it happened. The explanation is very simple. The demons without doubt have powers of penetration of solids and liquids and could readily discern the tottering condition of the submarine rock cliffs, the falling of which brought about the Japanese disaster.

An editorial writer in the New York American tells of a vivacious French lady at a dinner on upper Fifth Avenue, New York city, who suddenly stopped, looked behind her and said, “If I did not know my husband was in France, I could have sworn he called me.” Within a few hours she received a cable from Nice that her husband had been killed in a motor crash. Again the explanation is simple. The demons saw the crash, knew where the man’s wife was, and made a lightning trip to America to try to lead her off into demonism and to use the incident to misguide thousands or millions of others.

Heat and Gravitation Phenomena

It is evident that the demons understand something about heat and gravitation not yet understood by humans. It is well known that in many parts of the earth witch doctors and others walk across stones that are heated white-hot, and are even buried in white-hot ashes, without being affected in any way. We do not know what the insulating powers are, and do not need to know, and do not care to know. We merely record the fact. It may be that all the senses of the observers are deceived by mass hypnosis, as elsewhere explained in this article. The holy angels also understand how to insulate against heat, for they did so in the case of the three Hebrew children that were cast into the fiery furnace.

We have recently published articles questioning the generally accepted theory of gravitation. Demons manifestly understand how to insulate against gravitation, if it exists. To the existence of this power we attribute the erection of the Great Pyramid, the handling of the great stones at Baalbek, the setting up of the statues at Easter Island, and the placement of blocks in the Peruvian fortress above Cuzco.

The demons have some powers of stanching the flow of blood that we do not comprehend. Thus there are numerous instances in which daggers, nails and knives have been thrust into the bodies of mediums without, at the moment, giving any indications of pain or producing a flow of blood. Just how this is done we do not know and do not care, but that such powers are demonistic and of no possible value to man is very apparent.

Linguistic and Musical Achievements

The demons have an intimate knowledge of how the human voice is produced, but can and do use some vocal organs more effectively than others, for the very good reason that some people naturally can imitate any sound which they may hear. Throughout the year 1927, an American 'direct-voice’ medium, G. Valiantine, was used by the demons to record on phonograph records messages in old and modern Chinese, Hindustani and Italian, all of which languages were unknown to the medium.

A similar case of demonism is that of Joseph Schmidt of Austria. When demonized he speaks ancient Babylonian, old Hebrew, classical Greek and Arabian, but in his ordinary state he knows none of these languages, being familiar only with Roumanian and German.

Probably within the same category are to be included some of the musical prodigies that have recently attracted attention. Thus there is Sidney Sherrington, the four-year-old son of an English miner, who is said to have astonished music masters with his piano playing. His parents are spiritists and claim that the spirit of Mozart is using their son as a medium. Mozart has nothing to do with it. If the child has any help from the unseen world (and he probably has), that help comes from the demons.

Quite probably in the same category is the prodigy mentioned in the New York Times of November 2(>, 1931. The dispatch from Berlin says:

A new phenomenon was added tonight to the contemporary roster of musical wonder children when six-year-old Ruth Slenzynski gave a piano recital in the Baehsaal and dumfonnded a huge gathering with her almost unbelievable performances of numerous and exacting compositions of Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Scarlatti, Chopin and Weber. . . . She never began a piece without first looking long and intently at her audience as if to command attention and silence. . . . The power which the child can summon at will seems altogether uncanny, coming from so slight a frame. Her rhythm, sharpness of accent, sense of phrase values as well as clarity, accuracy and velocity of finger work are matters to move even the most skeptical hearer to consternation.

God's Curse on All These Things

The Scriptures group all these forms of deviltry in two verses, in Deuteronomy 18:10, 11:

There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consult-er with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.

Reviewing this passage we see that one who uses divination is one who receives information from the fallen angels by means of omens or oracles. The manner is immaterial. The fact is the important and evil thing recognized in the Scriptures. An observer of times is an astrologer, one who fixes lucky or unlucky days. An enchanter is a hypnotist. A witch is a medium or mouthpiece of the fallen angels or one claiming to exercise power over the affairs of others. A charmer is one who claims to be able to put spells on people or animals; the newspapers contain frequent references to these as brought up in the courts from time to time, not only in France, Italy and other European countries, but occasionally even in America. A consulter with familiar spirits is a clairvoyant. A wizard is one claiming occult wisdom or occult power. And a necromancer is one claiming to hold communication with the dead.

…