The Londonderry sifter. (South Londonderry, Vt.) 1883-19??, 1888-05-17

I
suffer witch to liven And lest you might
make some important distinction between
Spritualism and witchcraft, God says, in so
many words: "There shall not be among
you consulter Of familiar spirits. or
wizard, or necromancer; for they that do
these things arean abomination to the Lord.n
Ana ne says again; "1he soul OF those who
seek after, such as have familiar spirits, and
VINO go whoring after them, will set myself
against them, and he shall be cut Off from
among his people, The Lord Almighty, in
a scora OF messages, which have not now
Time to quote, utters his indignation against
all this great family of delusions. After that
oea Spiritualist if you darel
:, Still further we learn from this text how
u is that people come to fall into Spiritualism.
Sanl had enough trouble to kill ten men. He
ana not know where to go for relief. After
awhile he resolved to GO and see the witch OF
En-dor He expected that somehow she
would afford him relief. It was his trouble
that drove him there. And I have to tell
| ycu now that Spiritualsm finds its victims in
the troubled, the bankrupt, the sick, the
oereft You lose your watch. and you go to
the fortune teller to find where it Is. You
lose friend. you want the spiritual world
opened so that you may have Communication
with him. In a highly wrought, nervous
and diseased state Of mind, You go and put
yourself in that communication. That is
why hate Spiritualism. 1t takes advan-
tage OF one In moment of weakness,
| which may come upon us at any time.
We lose friend. The trial is keen. sharp,
sutfocating, almost maddening. II we could
marshal host, and storm the eternal world,
and recapture our owed one the host would
soon be marshaled. The house is so lonely.
| The world is so dark. The separation is so
I nsufferable
| But Spiritualism says: We will open the
future world, and your loved one can come
| back and talk to you" Though we may not
hear his voice, we may hear the rap Of his
band So clear the table. Sit down. Put
| your hands on the table, Be very quiet.
ton of the table No response from the
future world. Twenty minutes. Thirty
| minutes. Nervous excitement all the time
increasing. Forty minutes. The table shiv-
ers. Two raps from the future world. The
| letters OF the alphabet are called over. The
| nunciation of the letter 81" two rars. At
the pronunciation of the letter "O," two
rams At the pronunciation Of the letter
III, ," two raps. At the pronunciation of the
letter ''N," two raps. There you have the
whole name spelled out. John, John.
Now, the spirit being present, you say:
affirmative answer Pretty soon the hand of
the medium begins to twitch and toss, and
begins to write out, after paper and ink are
| furnished a message from the eternal world.
What is remarkable, the departed spirit, al
though it has been amid the illuminations of
heaven, cannot spell as well as itused to. 1t
has lost all grammatical accuracy and can
NOT write as distinctly / recei0A a
back. 1 said: "Just please tell those
ghosts they had better go to school and get
improved in their photography" Now, Just
think of spirits, that the Bible represents as
enthroned in glory, coming down to crawl
under the table, and break crockery and rap
the window shutter on .gusty night Is
there any consolationin in such poor, miserable
work compared with the thought that our
departed Christian friends, got rid of pain
and languishing ara in the radiant society
of heaven, and that We shall join them there,
not in stified and mysterious half utterance,
which makes the hair stand on end and the
cold chills creep the back, but in an unhin.
ol nna none shall murmdi Hfl1 NJ u ml-uuuvs,
when uad's areat sunrise finds us out.
Yes, my friends, Spiritualism comes to
those who are in trouble and sweeps them
into its delusioIs. Saul, in the midst of his
disaster, went to the witch of En-dor. The
vast majority of those who have gone to
spiritual meiiums have been sent there
through their misfortunes.
| learn still further from this subject that
Spirituaiism and necromancy are affairs of
the darkness. Why did not Saul go in the
day? He was ashamed to go. Besides that,
he knew that this spiritual medium, like all
her successors, performed her exploits in the
| night. The Davenports, the Fowlers, the
| Foxes, the spiritual mediums of all ages,
| have chosen the night or darkened room.
| Why9 The majority of their wonders have
been swindles, and deception prospers best ip
the night.
| Some of the performances of spiritual mo
| dir1rn, M n ha aS 1ri iha1 IN fraud htt
| some occult law that after awhile may be
| demonstrated. But believe that now 999
out of every 1910 achievements on the part
of spiritual mediums are arrant and un-
mitigated humbug. The mysterious red let
| ters that used to come out on the mediums
arm were found to have been made by an
iron pencil that went heavily over the flesh,
not tearing it, but so disturbing the blood
that it came up in great round letters. The
witnesses of the seances have locked this
door, put the key in their pocket.
arrested the operator, and found
| out, by searching the room, that hid
| den levers moved the tables The sealed
letters that were mysteriously read witho ut
| opening have Eeen found to have been cut at
the side, and then afterward slyly put to-
gether with gum arabic; and the medium
who with heavy blanket over his head,
| could read a book, has been found to have
had bottle of phosphoric oil, by the light of
| which every body can read a book; aid ven
| triloqu.sm, and legerdemain, and sleight of
hand, and optical delusion, account for
everything. Deception being the main staple
of Spiritualism, no wonder it chooses the
darkness.
You have all seen strange and unacccunt-
able things in the night. Almost every man
has at some time had a touch OF hallucina-
| ton. Some time ago, after had been over
tempted to eat something indigestible before
retiring at night, after retiring | saw the
| president of one Of the prominent colleges
| astride the foot of the bed, while he de-
manded of me loan of five cents! When
awakened / bad no idea it was anything
supernatural And have to adviBe you, If
you hear and see strange things at night. to
stop eating hot mince pie and take dose .
bilious medicine II is an outraged PhJ s,ca sly q
organization, enough to deceive the very eiec'
4 in the night. The witch of En- dor held he'
seances at night: so do all the witches. Awa1
with this religion of spooks!
Still further, learn from my text tina
Spiritualisra is doom and death to its discl
pies. King Saul thought that he would ge
helm from the "medium;" but the first thins
that he sees makes him swoon away. and m
sooner was he resuscitated than he is told o.
must die Spiritualism is doom and death u
every one that yields to it. 1t ruins the pody
Look in upon an audience OF Spiritualises
Cadayerous. Weak. Nervous Exhausted
| 7,
but long hair-soft marshes yielding RAM
grass. Spiritualism destroys the physical
6e9lt. lis disciples are ever hearing start
linz news from the other world. Strang
leinga cross the room in white. Tabl
fidge. e. wanting to get its feet loose as II Il
dance Voices sepulchral and ominous. Be
wilder 4 with raps. l never knew con
| firmed Spiritualist who had a healthy nervou
system 1t is incipient epilepsy and cata
lepsy. Destroy your nervous system and yol
might as well be dead. l have noticet
that people who are hearing raps from tn
future world have but little strength lefs Il
/ bear the hard raps of this world. 1t is al
: awful thing to triiie with ones nervou
r system 1t is so delicate-it is so far reach
/, ing-.ts arrangements are SO terrible. Ge
g the nervous system jange, and so far a
your body and soul are concerned, the whoi
universe is iangle. Better in our Ignorance
; experiment with chemists retort that may
smite us dead, or with an engineers steam
boiler that may blow us to atoms, than ex
2 pertinent with the nervous system A MAJ
Q can live with only one lung or with no eye
e and be happy. as men have been under suct
2 Affections: but woe to the man whose nerve
|, are shattered! Spiritualsm smites hrst o
! ALL and nightly, against the nervous sys