BIBLE AND SPIRITUALISM

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 33, 8 August 1921, Page 2

BIBLE AND SPIRITUALISM

■Speaking at the Unitarian Church last evening, the Rev, Wyndham Heathcote said that all the phenomena of modern spiritualism, such as clairvoyance, trancemedrumsbip, foretelling the future, and tho intemretation of dreams' were well known in ancient days, and were familiar to the Writers of thVvarioue books 6f the Bible; but, as was to be expected, these writers did not all assume the same attitude towards the phenomena. While on the one hand attempts to pry into the future through mediums were condemned in the Book of Deuteronomy^ yet in Isaiah, the diviner was tanked as a pillar the State with the Judge, the soldier, and the statesman. . The Jews, in the 'second century 8.C.,. had become greatly addicted to occult practices, and held them in high estimation. Jesus was depicted as having. gifts of healing and of psychometry. The story of the transfiguration, in which Moses and Elijah become both visible and audible to the disciples, was told for our admiration and education, and, not as something to be censured.

Most startling of itll was .the fact that tho two great events upon which the very existence of Christianity depends were the appearances 'of Jesus to the disciples after the crucifixion and to St. Paul .on the^road to Damascus. Those who underwent the experience*, were convinced that Uhere was an objective reality—that Jesue Himself appeared; a phenomenon which, was later interpreted in such a way as to involve a belief that the tomb was empty. It had to be recognised that Christianity took its rise from a series of occult phenomena. "Why, then,, it must be asked,"' continued Mr. Heathcote, "do so many orthodox Christians still denounce spiritualism? Tho answer seems to be that occult phenomena prove conclusively that the spirits of the departed are neither |in heaven nor hell, and that by death we are not transmuted either into angels or devils, but just plaiii fdlk. The chief value of modern spiritualism is the scientific evidence it affords, of the survival of consciousnessl after death." , ■ -