Chapter 2.2 - The mediums

- 52 - miserable like the prodigal son, until homesickness for their Father’s house – for God – grips them and drives them to return. It is natural that God, who wants only spiritual life, should have strictly forbidden all communication with ‘the dead’, who are His enemies. Nothing good can be learned from ‘the dead’, neither truth nor virtue. “Appalling indeed were the consequences of the communication of the nations of old with the evil, apostate spirits through low spiritism, which the Bible refers to as ‘idolatry’. ‘The dead’, through their human mediums, seduced the misguided people to all conceivable abominations. Not only did the people eat the flesh of the offerings that had been dedicated to the demons, in token of their fellowship with the latter; they even sacrificed their sons and daughters to the evil spirits and committed the most shameful sexual acts at the sacrificial rites. All of these practices were instigated by the Powers of Evil, once the people had entered into communication with them. Psalm 106: 28: ‘They joined up with Baal-Peor and ate the sacrificial offerings to the “dead”.’ Psalm 106: 37: ‘Yea, they sacrificed their sons and daughters to the evil spirits.’ The effects of idolatry are described as follows in the Book of Wisdom: Wisdom 14: 23-28: ‘For while they now slay their children in sacrifice or celebrate secret rites, now hold revelries with strange rites, they keep neither their lives nor their marriages undefiled. No, one commits treacherous murder against the other, or hurts him by adultery. Among all without exception, there prevailed bloodshed and manslaughter, theft and fraud, corruption, unfaithfulness, tumults and perjury, disquieting of good people and ingratitude, defiling of souls and unnatural sexual practices, the break-up of marriages, adultery and fornication. For worshipping ‘dead idols’ is the beginning, the cause, and the outcome of all calamity. For either they rave in their merriment, or they prophesy lies.’ When you read of these things you may be led to conclude that those people were no longer in their right minds. They were, nevertheless, as normal as you are. But the power of evil is so great, and its ways of beguiling others so subtle, that those who have once fallen into its snares find it almost impossible to extricate themselves. • Of all the weapons of the Powers of Darkness, the mightiest is a mixture of truth and falsehood. They convinced those who communicated with them by ‘inquiring of the dead’ that animals, the sun, the moon and the stars embodied mighty spirits which had great power over mankind and could cause them happiness or misfortune, and that, as a consequence, one must worship them to ensure worldly well-being and to avert calamity. They taught, furthermore, that one could communicate with them by means of sacrifices, especially the sacrifice of children. That spirits are incorporated in all material beings was true, and also that communication can be had with these spirits through sacrificial offerings. The fatal falsehood was that that spirit world consisted of powerful spirits of good that brought happiness to those who worshipped them. Once the evil spirits had convinced their adherents of this, however, it was just a step away from human sacrifice. The parents of children who were to be sacrificed were told that after their child’s death, its spirit would constantly be around them and bring them good fortune, but that both they and their

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