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Appendix
285
to in
Early Writings, 74
. He died a little more than a week before
October 22, 1844. His death came about through illness contracted
through over-exposure in conducting three baptismal services on
a chilly autumn day. (See
Prophetic Faith of our Fathers
, Vol. 4,
533-545.)
Levi F. Stockman was a youthful Methodist minister of the state
of Maine who in 1842, with about thirty other Methodist ministers,
embraced and began to preach the second advent of Christ. He was
laboring in Portland, Maine, when in 1843 his health failed. He died
of tuberculosis on June 25, 1844. It was to him that Mrs. White, as
a girl, went for advice when in her discouragement God spoke to
her in two dreams. (See
Early Writings, 12, 78-81
;
Prophetic Faith
of our Fathers
, Vol. 4, 780-782.)
Page 21:
Mesmerism
.—In order to justify their opposition, some
early enemies of the visions suggested that Ellen White’s experience
was brought about through mesmerism, a phenomenon known today
as hypnosis. Hypnosis is a state resembling sleep, induced through
the power of suggestion, the hypnotized subject being in rapport with
the one inducing the state and responsive to his suggestions. When,
however, as Mrs. White here reports, a mesmerizing physician
attempted to hypnotize her, he was helpless in her presence
.
Ellen White early in her experience was cautioned regarding the
perils of hypnosis, and in later years, on a number of occasions, she
[299]
received instruction regarding it. She warned of the grave dangers
accompanying any practice in which one mind would control another
mind. (See
The Ministry of Healing, 242-244
;
Medical Ministry,
110-112
;
Selected Messages, 2:349, 350, 353
.)
Page 33:
Nominal Adventists
.—Those who united in sounding
the first and second angels’ messages but who rejected the third
angel’s message with its Sabbath truth, but nonetheless continued
to espouse the Advent hope, are referred to by Mrs. White as the
“nominal Adventists,” or those who “reject the present truth” (Page
69), also “pifferent parties of professed Advent believers” (Page
124). In our early literature these people were also referred to as
“First-day Adventists.”
A large number of Christians were disappointed in the autumn
of 1844 when Christ did not come as they expected. The Adventists
divided into several groups, the survivors of which today comprise