Ancient and Modern Sorcery
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of supernatural power. And many who reject spiritualism as the result
of human skill or cunning will, when confronted with manifestations
which they cannot account for upon this ground, be led to acknowledge
its claims.
Modern spiritualism and the forms of ancient witchcraft and idol
worship—all having communion with the dead as their vital principle—
are founded upon that first lie by which Satan beguiled Eve in Eden:
“Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat
thereof, ... ye shall be as gods.”
Genesis 3:4, 5
. Alike based upon
falsehood and perpetuating the same, they are alike from the father of
lies.
The Hebrews were expressly forbidden to engage in any manner in
pretended communion with the dead. God closed this door effectually
when He said: “The dead know not anything.... Neither have they
any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.”
Ecclesiastes 9:5, 6
. “His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth;
in that very day his thoughts perish.”
Psalm 146:4
. And the Lord
declared to Israel: “The soul that turneth after such as have familiar
spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set
My face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.”
Leviticus 20:6
.
The “familiar spirits” were not the spirits of the dead, but evil
angels, the messengers of Satan. Ancient idolatry, which, as we have
seen, comprises both worship of the dead and pretended communion
with them, is declared by the Bible to have been demon worship.
The apostle Paul, in warning his brethren against participating, in
any manner, in the idolatry of their heathen neighbors, says, “The
things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to
God, and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.”
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Corinthians 10:20
. The psalmist, speaking of Israel, says that “they
sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils,” and in the next
verse he explains that they sacrificed them “unto the idols of Canaan.”
Psalm 106:37, 38
. In their supposed worship of dead men they were
in reality worshiping demons.
Modern spiritualism, resting upon the same foundation, is but a
revival in a new form of the witchcraft and demon worship that God
condemned and prohibited of old. It is foretold in the Scriptures, which
declare that “in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving