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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 35
Spiritism is Atheistical and Destructive of Moral Responsibility
Spiritism is Atheistical and Destructive of Moral Responsibility.
That the tendency, and practical outcome of spiritualism, is to lead its votaries to Atheism, no person who will read the spiritist literature of the day can for a
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moment doubt. The fruit which the system is bearing in this respect is already so abundant that it obtrudes itself upon the attention of the observant on every hand. It may be objected that all spiritists are not Atheists, nor are all spiritist books written in defence of such a position: and we readily admit this. It is, nevertheless, true, that the general tone of spirit communications and the literature published by spiritists, is really of the character named, and that there is generally that denial of man's responsibility which naturally arises from such a position. The quotations to be presented under this heading will fully sustain this position, and were it not for limited space, the quotations given might be largely added to.
"In an article entitled "Spiritualism," published in the December number of the Monthly, among other faults and errors, I charged that its influence had tended to create a kind of moral and religious atheism—that these modern developments had not awakened religious aspirations in the minds of those who had been the subjects of them. To this charge many took exceptions as being too severe. I have carefully investigated its truth since that time, and find the charge to be just. My experience has been, go among spiritualists where you will, and, as a general thing, they have no faith in a living, conscious, intelligent Deity; possessed of love, volition, affection, &c., as an object of religious aspiration and worship. They feel no demand for worship themselves, and they denounce and ridicule its exercise in others. On an examination both of their theoretical and practical faith in God, you will find that it amounts to nothing but an indefinite and incoherent pantheism."
"How do you spiritualists explain yourselves as getting rid of theology when you retain the ideas of God and immortality?" to which he gives answer that "By 'God' we mean cause, and by 'immortality' we mean 'purpose.'" A little further on in the same article the writer says, the spiritualist, "being conscious of his ignorance, he patiently observes; and having gathered a few facts, reasons upon them and forms a basis entirely independent of the page 83
dogmatic conclusions of negationists on the one hand, or religionists on the other; forming by degrees, as the light shines upon him, relatively imperfect though they may be, definite ideas of Cause, Life, and Destiny—God, Man, and Immortality."
"It rests on one fundamental conception and profound conviction, viz., that of the reality of God. Yet we would substitute the term Nature for God, inasmuch as the latter is popularly designative of the personal deities of creedal theologies. God is personal and therefore limited; Nature is impersonal and infinite. This fact then—the reality of Nature,—is the foundation of our religion. It is the one grand fact that comprehends all others. It is The Cause, unbounded by space or time, existing everywhere—in the tiniest dewdrop and the largest sun."
"God is man, and man is God. . . . Tell us of God. . they might as well say, tell us of ourselves. The being called God exists, organically, in the form of the being called man." Another spirit says :—"Every one of you are Gods manifest in the flesh. The divine existence is one grand universal man. Man is God's embodiment—his highest, divinest, outer elaboration. God, then, is man, and man is God."—p. 526.
"When man became a living soul, he became a God. All living souls are Gods. They die not. So, living soul, rejoice in thy wisdom. ... be a King, a God, a Jehovah. You are all Gods, every one of you. Look within yourself, and behold yourself a God, responsible for every act. Read the inscription there, and thou shalt learn that thou art a God in thyself; and Thine Own Judge."
"God is a spirit; man is a spirit; then the two are one. All men who shall outlive all grossness—who shall have passed beyond all that is mundane and material—go to make up the Godhead, the superior portion of the intellectual world; and the many millions who inhabit the wisdom spheres, may be recognised as the one God." Another says :—"There is no God anywhere to forgive sin. There is no such thing as forgiveness of sin"—Quoted from "Spiritism Unveiled," pp. 49, 50.
"What a horrible phantom, what a soul crushing superstition is this idea of an overruling, omnipresent, all powerful God. . . Belief in a God is degrading, whatever the character ascribed to him. Where is your God? I can stand up and look him in the face, and affirm, that I have a right to 'life, liberty, and happiness,' whether it is his pleasure that I shall enjoy them or not. It is perfectly plain, then, that his Godhead, or my manhood must succumb! If I can beat him even at one point, he is no God. But, if I can 'make a case' once, I can a thousand times, in the case of every single right; and if I maintain my manhood in spite of him, so may every other human being; and so the God is Nowhere—is utterly routed."
"Now we may cheerfully sympathise with his mirthful explosion of the popular Divinity; no merciful man will object even to his expunging from his vocabulary the three hateful little letters (G-o-d) which express it."—"Spiritualism Unveiled," p. 51.
"I want to tell those friends that there is no God. I know there is no such gentleman."—Ibid.
"If I was coming back to preach, I should say, 'Don't believe in God.' The idea of a God of illimitable capacity is so incomprehensible that, in our judgment, it borders on the absurd. God, in the abstract, is a nonentity, an ideality of man's brain."
These quotations have all the virtue of plainness; there can be no difficulty as to the meaning intended to be conveyed—God is but an ideality of the human brain. Surely this is atheism, pure and simple!
"We must regard him (God) as a central principle, but not as a being. ... A principle existing in matter, in all conditions, and in all relations, a part of everything. . . . The Divine is, of necessity ... a vast ocean of magnetism."—page 526.
"The region called the Star of Light and Beauty is typically described as 'beneath the throne of God.' It signifies the vast celestial realms of unknown and perhaps illimitable extent, filled with the subtler fluid, 'the impenetrable,' the inconceivable, the source, fountain, and centre of all light, heat, life, force, gravitation and attraction; in a word, the central sun of being, the profound mystery, Which is Summed up in the Grand Solvent Name of God."
Thus, then, Mrs. Britten's Deity is a "Subtler Fluid"; we can easily understand how this can be expanded into "a vast ocean of magnetism," and thus, by one step, we reach an explanation of the meaning of the title of her lecture, which, with a slight legitimate change, would read, "Magnetism—a subtle fluid—the Deity of the Universe"!!
"We do not believe in a God outside and apart from Nature. We believe in a God that is in humanity. We believe in a God that makes all things divine. We believe in a God that hallows the flowers as he hallows our souls."—p. 58. Again—"I have no belief in a personal God, except as I believe in God as being personified through every conceivable form. I believe God is a power permeating all mind and all matter, and for ever and for ever changing all according to his own divine life."—p. 112.
"Human laws pre-suppose the existence of a law maker, but it is not so with divine laws. To my mind, the law of life is the God of life. . . . Wherever you see it, under whatever conditions it manifests, it is God. The law operating in soils, in minerals, in the atmosphere, in the water, in the skies, everywhere, is God. There is no power outside of this law that we can recognise as God."— page 145.
"What is God essentially? Everything. Essentially you are God, I am God—the flowers, the grass, the pebbles, the stars, the moon, the sun, everything is God. ... I cannot understand God as existing outside of Nature."—pp. 160, 161. "Do you recognise him (God) as distinct and separate from human beings? No, certainly not. I recognise him as one with them."—p. 172. "I do not believe in a God apart from his works. Such a God would be so far beyond my comprehension that I could not worship him."—p. 189.
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"I do not believe in a God apart from his works. I do not believe in a God outside of Nature; but I believe in one that is in and around us, and in all with which we come in contact. To me this is God. You may call it Jehovah, or Brahma, or by any name you please, but it is the great, living spirit that permeates all things and controls all."—p. 220.
"All spiritualists, I believe, consider God to be an infinite principle, pervading all forms, occupying all space. I believe this. I have seen nothing during my life in the spirit-world to cause me to believe otherwise. ... I can come to no other conclusion than that God is a principle pervading all forms, and occupying all space."—p. 256.
"Is there any self-conscious intelligence in the universe except the organised self-conscious intelligence of the human spirit? No, I know of none; consequently it is right for me to answer as I do"—p. 395.
In these quotations, which are culled out of one of the standard works of spiritualism, "Flashes from the Spirit-Land," we have pure pantheism—"Nature is the only God"—"God is a principle permeating all forms, and manifesting itself through them all." And what is pantheism, but atheism under another name? Atheism, is really, the denial of a personal, self-conscious, and intelligent, all-pervading spirit, by whom all things have been called into being. The spirits, whose words are quoted above, do deny this; hence, we say their doctrine is atheism. They utterly deny the existence of any personal, self-conscious being except man, and those intelligences whom they affirm were once in human form. Again, we see the position presented, that as there is no self-conscious deity but man, man is only accountable to himself; hence, spiritism is again, not only shown to be atheism, but that it does clearly nullify all moral responsibility to a superior power.
"We have taught you that God is a principle; that He (the principle!) has established laws for the government of his creatures; that man, under these laws, becomes either good or evil in page 88
this as well as the other world."—p. 275. Again:—"You have been taught that God is a principle—that He [the principle] is the source of all goodness, love, and truth, and that in Him [the principle] are the attributes which, properly directed by His [the principle's] wisdom, impel man to progress toward the goodness, and truth, and love which He [the principle] exhibits through His works."—p. 343.
I have inserted the word "principle" in brackets, so that the reader may see the utter absurdity of calling God "a principle," and then applying to Him language which can only apply to a self-existent, self-conscious, and all-pervading intelligence, who rules over all. The folly of those who deny the existence of an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient being, seems to pass all bounds; inasmuch as it binds them to the fact of their own gross inconsistency in using language of a "principle," a "subtler fluid," or an "ocean of magnetism," which can only apply to a being such as the Bible represents to men.
"Do you mean to teach that God is distinct from Nature? No; Mother-Nature is not essentially different from Father-God. . . . . There is not one thing which is body and another which is spirit; neither is there one thing which is Nature, and another which is God. . . . . . . . Nature is the Wife of the Divine Principle, and the Divine Principle is the Husband of Nature."—"Penetralia," pp. 254-255.
"There is nothing outside of, or superior to, that stupendous organisation of matter and mind which I am impressed to term Nature."—"Philosophy of Spiritual Intercourse," p. 39.
"While writing upon the subject of respectability and the approbation of the world, permit me to say I seek the approbation of no one in heaven or earth but Moses Hull. To myself I am responsible and must render an account; so I must be on the square with myself."—"Universe," of July 2, 1869.
"After all, every man makes his own God and in his own image. God never made anybody. Brother Brown, obey the God within your own soul, and all will be well."—p. 144.
"Truly every man must give an account to God for all his deeds; but how? Solely by giving an account to his own nature—to himself."—. p. 24.
"I have no God besides doing right. God attains to consciousness only in man."—"Banner of Light," Sept. 19, 1863.
"Heed not the teachers who tell thee to deny thyself. Thou art thy own law, thy own Bible, thy own model."—"Be Thyself," by Wm, Denton, p. 32.
How truly do these citations, coupled with those given under the head of "Spiritism destructive of all law, human and divine," show the repudiation of all responsibility to any higher power than man's own perverse heart. What a door of evil, and corruption, and crime, do these principles open for the wicked and lawless of earth! How fearful would be the condition of society were such principles to have full sway for only one brief year. How can men be so blind as not to see that, did their principles universally prevail, all honor would be banished from the world, all safety for society would be at an end, and man would become like the untamed beasts, continually preying upon himself. The quotations given clearly establish our affirmation—That spiritism is atheistical and utterly destructive of the sense of moral responsibility.