But there are many who do wonderful things that do not believe on Jesus; this text from John is therefore not applicable to them.
They do their works, not as the result and evidence of faith, but by the energy of their οιυη wills, operating upon the nervous systems of the patients. The promise of Jesus is not to them ; hence its fulfilment is not to be found in their mesmeric doings.
People in families and societies mesmerize one another unconsciously. Their brains and nervous systems are acted upon by the ideas willed, evolving and expressed, among thorn. The preaching, praying, talking, and silent wishings of some concerning others, create a halo of influences, which invests the community in its family and associational relations, like a fog.
"Speaking with tongues" is no proof of the existence of "the spirits," nor is the faculty necessarily a fulfilment of the promise of Jesus. I have heard an illiterate girl sing French and Italian songs who five seconds before and the instant after the singing knew not a word in either tongue. It was done by first mesmerizing her, and then placing her en rapport with an educated lady who could perform. By this process the nervosity of the two became as one-as it were, mesmeric Siamese twins. Their two brains were a closed circle, the lady who played the guitar and sang being the positive brain-pole from which the will-influence passed to the negative brain-pole of the girl, causing her unconsciously to sing with tongues.
Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, April 1854
What is this? The name " Electricity " tells nothing; that really means " amber-icity " {electron being the Greek word for amber), and was adopted as the name of the inscrutable element from the circumstance that its existence was first discovered from the friction of amber. Could a better name be devised than what the Scriptures have given it—SPIRIT? It is one of the highest proofs of the truth of Jewish revelation, that its disclosure of the Deity in His relation to the universe coincides with the facts brought to light by the researches of the human intellect in the field of nature.
The employment of this element in accomplishing the designs of intelligence, is illustrated in the facts of animal magnetism, mesmerism, biology, table rapping, clairvoyance, and " spiritualism."
In these sciences and systems—(some of them ignorantly made the basis of pretensions to divine prescience and authority) —men make use of the divine " ruach " which they naturally possess, to accomplish results which cannot be developed apart from the action of willpower. Though animals have the same spirit, they lack the intelligence to use it in this form. They use it all up in the mere process of existence. Men having intelligence, find this wonderful agent at their command to a limited degree.
One man can influence another by it. Inanimate objects can be moved. Distant facts and occurrences can, in a high state of nervous susceptibility, be perceived by it. Unopened letters can be read; and numberless other prodigies accomplished, made familiar by science and the facts of " spiritualism "—a false and absurd system, based upon misunderstood facts of nature.
christendom astray
Thus J. Garnier, in his book The Worship of the Dead, declared that such things as mesmerism (hypnosis) and powers of spiritistic mediums “are merely the reproduction of the phenomena of ancient magic, produced by exactly the same arts as those by which the Pagan magicians, sorcerers, wizards, necromancers, etc., sought the assistance of the demons who they regarded as their gods.”
Russian Monk Gregor Novikh, nicknamed “Rasputin,” meaning “dissolute, profligate, libertine, licentious,” because such he was. Rasputin came of a peasant family with an inherited gift of mesmerism
The employment of this element in accomplishing the designs of intelligence, is illustrated in the facts of animal magnetism, mesmerism, biology, table rapping, clairvoyance, and " spiritualism."
In these sciences and systems—(some of them ignorantly made the basis of pretensions to divine prescience and authority) —men make use of the divine " ruach " which they naturally possess, to accomplish results which cannot be developed apart from the action of willpower. Though animals have the same spirit, they lack the intelligence to use it in this form. They use it all up in the mere process of existence. Men having intelligence, find this wonderful agent at their command to a limited degree.
One man can influence another by it. Inanimate objects can be moved. Distant facts and occurrences can, in a high state of nervous susceptibility, be perceived by it. Unopened letters can be read; and numberless other prodigies accomplished, made familiar by science and the facts of " spiritualism "—a false and absurd system, based upon misunderstood facts of nature.
christendom astray
Thus J. Garnier, in his book The Worship of the Dead, declared that such things as mesmerism (hypnosis) and powers of spiritistic mediums “are merely the reproduction of the phenomena of ancient magic, produced by exactly the same arts as those by which the Pagan magicians, sorcerers, wizards, necromancers, etc., sought the assistance of the demons who they regarded as their gods.”
Russian Monk Gregor Novikh, nicknamed “Rasputin,” meaning “dissolute, profligate, libertine, licentious,” because such he was. Rasputin came of a peasant family with an inherited gift of mesmerism