WORTH CONSIDERING.
I failed for a long time yet to get any new light on the essential
nature of the agent with which I was operating, and remained still
undecided in my own mind whether it was a spiritual person, superhuman
and invisible, or a simple elemental force of nature, placed at the
command of every man who knows how to use his own powers. The answers I
obtained to my questions were vague, contradictory, and unsatisfactory.
I had no doubt that I was doing what in the eyes of ignorance and
superstition was called dealing with the devil, and practising what had
been denounced, and in former times punished, by the civil law as
sorcery or witchcraft. So much was clear and undeniable. But had not all
the world misunderstood the real nature of what it had condemned as
witchcraft, sorcery, maleficia, and magic? Had they not assumed
unnecessarily a preternatural agency, and an evil agent, where there was
really only a natural, a good, and a benevolent agent?
The bearing of this question on the Christian religion was very obvious,
and I well understood the significance of what Voltaire said, one day,
to a theologian, “_Sathan! c’est le Christianisme tout entier_; PAS DE
SATHAN, PAS DE SAUVEUR,” and I felt that there was truth in what Bayle,
the ablest and acutest of all modern authors opposed to Christianity,
had said: “Prove to unbelievers the existence of evil spirits, and you
will by that alone force them to concede all your dogmas.” In any point
of view, Christianity was pledged to assert the existence of Satan and
his intervention in human affairs, for according to it, Christ was
revealed from heaven and came into the world that he might destroy the
devil and his works. If there was no devil, the mission of Christ had no
motive, no object, and Christianity is a fable.
Moreover, all Christians, whether Catholics asserting the infallibility
and authority of the Church, or Protestants asserting simply the
infallibility and authority of the Bible, were bound to assert the
existence of evil spirits, and the reality of demonic obsession and
possession, of witchcraft, sorcery, and magic, in the common and
opprobrious sense of the terms. As to Catholics, there could be no
question. The Church plainly and unequivocally recognizes the existence
of Satan, as may be gathered from the prayers and ceremonies of Baptism,
as well as from the significance of the Sacrament itself; and not only
his existence, but his power over the natural man, and even material
objects. Thus when the priest, in administering the Sacrament, breathes
gently three times in the face of the child, he exclaims, “Exi ab eo,
immunde spiritus, et da locum Spiritui Sancto Paraclito:” Go out of him,
impure spirit, and give place to the Holy Ghost, the Paraclete; and also
after the prayer _Deus patrum nostrorum_: “Exorcizo te, immunde
spiritus, in nomine Patris et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, ut exeas, et
recedas ab hoc famulo Dei. Ipse enim tibi imperat, maledicte damnate qui
pedibus super mare ambulavit, et Petro mergenti dextram porrexit. Ergo,
maledicte diabole, recognosce sententiam tuam, et da honorem Deo vivo et
vero, da honorem Jesu Christo Filio ejus, et Spiritui Sancto; et recede
ab hoc famulo Dei, quia istum sibi Deus et Dominus noster Jesus Christus
ad suam sanctam gratiam, et benedictionem, fontemque, Baptismatis vocari
dignatus est.” The candidate, before receiving baptism, is asked, “Dost
thou renounce Satan?” and answers, “I renounce him.” “And all his
works?” “I renounce them.” “And all his pomps?” “I renounce them.” So,
in blessing the salt which is used in administering the Sacrament, the
priest says, “Exorcizo te, creatura salis, in nomine Dei Patris
omnipotentis, et in charitate Domini nostri Jesu Christi, et in virtute
Spiritus Sancti, exorcizo te per Deum vivum, per Deum verum, per Deum
sanctum,” &c. The whole proceeds on the supposition that Satan is to be
expelled, dislodged, and the Holy Ghost to be placed, so to speak, in
possession, or the grace of Jesus Christ is to be infused, so that the
Holy Ghost shall henceforth dwell in the heart of the baptized, instead
of Satan, who previously held dominion over it. The Church has also her
exorcists, and her forms of exorcising of evil spirits.
The Bible is no less clear and explicit on the subject than the Church.
It teaches that Satan, in the form of a serpent, seduced Eve to eat of
the forbidden fruit; it relates the doings of the Egyptian magicians; it
forbids necromancy and evocation of the dead, and commands the Jews not
to suffer a witch to live; declares that all the gods of the Gentiles
are devils; tells us that the devil is the prince of this world, that he
goeth about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour; bids us
resist the devil and he will flee from us. St. Paul speaks of the prince
and the powers of the air that besiege us, and against whom we must put
on the whole armor of God, and do valiant battle. Moreover it speaks of
demoniacs, or persons possessed with devils; and among the marvellous
works ascribed to Jesus Christ, is that of expelling demons, or casting
out devils. All Christians, then, must admit that there is a devil, and
that there are evil spirits, who may, and who do, interfere with men,
harass them, and sometimes take literal possession of them. A recent
French author, a sincere Christian believer, has felt this. “The
question,” he says, “at the Christian point of view, is by no means
indifferent, but is, as it were, the mother question, the question of
questions. It is no less than to determine whether the Bible and the
Church have or have not been really mistaken in one of their fundamental
principles. For a man filled with Christian desires, and cherishing at
the same time a respect for evidence, the question is most grave. It
touches the whole of faith, neither more nor less; and as it will not do
to admit in the sacred Scriptures, whose language is assumed to be
inspired, what is called _manners of speaking_, or _complaisances_ for
the age, or _remains of ignorance_, we must be permitted to say, that if
it were proved that the Bible in the time of Pharaoh mistook simple and
miserable jugglers for real _magicians_, poor charlatans for
_enchanters_, a few knavish and lying priests for the false gods of the
Gentiles, simple mummeries for real _evocations_, delirious cataleptics
for spirits of Python, &c.; if it were proved that Jesus Christ, in
granting to his disciples the gift, and prescribing to them the rules,
of expelling demons, mistook a fact of pure physiology; if it were
proved that the Church, in instituting exorcism, and prescribing for it
precise and learned formulas, and, moreover, practising it for eighteen
centuries, has been deceived during all that period,—we should feel that
it is all over with Christianity; we should regard it as condemned, and
hasten to renounce an authority so little judicious, and so little to be
depended upon.” Christians may, undoubtedly, dispute as to this or that
particular case, and say that the evidence of demonic intervention, in
this or that particular instance, is not conclusive; but they cannot,
without renouncing their faith, and becoming Sadducees, deny that such
intervention is possible, or assert that it is improbable. They must
concede its possibility, its probability, and its susceptibility of
proof; and therefore when the evidence in any particular instance is
sufficient to establish the reality of any other class of facts, they
are bound, as reasonable beings, to admit it. To them there is, and can
be no _à priori_ difficulty, for they already believe in the reality of
demonic agents adequate to produce the mysterious phenomena that they
are called upon to accept. Hence, in those ages and countries in which
nobody doubted Christianity, all men of science, physicians,
magistrates, as well as the clergy and the people, readily admitted the
demonic character of the phenomena like those produced in our day by
mesmerism.
But, if the belief in the reality of demonic intervention is integral in
Christianity, the most obvious way of getting rid of Christianity and
its restraints would be to deny that reality, and to explain the
phenomena commonly held as evidence of such intervention, on
physiological and other natural principles. This has been the aim of
science, especially medical science, during the last two hundred years.
This aim was adopted by the so-called wits and philosophers of the last
century, and during this it has begun to be adopted by jurisprudence,
and even to be acquiesced in by a large portion of professed Christian
ministers. Literary men, like Sir Walter Scott; founders of new sects,
like the late Hosea Ballou, of Boston; neologist theologians everywhere;
and that “fourth estate,”—journalism, have all combined to reason,
explain, or laugh away, every thing pertaining to demonology, and to
make the world believe that there is no devil, that evil spirits are
only the creatures of a disordered brain, that apparitions or ghosts are
only hallucinations, possession a peculiar kind of madness or insanity,
and magic mere charlatanry or sleight-of-hand. All this, for an
anti-Christian purpose, was admirable, since even the conservative
portion of the clergy seemed to acquiesce in it.
Nevertheless, this could suffice only to a certain extent. It might
serve to emancipate the intelligent classes, but could not emancipate
the people. The latter half of the eighteenth century—a century of
anti-Christian light, philosophy, physical science, and materialism—was
more distinguished for the mysterious phenomena, usually called
demoniacal, than any other period since the Christianizing of the Roman
Empire, with the single exception of the sixteenth century. Weishaupt,
Mesmer, Saint-Martin, and Cagliostro, did far more to produce the
revolutions and convulsions of European society at the close of that
century, than was done by Voltaire, Rousseau, D’Alembert, Diderot,
Mirabeau, and their associates. These men had no doubt a bad influence,
but it was limited and feeble. It was not they who stirred up all
classes, produced that revolutionary madness, that wild ungovernable
fury of the people which we everywhere witnessed, and nowhere more than
in Paris, the politest and most humane city in the world. The masses
were possessed, they were whirled aloft, were driven hither and thither,
and onward in the terrible work of demolition, by a mysterious power
they did not comprehend, and by a force they were unable, having once
yielded to it, to resist.
You feel this in reading the history of those terrible events. It seems
to you that Satan was unbound, and hell let loose. The historians of
that old French Revolution, such as Mignet, Thiers, Lamartine, Carlyle,
all feel that there was something _fatal_ in it, and have been led, at
least all except the last, to defend it on the ground of fatalism. The
Royalist and Catholic historians, who oppose it, seem never to seize its
spirit. They declaim, denounce, find fault here, find fault there, now
with this action and now with that, but they never explain any thing,
solve any problem which comes up, and they leave the whole a mystery, or
an enigma.
The same phenomena, only on a reduced scale, were observable in the
revolutions of 1848. Everywhere there seemed to be an invisible power at
work. Good, honest Father Bresciani, would explain all this by the
Secret Societies. It is in vain. They did much, those secret societies;
but how explain the existence of those societies themselves, their
horrible principles, and the fidelity of their members in submitting to
what they must know is a thousand times more oppressive than the
institutions they are opposing? Tell me not that all these
revolutionists were incarnate devils; that they cooly, and deliberately,
from ordinary human motives and influences, planned and carried out
their revolutionary enterprise. There were in their ranks men of the
highest intelligence, the purest virtue, and the humanest feelings; men,
all of whose antecedents, whose tendencies, whose studies, professions,
interests, and, I may say, convictions, placed them in the ranks of the
conservatives, were carried away by an invisible force, and shouted out,
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and hurled the brand of the incendiary at
temple, palace, and castle, which sheltered them, as if it was not they
who did it, but a spirit that possessed them. Men caught the infection,
they knew not how, they knew not when, they knew not where. The
revolutionary spirit seemed to float in the air, as it undoubtedly did.
Without Weishaupt, Mesmer, Saint-Martin, Cagliostro, you can never
explain the revolution of 1789, and without me and my accomplices you
can just as little explain those of 1848. There was at work in the
former a power that the wits ridiculed, that science denied, philosophy
disproved, and the clergy hardly dared assert. There was there the
mighty power, whatever it be, which it is said once dared dispute the
empire of heaven with the Omnipotent, and which all ages have called
Satan, whether it is to be called evil with the Christian, or good with
the philanthropist, a person with the believer, or a primitive and
elemental force with the mesmerist. France, Europe was mesmerized. So
was it again in 1848, though with less terrible external convulsions.
It is impossible to bring the great body of the people of any age to
agree with our Voltarian philosophers—to be genuine Sadducees. In the
first place, the writings of the philosophers and academicians do not
reach the mass; and, in the second place, there are constantly occurring
phenomena which, in their apprehension, give the lie to Sadduceism. At
the very time when the philosophers of pagan Rome were losing all faith
in their national religion, doubting almost the existence of the
Divinity and the immortality of the soul, and laughing at augurs and
soothsayers, the people were more superstitious than ever. It was then
that magicians from Asia and Africa flocked to the Eternal City, and
that Isiac, Bacchic, and other Eastern superstitions, with all their
impurities and wild fanaticism, in comparison with which the national
religion was pure, reasonable, and moral, were introduced, and spread as
an epidemic; and the laws of the earlier emperors show how hard and how
ineffectually authority labored to suppress them.
The enemies of Christianity may accept the mysterious phenomena,
commonly regarded as diabolical, and explain them and the miracles of
the Bible and the alleged miracles of the Church on natural principles,
and if they cannot explain them on any known natural principles, they
may make them the basis of an induction of a new natural principle; or,
in other words, invent a natural principle to explain them, as Baron
Reichenbach has done—a principle, element, substance, or force, which he
calls _od_. They may do this, or they may recognize their real spiritual
and superhuman origin, but ascribe them to good, not to evil spirits, or
what is the same thing, maintain that what the world has hitherto
worshipped as good is evil, and what it has been taught to avoid as evil
is good. That is, that Satan is God, and God is Satan.
Swedenborg, in founding his New Jerusalem, or New Church, and Joe Smith,
in founding the Church of the Latter Day Saints, as Mahomet in the
seventh century, virtually adopted the latter course. Swedenborg became,
in the later years of his life, a somnambulist, and could throw himself
into the state which some mesmerists call sleep-waking, in which he was
a clairvoyant, and had the power of second sight. He fancied himself a
prophet, and capable of teaching angels as well as men. But he held the
power he found himself able to exercise, to be good as well as
supernatural.
The same was the case with Joe Smith, an idle, shiftless lad, utterly
incapable of conceiving, far less of executing the project of founding a
new church. He was ignorant, illiterate, and weak, and of bad
reputation. I knew his family, and even him also, in my boyhood, before
he became a prophet. He was one of those persons in whose hand the
divining-rod will operate, and he and others of his family spent much
time in searching with the rod for watercourses, minerals, and hidden
treasures. Every mesmerizer would at once have recognized him as an
impressible subject. He also could throw himself, by artificial means,
that of a peculiar kind of stone, which he called his Urim and Thummim,
into the sleep-waking state, in which only would he or could he
prophesy. In that state he seemed another man. Ordinarily his look was
dull, and heavy, almost stupid; his eye had an inexpressive glare, and
he was rough, and rather profane. But the moment he consulted his Urim
and Thummim, and the spirit was upon him, his face brightened up, his
eye shone and sparkled as living fire, and he seemed instinct with a
life and energy not his own. He was in those times, as one of his
apostles assured me, “awful to behold.”
Much nonsense has been vented by the press about the origin of his
Bible, or the Book of Mormon. The most ridiculous as well as the most
current version of the affair is, that the book was originally written
as a novel, by one Spalding, a Presbyterian minister in Pennsylvania,
and that Joe got hold of the manuscript and published it as a new Bible.
This version is refuted by a simple perusal of the book itself, which is
too much and too little to have had such an origin. In his normal state,
Joe Smith could never have written the more striking passages of the
Book of Mormon; and any man capable of doing it, could never have
written any thing so weak, silly, utterly unmeaning as the rest. No man
ever dreamed of writing it as a novel, and whoever had produced it in
his normal state, would have made it either better in its feebler parts,
or worse in its stronger passages.
The origin of the book was explained to me by one of Joe’s own elders,
on the authority of the person who, as Joe’s amanuensis, wrote it. From
beginning to end, it was dictated by Joe himself, not translated from
plates, as was generally alleged, but apparently from a peculiar stone,
which he subsequently called his Urim and Thummim, and used in his
divination. He placed the stone in his hat, which stood upon a table,
and then taking a seat, he concealed his face in his hat above it, and
commenced dictating in a sleep-waking state, under the influence of the
mysterious power that used or assisted him. I lived near the place where
the book was produced. I had subsequently ample means of investigating
the whole case, and I availed myself of them to the fullest extent. For
a considerable time the Mormon prophets and elders were in the habit of
visiting my house. They hoped to make me a convert, and they spoke to me
with the utmost frankness and unreserve.
Numerous miracles, or what seemed to be miracles—such miracles as evil
spirits have power to perform—and certain marvellous cures were alleged
to be wrought by the prayers and laying on of the hands of the Mormon
elders. Some of these were wrought on persons closely related and well
known to me personally; and I have heard others confirmed by persons of
known intelligence and veracity, whose testimony was as conclusive for
me as would have been my own personal observation. That there was a
superhuman power employed in founding the Mormon church, cannot easily
be doubted by any scientific and philosophic mind that has investigated
the subject; and just as little can a sober man doubt that the power
employed was not Divine, and that Mormonism is literally the Synagogue
of Satan.
It matters little to the enemies of Christianity, whether the public
deny altogether the marvellous phenomena heretofore regarded as
diabolical, whether they accept and explain them by means of a primitive
force or primordial law of nature, or simply ascribe them to Satanic
invasion, provided it be held that Satan is a philanthropist, the friend
and benefactor of the race, not the enemy; for in any case, Christianity
is denied or undermined. But the purely sceptical theory answers only
for the few, who, it is to be remarked, never see any of these
marvellous phenomena, and who, if they did see them, might be led to
embrace Christianity; but it will never suffice for the many, and can
never subserve the views of reformers who would operate upon the masses.
It however makes no practical difference which of the other two
hypotheses is adopted. For myself, I in some sense adopted both, though,
as I have said, I inclined to the naturalistic theory. But even then I
had begun to contemplate an ulterior object, which might make it more
convenient to adopt the latter hypothesis, for it might become necessary
to overthrow Christianity by the introduction, apparently by
supernatural means, of another religion—a religion in harmony with the
wants of the flesh. It is impossible to overthrow a positive religion by
a pure negation, or to get rid of Christianity without substituting
something positive in its place; for it is to be remarked, that
sceptical ages are the most credulous, and that as Christian faith
recedes, superstition advances. Hence we see in Scandinavia unmistakable
evidences of a revival of the worship of Odin; and only a short time
since, the government had to adopt measures to repress it in the north
of Norway. In many parts of Germany we see a decided tendency to revive
the superstition which Christianity supplanted. When men have no longer
religion, they take refuge in superstition; and when they cease to
worship God, they begin to worship the devil. The most interesting
people to the Englishman Layard that he found in the East, were the
devil-worshippers.
But all this is premature. World-Reform, as I had sketched it to myself,
had for its object unbounded liberty, and was to be accomplished, on the
one hand, by the overthrow of all existing governments, and the complete
disruption of all political and civil society; and on the other, by the
total demolition of the Christian Church, and extirpation of the
Christian religion. Of course it would not do to avow all this, for if I
did, I should defeat my own purposes. Faith still lurked in many a
heart; and the persuasion was very general, that some kind of
government, some kind of political, civil, and even moral restraint was
very generally entertained, even by those whom I must make my
accomplices, and use as my tools. It was necessary to keep one’s own
counsel, or to confide it to the smallest number possible. To the world
it would do to avow only the design of divorcing religion from politics,
and of democratizing the church and society. This might be avowed
without shocking the public at large. For this the public mind was in a
measure prepared. A pious priest could be persuaded to advocate
ecclesiastical democracy, as we have seen in the work of the excellent
Rosmini, in the Five Wounds of the Church.
A popularizing tendency among Catholics had been much encouraged by that
powerful priest, the Abbé de La Mennais, and his enthusiastic
associates. It is true, he had fallen under censure, and had been
excommunicated, _eo nomine_, by Rome; but the party he formed, though
disavowing him, still retained somewhat of his spirit, and followed his
tendency. There was a growing party in France, even among the clergy,
who wished to divorce the church from the state, and induce her to
abandon the courts, and cement an intimate alliance with the people, and
lend her powerful influence to the democratic movements of the day. They
had much that was plausible in their favor. The royal and nobiliaire
governments of Europe had always labored to convert the dignitaries of
the church into courtiers, and to make her their tool for enslaving and
fleecing the people. The greatest injury religion had ever received, it
had received from courtier bishops, and the tyranny of the state over
the church, equally fatal to her and to the people. The real interests
of the church would therefore seem to demand of her to make common cause
with the people against kings and aristocrats, and in favor of
democratic institutions. This conviction was becoming very general among
the more earnest and influential Catholic laymen. A corresponding
conviction was also becoming general among the great mass of the
Protestant populations. It was possible, then, to labor to democratize
society without alarming religious convictions; nay, it was possible to
enlist them to a great extent in the same work. Nobody, it is well
known, helped us on more effectually in Europe than many of the most
distinguished among the Catholic clergy and laity. I need only mention
Ventura and Gioberti in Italy, Montalembert, Lacordaire, Cormenin,
Maret, and Archbishop Affre, in France.
But, after all, great movements are never carried on by simple human
means alone, and never get beyond brilliant theories unless inspired and
sustained by a superhuman power, either from heaven or from hell.
Christianity had taught us the weakness of human nature, and I found
that weakness confirmed by experience. Between the power to conceive and
to execute there is a distance. Men might form the most brilliant
ideals, bring out the soundest, most attractive and perfect theories of
reform, but it would avail nothing unless endued with a power not their
own, to realize them in practice. Here was the defect in the plan of
Signor Urbini and Young Italy. It was skilfully devised, it had all of
human wisdom on its side, but it was ideal, and had no power or energy
to realize itself. No man lifteth himself by his own waistbands. Without
the Whereon to stand, Archimedes, with all his mechanical contrivances,
cannot move the world. It is necessary to have a support outside of man;
a source of power which is not human, and as the world would say, either
Divine or Satanic, to be able to accomplish any thing.
But had I not this very power in the agent I had been experimenting
with? What else was this mesmeric agent, whether a primitive, an
elemental force of nature, or indeed a superhuman spirit endowed with
intelligence and will? Mr. Winslow was, in the main, right. Mesmeric
clubs or circles must be formed on all points on which it is necessary
to operate, and batteries be erected everywhere, so that anywhere, and
at any moment, a mesmeric current may be sent instantaneously through
the masses, infusing into them a superhuman resolution and energy, and
making them stand up and march as one man. This, then, was the first
thing to be done. I would erect my mesmeric batteries in every country
in Europe, all connected by an invisible, but unbroken magnetic chain.
This plan, as far as I thought it prudent, I forthwith communicated to
Priscilla, without whose coöperation I could not carry it into effect.
She approved it, and was ready to coöperate in any way I wished. The
poor lady, I may remark, had no longer any will of her own. She had
craved liberty, and had induced me to aid her in establishing it, and
was now only my slave, bound to me in chains, which, struggle as she
might, she could not, of herself alone, break or unfasten.