It may be worth our while to inquire how this extremely modern doctrine
came into being, and if we can solve the problem, it may reflect light
upon the genesis of other doctrines very much older and equally
erroneous.
There is something so startling, so unexpected, in the phrase, "There is
no death," that we are quite safe in assuming that it did not originate
in the mind of a mortal. In fact, one would be obliged first to disown
his mortality before he could utter it with any consciousness of
speaking the truth. If, then, the words have come from the Beyond, it
would appear that some super-mundane intelligence has been promulgating
error. But let us not be too hasty. Let us remember that in our
grandfather's time the great majority of people looked upon death as the
termination of existence. It was an impenetrable darkness. Those who
claimed to know anything different were so few, and their evidence was
so mysterious, as to have a scarcely perceptible effect on this portion
of our race. Death had come to mean annihilation, and when the
age-long dictum, shutting the two worlds apart, was removed, those
spirit-teachers who were commissioned to scatter the darkness were
obliged to use expedients. Laying aside their own understanding of the
word death, and taking up the erroneous meaning attached to it by those
whom they wished to reach, they sent out this incisive denial, There is
no death. The paraphrase would be, There is no such death as you believe
in, which was the truth, and had the effect of truth upon the minds of
those who heard it, lifting them out of the darkness, flashing upon
them, light. The word was a medicine of wonderful effect, but it was not
intended as a food, and spiritualists of to-day who make it a part of
their daily diet are most seriously injured thereby. Who that has ever
attended the average seance but can recall the careless trifling, the
insensate levity, of many while waiting for the hour. By their conduct
they seem to say, What is death more than a mere journey to another
country? Or a seance, what is it more than a telephone office? Most
startling will be the event to such as these.