"All evil is only undeveloped good" has come to be the "shibboleth" of
not only the Spiritualists, but of many other of the latter-day cults.
It sounds fine, beautiful, and is--Praise God!--in a large sense, true.
It is a beautiful reaction from the ancient blasphemy taught by the
priests and pastors anent hell and the devil. The comforting belief
that the above quoted statement settles the whole matter is accepted
and believed in. Since the supposed dethronement of "Auld Hornie," as
the Scotch named him, as head devil, it has not been thought necessary
to give the matter much if any consideration.
Mediums, especially, have gladly ignored the fact of the possibility of
there often being in their séances the very presence of potent and
powerful evil influences.
Spiritualism has flung wide the doors and given ignorant, and
undeveloped humanity an equal opportunity with the refined, and good to
express themselves. It is thus the only truly democratic religion ever
made known on this planet! It recognizes all human beings, good and
bad, as the children of one and the same Father, and that not one can
be lost from the hand of God!
The peculiar people who have developed the strange power of
mediatorship between this material world and the plane of existence
known as the spiritual world have always been helped and sustained in
their great work by their invisible friends and appointed spirit
guardians, or they could never have carried forward their important
mission to the people of this earth.
Regardless of all the efforts of the enemies and traducers of
Spiritualism, the spread of the knowledge of the unfolding spiritual
philosophy has been and is marvelous; and the establishment of the fact
of man's existence, continued after physical death, through varied
phenomena, is in itself the proof of its being the work, not of Satan,
but of a beneficent God. And why not? The Creator of us all must know
his earth-children's needs for their further evolution and growth!
There have been great searchings, at various times, trying to discover
the "origin of evil." Vast stores of uncanny legends, and tales of
wonders have been handed down to us in explanation of this most
baffling mystery.
The destructive force in nature had no "origin." Just as God, the
Constructive Force, had none. It was, as God was. It is and always
will be, while God and nature are.
It rides the whirlwind and the flood, and differentiates itself through
the smallest minutia of the affairs of human life. It is the primeval
element, the "pure cussedness" which has to be conquered, or adjusted
in every human being. It essays to bar all progress; Ignorance and
Superstition are its blinded handmaids. It exacts the fearful
penalties of scornfully misunderstood efforts, if not ostracism and
persecution, for the use of the diviner faculties. It is the spirit of
unconquered ill. It is the genius of the utterly selfish will of man.
But it is when it allies itself with the intellect and will of man, and
becomes the motive power, and thus expresses itself in concrete form,
as is often the case, that our sympathies are touched and our sense of
justice aroused, and we feel our lack of protection from the "powers
and principalities of the air." Our only refuge is in growing to and
experiencing a perfect at-one-ment with the eternal law of the
opposing, the Constructive Force--God. There is no protection, no
safety, but in the Divine Love and Wisdom.