A Rant Against Spiritism
Created | Updated Oct 16, 2016
A blast from the past: seriously, this writer is blasting away with everything he's got.
A Rant Against Spiritism1
Ed Note: Just in time for Halloween, we bring you this warning as a public service. It's from Spiritism, the Modern Satanism by Thomas F Coakley, and it was first published in 1920. And you thought the passion for paranormal phenomena started with the internet, admit it. We think you'll enjoy the rant.
Spiritism a Plot to Destroy Christianity
The most popular amusement this year is Spiritism. A vast proportion of the population is practicing it, consulting mediums, purchasing the latest books, magazines and newspapers dealing with it and attending lectures by the leaders of Spiritism and Psychic Research in such numbers that no hall in America has been large enough to contain those clamoring for admittance. The Eighteenth Amendment to the American Constitution enacting Prohibition has
well nigh abolished the cabaret of dances2; but in its place we have a cabaret of ghosts, with continuous performances, night and day. The spirits have invaded the literary field and volumes are written and dictated by spirit controls, who seem to favor literary folk above other ancient and honorable professions; Detectives have their favorite mediums for the purpose of apprehending criminals3, and brokers and their clients consult them frequently to learn the fate of their investments. Some business men keep several mediums on their payroll, consulting them independently on questions of importance, and basing their action upon their agreement or disagreement. School children are purchasing the Ouija pointer at bargain sales in the basements of large department stores4; fashionable ladies consult the planchette at afternoon teas, until the country at large seems to have been seized as in the grip of an epidemic of Spiritism.
Crazes such as this sweep over the world from time to time. They seem to have their cycles
just as diseases come and go. The present momentum obtained by Spiritism threatens to rock
the bases of civilization and of reason, unless we soon revert to sanity and wholesomeness.
