SPIRITUALISM
IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
By
REV. G. MAURICE ELLIOTT
CHAPTER IX
Moses, the nation-maker, was a man of faith and trust. That does not mean he believed that which men had taught him about God and had a blind faith in what he had been taught. His faith was not belief at all; it was psychic sense.
He was psychically gifted and his gift enabled him to communicate with, or rather to receive communications from, his spirit guide. That was his "faith." And he put his trust in that which, through his faith, he had been taught.
His trust was by no means perfect, as we shall see. He was human. If we are ever to understand our Bibles we must realize the fact that faith--certainly in the early parts of the book--did not mean what the Churches have made it mean.
It meant the psychic sense and the knowledge derived from it. Moses was chosen, not because he had an unswerving belief and trust in God, but because he was a remarkable psychic. This will become clear as we proceed.
Yahweh sought Moses; Moses did not seek Yahweh. The spirit world seeks us before we seek it. But although Moses heard and saw and spoke to his spirit guide he did not accept, without a murmur, everything his guide told him. No, he was a typical psychical researcher. He used his reason and asked questions.
In spite of many assurances from his guide, Moses doubted whether the Israelites would believe him when he told them that he had met the God of Israel, who had promised to deliver them through him. Moses also doubted whether Pharaoh would let the people go.
Yahweh quite understood his doubts and said, "Well do I know that the King of Egypt will not free my people except by force. So I will exert my force and will strike Egypt with all the marvels I intend to work there; after that, he will let my people go."
Moses still objected that the people would neither. believe him nor listen to what he had to say.
"What shall I do," he asked, "if the people say, 'The Lord has not appeared unto thee'?"
Moses had in his hand a "rod"--his shepherd's staff. At the request of Yahweh he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent.
"Take it by the tail," said Yahweh. He did so and it became a rod again in his hand.
"Put your hand in your bosom," said Yahweh. He did so and when he took it out it was leprous. On putting it back and taking it out again, it became as his other flesh.
Yahweh then assured him that he would be given power to show these "signs" to the people. If they failed to convince them of the reality of his mission, he would be given power to turn water from the Nile into blood.
Moses was still unsatisfied, for he noticed that, although he had been in the presence of his spirit guide, and had been endowed with power to work wonders, he had not been endowed with the gift of eloquence.
So he said to Yahweh, "I am a bad speaker and have no command of words, and being in your presence has not improved matters."
"Who hath made man's mouth? Have not I?" replied Yahweh. "Now, therefore, go and I will be with thy mouth and will teach thee what thou shalt speak."
Moses was too nervous. The task was too big. So he made a polite attempt to decline the commission by saying, "Send whoever you like, but please do not send me."
Yahweh was angry with Moses for his doubts and fears--"the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses"--but it did not last long. Soon he agreed that Aaron, Moses's brother, should be the spokesman and that Moses should be to him "as God."
Moses was to speak and act under direct inspiration from God, while Aaron was to be a mere mouthpiece. "See," said Yahweh, "I have made thee as a god to Pharaoh, too."
Now, how are we going to account for this promotion of Moses by Yahweh to a pinnacle of solitary grandeur?
It cannot have been a concession to Moses's fear and distrust, nor can it have been a reward for his trust.
How came it that at one moment "the anger of the Lord" was kindled against Moses and at the next moment the Lord raised him to a position high above other men to be "as God" to Aaron and to Pharaoh?
There seems to be only one sufficient explanation. Moses was one of the greatest mediums the world has ever known. The Lord needed him. He was, as it were, indispensable to Yahweh for the great task of delivering the Israelites from the tyranny of Pharaoh.
Yahweh was determined to use him in spite of all his doubts and fears and polite refusals. It was not a question of merit, it was a question of faith, i.e., of psychic faculty.
Moses was "elected" by the Lord, but it was an election to responsibility and obedience, not to salvation. His promotion was due to the greatness of his gift, not to the greatness of his merit.
But could not the Lord have inspired at least one of the vast multitude of the Israelites? Why choose Moses? Surely there must have been many religiously-minded men and women among God's people in Egypt.
There probably were. But being religiously-minded and being psychic are two totally different things.
Only a psychic, a medium, can hear God's messengers speaking in the "direct voice." It is only through a medium that revelation can be given. Mental illumination and spiritual rapture are not revelation, and it is always revelation that Mankind most needs. Revelation gives tangible, objective evidence and demonstrable proof.
There was no "medium of communication" other than the great medium--Moses. The religiously-minded Israelites set up gods of their own to worship the moment Moses's back was turned!
To convince a multitude of despairing, downtrodden slaves that the Lord not only wished but was determined to deliver them, and had the power to do so through Moses, nothing less than an external, objective demonstration of that power was needed. In other words, a demonstration by spirit means of psychic phenomena was needed.
This could only be given through a physical medium and such Moses was. That is why the Lord chose Moses. And mediums are chosen and used to-day for the same reason.
Men to-day have had their minds twisted and distorted by the Church and by science. They do not know what to think or believe. Many have given up thinking or believing anything worthy of thought or belief, and in despair are blindly trusting in materialistic power--money, armaments and suchlike.
What is needed is constant demonstration of psychical phenomena to startle them out of despair into belief. Oh) I know I shall be called over the coals for saying that. I shall be told that we cannot make men religious merely be startling them with an exhibition of psychic phenomena. I never said we could.
I said that we could startle them into "belief"--belief that there is really something worth being "religious" about. Men need to see rods turned into serpents and hands suddenly become leprous. Moses needed them, and it took the Lord all his time to convince even Moses!
Having been convinced solely by psychic phenomena, Moses lost no time in fulfilling his commission. He went home, packed up, and with his wife and sons (and, of course, his "rod"), set out for Egypt. Aaron met him in the wilderness and embraced him, and Moses told him all about his meeting with Yahweh.
Moses then gave him a demonstration of the power with which Yahweh had endowed him, and Aaron was convinced of the divine origin of his commission.
So they gathered together the elders of the children of Israel, and Aaron told them all that Yahweh had said to Moses, who then showed them the "signs" of the serpent-rod and the leprous hand.
That convinced the Israelites that Yahweh had indeed seen their affliction and had sent his two servants to deliver them from bondage. No amount of "religious talk" from Aaron would have convinced them. They needed "signs," as Moses needed them, and as men need them to-day.
Moses and Aaron then went to Pharaoh and confronted him with the words, "Thus saith the Lord, the God of Israel: Let my people go into the wilderness that they may hold a feast unto me."
Pharaoh indignantly refused, saying, "Who is the Lord? He is unknown to me."
He regarded the request as an excuse for "a day off." In his anger he gave orders to the slave-drivers and the foremen not to give the people straw for making bricks--"Let them gather the straw for themselves, but see to it that they make the same number of bricks as usual."
The people could not fulfil so great a task, and the slave-drivers thrashed them. The foremen, who were Israelites, upbraided Moses and Aaron.
Moses expostulated with Yahweh and asked him why he had allowed things to be made so much worse for the people instead of delivering them. Yahweh did not reprove Moses. He was quite sympathetic and assured him that something would shortly happen to Pharaoh which would make him not only willing but eager to get rid of them.
CHAPTER X
"Things have a habit of going mysteriously right and then mysteriously wrong, and vice versa," said a man to me, the other day.
I hastened to point out to him that the word "habit" was a loose and anaemic word to use, and was in no sense descriptive of the workings of spiritual law, and that the word "mysteriously" was a lazy word.
I then told my friend that what he ought to have said was, "Things always work in accordance with law, whether the law be called 'natural law' or 'spiritual law.'
For example, we are told that God hardened Pharaoh's heart; we are also told that Pharaoh hardened it himself. Which is right? Both. It is two ways of saying the same thing. God hardened Pharaoh's heart in so far as he hardened it himself.
If a man hardens his heart, the result will be as inevitable as results in the natural world--so inevitable that it may be said that God hardens his heart. All's God and all's law.
This has bearing upon the subject we are about to consider the Ten Plagues.
There was nothing contrary to Nature in these plagues. No miracles were wrought. What men call "miracles" are the workings of--how shall we put it?--undiscovered natural laws which may conveniently be called spiritual laws.
We read that "all the waters of the Nile were turned into blood" when Aaron lifted up his "rod" and smote the waters, and "the magicians of Egypt did in like manner with their enchantments. (I wonder where they obtained the water! There was none in the Nile; it was all blood.)
Now the Nile still turns red when in flood; the red marl from the mountains of Abyssinia stains it to a dark colour which glistens like blood in the light of the setting sun. That is due to the workings of natural law.
But Moses and Aaron arriving at Pharaoh's palace just before the flooding of the Nile was due to the workings of spiritual law, to Moses's clairaudience which enabled him to hear Yahweh say, "Get thee unto Pharaoh to-morrow morning," obviously the appointed time.
I Who knew exactly when the Nile would rise? None but Yahweh, Was the rising natural or spiritual? It was both; the, two are one.
In the thick, evil-smelling, blood-red waters of the Nile, frogs multiplied and "covered the land of Egypt." Mosquitoes infested men's bodies. Stinging flies brought torment and disease.
A cattle-plague killed all the cattle. A skin-disease infected all men. Hailstorms destroyed the harvest. Locusts devoured every green thing. The hot wind--the Khamsin--raised such a storm of sand and such a cloud of dust as to blot out the light of the sun for three days.
In all this there was nothing contrary to Nature, But when we have said that we have said very little.
No one knows the full meaning of "natural law." So far, we have only discovered a few physical laws, a few psychical laws and a few spiritual laws. These laws we find to be quite natural.
Pharaoh's magicians knew how to make the best use of certain physical laws in the performance of their tricks, but they succeeded in imitating two of the plagues only, and were themselves the victims of the others.
The reason why the children of Israel were not victims was that they had knowledge of psychical and spiritual laws which the magicians did not possess.
We are told that when the plague of sand and dust "covered Egypt with a darkness so thick that it could be felt" for three days, "all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings."
This may mean that the darkness was prevented from coming near them by Yahweh's messengers working through psychic agencies. On the other hand, it may mean that the Israelites did not escape the darkness, but being a psychic people their dwellings were illuminated by psychic lights.
The conditions were perfect. The darkness "could be felt." And Spiritualists know that, under such excellent conditions, rooms do often become luminous with psychic light.
To the uninitiated, this may sound sheer nonsense. But to thinkers, students and scientists such as F.W.H. Myers, Sir William Crookes, Sir William Barrett and Sir Oliver Lodge it is common knowledge.
Psychic lights are natural, as natural as gaslight or electric light, but, not being a commercial commodity, they cannot be bought!
In her book, Ancient Lights, Mrs. St. Clair Stobart tells us that the whole episode of the Ten Plagues is a parable, and what she says is so excellently put that I quote it in full:
"Pharaoh represents the sceptical world that over and over again hardens its heart and demands from the psychics ever fresh proofs of the divine mandate: the magicians are our Maskelynes, our physicists, our pseudo-scientists, who can manipulate matter but who cannot see beyond the length of their conjurer's wands or the limits of the four walls of their laboratories, and who deny the possibility of an extension of the scientific world outside the limits of that small portion of the universe with which they are familiar.
"And Moses and Aaron represent the ever-growing band of brave psychic researchers, who, though diffident of their powers, are ready to risk ridicule and the loss of that which is more precious than life itself--scientific reputation--for the sake of delivering the world from the bondage of materialism and guiding it to the promised land.
"And, as of old, the faculties of the heaven-inspired psychics triumphed over the art of the earth-bound sorcerers of Pharaoh's court, so to-day will spiritual truth prevail over materialism, if it is but bravely championed.
"We have no reason to suppose that God is less willing to reveal Himself to twentieth-century mankind than to those who lived in the centuries B.C.; all that is lacking is a Moses who can see the signs and interpret them for us--a Moses who will not only inquire of the Lord, but will have the courage to obey the commands received from the spirit world."
The continuance of the plagues made Pharaoh more and more nervous. He said he would let the people go. Then he refused permission. He kept changing his mind.
He then offered, as a compromise, to allow the people to hold their festival in Egypt, but that if they crossed the frontier they must leave either their children or their flocks in Egypt. Moses was adamant; he stood fast by his demand: "Not a hoof shall be left behind."
Pharaoh was furious, and refused to grant it.
"Begone," he said, "leave my presence and never enter it again. For the day you enter my presence, you die."
Moses answered, "You have spoken a truth. I will never again enter your presence."
And at midnight, "it came to pass that the Lord smote all the firstborn in the land, and there was a loud wail in Egypt; for there was not a house where there was not one dead."
Then Pharaoh and his people implored Moses and Aaron and the children of Israel to leave Egypt at once.
This last plague--the slaying of the firstborn--affords an opportunity for us to consider what is likely to be the best attitude to adopt towards the Bible when seeking to account for such a phenomenon.
The traditionalist has an easy explanation which is no explanation at all. He believes the "slaying of the firstborn" is historic fact "because the Bible has reported it," that is "because it is in the Bible."
The Modernist reminds us (a) that the event was not committed to writing until four centuries or more after it occurred, and that the story of it does not represent an exact recollection of actual fact, (b) that physical nature is a closed and uniform system which excludes the possibility of extra-physical happenings.
The Spiritualist could not believe in the "slaying of the firstborn" merely because "the Bible says so." But, knowing that the Bible is a Spiritualist book written by Spiritualists for Spiritualists about Spiritualists, and that Spiritualists to-day are witnessing similar phenomena to those recorded in the Bible, he would attach considerable importance to the reported "slaying of the firstborn" because "the Bible says so."
On the other hand, the Spiritualist, while gratefully acknowledging his debt to higher criticism--of which Modernists make so much--submits that there is a psychical criticism which is far higher than higher criticism. He cannot accept the Modernist view that "physical nature is a closed and uniform system."
His experience confirms the dictum of the British Medical Journal that there is no tissue of the human body wholly removed from the influence of spirit. He knows that he can influence or change what is called "nature;" he can move his own body and other bodies.
Lord Kelvin maintained that from the point of view of science every free action was a miracle, that is "no human action is explicable in scientific terms."
The Spiritualists knows that "nature," so-called, is to a great extent plastic to the influences exerted upon it by the free human spirit and to a far, far greater extent plastic to the influences exerted upon it by discarnate human spirits.
The Spiritualist knows that spirit-scientists can dematerialize the human body and other bodies, and do all manner of extraordinary, super-normal and amazingly wonderful things of which the advocates of a "closed and uniform system of nature" know nothing.
Thus, to a Spiritualist, the "slaying of the firstborn" may have taken place. He would not necessarily regard it as an historic fact, but, assuming it to have been morally justifiable, he would see no reason why it should not have happened.
The Spiritualists attitude is the sanest and the most scientific one to adopt when seeking to understand and interpret the super-normal element in Bible stories.
CHAPTER XI
Moses was a great physical medium. He was also a remarkable clairvoyant and clairaudient, and he used his God-given powers in the service of God and mankind. That is why he was one of the outstanding men in world history.
The story of Moses can only be appreciated and understood if it is given a psychic interpretation.
Otherwise, it is not worth reading, because it does not make sense.
In our last article, we left Pharaoh imploring Moses and the children of Israel to leave his country at once. Then began the most wonderful march in all history, if it be "history." I say, "if it be history," because it is not my purpose in this book to attempt to prove the historical accuracy of these psychic stories, but to show that they are psychic stories, whether they be historical or not.
The point is this: given a psychic interpretation, the stories may well be historical, whereas without a psychic interpretation they are utterly incredible, and it is a sheer waste of time to read them.
Moses was faced with an enormous task. He had to direct the march of 600,000 men, with their women and children, out of Egypt. There must have been at least 3,000,000 in all according to the story, and Moses must have spent much time beforehand in planning the exodus.
He marched the men "five in a rank" to the frontier, twenty miles away. The women and children followed in wagons, and vast numbers of flocks and herds choked the roads leading to the wilderness.
Moses did not forget to take with him "the bones of Joseph." Why was that? Because it was around these bones of the old chieftain that Israel's hopes clustered during their 400 Years of slavery in Egypt. For had not Joseph "made the Israelites swear an oath, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye must carry my bones away with you"?
Joseph had foreseen that Israel would one day leave Egypt and journey to the Promised Land. It was more than a guess. Joseph was clairvoyant and clairaudient and his prophecy was now fulfilled.
Could there have been any use in taking the bones of the old chieftain with them? I wonder. I prefer to wonder than to laugh at such an idea. I wonder how far it is possible for material things to become impregnated with spiritual forces.
I wonder whether it is true that a "dead" man was restored to life by coming into contact with the bones of Elisha. The Bible says so.
I wonder whether St. Paul knew more about these things than we do. He certainly allowed his own handkerchiefs and aprons to be carried to the sick and "diseases departed from them and evil spirits went out."
It is no longer a sign of superior intelligence to laugh at the idea that invisible influences may come from handkerchiefs, aprons and bones. I do not doubt that houses, furniture and clothing are vehicles of invisible influence.
We may yet discover that it is not wise to touch the tombs of Egypt with an unhallowed, archaeological hand. And what do we mean when we speak of the interior of sacred buildings as being "charged with power"?
Matter "did not matter" to our great-grandparents, but it matters a great deal to us, because of our changed view of its nature. Physical science has done more than shake us to "atoms." It has shaken us to "whirling electrons." It has shaken the bottom out of, matter.
Psychical science has seen into "the soul of the matter" and made us for ever chary about denying the possibility of material things becoming impregnated with spiritual forces.
That great psychic, Joseph, and his successor, Moses, may have known more of this subject than we think. So Moses "took the bones of Joseph with him" and began the march.
Day by day, a "pillar of cloud" led them, and by night a "pillar of fire." What was this "pillar"? Was it something altogether miraculous, something quite supernatural, something that showed itself at that time only and had never before, and has never since, been seen or heard of?
If it were so, it would in no way help us in our understanding of the workings of God. The modern mind cannot believe in a God Who works arbitrary miracles. But the modern mind, instructed in psychic science, can offer a perfectly feasible interpretation of this "pillar."
By day, it was an ectoplasmic cloud which screened off the Israelites from their enemy and also screened off the radiance of Israel's guide, "a mighty angel came clothed with a cloud."
These "psychic clouds" are well known to psychic scientists and are constantly referred to in the Bible, e.g., "The glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud," "The Lord said, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud," "I will appear in the cloud on the mercy seat," "A cloud received him out of their sight."
These are ectoplasmic clouds. The "pillar of fire" was psychic light which is also well known to psychic scientists. None but Spiritualists can understand the Bible!
Guided by the "pillar," Moses and the Israelites marched on and on until they came to the great impassable cliffs of the mountain Baal Zephon. They seemed caught in a trap. On the left hand was the sea, on the right the desert sands, in front the mountain cliffs. What a position!
If by any chance Pharaoh were to change his mind and pursue them, there was no escape except into the Red Sea. Pharaoh did change his mind when he saw the brick-fields deserted and the work at a standstill for want of slaves, and he pursued them.
Picture the scene: the Egyptian horses and chariots show themselves on the desert hills. The Israelites are terror-stricken. They cry out to Moses, "Why have you misguided us? Why did you bring us out of Egypt? Why did you not let us alone that we might continue to serve the Egyptians?"
What wretched creatures these Israelites were! This was but the beginning of a long series of rebellings and cryings and howlings that nearly broke the heart of their great-hearted leader. Moses quickly assured them that all-would be well.
"Fear not," he said. "Standstill and watch how the Lord will deliver you; for as surely as you see the Egyptians to-day, you shall never see them again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to stand still."
How did Moses know all this? Who had told him? He had either heard it from Yahweh, or seen it clairvoyantly or in a vision. It must have been information conveyed psychically in one way or another.
"The angel of God now moved to the rear between the frightened children of Israel and the Egyptian hosts." We may note here that the terms "God," "Lord," "Angel," "Angel of God," "Angel of the Lord" are used indiscriminately for manifesting spirits.
"The pillar of cloud" also removed from before them and stood behind them, thus hiding the movements of Israel. The enemy faced darkness while the Israelites had light which enabled them to prepare for the crossing of the Red Sea.
No miracle happened. Nothing contravened the laws of Nature. Guidance from the spirit world is not miraculous. Clairvoyance and clairaudience are natural spiritual gifts. But what happened was very wonderful.
Moses may have known that a strong east wind blowing all night could make their passage possible. He may himself have escaped at that very spot years before. But no amount of intuition or subtle reasoning could have told Moses the day and the hour when the east wind would blow all night. Yahweh alone knew, and he must have assured Moses that it would happen at the critical moment.
The seemingly miraculous thing was that Yahweh should have known that Pharaoh would pursue Israel at the time when an east wind would temporarily drive back the waters, and that he should have led Israel into what looked like a death-trap and should have told Moses that the seeming death-trap was the gate of life, and that Moses should have been able to hear what Yahweh said.
"And the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind, and the waters were divided. And the Israelites went into the midst of the sea upon dry ground. And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them into the midst of the sea, and the waters returned and covered the chariots and horsemen, even all the host of Pharaoh; there remained not so much as one of them. But the children of Israel walked upon dry land."
Well, that is the story which unless it be given a psychic interpretation does not make sense. And no good can come from telling such stories to infants or adults unless we offer them some reasonable explanation. Even our children are being taught to-day to think, to reason and to ask questions.
They will not be put off with mere pious statements, such as "It was miraculous. God can do anything," for they are quick to ask, "Why, then, does not God do such things to-day?" And unless we can assure our children that He does, and tell them much about those wonder-working "gifts of the Spirit," they will continue to prefer to read modern fairy tales.
For the Church to allow these stories to be read in public without any attempt being made to comment on them is, in my judgment, sheer folly.
They merely create in the minds of our young people, and of most old people too, the idea that the Bible is too sacred for any one to expect to understand it, and that all it says must be "accepted by faith" and "left at that." The result is that the Bible is "left at that." It is left unopened and unread.
CHAPTER XII
The Ten Commandments were psychically given to Moses.
The droning of "God spake these words and said" in orthodox churches every Sunday conveys exactly nothing to hearers. None but the ignorant believes that the great eternal God the universe spoke to Moses. The words "God spake" are an offence to the intelligence.
But the Churches continue to use them because the Churches are far more interested in "traditional usage" than in either intelligence or truth. And such words as "He gave unto Moses the two tablets of the law written with the finger of God" leave Churchfolk confounded and nonplussed, their only hope being to try and believe what they feel to be unbelievable, if not untrue.
Spiritualists, however, are neither confounded nor nonplussed, nor is their faith unduly strained by such words. They find no real difficulty in understanding this psychic story of clairaudience, direct voice and spirit writing.
And they know that the word "God" stands for a spirit communicator who is often Yahweh, the great spirit guide or angel-guide of the children of Israel.
Indeed, we are told that the Ten Commandments were given "through angels," through messengers. Dr. Luke says so in his second book The Acts. Paul says so in Galatians. The author of "Hebrews" says so too.
These New Testament writers were not so foolish as to imagine that the Ten Commandments were given and written down by the great God of the universe. They were Spiritualists and knew better.
Oh yes, I know what the higher critics have to say about all this, but I am sure they are wrong. They will always be wrong until they are wise enough to make a thorough study of psychic science. Here for example is the comment made by one of them, Professor Andrews, on what we should call Dr. Luke's Spiritualism:
"Luke's strong belief in the supernatural led him to exaggerate. Both in the Gospel and the Acts we find an undue prominence given to angelic interventions. For instance, the deliverance of Peter and John from prison is represented as the work of 'an angel of the Lord'; an 'angel' commissions Philip to meet the Ethiopian, and an 'angel' prompts Cornelius to send to Joppa for Simon. The fact that in Chapter viii, verse 29 Luke substitutes 'the Spirit' for 'the angel' of verse 26 seems to show that he does not intend his language to be taken literally."
These higher critics, to whom we owe so much, suffer from a serious complaint known as "spiritual myopia." They cannot see beyond traditional and conventional horizons. Angels are to them a separate creation, "a different group of Beings in the great family of God."
It never seems to have occurred to them that the word "angel" means "messenger," and that "the Spirit" which Luke substitutes for "the angel" is not spelt with a capital "S" in the Greek, and that Luke is merely saying that the angel was a spirit.
He uses the two words interchangeably. One need not be a Spiritualist to know this. It is perfectly obvious to anyone who does not read the New Testament through the coloured and distorting glasses of traditional theology.
The Ten Commandments were given to Moses in the "direct voice" and were then psychically written down by Yahweh on two tablets of stone. These phenomena are quite well known to Spiritualists.
I have myself been present at more than one "meeting for investigation" (that is the real meaning of the word "seance") when spirit communicators have spoken in the "direct voice" and have written messages upon paper or slates without any visible aid.
Let me now tell very briefly the story of the law-giving at Sinai, and then further comment on it. Israel encamps before the Mount. Moses ascends the Mount to communicate with Yahweh. Yahweh instructs him to tell the people that if they will listen to him and keep his compacts they shall be his own "prized possession" among all nations.
The people promise to do what Yahweh tells them. Moses reports their promise. Yahweh then instructs Moses to tell the people to purify themselves in preparation for his appearance on the third day, and to make arrangements that none shall come near the Mount until the people hear a long blast of a trumpet.
On the third day, there was a "thick cloud" upon the Mount, and Yahweh descended upon it in fire, and spake to Moses out of the "thick darkness." And "when the voice of the trumpet waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and Yahweh answered him in a voice which all the people heard."
Now then, unless all this be translated into terms of psychic phenomena it is simply double Dutch, double Hebrew, and much more difficult to appreciate than a fairy tale would be.
But once so translated it becomes quite intelligible. Spiritualists are familiar with these phenomena. They are the phenomena of the seance room.
The "thick cloud" of ectoplasm was there; the psychic light, "the fire," was there; the "thick darkness" was there; the trumpet was there, and the "voice" of the trumpet was heard.
It is enlightening to know that the trumpet which summoned the people to the Mount was not the same kind of trumpet as that through which the voice was heard. The Hebrew makes that quite clear. The summoning trumpet was a "ram's horn" which Moses had arranged to blow as a signal.
The trumpet through which the voice spoke was quite another kind of trumpet, and we are told it was when Moses was speaking to Yahweh that the voice of this trumpet waxed louder and louder, and the people heard the voice as it pronounced the Ten Commandments. The psychic explanation of all this makes sense of what would otherwise be mere trumpery.
And what of the "thick darkness"? We are told that "Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where Yahweh was." The Commandments were given in thick darkness by a voice through a trumpet. What have the anti-Spiritualist orthodox Churches to say to that?
Why do they not hurl their invectives against Moses and Yahweh for countenancing so "dark" a procedure? How can they permit this spirit communication, received in the dark, to occupy a prominent place in Church liturgies?"
Why do they not argue here, as they do on all other occasions, that if "darkness" was needed "fraud" must have been present?
Well, whether the Traditionalists or the Modernists like it or not, the fact remains that Yahweh generally communicated with Moses in a "thick cloud" or in darkness. In this connexion, it is interesting to note that at the completion of Solomon's temple "the priests brought in the ark of the covenant unto its place, into the oracle of the house, the most holy place," which was in thick darkness.
"Then spake Solomon, The Lord hath said that He would dwell in the thick darkness."
A higher critic comments thus: "The dark inner shrine was a suitable place for the Being who had chosen to shroud Himself in thick darkness." What a complete misunderstanding!
Yahweh had not chosen to "shroud" himself in thick darkness. He had chosen thick darkness as the medium through which he could best and easiest "manifest" himself.
After Yahweh had given Moses the Ten Commandments he gave him what is known as "The Book of the Covenant." He then said, Behold, I send an angel before thee to guard thee as thou goest, and to guide thee to the place I have prepared. Take heed of him, for my name is in him, and do all that I speak."
Here Yahweh identifies himself with his messenger. "My name is in him" means "he is my ambassador endowed with my authority and power."
The Church believes this, not because she believes in spirit-guides, but because "the Bible says so," and she prays a collect in which she asks that God will send angels to "succour and defend" us, not because she believes in the ministry of angels, but because "the Prayer Book says so."
If the Church had any real belief in angels, in those "ministering spirits" who, as the author of Hebrews assures us, are "sent forth to do us service," she would not so persistently turn a deaf ear to the overwhelming testimony of those to-day who have seen and heard and spoken to God's messengers.
The Church spiritualizes the angels out of existence. Her religion, as distinct from her ethics, is not a real and practical thing: it is something poetical, symbolical and mystical.
The Bible stories are enveloped in a halo of unreality, and any attempt to try and understand them is deemed sacrilegious. We must not inquire, we must not seek to know, for knowledge would jeopardize faith.
But the Bible remains, and the Spiritualist interpreters will yet make it intelligible to the "coming Church" and to the world.