The Watchtower — September 1, 1955

Optimistic in the Face of Disaster

SOME persons go through life with a carefree, happy-go-lucky frame of mind. Such usually are blithely oblivious of world conditions. Those who truly are aware of world conditions often are very apprehensive of the future.

Thus the New York Times, June 12, 1955, editorialized as follows: “We have now long lived in a kind of winter of the modern world. Fear has chilled the blood in our veins and, strangely enough, there has not been enough hate to warm it. This is actually not a period of tremendous struggle. It is, rather, a period of apprehension. This is so, and perhaps in the end will come to seem fortunately so, because the world can no longer afford to express its hate—because in bleak truth hate is now suicidal, hate has become the final chill of death.” However, in view of mankind’s past mistakes there is little comfort in the hope that it will avoid a certain course because it is suicidal.

Pertinent in this regard are the remarks that Dr. Krumm, Columbia University chaplain, made to 160 graduating seniors. He said he doubted that anyone with an eye to history could seriously be an optimist now and further claimed that the Bible asserts that the future is “wrapped in mystery.” “We have the ability to make the earth uninhabitable. All that stands between us and that fate is the pathetic little store of wisdom and patience and good-will that mankind and its leaders have been able to engender.” According to him, the most serious casualty of this century is optimism.—New York Times, May 30, 1955.

Optimism dead? Not so long as there are some 500,000, at least, who have faith in Jehovah’s promises regarding the bright future in store for earth and mankind. Man make this earth uninhabitable? Not in view of the fact that God assures us that he “formed it to be inhabited,” and that ‘whatever he has purposed he will also do it.’ The future wrapped in mystery? Not when God’s Word plainly tells us that, in his due time, “the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea,” and that he “will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be any more.”—Isa. 45:18; 46:11; 11:9, AS; Rev. 21:4, NW.

One can be optimistic in spite of world conditions without closing his eyes to them and without blindly trusting in man’s wisdom, patience and good will, if one understands the Creator’s purposes and has faith in them. Nor is the realization of these purposes regarding earth and man in the distant future. On the contrary. After foretelling the conditions we now see Jesus said: “But as these things start to occur, raise yourselves erect and lift your heads up, because your deliverance is getting near.”—Luke 21:28, NW.

Animal Worship—Ancient and Modern

God’s Word states that only Jehovah God is to be worshiped. To what extent has man violated this commandment in the worship of animals in times past and in our day? This subject proves to be of more than mere academic interest.

THE scene is a street in ancient Egypt. An angry mob is seen forming; it hastens down the street to a certain house where a foreigner, a Roman citizen, is staying, a guest of the king. The king hears of the forming of the mob and sends princes to try to dissuade the mob, but in vain. The maddened mob invades the house, lays hold on the Roman and literally tears him to pieces in frenzied rage.

What had the Roman done to merit this fate? What was his crime? He had accidentally killed an alley cat! Unbelievable? Preposterous? Not at all. Because of their worship of the cat goddess Pasht, which was to the Egyptians what Artemis was to the Greeks and Diana to the Romans, every cat was sacred. When a cat died the whole household went into mourning and cats were given elaborate funerals.

The incident regarding the Roman was not unusual nor was the cat the only animal so worshiped. “The most repulsive thing in Egyptian religion was animal worship. To each deity some animal was sacred,” and Egyptians excelled in the number of their deities. The cat, dog, cow, bull, sheep, wolf, lion, kite, ibis, hawk, crocodile, hippopotamus, ichneumon, frog, eel, snake and otter were all objects of worship. Herodotus tells that a man deliberately killing a sacred animal was put to death; if accidentally, the priests stipulated a fine; but in the case of an ibis or a hawk, even an accidental killing was punished by death and that usually by an enraged mob. In time of famine humans were let starve to death and even cannibalism was resorted to rather than to eat a sacred animal.

Why did such animal worship, which was not limited to the Egyptians, find its greatest prevalence among them? The teaching of metempsychosis, that at death a “soul” passes on to other creatures, no doubt accounted for much of it. Traditions and mythology also played a part as also did the fact that some animals served useful purposes, such as protection from insects or supplying of food and clothing.

Says the historian Rawlinson: “The worst form of this animal worship was the belief that a deity absolutely became incarnate in an individual animal, and so remained until the animal’s death. Such were the Apis bulls.” These animals “were perpetually adored and prayed to by thousands during their lives, and at their deaths were entombed with the utmost care in huge sarcophagi, while all Egypt went into mourning.”

The real underlying cause of animal worship, however, is given us by the apostle Paul: “Although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God nor did they thank him, but they became empty-headed in their reasonings and their unintelligent heart became darkened. Although asserting they were wise, they became foolish and turned the glory of the incorruptible God into something like the image of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed creatures and creeping things.”—Rom. 1:21-23, NW.

Appreciating these conditions in ancient Egypt emphasizes the magnitude of Jehovah’s victory in sending plagues upon the Egyptians and in delivering his people. It also explains why the Israelites so readily succumbed to calf worship and other forms of idolatry, such as their worship of the copper serpent Moses had made in the wilderness.—Ex. 32:24; 2 Ki. 18:4.

ANIMAL WORSHIP IN INDIA TODAY

Even as Egypt excelled in animal worship in ancient times, so India does in modern times. There, until the new Indian government put a bounty on monkey heads, monkeys were eating $2 million worth of foodstuffs a day as well as destroying enormous amounts of grain annually. People starved, but not the monkeys, nor the peacocks, for they also were sacred. Snakes keep taking a toll of 50,000 lives annually because they are considered sacred.

On April 2, 1955, the prime minister of India, Nehru, had to go to the extreme of threatening to resign to prevent the passage of a bill that would have made it illegal to kill cows, a bill presented by a member of his own Congress party. Reporting on this the New York Times, April 3, 1955, further stated:

“The issue on the ban on cow slaughter is one that is alive almost all the time in many parts of the country. Almost every week in New Delhi small bands of religious Hindus parade through the streets carrying yellow banners demanding an end to the killing of cows. Millions of cows too old to be of any use wander through the streets nibbling at food in stalls. Many Hindus make a practice of keeping food to give to cows. Indian cows are among the poorest milk-producing strains in the world.” Unable to kill useless and diseased cows, the government has resorted to segregation centers for such cows, but progress has been slow.

Illustrating the folly of such cow worship and the caste system is this: when an untouchable had used a well it had to be sanctified by having sacred cow manure thrown into it!

WORSHIP OF PETS

In Western lands, such as the United States, animal worship takes the form of sentimentalizing over pets. In the past few years the public press has featured such items as: “Coloradan Buries Dog in Casket; Cost $1,000.” “I’ve spent $200,000 in the last thirty-five years on my pets, but don’t regret a cent of it,” said the Coloradan Fred Schmitt. “Pastor Gives Eulogy at Rites for Blind Woman’s Guide Dog. Author-Lecturer’s Pet and Friend Buried in Silk-lined Coffin. A well-known Oak Park minister, Dr. Carl S. Winters, spoke Friday at the funeral of her Seeing Eye dog.” “Big Shot Alley Cat. Midgie Is Heir to a $9,000 House in Omaha.” At the time of his death 74-year-old Putnam had only a middle-aged nurse and Midgie as companions. In his will he deeded the house to Midgie. His nurse would get the house upon the death of Midgie provided she carried out explicitly his instructions regarding feeding and caring for the cat!

And note also the appeal the American Feline Society, an international organization that spends some $25,000 annually in popularizing the cat and in encouraging people to take care of stray cats, makes: “We need help urgently: More volunteers—more memberships—more substantial contributions.” The society also “urges you to become a member or contributor, thus furthering the cause of catdom.” Its president evinces a zeal and enthusiasm for his cause that is definitely religious and therefore a form of animal worship.

And there are other worshipers of animals. Those who feel there must be a place in heaven for pets; those who are so concerned with the plight of lower animals that they are oblivious of God’s requirements or the miseries of their fellow men. Included among such are many among the vegetarians and antivivisectionists. Their zeal resembles that of the ancient Egyptians.

THE BIBLE VIEWPOINT

God gave man dominion over the lower animals. Animals were to be for man’s benefit, not man for the animals’. But neither was man to abuse his charges the way some vivisectionists do, nor to destroy them for sport as many modern Nimrods do. “A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast.” While man was yet in Eden God provided him with animal skins for clothing and after the Flood he gave man animal flesh for food.—Prov. 12:10.

The very organism of the lower animals, and especially their brains, is far inferior to those of man. Animals do not have understanding, they cannot reason, do not have a moral sense, are unable to worship Jehovah—all of which makes the worship of them by man appear all the more absurd. Only when man becomes degraded does he get down to the level of the brute. “Then I was stupid and knew nothing; a brute was I toward thee!” When King Nebuchadnezzar became insane he acted as a beast.—Ps. 73:22, AT.

Unreasoning animals were not made to live forever but to die. That is why the wicked are likened to them: “But these men, like unreasoning animals born naturally to be caught and destroyed, will” suffer destruction. “Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish.” The Bible holds out no resurrection or heavenly hope for the brute creation.—2 Pet. 2:12, NW; Ps. 49:20.

Man was made to worship, not himself, not his equals, and certainly not his inferiors, but only one, Jehovah God: “It is Jehovah your God you must worship, and it is to him alone you must render sacred service.” Those lacking in heart devotion to their Creator will become sentimental about creatures and serve them. Such is a form of worship.—Matt. 4:10, NW.

The fulfillment of such Bible prophecies as Matthew chapter 24 and; 2 Timothy 3:1-5 shows we are living in the last days. All that really matters now is obeying Jehovah’s commandment to ‘seek Jehovah, righteousness and meekness,’ and to help others to do so by preaching the “good news of the kingdom.” Christians, while not abusing or needlessly destroying lower animals for sport, will put first things first. They will give their hearts’ devotion to their Creator Jehovah God and will ‘keep on seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness.’—Zeph. 2:1-3; Matt. 24:14; 6:33, NW.

You must not bow down to another god, because Jehovah is exclusively devoted to his name. He is a God exacting exclusive devotion.—Ex. 34:14, NW.

Maintaining Sanctity for Theocratic Warfare

THEOCRATIC means that which is in line with God rule. The wars being fought by the nations of the world today are not theocratic, for they are not fought by God’s dedicated servants and are not fought at his commands nor according to his rules.a

However, the wars fought by the nation of Israel in times of old were theocratic. That nation owed its existence to God and was organized by him. He gave it its laws and commanded it when to fight and how. Their wars were not wars of conquest or revenge but wars of execution at Jehovah’s commands. Because of these facts Jehovah repeatedly gave them the victory in the face of overwhelming odds.

Today, as Christian witnesses of Jehovah we are also engaged in warfare at God’s commands and therefore in theocratic warfare. As ‘the right kind of soldiers of Jesus Christ we are commanded to take part in suffering evil.’ Distinct, however, from worldly nations, or even from Jehovah’s servants of old, we do not use carnal weapons. No, not even at Armageddon will we do so. We will simply ‘stand still, and see the salvation of Jehovah,’ as Christ and his heavenly armies engage Satan and his forces in the final war.—2 Tim. 2:3, NW; 2 Chron. 20:17, AS.

As has ever been true of Christians, “the weapons of our warfare are not fleshly, but powerful by God for overturning strongly entrenched things.” Clothed in the “complete suit of armor from God,” we have as our only weapon of offense “the sword of the spirit, that is, God’s word.”—2 Cor. 10:4; Eph. 6:11, 17, NW.

In striking contrast with the way pagan soldiers conducted themselves in warfare, the Israelite soldiers had to keep clean in every respect and to keep their camps clean. Because sex relations made one ceremonially unclean according to the law of Moses, the Israelite soldiers could not have sex relations even with their own wives or concubines while engaged in theocratic warfare. The presence of the priests at the front who blew the silver trumpets that gave the signal for the attack, although they themselves took no part in the actual fighting, further emphasized the sanctity of theocratic warfare back there.

As Christian warriors we today must likewise maintain sanctity for theocratic warfare. Having a sanctified position before God by reason of Christ’s sacrifice we must keep clean physically, morally and spiritually. We may not use the fact of our being in theocratic warfare as an excuse for loose conduct. We may not imitate the crusaders of the Dark Ages who justified all manner of loose conduct on the basis of their being engaged in a “holy cause.” As soldiers in Jehovah’s cause we must prove to be holy, for he is holy.

Our warfare being for Jehovah’s glory and vindication, it is a holy warfare, a sacred obligation, a sanctified duty. Satan’s system of things being unclean, we may not touch any part of it, and especially must we be careful not to be swerved aside from our holy warfare in time of the wars of the nations of the world, regardless of how religious and worthy these may seem to be in the eyes of the world, as in the case of the war against godless communism. By keeping our camp clean, by living holily, by maintaining sanctity, Jehovah will always accompany us, assuring us of victory and entrance into his new world of righteousness.

[Footnotes]

Modern History of Jehovah’s Witnesses

Part 17—Christian Neutrals During World War II

JEHOVAH’S Christ, Jesus, was neutral as to the political wrangles of the old world of his day. (John 18:36; Rev. 11:15) Jesus’ apostles likewise were neutrals. In fact, the early Christians became persecuted for their failure to serve in the imperial armies of Rome. The principle of neutrality for his followers, as to the nations of the world, is well announced by Jesus in John 17:16 (NW): “They are no part of the world just as I am no part of the world.” In our time this principle was specially tested during World War II.

September 1, 1939, when German troops aggressively moved into Poland, the spark was set off for the second world war. On September 3, 1939, Great Britain declared war on Germany, similarly France, and soon all Europe found itself again in a state of war. After Poland’s quick subjugation there followed months of stagnation as to fighting, which many called a “phoney” war. But in the spring of 1940, on April 9, the Nazi offensive began and moved rapidly to occupy Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxemburg. Then by quick maneuvers France was forced to sign an armistice June 22, 1940. The retreat of British military forces across the English Channel from Dunkirk, France, by June 4, 1940, had made Britain an island of democracy in a sea of totalitarianism, with the United States remaining on the side lines uncommitted by war.a This left Britain alone to face the war-expanded giant of Catholic-Fascist-Nazi Europe. The peoples of Switzerland and Sweden likewise remained as islands in the center of the Fascist sea, with Jehovah’s witnesses maintaining spiritually nourishing contacts through zealous underground activity in the occupied countries.

As the Nazi-Fascist-Vatican three-wheel steamroller rampaged throughout Europe in 1940, branch office after branch office of the Watch Tower Society was forced to close down. Connections with the Brooklyn headquarters were severed. The Germans banned the witnesses in country after country even as they first had done in Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia. The flood of Catholic-inspired action swamping in upon Jehovah’s witnesses since 1922 (as foretold at Revelation 12:15, 16) now became overwhelming and seemed about to engulf them totally, to a complete stop. What course would the thousands of witnesses on the continent of Europe take? In a timely maneuver The Watchtower of November 1, 1939, published a full scriptural study of “Neutrality,” which enabled all its readers in western Europe to receive strengthening counsel before the following spring’s collapse of democracies there. So it was the apostolic course of neutrality that the witnesses were ready to follow in the hard times now setting in under German occupation.

Everywhere the witnesses followed the tried course of their German brothers who then already for six years had become schooled in efficient underground activity to maintain a measure of spiritual freedom. As the days went on, this meant that many of the non-German witnesses were arrested by the Nazi Gestapo (SS or secret police), who sent them away to German concentration camps. In time the various shamefully famous concentration camps, such as Buchenwald, Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen, Dachau, Belsen and others, became international assembly places of Jehovah’s witnesses of Germany and of captives brought from Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Norway and other countries. Among them the art of spiritual communication through smuggled-in Watchtower copies had already become highly developed by the German brothers, who now could lovingly render inside aid to their non-German companions in camps and prisons. This international family relationship of witnesses suffering adversity together kept them spiritually awake to plan for expanded activities of theocratic worship when days of deliverance would come.

Much has been printed of the harrowing experiences of the witnesses in Hitler’s “Greater Germany,” where they have become a modern marvel of faith, courage and fortitude. But for this historical record only certain outstanding items are being included.b For the witnesses who refused to undertake military service lengthy sentences in prisons were rendered and banishment to concentration camps. Likewise refusal by men and women to “Heil Hitler” was considered an act against the state, bringing harsh sentences. To have in one’s possession any of the Society’s publications meant sure detention. Some of the “evil slave” class, who turned against the Society in earlier years, betrayed the faithful into the hands of the police for summary disappearance. Children were taken away from Jehovah’s witnesses to be adopted into Nazi homes. But many of those Christian-trained youngsters refused to enter the Hitler youth movements when forced. In spite of Hitler’s dragnet attempts from 1933 to 1945, he was able to imprison or banish only about half the witnesses at any one given time. This meant that about ten thousand were incarcerated while equal thousands were free on the outside to maintain underground activity. Funerals would be taken as opportunities for large public gatherings together of the witnesses still free to hear Bible talks and have a short season of fellowship. Small secret gatherings would be held at night or out in the forests. Providentially, portions of the latest spiritual food published in the American Watchtower magazine would reach them in mimeographed form to build them up to press on against mountainlike opposition.c

Inside the camps a standard procedure on the part of the SS officers in charge was to try to get the witnesses to sign the following “Declaration” on promise to give them their freedom:

“I recognized that the International Society of Bible Students spreads out a doctrine of error, pursuing aims dangerous for the state, hidden behind religious actions. I therefore turned off totally from this organization and freed myself completely from their doctrine. I assure by this never again to be active for the International Bible Students Society. I promise to deliver immediately every person communicating this doctrine of error in my presence or showing a tendency as a Bible student in some other way. I shall bring all Scriptures of the Bible students handed over to me to the nearest office of police. In future times I shall respect all the laws of the state to be completely a member of the community of the people. I, too, have been taught to expect my repeated arrest, in case of violating my declaration given today.”d

Needless to add, very few witnesses signed this total abdication of association with Jehovah’s theocratic New World society. Signing such a statement would be tantamount to committing spiritual suicide.

Now for some evidence as to the preaching activities and results inside these vast concentration camps made up of thousands of political prisoners and other maladjusted ones held inimical to the Hitler government. Note the following report:

“The happenings at the Ravensbrück women’s camp show the vile practices carried out against Jehovah’s witnesses by the Catholic SS troops. In this women’s camp alone there were 50 Polish women in the truth, 15 Ukrainians, 10 Czechs, 10 Hungarians, 25 Hollanders, 2 Belgians, 500 Germans, and 300 young Russian Jonadabs that learned of the truth in the camp itself. Here nearly one thousand Christian women went through the tortures of a Catholic ‘purgatory.’ . . . Roll was called at five o’clock in the morning. . . . During the day these women were forced to do hard labor: digging foundations for buildings, constructing roads, carrying coal, handling heavy trunks and boxes in the luggage department, building barracks, and performing many other tasks too heavy for underfed, underclothed and badly-treated people. Because 495 of Jehovah’s witnesses refused to make ammunition cases, they were sentenced to eight weeks in dark arrest (meaning confinement in a cell without windows).”e

Mademoiselle Genevieve de Gaulle of France, herself a nontheocratic inmate of Ravensbrück, supplies the following testimony:

“I am very glad to be able to convey to you my testimony regarding the Bible Students whom I met in the Ravensbrück camp. Indeed, I have true admiration for them. They belonged to various nationalities: German, Polish, Russian and Czech, and have endured very great sufferings for their beliefs. The first arrests began ten years ago, and the majority of those who had been brought into the camp at that time died from the bad treatment inflicted upon them, or were executed. I knew, however, some survivors of that time and other prisoners who had arrived more recently; all of them showed very great courage and their attitude commanded eventually even the respect of the SS. They could have been immediately freed if they had renounced their faith. But, on the contrary, they did not cease resistance, even succeeding in introducing books and tracts into the camp, which writings caused several among them to be hanged.”f

Truly the faith in their God Jehovah and integrity toward him on the part of this international band of witnesses in maintaining neutrality against Hitler’s Catholic Inquisition-like regime has become world-renowned.

During all this storm of Fascist war what was happening to the witnesses in Britain? They too were zealous in following a strict course of neutrality. At the commencement of the war Jehovah’s witnesses were in the news in Britain due to the wide distribution and discussion of the White Paper (Germany No. 2) issued October 30, 1939, entitled “Treatment of German Nationals in Germany,” where the terrible experiences of Jehovah’s witnesses in Germany were officially publicized to the world. The facts presented in this White Paper were based on a report compiled by Sir Neville Henderson, British ambassador in Berlin up to the declaration of war September 3, 1939. We quote from this White Paper:

“There were 1,500 Jews and 800 Ernste Bibelforscher [International Bible Students]. . . . Each man wore a badge—Jews yellow with the star of David, Bible Students violet, etc. . . . Jewish prisoners wrote and received letters twice a month. The Bible Students were allowed no communication with the outside world, but, on the other hand, their rations were not cut down. Herr X spoke with the highest respect of these men. Their courage and religious faith were remarkable, and they professed themselves ready to suffer to the uttermost what they felt God had ordained for them. . . . The ‘Bibelforscher,’ a religious sect taking its doctrine from the Bible and having a considerable membership in every part of the country, but proscribed by the Gestapo since its members refuse military service; these unhappy people were almost as badly treated as the Jews.”g

On November 15, 1939, it became necessary for the Society’s London office to issue the following statement to all members of Parliament, religious leaders, local officials and the press:

“Jehovah’s witnesses, wherever they reside, are loyal to the laws and customs of the countries, seeking to serve God, and are of goodwill to all men. If they are judged by men as disloyal it is only when a human law is enacted which interposes a human instruction contrary to the Scriptures, or would give to a man the worship which belongs only to Almighty God. That the position of Jehovah’s witnesses in relation to present events may be clear, a pamphlet republished from The Watchtower is enclosed. At the same time this makes plain the reason for their NEUTRALITY in all cases, and why they are unable to take part in anything military. On behalf of the thousands of Jehovah’s witnesses in Britain we wish to make this position clear. As servants of the Most High God, our position is identical with that of our German brethren, namely, that of strict NEUTRALITY. Our devotion, service and loyalty are consecrated to Jehovah’s THEOCRATIC GOVERNMENT, and according to John 17:16, ‘They are not of the world, even as I am not of the World.’”h

The statement also made reference to the British government White Paper’s recognition that the German witnesses were persecuted, too, for failure to take up military service.

(To be continued)

[Footnotes]

[Picture on page 521]

BELSEN

BUCHENWALD

RAVENSBRÜCK

DACHAU

SACHSENHAUSEN

Blood Substitutes

Nature’s Own Blood Substitute?

What may well turn out to be the most remarkable of all blood substitutes is coconut water. The Chicago Daily News, March 26, 1954, in reporting on “How Coconut Water Substitutes for Blood,” said the following:

“A researcher reported Friday that water drawn from an ordinary coconut has been used as a blood substitute and body fluid replacement in humans. Dr. Ben Eiseman of Denver said the substance may be a cheap source of suitable fluid under emergency military conditions or where pure water solutions are unavailable. Writing in the Archives of Surgery, published by the American Medical Association, he said 21 persons have received a total of 26 intravenous infusions of coconut water without any serious reactions. The preliminary studies were carried out in Bangkok, Thailand, and in St. Louis. The water was obtained by withdrawing the fluid through a tube inserted in the eye of an unripened coconut. This water was then filtered to drain off any particles of coconut meat.

“Tests showed the water was free from contamination and that its main ingredients were potassium, chloride, phosphate, sugars, magnesium, calcium and proteins. Dr. Eiseman said that while the present study was too limited to make definite conclusions, further study is warranted.”

Lemon Pectin, a Blood Substitute

During World War II, a whitish, grainy powder was found in the emergency kits of German war prisoners who stated that they had been instructed to sprinkle it onto wounds to form a clot quickly. It turned out to be pectin made from lemons. American doctors began to experiment with it and a number of recoveries were attributed to it. Only because of the extensive use of blood plasma, now rejected by many governments because of its carrying the hepatitis virus, was lemon pectin discarded.

Part 1—What Do the Scriptures Say About “Survival After Death”?

1. Messages a British officer said he received from the war dead stir what questions?

“WE ARE O.K.” “Don’t grieve for us. We’re the lucky ones. We’ve never been so happy as we are now.” These were messages from the invisible, received during World War II. Yet they were not sorrowful messages, but seemingly messages to drive away grief and give comfort. From whom did such strange messages come? From men who died in the service of their country during that war! So averred the receiver of the messages in 1943, the retired Air Chief Marshal of Great Britain, Lord Dowding. He was wanting to spread good cheer to those who had lost friends and relatives in battle and to those who might yet die before the world conflict ended. Said he: “I have the largest number of messages from men who have passed over in this war. The fact I want to stress is that the tone of these messages is ‘We are O.K.’ and ‘Don’t grieve for us. We’re the lucky ones. We’ve never been so happy as we are now.’” Lord Dowding continued: “There is a great organization of Air Force men on the other side and I receive frequent messages from them.” He was thus reaffirming his belief in spiritualism by reading before a public audience in London a letter he believed was dictated by a dead seaman. The report of this was received from London, September 1, 1943, by cable to the New York Times and published in its columns the following day, under the heading: “Dowding Says Dead Send Him Messages.” Doubtless in the minds of many readers the questions were raised: Are those who die in war the lucky ones? Are we who survive the unlucky ones?

2, 3. Why are the war prayer of the priest and the officer’s messages closely related?

² Somewhat over nine months later, at solemn mass in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York city, the following war prayer was offered by the Roman Catholic Father Thomas Lester Graham: “We pray these men making such heroic sacrifice for us will know we are walking with them every step on their way of the cross. We pray for their mothers, fathers, wives, sweethearts, that their burden may be lightened and that they may be reunited with their loved ones and never again separated by the disease of war. For those who have made the supreme sacrifice we pray that Almighty God may receive them into His kingdom as martyrs and grant peace to their souls.” He urged prayer in church for “our martyr dead.”—Reported by the New York Times the following day, Monday, June 12, 1944.

³ Both of these expressions, the message by the former commander of the British Royal Air Force and the prayer by the Catholic priest, were based on one belief held in common, “survival after death.”

4. What belief about the human soul is shared by many?

⁴ The common belief is that the human soul does not die but is deathless, deathproof, immortal; that since the human body is observed to die and crumble to dust, there must be some part of man that survives the death of the body and it must be an invisible, untouchable something called the “soul” or “spirit.” Since it is believed to survive the death of the body, it must be distinct from the perishable human body and must be separable from it. At the body’s death it separates and, being invisible, it is no longer held down to inhabiting the human body but is free to move about in the invisible or spirit realm and to ascend to planes of life high above the earth. It enters into all the mysteries of the spirit world and so knows more than when it was hampered by the human body, and it will live in the unseen, immaterial world forever.

5, 6. Antiquity and generality of this belief strongly prove what regarding the terms “soul” and “spirit”?

⁵ Religions of Christendom in general, including the Roman Catholic, hold that the soul and the spirit are many times used the one for the other. But spiritists make a distinction between the two terms: “In spiritualistic terminology ‘SPIRIT’ means the etheric body of an individual having all his characteristics. A clear distinction must be drawn and borne in mind between the terms ‘SOUL’ and ‘SPIRIT.’ The former is vague and intangible without any size or form while the latter is the exact counterpart of the physical portion of the individual.”—Spiritualism in India—Theory and Practice, by V. D. Rishi, page 8, 2d edition of 1946.

⁶ Regardless of the distinctions drawn or not drawn between the terms “soul” and “spirit,” the believers in survival after death hold that the dead are not dead at all but are more alive than ever, in a spirit world that we cannot see, the so-called “next world”; and we must not be deceived concerning survival after death by the visible death of the human body. Taken as a strong, unshakable proof of this is the widespreadness and the ancientness of this belief. In recommendation of this belief Rishi, on page one of his above-mentioned book, says:

“The belief in the existence of the next world and the possibility of communication with the departed souls is to be found in almost all the sacred books of the East and West, Rig-Veda [or Veda of Verses] the oldest book contains reference about the Pitris [the departed forefathers; semidivine fathers and patriarchs]. In Mahabharata and Ramayana we read how the wives of the Kauravas [the 100 cousins of the Pandavas] had the pleasure of an interview with their departed husbands and how king Dasharath manifested himself after death to Sri Ramachandra. The Bible is full of references regarding survival after death and communion between the dead and the living. . . . To discredit all this testimony about survival after death is gross and rank materialism.”

7. Common practices, earth-wide, of most living humans toward relatives and others who died show what?

⁷ In all parts of the earth the belief in survival after death explains the conduct and acts of behavior of many persons, as when they set out food, flowers, incense or other gifts on little altars to saints or dead relatives, or as when, on September 3, 1945, the Japanese emperor Hirohito, clad in ceremonial robes and attended by two younger brothers, worshiped at three sanctuaries in the Palace of Tokyo and personally “informed” the Imperial ancestors that Japan had lost the war.—New York Times.

8. How do spiritualists and others answer questions that confront one when he accepts the teaching of “survival after death”?

⁸ Once the teaching of survival after death is accepted, a string of reasonable questions presents itself: Can we get in touch with the dead? Can we do anything for their benefit? Can they do us any good or harm? Can we get in touch with the “next world,” or, Is there communication between the “two worlds”? Various religions answer these questions to agree with their other beliefs, but the religion known as “spiritualism” answers with a confident Yes. While some spiritualists claim that the Bible of Jews and Christians is based upon spiritualism or teaches and supports it, the spiritualists do not put their main dependence upon the Bible or other reputed sacred writings. They positively assert that the proof of the spirit world and of human survival after death is found in actual hearable, seeable, feelable manifestations from the spirit world and by numberless, regular cases of where the living get in touch with the dead and receive messages from identifiable dead persons. Rishi, on page 7 of his book, lists among the principles of spiritualism this: “The possibility of communication, by mediums between the visible and the invisible, namely, between the living and the dead,” and then adds: “It will be worth while to bear in mind that the above principles are not based on any text, tradition, or institution, but upon observed facts and phenomena.”

9. What is the position of modern scientists on spiritistic manifestations?

⁹ Spiritualists, sure of themselves, have willingly let their spiritistic manifestations be investigated and put to the test by hard-headed, materialistic scientists of the day. While much that has passed for spiritualism commercially had been exposed as a fraud, science has come away from many investigations baffled by the results of their foolproof tests. It has been obliged to agree that there are living, intelligent forces in the realm of the unseen. In an article entitled “They Never Come Back” by Lester David he quotes Hereward Carrington, director of the American Psychical Institute, as saying: “Despite the illusion, fraud and superstition which have unfortunately associated themselves with this subject, there are genuine psychic phenomena which are unexplained by modern science.” In the following paragraph regarding appearings or apparitions of the dead Lester David says: “The American Society for Psychical Research once received 30,000 replies to a questionnaire it distributed on this phase. After studying the reports, it concluded: ‘Between deaths and apparitions of the dying person a connection exists which is not due to chance alone. This we hold as a proven fact.’”—Mechanix Illustrated, December, 1952, pages 166, 167.

10, 11. How are some published definitions of ectoplasm linked with the claimed “survival after death”?

¹⁰ As a result of its investigations modern science has discovered what it calls “ectoplasm,” that is, human matter that streams forth from various parts of the spirit medium’s body and that produces certain phenomena or takes certain shapes. Because it is protoplasm pushed out from the medium’s body, Webster’s dictionary defines ectoplasm as “exteriorized protoplasm.” Marcus Bach, in his book They Have Found a Faith (1946), describes it on page 112:

“The reason for concealing the medium . . . is because a red light is used during a materialization seance. Even a dim light interferes with the generation of the ectoplasm necessary in building spirit forms. The cabinet shields the medium during the time this force is being assembled and then, when complete, the form can stand the light rays long enough to be seen outside the cabinet by the sitters—from thirty seconds to three or four minutes. The medium entranced is also sometimes disturbing to the spectators. It is not a pleasingly aesthetic sight—especially not during a materialization, for ectoplasm exudes from her mouth and body in the nature of gauzy, foggy, smokelike substance from which figures are formed by the spirit chemists.”

¹¹ Says Rishi (page 3 of his above-mentioned book):

“In Europe and America several scientists have made important discoveries in this science. Some persons are aware of the discovery of ectoplasm, a white snowy matter emanating from the body of the medium. However much the existence of this matter may be denied by ignorant persons and fraudulent people, it is weighed and analysed by great scientists.” (Page 2) “The proof regarding survival after death has been mainly obtained through the inherent psychic power of a medium and hence the phenomena of mediumship have been recognized as the one basic factor of modern spiritualism. It is impossible to define or describe this power as it is not possible to define electricity or magnetism, although we all perceive their effects every day.”

12. Studies made of the mediumship of Mrs. Piper reveal what?

¹² Mrs. Leonore Piper performed unexplainable things to make her one of the greatest mediums known. Researchers of psychic phenomena, including the American psychologist William James, Dr. Richard Hodgson, Sir Oliver Lodge, Dr. Walter Leaf and many others, made a study of Mrs. Piper for years. They even had detectives to shadow her to learn if she got her information by normal methods. In vain. They could find out nothing. Mrs. Piper would go into a deep trance and then start writing. She would impart information, such as names, dates and facts of all kinds, which she could not possibly learn by herself. William James wrote she knew things that she could not have acquired by the normal use of her eyes and ears and wits.

13-15. Reported unusual feats, when investigated, have confronted scientists with what evidence?

¹³ There are other evidences of secret or occult power, enabling ordinary persons to do things superhuman or ordinarily impossible for a human, that science is unable to explain or account for. In the practice of Voodooism (Vodun, as the Haitians call it) extraordinary feats have been performed. The French naturalist Descourtilz, for instance, awed by the manifestation of the occult, describes a woman who, under the seizure of her god, took a live coal in her hand without being burned. In the Gold Coast, Africa, the mediums are called woyei, and profess to act as mouthpieces of the gods and of the dead. There when a medium becomes seized by the occult power, it is said, “she speaks with a voice not her own, and greater than that of any human being.” Under possession of the mysterious power, a medium will jiggle and shake in every limb and will remain on her feet in continual motion for hours. She will often perform feats of endurance that are impossible for ordinary humans.—Religion and Medicine of the Gā People by M. J. Field.

¹⁴ Medical science is at a loss to explain such a feat as reported in the New York Times under the date line “Bombay, India, Feb. 19, 1950 (United Press Dispatch)”:

“Huge crowds saw a 45-year-old yogi, Swami [Master] Ramdasji, dug out alive today [Sunday] from an ‘air-tight’ cement crypt in which he had been ‘buried’ for eighty-seven hours [or three days fifteen hours] on a bed of nails. The mystic had been ‘completely submerged’ in water from 4 p.m. Saturday [Feb. 18] until his release at 7:30 a.m. today [Sunday]. He climbed into the wooden coffin at 5 p.m. Wednesday [Feb. 15]. He lay on a bed of nails and the sides of the coffin also had nails jagging into his flesh. The coffin was sealed inside an 8-by-8-by-6-foot cement crypt. Ramdasji’s disciples then sat by the crypt day and night chanting Vedic prayers while keeping a sacred fire burning. Saturday [Feb. 18] his disciples bored a small hole into the crypt, pushed in a hose and immersed the air-starved Hindu in water. Thousands of spectators watched tensely as the disciples hacked the cement away with picks and lifted Ramdasji, still in a trance, onto a dais. The followers massaged Ramdasji’s head, arms and body until he opened his eyes and smiled. Dr. Jal Rustom Vakil, a heart specialist, examined Ramdasji immediately. The doctor said Ramdasji’s respiration was slow, but otherwise he was normal in every way.”

According to medical science, such a feat would have killed an ordinary human within two or three hours.

¹⁵ Instances of fire walking, which have been observed in India and elsewhere, have generally been attributed to some occult influence or power, but science has been able to prove with some success that there is a trick about this, dependent upon ordinary laws of nature, thus removing this from the realm of the really occult. But the more science investigates the more it is faced with the evidences of a truly occult power, of invisible forces producing supernatural acts and happenings among men.

16. How extensive are present-day efforts to gain comfort, advance information or guidance by resort to spiritism?

¹⁶ Whether superstitious or not, many people have a peculiar fascination for the occult, for powers with a hidden source, for happenings of a supernormal kind. There are also many sorrowful persons who crave to get in touch with dead loved ones. Naturally they are inclined to seek mediums who claim to be able to communicate with the dead, for the seeming comfort that this brings. Increasing numbers of persons are worried about the uncertainties of life or face great problems or are anxious about the outcome of political, commercial, sporting or other developments and desire some guidance for the future. They look to some higher, hidden power, unidentified though it may be, that promises to foretell the future and thus guide them, relieve them of fears, safeguard them from possible dangers or lead them to success. Hence there are many who do not ordinarily claim to be spiritualists or spiritists and who may be members of orthodox churches, yet who resort to spiritistic practices. In America, although some 131,100 profess to be spiritualists or members of spiritualist societies, yet there are far more who dabble with spiritism. An appeal to the spiritualistic or spiritistic has become the fashion, not only of the grief-stricken, comfort-seeking ordinary man or woman or the superstitious theatrical people or the worried, success-seeking businessman, but also of high political circles, world-wide.

THE OCCULT IN POLITICAL CIRCLES

17. What is generally known about the last Russian czar’s attachment to Rasputin?

¹⁷ July 17, 1918, the date of Nicholas Romanoff’s execution by the Bolsheviki, is not too long ago for us to remember the last of the Russian czars, Nicholas II. Of him The Encyclopedia Americana (volume 20, page 315) says: “His superstition was shown by his consultation of fortunetellers, spiritualists, mystics and charlatans in his desire to secure a male heir, his first four children being all girls.” He is all too well known for his connections with the notorious Russian Monk Gregor Novikh, nicknamed “Rasputin,” meaning “dissolute, profligate, libertine, licentious,” because such he was. Rasputin came of a peasant family with an inherited gift of mesmerism. He started a new cult, in which dancing and debauchery were mixed in with mystical seances. He was introduced to the Russian Imperial Court, where for years he exercised a powerful influence with Nicholas II, who retained him in his court, even against the protest of others.

18-21. (a) How was astrology involved in public affairs in ancient time? (b) In modern times how is astrology used in public affairs?

¹⁸ Today political science alone does not figure in running political government. Astrology does also. “Astrology” first meant the “science of the stars.” Now it means the study of the stars to foretell human and earthly events by the aspect and position of the stars, as though stars exercised some hidden or occult influence upon the inhabitants of earth and upon the earth itself. Astrology was long ago practiced by the Chaldeans, the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs and others. It developed from the belief in survival after death, and that the stars were notable humans who had been transported after death to the position of the stars and planets, from there to exercise their influence upon earthly affairs.

¹⁹ In the thirteenth century A.D. priests from India introduced astrology into the Siamese court life, since which time both kings and the common people have hesitated to make a move without first consulting their horoscope or the position of the planets with regard to the twelve signs of the zodiac. As his consultant each Siamese king appointed a royal astrologer, with a rank of nobility. King Mongkut was the only monarch who refused the services of a royal astrologer. He was a noted astrologer himself and preferred to read his own horoscope. In 1932 the absolute monarchy over Siam was overthrown, but astrologers continued with even a firmer hold on political matters. Numerous legislators planned their political careers only after secretly consulting astrologers. From their own observations the Siamese say: “Politicians make the best astrologers, and astrologers become the most successful politicians.” Due to spending so much time with the astrologers, such politicians develop the ability to read horoscopes. As a matter of course, by telling from the stars when to take up public activity, astrologers make a success in politics, so it is believed, and so it could be when practically all the people yield themselves to astrology. Astrology has a stronger grip on the Siamese or Thailanders than any science or religion.

²⁰ Astrology exerts a power even on modern Western rulers, and that, too, in the matter of waging war. The January, 1952, issue of Mechanix Illustrated had this to say: “One of the most amazing, and least-known facts of World War II is that the Allies actually waged a counter-astrological warfare against Hitler. Knowing that the Nazi leader took his horoscope mighty seriously [while at the same time being a Roman Catholic], Britain established an agency known as the Psychological Research Bureau and placed at its head a noted astrologer, Louis de Wohl. Captain de Wohl plotted the horoscopes of Hitler and his chief aides, following as closely as possible the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ days. Britain thus knew at all times what Hitler’s astrologers were telling him. It was the first time since the Thirty Years’ War, De Wohl said later, that astrological warfare was waged.” Not that this resort to astrology aided the Allies to win the war against the Nazis and Fascists and their axis partners, but that it shows the willingness, even by rulers who claim to be Christian, to consult the occult powers for selfish advantages. It reminds one of the ancient Chaldean king, Nebuchadnezzar, when marching to conquest over Palestine six centuries before Christ. He came to a fork of the roads, one branch leading to Rabbah, capital of Ammon to the east, the other branch leading to Jerusalem, to the west. Says the Bible: “The king of Babylon stands at the parting of the ways, at the fork of the two roads, practicing divination; he shakes the arrows, he consults the teraphim, he inspects the liver. Into his right hand falls the lot marked ‘Jerusalem,’ calling for slaughter, for the shout of battle, for the planting of battering-rams against the gates, for the throwing up of mounds, for the building of a siege-wall.” (Ezek. 21:19-22, AT) So Nebuchadnezzar marched against Jerusalem. It fell before him.

²¹ Americans now have on their silver dimes and on their postage stamps the slogan “In God we trust” but the prevalence of astrological fortunetellers and their present prosperity in America bespeak a disturbed and hesitating America. So John R. Saunders, at the nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., has said. As the Associate Curator of Education at the American Museum of Natural History he said, in 1946: “In Washington 10,000 customers weekly consult the capital’s astrologers. . . . Some of our most prominent people have patronized fortune tellers of one kind or another. Evangeline Adams, the astrologer, made $50,000 a year. J. P. Morgan, Mrs. Leslie Carter, Mary Garden and Richard Harding Davis were among her clients. On a horoscope, the Duke of Windsor cancelled a trip, some years ago. Hitler [although a recognized Roman Catholic] kept at Berchtesgaden a teeming nest of fortune tellers. Mussolini, Napoleon, Hitler, Julius Caesar, Alexander [the Great]—each believed in and talked about his Star. It is still told in Washington how President Harding and his wife had a ‘personal’ seer forecast for them weekly at the White House.” Fortunetelling, he continued, “flourishes now in Washington, D.C., where a number of our prominent legislators are reported to have their personal seers. One Congressman has his horoscope cast weekly at his office. By its dictates he votes for this bill, against that.”—The American Weekly, July 21, 1946.

22-25. What other reported instances of psychic or spiritistic practices by American and Canadian civic leaders are seriously noteworthy?

²² There is a widespread reliance of politicians on psychometry or the finding out of certain facts or hidden knowledge about an object or its owners by contact with that object or by nearness to it. On October 19, 1952, the New Haven (Connecticut) Register published this statement by its Fulton Oursler: “I have actually seen reports of psychometrists sent to key officials of our Government, and have been taken by wives of important lawmakers to séances.”

²³ Not altogether shocking, therefore, but quite to be expected comes the report of spiritism in the White House by the popular radio commentator Drew Pearson, in his column entitled “Washington Merry-Go-Round,” published throughout the land. In newspaper editions of August 24, 1953, such as that of the Oregon Journal, columnist Pearson reported that a “renowned fortune teller” had been dropping in at the White House during that summer as well as spring equipped with a crystal ball, namely, Mrs. Jeanne Dixon. For ten years she had been telling the future for General Eisenhower’s wife Mamie. So since Mamie moved into the White House, Mrs. Dixon has been called in at times to keep the first lady of the nation up to date on her future and she has even “done some crystal-ball gazing for the president, himself.” Mrs. Dixon said she could use three psychic mediums—the crystal ball, palmistry and astrology. She pointed to a starlike imprint on her own palm and explained it to be the mark of the “true psychic.” However, her usual way is to touch the subject’s fingertips and at the same time peer over her shoulder into the crystal ball. Mrs. Dixon refused to talk about the Eisenhowers or the rest of her clientele. Persons close to the White House, though, say she has amazed President Eisenhower by reading his golf scores in the crystal ball.

²⁴ In the political field Mrs. Dixon forecast the partitioning of India, President Harry S. Truman’s surprise victory over Thomas E. Dewey in 1948 and the Republican sweep in the presidential campaign in 1952 putting General Eisenhower into the White House. A real estate broker by profession, Mrs. Dixon does not charge for her psychic service. She takes no credit to herself for her occult powers, but says: “The Bible says that all events are foreshadowed. I am just the means of communication.” The published report of the invasion of the presidential White House by spiritism by means of this psychic has never been disputed, denied or disproved.

²⁵ Now cross America’s northern border into Canada. There, too, spiritism has made inroads into the prime ministry. It was not generally known that the late W. L. MacKenzie King, one-time prime minister of Canada, was a secret spiritualist, although till his death July 22, 1950, a member of the Presbyterian church like President Eisenhower. In a biography of King entitled “The Incredible Canadian” by Bruce Hutchison (1953), the author lays open King’s deep spiritualistic convictions. Even as prime minister of Canada King consulted spirit mediums, and felt sure of “direct communion with the dead.” He approached every problem, personal and political, dominated by his belief in human immortality as taught by religion in general and now apparently confirmed by spirit mediumship. As he neared death, he patronized mediumship, especially over in England, to consult the dead. At a séance a year after President Franklin D. Roosevelt had died, King made contact with the dead Roosevelt by a medium and was told to stay in political office and that Canada and the world could not yet spare him. But at his frequent séances King would not consult the spirits on the affairs of government and told the mediums that he preferred to decide government matters for himself. Yet his handling of political matters could not but be influenced by his private spiritualistic convictions. By his seeming contact with the dead he increasingly convinced himself by such kind of proof that his earthly journey was nearing its end but his real journey was only beginning and then he in his real self would be free to take on his true shape. When he died, says author Hutchison, King “had completed one pilgrimage to begin, as he believed, a second.”—Pages 86-88, 423, 424, 450.

26. (a) By their actual experiences what do spiritualists claim to prove about “survival after death”? (b) Such claim should properly stir what sensible questions?

²⁶ Though by no means everything has been told, yet from all the foregoing it is plain that spiritualism is spreading and already has a greater hold on human society than most people may realize. The groundwork for such spread of spiritualism still farther has been laid, as we shall show. Some spiritualists are very hopeful about their religion, as betrayed in the title of a book by Arthur Findlay, “The Rock of Truth or Spiritualism the Coming World Religion.” (Thirteenth impression, 1949) The spiritualists seem to produce the proof of their belief in their actual experiences and in the phenomena they are able to show, apart from all trickery. That they really get in touch with an unseen world and with intelligent spirits there can be proved by them and is not to be doubted. But the question arises, Is it really with the spirits of those who once lived on the earth and died that they get in communication? Is it truly “survival after death” that their getting in touch with the spirit world proves? Does it uphold “immortalism,” that is, the belief in and the doctrine of the immortality of the human soul? So is it possible for those living on earth to talk with the dead? Is it a genuine source of comfort for people who have lost loved ones, relatives or cherished friends, to go to spirit mediums in the hope of getting in touch with such dead ones or to make use of such other spiritistic means as table tipping or the planchette or the Yes-yes board or Ouija (Oui, French for Yes, and Ja, German for Yes)?

27. How shall we learn the safe, true and satisfying answers to these questions?

²⁷ How shall we learn the safe, true and satisfying answers to these questions? By going to a book with ancient historical accounts and descriptions that are constantly being proved correct, a book of prophecy that has had its many marvelous predictions come true throughout the centuries and find fulfillment also in world events and conditions of our own day, particularly since A.D. 1914; by going to a book to which even spiritualists refer and in which many spiritualists claim to find support for their teachings and beliefs. What book is that? It is the Bible, the Holy Scriptures.

28. What unsteady position of spiritualism’s foremost advocates should every prudent person keep clearly in mind?

²⁸ From Sweden we have the report: “Spiritists here seldom use the Bible to prove their belief; their ‘experiences’ are given as proof of what they claim as the death state.” However, in the book Spiritualism for the Busy Man, page 14, W. H. Evans has the subheading: “Spiritualism confirms Biblical facts.” V. D. Rishi, as already quoted, states: “The Bible is full of references regarding survival after death and communion between the dead and the living.” Adding to such argument Ernest Thompson, in The Teachings and Phenomena of Spiritualism, pages 115-120, has this to say:

“All religions are based upon the conception of an ‘after life,’ for without the hope of a spiritual future, the idea of God would never have evolved in man’s mind. The Christian Religion is based upon the evidence of survival which is contained in the Bible, particularly of course upon the evidence of the return of Jesus from the dead . . . The principal figure in the New Testament is Jesus, . . . his works can be classified as the achievements of a highly developed medium and healer. . . . Jesus was certainly the most remarkable medium that ever lived. From his period of ‘trial’ in the wilderness up to his resurrection his story is mainly impressive because of his ‘supernormal powers.’ The fact that he was clairvoyant and clairaudient was indicated when, ‘angels came and ministered unto him.’ He was not only clairaudient to the spirit people, but to those about him, for he often received their thoughts telepathically. . . . He apparently used Peter, John and James as materialisation mediums as in the instance of the materialisation of Moses and Elias. . . . Like D. D. Home, Jesus permitted himself to be levitated. ‘In the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went unto them walking on the sea.’ . . . It is notable too that he made certain that his ‘conditions’ were favourable for the specific phenomenon desired. . . . Conditions in the upper room were favourable when, with the mediumistic aid of his disciples, Jesus ‘appeared unto the eleven’ after his crucifixion, and ‘and upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart.’”

WHY BRING IN THE SCRIPTURES?

29. What basic questions must be faced by every fair-minded and thorough investigator of spiritualism’s claims?

²⁹ Since spiritualist authors themselves bring the Bible into their argument and interpret it as they do, we are all the more compelled to turn to the Bible and examine directly the questions, Does it uphold spiritualism? May it be used as a handbook of spiritualism? Or does it hold out another hope and comfort for bereaved, sorrowing, distressed, perplexed, groping, imperiled mankind? We cannot get to the truth of the matter any quicker than by examining first and at once the really one foundation upon which spiritualist teaching rests. What? Immortalism. As stated by Rishi: “The knowledge regarding life after death is commonly called Spiritualism. Its principles though as old as humanity are being proved by new methods. As affirmed by the International Congresses in Europe [of spiritualists] they are:—1. Existence of God, supreme Intelligence and first cause of everything. 2. Existence of the soul, linked during earthly life to the physical corruptible body by an intermediary element called perispirit or fluid body. 3. Immortality of the soul and its continual evolution towards perfection by successive stages. 4. The possibility of communication, by mediums between the visible and the invisible, namely, between the living and the dead.” The question that faces us, then, is, Does the soul survive the death of the human body? Is the human soul immortal? What do the Holy Scriptures of the Bible say?

30, 31. Why do we rightly consider with care the Bible record of the contest staged in ancient Egypt by its magician-priests and Jehovah’s representative, Moses?

³⁰ Take the first five books of the Bible. The prophet Moses wrote them. Whether as a prophet he was a spirit medium, as spiritualists claim of Bible prophets, we shall let our discussion go on to show. But right here we note that this Moses was “instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,” because he was reared at the king of Egypt’s court in the sixteenth century before the Christian era. He was acquainted with the wise men and wonder-working men of Pharaoh the king. When Moses appeared before Pharaoh with the demand that Pharaoh let the enslaved people of Jehovah God go free and backed up his demand by turning his shepherd rod into a big snake by God’s power, then, as we read Moses’ own account, “Pharʹaoh also called for the wise men and the sorcerers, and the magic-practicing priests of Egypt themselves also proceeded to do the same thing with their magic arts.” When Moses later turned water into blood, these men seemingly duplicated the miracle. When Moses miraculously produced frogs Pharaoh’s men did the same. Ah, but when Moses turned the dust of Egypt into lice or into gnats, “the magic-practicing priests tried to do the same by their secret arts, in order to bring forth gnats, but they were unable. And the gnats came to be on man and beast. Hence the magic-practicing priests said to Pharʹaoh: ‘It is the finger of God!’”—Ex. 7:10, 11, 20-22; 8:6, 7, 17-19, NW.

³¹ So Pharaoh’s wise men, sorcerers and magicians admitted that Moses was able by his God Jehovah to do wonders that they themselves with their secret or occult power were unable to do. Now it is this Moses who under the power of God’s spirit or under inspiration gives us the first definition to be found in the Bible of the human soul. Also from the opposition between this Moses and the men of occult power in Egypt we can begin to form correct ideas as to whether Moses was a spirit medium or not.

WHAT THE HUMAN SOUL IS

32, 33. As to the human soul, how do definitions of it by Christendom’s spokesmen and by the Bible differ?

³² Religious teachings of Christendom surround the human soul with mysteries that philosophers need to explore. Differently from them, Moses calls all the fish, birds and land animals that God created before making man “souls,” “living souls.” (Gen. 1:20, 21, 24, 30; 2:19, NW; Ro; Da) So, long before man’s creation, billions of animal souls or earthly souls had died. Moses then tells how the first human soul came to be, saying: “Then Jehovah God proceeded to form the man out of dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul.” (Gen. 2:7, NW; AS; Da) This flatly disproves what is stated about the wherefrom of man by the spiritualist author, Arthur Findlay, in advertising his book On the Edge of the Etheric or Survival After Death Scientifically Explained. He states: “We retain in the Etheric, to which we pass at death, our bodily appearance, our memories, and our affections. . . . As we are now so shall we be hereafter; as we sow so shall we reap. We have come from the Etheric; we return to the Etheric. Our physical life is but a small part of our life, which, coming from the Etheric, returns to it at death. There it continues to function in a world both real and tangible.” Moses says nothing about “the Etheric.”

³³ Nor does Moses’ inspired account of the creation of the human soul agree with V. D. Rishi and say anything about an “intermediary element called perispirit [surrounding spirit] or fluid body.” The Creator, Jehovah God, gave the first man just one body, made from the different elements in the dust of our earth. What made that material body come to life? It was God’s blowing into man’s nostrils, thus into man’s lungs, the “breath of life.” It was not by his breathing into man an invisible soul and connecting that soul with the material body by a fluid body or a surrounding spirit of the same form as the earthly body. God breathed, as it were, into the lifeless body his life-giving force, which was to be sustained by man’s breathing. What resulted? The body came to life. What did that mean? It meant a soul, a visible, touchable, feelable human soul, came into existence. “The man came to be a living soul.” That living soul did not come from “the Etheric,” so called, for it had never existed before. By God’s combining body and breath of life it now came to life. Thus the explanation of what a human soul is may be reduced to this simple, unmysterious “soul equation”:

human soul = body + breath of life from God.

34. How does the Christian writer Paul’s definition of the human soul harmonize with that contained in the Hebrew Scriptures Moses wrote?

³⁴ This is not just the thought of the pre-Christian Hebrews or Jews; it is also the true Christian thought. The Christian apostle Paul, writer of fourteen books of the Bible, supports Moses’ writings, saying: “It is even so written: ‘The first man Adam became a living soul.’ . . . The first man is out of the earth and made of dust.” (1 Cor. 15:45, 47, NW) Thus the first living human soul was the first man Adam. The living human soul is the living human creature. For that reason Young’s English translation of the Bible (1862) uses the word “creature” instead of “soul” here.

35-37. How does an outstanding modern translation aid users of that Bible version in gaining accurate knowledge and understanding about the soul and its Creator?

³⁵ The Bible is the final authority on the soul. In the Hebrew part of the Bible the word nephʹesh (translated “soul”) is found about 800 times; in the Christian Greek part of the Bible the word psy·cheʹ (also translated “soul”) is found 102 times. In each case the New World Translation renders this Greek word “soul.” This yet uncompleted translation is also consistently rendering the Hebrew word nephʹesh “soul.” Thus the readers of the Bible may see how the Creator of the soul uses the word in his inspired Bible.

³⁶ Since the Bible recognizes and teaches that the living human creature himself is the human soul, it is perfectly reasonable that the Bible should state that the human soul has blood—“the blood of the souls of the poor innocents” (Jer. 2:34)—God himself saying: “Your blood of your souls shall I ask back.” (Gen. 9:5, NW) In fact, God the Creator of souls shows the dependence of the human soul upon the blood stream to be so heavy that he says: “The soul of the flesh is in the blood.” More than that: “The soul of every sort of flesh isa its blood.” “The blood isb the soul and you must not eat the soul [yes, not eat the soul] with the blood.” (Lev. 17:11, 14 and Deut. 12:23, NW) Human souls can eat blood and fat, but God’s law forbids it: “For anyone eating fat from the beast from which he presents it as an offering made by fire to Jehovah, the soul that eats must be cut off from his people. Any soul who eats any blood, that soul must be cut off from his people.”—Lev. 7:25, 27, NW.

³⁷ A human soul can also eat an animal body: “As for any soul that eats a dead body or something torn by a wild beast.” (Lev. 17:15, NW) The human soul craves material food: “Because your soul craves to eat meat, whenever your soul craves it you may eat meat.” (Deut. 12:20, NW) Also fruit: “You must eat enough grapes for you to satisfy your soul.” (Deut. 23:24, NW) Or a honeycomb.—Prov. 27:7.

38. What various experiences of human souls further help us to understand the consistent Bible teaching about the soul?

³⁸ The human soul is the living, intelligent creature himself, the material, visible, tangible person, and not an invisible, untouchable, ethereal something inside the human body. Hence the human soul can tear its own self or can be torn by a lion, can be delivered from a threatening sword, can fall into a pit dug for it, can be brought back again from a pit, or can be brought out of a prison. (Job 18:4, margin; Ps. 7:2; 22:20; Job 33:18, 30; Jer. 18:20; Ps. 142:7) The human soul can be bought for money; it can be kidnaped and sold; it can be hunted like a wild beast. (Lev. 22:11; Deut. 24:7; Ex. 4:19, NW) After the creation of the first human souls on earth, Adam and Eve, all other human souls have been born. They have not come out of “the Etheric.” They have come out of the bodies or loins of fatherly human souls and from the wombs of motherly human souls. Of Jacob’s wife Leah we read: “In time she bore these to Jacob: sixteen souls. All the souls who came to Jacob into Egypt were those who issued out of his upper thigh, aside from the wives of Jacob’s sons. All the souls were sixty-six.” (Gen. 46:18, 26, NW) “And all the souls who issued out of Jacob’s upper thigh came to be seventy souls.” (Ex. 1:5, NW) The soul is, therefore, not something separate and distinct from the human body that can leave the body in dreams and at death or that can transmigrate or pass at death into another body, to be thus reborn at death into another body.

39. Does the Bible show a difference between body and soul, and how?

³⁹ Now a question; Does the Bible itself show a difference between body and soul? Indeed it does, and that right at the beginning, at Genesis 2:7, at man’s creation. The man’s body that Jehovah God formed out of the dust from the ground in Eden was not a human soul; it was just a lifeless, inactive body that neither saw, heard, tasted, smelled, felt nor thought. To make the body live and use all its sense organs and powers, God combined the perfect human body with the breath of life that he blew into the body. Thus there came to be a living human soul that had never existed before. So the human body is a necessary part of the human soul, and the human soul cannot exist apart from the human body. Many times the Bible speaks of the life that we human creatures enjoy as “soul.” Jesus said: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate . . . even his own soul, he cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26, NW) “He that is fond of his soul destroys it, but he that hates his soul in this world will safeguard it for everlasting life.” (John 12:25, NW) “They did not love their souls even despite the danger of death.” (Rev. 12:11, NW) “I am the right shepherd; the right shepherd surrenders his soul in behalf of the sheep.”—John 10:11, NW.

40. What are some examples of the Bible’s use of the word “soul” to refer to the person himself?

⁴⁰ In harmony with this unseparableness of the soul from its body, when a speaker uses the expression “my soul,” he really means “I myself,” or, “me myself.” Jesus gave an illustration of a rich man, who, after storing up his increased good things, said: “I will say to my soul: ‘Soul, you have many good things laid up for many years; take your ease, eat, drink, enjoy yourself.’ But God said to him: ‘Unreasonable one, this night they are demanding your soul from you.’” Without soul or life as a human creature, how could the rich man enjoy the good things he had stored up? (Luke 12:16-21, NW) Even God himself uses the expression “my soul,” saying: “Look! my servant whom I chose, my beloved, whom my soul approved!” (Matt. 12:18, NW; Isa. 42:1) “‘My righteous one will live by reason of faith,’ and, ‘if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.’” (Heb. 10:38, NW) “Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates.” (Isa. 1:14, RS) Likewise, the expression “your (thy) soul” is used to mean “you yourself,” and “his soul,” “him himself.” For example, “Yahweh of hosts hath sworn by his own soul.” (Jer. 51:14; Amos 6:8, Ro, margin) “So it shall be well unto thee, and thy soul shall live.” (Jer. 38:20; Isa. 55:2, 3) Thus the word “soul” is used to refer to the person himself.

41, 42. By the reported acts of Elijah, Elisha, Jesus and his apostles in restoring dead persons to life, how are spiritualism’s false claims further exposed for rejection?

⁴¹ What the prophet Elijah said regarding the child whom he was used to restore to life is no Biblical proof that the human soul is distinct and is merely linked to the human body by some element called a “perispirit or fluid body,” and that at death it carries on a separate, independent, outside existence in the immaterial, spirit world. We read: “The son of the woman, the mistress of the house, fell sick, and his sickness came to be so severe that there was no breath left in him. And [Elijah] proceeded to stretch himself upon the child three times and call to Jehovah and say: ‘O Jehovah my God, please, cause the soul of this child to come back within him.’ Finally Jehovah listened to Elijah’s voice, and the soul of the child came back within him, so that he came to life.” (1 Ki. 17:17, 21, 22, NW) Does the Bible here say the child’s soul was alive in an invisible, spirit world and that the child was lucky that it had died and that it had never been so happy on earth as it was then in the spirit world? No! Did the child’s mother ask Elijah to act as a male medium and put her in touch with her dead son so that she could talk with the departed soul through Elijah? No! If the child was better off for having died, then it was an injustice and extreme selfishness for Elijah to pray as he did and for him to restore the child to life in the human body.

⁴² The same holds true for the Shunammite’s son whom Elijah’s successor, Elisha, restored to life. It holds true also for the dead whom Jesus and his apostles restored to life in the flesh on earth: Jairus’ daughter, the widow of Nain’s son, Lazarus the brother of Mary and Martha, Dorcas (Tabitha) of Joppa, and Eutychus of Troas. (2 Ki. 4:8-37; Matt. 10:1, 8; Luke 8:41-56; 7:11-15; John 11:1-44; Acts 9:36-41; 20:6-12) What the prophet Elijah really prayed for was, not for a departed soul to return from the spirit world into the child’s body, but for the child’s life as a human creature to return by Jehovah God’s power that his dead body might become alive again and the child might come to be a living human soul again. In agreement with this An American Translation reads here: “May this child’s life return into him again.” “So the LORD hearkened to the voice of Elijah; and the life of the child came back to him again, so that he lived.” “‘See, your son is alive,’ said Elijah.” (1 Ki. 17:21-24, AT; also Mo) Hence it is no more difficult for us in English to say a human soul has soul than it was difficult for a Jew to say in Hebrew that a nephʹesh has nephʹesh or that nephʹesh is in a nephʹesh (“soul”).—Lev. 17:10-14, NW.

THE SPIRIT IN MAN

43, 44. How, in contrast with Rishi’s definition, does the Bible identify the human spirit?

⁴³ But in this case does not the scripture, Ecclesiastes 12:7, apply: “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it”? Yes. And does not the report, at Luke 8:54, 55 (RS), of Jesus’ raising Jairus’ daughter to life say: “But taking her by the hand he called, saying, ‘Child, arise.’ And her spirit returned, and she got up at once”? Yes. Are we, then, to reason from this that, before Elijah raised the widow’s dead son to life, and before Jesus raised Jairus’ girl to life, their spirit was alive in a spirit world and that it had returned to God who gave it and was living with him? No; for the “spirit” is not, as Rishi describes it, “the etheric body of an individual having all his characteristics. . . . the exact counterpart of the physical portion of the individual.” According to the Bible the spirit (ruʹahh, Hebrew; pneuʹma, Greek) is God’s invisible active force that causes life or makes alive.

⁴⁴ As it is described in Revelation 11:8-11 (NW): “And their corpses will be on the broad way of the great city . . . And after the three and a half days spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet.” Also as it is described in Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones: “Thus saith My Lord Yahweh, unto these bones, Lo! I am about to bring into you spirit, and ye shall live; . . . And when I looked then lo! upon them were sinews, and flesh had come up, and there had spread over them skin above, but spirit was there none within them. Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the spirit, prophesy, Son of man, and thou shalt say unto the spirit, Thus saith My Lord Yahweh—From the four winds come thou, O spirit, and breathe into these [breathless] slain that they may live. And when I prophesied as he commanded me, then came into them the spirit and they lived and stood upon their feet, an exceeding great army.”—Ezek. 37:5-10, Ro; also Yg; Le.

45, 46. (a) For continuing or restoring life of human creatures, what does the Bible show to be Almighty God’s part? (b) How is this fully shown in the case of Jesus?

⁴⁵ Jehovah God is the source of the life-imparting spirit or invisible life-giving active force. Hence when the dead body returns to the earth as it was, that spirit or active force that animated that body returns to its source; it quits operating in that body. So the power to make that human creature live again rests with God, the Source of life. By the sentence of death that God pronounced upon Adam and Eve he has subjected all their offspring to condemnation and at the limit of their condemned lives he requires of them their life force, for they are condemned to death through inheriting the sin from Adam and Eve. God’s just law requires that life force or spirit of them, and thus it returns to him. When God lifts that condemnation or removes it, then he can make the relieved offspring of Adam live again by his spirit or invisible activating force. Hence the inspired Psalm says to God: “Thou hidest thy face, they are dismayed, thou withdrawest their spirit, they cease to breathe, and unto their own dust do they return: thou sendest forth thy spirit and they are created, and thou renewest the face of the ground.”—Ps. 104:29, 30, Ro; also Yg; Le.

⁴⁶ This life force sustained by breathing is what returned to Jairus’ daughter when Jesus took her by the hand and commanded: “Child, arise.” God heard Jesus and caused His life-imparting active force to make her body alive and breathe again and keep it from returning at that time to the dust of the earth. Jesus referred to such spirit or life force when, at his death on the stake at Calvary, he said to God: “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit.” (Luke 23:46, NW) On the third day afterward God restored that spirit or life force by resurrecting Jesus from the dead. (Acts 2:22-28, 32-36) So Ecclesiastes 12:7 cannot be used to teach that immortal spirits of the human dead are in a spirit world enjoying greater life, knowledge and freedom than ever before and that they have all, good and bad alike, returned to God. Instead, it proves that all mankind are under condemnation of death and hence must grow old and approach death and that when they die the body will return to the dust, for God’s righteous law requires their life force of them.

47. As to life, why, according to the Bible, are humans superior to earth’s lower animals?

⁴⁷ In this respect, mankind, because of the condemnation to death that they inherited from Adam, are like the lower animals that die, not because animals are condemned to die for sin, but because their Creator did not decree that they should live forever. Showing that thus man’s spirit is just now like that of the lower animals, the inspired wise man says: “I said in my heart concerning the speaking of the sons of men, that God might make it clear to them, and that they might see that they by themselves are but beasts. For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even the same thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one kind of spirit: so that the preeminence of man above the beast is nought; for all is vanity. Every thing goeth unto one place: every thing came from the dust, and every thing returneth to the dust. Who knoweth the spirit of the sons of man that ascendeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that descendeth downward to the earth?” (Eccl. 3:18-21, Le; also Yg; Ro) We see, therefore, that the spirit or invisible, activating life force that makes animals live is the same as that which makes mankind live, and hence the only thing that can give man any pre-eminence above a lower animal is God’s decree or God’s arrangement concerning man’s future. By God’s undeserved kindness man does enjoy such a pre-eminence over lower animals, for God has willed and provided that believing, obedient mankind may enjoy everlasting life in a righteous, death-free new world. So the enjoying of such life does not begin when the body returns to the dust at death, for the spirit that then returns to God is not an invisible, immortal counterpart of that mortal body, having all its characteristics. Such an idea of the spirit in man is simply an imaginary theory that spiritualists invent to support their teaching of “survival after death.” Their “next world” is not God’s righteous new world.

IS THE HUMAN SOUL IMMORTAL?

48. Why do spiritualism’s claims now require that we accurately determine whether the Bible does or does not teach the immortality of the human soul?

⁴⁸ For a human soul to live there must be (1) a human body and (2) the invisible, active force or spirit from God combining with that body to make it breathe and live. The human creature thus brought to life is the human soul. (Gen. 2:7) Now since the human soul must breathe earth’s atmosphere and must eat material food here on earth, and since it may be torn, be imprisoned and be laid in irons or be reached by the sword and may be brought down to the pit (Ps. 105:18, Da; Yg; Jer. 4:10; Luke 2:35), is the human soul deathproof, immortal? Spiritualism rests mainly upon the belief in the immortality of the human soul; it bases its teaching of “survival after death” upon the soul’s immortality, and it says that the Bible is full of references to survival after death and the communicating between the living and the dead. Consequently the claims of spiritualism require us to examine the special question, Does the Bible teach the immortality of the human soul, making survival after death possible?

49-53. How many are the Bible references to immortality, and what does each mean?

⁴⁹ Immortality is of course mentioned in the Bible, but does the Bible say the human soul has it? Look it up and surprise yourself to find that the word “immortality” does not occur once in the Hebrew Scriptures of the Bible; and in the Christian Greek Scriptures the Greek word a·tha·na·siʹa, which is translated “immortality,” occurs only three times. Here are the three times:

⁵⁰ “For this which is corruptible must put on incorruption, and this which is mortal must put on immortality. But when this which is corruptible puts on incorruption and this which is mortal puts on immortality, then the saying will take place that is written [at Isaiah 25:8]: ‘Death is swallowed up forever.’” (1 Cor. 15:53, 54, NW) Here the apostle Paul is discussing the Christian resurrection from the dead and he shows how the faithful Christians are raised from the dead and with what body. He does not say they now have immortality any more than they now have incorruptibility, for in Romans 2:6, 7 he tells Christians that God “will render to each one according to his works: everlasting life to those who are seeking glory and honor and incorruptibleness by endurance in work that is good.” (NW) Incorruptibleness as well as immortality is a future reward that is to be bestowed upon faithful Christians at their resurrection from the dead. The apostle showed that this resurrection and putting on of incorruptibleness and immortality was not to take place at death but at the second coming and presence of Jesus Christ when he raises his faithful followers from the dead. “For just as in Adam all are dying, so also in the Christ all will be made alive. But each one in his own rank: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who belong to the Christ during his presence. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised up in incorruption. . . . and we shall be changed.”—1 Cor. 15:22, 23, 42, 52, NW.

⁵¹ Notice no mention here of the human soul. Instead of the inherent immortality of the human soul, the above two mentions of a·tha·na·siʹa or immortality teach directly the contrary.

⁵² The remaining or third mention of a·tha·na·siʹa or immortality is found in the following quotation: “Observe the commandment in a spotless and irreprehensible way until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ. This manifestation the happy and only Potentate will show in its own appointed times, he the King of those who rule as kings and Lord of those who rule as lords, the one alone having immortality.” (1 Tim. 6:14-16, NW) The apostle Paul is here telling Timothy that of all the earthly potentates who rule as kings and as lords and who claim immortality none really have it, but the “happy and only Potentate” Jesus Christ, the King of kings and Lord of lords, has it exclusively since his own resurrection from the dead. We grant you that the pagan Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Hindus taught their heathenish doctrine of the inherent immortality and incorruptibility of the human soul. But Jesus Christ, who is the first one upon whom the immortal, ‘incorruptible God’ bestowed immortality and incorruptibility when raising him from the dead, is the first one that brought the truth concerning these to light by his preaching of the good news about God’s kingdom. “Now it has been made clearly evident through the manifestation of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has abolished death but has shed light upon life and incorruption through the good news.”—2 Tim. 1:10 and; 1 Tim. 1:17, NW.

⁵³ From this it is seen that this third Scriptural mention of a·tha·na·siʹa or immortality flatly denies that any humans, even earthly potentates, dictators, kings and lords, have inherent immortality of the human soul. In the Roman Catholic version of the Bible, in the apocryphal or deuterocanonical books of its “Old Testament,” the words “immortality” and “incorruption” do occur, but even these references do not show or prove that the human soul is inherently immortal. For instance, Ecclesiasticus 17:29 (Dy) plainly says: “For all things cannot be in men, because the son of man is not immortal.” See also Ecclesiasticus 6:16 and The Book of Wisdom 1:15; 2:23; 3:1, 4; 4:1; 6:19, 20; 8:13, 17; 15:1, 3, all of which, if showing anything, show that immortality is a prize to be gained in the future and is not possessed inherently.

DOES THE HUMAN SOUL DIE?

54. To what extent does the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures show that the human soul dies?

⁵⁴ If, now, the Bible does not teach the inherent immortality of the human soul, it ought to say that the human soul is mortal, that it dies! Does the Bible do so? Directly so, in plain language that even a child can grasp. Since spiritualists, Roman Catholics and other religions of Christendom cannot produce one Bible verse saying or proving that the human soul is deathless, immortal, it ought to be enough if we produced just one Bible verse in witness that the human soul is mortal, dies. But we can produce many verses in witness, and the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, which regularly translates the Hebrew word nephʹesh and the Greek word psy·cheʹ as “soul” from Genesis 1:20 onward, shows more fully than any other translation that the Bible says the human soul dies.

55-57. What are four basic elements of the Bible teaching about the death of the first human soul?

⁵⁵ In the original garden or paradise of Eden the perfect human souls Adam and Eve did not have to die. Those two perfect human souls could have lived on forever in their earthly paradise. How? By sustaining their human, material bodies with the natural food that Jehovah God there provided and by obediently nourishing their hearts and minds with the spiritual food that he provided when he talked to them out of the invisible. But God warned them that the human soul, despite its ability to live on earth forever by God’s provisions, was mortal, able to die. Genesis, chapter two, after describing God’s creation of the first human soul Adam, goes on to say: “And Jehovah God proceeded to take the man and settle him in the garden of Eden to cultivate it and to take care of it. And Jehovah God also laid this command upon the man: ‘From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.’” (Gen. 2:15-17, NW) If Adam the soul disobeyed God, then Adam the soul would die. If Adam the soul obeyed God and ate of all the trees in Eden except this forbidden one, then Adam the soul would continue living as long as his obedience kept up. This offered the opportunity for the human soul to live eternally, not in a spirit world, but in human perfection in the earthly paradise of Eden.

⁵⁶ When God pronounced the sentence of death upon Adam after he disobediently accepted some of the forbidden fruit from the hand of his wife and ate it, God said: “In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Gen. 3:17-19, NW) Note that God did not say to Adam, ‘Your body will return to the dust but your spirit will be freed from the body and will live on consciously in the unseen world where I dwell, because your spirit is immortal and I cannot destroy it.’ No, but God said, ‘You [not your body, but you, the soul] were taken from the ground and to the ground you will return, for you [the soul] are dust and to the dust you [the soul under death sentence] will return.’

⁵⁷ As a living soul Adam was just some animated, quickened, enlivened or vivified dust molded together in a man’s form, just the same as the other land animals. To put the death sentence into force God drove the man out of the paradise of Eden. Why? “Jehovah God went on to say: ‘Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad, and now in order that he may not put his hand out and actually take fruit also of the tree of life and eat and live forever,—’ With that Jehovah God put him out of the garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken [and to which he must now return]. And so he drove the man out and posted at the east of the garden of Eden the cherubs and the flaming blade of a sword that was turning itself continually to guard the way to the tree of life.” (Gen. 3:22-24, NW) God did not keep him away from the tree of life that Adam might die only as to his body but pass alive in spirit to a spirit world, beginning an immortal journey there, knowing more and being freer there and thus really benefiting by his having disobeyed his Creator and dying. God drove him out of the paradise of Eden away from the tree of life that the human soul Adam might not live at all anywhere but cease to exist, “positively die,” just the same as a brute beast.

58. How is Adam’s reported death at the age of 930 explained?

⁵⁸ Because he fell from human perfection, the human soul Adam lived many centuries even on the cursed ground outside the paradise of Eden. “Meanwhile he became father to sons and daughters. So all the days of Adam that he lived amounted to nine hundred and thirty years and he died.” (Gen. 5:4, 5, NW) On the very day that Adam sinned and God condemned him and drove him outside Eden’s paradise, Adam was dead from God’s viewpoint and so was dead in sin. He became a father of disobedience and produced sons of disobedience. For this reason the apostle Paul told the Christians: “You were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you at one time walked according to the system of things of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, the spirit that now operates in the sons of disobedience.” (Eph. 2:1, 2, 5, NW) From that standpoint, too, Eve as well as Adam was “dead though she [was] living.” (1 Tim. 5:6, NW) Now being dead in sin was not the full measure of death for Adam and Eve, but when they ceased to breathe and when the spirit or life-causing active force returned to God who gave it to them, then the first two human souls, Adam and Eve, died. Adam lived seventy years less than a thousand years. So, if we take the apostle Peter’s time measurement, “One day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet. 3:8), then Adam as well as Eve positively died “in the day” that he ate from the forbidden tree. He died in the first thousand-year day of humankind’s existence.

(To be continued in our next issue)

[Footnotes]

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Science has discovered what it calls “Ectoplasm.”

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Your horoscope

MON TUE WED THU

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OUIJA

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Spiritualism

1 Soul

The Nazis Bluffed, but Not the Witnesses

The Theory and Practice of Hell is a book giving an analytical report of Nazi concentration camps. It was a best seller for years in Germany, and in April, 1955, an English edition was published. Of particular interest to readers of The Watchtower is what it has to say in the chapter “The Categories of Prisoners” about Jehovah’s witnesses, among which is the following:

“On September 6, 1938, the SS [Nazi elite guards] offered the witnesses [at Buchenwald] the chance to abjure their principles in writing, especially their refusal to swear oaths and render military service, and thus purchase their liberty. Only a very few failed to withstand this temptation. The others were henceforth subjected to savage pressure in order to break their spirit. On Easter Sunday of 1939 the Roll Call Officer of Buchenwald made another effort to persuade the Witnesses to acknowledge ‘State and Fuehrer.’ The success was nil. On Whitsunday all the Jehovah’s Witnesses again had to fall in on the roll-call area. A speech was delivered to them, and a fearful period of fatigue drill followed. For an hour and a quarter the wretched men had to roll about, hop, crawl and run while the boots of the Block Leaders helped them along.

“When the war broke out the Witnesses at Sachsenhausen concentration camp were invited to volunteer for military service. Each refusal was followed by the shooting of ten men from their ranks. After forty victims had been killed, the SS desisted. In Buchenwald this appeal to the Witnesses was made on September 6, 1939. First Officer-in-Charge Rödl told them: ‘You know that war has broken out and that the German nation is in danger. New laws are coming into force. If anyone of you refuses to fight against France or England, all of you must die!’ Two SS companies with full equipment were drawn up by the gate house. Not a single Jehovah’s witness answered the officer’s appeal. There was a brief silence and then came the order: ‘Hands up! Empty your pockets!’ The SS men began to assault them, robbing them of their last penny—a reprisal that seemed rather grotesque in view of what might have been expected. True, the witnesses were assigned to the quarry and during this entire time were barred from hospital treatment.

“One cannot escape the impression that, psychologically speaking, the SS were never quite equal to the challenge offered them by Jehovah’s Witnesses.”

Questions From Readers

● Trinitarians point to John 20:28 as proof that Jesus is God. There Thomas said (NW): “My Master and my God!” How can this argument be answered?—F. W., Philippine Republic.

Jesus is a god. “God” means a strong one. Christ is called “The mighty God” at Isaiah 9:6, “a god” at John 1:1 (NW), and “the only-begotten god” at John 1:18 (NW). Jehovah is not the only god or strong one. The very fact that he is called the Almighty God indicates that there are other gods not so mighty, not almighty like him. So Thomas could call Jesus God, but not THE God, and three verses later Jesus is called “the Son of God,” as we read (NW): “But these have been written down that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and that, because of believing, you may have life by means of his name.” Joh 20:29-31 So there was no objection to John’s reporting that Thomas addressed Jesus as a deity, and certainly John does not say that Thomas’ address to Jesus was to make us believe that Jesus was The God, but says it was to make us believe Jesus was God’s Son. In this same chapter (Joh 20:17, NW) Jesus said: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God.” He was not ascending to himself.

But now the trinitarians will say Thomas used the Greek definite article “the” (ho) before “God,” proving he called Jesus The God. The article “the” is in the nominative case in the Greek, but the word “God” here is in the vocative case and of such A. T. Robertson says in his A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, on page 461: “The article with the vocative in address was the usual Hebrew and Aramaic idiom, as indeed in Aristophanes we have ho pais akoloúthei. It is good Greek and good Aramaic too when we have Abbá ho patér (Mark 14:36) whether Jesus said one or both. In Matthew 11:26 (nai, ho patér) we have the vocative. When the article is used, of course the nominative form must occur. Thus in Rev. 18:20 we have both together, ourané kai hoi hágioi. Indeed the second member of the address is always in the nominative form. Thus Kýrie, ho Theós, ho pantokrátor (Rev. 15:3). Compare John 20:28.” Page 462: “When Thomas said Ho kýrios mou kai ho theós mou (John 20:28), he gave Christ full acceptance of his deity and of the fact of his resurrection.” Page 466: “In John 20:28 Thomas addresses Jesus as ho kýrios mou kai ho theós, the vocative like those above. Yet, strange to say, Winer calls this exclamation rather than address, apparently to avoid the conclusion that Thomas was satisfied as to the deity of Jesus by his appearance to him after the resurrection. Dr. E. A. Abbott follows suit also in an extended argument to show that kýrie ho theós is the LXX way of addressing God, not ho kýrios kai ho theós. But after he had written he appends a note to p. 95 to the effect that ‘this is not quite satisfactory. For [John] xiii. 13 phonéite me ho didáskalos kai ho kýrios, and Rev. 4:11 áxios ei, ho kýrios kai ho theós hemón, ought to have been mentioned above.’ This is a manly retraction, and he adds: ‘John may have used it here exceptionally.’ Leave out ‘exceptionally’ and the conclusion is just. If Thomas used Aramaic he certainly used the article. It is no more exceptional in John 20:28 than in Rev. 4:11.”

So, since the use of the definite article was made before the form of address to anybody, Thomas’ use of the definite article does not force his use of God to mean The God, Jehovah. Jehovah was not begotten, but existed without beginning. But according to John 1:18 (NW) Christ was the only god or strong one directly begotten or created by Jehovah, however.

So Jehovah is The God; Jesus Christ is one of many who are called gods. Satan is called “the god of this system of things,” Moses was said to be as god to Pharaoh, and in the Psalms men are called gods, and Jesus referred to this and argued that hence the Jews should not say he blasphemed when he said he was God’s Son. And the apostle Paul said there are many called gods. But to argue that these many different ones called gods are, by virtue of this fact, The God Jehovah would be absurd. Similarly, it is absurd to try to argue that Thomas’ reference to Jesus as god proves Jesus is The God, and doubly so when just three verses later Jesus is identified as God’s Son.—2 Cor. 4:4, NW; Ex. 7:1; Ps. 82:6; John 10:35; 1 Cor. 8:5.

Incidentally, in view of the existence of so many called gods, does it not establish the need for The God, the Almighty God, to have a distinguishing name, that is, Jehovah?

Announcements

MAINTAINING SANCTITY FOR THEOCRATIC WARFARE—Deut. 23:14, NW.

The sacredness of the Christians’ spiritual warfare demands that each one who engages in it be clean and free from taint. Such personal sanctity will keep the servant of God from bringing reproach upon His name and cause. During the month of September Jehovah’s witnesses will busy themselves in carrying on the right contest of the faith by presenting to the people Bible study aids in the form of a bound book and a booklet on a contribution of 50c.

NEW WORLD TRANSLATION OF THE HEBREW SCRIPTURES, VOLUME II

The New World Translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, Volume II, sets forth in the clear living language of today the historical and prophetical account found in the inspired canonical books of First Samuel to Esther. It is new! Just published on June 22, 1955. You will want a copy. This is a volume for the keen student of the Scriptures as well as for those who read the Bible for comfort and spiritual uplift. Its copious chain and cross references, helpful maps and illustrations all combine to make this an outstanding edition, a necessary addition to your library. A copy will be sent to you on the contribution of $1.50.

NOTICE OF ANNUAL MEETING WATCH TOWER BIBLE AND TRACT SOCIETY

The Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society will hold its annual meeting of members on Saturday, October 1, 1955, at ten o’clock in the forenoon at the registered office of the Society, which is located at 4100 Bigelow Boulevard, corner of Parkman Avenue, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The members of the corporation will receive the usual letter of notice advising them of the meeting and sending them proxy forms. We should like to have all the proxies returned to the office of the secretary of the Society not later than the 15th of September. Each member should complete and return his proxy promptly whether he is going to be at the meeting personally or not. Members of the corporation should be certain that the secretary’s office has the proper addresses to which to mail the notices of the annual meeting.

“WATCHTOWER” STUDIES FOR THE WEEKS

October 2: What Do the Scriptures Say About “Survival After Death”? ¶1-21. Page 524.

October 9: What Do the Scriptures Say About “Survival After Death”? ¶22-40. Page 530.

October 16: What Do the Scriptures Say About “Survival After Death”? ¶41-58. Page 536.

Check Your Memory

After reading this issue of “The Watchtower,” do you remember—

✔ What proves optimism is not dead today? P. 515, ¶4.

✔ Why many people have turned to animal worship? P. 516, ¶6.

✔ What the difference is between wars of ancient Israel and those of today? P. 519, ¶2.

✔ What 1939 provision especially prepared Jehovah’s witnesses in ✔ Europe to withstand Nazi persecution? P. 520, ¶3.

✔ How Jehovah’s witnesses, outlawed in Nazi Germany, met in assemblies there? P. 521, ¶1.

✔ What modern scientists’ position is regarding spiritistic manifestations? P. 526, ¶9.

✔ What odd belief was the forerunner of the present practice of astrology? P, 529, ¶18.

✔ To what extent world leaders turn to astrologers? P. 530, ¶21.

✔ What view spiritualists have taken toward Jesus? P. 532, ¶28.

✔ What the human soul really is? P. 535, ¶38.

✔ How Jesus is a god, but not in the Trinitarian way? P. 543, ¶2.