<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

It Is Written

John Bradshaw

Dancing With the Devil

Coming up next, please stay tuned for It Is Written, presented by Pastor John Bradshaw.

If you go to a live performance at your local theater, you'll see a live orchestra, a musician maybe, a team of gymnasts, or a troupe of Shakespearean actors, something along those lines.

But if you were alive in the 1840s and sitting in the audience at a theater, you might have heard something a bit different.

You might have heard a mysterious knocking.

When the show began, you would have seen 2 young girls, Maggie and Kate Fox.

You'd have heard them speaking to and asking questions of no 1, it seemed.

Then you would have felt the silence in the room.

You'd have seen members of the audience leaning forward in their seats.

Maybe you too would have leaned forward, waiting for something to happen.

Then you would have heard what you came to hear.

Sounds of knocking that didn't appear to come from anywhere, that frankly seemed otherworldly, that spelled out messages or sometimes even rapped in the rhythm of well-known tunes of the time.

The Fox sisters claimed they were spirits.

The story of the Fox sisters begins in Hidesville, New York, where Maggie and Kate Fox lived as girls in a small home with their parents.

The home, they claimed, was haunted, and the girls often heard knockings on the walls.

They began to invite people over to the house to demonstrate what was happening.

As they did this, the girls began to gain notoriety.

Eventually they were invited to another home to see if the knockings would happen in other places.

Then the girls began to perform in halls and theaters.

Their popularity exploded and Maggie and Kate were then joined by their older sister Leah.

They took to the road, performing in cities all over the United States.

Everywhere they stopped, their seances drew people from all walks of life.

Why were people so enticed by the knocking sounds?

That's because what the Fox sisters offered was more than just a mere night's entertainment.

It was, they claimed, a glimpse, an open door to the other side.

Add to that the fact that the communications the sisters claimed to receive from the spirits of the dead often offered hope about the times.

Surely the combination of such encouraging messages, the intrigue of the supernatural, and the ability to communicate with those who had died sparked the interest of a generation.

And it was the Fox Sisters' performances, more than anything else, that galvanized what 1 historian has called 1 of the greatest religious movements of the 19th century, American Spiritualism.

This movement went beyond spirit wrappings and séances, though.

Another popular attraction at the time was mesmerism.

Mesmerism had been popular in the United States since the 1830s when Charles Poyen, a Frenchman who practiced animal magnetism or mesmerism, traveled to New England and began to give talks about his ability to heal illnesses by mesmerizing people, a practice initiated by a man named Anton Mesmer.

Poyen could, he claimed, put his patients in a sleep-like state or a trance and then make magnetic passes over the body with his hands.

These actions, he and others believed, would rebalance the magnetic forces that some scientists of the time thought were in the body.

Like the Fox sisters did later on, Poyen traveled around the United States giving demonstrations of mesmerism, and other mesmerists rose up to do the same.

Beyond the supposed powers of healing that practitioners of mesmerism said their art could bring to people, they also boasted that mesmerism allowed them to access people's minds and could enable individuals to act as mediums for spirits.

The stories of Charles Poyan and the Foxes show us that spiritualism had its big introduction and its heyday in the United States in the 19th century.

But it's important to note that it's nothing new.

In fact, it's been around since Bible times.

1 Samuel 28 tells the story of King Saul consulting a medium.

It happened after he realized that the Philistine army was gathering to attack Israel, and no matter how much he prayed and asked for help from prophets, the Lord God would not give him an answer.

In his desperation, he went to see a witch in a place called Endor, asking her to raise up the prophet Samuel, who had died so that Samuel could give Saul advice.

The visit did not end up helping Saul though.

He just received the message he'd already received, that God had taken his kingdom from him and it would be given to David.

Shortly after this meeting, Saul died in battle and everything happened as the Lord said it would.

The long shadow of spiritualism reaches into more modern times as well.

It's well known, for example, that former First Lady Nancy Reagan sought the advice of an astrologer named Joan Quigley throughout her husband Ronald Reagan's presidency in the 1980s.

And today, we only need to look to popular television to see the influence of spiritualism on our culture.

You can think of numerous television programs which include spells and witchcraft and sorcery, communication with the dead, and so on.

In fact, in the 21st century, spiritualism has become even more brazen than ever before, with television programs even discussing Satan as a character, making him sympathetic to his viewers.

About participating in seances, consulting mediums, or being involved with witchcraft in any way.

The Bible is very clear about these practices.

In Leviticus 19.31, God says, "...give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits.

Do not seek after them, to be defiled by them." Deuteronomy 18.10-12 says, "...there shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or 1 who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or 1 who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or 1 who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or 1 who calls up the dead.

For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord.

And in the New Testament, Paul declares in Galatians 5 that those who practice idolatry and sorcery will not inherit the kingdom of God.

In accordance with what the Bible says, we should avoid seances and witchcraft because we know that if we do these things, we would be dancing with the devil.

But did you know there are more subtle forms of spiritualism that are all around us in this day and age?

We'll talk about those when we come back in just a moment.

Spiritualism, witchcraft, and communication with the dead have become mainstream in today's society.

What does the Bible teach us about these topics?

Our free offer today is Charmed by the Supernatural.

To receive this free DVD call 800-253-3000 or visit us online at www.iiwoffer.com.

Know what the Bible says about the supernatural.

Call 800-253-3000 or visit www.iiwoffer.com.

Going to see a clairvoyant or consulting a Ouija board are obvious, in-your-face forms of spiritualism.

But there are plenty of practices today that may seem harmless, but are actually spiritualistic in nature.

Some of these even Christians practice, with the justification that they can bring 1 closer to God.

Among these practices are the use of crystals for healing and yoga for exercise and meditation.

I spoke with a young woman raised in the Santeria religion, really that's voodoo, and I asked her about her experiences and her insights into the occult.

So tell me, in your experience the occult is very real.

You were involved as a younger person in Santeria, which it's called voodoo in Haiti, so that's very much witchcraft.

What were the sorts of experiences that you had?

The way that it was practiced in my family was considered white magic.

And so it was for protection or for trying to gain things.

I had a lot of demonic presence around me.

At the time, I didn't know there were demonic presence most of the time, but I saw a lot of shadows.

I had encounters with just general tormenting.

If I understand your story correctly, it was somebody who for years stood at the end of your bed while you slept.

When I say somebody, this wasn't a somebody, this was a demon.

And did you feel protected while this demonic presence was there?

I was told that he was there to protect me, but never have I ever felt protected.

As a matter of fact, I slept with the sheets over my head because I was so scared of them.

The devil has his hand in all of those things when you read the Bible.

There's no way that you can make something that's evil good.

So as somebody who was deeply involved in the occult, do you see evidence of it around you in society today?

Back to Menu

Dancing With the Devil

Transcript

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Five Women Who Changed the World

28m

Star Wars

1. The Birth of the Controversy

29m

Predictions You Can Trust

28m

A Day to Remember

28m

Lessons for All Time: The Wheat and the Tares

28m

Last Day Events

Mainstream Spiritualism

1h 1m

Antichrist: The One You've Never Known

Antichrist, Episode 6: Revealed

38m

We Believe

We Believe - Who is God? Part 1

52m

Seedtime and Harvest

28m

Philosophy's Achilles Heel

Troubling News of Hope

29m

The Final Call

2- The Savior’s Solution

54m

The Gospel Will Prevail

49m

Sound Doctrine