The New Black Magic - And the Truth About the Ouija-Board #262333

Of some member of a family or community has been intimated to some distant member by an ap parently objective though fugitive appearance of the deceased. We have records of phenomena of this kind in the history of the lives of the saints and martyrs, and the Catholic Church has never denied their reality. On the con trary, she has maintained that reality when a skeptical world denied and ridiculed them. But she has also maintained that, since such phe nomena may emanate from different sources, and since those produced by the act of God may be imitated by the enemy of God, it is not possible to speak dogmatically respecting them. She has, as a rule, tested their aim and character by the Apostolic test (see p. Or by their effects, moral and splritual, upon the life of the per cipient. She — has always discouraged any seek ing after them, and any attempt to regard their occurrence as an 1ndication of a peculiar state of sanctity. In any case, it will be seen that such phenomena have nothing in common and can not be said to be identical with those which are invoked and induced, for which a circle has to be formed, for which a medium is employed, and for which favorable conditions have to be cre ated. It is with such phenomena alone that this.