Last week I talked some about the unsaved false prophets Joseph Smith and Ellen White. Smith is still widely known, but most people have never heard of Ellen White and for good reason. She made too many false prophecies. Basically, she was a con artist who used religion to make money instead of real estate, stocks or some other vehicle. She lived from 1827-1915 and was buried in Battle Creek, Michigan beside her husband. Her story's not overly interesting, but as least one part of it is very funny.
Her first big con, or at least the one that started her "prophetic" career, was perpetrated in 1846 on a retired ship's captain. White and her husband desperately needed money. At the time she had been trying to pass herself off as a prophet without much financial success. They needed a rich, gullible victim. Their target became Joseph Bates, a wealthy former captain who had a great interest in astronomy and had knowledge of current scientific facts of the solar system. The Whites finagled an invite to his home where Ellen fell into a "vision" during which she described the solar system in great detail. The captain was told afterward that she had no prior knowledge of the subject.
During the "vision" she said that Jupiter had 4 moons, Saturn had 7 moons and Uranus had 6 moons. Those and the "tall, majestic" aliens "so unlike the inhabitants of earth" she described living on one of the planets are all wrong. The figures of 4, 7 and 6 were the number of moons known in 1846 using primitive telescopes of the day. Today, we know that combined those planets have over 100 moons. White's astronomy "facts" likely came out of an encyclopedia, a source she was to use many times. That brings up the funny part.
Most prophets claim to predict the future. Ellen White claimed that, too, plus the ability to predict the past! Can you imagine someone seriously trying to predict something that has already happened? I think that's so funny. Even funnier or sadder is that people believed it. She put on a good show and eventually rigged her clothes to make it look like she wasn't breathing during her "trances". Maybe with a corset? That's interesting but off track. She would find some description in an encyclopedia and then "predict" that it had occurred in the past. As with the ship's captain, she would say she had no prior knowledge of the encyclopedia entry and act as amazed as everyone else at her accuracy.
Possibly her biggest blunder predicting the past involved the life of Martin Luther(1483-1546), the reformer. She made this incredible prophecy of some event in his life that was "verified" in an encyclopedia. It seemed amazing. There was one problem that was unknown at the time. That particular event never happened. There were various encyclopedia companies in the 1800s collecting entries for their books. They tried to check the factuality of the entries but didn't always get it right. The entry used for the Martin Luther event was from a paper that was used without proper verification. Fortunately for us, it only appeared in ONE set of encyclopedias. No other encyclopedia in history ever printed that event, because it never happened. Not only can it be proven that she lied, we know exactly how the false prophecy was invented.
Back to the ship's captain. He was skeptical before her "vision", but after that he became convinced and gave Ellen and her husband the money they'd been trying to squeeze out of him, and that's how her "prophetic" career took off.
And her burial location in Battle Creek, Michigan I mentioned? It involves one of her false prophecies. She prophesied that she would still be alive when Jesus returned. Oops! Just over a hundred years later she's still dead, and Jesus has not returned.
If you want to learn more about the con games, false prophecies and blasphemies of Ellen White, do a Google search for Ellen G. White false prophet. A bit of warning. In a massive blunder the Seventh Day Adventists, the "church" she helped start, printed all of her known writings in 1899, including personal letters. Because of that, it can be very hard to find a single page that lists all of her lies. Some have the false prophecies. Some have the blasphemies. Some are devoted to just one lie. Etc. There's simply too much information. The good news is that SDAs themselves published the information and cannot claim it to be the lies of someone else. Busted.
This page talks about her false vision(s) of Martin Luther. It doesn't explain the lone encyclopedia entry, though. It only mentions in passing that she pulled on resources available to her at the time. This has some of her predictions of the end of the world.
But anyway. Today's blog was inspired by an SDA who, after last week's blog, tried to tell me that Ellen White's writings are "edifying" to Christians. I'll let you be the judge of that one. :)
Just for the record, I'm not a Seventh Day Adventist and never have been. However, God did send me to one of their churches as a spiritual trial and for what I kind of look back on as missionary work. I'm not a missionary, but you might be. If you are and are looking for a tough mission field, you might want to consider the SDA "church". If what I've seen is representative, fewer than 5% of them are Christians. But I have to warn you. Ellen White is "Sister Ellen". She's quoted in their "church" just like the Bible and even above the Bible. Think of her as their Virgin Mary. Instead of Mother Mary, it's Sister Ellen. Same thing. Also, they will not listen to the Bible. If you read something out of the Bible in the plainest, simplest language possible but it contradicts one of their doctrines or Ellen White, it's like they physically can't hear it. Part of that is because the world can't receive things of the Spirit. Part of it it is because as a body they filter the Bible through their doctrines exactly like Mormons do.
I wouldn't go there unless you feel directly called by God to. Their doctrines are spiritual poison and nothing to be played with. You would be in immediate spiritual warfare and in Satan's territory behind enemy lines, although you will find a few stray sheep there who can't break free for whatever reason. The devil doesn't release his prisoners. My job there was to deliver a message that would have freed the sheep. Maybe I'll talk about that one day, but this blog is already too long.
Something SDAs will tell you is that Ellen White never claimed to be a prophet without telling you the actual quote. Here it is:
"During the discourse, I said that I did not claim to be a prophetess. Some were surprised at this statement, and as much is being said in regard to it, I will make an explanation. Others have called me a prophetess, but I have never assumed that title. I have not felt that it was my duty thus to designate myself. Those who boldly assume that they are prophets in this our day are often a reproach to the cause of Christ. "My work includes much more than this name signifies. I regard myself as a messenger, entrusted by the Lord with messages for His people" (Letter 55, 1905; quoted in Selected Messages, book 1, pp. 35, 36).
That's probably enough. Gotta run.
Ellen White wasn't a Christian, but any real Christian can deliver a message from God, of course. It goes along with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. If you're saved, God can speak through you without your knowing it. You may only realize in hindsight that you've said something from God that someone desperately needed to hear. It's not restricted to the guy behind the pulpit. :)
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