opinion the origin of Jehovah-worship) among the
Israelites. We next criticised Mr. Spencer's efforts in the same quest,
and the more dogmatic assertions of Mr. Oxford and Stade. We now return to
Mr. Huxley's account of the evolution from ghost-cult to the cult of
Jehovah.

From the history of the Witch of Endor, which Mr. Huxley sees no reason to
regard as other than a sincere statement of what really occurred, he
gathers that the Witch cried out, 'I see Elohim.' These Elohim proved to
be the phantasm of the dead Samuel. Moved by this hallucination the Witch
uttered a veridical premonition, totally adverse to her own interests, and
uncommonly dangerous to her life. This is, psychically, interesting.
The point, however, is that _Elohim_ is a term equivalent to Red
Indian _Wakan_, Fijian _Kahu_, Maori or Melanesian _Mana_, meaning the
'supernatural,' the vaguely powerful--in fact X. This particular example
of _Elohim_ was a phantasm of the dead, but _Elohim_ is also used of the
highest Divine Being, therefore the highest Divine Being is of the same
genus as a ghost--so Mr. Huxley reasons. 'The difference which was
supposed to exist between the different Elohim was one of degree, not of
kind.'[17]

'If Jehovah was thus supposed to differ only in degree from the
undoubtedly zoomorphic or anthropomorphic "gods of the nations," why is it
to be assumed that he also was not thought to have a human shape?' He
_was_ thought to have a human shape, at one time, by some theorists: no
doubt exists on that head. That, however, is not where we demur. We demur
when, because an hallucination of the Witch of Endor (probably still
incompletely developed) is called by her _Elohim_, therefore the highest
_Elohim_ is said by Mr. Huxley to differ from a ghost only in degree, not
in kind. _Elohim_, or _El_, the creative, differs from a ghost in kind,
because he, in Hebrew belief, never was a ghost, he is immortal and
without beginning.

Mr. Huxley now enforces his theory by a parallel between the religion of
Tonga and the religion of Israel under the Judges. He quotes Mariner,[18]
whose statement avers that there is a supreme Tongan being: 'of his
origin they had no idea, rather supposing him to be eternal. His name is
Ta-li-y-Tooboo = "Wait-there-Tooboo."' 'He is a great chief from the top
of the sky down to the bottom of the earth.' He, and other '_original_
gods' of his making, are carefully and absolutely discriminated from the
_atua_,