This is not written to convince any Jehovah’s Witness of the demonic origins of their beloved organization, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society. Rather, this is written to forewarn Christians as they encounter Jehovah’s Witnesses in their attempts to share the gospel. There are dark forces at play here. It is not simply that Jehovah’s Witnesses refuse to listen (though they do) but also that there are demonic forces we grapple with as we engage with them. This is a spiritual battle. Prayer is vital.

God knows how to reach the heart of men. No argument, no matter how sound, will reach a Jehovah’s Witness unless we have prayed first. I’ve seen the best of arguments fail and the simplest of questions succeed because God knows what will reach their heart and we do not. Trust in God and pray for the Holy Spirit to give you the words to speak.

As a Jehovah’s Witness, I sincerely believed we were serving God. We all believed we were more devout and far superior to those Christians who only attended church on Sunday. After all, we sacrificed ourselves by going out in the door-to-door ministry, knocking on strangers’ doors, in the heat of summer and the cold of winter, while Christians sat at home and only went to church on Sunday. Or so we thought. Oh! How superior we felt!

I would have been horrified to learn of the demonic origins of the Watchtower! I don’t know if I would have believed it if someone had told me. But if I had access to the earlier writings by Charles Taze Russell and had seen how the Watchtower attempted to acquire more books by Johannes Greber, the spirit medium, that would have convinced me. I would have needed to see the primary sources to believe it.

So here it is for you. Not word of mouth. Not opinion. But primary sources. You can examine the evidence for yourself, and if you feel led to share this with a Jehovah’s Witness, you will have the information at hand instead of having to scour the internet trying to find it.

Why Is This Important?

Many Jehovah’s Witnesses will say, “Why is this important? This is old history and happened before I was born! Why should I care?”

If the Watchtower merely made a mistake in citing Johannes Greber, that would be one thing. But the evidence shows that the organization repeatedly cited Greber’s translation over a period of years, even though information about his spiritistic practices was publicly available. Then, in 1983, the Watchtower acknowledged those spiritistic connections and ceased using his translation.

Why does this matter? Because Jehovah’s Witnesses claim that the Watchtower Organization is uniquely guided by Jehovah God and directed by His holy spirit. Christians, therefore, have a right to ask whether an organization claiming divine guidance should have relied on a translation produced by a man who openly attributed his work to communication with spirit entities.

This article is not an appeal to rumor, speculation, or secondhand accusations. The evidence comes from the Watchtower’s own publications. The following screenshots and quotations allow readers to examine the primary sources and reach their own conclusions.

Who Was Johannes Greber?

Johannes Greber was a former Catholic priest who became involved in spiritism during the 1920s. In 1937, he published a translation of the New Testament. According to Greber, spirit beings assisted him in his translation work. His book, Communication with the Spirit World of God, describes séances, spirit communication, and the role spirits played in producing his Bible translation. Greber wrote it after what he described as personal instruction from higher spiritual beings through trance mediums.

Johannes Greber documented in his book Communication with the Spirit World of God that the spirit entities he channeled taught him that Jesus is a created being.

This is significant because the Watchtower Society cited Greber’s translation on several occasions as support for its doctrinal positions. One of the Watchtower’s doctrinal positions is that Jesus is a created being. Later, however, the Watchtower acknowledged Greber’s connection with spiritism and stopped using his translation.

The following screenshots are taken from Watchtower publications and show the progression for yourself.

Evidence

Let’s look at some of these citations by the Watchtower where they quoted Greber:

As early as 1956 the Watchtower was familiar with the spiritist Johannes Greber as seen in this 1956 Wt. 2/15 pp. 108-121

This Watchtower quote and article are from 1956, so the Watchtower was well aware that Johannes Greber was a spiritist and former Catholic priest.

In this same article, in paragraph 16 we read: We do not have to dabble in spiritualism to find out whether those spirits with which this religion communicates are good or bad spirits. They are all bad spirits, for they are all acting out a lie, the way the “ruler of the demons,” Satan the Devil, did at his beginning in Eden. 

Johannes Greber says in the introduction of his translation of The New Testament, copyrighted in 1937: “I myself was a Catholic priest, and until I was forty-eight years old had never as much as believed in the possibility of communicating with the world of God’s spirits. The day came, however, when I involuntarily took my first step toward such communication and experienced things that shook me to the depths of my soul. My experiences are related in a book that has appeared in both German and English and bears the title, “Communication with the Spirit-World: Its Laws and Its Purpose.” (Page 15, ¶ 2, 3)

The September 15, 1962, p. 554 Watchtower quoted the rendering “the Word was a god” and identified the source in footnote as Johannes Greber’s 1937 New Testament translation.

The Watchtower, seeking to support its translation of John 1:1, cites Johannes Greber for support. Johannes Greber the former Roman Catholic priest who became a spirit medium. See the footnote.

In 1971, in the Aid to Bible Understanding, the Watchtower cited Johannes Greber’s translation of John 1:1 as support for rendering the phrase “the Word was a god.” At this point, Greber’s translation was being used as a supporting authority.

The following screenshot is from Aid to Bible Understanding (1971), p. 1669

Aid to Bible Understanding, 1971, p. 1669

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Watchtower, 1983, 4/1, pg. 31 Question from Readers

Why, in recent years, has The Watchtower not made use of the translation by the former Catholic priest, Johannes Greber?

This translation was used occasionally to support of renderings of Matthew 27:52, 53 and John 1:1, as given in the New World Translation and other authoritative Bible versions. But as indicated in the foreword to the 1980 edition of The New Testament by Johannes Greber, this translator relied on “God’s Spirit World” to clarify for him how he should translate difficult passages. It is stated: “His wife, a medium of God’s Spirit world, was often instrumental in conveying the correct answers from God’s Messengers to Pastor Greber.” The Watchtower has deemed it improper to make use of a translation that has such a close rapport with spiritism. (Deuteronomy 18:10-12) The scholarship that forms the basis for the rendering of the above-cited texts in the New World Translation is sound and, for this reason, does not depend at all on Greber’s translation for authority. Nothing is lost, therefore, by ceasing to use his New Testament. Questions From Readers — Watchtower ONLINE LIBRARY

The most damning piece of evidence is the letter the Watchtower wrote to Greber requesting more copies of his books, the New Testament and Contacting the Spirit World of God.

Letter from the Watchtower to the Johannes Greber Foundation, December 20,1980

Notice this was in 1980, and the Watchtower had already identified Greber as a spiritist!! Why is a religion that is supposedly following God, and being spiritual, consulting spiritistic books when they know this is displeasing to God?

The Watchtower Warns Against Spiritism

Throughout its long history, the Watchtower has repeatedly warned Jehovah’s Witnesses against spiritism. “Clearly, spiritism is condemned by the Scriptures, and no one who desires God’s approval can have any connection with it in any form.” Wt. Feb. 15, 1956, pp. 111-112 Article: “Triumphing Over Wicked Spirit Forces. https://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1956126

The Watchtower repeatedly warned Jehovah’s Witnesses to avoid spiritism because God condemns it. Yet it knew Johannes Greber was a spiritist and continued to cite his New Testament to support its rendering of John 1:1.

Why?

The answer seems obvious. Greber’s translation supported the Watchtower’s teaching that Jesus is “a god” rather than God. The fact that his translation allegedly came through spirit communication did not stop the organization from using it.

In 1983, the Watchtower quietly stopped citing Greber. What it did not abandon was the doctrine. The New World Translation still renders John 1:1 in essentially the same way Greber did.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are taught that the Watchtower Organization is directed by God’s Holy Spirit. If that is true, why did it rely on the work of a man it knew was involved in spiritism?

The question is not whether Johannes Greber was a spiritist. Even the Watchtower acknowledged that fact. The question is why an organization claiming divine guidance would use a spiritist’s work to support one of its most important doctrines.

Ask a Jehovah’s Witness: If a Christian author claimed spirits helped him translate the Bible, would the Watchtower quote him, use his translation to support doctrine, and request additional copies of his books? Of course not.

Yet that is exactly what the Watchtower did with Johannes Greber.

Origins matter.