The Lucifer Connection

By Joseph Carr
 Contents

Introduction
1 - A "New Age" ... Or An Old Lie?
2 - Born Again And Again? Reincarnation and the Law of Karma
3 - Occultism - Gateway To The New Age
4 - Playing On The Streets Of Babylon
5 - Visualization - Christian Or Occultic?
6 - Modern Psychology - Renaming The Old Demons?
7 - Drugs, Hypnotism And The New Age
8 - Flight To Lucifer
9 - Toward One World Religion - The Bottom Line Of The New Age
10 - What Should Christians Do?
11 - "... And Who Do You Say I Am?"
References and Chapter Notes
 Introduction
Arlington County, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. together
form the 10-mile square allowed by the U.S. Constitution for
the nation's capital. Although long ago ceded back to
Virginia, Arlington was Washington's western bedroom
community during my childhood years.
My old neighborhood (Madison Manor/Dominion Hills) is a
couple dozen or so blocks of two-story colonials and single-
story ramblers built right after World War II to house the
flood of families started by returning veterans.
The neighborhood was bounded on the north by Four Mile
Run Creek (now Interstate 66) and on the south by Wilson
Boulevard. At the southwest corner of the neighborhood,
across Wilson Boulevard from the big water tower, was an
estate that local gossip claimed was once the home of
actress Audrey Meadows. A block or two down Wilson was
the Kern Estate.
Oddly, the ideas for two of my Christian books came from
famous persons who lived in or very near the old
neighborhood. The Twisted Cross (Huntington House) was
inspired in part by American neo-Nazi George Lincoln
Rockwell. Although he started his irrational career in another
neighborhood on the other side of the county, he ended up
in Dominion Hills.
When author Alex Haley (of Roots fame) interviewed
Rockwell, it was probably at the Kern Estate, which the
Nazis rented. One day in 1967, George Lincoln Rockwell
went to do his own laundry at the coin-operated laundromat
in the Dominion Hills Shopping Center less than a block
from his headquarters. As the Nazi leader turned to exit his
car on the driver's side, two shots from an 1896 Mauser
"Broomhandle" pistol rang out and Rockwell fell dead onto
the parking lot blacktop.
It turned out later that Rockwell was murdered by one of his
own "storm troopers" who had hidden on the roof behind
the laundromat sign. Even today, more than 20 years later,
local Nazis occasionally stencil paint a foot-high swastika on
the spot where Rockwell died. Although the shopping center
management routinely paints out the swastikas, they always
reappear within a few weeks.
The other neighborhood personality is actress Shirley
Maclaine. Local gossip also told us that she grew up in that
neighborhood and graduated from Washington-Lee High
School a mile or so away. I know several W-L alumni who
followed Shirley Maclaine's career with keen interest, even
though she went through the place a decade earlier than us.
Although I no longer have favorite actors or actresses, it is
still easy to induce me to watch a Shirley MacLaine movie ...
I suppose I am still a fan.
Recently, Shirley MacLaine has become a leading New Age
advocate. In that role, she was an inspiration for this present
book. Maclaine's books, Out On A Limb and Dancing In
The Light, form the statement of her spiritual odyssey ...
and have influenced millions of readers. On January 18-19,
1987 ABC-TV aired a heavily publicized five-hour mini-
series based on Out On A Limb. With that telecast, many
millions more were exposed to seemingly congenial New
Age spiritual teachings that are eternally fatal.
Television is such an influential medium that scores of
millions of people who would otherwise not pay any
attention at all to the alluring blandishments of the New Age
are now wondering if perhaps there is something to these
"new" ideas.
Because of Shirley MacLaine's widespread influence, the
collective influence of other New Agers and the ultimate
importance of the questions they raise, I have decided to
write this book. My task is to counter some of the claims of
the New Age, especially the doctrine of reincarnation and
the Law of Karma.
Joseph J. Carr Arlington, Virginia
~~~~~~~
 1 - A New Age? ... Or an Old
Lie?
The New Age Movement is the fastest growing, most
significant challenge to the Church today. It looms larger
than Secular Humanism because it provides something that
Humanism lacks: while retaining Humanism's insistence that
man is the measure of all things, it also awakens and
nurtures a fundamental religious impulse. It is widespread,
worldwide, powerful, seductively alluring and openly
Luciferic.
Most New Agers profess a Western variant of Hinduism and
other Eastern religions. New Age mysticism is rapidly
becoming the cozy religion of the young, upwardly mobile
urban professionals ("Yuppies").
The New Age Movement offers them a mystical religion that
draws heavily on Eastern religions, the Western Esoteric
Tradition (old-fashioned occultism) and 19th-century
evolution science. The New Age claims that all religions are
equally valid and all are merely different paths back to God.
Thus, it is congenial to both the eclectic sophisticates and
simpler folk for whom churchianity has somehow failed.
A key New Age doctrine is that humans are divine, i.e., we
are gods. This heretical idea is now even being taught by
once-orthodox Christian leaders, including a few radio-TV
evangelists. Clearly, the New Age Movement has deeply
infiltrated the Church. According to New Age teaching, our
divinity is suppressed in the muck of physical reality. This
divinity must be rediscovered through the Quest and is the
underlying purpose behind evolution. The awakening of our
divinity awareness is called "self-realization." The variant
taught by Christian heretics is a little different but merely
says in different words the same thing that Lucifer said to
Eve (Genesis 3).
Another New Age heresy (that also infests the Church) is the
idea that we can affect physical reality by our thoughts and

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words. Proponents of this view claim that we can take
psychic dominion over the earth and all of the forces of
nature. Although some proponents fail to inform us how
that mammoth achievement is possible, others are not so
bashful: we become manifest sons of God, hence gods
ourselves.
Dare we say it? We become fully self-realized. Their teaching
is not that God answers prayers and works miracles (a
concept that all Christians accept) but, rather, that our words
themselves have a hidden power that anyone with the right
key can tap.
Whether taught by a New Ager or a Christian pastor, these
doctrines are always wrong ... and ultimately deadly.
Dave Hunt and T.A. McMahon remind us in their book The
Seduction of Christianity (1) that the proper technical names
for these doctrines are "shamanism" and "sorcery." When
Christians teach these doctrines to their flock, they are in
essence poisoning the Communion cup.
The New Age Movement is no mere cult: it is worldwide and
consists of many cults, many different groups, several non-
Christian religions and many different people who share
certain metaphysical ideas and experiences. The movement
has spiritual, cultural and political agendas that are openly
anti-Christian, mystical and Luciferic.
Some Christians believe that the New Age Movement is the
movement predicted in scripture. (2) That claim may be true
but I fear that the Church will focus on such romantic
aspects of the movement and lose sight of a more important
issue. Namely, the New Age Movement is both alluring to
spiritually minded people and eternally fatal to those who
drink too long from its poisoned well.
Acceptance of the New Age theology leads one to
damnation. Because of this fact, the proper perspective for
the Church is to view the New Age Movement as a
compelling evangelistic opportunity, a fertile missions field
and a challenge to rise to our responsibilities under the Great

2
Commission.
Many New Age doctrines grew out of the "Western Esoteric
Tradition" which has existed as an occultic underground in
the West for more than 1,500 years. These ideas were
developed further, married to Hindu and Buddhist ideas and
then cast in a pseudo-scientific mold during the Occult
Revival of the late 19th century.
The principal agents in this effort were Madame Helena
Petrovna Blavatsky (called "HPB" by her followers) and her
fellow Theosophists. It is not unreasonable to call theosophy
a New Age brick in the western wall of Mystery Babylon, for
theosophy forms the basis for most New Age groups. If you
examine the doctrines and world views of those groups,
especially those of a more outwardly religious persuasion,
then you will find more than a few of the elements of
theosophical doctrine.
I once attended a day of lectures at a New Age retreat center
near Baltimore, Maryland. One speaker summed his points
up by explaining what was meant by the coming "New Age"
and then enthusiastically concluded with a statement that
should chill Bible-believing Christians: "... it all started in
Babylon, folks!"
The New Age Movement is a descendant of the Babylonian
Mystery Religion. Indeed, it rapidly becomes apparent that
there is nothing new in the New Age Movement, it is the
same old harlot, Mystery Babylon. What the New Age
Movement has done is given her some fresh make-up and a
new dress. Madame Blavatsky was the seamstress who cut
the pattern for the harlot's new dress.
Blavatsky's theosophy is a uniquely Western treatment of the
Eastern religious doctrines derived ultimately from the
ancient mystery religions. Those same ideas filtered from
ancient Babylon to the East (especially India) and to the
West (through Persian Zoroasterism and Manicheanism) into
Europe. The ancient heresy became the gnostic Cathar
religion of Europe (among others) but then went
underground for centuries because of a hostile Church.

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The Eastern and Western threads of this same tradition,
modified by time and circumstance, met in theosophy
during the Occult Revival. It is thus not surprising to find -
theosophical groups leading the way to the reappearance of
"the Christ" in the form of a demon named Lord Maitreya
(see Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow, by Constance
Cumbey).
Cumbey wrote that this movement meets the biblical tests
for the antichrist of prophecy. Regardless of whether you
agree with Constance Cumbey, it is essential that you see
the historical, doctrinal and philosophical basis of the
movement: souls are at stake.
The rawest and most gruesome expression of theosophical
ideas was the crimes committed by the Nazi SS during the
Holocaust. (3) Adolf Hitler's "Final Solution to the Jewish
problem" was derived directly from his theosophical
(metaphysical) beliefs. When the men of the SS slaughtered
innocent Jews in the death camps, they were merely acting
on logical conclusions drawn from the teachings of
theosophy: the Law of Karma, reincarnation, the doctrine of
races and so forth. Those very ideas, which propelled SS
troopers to unparalleled barbarity, are at the very heart and
core of the New Age Movement!
No one would claim that Shirley MacLaine and other New
Agers are Nazi storm troopers. But they should be aware
that the very same doctrines that they hold so dear are at
the base of Naziism. The New Age Movement and Naziism
are merely different branches on the same theosophical tree
and it is a tree that is rotten to the core ... even though
apparently healthy on the outside.
Is It A Conspiracy?
Some Christian leaders claim that the New Age Movement is
a worldwide conspiracy. Others claim that the movement is
totally unorganized, i.e. that it is merely a state of mind. Still
others claim that the movement doesn't even exist (a
position that is now so absurd as to not require comment).
Some people sneer that Constance Cumbey, Dave Hunt and

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the others draw too much from the old discredited
"Illuminati" theories of world conspiracy. We can dispose of
that charge by pointing out that Cumbey and Hunt publicly
ridicule such theories. Only a casual, uncritical reading of
their works yields such a viewpoint.
The second point against the most severe critics of Cumbey
and Hunt is their almost universal use of the argument ad
hominem. The critics have a knee-jerk reaction against all
conspiracy theories, against any attack of their own possibly
heretic views and anyone who would rock their comfortable
boat. To those people, Cumbey is just a wild, weird, loony
lady with a strange theory.
Dave Hunt? After his book The Seduction of Christianity
became a bestseller, they can't even give Hunt the benefit of
honorable doubt. What the critics fail to do, however, is
examine the claims of Cumbey and Hunt to see if they are
correct. Constance Cumbey and Dave Hunt have no magical
sources of information available to them alone. Both writers
did substantial research and left both text references and
footnotes that allow any scholar -- or lay person with a brain
and a little energy -- to follow the same trails to see if they,
indeed, lead where the writers claim. The proper response to
the claims of Cumbey and Hunt is deep research, dialogue
and open debate, to see whether they are right.
As to whether it is a conspiracy, we must note that the
movement itself uses the word "conspiracy." One of the
most blatant public statements of New Age plans and goals
is Marylin Ferguson's The Aquarian Conspiracy. (4) It is
demonstrable that the New Age Movement is interconnected
through the phenomena of networking. The movement itself
boasts of its widespread network of networks, many of
which have interlocking memberships and leadership.
By using the correct code words and acceptance of
common ideas, the network gains immense flexibility, near
invulnerability and it functions almost like a living organism.
Damage to the network, such as the Jim Jones "People's
Temple" murder/suicide fiasco, can be easily repaired by

5
disowning the embarrassing group. Before Jones' bad press,
they were listed in New Age directories as a "Christian
socialist New Age community;" afterwards they were quickly
labelled "Christian fundamentalist."
When a knot in the network becomes unravelled, all the
movement needs to do is excise the offending portion and
join the loose ends together. If extensive networking
demonstrates conspiracy, then the New Age Movement is a
self-admitted conspiracy.
A major problem for those who automatically reject
conspiracy theories is their inability to see a hard
organizational structure. Unfortunately, as mere humans, we
tend to see things in human terms. When confronted with
something like the New Age Movement, we fail to remember
that it is Luciferian -- and if Lucifer is in charge, then the
movement doesn't need either a headquarters building with
an address that the post office can find or a set of registered
corporate bylaws.
Lucifer can operate on the spiritual level to influence and
guide the conspiracy without there being a headquarters on
earth or a wicked group of human conspirators at the head.
A classical conspiracy has a head that can be cut off,
thereby neutralizing the organization. But a collective of
networks does not suffer that liability. Thus, New Age
organization -- or lack of it -- is a diabolically clever security
measure that ensures the longevity of the movement.
The evidence for a worldwide conspiracy, a loose
confederation of mystics who think and act alike, is
compelling and strong. Although I cannot see a classical
"Illuminati" type of organization and probably nonesuch
exists, there is definitely a Luciferian spiritual conspiracy
afoot ... and hopefully before too long we will know what
New Agers mean when they refer to "The Plan."
At present, some New Age leaders are hoping to change the
name of the movement. A leading New Age teacher told me
two years ago that the term had outlived its usefulness.
Given that the conversation was on the effects of Cumbey's

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first book, I suspect that the effort to change the name
(hence the identity) of the movement was, at least in part,
due to Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow. I suspect that at
least part of the New Age Movement will submerge
underground in the near future, only to re-emerge a short
time later in the guise of something else pretending to be
sacred.
~~~~~~~

7
 2 - Born Again and Again?
Reincarnation and the Law of Karma
A new religious movement is taking over and transforming
our society. Actress Shirley Maclaine is now one of its most
prominent followers and most articulate popular spokesman.
It is called the New Age Movement and it can claim more
than 60 million followers in the United States alone (many
millions more follow the movement worldwide). It has been
called the emerging Yuppie religion. Shirley MacLaine puts
forth the story of her conversion to the New Age in her book
Out On A Limb (1) and follows up with a more detailed
treatment of her belief in reincarnation in Dancing In The
Light. (2)
There are three streams in the modern New Age Movement:
Eastern religions, the Western Esoteric Tradition and
Darwinian evolution theory. The Eastern religions at the
base of the New Age are Zen, Buddhism and especially
Hinduism. The Western Esoteric Tradition is occultism as
expressed in gnosticism, Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry and
other movements in European culture over the centuries.
The evolution theories of Charles Darwin are congenial to
the New Age Movement. There is such startling similarity
between ancient variants of New Age thinking and evolution
theory that one can but wonder if the popular view of
Darwin represents the real Darwin. It would be interesting to
research his life to determine if there are traces of Eastern
religions or Western occultism present.
According to New Age thinking, man is evolving from non-
human and non-animal origins towards a superhuman being
-- and eventually godhood. By following New Age
disciplines man can, according to this theory, hurry his
ascent up the evolutionary ladder to godhood. It appears
that only the end point of man differs between New Age and
Darwinian theory.
Perhaps the most famous proponent of New Age theories,

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especially its evolution aspects, was Adolf Hitler. Even some
New Agers admit that Hitler was a brother who went bad. I
detail Hitler's occultic religion in my book The Twisted
Cross. (3) Hitler's murder of the Jewish people came directly
from those occultic beliefs, the very same beliefs that are
taught today in the New Age Movement!
The most hideous aspect of the Holocaust, during which 6
million Jews were killed, was that it was merely a racial
cleansing action. Like other New Agers, the Nazis believed
that humankind would evolve through a series of seven
"Root Races" of which the misnamed "Aryan" man (white
northern Europeans) was the fifth. (4) They believed that
Aryan man was going to make an evolutionary leap to the
sixth Root Race, called Ubermensche (superman). Today's
New Agers call the same being Homo Noeticus and still
await the coming global leap of consciousness. Remnants of
earlier Root Races, mostly the Jews, were said to be guilty
of trying to prevent the leap to Superman by tainting racial
blood lines. Thus, the SS man salved his conscience as he
killed innocent Jews and gypsies by thinking that he was
involved in race cleansing -- something like vermin control
(evolution is a very powerful theory!).
The SS man also took comfort in believing that he was
ultimately helping those Jews he killed! They believed in
reincarnation and the Law of Karma, so they felt they helped
the Jews work off some "bad racial karma" through
suffering a violent death. Thus, that Jewish soul could
reincarnate into a higher -- perhaps Aryan -- body next time
around.
Reincarnation and the Law of Karma was a principal Nazi
doctrine and is now a principal New Age doctrine. In fact,
the main teachings that make a group "New Age" are the
twin doctrines of Reincarnation and the Law of Karma.
Although there are exceptions, a group is not fully New Age
unless it accepts those two watershed Hindu doctrines. The
doctrines of reincarnation and karma cannot be separated
either from each other or from the New Age Movement. If
any single religious doctrine glues the New Age together it is

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this: it forms the linchpin of the entire movement.
Reincarnation is the doctrine that holds that the soul is
immortal and spends its time in eternity being born into
physical bodies, living on Earth and then dying to return to
the spirit realm for a period of rest. During the rest period,
the soul undergoes recuperation and reflection on the
experiences and lessons learned during previous lifetimes on
Earth. The word "incarnation" implies "in the flesh" or "in
the physical body" so reincarnation doctrine implies that the
soul repeatedly enters physical bodies on earth.
The doctrine of reincarnation came into our modern Western
culture via two routes: Eastern religions (such as Hinduism
and Buddhism) and the Western Esoteric Tradition. The
theosophy movement in the 19th century synthesized a
modified system that blended those two traditions with a
crude understanding of evolution science. From those
beginnings sprang both the New Age Movement ... and
Naziism.
Modern reincarnation doctrine is related to the
metempsychosis (change of souls) doctrine of the Hellenic
Greeks and the Hindu doctrine of Transmigration of Souls.
In the Hindu version, a soul may reincarnate into the body
of either an animal or a human. Whether one goes up or
down the order of Creation depends upon one's actions in
the past life. Western reincarnation reflects Western values,
however, so in the Western view souls only reincarnate into
human bodies.
The Law of Karma inevitably tags along with reincarnation.
Karma has been called the "Law of the Universe without a
Lawgiver;" it is also called "The Law of Cause and Effect"
by Theosophists. The Law of Karma maintains that each
soul earns its present condition on this earth through its
actions in past lives. Karma operates automatically and
mercilessly keeping a kind of cosmic balance sheet of good
deeds balanced by bad deeds. In the narrow calculus of
Karma, good deeds (variously defined) and suffering are
needed to balance the bad deeds of past lifetimes. If a

10
person commits an evil deed in this lifetime, then he or she
will be reincarnated into a lower state in the next lifetime
(possibly nonhuman).
Reincarnationists insist that justice is the essence of the Law
of Karma. After all, they insist, a soul reaps only what it
sows. Ultimately, when the "karmic debt" is finally paid, the
soul rejoins the Source (also called "God" and "Cosmic
Consciousness") and no longer needs to reincarnate. The
journey has supposedly taken as little as 43 years and as
long as 2 million years.
History
The doctrine of reincarnation has been the fond hope of
mankind for more than 2,000 years. It appeared among the
Hindus sometime prior to 300 B.C. but it is uncertain how
early it was known. Some supporters of the doctrine claim
that Buddha taught reincarnation around 500 B.C. It is
certain the traces of the doctrine are known as early as
Buddha and some speculation is permissible for a date of
700 B.C.
Western reincarnationists sometimes attempt to force a date
much earlier than what is provable, however. Buddhism,
which is a religion that evolved from Hinduism, also taught
reincarnation from very early in its history, even though it is
not known for sure whether Gautama Buddha himself taught
it.
When reincarnation appeared among the Greeks (as
Metempsychosis), it was taught in the ancient Mystery
Schools; Socrates (fourth century B.C.) called reincarnation
"... that ancient doctrine."
Under the Roman Empire, reincarnation doctrine spread
throughout the Mediterranean world. It was taught by the
Stoics and Neo-Platonists in the Greco-Roman world and by
the Essenes in the Jewish world. As Western Europe passed
through the Dark Ages into the Middle Ages, the torch of
reincarnation passed to the Hermetic Schools, the Cathari
and other gnostics; the Knights Templar were said to harbor

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reincarnationist doctrines, contrary to the doctrine of their
parent Roman Catholic Church.
During the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Ages of
Reason and Enlightenment, Western interest in reincarnation
was at a low point. Although its popularity waned in the
West, reincarnation remained an underground thread in our
culture. When Europeans started traveling to the East in
great numbers during the 17th and 18th centuries, they
returned with increased interest in the religions of those
nations.
The root of modern Western reincarnation doctrine is found
in the 19th century. Three threads of mystical philosophy
are found in the last century:
* The rise of American Transcendentalism (Thoreau,
Emerson and others),
* The formation of the Theosophical Society by H.P.
Blavatsky and others and
* The arrival of Hindu missionaries in the West
(Ramakrishna Mission and Swami Vivekananda) during and
after the Parliament of World Religions (1893).
Today, reincarnation is so deeply rooted in American culture
that studies show as many as 40 percent of us either believe
in reincarnation or at least admit its possibility. At a recent
world Hindu meeting, a leader proclaimed that their mission
to the West has been successful and that "Christianity is on
the decrease."
Is Reincarnation Christian?
Reincarnationists insist that belief in multiple lifetimes is
compatible with Christian doctrine. They claim that either:
* The Bible now implicitly teaches reincarnation
or
* The Bible once explicitly taught reincarnation but was
altered by the church. People who believe that scripture

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teaches reincarnation have a few favorite passages but must
torture meanings to "prove" their point. Reincarnationists
who teach that the church expunged reincarnation from the
Bible like to point to these same scripture verses as
evidence that the evil deed was not thorough and those
verses represent residual reincarnationist doctrine.
Several questions and statements about reincarnation
present themselves. First, of course, is why would the
church want to expunge any given doctrine? From a purely
functional point of view, what did it matter to the church
fathers whether they preached reincarnation or resurrection?
There is no reason to favor one over the other, unless one is
true and the other is false.
The suppressed doctrine theory maintains that early church
fathers scrapped manuscripts of the Bible that contain
reincarnationist writings. There was also supposedly an early
church council that intentionally deleted reincarnation from
its creed. Some reincarnationists claim that editions of the
"true" Bible (with reincarnation included) are on deposit in
the Vatican library, where they are jealously guarded by a
priesthood that does not want us to know the truth. There
are even former priests who claim to have seen the
manuscripts, although no copies are ever smuggled out to a
waiting world.
There are more than a few problems with the claims of
"Christian" reincarnationists. Regarding the "altered Bible"
thesis, one has to wonder how a church, especially one that
was disorganized before the fourth century A.D. and
factionalized afterwards, could manage such a feat. The
Greco-Roman world was flooded with copies of both Old
and New Testament scriptures, so much so that suppressing
a valid doctrine would be very difficult -- and probably
impossible.
An "altered Bible" theory dismisses the Christian claim that
God protected the Bible and its translations over the
centuries. What an inept god the reincarnationist worships!
He is capable of creating the universe (although some New

13
Age teachers claim that His incompetence is proved by the
Creation, which they regard as a mistake) but is powerless
to prevent some silly pope from obliterating the doctrine of
reincarnation from the earthly records of His effort. Such
assertions stand precariously at the edge of a logical chasm
too broad for the healthy mind to leap!
The record of proof regarding the supposed secret church
councils similarly requires an act of immense misplaced
faith. No record, no hint, no eyewitness account of such a
council is presented -- only the assertion that it did, indeed,
occur; some people claim that it was the Council of Nicea.
(5)
The shroud of secrecy surrounding the council is cited as
evidence that no evidence is possible. After all, if the
proceedings were secret, then one would not expect to find
proof of its existence. A superficial examination makes such
a claim seem attractive but it soon falls of its own weight. In
the first instance, no church-wide council can remain totally
secret for long; especially a council that is dealing with a
basic doctrinal tenet that appears in thousands of scripture
manuscripts.
There are always either dissenters who spread the tale or the
indiscrete whose carelessness lets word go abroad. In the
second instance, if such a council were so secret that it left
no discernible record, then how can they be so sure that it
actually took place?
There are certain events in church history that might be
erroneously construed as suppression of reincarnation
doctrine. The church did, in fact, select certain manuscripts
for inclusion in the Canon of Scripture. Selection of some
manuscripts implies rejection of others. The documents that
were rejected included both non-canonical Christian texts
(which were doctrinally acceptable works but failed the tests
of canonicity) and also the works of gnosticism and other
competing religions. Some of the latter documents did
teach reincarnation but they could not be regarded as
"removed" from the Bible because they were never in it in

14
the first place!
The above argument also applies to the "Vatican Library
Bibles" that allegedly teach reincarnation and the Law of
Karma. It is likely that an institution as old as the Roman
Catholic Church and its Vatican would have collected a large
number of ancient manuscripts both from Christian and
non-Christian sources. Those manuscripts probably exist,
but were not "Bible" manuscripts, rather were of gnostic
origin.
You can go to almost any bookstore and certainly any New
Age bookstore and obtain some of these ancient
manuscripts reprinted in modern form: The Lost Books of
the Bible, (6) The Book of Enoch, (7) The Lost Books of
Adam and Eve and various pseudepigraphic works, many of
which are contained in the scholarly work The Nag
Hammadi Library (8) (and discussed in Elaine Pagels' The
Gnostic Gospels) (9). Again, those books were not removed
from the Bible at all ... they were rejected as scripture by the
Church in the fourth century.
There are also claims among New Agers that Jesus himself
taught reincarnation and other secret doctrines. They
sometimes cite Matthew 13:10-13 as evidence:
"And the disciples came and said to Him, 'why do you
speak to them in parables?' And He answered and said to
them, 'to you it has been granted to know the mysteries of
the kingdom of Heaven but to them it has not been granted.
For whoever has, to him shall more be given and he shall
have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what
he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore 1 speak to
them in parables; hearing they do not hear, nor do they
understand' " [NASB].
This passage is alleged to be Jesus telling the disciples that
they are privy to a secret doctrine that is not available to the
general public; an idea that has been popular with initiation
cults for millenia. Reincarnationists who tout the Matthew
passage tend to ignore John 18:20, which says:

15
"Jesus answered him, 'I have spoken openly to the world; I
always taught in Synagogues and in the Temple, where all
the Jews come together; and I spoke nothing in secret' "
[NASB].
One reincarnationist whom I challenged with John 18:20
retorted that the verse was Jesus' response during his trial
before the priests and he lied to save his life. The fallacy
inherent in this comment is that a lying Jesus could not be
trusted in any event, so why assume that his alleged
teaching on reincarnation is any more truthful? It is more
reasonable to assume that he told the truth on both
occasions but reincarnationists err in their interpretation of
Matthew 13:10-13.
There are certain manuscripts that claim to be genuine
gospel documents, yet claim that Jesus taught a secret
doctrine. Dr. Morton Smith, writing in The Secret Gospel,
(10) claims to have found such an edition of the Gospel of
Mark in a monastery near Jerusalem. The argument for its
authenticity is weakened by the admission that it is a late
manuscript copy, not an original. The so-called "secret
teachings" do not appear in any of the earlier manuscripts,
some of which are 1,000 years nearer the time of Mark than
the monastery find.
It is certain that neither Jesus nor the church fathers taught
reincarnation doctrine in any form. In fact, the church
fathers actively opposed the gnostic teaching of
reincarnation. Irenaeus of Lyon opposed the doctrine in his
work Against Heresies. Theosophist G.R.S. Mead (1863-
1933), himself a believer in reincarnation, wrote against the
notion that the early Church taught reincarnation. His article
titled "The Reincarnationists of Early Christendom"
appeared in the April 1914 edition of The Quest, (11) a
theosophical magazine:
"In popular expositions of the reincarnation theory the claim
is frequently met with that some of the Church Fathers
taught the doctrine. This, however, is an error, owing chiefly
to the looseness of thinking that uncritically equates the

16
general notion of the pre-existence of the soul with the
special theory of transcorporation in the sense of
reincarnation in a series of bodies on earth. It is true that
some of the Fathers valiantly defended the doctrine of pre-
existence; but I have yet found not a single patristic passage
that favours the reincarnation theory and doubt very much
that any is to be found. Not only so but Fathers who are
quoted in popular books as believers in reincarnation, are
found, when systematically interrogated, to reject
transcorporation in the sense of reincarnation utterly."
Mead goes on further in the same article to quote Origen,
who said "[transcorporation is ... foreign to the Church of
God and not handed down by the apostles or anywhere set
forth in the scriptures." The testimonies of the Church
Fathers, of a leading Theosophist (Mead) and the least
tortured interpretation of scripture, form an overwhelming
argument against reincarnation as a doctrine of the early
Church.
Reincarnationists apparently mistake early doctrinal
squabbles as evidence that the church taught reincarnation
in some form; for example, the doctrine of pre-existence.
This doctrine, which was taught by some of the church
fathers, maintains that the soul existed somewhere in the
spiritual cosmos prior to incarnation (birth) into the physical
world. Reincarnationists take for their "proof" scripture that
indicates that God knew us before we were born.
Reincarnationists also play games with resurrection doctrine
and try to make it look either like a case of reincarnation or
a mere semantic difference. They overlook the fact that
resurrection occurs with the perfected version of the old
body, not a different body; both Lazarus and Jesus were
resurrected and both were resurrected in bodies recognized
by people who knew them (such is not the case in
reincarnation). Unfortunately, some Christians are guilty of
fuzzy thinking on this score and believe that the two
doctrines are somehow similar and compatible.
The Reincarnationist's World View

17
Although most people who believe in reincarnation and
Karma are genuinely nice people, the overall world view
produced by their belief is ultimately fatalistic and often
produces a profound lack of concern for the suffering of
others. One only has to look at India, a nation where
reincarnation doctrine has reigned supreme for nearly three
millenia, to see the tragic effects of that doctrine.
India is rich in resources but also has immense poverty and
suffering. In a country where humans starve to death or
suffer serious malnutrition and nutritionally related diseases,
cows are sacred and cannot be used for food. The caste
system, outlawed only in comparatively recent times, was
oppressive in the extreme. Concern for others has
traditionally been minimal in India and human life is cheap.
Medical aid for all but the rich was almost nonexistent until
Christian missionaries started coming to India in large
numbers and set up clinics. All over the world,
compassionate Christians often provided the first hope for
the poor. Our missionaries have not been without some
terrible faults but they were usually better than local leaders.
It has been claimed that Christians disdain death, while the
reincarnationist disdains life. Gandhi once remarked that
reincarnation was a "burden too great to bear." Nowhere was
reincarnationist disdain for life more evident than in the Nazi
death camps. The men of the SS who carried out the crimes
against the Jews (and others) originally were not brutes.
Prior to joining the SS, most of them were good middle-
class Lutheran and Roman Catholic youths. The SS took
those clean-cut young people from their nominally Christian
homes and taught them to commit murder. The SS men
were indoctrinated with Hitler's theosophical beliefs about
reincarnation and the Law of Karma.
The theosophically oriented Nazis believed that the Jews
were a remnant of an earlier "root race" which preceded the
present root race, which is called the "Aryan" race. This
remnant, they were taught, defiles the Aryan race and
inhibits its evolutionary ascent. When the SS man stuffed
Jewish victims into the gas chambers, he honestly believed

18
that he was engaged in something like vermin control;
distasteful, repulsive but necessary. The SS killers were
taught that causing Jewish victims to suffer, actually helped
them in the long run by aiding them in working off a "racial
Karmic debt." The Jewish soul, after an appropriate period
of suffering, would then be able to reincarnate into a higher
root race later on.
What power ideas possess! A good Lutheran boy or
Catholic, raised with normal European values, is made into
a murderer capable of the most heinous mass murders by
the notion that he is cleansing the race. The irony is
compounded by the belief that his victims were ultimately
better off for having suffered. The SS killers were part of an
elite paramilitary organization that believed itself set aside
by "Providence" for a special task in history. Their esprit de
corp was magnified by the belief that they were periodically
reincarnated together at various times in history to fight the
"Jewish menace." Their belief was that the SS formed a
small corp of cosmic warriors for ages chasing the Jews
down the corridors of history.
The suffering of the masses in India and the Holocaust of
Europe is the legacy of the reincarnation and Karma
doctrines. That fact alone should give reincarnationists
pause for concern. It does no good for New Agers to put the
Christians on a guilt trip over events such as the Inquisition.
Such crimes were carried out by corrupted churchmen who
distorted and twisted the teachings of Christ. The crimes of
the SS and the status of India's poor are the logical result of
reincarnation/Karma doctrine. That's a big difference!
Philosophical Basis of Reincarnation and the Law of Karma
Reincarnation and Karma are religious ideas (despite claims
to the contrary by some proponents of reincarnation) and as
such are inseparable from the world view that generated the
ideas. Claims of compatibility with Christianity fall under the
weight of the reincarnationist's philosophical baggage; the
world views represented by reincarnation and Christianity are
mutually exclusive.

19
In the Christian world view, God is personal. He is not
merely a force of the universe; He is all powerful,
omniscient, omnipresent and merciful. He provided for the
salvation of fallen man through the death of his son, Jesus.
The penalty for our sin is death and God elected to pay that
penalty himself by incarnating into human form and
allowing His own execution. In Christian belief, God created
the universe but is not identical with the universe; He is a
separate being who preexisted existence.
Reincarnation doctrine inevitably leads to a monistic world
view. Monism is the belief that all of Creation is ultimately of
one substance. The monistic god is not personal but, rather,
is the universe itself. The universe of the monist has
consciousness of its own, called the "Cosmic
Consciousness" or the "Universal Consciousness," which is
said to be the Source of all that Is; in other words, God.
The interesting implication in the monistic world view is that
God is not separate from His creation: creation is God and
God is creation. That belief logically leads us to conclude
that everything in the universe is god: I am god, you are
god, the dog is god and so forth.
Reincarnationist doctrine is aligned with the old gnostism
but not with Christianity. Albrecht tells us that there are four
main attributes of gnostic doctrine:
* Monism,
* The divinity of man,
* Gnosis as the main purpose of life and
* Mystical experience brings spiritual power.
The concept of monism is described above.
The "divinity of man" concept holds that, as a logical
implication of monism, all men are divine beings. As part of
the universal divinity, man logically must be divine himself.
Our divinity is not apparent, however, because in our
physical world we are too far removed from the godhead to

20
perceive either its or our own divinity. Our godhood is
hidden as a tiny spark deep inside of our soul somewhere,
trapped in a decadent physical body.
The purpose of our many lives is self-realization; that is, to
attain knowledge, direct experiential knowledge, of both
God and our own innate divinity. This knowledge is the
gnosis of the ancient heretics and is an idea that still lives.
Attainment of sufficient knowledge, or a high enough level
of illumination, is the basis of salvation. Finally, after
integrating the lessons of a million lifetimes, gnosis is
complete and the soul achieves nirvana (extinction) or some
other form of oneness with God.
The Western theory of evolution (Darwinism) is congenial to
the reincarnationist. Mankind and individual souls are both
said to be evolving upwards to higher levels of
consciousness. Man's ascent up the evolutionary ladder is
supposedly hurried by the practice of spiritual technologies.
A soul that is particularly diligent can become a "Master of
Wisdom," that is, a transhuman being who no longer
requires reincarnation but has not quite yet reached
godhood.
Finally, there is the claim that certain spiritual technologies
lead to both spiritual power and further enlightenment.
Disciplines such as yoga, asceticism, magical rituals and so
forth supposedly bring this power. Eventually, the spiritual
technologies lead one to merge more rapidly with God and
the created becomes Creator.
"Proofs" of Reincarnation
A matter like reincarnation is notoriously difficult to prove
so, as a result, reincarnationists go to extreme lengths to
support their case. Researchers pile case upon case in an
effort to shore up their sagging claims. Much reincarnation
or ("past lives") research is done by people who lack any
qualifications whatsoever or who tend to ignore the basic
rules of evidence required of any scholar. Only a few
researchers have both the qualifications and the integrity to
conduct past lives research.

21
Professor Ian Stevenson of the University of Virginia is one
such researcher, yet the title of his book (Twenty Cases
Suggestive of Reincarnation)(12) reflects the immense
difficulty of proof in his field of research.
Almost all reincarnation studies rely on "retro-cognition" to
prove the hypothesis. Retro-cognition is defined as
knowledge of past events, people or places, when there is
no rational basis for the individual possessing such
knowledge. If there is no other explanation, then retro-
cognition is cited.
An example of retro-cognition was provided by a listener
who called in to a radio talk show dealing with reincarnation.
The woman claimed to have recalled in a vision the sights
and smells of 18th-century Prague, Czechoslovakia. When
she investigated her dream with a reincarnationist, she
discovered that her dream provided accurate, detailed
knowledge of the Prague street plan. This experience led the
woman to believe that she had once lived as a
Czechoslovakian Jewish woman in the 18th century.
There are three forms of retro-cognition reported in
reincarnationist literature; the woman's dream is but one of
them. The three forms are spontaneous recall, hypnotic
regression and re-birthing therapy. The experience of the
woman cited before was an example of spontaneous recall.
Spontaneous recall operates automatically without apparent
intervention of either the person involved or other persons.
The recall of a past life comes in a vision, a dream or while
fully awake in a kind of sudden knowing. Reincarnationists
regard spontaneous recall as the most reliable research
method.
In hypnotic regression, a second person hypnotizes the
subject and then works him backwards through
subconscious memories that allegedly indicate past lives.
Surprisingly detailed information about historically verified
persons, places and events can be dredged up through
hypnotic regression techniques.

22
Although hypnotic regression is both easily done and very
popular, there are some sound objections to the method.
Not the least of which is the fact that hypnosis by untrained
people is potentially very dangerous; some people regard
any hypnosis as dangerous regardless of the training of the
hypnotist.
Another objection to hypnotic regression is that it is hardly
ever a neutral process. In most cases, both the hypnotist
and the subject are either believers in rein-carnation or
predisposed to belief prior to the session. There is a great
deal of coaching from the hypnotist, so one needs to ask
questions regarding pollution of the data obtained. Is the
experience reported a genuine case of retro-cognition or is it
merely a response to suggestions of the hypnotist?
Re-birthing therapy is a newer technique and is not always
related specifically to "past-lives" research. Although the
technique is new enough that it is in a state of flux regarding
details, there are certain commonalities.
I interviewed a "Re-birthing Therapist" at a New Age retreat
center north of Baltimore, Maryland. She told me that she
has the subject lay down on a soft mattress or water bed and
listen to a combination of "white noise" (hissing sounds)
and soft music on a pair of stereo earphones. The idea
seems to be generation of spontaneous recall by
technological means. There is some question whether Re-
birthing Therapy is actually another form of hypnotism,
rather than something new, even though my interviewee
claimed that the method is not hypnotism in any form.
Still another form of Re-birthing Therapy uses visualization
to regress the subject back to past lives. When combined
with talk therapy there is little difference between re-birthing
and the supposedly "Christian" Healing of Memories.
Both hypnotism and Re-birthing Therapy suffer a general
defect and that is the financial involvement of the hypnotist
or therapist; both are providers of commercial services in
most cases. The need to give clients "something for their
money" either consciously or subconsciously taints the

23
results. Given that the hypnotist or therapist is financially
involved, that both parties tend toward belief in the system
and the experiences seem so real to the subject, it is little
wonder that these methods are often enthusiastically touted
as "proof" of reincarnation.
All forms of retro-cognition suffer a fatal flaw because they
are based on a false premise. The implied assumption is that
cognition of past events, especially unexplained cognition,
means that the person was present when the event took
place. As we shall see later, having detailed knowledge of
past events does not in any way mean that the person was
present to witness those events.
Explanations of Retro-cognition
Retro-cognition is usually cited as proof of reincarnation,
although reincarnation is but one possible explanation of the
phenomenon. There are at least eight other explanations:
fraud, cryptoamnesia, genetic memory, extrasensory
perception (ESP), personation, demon possession, spirit
communications and mediumship. (13)
Fraud. The possibility of fraud cannot be dismissed.
Reincarnation is both profitable for the unscrupulous and
romantic enough to attract victims to the con artist. Those
two factors are a powerful combination that is just right for
corruption. Charlatans find a rich market for their regression
and re-birthing services.
Also under the "fraud" rubric might be unintentional fraud,
even though that particular word combination is unpalatable
(how can it be "fraud" if it is "unintentional?"). Such a case
might come about when both parties sincerely want to find
a past life. The effort then becomes something like a self-
fulfilling prophecy. Neither party consciously intends
deception but, by pre-biasing their attitudes, the results are
consistent with expectations.
The possibility of unintentional fraud is present in all
scientific and scholarly research and must be guarded
against. In medicine, for example, the expectations of the

24
researcher and the patient can affect the apparent
performance of a new experimental drug. The effects are not
necessarily faked but are tainted one way or the other. This
phenomena is the reason why medical researchers use
control groups and double blind research protocols.
Under such a system, there will be two or more groups of
patients. One group takes the real drug, while the second
takes a neutral substance. In some cases, there are three
groups: one for the new drug, one for a neutral substance
and one for an older drug used to treat the same disease.
Neither the patients, nor the nurses who administer the
drugs, nor the physicians who evaluate the patients
afterwards, know what patient is getting which pill.
Unfortunately, reincarnation does not lend itself to double-
blind studies, so unintentional fraud becomes a lot more
likely.
Cryptoamnesia. The phenomenon of "cryptoamnesia"
covers the case where a person learns something about the
past, stores the knowledge in the subconscious mind but
forgets it on the conscious level. The hidden knowledge is
later dredged up during a hypnotic regression or rebirthing
session or is spontaneously recalled and identified as past-
life recall.
The celebrated Bridey Murphy case was an example of
cryptoamnesia. In that case, a Colorado house-wife was
regressed and she revealed detailed knowledge of Ireland
and talked with an Irish brogue during those sessions.
Because the woman had never been to Ireland to learn the
accent and since she had never been a student of Irish
culture, "Bridey Murphy" was touted as a case of
reincarnation.
Even some normally skeptical scientists accepted "Bridey
Murphy" as genuine. Later, more careful investigators
revealed that the woman had an Irish grandmother who had
told her much about the old homeland and she spoke in a
thick Irish brogue. This knowledge was planted in the
woman's subconscious as a very young child and it came

25
out later during a hypnotic regression session as an adult.
Earlier I mentioned a radio talk show where a woman caller
claimed to have shown detailed knowledge of Prague,
Czechoslovakia, its street plan and Jewish culture in the city.
She accepted her dream as evidence of having lived once
before as an 18th-century Czechoslovakian Jewish woman. I
suggest cryptoamnesia as a possible -- even probable --
alternate explanation of her experience. The radio talk show
was "The Fred Fisk Show" on WAMU-FM in Washington,
D.C. during August 1984; the show was hosted not by Fisk
but by an alternate emcee who seemed congenial towards
reincarnation. The woman claimed that her experience took
place a few months earlier.
During the previous December ("... a few months earlier!")
the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., hosted an
exhibit titled The Precious Legacy, which was a collection of
antique Judaica from the Jewish Museum in Prague,
Czechoslovakia. (14) The collection was originally put
together by slave curators under the Nazi regime and
consisted of treasures and memorabilia stolen by the Nazis
from the Jews and their synagogues. The Nazis' purpose
was to open a "museum to an extinct race."
My wife and I stood in line with our bored children for two
hours to see The Precious Legacy exhibit. Media in
Washington, D.C., the city where the woman caller lived and
had her dream, was full of Holocaust stories during the
winter 1983-84; reports of the Smithsonian exhibition were
very much in the news. It is possible that the woman
dredged up memories of the exhibit and mis-identified it as
a past life experience. One of the exhibit items was a gray-
tone street map of Prague in an earlier century!
Keep in mind that cryptoamnesia is not fraudulent for the
subject honestly does not remember learning the
information that comes out as retro-cognition.
Genetic Memory. This explanation is popular with certain
people but I am skeptical about it. It is claimed that certain
memories are somehow stored in our cell DNA and can be

26
decoded by the brain under some circumstances. Genetic
memory is passed on from parent to child in a manner
similar to hair color and facial features. Supporters of this
theory point to seemingly instinctive behavior as evidence.
Unless physicians, life scientists and psychologists become
generally convinced of this theory and can explain it to me,
I will discount it.
Extrasensory Perception (ESP). This explanation is popular
with those people who prefer a "natural" explanation of
retro-cognition. ESP phenomena fall under the quasi-
scientific rubric of "parapsychology" and are regarded as
natural occurrences about which we know little. The ESP
explanation is not mystical but natural. Parapsychologists
disdain the labels "occult" and "supernatural" so may
attempt to explain retro-cognition as a mind-reading
exercise or some other ESP phenomenon.
Demon possession. It is amazing how many people refuse to
believe in the possibility of demonic possession. Even some
Christian clergymen scorn the possibility of demon
possession, despite the fact that the Bible is very specific on
that point. Although one must be cautious about claims of
demon possession and must certainly not label every bit of
unusual behavior as evidence of demonism, the possibility
of demon possession must be recognized.
Why would a possessing evil spirit want to deceive the
subject regarding past lives? The answer is that demons
want to keep humans from salvation. By convincing people
of the "reality" of reincarnation, they turn those people away
from the offer of salvation by grace. Reincarnation is touted
as an alternate means of salvation, so the soul is lost for the
belief in a false system.
The information provided by retro-cognition through a
demon possessed person should be quite authentic. Time is
almost meaningless to spirit beings so they would have
witnessed those past people, places and events and reported
on them through the subject.
Spirit Communications. Apart from demon possession,

27
there is also the possibility that evil spirit beings will attempt
to plant "proof" of reincarnation into the mind of a subject
through one or another means of communication. The
remark of Sir John Eccles, "the brain is a machine a ghost
can operate," takes on immense significance.
Mediumship and Altered Consciousness. The
medium goes into a trance in order to contact disincarnate
beings. In the altered state of consciousness, dreams and
visions are very vivid and may lead to misinterpretation by
the subject. If cross-checking is not diligently done, then a
researcher may well succumb to the vision and accept it as
valid.
Personation. This phenomenon occurs when an individual
closely identifies with a another person and either learns or
fabricates details of that person's life and environment well
enough to render credible accounts to an uncritical
audience. Personation is not fraud but more nearly like
cryptoamnesia and, in fact, may combine with
cryptoamnesia.
Reincarnation vs. Resurrection
The usual ploy of writers trying to prove reincarnation is to
pile case history upon case history. Such tactics are the only
methods open to them, given the impossibility of absolute
proof in any form of life-after-death research. Unfortunately
for their position, piling up large numbers of soft cases as
evidence is no more convincing than showing but one such
case. After all, error plus error does not equal truth. One
hundred-thousand speculative "could-be" cases are still
"could-be" cases and do not lend each other weight, except
in the uncritical mind. One confirmed case (if reincarnation
were confirmable) would be infinitely superior to the mass of
unconfirmed speculative evidence now offered.
Christians reject reincarnation and instead teach resurrection
of the dead. The resurrected body will be the same person
as before, would be seen by eyewitnesses and a record
would be made of such an astounding event. The

28
resurrected dead are not the same as the medically
resuscitated or so-called "clinically dead." Experiences
reported by those people are interesting psychologically and
religiously but do not represent a true life-after-death
experience; only a near-death experience. Those people
were not really dead.
Philosopher Tal Brooke proposes a test in his book The
Other Side of Death. (15) The "Lazarus Test" of resurrection
refers to the story of Lazarus in the Gospels. The dead man
was in the tomb four days and his body had begun to
decompose when Jesus resurrected him. The Lazarus Test
requires the onset of decomposition and thus would nicely
differentiate true resurrections from mere resuscitations.
The resurrection of Lazarus was witnessed by numbers of
people and recorded in the New Testament. But the Lazarus
event was neither the only nor the most important
resurrection in the Bible. The Gospels record the most
important event for mankind in all of history: the
resurrection of Jesus. The Lazarus Test was met in Jesus'
resurrection for Jesus was in the tomb for three days.
Furthermore, He was seen after his resurrection by large
numbers of eyewitnesses and the event was recorded in
writing (the Gospels) for the benefit of future generations.
Lawyers have examined the Gospels with the purpose of
building a case against their authenticity, only to become
converted themselves. They came to belief when they
realized that the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus is
both sound and compelling and in accordance with legal
principles of evidence. The best evidence for the existence
of an event is eyewitness accounts and the existence of so
many eyewitnesses argues loudly for the case of
resurrection. The case is made all the stronger by the fact
that so many eyewitnesses were willing to die for their belief.
A few people might be crazy enough to die for a lie, as
might later believers who were not eyewitnesses and came
to believe a myth -- but not scores upon scores of people
who witnessed the events and knew the truth.

29
It appears that some New Agers also recognize that
eyewitnesses are the best evidence for the Christian case.
When they admit resurrection at all, they almost inevitably
deny or fail to mention that Jesus walked through the
countryside for more than a month after his resurrection
showing himself to many eyewitnesses. The typical New Age
response to Christian claims might be that it was not a real,
physical body but rather a phantasmic "ethereal" body that
was seen (Jesus was a ghost?). Of course, that argument
crumbles in the face of Thomas' testimony. "Doubting
Thomas" wanted to feel the wounds in Jesus body -- how
can one feel wounds on a phantasm?
Conclusion
We have given Reincarnation and the Law of Karma
doctrines a fair hearing and found them wanting. They are
unproven, philosophically flawed and quite unsupportable.
They are totally incompatible with Christian belief.
Nevertheless, large numbers of people will continue to
believe in them -- more than 60 million Americans by some
accounts. Unfortunately, the ultimate reward for such belief
is eternal damnation -- a terribly high price to pay for an
erroneous world view.
~~~~~~~

30
 3 - Occultism:
Gateway to the New Age
For many people the doorway to the New Age is old-
fashioned occultism. By peeking into a titillating hidden
corner they become ensnared in a much larger and
ultimately hideous domain. Occultism is the study of hidden
(spiritual) things. Interest in the occult has increased to such
an extent that today the Church can no longer ignore it. One
source claims that one-fourth of all Americans are involved
in at least some aspect of occultism. Even segments of the
Church, some knowingly, others in ignorance, teach one or
more occultic doctrines in the guise of enlightened
Christianity. (1)
Although occultism has been with us since before the time
of Babylon, the modern emphasis began in earnest early in
the 19th century. The "Occult Revival" was a major force in
Western culture at that time. (2) During the decades when
Christianity declined in Europe, occultism revived as a
counterculture answer to atheistic science and the
philosophy of materialism which science represented.
Many people were ill at ease with the scientific world view
but for a variety of reasons they were also disillusioned with
the Church. The Occult Revival both met their immediate
spiritual needs and provided them with fantastic,
entertaining experiences. It also provided them with a sense
of belongingness in that occultism represented an intimate
cult of those who accepted knowledge that the rest of
society rejected. (3)
The Church's response to occultism has been woefully
inadequate. Very few of our leaders can accurately state
what the word "occultism" means. For example, one of the
leading Christian authorities on cults and occultism wrote
one of the standard reference works on the subject. (4) In it,
he lists under "Occultism" such topics as astrology,
palmistry and Tarot cards. Yet the principal occultic

31
movements (e.g., theosophy and others) are merely "cults."
The matters which that author calls "occult" are certainly
part of it but only a small part. They are merely tools,
methods and modalities used in a much larger context.
Permit me to explain by way of an example. If astrology
(etc.) are all of occultism, then the church organ is all of
Christianity.
One reason for the Church's inept response to occultism is
the teaching that Christians should avoid negative things.
This unfortunate attitude is an outgrowth of the positive
thinking movement, which as you will see is part of the
problem, not the solution. Many people in the Church have
a false idea of how we should examine occultism (and
similar matters).
Often used is the woefully inadequate metaphor regarding
counterfeit money. The claim is made that the U.S. Secret
Service teaches money-handlers to recognize counterfeit
currency by concentrating only on genuine currency. The
implication of this metaphor is that we should bury our
heads in the sand. Supporters of this view misuse the truth
that we need to keep our eyes on Jesus and never examine
anti-Christian movements. Isn't it sad how that the Church is
the only army that despises intelligence reports on the
enemy!
The "counterfeit currency" metaphor is as false as the lesson
it teaches. The Secret Service teller-training material does,
in fact, concentrate on the features of genuine currency --
but it also shows common examples of counterfeit currency
so that the teller will learn to recognize the common errors
made by counterfeiters. The idea behind that material is to
teach the points of recognition for both genuine and
counterfeit. In the same manner we need to examine the
principal errors in occultism and the major heresies.
Poor use is also made of scripture passages such as Romans
16:19, which teaches: "... but I want you to be wise in what
is good and innocent of what is evil." The word "innocent"
is taken to mean that we should totally ignore cults and

32
occultism, that is, to have no knowledge of them at all.
Perhaps the proper meaning is that we should not
participate in these things. Basing opinion on single verses -
- i.e. "proof texting" -- frequently leads to error that would
be eliminated by the testimony of the whole passage, indeed
of all of scripture. Verse 17 of Romans 16, after all,
admonishes us to keep our eyes on the false teachers so
that we may be wary of them -- and Isaiah admonishes us to
set watchmen on the wall.
What Is Occultism?
The word "occult" is derived from Latin and refers to things
that are hidden, secret or mysterious. (5) This meaning does
not refer to things that are merely presently unknown but are
ultimately knowable through ordinary means (i.e., the five
senses). It refers instead to matters that transcend our
ordinary senses. Included in this category are a whole range
of phenomena and practices, only some of which were
mentioned above. We can make the following statements
regarding occultism; it deals with:
* Things that are hidden, concealed or secret;
* Events, beings, entities, processes or phenomena that are
beyond the abilities of the five senses;
* Superhuman powers and
* Supernatural (both angelic and demonic) forces. There are
many aspects to occultism, almost (it seems) custom
tailored to fit the needs, moods and desires of all people.
There are, however, four general categories to consider;
others are subsets of the following: divination, magick (note
spelling), spiritism and mysticism. (6)
Divination
Divination is the occultic practice by which a person can by
supernatural means predict future events, predict human
character, see at a distance current events, find lost objects
or substances (e.g. water) or tap into the past to actually
"witness" historic events. There are several subsets to

33
divination including fortune telling, palmistry and others. We
will deal with these and others shortly. But first, let's discuss
what divination is not.
Divination is not clairvoyance. Although some people claim
a degree of prescience (ability to see the future), there is a
different quality to such reported experiences and no intent.
Clairvoyance, if it actually exists (which is by no means
proven), is a spontaneous and often unwanted intrusion on
consciousness.
There is another definition of clairvoyance used in
conjunction with spiritism but more of that later.
Divination, on the other hand, is prescience by intent. The
diviner (practicer of divination) uses trances, spirit contacts,
omens, astrology, ouija boards or other allegedly magical
objects such as cards, pendulums, palmlines or the entrails
of sacrificed animals to make predictions of the future. (7)
Divination also is not prophecy. There are three aspects to
genuine prophecy -- admonition (or rebuke), exhortation
and prescience -- and the common thread running through
all three is that God's word is manifest. Like clairvoyance,
prophecy is rarely sought and -- given the treatment
historically meted out to biblical prophets by their own
people -- often unwanted. Unlike clairvoyance, prophecy is
known to exist and will never contradict or "clarify"
scripture.
After we exclude all cases where divination is used for
entertainment purposes and for which no serious claim is
pressed for genuineness, we are left with a residue of
instances where some form of prescience occurs (or at least
appears to occur). There are five possible explanations for
such events: fraud, psychology, ESP, divine intervention and
demonic intervention. (8)
Fraud.
In cases of fraudulent divination there is no reality to the
events and their source is human deception. These cases are
distinguished from entertainment illusions because of the

34
intent of the perpetrators. Also included in this category are
cases where the diviner is not fully aware of his intent to
deceive until systematically questioned. In those sad cases
even the diviner is deceived.
Psychology. Cases of this type have no supernatural basis
but are rather manifestations of someone's over-active
psyche. Whatever the complexities of the case, however, the
phenomenon is founded in either a distorted world view or
some misfiring neurons.
Extrasensory Perception (ESP).
This explanation may or may not be valid depending upon
the reality of ESP phenomena. The ESP explanation would,
like the psychological, be naturalistic. I remain skeptical of
ESP and give it consideration only because the evidence is
inconclusive. While the cynic may claim that ESP is false
because evidence is both inconclusive and often
contradictory, the proper position to take is cautious
recognition of its possible truth. Inconclusive evidence
serves for neither acceptance nor rejection of ESP
phenomena. Caution is the watchword, however, for ESP
may turn out to be ultimately demonic. And given the
unbiblical context of most ESP "readings," probably is
demonic.
Divine Intervention.
God or his angelic agents on His command, could
conceivably intervene in human affairs by means of diviners,
for He is sovereign -- but I doubt that He would do it. The
universal test of divine revelation is the "Rule of
Contradiction." If the revealed information contradicts,
modifies or denies prior biblical revelation then it is false. My
opinion regarding God using diviners, apart from episodes
of genuine prophecy, stems from a reading of Deuteronomy
18. The question raised by Deuteronomy 18 is: Would God
act through a means that He expressly forbids us to use? I
doubt it.
Demonic Intervention. All of our previous categories are

35
relatively benign. We must now consider the possibility of
demonic intervention as the explanation for occultic
phenomena; demonic influence is always malignant, never
benign. Because the demonic explanation is the most
serious (and in my view most probable), we will assume that
all forms of divination that cannot be explained
naturalistically are demonic in origin.
Why would demons take delight in deceiving man through
divination and other occultic practices? Although there are
undoubtedly many variations on the demonic theme, the
root reason is to turn people away from God. Their abiding
interest is to switch your allegiance from the Creator to the
created.
Aspects of Divination
The particular practices that make up the art of divination
are varied and many. Most of them have one or more of the
following goals:
* Foreseeing events,
* Discerning a person's character,
* Finding lost objects, people or substances,
* Seeing at a distance and
* Post-viewing (i.e. seeing events in the past).
There are any number of variants of the occult technologies
used in these forms of divination; some of them are used
over a broad range of goals. Some of the most common
occult technologies are described below. (9)
Astrology.
This occult technology is based on the erroneous belief that
a person's character and "fate" is determined by, influenced
by or discernible from the positions of the sun, moon, stars
and planets at the moment of birth. Astrology originated
during the third millennium B.C. (or earlier) when it was
practiced by Chaldean and Babylonian priests. Although

36
astrology was once wedded with the science of astronomy
and may have actually spawned scientific astronomy, it is
not part of any science today. Astrology is practiced in
variations by almost all peoples, with remarkable similarities
among widespread sources.
Cartomancy (Tarot).
Cartomancy is a form of divination in which special playing
cards, called "Tarot cards," are used to see into the future.
The Tarot deck consists of cards of different designs, each
of which has a special meaning. Additional meaning is
conferred by placement of the cards and by juxtaposition of
different types of cards. The history of Tarot cards dates
back to the first century A.D. and they may have been
introduced into Europe in the 13th century-Related forms of
cartomancy include bone reading used by primitive shaman
and rune-stone reading by pre-Christian Norsemen. In these
cases, symbols are inscribed on bone or small baked clay
tablets instead of paper playing cards.
Chiromancy (Palmistry).
Chiromantists claim that a person's future and character are
revealed by lines and "mounds" in the palms of the hands.
Palmists claim that there are four lines (heart, life, head and
fate) and seven "planet mounds" (Mercury, Apollo, Saturn,
Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Moon). The combination and
geometry of these features supposedly reveal the character
and fate of the person. Some sources date palmistry as far
back as early Babylon, although a date of Roman times is
more reasonable.
Glass Manticy.
Also called crystal ball gazing, this form of divination
attempts to discern the future (or see at a distance) through
gazing into a rock crystal (quartz) ball, still water, mirror or
any of several "sacred" natural mineral crystals (quartz
family crystals are said to be especially effective).
Psychometry.

37
The art of psychometry is divination through psychic
examination of an object a person has either worn, touched
or used. Psychometry has been used with indifferent success
to locate lost persons, lost objects and by police to solve
crimes.
Numerology.
This discipline dates back to Babylonian times and claims
ability to discern truths about a person from the number of
his name. All letters of the alphabet are assigned a
numerical value, so any word or name has an equivalent
numerical value equal to the sum of the letter values.
Numerology is probably the basis for the "number of his
name" (666) prophecy in Revelation regarding antichrist.
Post-viewing.
Occultists claim the ability to look back into the past
psychically in order to see what actually happened.
According to this theory, the records of the past and future
are stored in the universal (or "cosmic") consciousness and
stretch out from past through the present to the future like a
scarlet ribbon. Under the right circumstances, such as a
mystical trance, the occultist claims the ability to read these
so-called "Akashic records."
The above are merely broad areas of divination and the list
is not intended to be complete. There are assorted systems
that depend on reading such things as tea leaves, smoke
curls, bones, entrails of sacrificed animals, omens and such.
Magick
Magick is a part of occultism and, according to some
authorities, the most bizarre aspect. Occultic magick is
different from stage magic (note spelling difference). The
stage magician uses deception, trickery and illusion to
entertain the audience and makes no serious claim to either
special powers or supernatural intervention.
Occultic magick is quite different and can be defined as the
attempt to control, rule or know both natural and

38
supernatural worlds by supernatural means, through the use
of special ceremonies, rituals, rites, objects or words that in
and of themselves possess power. (10) A related (and nearly
synonymous) word is "sorcery."
The word "magick" was allegedly coined by Aliester Crowley
to differentiate ritual magic from the stage variety ("magic").
Crowley was once called "the wickedest man alive" and he
vowed to break every moral law known to man. According
to some sources he very nearly succeeded. (11)
Two forms of magick are recognized: personal and natural.
Personal magick supposedly calls on disincarnate spirit
beings -- demons -- in order to effect the result desired from
the ritual. The magus (ritual magician) uses incantations
and rituals to appeal to, cajole, influence or control the
demonic beings who supposedly bring about the result.
Few magi will admit that the intelligences which they invoke
are demonic. Indeed, many of them believe the beings are
either neutral or angelic. The demonic nature of the beings
becomes evident from reading Deuteronomy 18:9-12. If
magick is forbidden by God, then angels will not react to
supplications of a magical nature.
Natural magick is based on the premise that supernatural
control is possible through an understanding of subtle "laws
of the universe" that are unknown to the majority of man. It
is supposedly possible to supernaturally control physical
events through the rituals of magick by influence on purely
natural forces. Although we must by no means assume that
we understand all of the laws of nature, it is highly
improbable that such will ever be found that responds to
words of incantation and other magical exotica.
Methods of Magick
Rites, rituals and ceremonies are essentially the same sort of
event and are supposedly the vehicle for contacting the
beings or forces who cause the desired result. The forms of
ritual vary considerably from one system to another but
there are some commonalities. The main methods of

39
magick are: invocation, casting spells (charming), symbolic
ritual and the use of fetishes. (12)
Invocation involves the repeating of words or rites that either
appeal to or command (depending upon the system) a
supernatural being. The being invoked may be demonic or
angelic, god or devil or some allegedly neutral spirit being.
In so-called "Christian" systems of magick the being is
supposed to be either God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, the Virgin
Mary or some other personality. In pagan systems, it might
be the goddesses Isis or Ishtar, a less distinct mother
goddess or some animistic deity. Other systems invoke
certain metaphysical beings such as Lord Maitreya or some
deceased human.
Spell casting or "charming" involves words or rituals that
bring the forces of nature against the problem at hand.
Charming differs from invocation in that natural forces rather
than personalities are invoked. The spell may be as benign
as attempting to confer good luck on a person or as
malignant as voodoo death spells. Some sources use the
word "charming" to denote hypnotism, which may explain
why such spells seem to work.
Symbolic rituals are acts, events, rituals, dances,
movements and other physical practices that supposedly
empower magical attempts.
Fetishes are physical objects that are supposedly charged
with magical power. Included under this definition are
talismans, good luck charms, bones, amulets, gemstones,
medallions and so forth. Depending upon the system of
magick, almost any physical object or animal can be made
into a fetish.
Magick falls under the general category of sorcery. Two
words are translated "sorcery" in scripture: magia and
pharmakeia. The latter is the root of the word "pharmacy"
and may refer to the taking of drugs to alter the state of
consciousness in order to gain mystical experiences. The
popular psychedelic drugs of the 1960s produced this effect,
as does mescaline (peyote).

40
The other word for sorcery is magia which refers to the type
of ritual discussed in this section. All forms of sorcery are
condemned in scripture.
White Magick vs. Black Magick
There are many occultists who honestly believe that they are
not practicing evil with their magick. They attempt to
distinguish between so-called "white magick" and "black
magick." White magick supposedly does not seek to harm
anyone or gain any unfair advantage over them and is rarely
used to personal benefit by the magician.
Black magick is just the opposite. According to this view,
black magick is the form that either seeks personal gain or
to harm others in some way. Scripture, however, uses no
adjectives -- all forms of sorcery are condemned.
The practice of "manifestation" is a magical means for
acquiring material goods. (13) In August 1984 I heard a top
New Age spiritual teacher claim that he became a writer and
had to "manifest" (i.e., conjure) a typewriter. A former New
Age occultist who is now a Christian told me that she
"visualized" (an occultic technique) a yellow Volkswagen
and other goods. (14) Many users of these techniques testify
that they work and work well.
Let's reconsider the definition of magick (magia or sorcery).
Restated, it is the attempt to control the natural and
supernatural worlds by supernatural means through the use
of rituals, techniques or words that in and of themselves
have power. Thus, the practice of manifestation is sorcery or
magick, regardless of whether occultic visualization or
"words of power" are used by the magician. Furthermore, by
the definition given earlier, its selfish goal makes it black
magick.
Christian Magick
When referring to so-called "Christian" magick in this
present context we mean sorcery practiced by saved
Christians. We are not referring to the practices of others
who merely claim to be Christian but rather attempts by

41
believing Christians -- born again people who practice
magick.
Let's first point out that such people do not usually know
that they are practicing forbidden magick. Instead, they
believe that God -- through the Holy Spirit more often than
not -- is granting a supernatural favor or assistance. God
does, after all, help His people and that help is sometimes
material things miraculously obtained. It is also true that
God is true to His word, and He will answer our prayers
according to His own wisdom. I have only a few problems
with most faith teachers, but with a few their teaching is so
wrong that comment is necessary.
There is a substantial difference between magick and prayer.
Prayer is an appeal, a supplication made in humility with the
expectation of being happy with whatever answer God gives
(and "no" is a valid answer). Magick, on the other hand,
attempts to command God to provide the desired goods.
Some of the "faith teaching" heard today is little more than
an attempt at forbidden magick. A few of the "Name It And
Claim It" teachers have stepped over a very broad doctrinal
line by claiming that God is required to obey your desires
when you use the right words. Furthermore, some even
maintain that the words used to invoke God's pleasure are
powerful in and of themselves, and will work regardless of
whether or not the person uttering them is a Christian.
That's black magick no matter how famous the preacher
who teaches this heresy. Compare the doctrine taught by
some Christians on the fringes of the Church with the
"manifestation" teaching of occultists: They are the same.
Spiritism
Spiritism, also called "spiritualism" and "necromancy," is the
attempt to make contact with the dead. According to this
belief, the spirits of the dead are capable of making contact
with the living through various means. Some authorities
distinguish "spiritism" from "spiritualism" on grounds that
spiritualists often claim to be Christian, while spiritists do
not. This distinction is partially true but not absolutely. Many

42
non-Christian necromancers call themselves by both names.
For the sake of simplicity, in this book we will use the term
"spiritism" to denote all forms of necromancy. (15)
Spiritism exists in a number of guises. For some it is not a
serious matter but rather is a diversionary activity. For others
it is a formal religion with "churches," schools and other
furniture associated with formally established religions.
Although spiritism dates back to the book of Exodus, its
modern form began in 1847 in the upstate New York town of
Hydeville. The John D. Fox family moved into a house
formerly occupied by one Charles Posma, who supposedly
had been murdered. The two Fox daughters, Margaret and
Kate, began to hear knock-ings and rappings in the house.
Subsequently, fragments of a human skeleton were found in
the cellar of the house and that find established the girl's
credibility. (16)
The Fox sisters publicly admitted in 1886 that their
"experiences" were fraudulent, although both later
repudiated their confessions. Nevertheless, the spiritist
movement remains popular worldwide. Missionaries
reporting from Brazil tell us that spiritism is one of the
largest religious groups in that country.
Although popular for years among certain fringe elements,
modern spiritism gained a certain respectability when
Episcopal Bishop James Pike began to practice the
forbidden art. The story of Pike's necromancy is told in
Merrill Unger's book, The Haunting of Bishop Pike. (17)
Pike's interest was fueled by grief over the suicide death of
his son and was sparked by a chain of apparently ghostly
happenings. Bishop Pike died while wandering lost on the
Judaean desert, some years after his Christian faith died on
a desert of unbelief.
The basic supposition of spiritism is that some essence of
the human being, usually said to be either the soul or the
spirit, survives death and lingers about the physical world in
an unseen parallel spirit world. In classical spiritism that
unseen world is called Summerland, while in more recent

43
New Age terminology it is called the Ethereal or Astral
Plane.
According to most spiritists, Summerland is a pleasant place
and is not to be feared. They testify that there is no heaven
or hell in the Christian sense of the terms. Those who
believe in reincarnation sometimes claim that Summerland
is one of the non-physical planes on which the soul rests
between incarnations. (18) According to certain New Age
teachings the plane called "Summerland" by spiritists is the
location of hell but is not a permanent residence of the soul.
According to this view, the sinner's soul suffers a while on
the Astral Plane before being elevated -- after some "bad
karma" is worked off -- to a higher plane.
Although the "beings" who "come through" by way of
channeling (seances) are reportedly benign, others report
that various beings haunt the Astral Plane/Summerland and
some of them are terribly evil. Christians should understand
that all of them are evil. Those who appear good or benign,
are actually evil spirits counterfeiting the experience to lead
people astray.
Although several modalities for contacting spirits are
practiced by spiritists, perhaps the most famous is the
medium or "channeler" (as New Agers would have it). Such
persons are said to have an extraordinary sensitivity to the
spirit world. Although people who claim to be channels
usually deny that they are mediums, there is little or no real
difference between the two types of necromancer -- and
both are engaged in forbidden trafficking with demons. The
only apparent difference at all is that mediums claim to
contact dead souls, exclusively, while channelers are less
specific (or more eclectic) about who or what they contact
(often it is the "Masters of Wisdom").
Although not universally true, mediums usually work in a
trance. That is, they achieve an altered state of
consciousness in which they seem to surrender control of
their faculties to the spirit. Raphael Gasson, writing in The
Challenging Counterfeit, tells us that the spirit takes full

44
control of the medium's body and "... the medium knows
nothing whatever about the procedure of the seance, having
to be told of the results when he regains consciousness."
(19)
Of many types of trance mediums with a public following,
perhaps the most famous was Edgar Cayce. Although his
followers often deny that Cayce was a medium, he gave
thousands of "readings" while in a sleep-like state that
strongly resembled the mediumistic trance. Cayce's work is
perpetuated by the Association for Research and
Enlightenment in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
Methods of Mediums
The medium has several means for making contact with
what he believes is the spirit world. Perhaps the most
famous is the trance state. Depending upon the type of
medium and his capabilities, the trance may be entered in
either a darkened room or a normally Ht room. Some means
is generally used to "center down" and thereby force the
onset of the trance state.
I once witnessed a trance medium operate at a pseudo-
Christian New Age retreat center. (20) The young woman
medium asked all people present to be quiet while she
began to recite a repetitious "prayer" in an unknown (to me,
at least) language. I am not prepared to state flatly that she
was not speaking a known ancient or modern language. The
medium was seated between two assistants and all three of
them prayed with their hands laid face up on their laps. After
two or three minutes her body noticeably stiffened, her facial
expression changed and her voice became hoarser. The
"message" that followed the centering down process
sounded a lot like prophecies heard in certain churches; a
fact which should warn Christians to test all spirits in
everything they say or do. After all, as the title of Gasson's
book illustrates and scripture warns, Satan can and does
counterfeit the miraculous.
Whether in a formal seance or in a less-formal situation such
as I witnessed, the medium allows his or her body to be

45
taken over (i.e., "overshadowed") by a "spirit" being -- in
other words a demon. Christians know that these beings are
not the spirits of the dead but rather demons from hell
impersonating the deceased.
Not all mediums use the formal trance or seance in its usual
form. Some use one or more other techniques to record the
words of the demon. An example is automatic writing. This
form of alleged communication requires the use of a pen,
pencil or typewriter. Presumedly, a modern word processor
would open entire new vistas of electronic automatic writing.
Entire books and at least one TV show, by famous occultist
authors, have been written using automatic writing. (21) The
author sits poised with pencil (or whatever) in hand and on
the paper until he or she feels it begin to move.
Alternatively, the medium sits with fingers poised on the
keyboard until they begin to twitch and spell out the
message. Presumedly, the modern word processor opens up
all kinds of possibilities for even lazy mediums. Given the
nature of those electronic marvels, perhaps the medium can
leave the word processor turned on, have the message
electronically recorded and then check it from time to time
as a kind of ghostly high-tech electronic mailbox.
Mysticism
The bottom line for many -- perhaps most -- New Age
activities is mysticism. In order to understand the types of
activities that are mystical in nature, let's develop the word
from its root: mystic.
According to Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, the word
"mystic" is synonymous with "occult." The word "mystical,"
which means pertaining to the mystic, deals with those
things that are "not apparent to the five senses," yet convey
spiritual meaning of one sort or another. It is the fact that
things mystical are beyond the five senses that links it to the
occult. (22)
Mysticism deals with knowledge that is experientially
derived, rather than intellectual knowledge. This experience

46
is said to reveal the "Inner Light" or "Illumination." It is the
experiential aspect that makes something mystical.
In line with the concept of experiential knowledge is the
definition of mysticism from Webster's: "Belief that direct
knowledge of God (i.e., gnosis, spiritual truth or ultimate
reality can be obtained by intuition or insight). Further,
mysticism is the belief that one can obtain "... ineffable
knowledge or power." Something "ineffable" is beyond the
power of language to describe.
If mystical experiences are beyond the five senses and
ineffable, then what is their nature and how are they
attained? The answers to these questions will, perhaps,
reveal why they are not recommended for Christians.
The nature of the mystical experiences is that they are either
dredged up from some subconscious depths or are
generated from some malfunctioning brain cells somewhere.
Regardless of their origin or the techniques used to obtain
them, mystical experiences open the mystic to possible
demonic influences. We will discuss this matter in a
moment.
Mystical experiences come through an altered state of
consciousness. Although some of them come
spontaneously, most such experiences result from an
intentional effort on the part of the mystic. A variety of
psychospiritual technologies are used to enter the altered
state (also called the Shamanic State of Consciousness or
SSC) including drugs, hyper-ventilation, yoga, variants of
hypnosis, rhythmic dancing or music or biofeedback
(among others). (23) The psychedelic experiences of the
hippie generation were mystical in nature, a fact that
explains why so many veterans of the drug subculture
turned to the New Age, Eastern religions and occultism.
Biofeedback can be particularly insidious because outside
the New Age it is not billed as a mystical technique but
rather it is called "medical" or "scientific."
During one phase of my professional career I was a

47
biomedical engineer in a university hospital and medical
center (I hold a master of science degree in medical
engineering). Partially because it was operated by the
electrical engineering department, the program in our school
was heavily slanted towards subjects related to alpha wave
biofeedback. It struck me as odd that the majority of non-
medical people who asked me to help them build alpha
brainwave instruments for biofeedback were also involved in
illegal drug use.
Alpha wave biofeedback is used to enter the so-called
"alpha state" which we normally enter just as we fall asleep.
A significant danger with alpha wave feedback is the
potential for creating an epileptic seizure. The alpha class of
brain waves is a natural electrical signal in the frequency
range of eight to 13 cycles per second (cps). These signals
can be detected with scalp electrodes connected to a
suitable biopotentials amplifier.
The idea in biofeedback is to monitor your brainwaves
through a special instrument that is connected to scalp
electrodes embedded in a headband. The goal is to reinforce
the alpha waves and suppress others until you can
automatically enter the alpha state unassisted. The
supposed benefits are reduction of mental stress and
enhanced creativity (neither benefit is adequately proven
scientifically).
The danger in alpha biofeedback is that certain sub-seizure
level waveforms contain components in the same frequency
band (8-13 cps). Latent epileptics, who have not yet
exhibited seizure activity, may have these components
unbeknown to themselves. So lack of prior seizure history is
no indicator that the practice is alright for you. When you
connect yourself to an alphawave monitor, as do thousands
of New Age questors, it is possible that you will reinforce the
alpha state as desired -- it is also equally likely that you will
reinforce an epileptic seizure and have the experience of
your life!
Michael Harner, author of The Way of the Shaman and

48
himself a practicing shaman, reveals that the shamanistic
trance (SSC) is one and the same with the mystical
experience. (24) Harner explains the use of the shaman's
drum or rattle to produce the musical beat that aids the
shaman (a type of witchdoctor, to use Western terminology)
in entering the SSC. Certain forms of rock and New Age
music seem to have a similar potential. (25)
Demonic Influences
The demonic never seems far away in mysticism. Reading
the reports of mystics (there is a vast literature available on
the subject) demonstrates three aspects that seem to
indicate demonic activity. First, most of the entities
encountered in the SSC seem to have an inordinate interest
in Jesus Christ; an interest far too great if He is merely who
or what they claim. Invariably, they tell us that Jesus was a
great teacher, one of many Christs and that the church for
selfish reasons has distorted the true doctrine.
Second, there is a tremendous sense of oneness with the
universe and a feeling that the universe is God. This monism
of the mystic is what got them in trouble (heresy) in all three
transcendent religions: Islam, Judaism and Christianity. The
monism produced by the mystical experience contradicts
the lessons of scripture, which demonstrate that God is
transcendent; i.e., separate from, outside and greater than
His creation. If God was the universe and vice versa, then He
would not be transcendent but rather immanent (another
New Age claim).
Finally, there is also the fact that people who enter the SSC
frequently come back terrified of what they saw "over there."
In some primitive societies, the shaman always works with
an assistant who will help pull him back into this world if
something goes awry. The SSC can be entered by the
technique called "visualization."
Read Johanna Michaelson's book The Beautiful Side of Evil
for an account of her terrifying experiences in visualization.
(26) Her testimony should be adequate for those who are
tempted to try it, even in a Christian context (the use of

49
visualization is an occultic technique but nonetheless has
invaded the Church).
We are easily persuaded that New Agers by the hundreds of
thousands practice one or more techniques to attain the
SSC. We need not look too far, for they are open and honest
about the matter (even though not all of them call it
mysticism). What is a little more difficult to see is Christian
mysticism. Many thousands of honest Christians, including
(perhaps particularly) pastors who should know better,
indulge in mysticism. I once heard a report of a church that
chanted "Jesus! Jesus! Jesus!" over and over again for an
hour at a time. When some of the members had psychedelic
experiences, the pastors held that the Holy Spirit was doing
a mighty work. It was more likely a case of people entering
the SSC by repetitive chanting and hyper-ventilation (an
easily discerned New Age method, by the way). Churches
that practice visualization are in direct violation of God's law
and should reread Deuteronomy.
Fellow Christian author, Elissa McClain (Rest From the
Quest), knows a woman who came out of a form of New
Age mysticism called "Wicca" (the proper name for
witchcraft) and became a Christian. (27) She attended a
certain (supposedly) charismatic church for three months
before she knew there was a difference between it and
Wicca! That's a terrible indictment of that pastor and I am
glad that most charismatic assemblies don't fall into that
trap.
The supposed justification for modern Christian mysticism is
the famous mystics of past centuries. Historical figures such
as Meister Eckart, Madame Guyon, Teresa of Avila and John
of the Cross are highly regarded, despite the fact that their
teachings were little more than variations on the old gnostic
heresies. For a more detailed accounting of those heresies,
which incidentally form the underpinning of the New Age
Movement and of Naziism, see my earlier book, The Twisted
Cross. (28)
Monasteries and Convents during the Middle Ages were

50
hotbeds of mysticism ... a fact that alternately won them the
condemnation and approval of the Vatican as the various
popes took over.
Helping The Oppressed
There is no doubt that persons who dabble in occultism will
eventually become oppressed by their activity -- and will
need your help. Some victims will obviously need help and
will seek it out. Others will obviously need help but won't
seek it out because of either confusion or fear. Still others
are currently happy in their occultism and cannot be helped
-- yet.
The first group is relatively easy to deal with because they
already know they need something. The second group can
be helped but only after they come to terms with their
needs. Perhaps they need to have their fears diminished
(which can include approaching Christians!) or their
confusion sorted out. The third group cannot be helped
until the oppressive nature of occultism is thrust upon them.
When occultists present themselves for assistance they may
not believe that occultism is at the root of their problems.
They have a history of seeming emotional or mental illness
that either has no medical explanation or is intractable to
medical intervention. The immediate problem may appear
to be other than spiritual and may be diagnosible as one of
the various forms of mental illness. But if the person has
dabbled in occultism or if someone in past generations of
their family was so involved, then suspect demonic
oppression brought on by occultism. Frequently a sign
pointing to occultism is the inability or unwillingness to
confess Jesus as Christ -- the only Christ.
It is tempting to turn afflicted occultists over to mental
health professionals. Although this practice is what the
standard wisdom of our culture may dictate, it is not the
best procedure at all. In fact, intervention by the mental
health establishment may actually make the condition
worse. Except for that branch of psychiatry (which is
practiced by medical doctors only) that deals with

51
organically based mental illness, modern psychology is
based on false premises (see Chapter 6).
For example, the secular psychologist rejects spiritual
causes of illness altogether and his Christian counterpart is
not far behind (having been seduced by the apparent
"science" of psychology).
Besides rejection of the spiritual dimension, there is a more
sinister reason for concern over psychology. Much of
modern psychology, both Jungian and Freudian, has roots
in the same poisoned well as the patient's illness: occultism.
Using such psychology to fight the oppression of occultism
is like filling the fireman's hose with gasoline instead of
water.
The tactic to take in aiding the occultly oppressed depends
upon whether the person is a believer. Although there is
apparent warrant in scripture for the opinion that believers
cannot be demon possessed, it is possible for the believer to
be oppressed by demons. It is especially likely for a believer
to be oppressed if he was involved in occultism, even
innocently, before conversion. He can be oppressed to the
extent that he did not renounce past practices or
involvement.
Christian counseling uses scripture as the basis of authority.
The basic premises of Christian counseling are that the
person is a believer, accepts the authority of scripture and
wants to please God. Christian counseling is very effective
for persons who meet this criteria and somewhat ineffective
for those who do not.
When the oppressed person is a believer it is appropriate to
lead them to relevant scripture passages. There are many
doctrines that are obscure enough that good people can
honestly disagree over them: occultism is NOT one of them.
God is very specific about human involvement in occultism
and Deuteronomy 18:9-13 tells the complete story.
Listen to what the Word says:
"...do not learn to imitate the detestable ways of the nations

52
there [Canaan]. Let no one be found among you ... who
practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in
witchcraft or casts spells or who is a medium or spiritist or
who consults with the dead."
The former occultist must confess sins of occultic
involvement -- all such participation must be confessed and
given up. The person must renounce Satan and all his works
and then command him to depart. Matthew 12:43-45 tells
us that deliverance from demons is not an experience or an
event but is a walk. It is essential, therefore, that the person
counseling a former occultist takes steps to disciple them in
the Christian life.
Occultists who have not become Christians cannot be
helped until they are saved. (29) They must confess faith in
Jesus Christ as Savior. If you encounter such a person, it is
necessary first to get them to accept salvation and only then
deal with their occultism. Be aware that some people seek
relief from occultism and will confess Christ from the mouth
rather than the heart. If relief doesn't seem to follow
salvation over the next few months, then suspect that the
conversion was not genuine and confront the person.
A Word For Occultists: The "Building Metaphor"
New Age spiritual teachers like to use metaphors to make
their points. I would like to take a page or two from their
notebook and use a metaphor of my own. Occultism can be
represented by what I call the "Building Metaphor." The door
to this building is very appealing and is quite innocent
looking. The reception room is very attractively furnished:
its colors are appealing and the furniture well designed. But
beyond the entrance room the architecture seems a bit
strange: it is a maze of crisscrossing corridors. Some are
trails of truth but many are paths of error.
All of the passageways in the building eventually lead to a
large inner chamber -- where there is a chained tiger! Every
now and then, as you travel the corridors of the occult, you
will hear the distant roar of the tiger. An uneasy sense of
dread envelopes your heart -- but the sound seems so very

53
far away, so you continue your Quest through that mystical
maze.
We know that the tiger's chain is at least long enough to let
him roam to all points of his room and anyone who treads
into that dreadful space will be devoured. What we don't
know, however, is how far up any given corridor the tiger
can go. We also don't know when any given corridor will
suddenly empty into that fatal inner room.
The wondrous corridors of the occult thrill the senses and
excite the mind. Many new and heady experiences are to be
had. Dozens of sights, sounds and feelings are found in
those seductive spiritual corridors. There is wisdom to be
had; ancient wisdom that (they tell you) is limited to a lucky
few.
But you never know when turning a corner will bring you
face-to-face with that tiger. You might be lucky -- the tiger
will spring with teeth bared and claws extended for the kill,
only to be yanked up short by the chain, stopped in mid-
jump; after all, God places some limits on the tiger.
You might not be so lucky. You may survive the attack but
be clawed and seriously injured. Or, and this is a real
possibility, you might also die in your occultism -- and then
it is too late for salvation. If you have not traveled too far or,
if you are exceedingly lucky, then you may find the way
back to the entrance room -- and hopefully won't find the
door locked!
Fortunately, there is a way out! Look up and you will find
that the building has no roof. The walls are too slick to
climb out by yourself but with the help of Jesus Christ you
can be plucked out of that endless mystical maze.
~~~~~~~

54
 4 - Playing on the Streets of
Babylon
The New Age Movement is the modern descendant of a
centuries-long tradition of occultism that dates back to
Babylon. (1) Although the Church from time to time tried to
suppress the so-called "Ancient Wisdom," it nonetheless
flourished alongside Christianity. It never went away, only
underground and often not very far underground.
When theosophy married the Western Esoteric Tradition
(occultism) to Eastern religions during the late 19th century,
a natural resonance occurred that vibrates even today more
than 100 years later. The Western Esoteric Tradition
sometimes uses the metaphor of a scarlet serpent to
describe itself. Christians recently found the tail of that
serpent in the weeds alongside the road of Western
civilization. Little did they realize as they yanked that tail
that it was attached to a 20-foot King Cobra, rather than a
harmless garter snake.
The New Age movement is not just opposed to Christianity
but also orthodox Judaism. This fact persists in spite of the
fact that many Jews are attracted to the movement.
Orthodox and Conservative Jews accept the same basic
concept of God as Christians (although they vehemently
disagree with us on the other two persons of the Trinity), so
would find the New Age concept of God a perverted heresy.
Jews, whether or not they are religious, will ultimately find
the New Age Movement (especially the Alice Bailey wing)
anti-semitic right down to its esoteric core.
Bailey claimed in 1949 that Jews would have to go through
the "fires of purification" before they could enter the New
Age because of "bad racial karma" -- a distinctly anti-
semitic statement that was made only four years after the
world was shocked by the crimes of the Holocaust! (2) One
New Age writer admitted in a book that Adolf Hitler was the
movement's most famous proxy disciple.

55
New Age Theological Concepts
All religious movements have key theological concepts that
either set them apart from or align them with other religions.
In Christianity, for example, our theology tells us that God is
personal, infinite, omnipotent and transcendent (that is,
above and separate from His creation). There are only a few
different views of God possible and they are ably presented
in Dr. Norman Geisler's book False Gods of Our Time
(Harvest House). (3) In this section, we will deal with only
one of those possibilities: the New Age god-concept.
Pantheism
The key New Age god-concept is "pantheism." This idea
claims that all is God: I'm god, you're god, this book is god,
the typewriter is god, etc. The pantheist's god is not-
personal but, rather, is a force, consciousness or essence in
the universe. Some New Agers reduce God to a mere force
of nature. "The Force" of Star Wars is a good example of a
pantheistic god-concept.
Monism
Monism, another key New Age idea, claims that everything
is made ultimately of only one substance. Humans are said
to be "One" with their race, with all of humanity, the planet,
the solar system, indeed the entire universe. Differences are
described as different facets of the same diamond. They
claim that the planet, the solar system and the universe itself
possesses a singular "Cosmic Consciousness" which is God
(called "the One"). Pantheism and monism are almost
always found linked in the same theory. (4)
A serious problem with the pantheistic/monistic world view
is that it reduces God to a mere part of His own creation and
thus removes the Infinite as a reference point for morals,
ethics and values. By dismissing the absolute we fall into
the bottomless pit of moral relativism. After all, who has the
right to say that Hitler, Stalin and Mao Tse Tung were wrong
to murder millions of people if there is no absolute? If All is
One, then good is evil, evil is good and Adolf Hitler is

56
interchangeable with yourself. Like Lucifer in Milton's
Paradise Lost, we can boast "Evil, Be Thou Mine Good"
without fear of either contradiction or divine rebuke.
Divinity of Man
New Agers teach the ancient gnostic heresy that God made
a terrible mistake at the Creation and managed to lock a bit
of Himself in the "physical plane." (5) That part of God is
said to be a spark of divinity inside each human soul. A
main activity of New Agers is discovering, i.e, becoming
conscious of, their supposed divinity; that search is called
the "Quest" and the result is "self-realization." (6)
Altered States of Consciousness
Part of the mystical Quest for many New Agers is achieving
an altered state of consciousness through any of several
psychospiritual technologies: drugs, yoga, meditation,
Transcendental Meditation, biofeedback, creative
visualization, guided imagery, positive imaging and so forth.
Some New Age meditation techniques, which are yoga and
not Christian, are nonetheless taught in churches as
legitimate.
Books such as Celebration of Discipline by Richard J. Foster
teach Eastern meditation, even while denying that it is
Eastern. (7) Foster explicitly denies that his meditation is
Eastern but then proceeds to introduce the reader to what
seems uncomfortably like yogic meditation.
Inner Self
The New Age teaches that God is within each of us and uses
"Inner Self" as a name for God (or at least an ambiguous
divinity). Thus, they claim that the Inner Self is always right
and should be obeyed even when reason and external
information indicates otherwise. This same idea is taught by
several well-known Christians who would have us believe
that the New Ager's "Inner Self" is the Holy Spirit. One radio
preacher counseled obedience to the Inner Voice even when
it seems to contradict Scripture; a very dangerous idea!

57
New Age Jargon
The New Age Movement uses a number of buzzwords and
code phrases. Be suspicious when these phrases are found,
even in a seemingly Christian context. Typical words are:
Age of Aquarius, Cosmic Consciousness, Inner Self,
enlightenment, Human Potential, illumination, holistic (and
wholistic), at-ONE-ment, Positive Mental Attitude, paradigm
shift, Confluent Education, Inner Healing, Healing of
Memories, visualization, guided imagery, Global Village,
transformation and so forth.
Be aware, however, that use of New Age buzzwords is not
conclusive evidence of either involvement or guilt. While
such word usage bears deeper investigation, it should not
automatically condemn the user. The widespread familiarity
with these words assures innocent as well as guilty usage.
For example, I know a Bible college president who
innocently used "global village" in a fund-raising letter. He is
a righteous and godly man whose missions zeal resonated
with the concept inherent in that New Age phrase. Some
critics, however, jump on such Christians and wrongly abuse
them.
However, we must be wary of Christians who couple
terminology with doubtful practices that have their origins in
Eastern mysticism or Western occultism. Inner Healing is
one such practice. (8) Inner Healing (or "Healing of
Memories") proceeds from Jungian psychology (although
the practitioners usually deny it), which itself proceeds from
occultism and Carl Jung's "automatic writing" episode early
in his career (see Chapter 6). (9)
Luciferic Religion
The New Age Movement is openly Luciferic. One does not
have to read Lucifer into obscure passages from minor
writers because the leaders of the movement for more than
100 years have openly professed Luciferianism. One New
Age activity even once called itself "Lucifer Publishing
Company" (currently Lucis Trust). (10) New Age Luciferians
are not Satanists in the ordinary sense, however, for New

58
Agers divorce Lucifer from Satan! They teach that Lucifer is
the angel of man's evolution and a bridge to God. They
claim that he is merely the opposite aspect of Jesus but
otherwise equal or superior to Jesus in every respect. One
New Age leader tells us "Lucifer has had a bum rap from the
church."
A major goal of the New Age is to force all humanity to take
a "Luciferic Initiation" in order to enter the New Age alive
under the auspices of one World Religion. All people of the
"old thought form" (i.e., Christians, among others) who
refuse the initiation will be zapped to another (non-physical)
dimension when the New Age dawns (can you imagine a
better explanation for the Rapture?).
Constance Cumbey, author of Hidden Dangers of the
Rainbow, (11) claims that the New Age is the first
movement in history to meet all the scriptural tests of the
antichrist Movement. Elliot Miller of Christian Research
Institute has disagreed with Cumbey on some particulars.
Yet in Moody Monthly Miller said: "... the 'Age of Aquarius'
sounds uncomfortably close to the world pictured in
Revelation 13-19, Matthew 24 and similar prophetic
passages." (12)
The Great Delusion
Scripture paints a clear picture of conditions on earth at the
end of the age, immediately prior to Christ's return. In a way,
New Agers are correct when they postulate the coming of a
new age for the Millenial (1000-year) reign of Jesus Christ
on the earth will indeed be another, or new, age.
Furthermore, that new age will be a time of universal peace,
exactly as New Agers claim.
Where the Christian who understands end time prophecy
differs with the New Ager, however, is the nature of the next
age and the transition period between now and then.
Sandwiched between the next age and this present one will
be a brief period of intense barbarism called The Great
Tribulation. (13)

59
Much has been written of end times in Christian literature.
Some of these teachings are based solidly on scripture,
while others are vain imagination. Much end times teaching
is highly speculative and should not be taken as truth.
Speculation is permissible, however, provided that it a) is
plausible, b) does not contradict scripture and c) is accepted
(and offered) as purely hypothetical.
Teachers who force-fit every bit of headline news into a
prophetic mold do the Church a disservice. I can recall a
Christian bookstore clerk who witnessed to a non-believer
who wandered into the store.
She claimed: "Do you know that the Bible teaches we will
all be required to have a laser credit card surgically
implanted in the palm of our hands?" The Bible teaches no
such thing! Nor does it teach that a computer chip will be
embedded in our hands or any of a number of other
variations on the "666" theme favored by prophecy buffs on
the fringe. Such things may honorably be speculated about
and may indeed eventually turn out to be true. But we must
keep our speculation properly labelled as speculation and
not pass it off as scriptural.
Studying the rise of antichrist leads many to the conclusion
that this final movement of Satan will be primarily political.
It is true that politics will play a role for it is in politics that
we find the mechanism of domination. But most such
commentators miss a critical point: the activity of antichrist
is primarily religious in nature. To overemphasize the
political at the expense of the religious is the same as
overlooking Jesus in favor of the donkey he used to ride
into Jerusalem.
In this section we will examine the religious aspects of the
antichrist movement.
There are two aspects to the antichrist religion: apostasy and
false religions. The word "apostasy" means "a falling away
from the faith." What is our basis for believing that a great
apostasy will occur?

60
The answer is found in I Timothy 4:1-3:
"The spirit clearly says in later times some will abandon the
faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by
demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars"
[NIV].
This passage tells us three things.
First, apostasy will occur ("...some will abandon the faith").
Evidence is all around us that this falling away is happening.
So many have fallen away from the faith that both
theologian Francis Schaeffer and humanist writers call our
era "post-Christian" (on that single issue the humanists are
likely to agree with Dr. Schaeffer!). (14) In addition,
Christian teachers who have been conservative and
orthodox in their theology have publicly endorsed heretic
teachings.
Second, we learn that the source of the apostate teachings
is ultimately "deceiving spirits" and demons.
Finally, that the apostate teachers are hypocritical liars. For
the words "hypocritical" and "liars" to apply, assumes that
the false teachers know the truth but teach otherwise!
When we see seemingly large numbers of teachers in
pulpits, on radio and TV and in our colleges teaching
doctrines and practices that strain orthodoxy to the
snapping point, we must conclude that this prophecy is
coming true. Although one is tempted to simply blast the
heretics in outrage, Paul tells us why these men and women
are successful (I Timothy 4:3,4):
"For the time will come when men will not put up with
sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will
gather around them a great number of teachers to say what
their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away
from the truth and turn aside to myths"[NIV].
Three things present themselves in this passage. One
striking characteristic of our age is that men will not only
turn away from sound, Bible-based doctrine but will become

61
intolerant of it. Doesn't that sound like today? And what will
men use to replace sound doctrine? The words of false
teachers who say what their itching ears want to hear.
How are we to understand this teaching of Paul? The
remedy is the same for all false teachings: exposure, rebuttal
and exposition of the biblically correct doctrinal position. We
must be especially wary of apostasy that links arms with a
false religion: the New Age Movement.
Although the specifics differ from that of apostate
Christians, New Agers nonetheless share in the Great
Delusion. Again, scripture predicts much of what we see in
the Movement today. After all, the New Age religion is
nothing more than a modern variant of the ancient
Babylonian mystery religion; somewhat changed and
disguised but nonetheless the same old lie.
Second Thessalonians 2:11-12 reveals that God, because
they have refused to love the truth, "... and delight in
wickedness," has sent them "a powerful delusion." It takes
only a cursory examination of the word "delusion" to see
that people will adhere to something that seems right but is
not. Such a description fits the New Age exactly for its
adherents believe they have found the truth, where in fact
they have found a seemingly rational lie.
A mark of the Great Delusion in the end time is the
appearance of multiple fake candidates for the office of
"Christ."
Witness Matthew 24:3-5:
"... and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end
of the age?" Jesus answered: "Watch out that no one
deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, 'I
am the Christ,' and will deceive many."
From this passage it is apparent that on the cusp between
this age and the Millenium, we will be besieged with false
christs. In Matthew 24:24-25 we see a prediction that should
give pause for concern to those who believe that performing
miracles is evidence of the Holy Spirit:

62
"For false christs and false prophets will appear and perform
great signs and miracles ...."
Most Christians seem unaware that miracles abound among
New Agers. In fact, the question is not whether occultism
works but rather how well it works. The world-famous
Findhorn garden in Scotland, for example, produced 40-
pound cabbages in the cold, flinty North Sea region where
little else of anything grows at all. (15) And what was the
source of such miracles? The Holy Spirit? No, "nature
spirits."
Reading New Age literature leads one very quickly to the
conclusion that it is Luciferic. How fitting and how indicative
of end-times happenings! Yet it comes at a time when much
of the church has either neglected Lucifer, chooses to ignore
Lucifer or reduces him to the absurdity of a comical goat-
headed creature. But we need not depend upon Lucifer
being repulsive or ugly. People would never follow the goat-
headed, hoofed Devil of the Middle Ages.
Lucifer is not like that -- he is an angel of light and God's
most beautiful creation. When people encounter such a
lovely being doing miraculous things, they are likely to be
deceived. Yet, make no mistake about it -- he is still Lucifer,
the Devil and is the ultimate evil.
Christians In The New Age
The New Age Movement attracts not just spiritually
concerned non-Christians but Christians as well. Most of
these people are ignorant of their involvement in the New
Age heresy. Many social and political goals of the New Age
Movement are very attractive to people who are concerned
over the suffering of others. But Globalism, for example, is
still a New Age concept, even when proposed by Christians.
In other cases, New Age ideas infiltrate the church and
appear under Christian imprimature. Many writers on life
after death (or "near death") experiences are actually
promoting a New Age concept and some of them admit it,
even while still claiming to be Christian.

63
Some writers are now pushing meditation. Christian
meditation is an intense intellectual activity and is defined as
"pondering deeply God's Word." It is a matter of using the
intellect that God gave us to discern the meaning of
scriptures. It is not an emptying of the mind to make room
for the closeness with God being sought by the mystical
meditator. When we empty our mind through meditative
techniques, we are in essence abandoning the driver's seat
and inviting a demon to take control.
In the meditation of the New Age, emptying the mind is
exactly what is sought. They will use one technique or
another to "center down" into the meditative trance.
Celebration of Discipline teaches a New Age concept of
meditation. (16) Its author, Richard J. Foster, even affirms
the connection on page 170 with the statement: "We of the
New Age ..." In later printings of the book, this revealing
phrase was changed to, "We who follow Christ ... " As far as
I can tell, however, this is the only alteration of the book, so
it remains a New Age book in my opinion.
Foster's chapter on meditation contains a scenario that
sounds a lot like accounts of astral projection I have heard
elsewhere. Foster makes the claim that his method is
different from Eastern meditation. Eastern meditation leads
to emptying the mind, while Foster's meditation leads to
emptying the mind so that it can be filled again. My problem
with Foster's claim is that I am concerned over who and
what does the filling; how do we know it is the Holy Spirit at
work? For these reasons, I believe that Richard Foster's
books need to be approached with utmost caution, even
though he probably believes himself an orthodox Christian
and is probably bewildered at his critics' charges.
One New Age writer tells us that it doesn't matter which path
is followed to attain the trance because, once they get to the
meditation stage all experiences are the same. This is the
principal danger of both New Age meditation and so-called
"Christian" meditation. The meditation of the Christian is
functionally different from the meditation of the New Age:
the Christian asks God to show him the way intellectually

64
through pondering scripture, the New Ager lets a ghost
operate his or her brain.
Taking Dominion In The New Age
A new fad movement is sweeping the church, and is
especially strong amongst Pentecostals and Charismatics.17
This movement blends some of the New Age Movement's
Eastern religious ideas with several variants of either
Postmillenialism or Amillenialism (both long-since
discredited) to form a sticky, cookie-dough, hybrid doctrine
that harks back to Eden. Like a too-sweet cookie, this
doctrine offers little nutrition, but nonetheless rots your
spiritual teeth. Because it is so dangerous spiritually, it is
necessary that we discuss it.
A leading exponent of this "Kingdom Now" or "Dominion"
theology movement wrote: (18)
"Adam and Eve were placed as the seed and expression of
God. Just as dogs have puppies and cats have kittens, so
God has little gods. Seed remains true to its nature, bearing
its own kind.
"When God said, let us make man in our image,' He created
us as little gods, but we have trouble comprehending this
truth." (19)
In this passage, the writer lays nearly the same divinity of
man foundation as the New Age Movement and makes
exactly the same mistake as Eve in the Garden of Eden.
When Dave Hunt, Constance Cumbey, Jimmy Swaggart and
others criticized him for these views, the author apparently
back-peddled and claimed that he was only kidding. He
made this claim on October 16, 1986 in a speech given at
the Westpark Hotel in Tyson's Corners, Virginia (suburban
Washington, D.C.). (20)
He also stated at that same meeting that anyone who thinks
that we are gods is sick. Yet the quote above is taken in all
seriousness by readers of his book, and one can only
assume that he meant it when he wrote it. After all, very few
healthy writers waste energy telling little jests that don't work

65
in print. The quotes in his book don't appear in jest when its
context is evaluated.
A key element in the Dominion teaching is that God either
will not, or cannot, perform total restoration of the paradise
of Eden until Christians take dominion over the earth. They
erroneously appeal to II Thessalonians in claiming that
Christ cannot return until there is a "... falling away of those
Christians who are unwilling to endure to the end." (21)
Yet scripture tells us that Christ will return after the rebellion
against God, and the Man of Lawlessness (antichrist) is
revealed. The great falling away revealed in scripture is the
great delusion discussed above. Second Thessalonians
admonishes us to stand firm to the end, not in dominion
over the earth, but in "... the teachings we passed on to you
..." As to antichrist, these people claim that antichrist is only
a spirit, and doesn't refer to an actual man.
Although Dominionists claim to esteem doctrinal orthodoxy,
they nonetheless hold that scripture, God's revealed Word, is
insufficient for today. Some things, they maintain, would
have been unlawful to reveal to man in the past because of
his spiritual immaturity (which is like the New Age concept
of mystical Initiation). But now, because of (presumedly
Dominionist) man's maturity, new revelations can be offered.
One exponent teaches that scripture is but milk for babes.
And what is the meat to nurture the more spiritually mature?
It is new revelation and direct experiential religion. Direct
experiential religion is part and parcel of the ancient gnostic
heresy, and is also the mainstay of New Age spiritual life. Yet
a man who is, perhaps, the leading Dominionist ridiculed
the claim that his ideas are New Age. (22)
Perhaps the most disturbing part of Dominionist teaching is
that God has put the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge
of Good and Evil in the church today. Scripture clearly tells
us otherwise, and yet these heretics want us to believe that
God has reversed Himself since Eden. Are they right? Or
have the Dominionists taken a very deep, second bite of the
apple?

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Because of the frequent and very obvious gross errors in
interpreting scripture, one can only conclude that
Dominionists deny that scripture is to be taken literally. In
reading several Dominionists, I can only conclude that the
errors are intentional. One prominent Dominionist ridiculed
Dave Hunt as a man who has not attended even a day of
bible school, yet his own position denies the validity of
scripture for the modern church.
Sad.
David Lewis, a leading Pentecostal who has campaigned
against the Dominion/Kingdom-Now heresy, and Constance
Cumbey, author of Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow, have
both written that a New Age leader boasted that New Age
thinking had invaded Neo-Pentecostalism. According to
Cumbey, writing in her controversial second book, A
Planned Deception:
The Staging of a New Age Messiah, Ernest Ramsey was
"Already familiar with the Alice Bailey writings, [and] he was
amazed to see that there was a branch of Pentecostalism
that embraced the same teachings ...."
Other Dominionists harp on economics instead of theology.
A certain wing of that movement has obviously overdosed
on the writings of philosopher Ayn Rand, and even mimic
her style by using similar phraseology (in one case, almost
to the point of intellectual plagiarism, if not in the legal
sense of the word). I find that fact particularly amusing
because I am familiar with (and have since rejected many
of) the works of Rand. Ayn Rand, the apparent heroine of
certain Dominionists, an avowed atheist, claimed that
atheism was necessary to her philosophy and despised
American conservatives whose politics are like those of the
Dominionists.
(I met my wife at an Ayn Rand study group in college; that
was before being saved. We like to startle people by telling
them we met in an atheist study group.)
Dominionists tell us that Christ admonished us "... to

67
occupy until He comes." One enthusiastically jumps off a
semantic cliff by claiming:
"The word 'occupy' is a military word for occupational force.
An occupational force is a group of soldiers who slip behind
the enemy's line, grab a piece of his territory, and claim it
and hold it until the invasion comes."
Dominionists must disdain dictionaries. Such a force might
be a commando unit, but it is not an occupational force. An
occupational force moves into enemy territory and takes
over civil government ... after the final victory. The
Dominionist claim apparently refers to Luke 19:13. In this
passage we find Jesus giving his followers a parable. In
Luke 19:11 we find that the parable was offered to them
because they erroneously believed "... that the kingdom of
God should immediately appear." Jesus' parable was of a
nobleman who went to a far country to receive for himself a
kingdom, and returned. In the subject verse, Luke 19:13, we
find the nobleman gave each of his 10 servants a sum of
money and told them "... Occupy till I come" [KJV].
How is this to be understood? According to the
Dominionists this apparently means that Christians are to
militarily occupy earth, and hold it until Jesus returns.
Relying on translations in more modern English than the
King James, we find a slightly different coloration. The New
International Version (NIV) renders Luke 19:13 as follows:
"And he called ten of his slaves, and gave them ten minas,
and said to them, 'Do business with this until I come back.'"
Similarly, the New American Standard Bible [NASB] renders
the passage:
"So he called ten of his servants and gave them ten minas.
'Put this money to work,' he said, 'until I come back.' "
These translations put in doubt the Dominionist
interpretation.
How to React to the New Age

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How should the New Age Movement affect us? We must not
react hysterically for one thing. Although we need to be
alert, we should not worry overmuch about it. Some pastors
and lay leaders go to the opposite extreme, however,
claiming that we should pay no attention at all to the New
Age Movement. They ask "why pay heed to such negative,
evil things?" The best reason is that the New Age Movement
robs people of genuine salvation by offering them a
counterfeit. New Age questors drink not from the living
waters of the true well of life but rather from a well whose
waters are eternally poisoned. If for no other reason than
that, Christians must contend with the New Age Movement!
Whether the New Age Movement is the antichrist movement
spoken of in prophecy is not terribly important to the
church, even though it is of vital importance to non-
believers. We, after all, are saved and they are not. What is
important is that it is a movement that steals salvation
through polluted doctrines. For that reason, Christians ought
to oppose the New Age.
Until the late 19th century there was a much deeper level of
secrecy enshrouding the movement. New Agers will tell you
that the Hierarchy started the process of Externalizing in
1875 with the revelations given to Madame Blavatsky and
other early theosophists. The Externalization of the
"Hierachy" got underway, according to certain New Agers,
with the Occult Revival. For the past 100 years, about the
same time the church has been internalizing, the New Age
Movement has been making the esoteric movement
exoteric.
Starting in 1975 or thereabouts, the movement "went
public." (24) Fueled by an influx of mystically inclined
young people armed with their recent drug experiences, the
Movement became far more open than before. Today, the
New Age Movement is almost totally open. Every city and
town of any size has its own New Age centers and activities;
many of them have one or more New Age newspapers. The
probability of Christians who work in secular jobs
encountering at least one New Ager every month is close to

69
100 percent.
Perhaps the reason that many Christians fail to see the
Movement is that it is still novel. They erroneously assume
that it is a minor ripple on the pond of American civilization
and, like other transient movements, it will go away. But it
will not simply go away; wax and wane, maybe, but not go
away. After all, it already has a multi-millenia track record.
Even Christians who see the Movement clearly often fail to
grasp its extent. When Constance Cumbey, Dave Hunt,
Johanna Michelson, the Matricianos (25) and others spoke
of an immense and widespread movement they were
dismissed as overstating their case. Yet New Age directories
list thousands of organizations! The widespread activity of
the New Age becomes readily apparent when a systematic
study is made and it is now possible to call it the fastest
growing and possibly the largest, new religion on earth.
Perhaps the best church reaction to both the New Age and
the heresies within our own ranks is to heed Paul's charge to
Timothy:
"But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardships,
do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your
ministry" [II Timothy 4:5].
~~~~~~~

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 5 - Visualization:
Christian or Occultic?
You are seated with a group of people in a small room. Your
eyes are closed and your breathing is measured.
"Close your eyes and relax," suggests the group leader in a
soft, comforting voice; "imagine that you are going to a
warm, cozy, place far away ... from a long distance you see
a figure approaching. He is too far away to tell who it is at
first but as the figure comes closer the vision is clearer. He is
your spirit guide ... imagine that he is Jesus." (1)
The process described above is is one of several related
mystical New Age techniques that are called "visualization"
(among other names). Over the past two decades these
methods rapidly became popular among psychologists,
holistic healers, physicians, nurses and others. Visualization
swept through the church during the last several years and is
now very popular in some Christian groups, especially
Charismatics and Pentecostals. It is billed as a technique for
losing weight, quitting smoking, obtaining "Inner Healing,"
achieving a deeper spirituality and even a closer walk with
Christ.
Visualization is a favorite technique of Christians who accept
the "Faith, Health and Prosperity" teachings. They use it as
a means for obtaining the material benefits that they claim is
God's will for all of us. For many of the same reasons,
secular sales organizations use visualization to motivate
sales people: "put a picture of that Cadillac where you can
see it, close your eyes and just imagine yourself owning that
car!" screams frenzied speakers at high tension motivational
meetings.
The purpose of visualization is to put our rational minds in
neutral so that images can stream forth, supposedly from
deep within. We are asked to enter an altered state of
consciousness about which we know very little, except that
it is shamanic. Although initial attempts at visualization

71
rarely achieve the desired result, with practice the visualizer
soon learns to enter a state of consciousness that bears
more than a superficial resemblance to hypnosis and the
mystical shamanic trances generated by hyper-ventilation,
ecstatic dance, self-flagellation, drugs, yogic meditation and
others. (2)
Ordinarily, our spirit controls the firing of the neurons in our
brains. But in an altered state, that control mechanism is
loosened and it becomes possible for other spirits to tick off
those neurons. The critical question "which spirits?" is rarely
asked by casual visualizers.
Although touted as a "higher consciousness," visualization
and other popular psychospiritual techniques may instead
result in lowered consciousness. That is, as we loosen
conscious bounds on our imagination, we are open to
whatever thoughts uncritically enter our brain. Our normal
powers of rational discernment are put aside in an altered
state of consciousness, so sensory inputs tend to melt
together. Although taken as evidence of the oneness of all
creation, it may instead be true that this effect results from
an inability to critically focus the mind -- which causes the
victim to perceive counterfeit unity. If normal consciousness
implies control over our minds -- the God-given, rational
faculty needed to discern reality and truth -- then
surrendering control moves us to a lower, not higher, state
of consciousness.
Visualization is offered as a near cure-all for a variety of
spiritual, psychological, physical and economic ills. It is
widely accepted by Christians but is it either biblical or at
least neutral? In fact, is it even safe? Is it the Holy Spirit who
guides your visualized imagery or are you opening your
mind to demonic influence? These and other critical
questions need answers before visualization is accepted by
Christians.
Christian Visualization
Visualization is now very popular among Christians and
books recommending it are on the bestseller list. (3) A

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major Charismatic television ministry uses visualization in its
pastoral outreach arm. I once heard a pastor on TV mimic
the sales motivator by claiming that we should ask God for a
Cadillac, believe that we already have it (a key to
visualization success), see it in our mind's eye (in other
words, visualize it) and then it will somehow be delivered.
Perhaps he should have said "manifested" (New Age) or
"materialized" (witchcraft) instead of "delivered."
Besides being firmly rooted in both classical Western
occultism and Eastern mysticism, such methods force God
into the role of a cosmic Aladdin's lamp, a god of
convenience or spiritual vending machine: Since when does
the sovereign God do our bidding on command? No matter
how these teachings are dressed up, they bear the stigma of
demeaning the unspeakable majesty of God!
It is apparent that much of this type of activity is little more
than sorcery. (4) That's a big claim, so let's put it to rest by
considering the definition of sorcery. As we explained earlier,
the two words translated "sorcery" in Scripture are magia
and pharmakaea. The latter is the root of "pharmacy" and
probably refers to the seeking of mystical experiences or
supernatural powers through the use of consciousness
altering drugs. Some American Indian tribes legally use
peyote (mescaline) for this purpose in their religious rituals.
The other word, magia, refers to ritual magic, which can be
defined as:
"The attempt to influence or control the natural or
supernatural worlds through supernatural beings, laws,
energies, forces or entities by means of words, practices or
rituals that in and of themselves have power." (5)
Keep in mind that we are not talking about genuine prayer
but rather about words (etc.) that in and of themselves have
power that is released regardless of who uses them ... or
when. (6) Clearly, if the visualizer is attempting to create
health, wealth or material goods out of thin air through the
practice of visualization, then he or she is conducting a
shaman's or sorcerer's ritual. Visualization is a key part of

73
the ritual.
Occultic Visualization
Visualization is a New Age technique and, as such, it is
taught in many New Age seminars, personal transformation
courses and in numerous New Age books (some of which
are sold in Christian bookstores). Even the medical
profession has fallen for this bit of quackery. Nurses and
nursing administrators in hospitals all over the country
attend seminars and retreats that feature visualization,
meditation and other forms of concealed sorcery.
A handout given to head nurses in one community hospital
proclaimed that the nurse could become a magician.
Although the nurses who attended the seminar took it
metaphorically, the real intent was apparently a lot closer to
the plain-sense meaning of the words selected: they want to
make nurses into shamanic magicians! (7)
Visualization is a spiritual exercise that is defined by New
Agers as " ... using your imagination to create what you
want in life." You can supposedly use visualization to gain
wealth, power, material goods, health, healing and spiritual
guidance. But, claim its fans, it is not necessary to "have
faith" in anything external to yourself.
Visualization is thus said to be completely natural; merely a
suppressed ability of primal man; perhaps something that
Adam and Eve lost at the garden gate. Most New Age
occultists call these techniques "Creative Visualization" or
"Guided Imagery." It is also sometimes called "Dynamic
Imaging," "Positive Imaging" or simply "Visualization;" but
we should call it "Occultic Visualization" to keep it in proper
spiritual perspective.
Even though faith in something supernatural is not required,
the same New Agers tell us "it helps" and the trust we are
asked to place in the "spirit guide" whom we visualize
sounds a lot like religious faith. A leading New Age writer on
this topic, Shakti Gawain (author of Creative Visualization),
tells us it is " ... magic in the highest meaning of the word."

74
(8) Its magical aspect is supported by its inclusion in The
Magic Power of Witchcraft by Gavin and Yvonne Frost
(Gavin Frost is Archbishop of the church of Wicca). (9)
Shamanism In The Church?
Visualization is also a tool in the kit of the primitive shaman.
(10) Although scoffed at by Westerners as mere "medicine
men" or "witch doctors," they are nonetheless widely
respected in primitive cultures for their ability to contact the
spirit world. If these aboriginal mystics were merely
fraudulent, then their hold over the people would vanish in a
pile of repeated failures. Only our educated haughtiness
assumes that primitive peoples are too ignorant to recognize
fraudulent shaman.
That shamans use visualization is well documented by Dr.
Michael Harner and others. According to Harner, an
anthropologist and himself a practicing shaman, there are
two states of consciousness: the ordinary state of
consciousness (OSC) and the shamanic state of
consciousness (SSC). In his book The Way of the Shaman,
Harner tells us that when a shaman enters the SSC he " ...
become(s) a seer and undertake(s) personally the famed
shamanic journey to acquire firsthand knowledge of a
hidden universe" (p.xix). Although primitive shamans speak
of meeting spirits -- testimonies that sound startlingly like
those we heard from westerners on LSD trips only a
generation ago -- Doctor Harner downplays the existence of
these beings (p. xxi).
In the Afterword of his book (p.175), Harner reveals deep
insight into modern New Age practices:
The burgeoning field of holistic medicine shows a
tremendous amount of experimentation involving the re-
invention of many techniques long practiced in shamanism,
such as visualization, altered state of consciousness, aspects
of psychoanalysis, hypnotherapy, meditation, positive
attitude, stress-reduction and mental and emotional
expression of personal will for health and healing [Emphasis
added]. (11)

75
In other words, Christians who practice visualization are in
effect practicing forbidden shamanism regardless of their
personal popularity, apparent success with miracle healings
or their financially well-endowed ministry.
What's Wrong With Visualization?
Visualization techniques are very popular among self-
improvement teachers in seemingly non-religious settings.
They will tell you that visualization can help you lose weight,
stop smoking or overcome almost any personal problem.
There is ample evidence that visualization actually works.
The testimony of visualizers from primitive shamans to
modern New Agers is proof. (12)
So what's wrong with visualization? Why can't we visualize
Jesus? Why can't we use the technique to obtain material
wealth, physical health, "inner healing" and other benefits?
After all, if Norman Vincent Peale, Agnes Sanford, Richard
Foster and other Christian leaders teach the method, can it
be all that bad? Yes it can!
First, no one knows what Jesus looks like. Virtually
everyone will have a different Jesus and that's confusion
where the real Jesus is never in confusion. Furthermore, the
vision is not Jesus, only a representation.
A.W. Tozer teaches us that people who imagine God wind
up with an imaginary god. Writing in That Incredible
Christian, Tozer warns us "true faith is not the intellectual
ability to visualize unseen things to the satisfaction of our
minds, it is rather the moral power to trust Christ." (13)
From the same source we also learn from Tozer: "The wise
Christian will not let his assurance depend upon his powers
of imagination." (14)
We must recognize that Satan is an "angel of light" who can
lead us to mistake a visualized counterfeit for the real Jesus.
Those who trust their visualized "Jesus" because he seems
so real argue that a counterfeit must closely mimic the
genuine to be accepted. They argue that there must be real
gold before "fool's gold" makes sense. This argument is

76
false and is nothing more than a stolen concept. By
asserting that counterfeit visualization exists, we implicitly
accept the premise that some visualization is genuinely of
God. Thus, we tacitly accept that our own visualization
experiences are genuine, while those of others are suspect.
The end result is delusion.
Perhaps the reason why Jesus left no snapshots of himself --
and the reason for the "no graven images" command given
to the Hebrews -- was that man will make the mere image
into a god -- an idol -- and fall away from genuine worship.
A "visualized Jesus" is only an idol made of thoughts. When
found in the church, according to Dave Hunt, it is
"evangelical idolatry."
Johanna Michaelson, author of The Beautiful Side of Evil, is
a former New Ager who became a Christian. During her New
Age time she was an assistant to a psychic surgeon (a witch
named "Pachita") in Mexico City. (15) She reports in her
book that she learned visualization through a Silva Mind
Control course. (16) She was taught to create a "laboratory"
in her mind where her guides could come and visit. Instead
of seeing them a long way off she would instead wait for the
lab door to open to reveal her guides. Being from a
Christian culture, Johanna chose "Jesus" as one of her
guides. The first time he came, the visualized "Jesus" was
quite conventional. The second time he visited her, however,
he was in the form of a blood drenched werewolf! The
lesson that she was apparently meant to learn was to not
fear something that appeared evil; how convenient for
Satan.
There is still another problem with visualization. The
visualizer is often told to "see" Jesus any way he likes, in
blue jeans and T-shirt for example. To visualize Jesus in an
unworthy way is to allow ourselves to degrade the Holy God
who is majesty unspeakable to a point that is simply
sacrilegious. One proponent of visualization uses the
example of famous artists who depicted Jesus in their
paintings as justification for the practice. (17) There is a
fundamental difference between artists and visualizers,

77
however: those artists were working from intellect out of awe
and respect. They were in complete possession of their
mental faculties. But what visualizers recommend sounds
too much like shamanistic self-hypnosis to be trusted!
Furthermore, Christian artists through the ages have
portrayed either the passion of Jesus or a glorified Jesus --
not a hippie ragamuffin or a werewolf.
Finally, we lose our rational judgement to the extent that we
soon learn to trust our spirit guides. Visualizers report that
the bond formed with the guide is very tight. (18) The
visualizer thus comes to implicitly trust everything that the
guide says. For example, temptation could be less easily
resisted when the spirit guide states that adultery is not
adultery in your specific situation.
Other opinions can also be distorted. For example, you
might come to believe that abortion on demand is clearly
God's will for some people and not for others. A wicked
man perceived as innocent could be elected to high political
office by the votes of visualizers whose guides told them
that he is God's choice for the office. Depending upon your
favorite end times scenario, it is therefore easy to see how
the antichrist might be a future European prime minister or
United States president -- elected by the faithful who were
duped by their spirit guides.
Can We "Test The Spirits?"
Don't be misled by those who advise you to go ahead with
visualization but to "test the spirits" against the Word of God
along the way. That advice is a comfortable cop-out that
can lead you astray. There are at least two problems with
such advice.
First, the advice will soon go unheeded. William James,
writing in The Varieties of Religious Experience, calls
mystical experiences "ineffable." That is, mystical
experiences are so beautiful that they are beyond the power
of words to express. Thus, the visualizer will be overcome
with wonderment and awe, so will soon put the advice aside
and trust the "guide" completely.

78
A warm, fuzzy feeling of intense spirituality is no substitute
for hard headed testing in Scripture. Hard-nosed flicking off
of your mental television set is the answer. After all, why
intentionally expose yourself to spirits that need testing
when you have the Word? Why did Paul commend the
Bereans? Was it for testing everything by Scripture or for
tripping off into the high, lonesome, thin upper atmosphere
of mysticism?
Second, God may not protect you while visualizing. If
visualization is witchcraft, sorcery or magick, then by
practicing it you would be in a state of disobedience (Deut.
18:9ff). God will forgive visualizers on an eternal scale, as
promised but He may nonetheless allow them to suffer the
consequences of their disobedience on the temporal scale.
After all, those who leap from the pinnacle of the temple still
(to their chagrin) have to answer to the law of gravity; so it
also is for other sins of presumption.
Visualization lets a spirit run a video tape inside your brain --
and that spirit could be a deceiving demon. Sir John Eccles'
statement, "the brain is a machine a ghost can operate,"
takes on hideous new meaning. The experiences reported
by many visualizers shows that you cannot control either the
content or who runs that mental peep show!
In Deuteronomy 18 God forbids trafficking with spirits,
witchcraft and other kindred things and for good reason.
Such mystical experiences can be deceivingly beautiful
(witness Michaelson's book title). You will come to trust your
visualized "Jesus" so much that he can plant doctrinal errors
in your mind by "explaining" or "clarifying" Scripture or by
granting supposedly new revelations. You will then doubt
your pastors, elders, teachers and even the Bible itself. You
can also be led into erroneous political or social opinions
(and actions) by your demonic "guide."
Why has Satan thrust visualization onto both the church and
the New Age Movement at the same time? With New Agers,
Christians, Jews, Hindus and Moslems all awaiting a
messiah, the antichrist will gain quicker acceptance if

79
millions of spiritually oriented people are told by their
visualized guides that antichrist is their longed-for Jesus,
Messiah, Imam Mahdi, Buddha or Lord Maitreya. Can the
"Elect" be deceived? It would seem so -- at least
temporarily.
Not one word of scripture advocates or even hints at the
practice of visualization, so it is therefore at least a suspect
thing. Historically, visualization has not been found among
Christians except for the monastic mystics of old, many of
whom were excommunicated for heresy. Yet visualization is
widely found among primitive and classical pagans,
especially those with shamanistic religious systems. The
practice is also found extensively among modern New
Agers, as a quick visit to almost any New Age bookstore will
reveal.
Nevertheless, many people in the church practice and teach
visualization. When confronted with the facts about
visualization, they become very defensive and usually attack
the one criticizing the practice.
Dave Hunt, author of The Seduction of Christianity, has
been reviled by Christians who accept visualization and
other occultic techniques. In defending their own
involvement with the occult, Hunt's critics claim that he
"throws out the baby with the bath water;" implying that
there might be a clean Christian baby in all that dirty
occultic bathwater. Hunt answered those critics in a video
tape series by asserting that he searched for that baby in the
bathwater and found it: it was Rosemary's baby.
We would do well to avoid visualization on grounds that it is:
* not scripturally authorized,
* practiced widely among non-Christian religions,
* a well-known practice of witchcraft, shamanism and
sorcery and
* therefore strictly forbidden by God (Deuteronomy 18:9-18
and others).

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We must conclude that visualization, whether in Christian
churches or the local witchcraft/New Age meeting, is
occultic. As such, visualization is condemned in
Deuteronomy 18 and elsewhere in scripture.
~~~~~~~

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 6 - Modern Psychology:
Renaming the Old Demons?
Perhaps never before did man plumb so deeply the depths
of his own being as in the modern semi-science of
psychology. The work of the early pioneers of psychology,
intellectual giants like Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav
Jung, laid the foundation for all modern work in the field.
Until very recently, however, when neurological scientists,
physiological psychologists and brain chemistry researchers
became reputable, psychology's legitimate claim to being
"science" was flimsy. At best it was a soft science and more
art than science in clinical settings. Even in secular
universities the psychologists sometimes endure the snickers
of their faculty colleagues in the physical and life sciences
departments.
It is axiomatic that a field that offers a large number of
different answers to the same set of problems doesn't have
any good answers; psychology is a field with too many
answers. While no one would deny that Jung and Freud
were intellectual giants or claim that they and their
successors made no useful contributions, it is necessary to
examine their underlying world views to see if the founding
premises of psychology are valid. After all, if a system of
thought is built on false premises or a faulty world view,
then that system is like a house built on a foundation of
sand.
Both Jung and Freud came of age intellectually in Europe
during the height of the Occult Revival. This well-
documented upsurge in occultism started in the 1840s with
the Fox sisters and their Spiritualism but dates back millenia
in the form of the Western Esoteric Tradition. In 1875, the
Theosophists of Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
blended together into one occultic system three streams of
thought: the Western Esoteric Tradition, Eastern religions
and Darwinian science. This new system flourished and is

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now called the New Age Movement. In an even more
perverted form it became Naziism. My book, The Twisted
Cross, describes the New Age occultism of Hitler.
The rise of science and materialism stripped away man's
immortality but left him with nothing in return. Man
became, in the materialist view, little more than a slurry of
chemical elements and electrical currents choreographed in
some sort of physical concert.
The freedom that we value so highly today was disorienting
to many 19th-century men; to them, strong central authority
meant not oppression but order.
Traditional secular governments lost their authority in the
century of revolution from 1775 to 1875. The church also
lost much of its authority. It lost some authority to the
scientists and voluntarily gave up the rest to liberal Higher
Criticism theology; God, if any, was declared dead.
The prospect of total extinction rightly terrified men who no
longer had confidence in Christ for their salvation. Many of
them could not accept either the materialist or the Christian
world views, so turned instead to the occultism that was
always present as a hidden underground stream in European
culture from the earliest pre-Christian times.
At the turn of the century, when the Occult Revival was at its
peak, Freud and Jung were studying the nature of man's
mind. Yet even a casual reading of the Jungian and
Freudian literature reveals that both men had
mystical/occultic world views blended uncomfortably with
the materialist world view that was then prevalent in science.
It must have been a confusing time!
Materialism was one of the principal forces to emerge from
the 19th century. This view was derived from the Age of
Reason and the Enlightenment of earlier centuries and the
rise of respectable science in the 19th century. Prior to
Newton, Maxwell, Darwin and other giants of science, the
track record of scientists allowed only amused skepticism.
But by the 19th century science achieved the status of

83
omnipotent wisdom; scientists could do no wrong and, in
the popular mind, replaced the priests of earlier ages. No
longer were scientists merely secular heretics in a hostile
religious world.
The fathers of psychology joined other scientists in
promoting the materialist world view. But there were
conflicts: both Freud and Jung flirted with occultism and
metaphysics and Jung never gave it up; it is debatable
whether Freud ever gave it up completely (some say he
merely renamed the same old demons). (1)
Carl Jung is rightly regarded by Neo-gnostics as the High
Priest of their movement. Even in his time Jung was called
the Hexenmeister ("warlock" or male witch) of Zurich.
According to James Webb in The Occult Establishment:
"Jung's psychology represents to many a restatement of the
ideas at the core of occult tradition in terms accessible to
those ill at ease with religious language. The point can be
most strongly made by examining the way in which Jung
was inspired to compare the stages in the 'alchemical
process' with those he observed during the course of his
patients' 'individuation.'" (2)
Another authority, Stephan Hoeller (director of the Sophia
gnostic Center in Los Angeles and author of The Gnostic
Jung) quotes a former associate: (3) "Dr. Jung is a seer and
a mystic after the fashion of the magicians of the
Renaissance. I have known for some time that there is more
to him than meets the academic eye. Unlike Freud, he is
not fearful of the dark mysteries of the spirit." (4)
Dr. Jung delved into gnosticism and alchemy and, indeed,
saw alchemy as the bridge between ancient gnosticism and
modern psychology. Alchemy he judged to be a modern
pansophistic expression of gnosticism, Hermetic Neo-
Platonism and other ancient esoteric traditions. To Jung,
gnosticism was "... not a set of doctrines but a mythological
expression of an inner experience," and that same inner
experience was the theme of his psychological theories. The
images of the gnosis valued by the mystics were analogous

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to the "Archetypes" of Jungian psychology. According to
Webb: "the plain result is that psychoanalysis, psychical
research and the more religious aspects of the Occult
Revival can by no means be disentangled." (5)
The evidence is strong that Doctor Jung was "... subject to
paranormal experiences; and these naturally played a great
part in orienting his system." (6) He experienced psychic
visions throughout his childhood and even spoke of a
mysterious event regarding an exploding table. In "... Jung's
later life, the supernatural was never far away." (7)
The Jungians maintained a mysterious air about the
discoveries and theories produced by their master.
According to Hoeller, it amounted to "Hermetic
concealment." Carl Jung repeatedly claimed that his
theories were based on the empirical evidence from his own
practice of psychiatry. But since Jung was known to be a
gnostic who constantly experienced occult events, saw
ghosts and consorted with astrologers, it is probable that at
least some of the "empirical data" was discovered by other
than purely scientific methods.
Did Dr. Carl Jung promote a doctrine provided to him by
demons? Were his "empirical experiences" really occultic
experiences? It seems so.
It is known that at least one major work of Jung came
directly from an occult experience. Between 1912 and 1917
he went through an "... intense period of experience which
involved a tremendous flooding of his consciousness from
within by forces which he called archetypal but which
previous ages would have declared to be divine and
demonic [emphasis added]." (8)
During this period Jung withdrew from the world, except for
a small part of his psychiatric practice and underwent a
series of strange inner experiences. He did not read any
books, although previously an avid reader. He wrote down
his "... strange inner experiences" in some 1,330 pages of
handwritten text.

85
According to the Hoeller account of this period of Jung's
life, his "handwriting at this time changed to one that was
used in the 14th century." (9) He painted during this period
using "... pigments which he himself made, after the fashion
of the artists of bygone ages." Among his most precious
possessions was a red leather-bound volume of these
paintings and writings which is now called Jung's Red Book.
Neither Jung nor his successors allowed the contents of the
Red Book to be published, except for a small excerpt called
in Latin Septem Sermones ad Mortuos (Seven Sermons to
the Dead); the work was subtitled "Seven Exhortations to
the Dead, written by Basilides in Alexandria, the city where
East and West meet." (Note: Basilides was a gnostic writer in
Hellenic Egypt during the second century A.D.). Although
apologists for Jung claim that the book was a "youthful
indiscretion" written and signed in the spirit of
Pseudepigrapha (a popular practice in ancient times in
which a writer assumed the identity of another more ancient
writer -- which raises hob with scholars), it is likely that he
believed that Basilides was, indeed, the author. Again,
according to Hoeller: "To Basilides, in fact, does Jung
attribute the authorship of the document itself, thus
suggesting to some an element of mediumship and (or)
automatic writing (emphasis added)." (10)
Seven Sermons to the Dead was never intended for the
public but instead was published in a private edition for
Jung's friends and associates in an attractive, high-quality,
red-leather binding. In later years, "Jung himself went on
record regarding the contents of the Red Book and the
Sermons, stating that all his works, all his creative activity
has come from these initial visions and dreams and that
everything he accomplished in later life was already
contained in them" [Emphasis added]. (11)
Continuing with Stephen Hoeller's account: "As one might
expect, Jung maintained a constant contact with the
mysterious sources that inspired his Red Book throughout
his life. He remained an inspired -- some might say haunted
-- revelator for the rest of his days." (12)

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The writing of Seven Sermons to the Dead was mysterious.
According to some accounts, it was written in three
harrowing nights sometime between December 15, 1916,
and February 16, 1917. This book appears to have been
written through automatic writing during a period when the
Jung family was undergoing a large number of occultic
events in their home. Jung constantly felt an ominous
presence about him and the Jung children reportedly saw
"ghostly entities in the house." Stephen Hoeller's account is
perhaps the most graphic in print:
One of the children dreamt a religiously colored and
somewhat menacing dream involving both an angel and a
devil. Then -- it was a Sunday afternoon -- the front doorbell
rang violently. The bell could actually be seen to move
frantically but no one visible was responsible for the act. A
crowd of "spirits" seemed to fill the room, indeed the house
and no one could even breathe normally in the spook-
infested hallway. Dr. Jung cried out in a shaky and troubled
voice: "For God's sake, what in the world is this?" The reply
came in a chorus of ghostly voices: "We have come back
from Jerusalem where we found not what we sought." (13)
It was then that the Seven Sermons to the Dead were born.
Christians being treated by a Jungian psychologist or
otherwise involved in Jungian systems (such as inner
healing) might well consider the world view and experiences
of their originator: the true originator might be something
other than a human scientist. Perhaps a biblically based
counselor would be more appropriate for most patients.
Jung's belief in experientially relieving psychological
problems, characterised by "not out, through the problem,"
bears more than a superficial resemblance to the gnostic
idea of a "Path of Initiation," as told in the Holy Grail epics.
In these and other Initiations, the Questor is given a series of
tasks or problems to solve (sometimes intellectually) that
are designed to bring them to points of crisis or tension.
After each segment is successfully negotiated, the Questor
is Initiated to a higher degree -- and more tasks or

87
problems. Besides psychology, these methods are common
in gnosticism, mysticism, Zen Buddhism and other occultic
systems.
The evidence of occultic involvement regarding Jung's
mentor, Sigmund Freud, is less convincing. Nevertheless, it
can be demonstrated that Freud was at least toying with the
occultism that he publicly loathed. Despite statements
calling occultism "creeping black mud," Freud nevertheless
consorted with luminaries of the Occult Revival. In fact,
being a Viennese intellectual in the late 19th- and early
20th-century period, he could have hardly done otherwise.
Freud regularly visited soothsayers and was friends with
prominent occultists like Wilhelm Fleiss.
According to James Webb: "Freud saw very clearly the
similarities between the occult approach and that of
psychoanalysis." (14)
It is interesting to note that Freud (who was Jewish) was
associated with leading occultists of the period, including
Georg Lanz von Liebenfels, the Viennese magician whose
anti-semitic spasms influenced the teen-aged Adolf Hitler
(1908-1913). During the period (1895) when Freud
formulated his interpretation of dreams method, he lived in
a house provided by the Viennese Theosophist Summer
Colony.
When psychology began to gain public acceptance, the
Freudians attempted to remove the occultic strains that were
otherwise so evident. It became unpopular to recall that
Freud began working from an investigation of Mesmerism
(hypnotism) and that Freud associated with occultists. They
(including Freud himself) tried to put the new science on a
firmer materialistic footing by referring instead to "psychical
research" (parapsychology) in place of "occultic research."
Yet, in later years Freud was active in the fields of mental
telepathy and edited works in that field of study.
It has been argued that Freud was responsible for
secularizing the essentially religious ideas found in the
Kaballa, the book of Jewish mysticism. While there are

88
similarities, "... final proof is lacking." It does seem,
however, that Freud was indeed involved in beliefs that his
followers would consider disreputable and maybe "... his
collection of Egyptian idols ... signify more than
antiquarianism ... ".
Conclusion

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Psychology has crept into the church and now predominates
in many denominations. Major conservative evangelical
seminaries have replaced biblical counseling with
psychology. Many congregations will not call a pastor to
their pulpit unless he had a masters degree (or at least some
advanced training) in clinical psychology. Given the
demonic origins of clinical psychology and the potential for
mis diagnosing organic diseases that are better treated by a
psychiatrist (who is a licensed medical doctor), one has to
wonder whether psychology has any merit at all. Is it a
modern heresy to wonder out loud whether "Christian"
psychology is a contradiction in terms -- given the rooting
of psychology in the New Age?
~~~~~~~

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 7 - Drugs, Consciousness and
the New Age
It was a Saturday-evening party for college-aged kids and
young professionals living in the Virginia suburbs of
Washington, D.C. (1) Most of the people brought beer, wine
or booze for the "wetting down" at the rowhouse in
Alexandria. Because it was the winter of 1966 and marijuana
was really illegal in those days, "pot" was there but not
evident.
In Virginia at that time, kids drew 20 years in the state
penitentiary for possession of mere micrograms of the
substance (trace quantities).
The pot smokers, being unsure of the rest of us "straights,"
would sneak off to a basement workshop to light up in
secret. It didn't take a genius to figure out what they were
doing, however, because the odor of burning marijuana
permeated the house and people returning from the
basement had that insipid, vacant look of the thoroughly
stoned.
About 10 p.m., the first-floor bedroom where coats were
deposited erupted into pandemonium. The screaming and
thrashing, crash of splintered furniture and hysterical crying
at first sounded like a fight between some of the larger
guests. Fifteen or 20 guests crowded into the hallway and
bedroom to see four big men trying to restrain a kid who,
but for the screaming and crying, looked like he was having
a grand mal epileptic seizure. The kid seemed to have a
superhuman strength as he thrashed about on the bed under
the muscles of four would-be NFL linemen.
Later, after the young man was taken to the hospital by his
friends, we found out that he had taken LSD and was
apparently in the midst of a "bad trip." During his attack, he
repeatedly screamed "I've seen the devil! I've seen the devil!"
Although I didn't believe him then (I fancied myself an
atheist follower of Ayn Rand in those days), I believe him

91
now. It is likely that he saw something he identified as the
devil and it frightened him badly. So much so, that a year
later he was still under a psychiatrist's care.
That young man was probably not a New Ager (just a dumb
kid) but his experience illustrates that drugs can generate
spiritual experiences. And not all such experiences are the
positive technicolor events reported in the underground
"hippie" grapevine of that era.
One aspect of New Age teaching is that certain spiritual
disciplines (sometimes called "spiritual techniques" or
"psychospiritual technologies") (2) can aid man in
discovering his divine self. The New Age view is that man
contains a spark of divinity (man is a god) that is smothered
inside a physical body. Man can reunite with God only
through attainment of knowledge (gnosis) of God and his
own divine nature. Unfortunately, at our present level of
consciousness this is impossible, say the teachings.
An analogy to the level of consciousness problem is a
television receiver in a fringe zone a long way from the TV
broadcasting station. The receiver is man's consciousness,
the antenna is the consciousness-raising disciplines and the
TV station is God. In deep fringe zones, the TV picture is all
snow and the sound is only a roaring hiss; turn your own TV
to a dead channel and crank up the volume to see what it's
like. Both sound and snowy picture are noise signals; only
occasionally does the signal from God's transmitter break
through to paint a washed out black and white picture on
the screen of man's consciousness. Fleeting pictures and
garbled sound are what man gets from the god-source.
But if we engage in certain spiritual technologies or
disciplines to alter our consciousness to a supposedly higher
level, it is like placing a huge, electronically amplified TV
antenna at the top of a tall tower. The sound and color
picture comes through noise free; we have our gnosis.
There are several disciplines open to the questor after gnosis
and all of them are potentially very dangerous. Among the
disciplines are: drugs, yoga, visualization, hypnosis,

92
meditation and other methods of mysticism. (1)
Using psychoactive drugs to raise consciousness is as old as
man himself. (3) Ever since early man ate the wrong fruit,
he has been having such experiences. Drugs are also
recognized as among the most dangerous methods, the
most crude methods but are also among the most popular
methods.
Leading New Age teachers lament drug use and caution
their followers not to use this method. The Holy Grail
legends, such as Parsival by Wolfram von Eschenbach, are
among the earliest statements in the proto-New Age Western
Esoteric Tradition. (4) Eschenbach learned the Ancient
Wisdom from one Kyot of Provence, who cautioned him to
"first learn the ABC's ... without the use of black magic."
This statement is often taken as a warning against suicidal
spiritual shortcuts such as drug use. Yet some New Agers
persist in disregarding their own teachers and try drugs.
The drugs used are selected to "... dislocate man's sense of
ordinary reality." By altering consciousness the drugs
produce hallucinations, dreams and visions. It seems that we
surrender the control of our brain to ghost operators when
we ingest those chemical substances. Revelations in the
altered state of consciousness are somehow perceived as
more real, more valid than ordinary experiences. Thus, the
subject of such experiences can be manipulated into
thinking he has experienced a spiritual event.
Drug use was very much a part of the Occult Revival of the
late 19th century. (5) Marijuana and other substances were
in common use and because laws were more lax in those
days, there was none of the legal fear that characterized
modern drug usage.
Besides marijuana, the anesthetic agents chloroform, ether
and nitrous oxide were popular among avant-garde
Bohemian intelligentsia of the Occult Revival. The use of
those agents was so widespread that the movement was
dubbed the "Anesthetic Revelation." (6) Anesthesia
experimentation was probably more widespread in America

93
than Europe, however.
The leading American proponent was Benjamin P. Blood
(1820-1906), whose 1874 book The Anesthetic Revelation
attracted much positive comment. Blood claimed that the
experience was an "initiation ... into the oldest and most
intimate and ultimate truth." He also proclaimed that the
anesthetic revelation " ... graduated [one] beyond instruction
in spiritual things."
Peyote was also in widespread use during the Occult
Revival. This drug, which is also called "mescaline" and
"Anhalonium Lewinii," is derived from the buds of a cactus
flower that are found in the deserts of northern Mexico and
southwestern United States. Numerous luminaries of the
Occult Revival and the more recent drug subculture, are
linked with the use of peyote.
The drug was once distributed freely but today in the United
States it is illegal for all but certain American Indian tribes
(who use it in religious rituals). (7)
Aleister Crowley, a perverted soul who used many drugs
indiscriminately, also used peyote. According to James
Webb, Crowley may have introduced Aldous Huxley to
Peyote in pre-1933 Berlin. (8) Twenty years later, Huxley
used the same drug under the supervision of a physician
and recorded his experiences in his now classic work The
Doors of Perception.
The European Bohemian subculture was imported into the
United States and along with it came the occultism and
drugs. There seems to be three main successive periods of
American Bohemianism, each one a little less like the
European: Original, Beat and Hippie.
The Original period occurred from the 1890s until World War
II and involved primarily creative people of the worlds of arts
and letters. The Bohemia of that era imported its identity
from Paris and the rest of Europe and mixed it with certain
native American elements. The center of Bohemia in
America of that era was the North Beach area of San

94
Francisco.
Like its European parent, American Bohemianism expressed
itself in surrealistic art, American counterparts to German
Dadaism and other forms of irrational art. Play-writes,
novelists and artists gorged themselves on mystics like
Gurdieff, Blavatsky, Hermann Hesse and Eliaphas Levi.
Americanization of imported Bohemian culture transformed
the movement into the Beatniks of the 1940s and 1950s. It
also broadened the base of the anti-establishment
subculture both geographically and demographically. The
Beatniks started coming out of North Beach and moved
east to New York, settling in Greenwich Village and the
Lower East Side. Others settled in the then-not-so-famous
Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco.
There was a different quality to Beatnik culture compared
with earlier Bohemians. There was, for example, a wider use
of drugs among the Beats. Instead of a peripheral group of
drug users, the Beatnik subculture placed marijuana in a
central position. There was also a wider tolerance of
"tourists" in the movement. These were hangers on " ... who
might conform to the expected patterns of behavior, make
all the right noises but fail to understand the language. (9)
Perhaps the leading spokesman for the Beat underground in
the early 1950s was author Jack Kerouac. His novel On the
Road created the U.S. version of the myth of the hobo
philosopher or "Dharmic bum," who hitchhiked and rode the
rails all over the country searching for wisdom.
In Kerouac's hobo we see echoes of the German
Wandervogel ("wandering birds") of a generation or two
earlier. In Kerouac we find hints of adopted Zen Buddhism
in the West.
Growing up in the 1950s, I can recall a brilliant science
student from my high school who went off to college as a
level headed sort of guy to pursue a career in physics.
Within 18 months I saw him carrying a book titled Zen for
the Western Man and mouthing doctrine that shocked his

95
devout Roman Catholic parents. A year later, the young man
dropped out of college and spent several years under the
care of a psychiatrist.
The Beat subculture added a new dimension to the irrational
underground. As a synergism of Bohemian (Western)
occultism, Eastern Hindu and the Zen Buddhist teaching
and the traditional protest mindset of its anti-establishment
European forefathers, the Beats set themselves up for a
transformation of their own. When these elements were
blended together with large numbers of drug-oriented
hangers-on, a new subculture called "Hippie" emerged.
Among the foremost catalysts of the Beat-Hippie
transformation was a new substance: Lysergic Acid
Diethylamide or "LSD."
LSD was discovered to be a hallucinogenic substance in the
spring of 1943 when Doctor Albert Hofmann accidentally
absorbed a small amount of the substance. Doctor Hofmann
was working on LSD, which is synthesized from fungus
ergot, in his laboratory at Sandoz Corporation in Basel,
Switzerland. LSD was not illegal in California until June 6,
1966 (6/6/ 66). Sandoz-made LSD was manufactured in
Switzerland, sold to transhippers in Czechoslovakia and then
brought into the United States by way of Mexico.
The hallucinations produced by LSD naturally attracted the
spiritually oriented among the California anti-establishment
subculture. The Beatnik culture was already well advanced
in its transformation into Hippie culture and LSD was one of
the main catalysts. Although some legitimate scientific
experimentation was carried out by medical researchers,
most of the imported LSD wound up in the occult-minded
Hippie subculture.
Perhaps the grand guru of the LSD crowd was Doctor
Timothy Leary formerly of Harvard University. Leary
reportedly experimented with mushrooms and a substance
called psylocibin until his discovery of LSD around 1961 or
1962. Leary is quoted in Webb's The Occult Establishment
regarding his LSD experiences: "... I know it is a reality! I

96
know it is the Divine message." According to Webb, Leary
then "... took to frequenting a Hindu ashram in Boston."
(10)
Although most New Age teachers eschew drug use, there
are some who are apparently on a first name basis with
Timothy Leary. In early August, 1984, I talked with
Constance Cumbey on the telephone. She had just returned
from a party at the California home of Marilyn Ferguson
(The Aquarian Conspiracy). The party seemed to Cumbey
like an attempt to win her over to the very cause that she
warns of in her book and lectures. She told me that many of
the top luminaries of the New Age were present and "... I
was close enough to Timothy Leary to snatch the wine
bottle out of his hands." The New Age/Drug Culture
connection seems obvious.
It's funny how things work out. The reason for my telephone
call to Constance Cumbey was to tell her that I had just had
an impromptu dinner with New Age spiritual teacher David
Spangler. During a trip to A.R.E. (Virginia Beach, Virginia)
to research this book, I attended a Spangler seminar.
On Saturday evening, I went to the cafeteria at the Marshalls
Hotel for dinner (across the street from A.R.E.).
After sitting down with a group of people, I found that one
of them was Julie Spangler's mother, who was babysitting
David's and Julie's baby son. David soon walked over and
sat down next to me. After a few minutes the other guests
left the table and David and I had a 30-minute chat (mostly
about Constance Cumbey). When we compared notes later,
Constance remarked "What's this? The New Agers take a
Fundamentalist to dinner week? ... while you were with
Spangler I was at Marilyn Ferguson's house!"
The manufacture of LSD is apparently a somewhat trivial
exercise for a knowledgeable chemist. When I was a
freshman at Old Dominion University in Virginia, library
officials tightly controlled certain chemistry "cookbooks" in
hopes of preventing knowledgeable (but not-so-wise)
undergraduates from cooking the stuff up in their dorm

97
rooms. One of the primary suppliers to the Haight-Ashbury
Hippie community was a mysterious chap called "Owsley."
(11)
That the LSD experience, called "psychedelic initiation" by
some, was mystical in nature was confirmed by "heroes
from the worlds of pop, protest and church [who] testified to
the occult significance of the New Age ... ." "In November
[1967] the folk-singer Buffy Sainte-Marie -- who has a
degree in the history of religions -- proclaimed in Jungian
terms: 'I'm dedicated to Satan and Jehovah -- my God is
[the rooster-headed gnostic god] Abraxas, the god of evil
and good.' " (12)
The renegade Episcopal Bishop James Pike testified in
September, 1967, that psychedelic experience and mystical
Initiation were the same. Bishop Pike converted from a
liberal, quasi-orthodoxy to old fashioned spiritism after the
death of his son. He once reportedly said he entered a
(liberal) seminary as a believer but his theology was taken
from him by the seminary and replaced with a "... mere
handful of pebbles."
Bishop Pike's life ended when he got lost in the Judaean
desert during an expedition, long after he got lost on a
spiritual desert of another sort. His tragic experience should
be taken as a warning to liberal churchmen that something
is wrong with their theology -- but it won't.
Illuminated Politics Modern Style
Bohemia in all its forms represents anti-establishment
protest. Some protest has been directed against materialist
society. Much of the occultist underground that spawned
Bohemia was a reaction against the cold rationalism of the
Age of Enlightenment and the rise of science. Their protest
took the form of a rejection of the established norms of
society and took on political overtones that are consistent
with anti-materialism.
The later Beatnik culture carried forward the tradition of
protest and politics. In the 1930s, Beatnik politics tended

98
toward socialist and communist movements. (13)
Throughout the history of Bohemia, protest politics have
remained a constant presence. From the social criticism of
the Paris underground, to the literature of the Beatnik, to the
mind blowing antics of the zany Hippie underground,
Bohemia has espoused whatever their society was against
(presumedly, Russian beatniks would hold a Capitalist world
view).
The basic underlying assumption is that "the Establishment"
is always evil and the values of what the Beats called
"square society" are corrupt. In this light it is odd that so
many Beats were socialists. After all, the USSR is the
squarest of square societies and the most hypocritical.
Many people who stay in "straight" society are privately
drawn into the anti-establishment subculture on a part-time
basis. I can recall Saturday nights in Washington where it
was common practice to go up to Dupont Circle and watch
the tourists from Pennsylvania ogle the tourists from the
Washington suburbs. Hordes of "straight" young people
from all over were drawn like insects to the lights of Dupont
Circle. Most of them wore wigs to cover their short haircuts
so they could return to straight society on Monday morning.
Most of those people were probably materialistic humanists
and failed to understand the nature of the Hippie movement.
Many never caught the whiff of gas from the Occult
Underground of the New Left, which they so admired in
secret. The vicarious "straight Hippies" or "tourists" in the
Movement threw themselves firmly behind the occultists in
the anti-war movement of the later 1960s.
During the 1960s, activists like Jerry Rubin and Abbie
Hoffman rallied thousands to the anti-war cause. According
to Webb in The Occult Establishment: "Rubin moved from
the West Coast to New York to become project director of
the National Mobilization demonstration at the Pentagon in
October, 1967. At that demonstration -- for which the East
Village Other newspaper called for the presence of 'Mystics,
saints, Artists, Holymen, Astrologers, witches, sorcerers,

99
warlocks, Druids, hippies, priests, ministers, rabbis,
troubadours, prophets, minstrels, bards, roadmen' -- a pop
group and assorted 'shaman' ostensibly tried to levitate the
Pentagon through a semi-magical ceremony." (14)
Again from Webb: "During 1969 Abbie Hoffman announced
that killing a policeman was a sacramental act. Timothy
Leary was interviewed as an expert on sacraments and he
voiced his doubts while admitting that it might be 'some
people's karma'." (14)
Yoga: Relaxation or Religious Exercise
Many of the former drug users in the New Age Movement
graduated to a form of Hindu meditation called "Yoga."
Indeed, the transformation from drugs to Yoga is an
extremely common occurrence. There are also many people
who never experimented with drugs but went straight into
Yoga. It is also common to find people who are either
Christians or have no religion (they are often humanists),
practicing Yoga while disclaiming any religious connection.
But can we honestly say that Yoga is merely exercise? (16)
Spiritually oriented New Agers report that they experience
the same altered state of consciousness as when they used
drugs. Like drugs, Yoga is a psychospiritual technique used
to loosen the person's control over his brain in order to
contact or generate as some claim, a Higher Consciousness.
The purpose is to discover the divine within oneself. Yoga is
occultic and the occultic/spiritual element cannot be
disassociated from the exercises.
Hindu yogis in the West look with dismay and deep concern
at the Westerners who practice Hatha Yoga (one of the more
advanced forms) without first going through the preliminary
training, which takes years. Yogic exercises are dangerous!
Among Hindus, a student is not permitted to practice Hatha
Yoga until he has mastered the mental, moral and physical
prerequisites. To do otherwise is to invite illness, both
physical and mental. (17) The very essence of Yoga is
meditation to achieve a detached state. This altered state of
consciousness is what permits Sir John Eccles' "ghost" to

100
operate the brain of the yogi.
The point of yogic exercises is the arousal of Kundalini, said
to be a serpent representing a female deity, that resides at
the base of the spine. Yogis claim that there are seven
psychic energy centers called "chakras" in the spine. These
supposed energy centers are dormant or underdeveloped in
normal people but can be awakened by the flowing upwards
of the supposed Kundalini life force. When the chakra is
awakened, spiritual power is gained. The Hatha Yoga
exercises arouse Kundalini from her sleep at the base of the
spine, to begin the journey of several years duration up the
spine through the seven chakras.
All practicing yogis recognize that releasing Kundalini is
extremely dangerous. Pain, illness and insanity sometimes
await those who practice this form of Yoga. At least one
Hindu yogi is convinced that most schizophrenics and
manic depressives are victims of Kundalini; another yogi
reports that death has occurred when the unprepared
attempted Yoga. As innocent an act as prematurely
exhausting breath is said to be potentially fatal. Hatha yoga
is not merely a relaxation exercise!
Hypnotism
Hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness that
superficially resembles sleep but is actually nearer the states
achieved by meditators and trance mediums. Edgar Cayce,
called "the sleeping prophet" by supporters, first learned of
his supposed psychic abilities during a hypnotism incident.
He was hypnotized by someone who was trying to cure him
of a speech problem.
The English words "hypnotism" and "hypnosis" are derived
from the Greek hypnos (sleep). These words were suggested
by 19th-century researcher Doctor James Braid to replace
the totally incorrect "animal magnetism" and "Mesmerism"
(which reflects the name of the founder of the movement).
Although the word "hypnosis" implies sleep, the state is
actually quite different from ordinary sleep.

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According to Simeon Edmunds: (18)
Apart from the obvious fact that a sleeping person does not
respond when addressed whereas a hypnotized subject
reacts to the suggestions of the hypnotist, this difference
has been demonstrated by a number of scientific tests and
observations.
Reflexes for instance, are usually unchanged by hypnosis
(except when suggestions are given that they will change)
but are lessened considerably during sleep. The electrical
resistance of the body is also unaffected by hypnosis,
though it increases by up to ten times during sleep. Recent
experiments measuring 'brain waves' by means of
electroencephalograph demonstrate the difference
conclusively.
There is a wide variation in hypnotic states. Observed
differences range from a mild detachment (as if the subject
were thinking of something) to a deep mediumistic trance.
The victim might be alert or unconscious. The hypnotic
state brings on a heightened sense of suggestibility, which
leads to both amusing and some not-so-amusing
happenings. As a response to problems suffered by the
victims of stage hypnotists, many jurisdictions either ban or
strictly control the circumstances of such performances.
Medical and psychological uses are also regulated.
Most people are hypnotizable, although the degree of
susceptibility varies considerably. One estimate of the
susceptibility of people claims only five to 10 percent of
people are "... virtually unhypnotizable." About one-fourth
easily go into a deep trance and another group of similar
size goes into a light trance. The remaining 40 to 45 percent
respond with varying degrees of difficulty. Apparently,
hypnosis is a trainable event for some subjects will only
achieve a light trance in the first session but go into ever
deeper trances in latter sessions. (19)
There is also a wide variability of reactions among
hypnotized subjects but it is reasonable to identify three
general categories (which I will call Levels) of sensation and

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reaction: Levels I, II and III representing light, medium and
deep hypnosis. (20)
Level I. This state represents light hypnosis and all but five
to 10 percent of the population can achieve this level. As
mentioned above, 25 percent of the population will achieve
this state without difficulty on the first attempt. In Level I
hypnosis, the subject is drowsy and in deep relaxation. The
subject generally feels that he is still in control and could
resist the hypnotist's suggestions at any time but rarely does
so.
The eyelids and limbs feel heavy and the subject will accept
suggestions that he cannot do certain simple things such as
moving a limb, opening the eyes or stand up.
Level IL This level is a bit deeper than Level I, so results in
the subject becoming even more drowsy. Under Level II
hypnosis, the subject is even more willing to accept
suggestions. For example, the subject can be made to hold
body positions that would otherwise be uncomfortable or
impossible.
A radio talk show host claimed that he was once hypnotized
during a stage show and then made to lay rigid with his
body supported only at the ankles and shoulders by two
chairs. Such a cantilever position is normally impossible to
hold for more than a few seconds but the subject in that
case held it for more than 15 minutes. The Level II subject
will accept the suggestion to turn off physical senses such
as smell, touch and pain. He will also accept the suggestion
of amnesia and will not thereafter remember what transpired
while under hypnosis.
Level II is an intermediate level of hypnosis and is the
shallowest level under which the subject will accept and act
on a post-hypnotic suggestion. Such a suggestion might
entail an act to be carried out after the subject is awakened,
often upon perceiving a trigger event or word. The post-
hypnotic suggestion is sometimes used in supposed therapy
for weight control, smoking and so forth.

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Level III. The deepest hypnosis is called somnambulism and
can result in the subject accepting very complex and often
bizarre suggestions. Level III is the hypnotic trance state
used by stage hypnotists and New Agers doing "past lives
regressions" (see Reincarnation Chapter). Under Level III
hypnosis, the subject may experience vivid hallucinations
that involve both the mind and the senses. It is also the
state in which alleged psychic phenomena occur; such as
telepathy, clairvoyance and so forth. (21)
The process of hypnotizing someone is called "induction."
Although it is probably true that everyone can hypnotize
someone, skills vary widely among hypnotists. Contrary to
widespread belief, the subject's "will power" has little to do
with susceptibility to hypnosis. According to Edmunds,
cited earlier, it is generally easier to hypnotize alert,
intelligent people than dullards. The easiest to hypnotize are
the very people one would expect to be most resistant and
have the greatest will power.
Induction methods vary from one hypnotist to another but,
in general, all methods require the hypnotist to gain the trust
of the subject. It helps if both are believers in the process.
The hypnotist will use "... suggestion to heighten normal
suggestibility." The hypnotist will attempt to focus the
subject's attention on one thing. It is the focusing that leads
to the use of props such as swinging pendulums, flashing
lights, slowly spinning color pattern disks and the like. Not
all hypnotists use such props, however, and not all subjects
are susceptible to all props or all methods. An experienced
hypnotist will be sensitive to the subject and be flexible
enough to vary the induction method if the subject seems
adverse to the method being used.
Some hypnotists use no props whatever to induct their
subjects. One hypnotist wrote that he "talks patients down."
In Hypnosis and the Christian by Martin and Diedre Bobgan,
we discover that "talking the patient down" involves a series
of deceptions on the part of the hypnotist. (22) In the
Bobgan book, the use of "double-bind suggestions" is
reported. This is a deception in which the hypnotist always

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tells the subject that his reaction, no matter what it is, is
correct for moving deeper into the hypnotic trance.
According to the Bobgans:
"Even sincere medical hypnosis may be a disguised
doorway and subtle enticement into the demonic realm. It
may not be as obvious an entree to evil as occult hypnosis
and therefore it could be even more dangerous for an
unsuspecting Christian who would otherwise avoid the
occult." (23)
Any Christian who has been hypnotized or, who may be
contemplating allowing hypnosis, should read the Bobgans'
book first.
~~~~~~~

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 8 - Flight to Lucifer
Lucifer! The Morning Star of the New Age! The would-be
god represented by the planet Venus (from whence, say the
New Agers, he came some 18 million years ago)! (1) One of
the most chilling aspects to the New Age Movement is its
headlong rush to Lucifer. It is not a hidden aspect of the
movement for the New Agers are quite open and candid
about their Luciferianism. (2)
The Lucifer of the New Age, however, is not the Lucifer of
the Bible for the New Agers have divorced Lucifer from
Satan and made him something that he isn't. A sanitized
Lucifer is presented to the followers of New Age teachers.
C.S. Lewis made an often-quoted observation on two equal
errors regarding the devil: one error to is disbelieve in his
existence, while the other error is to believe but have too
much interest in him. (3) Lewis tells us that the devil doesn't
much care which error we make about him so long as we
don't see him in his true light.
Even a cursory examination of the New Age Movement
causes us to add a third error to Lewis' original two: namely,
the error of mis-identifying the devil. That is, making him
seem like something that he is not. That third error is the
greatest single mistake of the Age of Aquarius because it
masks the evil nature of Lucifer.
Understanding the New Age concept of Lucifer requires first
an understanding of the New Age cosmology. The study of
cosmology is the study of a) the universe as an orderly
system and b) the structure and relationships within the
universe.
When dealing with New Age cosmology, we need to
remember that they mean something more than
astronomical or physical universe. The New Age universe is
at least partially consistent with the Christian view in that
they recognize a spiritual dimension in addition to the
physical. It is on the nature of the spiritual dimension that

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Christians and New Agers disagree.
The New Age Movement generally accepts the theosophical
world view. The physical universe is essentially an illusion
and it is on the lowest and most dense of seven different
interpenetrating realities. (4) The function of everything in
the universe is evolution toward higher, less dense, states of
being (sometimes identified as "states of consciousness").
The New Age universe seems pointless when it it viewed as
an endless procession of cycles. Earths dissolve into new
earths, races of beings dissolve into new races (and how
much terror that doctrine has caused!) and whole solar
systems dissolve into new solar systems. The theosophical
doctrines of Rounds and "Wheels within Wheels," govern a
seemingly endless process. (5) Ultimately, the biggest wheel
of all, the universe itself, dissolves into an infinitesimal
contraction and the whole process starts anew.
Creation, in the New Age view, was a colossal mistake; a
doctrine that they receive from the ancient Cathari and other
gnostic cults. God imprudently created the universe but
could neither control it nor destroy it after he realized his
error; that New Age god seems hopelessly inept -- a view
popular with the gnostics.
Another view common in the New Age (they are not
consistent) holds that the colossal mistake occurred at the
moment of Creation when the created beings were separated
from their Creator or "Source." It was the very act of
Creation that caused the problem. Since that tragic moment
billions of eons ago, man has been trying to return to the
Source from an indescribable distance away. The route of
return takes man through innumerable reincarnations,
governed by the inexorable Law of Karma. In both versions
of the myth, we see the unbiblical elements of Creation and
the Fall being simultaneous events, with the former being
the cause of the latter.
God in the New Age universe is the universe itself. He (or
"it?") is said to be a universal or cosmic consciousness.
Such a concept is both monistic and pantheistic. It is

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monistic because it allows only one ultimate reality and
requires all elements of the universe be one with all other
parts. In other words, "all is part of the universal whole
without independent parts." The doctrine is pantheistic
because it equates God with the laws and forces of nature
and of the universe. God is thus reduced to being a mere
force, a law of nature or a principle.
In his book Reflections on the Christ, David Spangler
teaches that man on earth possesses an "energy of
movement" that acts as a kind of gravity that draws inward
the material needed not just for physical development but
spiritual as well. For his analogy, Spangler uses the demands
of a baby for food and other needs for his survival. Spangler
calls this inward directed force "creative selfishness." (6)
Spangler further lays out his system by proclaiming that the
energies called "creative selfishness" are not just free-
floating but are instead "... embodied by some being." The
purpose of that being is to collect the energies (much as a
reservoir collects water from the environment, I presume)
and then channels them to humans who need them for
evolutionary development. On page 36 of Reflections on the
Christ, David Spangler identifies that being as Lucifer, the
"... angel of man's inner evolution."
One of the laws of the universe tells us that, in the absence
of an external ordering force, all systems dissolve from a
state of greater order to a state of lesser order. (7) The
exception to the rule is the system that is subjected to an
external ordering force; such a system can move from lesser
order to greater order in seeming contradiction to the
universe around it.
So now enter Lucifer -- the supreme "ordering force." In the
universe of a non-personal, immanent god-force, each
planet must have its own ordering force to assure and
promote its evolution back towards the god-head, i.e.,
towards orderliness.
According to some New Agers, Lucifer came to earth from
the planet Venus 18.5 million years ago (some sources

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claim 17 million years). He was tasked by the Hierarchy with
guiding the souls of earth up the evolutionary ladder toward
the god-head and godhood.
Thus, Lucifer in the New Age becomes a kind of bridge or
link between man and God -- a function Christians thought
was given to Jesus Christ.
David Spangler, a man who has been called the "shaman of
the New Age" (8) (a term that seems to amuse him) and is
probably the leading spokesman for New Age doctrine, tells
us concerning Lucifer:
"Lucifer prepares man in all ways for the experience of
Christhood and the Christ prepares man for the experience
of God. Jesus said, 'As the Christ, I am the way, the truth
and the life No man goes to the Father but through me.'
This is true. The avenue out of micro-cosmic limitation into
macro-cosmic wholeness, universal consciousness and
attunement is through the Christ. But the light that reveals
to us the presence of the Christ, the light that reveals to us
the path to the Christ comes from Lucifer [Emphasis
added]." (9)
Lucifer is thus mis-identified and given a positive image in
the New Age. But what about the negative image?
Christians know a different Lucifer who is one with Satan,
the Prince of Darkness. New Agers have divorced Satan and
Lucifer. Many of them believe that "Satan" is a myth
invented by the church in the Middle Ages, which needed a
devil to frighten the vulgar populace into obedience.
Most New Agers who think about Lucifer at all would
probably agree with Spangler's explanation of Lucifer's
connection with evil. Spangler wrote that some powerful
consciousnesses "... became quite enamoured of ..." the
forces and used them as a source of power over others. This
discovery and misuse of the forces put the system out of
balance.
The evil aspect of Lucifer was not so much from the nature
of Lucifer but from man's misuse of his energies. Lucifer is

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said to be merely the channel of neutral energies that are
used for evil by man. According to Spangler's interpretation,
Lucifer feels "pain and sorrow and anguish" over human
misuse of his energies; poor guy.
As man descends into the "inner darkness" of depravity,
Lucifer descends with him in order to help him learn to use
his Luciferian energies in a responsible manner. The job of
Lucifer is to turn the misused energies back on man,
causing all manner of pain and suffering, until man finally
learns the lesson and turns away from what the Star Wars
trilogy (Oh, yes! Star Wars was a New Age production!)
called the dark side of the Force."
Satan's place in this Luciferian process is merely a false
creation of man, according to the New Age doctrine. Instead
of a real being, Satan is a mere "collective thought form"
that is used to explain the misuse of Lucifer's energies.
Christ (or "the Christ" as New Agers like to say) is said to be
merely the complement of Lucifer. Not opposed to him,
mind you, just acting as a balancing force. The proper
analogy might be the christ-weight used to balance the
lucifer-weight on a spinning earth centrifuge. Without both
weights, the centrifuge machine is unbalanced and will fly
apart after only a short time of operation.
The purpose of Lucifer is to create the inner light within man
(as "light-bearer"), while the purpose of Christ is to release
that light into the world. The release of inner light is said to
foster inner wisdom and love, while making room for more
inner light (hence increasing spiritual growth potential).
What I consider the most dangerous speculation in
Spangler's book is found on page 41. There Spangler tells
us that "Lucifer, then, is neither good nor bad in his true
essence. He is completely neutral. He is an agent of God's
love acting through evolution."
The apparent "bottom line" for man is, according to
Spangler, a "Luciferic initiation." This initiation regarded as
the doorway that must be passed to come into the presence

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of God. The incredible claim is that one must first become a
Luciferian in order to know God! What the New Age wants of
us is nothing less than Luciferic initiation -- which Christians
know would deny us salvation.
Thus far, we have been discussing David Spangler's
interpretation of the New Age Lucifer. This is a reasonable
approach, given his lecture and writing career over the past
few years. He is, after all, one of the principal teachers of the
New Age Movement.
Let's go to "first sources." According to Madame Helena P.
Blavatsky in The Theosophical Glossary:
"Lucifer (Lut.). The planet Venus, as the bright Morning
Star. Before Milton, Lucifer had never been a name of the
Devil. Quite the reverse, since the Christian Savior is made
to say of himself in Revelations (xvi 22.) 'I am ... the bright
morning star' or Lucifer. One of the early Popes of Rome
bore that name; and there was even a Christian sect in the
fourth century which was called the Luciferians."
The statement above is really a repeat of her charge that
Satan received a "bum rap" from the church. In her
monumental book The Secret Doctrine, which is regarded
by many as a New Age scripture, she writes: (11)
"Since the church, in her struggle with Manicheanism,
invented the devil and by placing a theological extinguisher
on the radiant star-god, Lucifer, the 'Son of the Morning,'
thus created the most gigantic of all her paradoxes -- a
black and tenebrous light -- the myth has stuck its roots too
deep in the soil of blind faith to permit, in our age, even
those, who do not acquiesce in her dogmas and laugh at her
horned and cloven-footed Satan, to come out bravely and
confess the antiquity of the oldest of all traditions."
In other words, Lucifer.
Further on in Volume II of The Secret Doctrine (p. 511),
Blavatsky identifies Lucifer as the same being as known in
other societies:

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"Thus, the true and uncompromising Cabbalists admit that
for all purposes of Science and philosophy, it is enough that
the profane know that the great magic agent called the
followers of the Marquis de St. Martin -- the Martinists --
astral light, by the mediaeval Cabbalists and Alchemists the
Sidereal Virgin and the Mysterium Magnum and by the
Easter Occultists Aether, the reflection of akasa -- is that
which the church calls Lucifer [emphasis in original]."
Alice A. Bailey, writing in The Destiny of the Nations, tells
us that Lucifer (called "the Lord of the World") is releasing
new energies into the world to bring forth the much-needed
"principle of sharing." (12)
Freemasonry is a Luciferic cult, as witnessed by their own
words. Consider Albert Pike, writing in his authoritative
Morals and Dogma of the Ancient And Accepted Scottish
Rite of Freemasonry: (13)
"Lucifer, the light-bearer! Strange and mysterious name to
give to the Spirit of Darkness! Lucifer, Son of the Morning! Is
it he who bears the light and with its splendors intolerable
blinds feeble, sensual or selfish souls?"
When one is just beginning to think that Pike is about to put
Lucifer in his place, Pike follows the preceding with "Doubt
it not!" In other words, he is reaffirming the light-bearer.
Earlier in Morals and Dogma Pike tells us concerning
Lucifer:
"The true name of Satan, the Kabalists say, is that of Yahveh
reversed; for Satan is not a black god but the negation of
God. The devil is the personification of Atheism or Idolatry.
"For the Initiates, this is not a Person but a Force, created
for good but which may serve for evil. It is the instrument of
Liberty or Free Will. They represent this Force, which
presides over the physical generation, under the mythologic
and horned form of the God Pan; thence came the he-goat
of the Sabbat, brother of the Ancient Serpent and the Light-
bearer or Phosphor, of which the poets have made the False
Lucifer of legend."

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Could David Spangler have read Pike's Morals and Dogma?
That the New Age, and its sub-group components, are
Luciferian cannot be disputed.
~~~~~~~

113
 9 - Toward One World Religion
... The Bottom Line of the New Age
The plans of the New Age Movement are painfully obvious
to even the casual observer. One need not dig deeply to
discover what they are about: they will (and do) tell us
exactly what they propose. The New Age is working toward
a new world order. On the political front, the New Order is
expressed as global-ism and the desire for a world
government based on the United Nations. On the spiritual
front it is to be a world religion.
The quest for a world religion makes strange bedfellows for
humanists and New Agers seem joined together in their
efforts. Humanism grew out of the liberalism movement of a
century or more ago. Their background causes them to see
factors such as nationalism and dogmatic religion as
destabilizing forces in the world. Such forces, they reason,
can only lead to war and bloodshed. The cure promised by
humanism is stability through one-world government and
one-world religion.
The world government scheme will take the form of a
United Nations presiding in authority over national
governments. Various sources promote ideas such as a
World Food Authority, World Monetary System, World
Medical Authority, redistribution of wealth (by which they
mean your property!) and a redistribution of productive
capacity.
Some have even suggested dismantling factories in the
wealthy countries and reassembling them in Third World
countries. Of course, the technicians and engineers needed
to make the factories operate will go with them.
Humanists pretend to have a benign, or even positive, view
of religion. If you take only some of their words, then it
seems that their Global Village will have a place for
Christianity and all the other Great Religions. The missing
element in their version of tolerance is that religions must

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stay in their place. All power and authority is in the state and
religion must "graciously accept the place allotted to it by
the secular authorities." (1)
The words quoted above were taken from an article on
pages 13 and 14 in the January/February 1983 issue of The
Humanist magazine. The article by Seth J. Farber was titled
"The Crisis of Secular Authority: Modern Ecclesiastical
Responses to the State." Farber pulls no punches in
identifying the villains of church/state relations: they are "...
right-wing American ecclesiasts" and "... fundamentalist
Christianity ..." Later in the article, he further narrows his
focus and names those ecclesiasts who would place "... the
separation of church and state in dire jeopardy" -- it is the
Moral Majority and others of like mind.
Farber, who was but 20 years of age when his article was
published, wants to see our society compartmentalized
regarding secular and ecclesiastical elements. But he reveals
more than he knows when he disparages fundamentalists,
while at the same time calling liberal churchmen (who are,
by fundamentalist standards either non-Christian or barely
Christian) "responsible American clerics." The implication is
that only "safe" churches will be tolerated in Farber's Utopia.
Presumedly, fundamentalists and other Bible-believing
churches will be suppressed for the good of society.
What do you suppose will be the criteria for "safe"
churches? Farber doesn't say but other humanists and
liberals have spoken out on the matter. They continuously
lament Christians who seek to impose their beliefs on
others. What they fail to state, for it shows them guilty of
the same crime they lay at our door, is that all political
processes involve imposing someone's values on someone
else.
When the Christian wants to impose an anti-abortion value
on humanists he is overstepping the bounds of religion; but
when the humanist imposes a pro-abortion value on the
Christian it is fine and dandy.
The same issue of The Humanist carried an article titled, "A

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Religion for a New Age," by John J. Dunphy. (2) The author
takes a few not so original swipes at Christianity and then
drags the reader through several inflammatory paragraphs
designed to make the reader believe that the church is a
bloodthirsty monster. It is difficult for Dunphy to argue from
first principles, so he piles allegation upon allegation in an
effort to support his claims. By ample use of "the argument
from selected instance," he pretends that the corrupt
elements of the church, which any 2,000-year old
movement will have many, convinces the reader that his
picture truly defines the church. He informs the reader of his
opinion of the Bible using words like "outmoded" and
"archaic" and then follows that one-two punch with the
assertion that it remains "... an incredibly dangerous book."
The Bible is supposedly responsible for every bad thing in
Western culture for the past two millenia!
The short biography of Dunphy given at the end of the
article tells us that he is interested in the study of Christian
gnostics and the Ancient Mystery/fertility cults. Even
without the biography, however, we would be able to discern
Dunphy's interest from the position he proclaims in the
article. His religion is a humanism "... that recognizes and
respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every
human being." This sentiment accurately reflects the New
Age "divinity of man" doctrine.
The aspect of Dunphy's article that should chill Christians
the most is his recommendation that humanist teachers --
from preschool to universities -- teach Humanism to our
children. He openly -- and correctly -- identifies the
classroom as the battleground.
There is a great deal of cross-linking between the Globalists
of the humanist movement and the New Age Movement.
The networking principle brings together many diverse
interest groups. What may surprise the humanists is that the
New Age concept of One World Religion differs markedly
from their own -- except of course those humanists who are
also bona fide New Agers.

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New Agers believe that mankind is on the brink of massive
planetary, spiritual and social changes. One of those
changes will be inauguration of a single religion for all of
mankind. Some of them talk about the New Religion
overthrowing the old in terms that hint of violence. Most
New Agers, however, teach that the new will overcome the
old by a gentler process of ecumenical unity and absorption
of the religions into one another.
Those who teach a unity of the world's religions foresee a
"religious United Nations" form of structure in which Hindu,
Moslem, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian and other religions
participate equally. The New World Religion will contain all
the common elements of all religions, while retaining
distinctives.
The basis for this One World Religion is the claim that all the
major religions currently in existence teach variations of the
same doctrine. It is claimed that the Ancient Wisdom is at
the base of all religions. Over the centuries, each religion
modified the true doctrine so much that each is but a
distorted variant of the true Ancient Wisdom.
In some cases, Christianity, for example, distortion was
intentional. They claim that the church fathers deleted
references to the Ancient Wisdom from the Bible. The same
charge could be made of Rabbinic Judaism because they
use the same Scriptures that Christians call the Old
Testament.
What will the new religion of the New Age be like? Although
certain details differ according to the commentator, the
ideas of Benjamin Creme seem widespread enough to serve
as a general model. In his book The Reappearance of the
Christ and the Masters of Wisdom, Creme tells us that the
New World Religion will fuse East and West to synthesize
something new. It will also fuse the seemingly contradictory
concepts of God Immanent and God Transcendent. (3)
Creme is crystal clear regarding the basis of the world
religion. It will be based on the Ancient Mysteries, which
means that the New Age religion will be held together by a

117
common mystical experience. It is this common mystical
experience that is the glue that holds the New Age
Movement together. The New Age Movement brags about
their unity in diversity. There are so many New Age groups
of such widely varying foci and interests that the movement
is very difficult to pin down. But there is a common factor:
mystical experiences.
Creme also reports that Invocation will be a big factor in the
New Age religion. The word "Invocation" infers calling on
authority, petitioning for help (both of which explain its use
in prayer). According to one dictionary, however, invocation
is also a formula for conjuring. When the New Agers repeat
the Great Invocation they are attempting to conjure up a
demon called Lord Maitreya. (4)
In its true essence, therefore, the invocation by a New Ager
is little more than summoning a demon! Creme boasts that
one day the Great Invocation will be a "world prayer" and
that it is already used by millions of people.
The New Age religion will require Initiation, according to
Creme and others. Given the nature of the New Age
Movement -- it is a Luciferic Movement -- it takes very little
effort to guess that the Initiation will be a Luciferic Initiation.
(5)
In the religion of the New Age, the "esoteric process of
Initiation" will occupy a central role. Creme claims that
Initiation is a scientific process by which he apparently
means a merely "knowable" process rather than a hard
science, like physics, that is the most sacred ceremony of
the new religion. Two of the three Initiations will occur in the
physical plane in New Age temples. The third Initiation
(demon possession?) is said to take place in a spirit realm.
The purpose of Initiation is to help the individual (and
mankind in general) enter the Hierarchy -- called by Creme
"the kingdom of God" -- and get much closer to divinity
than is possible in the physical plane.
The celebrations of the New Age religion will be the New

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Age festivals promoted by the followers of Alice Bailey:
Easter Festival (but not the Christian version!), Wesak
Festival and Christ Festival (one month after Wesak). (6)
In the Creme scenario, the other world religions will simply
wither away slowly as converts turn to the new religion and
old practicers of old religions die off. Given end times
prophecy, I wonder how Benjamin Creme will explain away
the Rapture of the Church?
Another view of the New World Religion is provided to us by
Dr. Lola Davis in her book Toward A World Religion for the
New Age. (7) Davis was once a missionary to India where
she and her husband served. Lola Davis' short biographical
sketch on the back cover tells the story of a fundamentalist
Christian woman who became enamoured of Eastern
religions while on the mission field and thereby fell into what
orthodox Christians regard as heresy.
Davis repeats the New Age claim that there is an underlying
unity in all of the world's religions. In her "Synopsis of
Toward a World Religion for the New Age," (8) she calls the
Ancient Wisdom by the alternate name the "Ageless
Wisdom" but it is the same old New Age doctrine.
In the Synopsis, Davis tells us that all religions wait for a
very special personage: Christians await Jesus Christ, the
Jews await Messiah, Moslems await Imam Mahdi and the
Eastern religions await Lord Krishna or Bodhisattva.
New Agers teach that all of these are the same person as
Lord Maitreya. Christians are tempted to see another sort of
world spiritual leader in the New Age scenario: antichrist.
Although Christian believers should be able to recognize an
antichrist, many believers of other religions may be taken in
by Lord Maitreya.
The New Age thrust toward a world religion has been going
on for a long time. Lola Davis tells us that she found that
"... much thought and planning" had been done already.
Lucis Trust, the organization of Alice Bailey, marketed Davis'
book in 1984 when I bought my copy.

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David Spangler tells us in Reflections on the Christ that
entrance into the New Age requires a Luciferic Initiation. (9)
Lucifer is said to offer man wholeness and the Luciferic
Initiation is acceptance of Lucifer's offer. The problem the
New Agers fail to see, however, is that act could lead one
irrevocably to eternal hell.
The disposition of the church (and presumedly other
religions that don't want to be integrated into the New Age)
is not altogether clear in New Age writings. A few people --
very few, fortunately -- suggest a sudden, violent end for
Christianity. Some of the more inflammatory people claim
that the new cannot manifest until the old is out of the way.
Most teachers are somewhat gentler in their predictions of
our fate. The usual teaching is that the church will slowly
decay and wither away.
David Spangler presents a teaching that may refer to the
church in the New Age. (10) In his book Revelation: The
Birth of a New Age he describes the fate of those souls who
are either not ready or not compatible with the New Age.
Spangler likens earth to a mansion with many floors, with
the physical plane being the ground floor. Higher floors
represent higher, non-physical, planes. Those who cannot
enter the New Age correctly would be transferred to one of
those upper floors. If the church is included, then the
implication is that the church will disappear to some higher
spiritual realm. What an explanation for the Rapture! When
millions of Christians disappear, the New Agers can claim
that we were zapped to some other dimension so that the
New Age can be inaugurated.
In a peculiar kind of way that most of them fail to
understand, that's exactly what will happen! I suspect that
their "New Age" will last only seven terrifying years and then
will be followed by the return of the real Christ, not their
false christ Lord Maitreya.
One world religion or one that is at least trans-Western
encompassing all of the previously Christian countries, is
prophesied in Revelation and other books of the Bible. It

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comes as no surprise, therefore, that the goal of the Great
Delusion is one religion -- a non-Christian religion -- for all
the world.
~~~~~~~

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10 - What Should Christians Do?
The response of the church to the New Age Movement is
critical to millions of people because their eternal salvation
is at stake. But before deciding what we must do, let's first
spell out what we should not do. It is claimed that the New
Age Movement heralds the antichrist. Even if this
speculation is true, we should not overemphasize this aspect
to the detriment of other aspects. If this is truly the time that
God has selected to permit the rise of antichrist, then there
is nothing at all that we can do about it -- nor should we
want to. Antichrist will come according to God's timetable,
not ours.
My own opinion is that the New Age Movement is part of a
centuries-long softening up process and this Great Delusion
will ultimately result in a world that is ripe for antichrist. (1)
But whether the time is five years or five centuries, I am not
prepared to speculate. After all, the New Age Movement has
existed in its modern form for 110 years and preaches a
doctrine that is several millenia old (which is why they call it
the "Ancient Wisdom").
We also must not fear the movement. After all, if you will
permit me to paraphrase scripture: He that is in us is greater
than he who is in the New Age Movement.
Our plan of action requires four aspects: awareness,
evangelization, refutation and an emphasis on sound
doctrine among our own people. We need to be aware of the
New Age, its doctrines, its activities, its goals and its
methods. Part of this aspect is educational activities such as
reading the various books on the movement that are now on
the market. You should arrange to show films such as Gods
of the New Age (2) and Pathway to Paradise (3) in your
church.
Seminaries, Bible colleges and Christian colleges should
sponsor workshops and seminars and offer courses on the
New Age Movement. No longer is it reasonable for them to

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cover all of the heresies and cults from the death of John to
the present time in a single course. All of these activities
raise our general awareness of the movement.
Pastors, teachers, elders and other leaders must be made
aware of the movement. I was told about one pastor who
read a news item about a church conference on the New
Age Movement in Christianity Today and then sneered that it
was "only the same old paganism." Implicit in his comment
is "... so we don't have to do anything about it."
There are at least two errors in calling the New Age
Movement "...just the same old paganism." First, it's
technically incorrect or at least only partially correct.
Second, even if the statement were entirely true, the
immense size of the movement today warrants massive
Christian action to counter its effects.
That brings us to our second and third responses to the
movement: evangelization and refutation.
Evangelization is needed because people in the New Age
Movement and people attracted to it are damned for placing
their hope for salvation in a false system. Evangelism is the
art and practice of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ and
that is what New Age questors need most of all.
Refutation is merely the art of practical apologetics. We
must train ourselves in apologetics so that we can counter
the arguments of the New Age. Unfortunately, this is a
bigger task than might be imagined. Our biggest fault in this
area is a history of loose thinking; we have become
intellectually shabby.
Too many people in the church regard doctrine and theology
as dry, dusty subjects to be considered only by seminary
professors and pastors on the upper levels of the intellectual
spectrum. But that is not true, for doctrine is the formal
basis for our opinions and beliefs. If we do not maintain
good doctrine, then all manner of bad teachings can creep
into the church. It is the lack of good doctrine, upheld by
elders and pastors of the church, that has caused so many

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to slip into error. We cannot hope to counteract the New Age
when our own sloppy thinking leads us to teach and do
exactly the same things in our assemblies.
It is essential that church leaders understand the New Age
Movement and be able to offer proper, biblically based
apologetics to counteract both the influence of New Age
doctrine that infects the body and the teachings that keep
non-Christians from salvation. It is important to remember
that the very people who are deceived by New Age doctrines
are prime candidates for the Christian witness of the Gospel
because they are already seeking something spiritual. Thus,
the New Age Movement offers an unprecedented evangelism
opportunity.
Shirley MacLaine and others have had a tremendous
influence. (4) We need to come against that teaching in love
and understanding and direct New Age questors (including
MacLaine) toward eternal life in Jesus Christ ... not the
endless progression of meaninglessness offered by the
Luciferian New Age Movement.
~~~~~~~

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11 - And Who Do You Say I Am?
Prologue
Do you know the answers to these questions:
* What is the most important religious question?
* Was Jesus a magician?
* What about the missing 18 years?
* Was Jesus an Essene?
* Did Jesus have an Indian (Hindu) connection?
* What or who is "The Christ?" Christ or Krishna?
* What do the scriptures say? Why is this question
important?
The New Age Movement has brought into sharp focus the
critical question of the identity of the Christ. Even some
(mostly liberal) Christian groups today have erroneous ideas
concerning the Christ. Eastern religions have made inroads
into Western culture and have brought their own identities
for the Christ. With most of the world awaiting the coming
of a messiah-like figure, it becomes terribly important for us
to learn the truth regarding this future figure -- for his
coming will mark the major turning point of all history.
The Problem
Jesus. That name is never neutral! The name "Jesus"
inspires either worship or hostility from virtually everyone.
No one, at least in Western countries, is dispassionate
towards Jesus. The reason is that no religious question is
ultimately more important than the identity of Jesus.
Christianity stands like a lonely tree outside the forest of
religions and the main issue that separates it from the rest is
the means of salvation. In most other religions, a person
earns salvation through some kind of works. In some
religions, it is the performance of certain duties that makes
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the difference. In others, it is good deeds and philanthropy.
In Hindu and most New Age religions, good works and
suffering are needed to rub off "bad karma" over a long
series of reincarnations. But in Christianity, salvation is by
grace -- there is no other way.
Some religions attempt to combine works and grace by
claiming that a person earns grace through a long
progression of good works and spiritual development
(especially the latter). When the person reaches the proper
level of achievement, God smiles kindly on the Questor and
confers grace as a reward. Supposedly, God's grace erases
the remaining bad karma owed by that soul. This viewpoint
is nonsense because it contains a contradiction in terms.
According to the dictionary, grace is an unmerited gift of
divine assistance or favor; grace, therefore, can never be
earned.
It is salvation by grace that makes the identity of Jesus so
critically important. Unless Jesus is who he claimed to be,
then he is not qualified to offer grace to anyone; his death
and resurrection are meaningless. Therefore, if Jesus is not
who and what he claimed to be, then Christianity has no
basis.
This is the reason why so many people attack Christianity
while tolerating other religions. That is also why so many
other religions pay peculiar attention to a Jesus whom they
would otherwise find so easy to dismiss; and it is also why
the single most important question in scripture is " ... and
who do you say I am?"
Who Do They Say He Is?
Author Tal Brookes wrote an answer to many of the "life
after life" experiences reported in popular (even Christian)
literature. One of his comments in The Other Side of Death
is most revealing. He states that the so-called "beings of
light" encountered on the "other side" have an inordinate
interest in Jesus. (1) It is a level of interest far out of
proportion to his real importance if he is who or what they
say he is!

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So who is he? Let's discuss the claims of both Christians
and non-Christians regarding the identity of Jesus Christ.
Some of these views are held by liberal Christians, while
other views which we will examine are held by non-
Christians. The only criterion to apply in deciding which
opinion is the best is "which one is most probably correct."
It is amazing how many guises are thrust upon Jesus. To the
liberal Christian he was a "Great Moral Teacher." Higher
criticism has so eroded the faith of liberal churchmen that
they can see him only as a man offering profound teachings
-- if he existed at all. (2) Let's examine this and other
teachings about Jesus.
According to certain Jewish rabbinic lore, Jesus was not
virgin-born at all but, rather, was the son of a man named
Pantera. In the late first century A.D., a Jewish rabbi named
Eliezer promoted the same myth that is with us even today.
Eliezer may have been referring to a real person when he
called Christ "Jesus ben Pantera."
In Bingerbrueck, Germany, there is a first-century A.D.
tombstone of a Sidonian archer named Tiberius Julius
Abdes Pantera. This man was from Sidon, a city that still
exists up the coast from Israel in present-day Lebanon. He
was a soldier in the Roman Legions and served both in
Palestine and the Rhenish provinces of Germany.
The name "Jesus ben Pantera" means "Jesus, son of
Pantera." During the Nazi era Pantera's tombstone became
the focal point of Goebbels' propaganda effort to dejudaize
Jesus. Hitler held Jesus in high esteem and compared
himself favorably with Jesus. (3) It was necessary for the
Nazis to dejudaize Jesus in order to fit their sick racial
doctrines. The Nazis claimed that Mary was either a Moabite
or Elamite woman who was raped or seduced by a Rhenish
(German) Roman soldier and that Jesus ben Pantera was the
resultant offspring. Thus, Jesus was effectively dejudaized in
the German mind and even made into a German -- which
supposedly accounted for his superiorly over other men. It is
indeed ironic that the greatest persecutor of the Jewish

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people in all of history, Adolf Hitler, would have used Rabbi
Eliezer's testimony to dejudaize Jesus!
The "Adoptionist" school of thought holds that Jesus was
an ordinary man until God adopted him as his son.
According to this view, Jesus perfected himself through
various spiritual disciplines until he was a suitable habitation
for the "Christ Consciousness." At that time, the Holy Spirit
descended and took over the body of a mortal Jesus, who
then became the immortal Son of God. The adoption
supposedly took place at the Jordan River when Jesus was
baptized by his cousin John.
There is also a school of thought that claims that Jesus was
an Essene, while another claims that he was a magician in
competition with the likes of Simon Magus. He is allowed to
be anything at all except the divine Son of God. Many New
Age people will tell you that Jesus is divine but just as you
think that a glimmer of biblical truth is peaking through the
fog it becomes painfully apparent that they believe that
Jesus is "divine" the same way that all humans are "divine."
Modern occultists would tell you that Jesus was an "Initiate"
into the Ancient Mystery religions. Still other occultists claim
that Jesus was one of the "Masters of Wisdom." (4) An
Initiate is a person accepted by those who allegedly control
occult knowledge and the "ancient wisdom" and who is
supposedly given access to such knowledge when it is
denied to others. There are levels or "degrees" of initiation
and the Initiates are ranked according to the level of
knowledge that is either attained or conferred. Various
systems have three, five, seven or nine levels of initiation;
modern Freemasonry, itself an occultic initiation religion,
has 33 degrees.
The "Masters of Wisdom," also sometimes called "Hidden
Masters" or "Ascended Masters," are allegedly transhuman
beings who were formerly human but who have evolved
beyond the need for physical bodies. The Masters no longer
need to reincarnate into the physical plane but, rather, can
further their own evolution on higher (non-physical) planes.

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According to occult lore, each planet is ruled by a small
group of selected Masters who are assigned to direct that
planet's evolution. There are supposedly 63 Masters
assigned to guide man's ascent to godhood on earth. The
secret, non-physical places occupied by the Masters
correspond to certain remote physical locations on earth,
such as Shamballa in the Gobi Desert and Wesak Valley in
the Tibetan Himalayas. More recently, the Andes of South
America (especially Peru) are claimed as a habitat for the
Masters.
The Masters are said to occasionally incarnate for a short trip
into the physical plane. They allegedly borrow a physical
body for that period -- a process that most Christians would
recognize as demon possession.
According to some New Age writers, Jesus is one of the
Masters and lives in Wesak Valley with certain other former
"christs." One New Age source claimed recently that the
former christ, Jesus, is now living in Rome to await the
imminent appearance of the present "christ," Lord Maitreya.
Most of the revisionist opinion regarding Jesus' identity rests
on one of two false premises. First, that scripture is not
divinely inspired, not inerrant and not to be trusted either
literally or as historically accurate. Second, that the power-
hungry early church authorities made an intentional effort to
conceal errors in their doctrine by forcibly suppressing
"scripture" documents that told the truth but did not agree
with the official papal "party line."
The first view is preferred by liberals who need it in order to
make their system work. The second is the ploy of
Theosophists and other New Agers to make room for their
favorite doctrines. Unfortunately, the second view is given
some credit by the fact that the post-Constantine church
routinely destroyed the documents of the gnostics and other
heretics. New Agers claim that the destruction of those
books by church authorities was done not so much to
contain heresy but rather to cover up their own heresies
instead.

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In the sections to follow we will reveal what the various sects
claim for Jesus and then finish our discussion with a
statement of what Jesus claimed for himself.
Jesus the Magician
Some critics claim Jesus was a "Magi" or ritual magician
and that is exactly how some people see him today! This
view probably came out of the same 19th-century "Occult
Revival" which spawned robed ritual magicians all over
Europe (Crowley, Lanz, etc.) and perhaps also from the
Higher Criticism movement that needed to de-deify Jesus in
order to justify itself.
When the liberal churchman is confronted with biblical
miracles he has to either discount them altogether (as
merely folk tales or lies invented by Christians) or present
them as the activity of some kind of magus (although not
necessarily with the supernatural interpretation of the
reported magical phenomena).
The problem is made easier for liberals by the fact that they
do not consider scripture inerrant. In fact, most of them
seem to regard the Gospels as a mere confession of faith
instead of a historical account of what actually occurred. It
therefore becomes easy to shoehorn Jesus into the magi
mold.
To the ancients, "Magi" did not mean the public performer
of mere tricks (a stage magician or illusionist). The Magi
was a worker of miracles, a controller of the natural and
supernatural forces and the performer of powerful religious
rituals. The Magi was also custodian of the "Ancient
Wisdom" that was taught in the mystery religious schools.
(5) Perhaps the closest equivalent to the Magus in our
modern context is the primitive shaman.
Several events are cited as evidence by the proponents of
the "Jesus as magician" viewpoint. For example, there is the
story of the wise men who visited the infant Jesus. These
men were said to be Chaldeans (Magi) from the East
(Babylon). The claim is made that the three wise men

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recognized Jesus as the king of the Magi, a reincarnated
"Higher Initiate." It is also claimed that the miracles
performed by Jesus were mere parallels of "miracles"
performed by other known Magi: healing, resurrections (the
Lazarus event), control over nature and authority over
demons.
They also note that baptism was a rite used by mystery cults
of that era and that those cults tended to stress ritual magic.
One of the proponents of the Magi view is Dr. Morton Smith,
who wrote a book titled Jesus the Magician. (6) Dr. Smith
also wrote The Secret Gospel, (7) a book that claims to
reveal previously unknown but valid portions of the Gospel
of Mark.
The Missing 18 Years
Scripture is silent regarding the 18 years when Jesus was a
youth. We see him in the Gospels as a 12-year-old
confounding the elders in the Jerusalem temple with his
knowledge and wisdom. (8)
Our next picture is Jesus near the age of 30 years about to
begin his public ministry. Those missing 18 years are used
by critics to explain their own answers to the question of
Jesus' identity.
There is an unasked question in all of the explanations for
the missing 18 years: Why do we need an extraordinary
explanation in the first place? All of the explanations offered
for those missing years depend on either undocumented
speculations, poorly documented legends or bizarre
interpretations of legends that have less extraordinary
(hence more reasonable) explanations. If Jesus is truly who
he claimed to be, then no 18-year "initiation" would be
needed -- a viewpoint that supports the Christian contention
that Jesus spent an uneventful 18 years as a carpenter in
Galilee.
Surprisingly, both liberals and neo-gnostics are fond of
making Jesus into a member or "fellow traveler" of the
various mystery religions. Some people accept the Essene

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theory, while others like to send Jesus on journeys to either
Egypt (to study in the Alexandrian mystery schools) or to
India (to study Hindu religion). A few commentators send an
"Essene" Jesus to both Egypt and India for the missing
years. Let's examine the Essene connection.
An Essene Jesus?
The Essenes were a Jewish religious community that existed
in Palestine over a period of time that included both the
lifetime of Jesus and the founding of the church. The
Essenes were desert dwellers who separated themselves
from the rest of Israel to practice asceticism and a brand of
austere righteousness. They were pacifists who shunned the
temple sacrifice of the Pharisees and maintained a gnostic
religion that included elements transplanted from Babylon
and other Eastern nations.
When a man entered the Essene community he was required
to undergo baptism and had to swear to live a life of truth
and righteousness. (9) All property in the community was
held in common and work was divided according to skills
and gifts of the individuals. The Essenes were probably
quite scholarly for their libraries were impressive. The Dead
Sea Scrolls, found at Qumran near Jerusalem, are
apparently from a nearby Essene community. (10)
According to some scholarly opinion, the manuscripts found
at Qumran were deposited there for safekeeping when the
community was under attack. Dates for the event sometimes
cited are 50 A.D., the First Revolt (A.D. 66-71) and the
Second Revolt (A.D. 132-135). It was during the First Revolt
that the Roman legions of Titus razed Jerusalem and
destroyed the Temple.
Some sources give a much later date that coincides with the
struggles between the church and the gnostic heresies. This
later date is reasonable for the Nag Hammadi codices
discovered in Egypt but is probably erroneous for the Dead
Sea Scrolls.
According to both New Agers and certain liberal Christians,

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Jesus spent a considerable portion of his "lost" 18 years
residing in an Essene community, possibly the one at
Qumran. Supposed proof of this connection is the fact that
some Essene teachings parallel Christian teachings. The
Rev. Dr. Charles Francis Potter supports this view in his
book The Lost Years of Jesus Revealed, a copy of which I
purchased in a New Age bookstore. (11) Dr. Potter reveals
an unfortunate, sarcastic attitude towards conservative
Christians by his snearing comments. He also reveals quite a
bit at the end of his book where he calls the Dead Sea
Scrolls "God's gift to the humanists."
There are several possible criticisms of Dr. Potter's view.
First, Potter and other liberals attempt to "demythologize"
Jesus into a mere man, not the Son of God. A conclusion
that can be drawn from this view is that no spirit world exists
-- an implication that even some supporters of that view are
loath to admit. If Christian doctrine was lifted from earlier
sources, then Jesus can be safely dismissed -- which is
perhaps the real reason for the adamant essenization of
Jesus.
Second, the "Essenic origin of Christian teachings"
viewpoint rests precariously on narrowly dating the Dead Sea
Scrolls at or immediately prior to the time of Jesus. While
many critics would otherwise jump to point out that
manuscript dating without hard external archaeological or
historical evidence is a much flawed, inexact process at
best. They flinch when the same point is made concerning
the Dead Sea Scrolls or the gnostic codices from Nag
Hammadi in Egypt. (12)
In the absence of a firm date within the text of the
manuscript, only guesses can be made regarding its actual
age. While such guesses are usually the product of diligent
scholarship by honest researchers, they can still be off by
centuries, let alone the few decades that are required to date
the Dead Sea Scrolls after the rise of first-century
Christianity.
One must keep in mind that scholars are not perfect and

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scholarly opinion changes often -- with and without
additional proof. The world of the scholars is sometimes
testy, as learned men with doctoral degrees square-off to
fight over minutia. Laymen sometimes hold scholars in awe
and gild their pronouncements with the halo of gospel truth
-- only to be disappointed when reading of their squabbles.
One must give respect to men of learning, to be sure, but
one must also recognize that they are merely men making
educated guesses that are based on admittedly incomplete
information. Sometimes, the adamant refusal to budge from
their previous position is due to a need to maintain their
reputation in a "publish or perish" world rather than a
concern for the truth.
Even though a permissible date for the Dead Sea Scrolls
internment is 50 to 70 A.D., no great damage is done to the
conservative Christian position by this dating. The liberal
position is devastated by that dating, however. The liberals
require a decent interval of time between the death of all
eyewitnesses to Jesus' ministry and the writing of the
Gospels (which are the record of that ministry). That way,
they can boast that the miracles reported in the Gospels are
no more than folk accretions to an error-filled oral tradition.
Recently, however, Jesuit priest Jose O'Callahan -- an expert
on ancient manuscripts -- identified fragments from a cave
near Qumran (close to where the Dead Sea Scrolls were
found) as coming from the Gospel of Mark. (13) According
to both secular and Jewish scholars, the cave was sealed not
later than 50 A.D., so now we have a Gospel of Mark
manuscript fragment from a time when there were still
numerous eyewitnesses alive to refute its claims.
Does early dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls harm the
conservative position? Does pre-dating Christian ideas
produce any mortal wound to conservative theology (the
Mark fragments could raise that question)? No it doesn't for
if Christian doctrines are indeed eternal truths, as they claim,
then many of them would be contained within the Old
Testament. Since such ideas were part of Judaism in the

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pre-Christian era, then it is likely that a community of
scholarly, righteous Jewish "monks" would re-discover them
in their scripture, practice them in their lives and mix them
with the Eastern accretions that are so evident in their
legacy.
The existence of parallels between Essenism and Christianity
merely points out that eternal truths are eternal truths, rather
than shaking the foundation of the church. Thus, the
existence of Essene teachings parallel to Christian teachings
tends to prove the truth of those teachings -- not that they
are somehow borrowed from other traditions.
The most profound flaw in the "Essene Jesus" theory is its
total lack of documentation. Proponents claim that Jesus
was the Essene "Teacher of Righteousness" or perhaps a
composite of several such teachers. This opinion is held
despite the fact that other scholars maintain that the Teacher
of Righteousness lived 50 to 100 years before Jesus.
Besides, if Jesus were the Teacher of Righteousness, why
isn't he mentioned by name in Essenic literature? Also, why
don't any of the New Testament records call Jesus by that
title? His leadership of a major sect like the Essenes would
certainly be pertinent to the Gospel writers. Proponents of
an Essenic Jesus sometimes maintain that the early church
altered the Gospels -- a position that we will deal with below.
The Indian (Hindu) Connection
Another view of Jesus that is popular among those who
have a need to demythologize Jesus is that he spent those
missing 18 years studying Hinduism and Buddhism in India.
Edgar Cayce, the supposed Christian who gave "readings"
while in a trance, believed that Jesus learned advanced
spirituality while on journeys to the East. A popular book on
this theme (Janet Bock's The Jesus Mystery) has a front
cover that depicts a meditative "Jesus" sitting in the yogic
"lotus" position amid towering mountain peaks that remind
one of the Himalayas. (14)
Bock's book reports that a Russian nobleman named
Nicolas Notovitch made an extensive tour of Afghanistan,

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India and Tibet during the late 1880s. Notovitch set down
his memoirs in a book titled The Unknown Life of Jesus
Christ (New York, 1890).
Notovitch suffered an accident while in the Himalayas and
had to recuperate at Himis Buddhist Monastery in Ledak,
Tibet. During his convalescence, a Buddhist monk showed
him a manuscript written in the ancient Pali language. The
story told on the manuscript was about a young man named
"Saint Issa" whose life story parallels that of Jesus. The
Saint Issa manuscript gives details of Issa's life between the
ages of 12 and 30 years, a fact that pleases critics of
orthodox Christianity.
No one from the outside world saw the manuscript again
after Notovitch until 1922, when an Indian viewed it.
Unfortunately, the manuscript disappeared from Western
scrutiny and because of the Red Chinese invasion and
occupation of Tibet it is unlikely to resurface anytime soon.
Our only record of what it said was the translation given in
Notovitch's 1890 book.
According to the legend, young Issa left Nazareth at the age
of 13 and traveled to India. The journey was financed by his
mother, who sold all of her household goods. Issa traveled
through what is now called Iraq, Iran (old Persia), along the
Persian Gulf and the western shore of the Arabian Sea to
Sindh, Pakistan. At Sindh, Issa met with and joined the
Jains. (15) Those people practice an austere religion that
derived from Hinduism about the same time as Buddhism.
Their teachings include vegetarianism, nonviolence, good
works and celibacy.
Saint Issa left the Jains at Sindh and traveled to India, where
he settled for six years at Jagannath Temple in Puri to study
Hinduism. During this time Issa became a perfect yogi. That
status supposedly gave him the ability to perform the
miracles reported in the Gospels. These powers (called
siddhis by Hindus) are cited by some people to explain away
the miracles of Jesus.
While Christians believe that the miracles reported in the

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Gospels were performed to establish his divine credentials,
the New Ager would tell you that they were merely
manifestations of siddhis by a perfected yogi named Issa or
Jesus.
Issa supposedly matured spiritually while in India and
reached the stage of evolution called "Christ Consciousness"
by New Agers. It was this spiritual status that later permitted
the Christ to possess the body of Jesus.
When Issa attained Christ Consciousness at the age of 25 he
became an Avatar. But interestingly enough, those who de-
christify Jesus only grant him status as a Fourth Degree
Initiate. This not-quite-perfected status means that he was
very powerful but still had to go through a few more
reincarnations (which means that Jesus still needed physical
bodies). He is still alive, as the Christians say, but the New
Agers mean in the physical world. Some New Agers will tell
you that Jesus is still alive on earth after 2,000 years and
lives in the Himalayas with the other Masters of Wisdom.
Some have recently claimed that Jesus moved to Rome in
preparation for the manifestation of Lord Maitreya. He will
allegedly take over the Vatican and become a future pope.
They claim that Jesus is currently in a 600-year-old Syrian
body gained in a reincarnation later than the incarnation
written of in Scripture.
Issa left India at the age of about 30 and returned to
Palestine by way of Tibet, Iran and southern Russia. It was
on his return to Israel from India, say some New Agers, that
Jesus began the public ministry that is recorded in the
Gospels.
As in the case of the Essene Jesus, there are neither Jewish
nor Christian source documents to support the Indian
Connection. Although church alteration of the record is a
possible explanation, as some would have it, this claim
suffers the same fate as other alteration theories.
Christ or Krishna?
Much is made of the similarities between Jesus Christ and

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the Hindu's Lord Krishna. It is implied that the Jews adopted
Krishna to their own use and that Christianity is thus based
on Hinduism. Implicit in this view is that Christians debased
the truth and buried the true Lord Krishna in Jesus Christ.
That view is untenable, however, because the cult of Lord
Krishna did not appear among the Hindus until after about
130 A.D.
Because the Apostle "Doubting" Thomas took the Gospel of
Christ to India only a few years after the death of Jesus (his
grave is known at Madras, India), it is obvious that the story
of Jesus pre-dated the story of Krishna amongst the Hindus.
Even though Hinduism is very much older than Christianity,
it was the Hindus who stole the Christ concept and debased
it into the cult of Krishna -- not the other way around.
The Christ: Which One?
The word "christ" is an English transliteration of the Greek
word cristos, which directly translates to "savior" or
"messiah" (Hebrew). Christians identify Christ as Jesus who
came in fulfillment of prophecy to save mankind.
New Agers differ from Christians regarding the concept of
Christ. Whenever you hear New Agers, occultists or so-
called "gnostic Christians" talking about "the Christ spirit,"
be aware that they are not using the term in any Christian
sense. They will even talk about "Jesus the Christ" but only
mean the mortal man Jesus who was temporarily possessed
by the Christ spirit.
The Christ Spirit is defined several ways in New Age
literature: it is energy, a force and a principle among other
things. (16) In regards to "the Christ" being energy, be
aware that New Agers see occultism as the "hidden science
of energy," not as black magic.
The "Christ as energy" viewpoint appeals to modern science
for its validity, particularly the branch of physics called
"quantum mechanics." This scientific discipline is the
physicist's way of describing happenings on a subatomic
level. Interestingly enough, quantum mechanics had led

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many physicists into Eastern religion and mysticism.
It appears that some findings of the scientists have close
parallels in Zen Buddhism in particular. Some scientists are
now claiming that matter seems to have consciousness, a
concept of revolutionary consequence if it were true.
The "New Physics" relation to mysticism is expounded in
books such as The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra, The
Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav and Mysticism and
the New Physics by Michael Talbot.
Another book in this vein (but which argues from a different
perspective) is The Cosmic Code by Eric Pagels, who is
husband of Elaine Pagels (author of The Gnostic Gospels).
(17)
New Age teaching also holds that the Christ is not an
individual, either human or spiritual, but an office. The
office passes from one being to another throughout history.
According to Benjamin Creme in his book The
Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom, the
office of "Christ" has been held for the last 2,600 years by a
being called Lord Maitreya. (17) He is said to periodically
manifest himself in the flesh for the benefit of mankind. In
addition to "His Disciple, Jesus," Lord Maitreya has
appeared as Appolonius of Tyana, Mohammet, Krishna and
others.
New Agers continually try to invoke Lord Maitreya through
chanting the "Great Invocation" through constant repetition
of the power number "666" and by other magical means. It
was Lord Maitreya whom the Theosophists tried to have
possess Jiddu Krishnamurti in 1929. Certain New Agers
claim that Lord Maitreya has been back in the world since
the summer of 1977; he entered by airplane, they say.
The "Christ energy" that empowers the holder of the "Christ
Office" is supposedly part of a cosmic consciousness, a god
immanent in all things. All of the universe is said to be alive,
that is, it's one immense living, conscious organism. The
universal energies are focused into this world through the

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office of the christ.
The purpose of the Christ Energies is to educate earth
inhabitants (and presumedly the earth itself, since it has
consciousness) about their divinity. It (He?) is the "Supreme
Educator," the principal driving force behind creation on the
earth. As representative of the Hierarchy, Christ has the job
of directing human development up the ladder of
consciousness to eventual divinity. As our guide, the New
Age Christ is our link to God -- but bear in mind that Lucifer
is supposed to be our link to Christ!
New Agers call Christ many things: "planetary power,"
"cosmic consciousness," "manifestation of the soul of the
universe," "supreme education force" and the "basic
evolutionary force." What they refuse to acknowledge,
however, is that Jesus is the Christ, the one Christ and the
only Christ -- the Son of God. New Age doctrine collapses
when the reality of the true Christ is acknowledged. For this
reason alone the New Ager must invent an artificial Christ!
What The Scriptures Say
Between liberal Christians, New Agers and the claims of
certain competing religions we have a variety of "Jesus
figures" to choose from. But all of those sources lack a very
important factor: first-hand knowledge of this man Jesus.
All of them resort to either strained interpretations of
scripture or to manuscripts that talk of someone else with a
similar (and possibly fabricated) history.
They make the Essenes' Teacher of Righteousness or the
Hindu's Saint Issa into a Jesus-like figure by the weight of
sheer speculation -- but speculation that is often as not
taught as if it were the truth.
Such a ploy is, incidentally, called the "Argument from the
Stolen Concept," i.e., the making of something (or
someone) into something they are not by replacement and
frequent repetition. By replacing Jesus with the "Teacher of
Righteousness" or "Saint Issa" or someone else, they
eventually come to believe that Jesus was indeed someone

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else. It is critical for their beliefs that Jesus be almost
anyone else except who he really is!
Given that other sources on the identity of Jesus are terribly
flawed, what is a better source? Far superior are sources
written by either eyewitnesses who knew Jesus personally or
by people who associated with and were taught by the
original eyewitnesses. There is a document in existence that
was written by such people, we call it The New Testament.
Springing to mind immediately is II Peter 1:16-19:
"For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made
know to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ
but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For when He
received honor and glory from God the Father, such an
utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory,
'This is My beloved Son with whom I am well pleased,' --
and. we ourselves heard this utterance made from Heaven
when we were with Him on the holy mountain" [NASB]
[Emphasis added].
Concerning the identity of Jesus, the same eyewitness
account tells us:
"For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten
Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but
have eternal life" (John 3:16 NASB) [emphasis added].
The witness in the Gospel of John is that God sent not
merely His son but his "... only begotten son." Using the
rule of document interpretation that admonishes "when the
plain sense makes sense seek no other," we can only
conclude that Jesus was and is the Son of God and that
there is no other.
In Romans 1:2-4, the Apostle Paul likewise identifies Jesus.
Paul writes to Roman believers:
"... concerning His son, who was born of a descendant of
David according to the flesh, who was declared the Son of
God ... "
Note in the above that Jesus was not called "a son of God"

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but rather, THE Son of God. The singular usage puts to
shame the doctrine of the New Agers that we are all equally
divine with Jesus.
In the Gospel of Matthew (16:13-17) Jesus asks Peter the
basic question: "... but who do you say that I am?" Simon
Peter's answer tells the whole story: "Thou art the Christ, the
Son of the Living God." Jesus concludes the conversation
not by rebuking Simon Peter for error but rather by affirming
the truth of his observation: "Blessed are you, Simon
Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you
but my father who is in heaven."
Are the Bible Manuscripts Accurate?
The answer to the question of Jesus' true identity rests
squarely on the Christian scriptures. The validity of the
Christian viewpoint is directly related to the validity of
scriptures. For this reason, liberal and New Age scholars
have openly attacked the scriptures. Several of their
questions must be confronted: when were the New
Testament books written? How true are our modern
transcripts to the originals? Did the Christian church alter the
original manuscripts to eliminate valid doctrines?
The date of authorship of the New Testament becomes so
controversial because key doctrines are affected. Liberal and
conservative churchmen have opposite views of the Bible.
The conservative believes that the scriptures are inerrant and
are to be taken literally except where either metaphor or
allegory is clearly intended by the writer; to the conservative
the scriptures are both accurate and believable.
The liberal, on the other hand, believes that the scriptures
are merely a doctrinal statement rather than an accurate
historical account. Implicit in the liberal view is that
Christian doctrine is relative and flexible -- in other words,
arbitrary.
The conservative sees doctrine as fixed by none other than
God and is thus absolute for all time. The liberal diminishes
the authority of scripture, while conservatives maintain the

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Reformation position that there is no other binding authority.
Because of their position regarding scripture, liberals must
insist on late-dating New Testament authorship. Accordingly,
liberals prefer a mid- to late-second century A.D. date for
the authorship of the New Testament. Such dating would
place 100 to 150 years between the actual events and the
recording of those events, eliminating the authority of the
eyewitnesses. Conservative opinion usually holds that the
New Testament was written approximately mid-first century
A.D. and was certainly completed with the writing of the
Book of Revelation no later than 96 A.D.
The great time span represented by a second century dating
is crucial to the liberals' view because of their claim of
inaccuracies in the text. If the New Testament documents
were written during the first century A.D., then errors and
inaccuracies would be challenged by living eyewitnesses to
the events recorded in the manuscripts. The "Eyewitness
Effect" is a very powerful argument for the truth and
accuracy of the New Testament -- if it can be shown that the
manuscripts were in circulation during the late first century
period.
Conservative Christians believe that all New Testament
books were written sometime prior to 96 A.D., with most of
them being written in mid-century. This dating allows for
scrutiny by eyewitnesses. A discussion of New Testament
dating is presented in simple but elegant style by Josh
McDowell in his book More Than A Carpenter. (18)
McDowell appeals to several known manuscripts (MSS.): the
Ryland MSS. (130 A.D.), the Beatty Papyri (155 A.D.) and
the Bodmer Papyri II (200 A.D.) implying that these copies
were based on earlier MSS.
Eminent authorities, some of whom previously adhered to
the second-century position, now believe the entire New
Testament was written between 40 A.D. and 90 A.D.; some
of these men teach that all New Testament MSS. were
completed and in circulation by the fall of Jerusalem in 70
A.D.

143
The research of Fr. Jose O'Callahan regarding the MSS.
fragments found in Qumran Cave VII (which other scholars
proved were sealed not later than 50 A.D.) is that they come
from the Gospel of Mark. This finding is exciting to
conservative Christians and absolutely devastating to liberal
Christians' second-century contention.
The question of New Testament accuracy, apart from the
issues relating to dating of the text, also involves the
translation from oral tradition to written record. The claim is
made that a great deal was lost or altered in transmission.
Scholars who have studied oral histories tell us that such
information can easily be transmitted with extreme accuracy,
as witnessed by the consistency of primitive African
tribesmen who memorize the oral history of their own
people.
Accurate transmission was all the more likely in a first-
century Jewish culture where pupils were used to sitting at
the feet of their teacher, rabbis like Jesus, and memorizing
their words (a practice that still exists in some orthodox
Jewish communities). In such a culture textual losses over
only one generation are considered negligible, especially
when the older generation was still around to correct the
record.
Although no record exists, it is also possible that some
eyewitnesses to Christ's ministry on earth took notes or kept
the equivalent of a diary. Literacy was widespread in Judaea
because of the responsibility for men to read the scriptures
in the synagogue and, according to one source "... the
Greeks and the Jews were addicted to writing things down."
A second argument for the accuracy of transmission is
(again) the Eyewitness Effect. Jesus' ministry was witnessed
by thousands of Jews and gentiles and those many
eyewitnesses served as a quality control factor over the
written record that we now call the New Testament.
A third argument is to compare the New Testament with
other ancient manuscripts over which there is little or no
controversy regarding their accuracy to the originals. There

144
are more than 20,000 existing New Testament manuscripts
from the first several centuries of church history, some of
which are dated only a few years after the events they
describe.
By contrast, no other ancient document is so well
supported. For example, Homer's Iliad, which ranks second
only to the New Testament in number of surviving
manuscripts, is supported by only 643 MSS. Other MSS. are
even less well supported: the history of Thucydides is
derived from only eight MSS. that date from 1300 years
after the originals were written; the history of Herodotus, the
works of Aristotle and Julius Caesar's Gallic Wars have even
fewer copies in existence.
Why is it that scholars who would never think to doubt the
accuracy of Thucydides, Herodotus, Aristotle or Julius
Caesar in their known editions almost automatically claim
that the New Testament renditions are somehow defective?
Perhaps it is because they shudder over the implications --
eternal consequences -- of their own teachings.
We must conclude that the New Testament records of the
identity and person of Jesus are accurate and reliable, at
least in their original form.
But what about the modern New Testament? Some people
assert that the early church fathers excised certain doctrines
and embarrassing details from the text of the New
Testament. Two doctrines are favored for this claim:
reincarnation and the identity of Jesus. Another claim is that
the original Greek MSS. were accurate but are now lost and
that all of the translations or later Greek copies are defective.
Two arguments come to bear against the assertion that the
Bible was intentionally altered. First, the known early New
Testament editions agree textually with the modern
renditions. Second, the assertion falls rather quickly because
it fails the test of reasonableness.
In order to support the view that the early church fathers
altered scripture we would have to believe that they felt a

145
pressing need to eliminate certain doctrines in favor of
others. Regarding reincarnation vs. resurrection, for
example, why would it matter to the church which of these
two it taught unless they had good reason to believe one
was true and the other was false? It is simply not reasonable
to assume that the patristic fathers would arbitrarily choose
from several "scriptural" doctrines.
The usual scenario offered for the altered Bible theory
claims that an early church council made the changes in
secret. The Councils of Nicea and Hippo are sometimes
cited by proponents of the theory.
There are two problems with this claim.
First, no church council could have remained secret for long
in the contentious early church period -- there would always
be dissenters, traitors or the indiscreet who would spread the
secret abroad.
Second, the world at the time of the alleged alterations was
awash with New Testament copies. If 20,000 of them
survived to modern times, then there must have been many
scores of thousands more in circulation at the time.
Any attempt, secret or otherwise, to remove key doctrines
was doomed from the start. Such a vain attempt would have
met massive resistance from all quarters -- far too much
resistance to allow a possibility of success.
Some critics like to point to the fact that the canon of
scripture was not closed until the fourth century A.D. By
that time, there were scores of books in existence to confuse
believers. Some of them were scriptural, some were
doctrinally sound Christian books but were not of scriptural
rank and others were either heretic or derived from
competing gnostic and other religions.
The councils which set the canon selected as "scriptural"
only those books that met strict guidelines, including
apostolic origin. Some utterly perfect Christian works were
not accepted because they were not attributable to one of
the original apostles or their near associates. Heretic books

146
were rejected both on the grounds of non-apostolic origin
and heresy. Those books cannot be regarded as "removed"
from the Bible, as critics assert, because they were never in
the Bible in the first place!
It is obvious to even the casual student that the New
Testament documents were written by eyewitnesses
contemporary with other eyewitnesses to the actual events,
are accurate records of the events and are (even in modern
form) faithful to the originals.
Why Is the Question of Jesus' Identity So Important?
The quality of the New Testament record is important
because it determines the identity and work of Jesus Christ.
But why is the identity and work of Jesus so important?
After all, wasn't he merely an outdated religious teacher who
lived 2,000 years ago? The importance of these questions
lies in the fact that salvation is at stake for all eternity.
In Christian belief, a soul is either reconciled to God through
Jesus and gains eternal life or is damned to eternal
punishment in the company of Satan and all his demons.
Reconciliation with God is possible, according to those
scriptures whose accuracy we have just established, only by
accepting Jesus as Savior ("Christ", "Messiah" and "Savior"
are synonims).
Christian doctrine stands in sharp contrast to all other
religions. The Christian believes that salvation is through
grace -- unmerited divine favor -- not works. All other
religions teach some form of works are needed to earn
salvation.
Christianity is almost unique in teaching that there is only
one chance for the soul to gain salvation -- there is no
second chance either after death or in future lifetimes. So
we come to a primary question regarding the prudence of
your beliefs. If you died in the next minute, what would you
tell God is the reason that He should let you into heaven?
Consider two views -- the non-religious and the non-
Christian religious -- and then let's compare what will

147
happen to both you and me if the other is right.
First, the non-religious.
If the non-religious person is correct and the Christian is
incorrect, then both of us will become extinct at death and
neither is worse off. But in the meantime, I have lived a life
of hope and joy, while you lived a life of hopelessness "...
alone and afraid in a world you never made." Which is most
prudent?
Also, if there is a second chance then the non-religious
person is in no danger for he would surely choose God over
damnation. Neither of us would be worse off than the other:
one would gain salvation in the first chance and other in the
second. But what if there is no second chance? Then the
Christian is saved and the non-religious person is damned in
hell; which is most prudent?
Now let's consider other religions or cults, neither of which
accept the Christian belief regarding salvation. They claim
either a different path to God or that all paths are equally
valid for different people.
As our example, let's consider the position of the
reincarnationist. If he is right and I am wrong, then my only
penalty is another reincarnation or two, a mere 50 to 100
years out of my allotted millions of years. But if I am right
and he is wrong, then I am saved while he is damned for not
accepting Jesus during his one and only incarnation; which
position is the most prudent?
As you should plainly see by now, there is very little hope
for the non-Christian -- and none of the non-Christian
positions is prudent for the intelligent person. Although
some people might denigrate "fire insurance" conversions, I
suspect that God nonetheless rejoices at every decision for
Christ.
~~~~~~~

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 References - And Chapter Notes
Chapter 1
1. Dave Hunt, The Seduction of Christianity, Harvest House
(Eugene, OR, 1985).
2. See Constance Cumbey, Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow,
Huntington House (Lafayette, LA) and A Planned Deception:
The Staging of a New Age Messiah, Pointe Publishing
Company. For a dissenting opinion, see Doug Groothius,
Unmasking the New Age, Inter Varsity Press.
3. See Joseph J. Carr, The Twisted Cross, Huntington
House (Lafayette, LA).
4. Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy, J.P. Tarcher
(Los Angeles, 1980).
Chapter 2
1. Shirley MacLaine, Out On A Limb
2. Shirley MacLaine, Dancing In The Light
3. Joseph J. Carr, The Twisted Cross, Huntington House
(Lafayette, LA).
4. Compare several sources: James Webb, The Occult
Establishment, Open Court Publishers (LaSalle, IL); Joseph
J. Carr, op-cit; Harry Benjamin, Everyone's Guide to
Theosophy, Theosophical Publishing House London, Ltd.
(London, apparently not under copyright but preface dated
1969).
5. Many of the early church councils are some-times cited as
the perpetrator of the deed. In Out On A Limb, it was the
Council of Constantinople in the sixth-century. The
arguments against that selection are the same as for the
Council of Nicea or others.
6. The Lost Books of the Bible
7. The Book of Enoch
149
8. The Nag Hammadi Library in English
9. Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels
10. Morton Smith, The Secret Gospel
11. G.R.S. Mead, "The Reincarnationists of Early
Christendom," The Quest, April 1914; Reprinted in A Quest
Anthology.
12. Ian Stevenson, Twenty Cases Suggestive of
Reincarnation,
13. This list was developed in part from Mark Albrecht,
Reincarnation: A Christian Appraisal and John Snyder,
Reincarnation Vs. Resurrection
14. See the catalog for the exhibition, David Altshuler
(editor), The Precious Legacy, Judaic Treasures From the
Czechoslovak State Collections, Summit Books (New York,
1983).
15. Tal Brook, The Other Side of Death,
Chapter 3
1. See Dave Hunt, op-cit
2. See James Webb, The Occult Establishment, Open Court
(LaSalle, IL) and The Occult Underground, Open Court
(LaSalle, IL).
3. Ibid.
4. Josh MacDowell, Handbook of Today's Religions.
5. See Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary.
6. How To Respond To The Occult, Concordia Publishing
House Series.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.

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10. Definition developed from several sources: Webster's
New Collegiate Dictionary; Dave Hunt, The Seduction of
Christianity and several sources within the occult literature.
11. Rock music owes much to Aleister Crowley (see Jacob
Aranza, Backward Masking Unmasked, Huntington House
(Lafayette, LA). There are a number of sources on Crowley.
12. Ibid (Concordia Series book); see also (Weldon book)
13. See Shakti Gawain, Creative Visualization; Elissa
McClain, Rest From The Quest, David Spangler, The Laws
of Manifestation.
14. Elissa MacLain, Rest From The Quest, Huntington
House (Lafayette, LA).
15. Raphael Gasson, The Challenging Counterfeit.
16. Ibid.
17. Merrill Unger, The Haunting of Bishop Pike
18. Ibid (Benjamin).
19. Ibid.
20. This person claimed that she is not a "medium" but
rather a "channeler." This same term was used for the two
mediums in Out On A Limb. Although some New Agers
object to the terminology of spiritualism, the activity looks
nonetheless like mediumship.
21. Ruth Montgomery, whose books popularized psychic
seeress Jeane Dixon, made such claims.
22. It is sometimes necessary to make a composite
definition in order to convey true meaning as used in the
occult literature. It is not proper to simply "proof word" a
topic without considering interrelated words and meanings.
23. Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman, Harper & Row
(New York, 1980); paperback edition published by the
Bantam New Age Library 1982.

151
24. Ibid (Harner).
25. Ibid (Aranza).
26. Johanna Michaelson, The Beautiful Side of Evil
27. Ibid (Elissa McClain)
28. Joseph J. Carr, The Twisted Cross, Huntington House
(Lafayette, LA).
29. Recommended reading: Kurt Koch, Christian
Counseling and Occultism.
Chapter 4
1. This tradition [called variously "The Ancient Wisdom" and
"The Ageless Wisdom"] was the basis of many European
and Middle Eastern (basically gnostic) mystery religions.
David Spangler, a leading New Age spiritual teacher,
admitted that there is essentially nothing new in the New
Age during a lecture series at The Association for Research
and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach, VA.
2. Two of Bailey's books are especially anti-semitic. See The
Rays and the Initiation and Externalization of the Hierarchy.
3. Norman Geisler, False Gods of Our Time, Harvest House
(Eugene, OR, 1985).
4. Ibid (see both Geisler and Groothius).
5. Benjamin (op-cit); see also Robert Ellwood, Theosophy:
A Modern Expression of the Wisdom of the Ages, Quest
books (Wheaton, IL 1986).
6. Ibid.
7. Richard J. Foster, Celebration of Discipline, Harper & Row
(San Francisco). Earlier printings of this book are especially
revealing (see page 170).
8. Op-cit (Dave Hunt)
9. See Stephen Hoeller, The Gnostic Jung, Quest Books
(Wheaton, IL).

152
10. Op-cit (Cumbey).
11. Op-cit.
The Lucifer Connection 187
12. Miller's article in Moody Monthly
13. For a description of two similar (but differing) views of
Christian interpretation of prophecy see Hal Lindsey, Late,
Great Planet Earth and Dave Hunt, Peace, Prosperity and the
Coming Holocaust,
14. All of Schaeffer's books are available from Cross-way
Publishing: The Complete Works of Francis Schaeffer.
15. See Cumbey (op-cit) and also The Findhorn Garden.
16. Ibid (Foster).
17. See David Lewis' Prophecy Intelligence Digest
(Springfield, MO).
18. Earl Paulk, Satan Unmasked, K-Dimension Publishers
(Atlanta, GA).
19. Ibid (Paulk).
20. Meeting appears to have been sponsored by the Vienna
Assembly of God church (Vienna, VA).
21. Ibid (Paulk).
22. Meeting held at Westpark Hotel, Tysons Corners, VA
(near Washington, DC, October 16, 1986).
23. Constance Cumbey, A Planned Deception, Pointe
Publishing.
24. Constance Cumbey, Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow,
Huntington House (Lafayette, LA).
25. C. Matriciano, Gods of the New Age
Chapter 5
1. Rudolf Arnheim (Visual Thinking); Adelaide Bry

153
(Visualization: Directing the Movies of Your Mind); Melita
Denning and Osborne Phillips (Creative Visualization for the
Fulfilment of Your Desires); Shakti Gawain (Creative
Visualization); Dave Hunt (The Seduction of Christianity);
Donald G. Matzat, "Is There A Seduction in Christianity
Today?" (Bread of Life Parts I-III).
2. Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy, J.P. Tarcher
(Los Angeles, 1980).
3. Richard J. Foster (Celebration of Discipline); Dr. Norman
Vincent Peale (Dynamic Imaging); Rita Bennett
(Emotionally Free).
4. Dave Hunt, The Seduction of Christianity, Harvest House
(Eugene, OR 1985).
5. Derived in part from several dictionaries and in part from
Hunt (see above).
6. It is "words of power," a concept from occultism, that
distinguishes sorcery incantations from prayer.
7. Leland R. Kaiser, Ph.D; "New Success Roles for Nursing
Administrators." Photocopy used as seminar handout
(original source unknown but appears to be a textbook).
8. Shakti Gawain, Creative Visualization, Whatever
Publishing (Mill Valley, CA 1978).
9. Gavin and Yvonne Frost, The Magic Power of Witchcraft,
Bantam New Age Books (New York, 1980).
10. Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman, Bantam New
Age Books paperback edition (New York, 1982). Also see
Hallucinogens and Shamanism by the same author.
11. Ibid (Harner).
12. Confirmed by interviews with present and former
visualization practicers, including Elissa McClain (Rest From
The Quest).
13. A.W. Tozer, That Incredible Christian, p.70

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14. Tozer, p.69
15. Johanna Michaelson, The Beautiful Side of Evil, Harvest
House (Eugene, OR 1982).
16. For more information on Silva Mind Control see Larson's
Book of Cults, Bob Larson, Tyndale House (Wheaton, IL,
1982).
The Lucifer Connection
17. Rita Bennett (op cit)
18. Personal testimonies of visualizers.
Chapter 6
1. Stephan Hoeller, The Gnostic Jung and the Seven
Sermons to the Dead, Theosophical Publishing House
(Wheaton, IL, 1982). p. 387
2. Hoeller (op cit), p. xxi
3. Hoeller (op cit)
4. James Webb, The Occult Establishment, Open Court
Press (LaSalle, IL, 1976), p. 347.
5. Ibid, p. 384
6. Ibid
7. Hoeller (op cit), p.3
8. Hoeller (op cit), p.4
9. Hoeller (op cit),p. 29
10. Hoeller (op cit), p.30
11. Hoeller (op cit),p.3 1
12. Hoeller (op cit),p. 7
13. Webb (op cit),p. 371
14. Ibid,p.381

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15. Ibid.
Chapter 7
1. Personal experience
2. Modern term for what are essentially mystical or
shamanistic practices; compare Harner (op-cit).
3. For a particularly interesting look at this phenomena see
any of the Carlos Casteneda books, especially Journey to
Ixtlan.
4. Carr (op-cit).
5. Webb, both books (op-cit).
6. See Webb (op-cit); and William James, The Varieties of
Religious Experience.
7. Ibid (Webb).
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid (Webb). For additional information, read the works
of the Beat authors, notably Ginsburg and Kerouac.
14. Ibid (Webb).
15. Ibid (Webb). See also Johanna Michaelson (op-cit).
16. Michaelson (op-cit); see also Rabi Maharaj, Escape Into
the Light.
17. Michaelson (op-cit) and Maharaj (op-cit).
18. Simeon Edmunds, The Psychic Power of Hypnosis, see
also Martin and Diedre Bobgan, Hypnosis and the Christian.

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19. Ibid (Edmunds).
20. Ibid (Edmunds).
21. Ibid (Edmunds).
22. Ibid (Edmunds).
23. Ibid (Bobgans).
Chapter 8
1. See Constance Cumbey, Hidden Dangers ... (op-cit).
2. Ibid (Cumbey); see also David Spangler, Reflections On
The Christ.
3. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity.
4. Ibid (Benjamin).
5. Ibid.
6. Spangler (op-cit).
7. (Benjamin) (op-cit)
8. The term seems to amuse Spangler but was created by
the publisher of his book Emergence: The Rebirth of the
Sacred.
The Lucifer Connection 191
9. Spangler, Reflections (op-cit)
10. H.P. Blavatsky, The Theosophical Glossary. 1 1. H.P.
Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine.
12. Alice Bailey, The Destiny of the Nations.
13. Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and
Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.
Chapter 9
1. Seth J. Farber, "The Crisis of Secular Authority: Modern
Ecclesiastical Responses to the State," The Humanist,

157
Jan/Feb 1983, pp. 13-14.
2. John J. Dunphy, "A Religion For a New Age," The
Humanist, Jan/Feb 1983, pp. 13-14.
3. Benjamin Creme, The Reappearance of the Christ and the
Masters of Wisdom.
4. Cumbey, Hidden Dangers ... (op-cit).
5. In fact, Spangler tells this initiation is Luciferic. See
Reflections on the Christ.
6. Lucis Trust can usually be trusted to provide information
on festival activities every year.
7. Lola Davis, Toward A World Religion For the New Age.
Ibid.
8. Spangler, Reflections (op-cit)
9. David Spangler, Revelation: Birth of a New Age.
Chapter 10
1. See also Cumbey Hidden Dangers ... (op-cit), A Planned
Deception (op-cit); Dave Hunt Seduction ... (op-cit) and
Peace, Prosperity ... (op-cit).
2. Gods of the New Age, Jeremiah Films (see also
Matriciano book of same title op-cit).
3. Pathway To Paradise?, three one-hour TV shows produced
by Channel-38 TV, Chicago. See Christian Information
Bureau address in back section of Hunt Seduction (op-cit)
for information on VHS video tape availability.
4. See first chapter and introductions to this book.
Chapter 11
1. Tal Brooke, The Other Side of Death
2. Some liberals assert that "Jesus" is a composite of
several different teachers.

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3. Joseph J. Carr, The Twisted Cross, Huntington House,
Inc. (Lafayette, LA, 1985).
4. Benjamin Creme, The Reappearance of the Christ and the
Masters of Wisdom.
5. Joscelyn Godwin, Mystery Religions in the Ancient World,
Harper & Row (New York, 198 1).
6. Morton Smith, Jesus the Magician, Harper & Row (New
York, 1981).
7. The Secret Gospel, The Dawn Horse Press (Clearlake, CA,
1973, 1982).
8. Luke 2:4 1-50
9. Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion and Charles Frances
Potter, The Lost Years of Jesus Revealed.
10. Ibid
11. Yes Bookstore, Washington, DC
12. Robinson (op cit)
13. David Estrada and William White Jr., The First New
Testament, Thomas Nelson.
14. Janet Bock, The Jesus Mystery, Aura Books (Los
Angeles, 1980).
15. Ibid
16. Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine
and Isis Unveiled. Madame Blavatsky was a founder of the
original Theosophical Society.
17. Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels,
18. Creme (op cit)
~~~~~~~

End.
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