Sexual Immorality and Other Personal and Social Consequences of Occult Involvement – Part 1

By: Dr. John Ankerberg and Dr. John Weldon; ©2003

In the occult we find not only the rejection of the image of God in man concerning his personality, but often the attempt to defile the image of God in man concerning his morality (his conscience). Moral thinking is held to be as destructive of higher consciousness and true reality as any other binding and illusory activity.

Sexual Immorality and Other Personal and Social Consequences of Occult Involvement – Moral Thinking

In previous articles we discussed the monistic philosophy of the occult and how such a belief ultimately rejects moral categories, such as good and evil or right and wrong. Characteristically, this anti-moral philosophy is undergirded by occult states of consciousness which seem to support a monistic perspective. As one psychic told us, “Once I experienced cosmic consciousness, I knew conven­tional morality was just an illusion.”

Monism teaches that “God is One”—that ultimate reality is one impersonal, undifferentiated, divine essence. What this means is that just as humanity itself is ultimately meaningless (as separate individual persons) then humanity’s morality must also be meaningless. Human morality is simply a product of “unenlight­ened” and “deluded” thinking; morality per se does not exist.

Thus, in the occult we find not only the rejection of the image of God in man concerning his personality, but often the attempt to defile the image of God in man concerning his morality (his conscience). Moral thinking is held to be as destructive of higher consciousness and true reality as any other binding and illusory activity.

Of course, the repudiation of morality is not always immediately evident to those who join Eastern sects or occult groups. People must slowly be recondi­tioned to accept such radical denials. Again, this is often a result of repeated cultivation of occult states of consciousness and the gradual adoption of anti-moral philosophies—usually encouraged in the name of “God” and “higher spiri­tuality.”

In essence, in the long run, to adopt occult beliefs and practice is to vaporize absolute moral standards, both philosophically and experientially.

The rejection of morality goes hand in hand with the occult, and this fact is noted by many commentators. Dr. Unger observes: “People who deal in the occult are often found to be immoral.”^[1]

Of course, occultists may claim to be moral people, but their own philosophy and lifestyle reject their claims. For example, in a special week-long segment on a Los Angeles news show, Ziena LaVey, the daughter of Satanist Anton LaVey, claimed that “True Satanists are very moral people.” But she then proceeded to discuss the necessity for engaging in the “seven deadly sins” (e.g., pride, lust, greed, etc.) for proper mental health.^[2]

Another example is the overriding philosophy of famous occultist Aleister Crowley which was “the whole of the law is ‘Do what thou wilt.’” Crowley was grossly perverse and had a reputation as “the most wicked man in the world.” He even named himself “The beast-666.”^[3]

In a similar manner, Eastern gurus who accept the monism of advaita Vedanta characteristically deny the moral distinctions of good versus evil as part of the maya (illusion) of the world. With other occultists, they accept that biblical moral­ity is an illusion stifling spiritual advancement. This is why Rajneesh says (com­menting on Christian faith), “The greatest deception is the deception of devotion to God.”^[4] Such a belief presupposes a dualistic reality (God and man as real, distinct categories); hence, it is deception within the premise of monism. It is the greatest deception because it prevents man from realizing he is one essence with God if he thinks he must be devoted to God, especially a holy and righteous God.

Thus, Rajneesh teaches that “to emphasize morality is mean, degrading; it is inhuman” and that literally “everything is holy; nothing is unholy.”^[5] Here we see that one of the purposes of the Eastern monistic path is to get the disciple to understand that, after “enlightenment” everything he does is “holy,” whether good or evil. Because nothing is truly evil, Rajneesh even acknowledges murder as a potentially meditative act (i.e., something “good” or “holy”)—assuming, of course, it is done in “higher” consciousness.

In commenting upon the lesson of the Bhagavad Gita (a Hindu scripture) he says: “Even if you kill someone consciously, while fully conscious [i.e., “enlightened”], it is meditative…. Kill, murder, fully conscious, knowing fully that no one is murdered and no one killed…. Just become the instrument of Divine hands and know well that no one is killed, no one can be killed.”^[6]

No one can be killed in this philosophy because no one really exists to be killed. All duality (e.g., people) is illusion and only the impersonal, undifferentiated God is real. In a letter to the editor, even Charles Manson once said, “I’ve killed no one.”^[7] Given the influence of monism upon him, this attitude is not surprising.

Some of the most evil and dehumanizing acts occur in this area where moral­ity is rejected and occultism practiced, and books have been written cataloguing the horrors. Of course, there is a limit to what can be discussed in a public forum, especially a Christian forum. What we mention is the tip of the iceberg.

If we really believe that man as man is only an “illusion,” and that morality is irrelevant, then is it surprising to discover that those who hold such views are willing to accept the mistreatment, brutalization, or even demonization of other men and women?

Virtually any evil—from deliberate deception to criminal activity—is capable of rationalization within monistic occultism. Thus, “What you would normally think to be right or wrong no longer has any place.”^[8]

If morality is ultimately an illusion, then to achieve true enlightenment, to inhabit true reality, one must go beyond the idea of good and evil. Again, theoreti­cally, once a person becomes truly “enlightened,” any actions (even evil actions) become “spiritual” actions—for the “enlightened” individual is, by definition, inca­pable of committing evil. He cannot possibly commit that which does not exist. Thus, the following teachings as cited by gurus, astrologers, psychics, and other practitioners are commonplace in the occult.

Our concepts of sin and virtue… alienate us from our true Self…. That which you see as impure is pure…. You imagine [ideas of] sin and virtue through ignorance.^[9]

Moral obligation is a myth, a detriment to spiritual advance.^[10]

If you are possessed by that higher sense of wisdom, nothing is bad.^[11]

In the Christian tradition, the being called Satan or the Devil is the epitome of wisdom and his actions are the true expression of an enlightened conscience.^[12]

[God] sees your good and evil thoughts and actions but they do not matter to him.^[13]

My ashram [spiritual community] makes no difference between the Devil and the Divine…. I use all sorts of energies. And if the devilish energy can be used in a divine way, it becomes tremendously fruitful.^[14]

Obedience [to God] is the greatest sin.^[15]

I don’t believe in morality… and I am bent on destroying it…. I believe in consciousness, not conscience.^[16]

The person who has deep compassion is not going to be bothered about whether he tells a lie or a truth…. All [spiritual teachers] have lied…. Through lies, by and by a master brings you toward light.^[17]

Good and evil have no absolute reality.^[18] Really, good and evil are one and the same.^[19]

Sex relations are [a divine process, in or out of marriage]… a random and loving occasion without [any] contracts [obligations].^[20]

But in the area of sexual behavior, even occultists sometimes give warnings. Yoga authorities Sri Krishna Prem and Arthur Avalon both severely caution mix­ing sex and certain forms of the occult, in this case, hatha yoga. Prem says it is safer to play with dynamite and Avalon says that intercourse during the early stages of hatha yoga “is likely to prove fatal.”^[21] Why is anyone’s guess, but para­doxically, occultism and sexual promiscuity go hand in hand.

For example, Harmon H. Bro refers to one man,

a well-trained Viennese psychiatrist, a man who effectively had healed many neurotic patients but whose ventures in automatic writing led him into grandiose delusions, then homosexual practices which eventually destroyed his professional usefulness and personal happiness.^[22]

The increasingly influential Tantric philosophy and related disciplines are bound up in the idea of the “enlightenment of sexual power” and offer justification for all kinds of illegitimate and perverse sexual activity. The late Hindu Tantrist Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, once headquartered in Oregon, was well-known for his free-sex teachings which also condoned beatings and rapes (see Tal Brooke, Riders of the Cosmic Circuit (Chariot Victor, 1987). As Rajneesh pointed out, Tantrists do not make love to one another so that they become united as one; rather they merely use each other as “doors” to higher consciousness to alleg­edly discover their own completeness as androgynous entities. But in the pro­cess the very nature and purpose of sexual complementarity is cheapened and perverted. Many other gurus endorse bisexuality/homosexuality or are them­selves bisexual (e.g.. Ram Dass) or homosexual (e.g., Sai Baba—again see Tal Brooke, Riders of the Cosmic Circuit).

Sexual promiscuity and perverted sex go hand in hand with the occult so regularly that occult activity surely carries a greater proportional share for the debilitating sexual conditions in modern culture.^[23] Remember, tens of millions of people today follow the New Age Movement, Eastern gurus, and other forms of the occult.

In occult circles, a person may be told that for many lifetimes he or she was a member of the opposite sex, justifying bisexual and homosexual appetites. An individual may also be told that he or she has not married the proper “soul mate” and that unless joined sexually with that person, the karmic “imbalance” will have to be paid in more difficult ways, justifying adulterous exploits or divorce.^[24]

In Eastern religions and many Western cults and sects, monistic philosophies can be used to obliterate sexual distinction since male-female roles constitute part of the maya (illusion) of duality. Perhaps this is one reason why so many gurus accept bisexuality. Or, in reincarnation philosophies, one may be informed through psychic means that one has a male body but a female spirit, or vice versa. Sexual preference is anybody’s guess at that point.

Indeed, of 54 gurus examined, 39 were found to be sexually active—over 70 percent.^[25] Close to 90 percent of the sexually active gurus had “at least occa­sional sexual relationships with one or more students.”^[26] Of the married, many were adulterers and “some are homosexual and some are bisexual in prefer­ence.”^[27] In those cases where gurus had sex with their women disciples, approxi­mately 50 percent of the women were in some way damaged by the incident. Being seduced by the guru was “a source of great suffering.”^[28] And these are only the admitted confessions.

According to the Associated Press, on June 2, 1986, Guru Prem Paramahansa, 38, was found guilty in Torrance, California, of eight counts of unlawful sex, over a 17-month period, with an eight-year-old girl (in 1982 to 1983).

The Chicago Tribune of August 16, 1982, ran an article on the 400,000-mem­ber Ananda Marga Yoga Society titled “Guru Sect is Probed for Terrorism, Mur­der,” detailing CIA and FBI investigations into the sect. Writer Bernard Bauer noted that for 27 years, “The cult has left a trail of blood around the world.”

The ISKCON or Hare Krishna community has been under federal investiga­tion. Over the years there have been many reports in the Los Angeles Times and other papers on alleged criminal activity at the sect’s various headquarters. The investigative news show “West 57th Street,” on October 31, 1987, reported allega­tions concerning the murder of former members, wife beating, child molesting, and the sale of illegal drugs such as cocaine and heroin at one location.

Again, given the forceful denial of absolute standards of right and wrong, is any of the above really so surprising? But there is more. In some forms of occult enlightenment, the basic ethical categories of right and wrong must be tran­scended in another manner: through the intentional violation of moral values by the deliberate practice of evil.

As Rajneesh and many Satanists have stated, the goal is to completely erode the conscience. Since man is created in God’s image, and a strong part of that image involves conscience, it is not surprising that the destruction of the con­science is part of the process of the destruction of the individual. Once the indi­vidual and his conscience are seared away and only a “void” remains, is it sur­prising that what enters and sets up house could be demonic? In other words, should anyone be surprised that the deliberate practice of spiritual evil would lead to further spiritual evil along the lines of demonization? We earlier cited the disciples of Da Free John as an example. But this can be multiplied in dozens of occult groups:

The effect of this level of practice becomes chillingly clear in the inner rings of the Rajneesh camp. We listen to ex-Neeshlings [ex-followers] unfold horrific tales of breaking the boundaries—of bizarre behavior, of beatings, rapes, and worse in the intensive training courses. We see a shockingly effective effort to break down human identity through a calculated violation of the taboos of human morality…. This is more than random vileness. Such thorough-going violation of taboo eventually erodes one’s humanity—it “reams out” the physical envelope of a human being and leaves a void where the person should be. This extinction of identity makes possible the entry of demonic entities in a unique and total way.^[29]

As another illustration, the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article about guru Da Free John being sued for $45 million by a former member alleging sexual abuse, assault, brainwashing, and imprisonment. Another member alleged that devotees were ordered to make pornographic films and that “everything that was done was interpreted as a lesson about your own lack of spirituality.”^[30]

But is it so surprising that those who worship evil gods will themselves soon come to glorify evil? The Hindu god Indra says in the Kaushitaki Upanishad:

The man who knows me as I am loses nothing whatever he does. Even if he kills his mother or his father, even if he steals or procures an abortion, whatever evil he does, he does not blanch if he knows me as I am.^[31]

In the Bhagavad Gita 9:30 Krishna declares, “Even if a devotee commits the most abominable actions, he is to be considered saintly because he is properly situated” (i.e., in “higher” consciousness). Transcendental Meditation peace­maker Maharishi Mahesh Yogi comments on Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita that he must attain “a state of consciousness which will justify any action… and will allow him even to kill in love in support of the purpose of evolution.”^[32]

The Manson clan was also influenced by Eastern/occult philosophy and also knew of this “love.” Susan Atkins explained her murder of Sharon Tate with, “You really have to have a lot of love in your heart to do what I did to Tate.” Sandra Good put it simply as, “There’s no wrong…. You kill whoever gets in your way.”^[33]

Should we forget the horrors? The eight-month-pregnant Sharon Tate repeat­edly stabbed in the stomach; Voytek Frykowsky—shot twice, hit over the head 13 times, stabbed 51 times; Rosemary La Bianca—41 knife wounds; Leno La Bianca 12 knife wounds, punctured with a fork seven times, a knife in his throat, a fork in his stomach, and on the wall in his own blood, DEATH TO PIGS.^[34] “The more you murder, the more you like it,” Atkins boasted.^[35]

Notes

1. ↑ Merrill Unger, Demons in the World Today (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale, 1972), p. 28, cf. p. 72.
2. ↑ Channel 7 Eyewitness News, KABC-TV, February 1986.
3. ↑ John Symonds and Kenneth Grant, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autobiography (New York: Bantam, 1971), p. 517.
4. ↑ Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, I Am the Gate: The Meaning of Initiation and Discipleship (New York: Parenial, 1978), p. 16.
5. ↑ Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, The Book of the Secrets: Discourses on “Vigyana Bhairava Tanra” (New York: Harper Colophon, 1977), Vol. 1, pp. 22, 36-37.
6. ↑ Rajneesh, Book of Secrets I, p. 399; cf. Ragneesh, The Mustard Seed: Discourses on the Sayings of Jesus Taken From the Gospel According to Thomas (New York: Harper & Row, 1975), p. 69.
7. ↑ Letter to the editor, Radix magazine, Nov.-Dec. 1976, p. 2.
8. ↑ William Rodamar, “The Secret Life of Swami Muktananda,” in Co-Evolution Quarterly, Winter 1983, p. 110.
9. ↑ Swami Muktananda, Siddha Meditation: Commentaries on the Shiva Sutras and Other Sacred Texts (Oakland, CA: Siddha Yoga Dham of America Foundation, 1975), p. 34; Swami Muktananda, Mukteshwari, Part 2 (Ganeshpuri, India: Shree Gurudev Ashram, 1973), p. 29.
10. ↑ Personal conversation with devotee.
11. ↑ Sita Wierner, Swami Stachidananda (San Francisco: Straight Arrow Books, 1970), p. 156.
12. ↑ Personal conversation with devotee.
13. ↑ Paramahansa Yogananda, Man’s Eternal Quest (Los Angels: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1975), p. 332.
14. ↑ Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in Swami Anand Yarti, The Sound of Running Water: A Photobiography of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and His Work 1975-1978 (Poona, India: Poona Rajneesh Foundation, 1980), p. 382.
15. ↑ Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, The Rajneesh Bible, Vol. 1 (Rajneeeshpuram, OR: Rajneesh Foundation International, 1995), p. 368.
16. ↑ Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, “I Am the Messiah Here and Now,” in Sannyas, Sept. Oct. 1978, p. 34.
17. ↑ Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in Yarti, Sound, p. 154.
18. ↑ Swami Adbhutananda, “Brahman and Maya,” in Christopher Isherwood, ed., Vedenta for the Western World (New York: Viking, 1968), p. 160.
19. ↑ Swami Nikhilananda, Vivekananda, the Yogas and Other Works (New York: Ramakrishna­Vivekananda Center, 1953), p. 512.
20. ↑ Bubba Free John, Garbage and the Goddess (Lower Lake, CA: The Dawn Horse Press, 1974), pp. 32-33.
21. ↑ Sri Krishna Prem, The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita (Baltimore, MD: Penguin, 1973), p. 53; Arthur Avalon (Sir John Woodroffe), The Serpent Power: The Secrets of Tantric and Shaktic Yoga (New York: Dover, 1975), p. 190.
22. ↑ Fate Magazine, Feb. 1971, p. 103.
23. ↑ William Rodamor, “The Secret Life of Swami Muktananda,” Co-evolution Quarterly, No. 40, Winter 1983.
24. ↑ Ibid., p. 110.
25. ↑ Editorial, “Perils of the Path” issue, Yoga Journal, Jul.-Aug. 1985, p. 3; Jack Kornfield, “Sex Lives of the Gurus,” Yoga Journal, Jul.-Aug. 1985, p. 28.
26. ↑ Ibid., p. 27.
27. ↑ Ibid., pp. 27-28.
28. ↑ Ibid., p. 28.
29. ↑ Brooks Alexander, “Book Review: Riders of the Cosmic Circuit,” SCP Journal, Vol. 7, No., 1, 1987, p. 39.
30. ↑ The San Francisco Chronicle, Apr. 3-4, 1985.
31. ↑ The San Francisco Chronicle, Apr. 3-4, 1985.
32. ↑ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, On the Bhagavad Gita: A New Translation and Commentary, Chapters 1-6 (Baltimore, MD: Penguin, 1974), p. 76.
33. ↑ See Vincent Bugliosi, Helter Skelter (New York: Bantam, 1969), p. 624 and “Charles Manson: Portrait in Terror,” Feb. 6, 1976, Channel 7, KABC-TV Los Angeles, 11:30 p.m. interview with Bugliosi.
34. ↑ Bugliosi, Helter Skelter, pp. 327, 330.
35. ↑ Ibid., p. 129.2NAStaff0805 Sexual Immorality… Occult Involvement – Part 1

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