The Occult Causes Social Withdrawal

By: Dr. John Ankerberg and Dr. John Weldon; ©1993

The occult can cause moral withdrawal, so it can also lead to social withdrawal, which carries its own ethical price tag. Here we see that occult activity can lead to an indifferent attitude toward life—one which neglects larger social concerns in favor of personal ones.

 

The Occult Causes Social Withdrawal

Excerpt from “The Coming Darkness”

But if the occult can cause moral withdrawal, it can also lead to social withdrawal, which carries its own ethical price tag. Here we see that occult activity can lead to an indifferent attitude toward life—one which neglects larger social concerns in favor of personal ones.

Berkeley psychologist and psychic counselor Freda Morris refers to a typical case of a girl whose “life closed off. She became increasingly depressed and disinterested in anything. Finally she was no longer able to work.” This continued for four years.

Cultivating OBEs (out-of-body experiences) is a frequent fruit of occult activity and also bears significant responsibility for inducing isolationist tendencies. Although Robert Crookall has conducted most of the modern studies in astral travel, Robert Monroe is perhaps the most popular advocate. He is well aware of the dangers of the practice. For example, in Journeys Out of the Body, he refers to an area in his astral travels which “is a grey-black hungry ocean where the slightest motion attracts nibbling and tormenting beings.” In common with many occultists, he also observes that his astral wanderings are not done through his own will. He has “helpers” who are with him and seemingly control his travels:

They are rarely “friendly” in the sense that we understand that term. Yet there is a definite sense of understanding, knowledge, and purposefulness in their actions toward me. I feel no intent on their part to bring harm to me and I trust their directions.

Significantly, Monroe observes one particular consequence of attempting astral projection—a consequence also found in the “psychic transformation” of various New Age human potential seminars, the “God-Realization” sought in innumerable Hindu sects, and occult “enlightenment” in general. One becomes “a god” and views the world in a totally new way. One is now beyond the petty concepts of good/evil, right/wrong, compassion/love, etc.

But such experiences can also produce cold and callous human beings. Even Monroe warns:

A note of caution is in order here for those who are interested in experimenting, for once opened, the doorway to this experience cannot be closed. More exactly, it is a case of “you can’t live with it and you can’t live without it.” The activity and resultant awareness are quite incompatible with the science, religion, and mores of the society in which we live (emphasis added).

Another illustration of how occult experiences can lead to ethical or social indifference is seen in a woman we met many years ago. At the urging of “Michael,” a self-styled messiah, this woman left her husband and two sons, ages five and eight. Michael had previously experienced spontaneous kundalini arousal (the occult transformation activated in yoga and often in most other occult practice). This powerful experience led him to believe he was specially chosen of God. When he met this woman, he demanded she become his disciple if she were really serious in her desire to “serve God.”

After abandoning her family to follow Michael, the resulting suffering to her husband and young children was unimaginable. “Michael’s” only response to a personal plea from the woman’s husband was that his kundalini experience had so elevated his consciousness (he now claimed to be Christ reincarnated), that he was, in effect, above the petty considerations of “lower” beings or their terribly mundane values and concerns. He could never view the world in the “old” way again, and had no regrets about encouraging a mother to leave her husband and children to follow him. That was entirely her gain, not her family’s loss.

Such callousness is not at all atypical for those who have undergone occult transformation. The authors know personally of similar incidents and have read of other far more brutal examples.

But even milder forms of occult practice can lead in this direction. Transcendental Meditation founder Maharishi Mahesh Yogi declared that his meditators will eventually reach a state where they are “far above the boundaries of any social bond or obligation,” and that “indifference is the weapon to be used against any negative situation in life.” Hence:

Because his self is fixed in the universal Self, there is nothing he could gain from another. His Self is uninvolved in every way—it is uninvolved with activity and it is uninvolved with the selves of individual beings. His own Self is the Self of all beings.

And he also claims:

This world of joys and sorrows, of man’s great enterprise and ambition, is for them like a world of dolls and toys with which children play and amuse themselves. Toys are a great source of excitement for children, but grown-ups remain untouched by them.

Thus, Oxford professor R. C. Zaehner discusses the final state of the “God-realized” soul:

The Absolute (Brahman or the universal Self) is wholly indifferent to what goes on in the world. “He does not speak and has no care.” “He neither increases by good works, nor does he diminish by evil ones.” Similarly in the case of the man who has realized that in the ground of his being he is identical with the Absolute, these two thoughts do not occur to him—”So I have done evil” or “So I have done what is good and fair.” He shrugs them off…. This because, seeing the Self in himself and all things as the Self, he will be indifferent to all actions, good and evil, which take place in the phenomenal world.

Philosophy professor and parapsychologist, Dr. Bob Brier describes one correspondent whose life is an epitaph for thousands of others: “Wyszynski is a man whose everyday reality is what other people call fantasy. He has acknowledged and accepted the existence of occult powers and they have consumed him.”

In conclusion, we have now briefly examined some of the moral and social implications of psychic/occult activity. We have seen it is personally dangerous; now we know it also carries grave moral and social consequences.

But few people seem to realize there are other areas in which psychic activity may bring harm, including harm to one’s own children and family members.