The Seduction of Christianity ā Program 3
| October 5, 2013 |
By: Johanna Michaelson, Dave Hunt; ©1985 |
Are our churches actually accepting practices and beliefs associated with witchcraft? |
Witchcraft in the Church?
- Ankerberg: Welcome! Weāre glad that you have joined us. We have Dave Hunt and Johanna Michaelsen with us and weāre talking about a great lie that they see is sweeping across America. Dave, youāve said in your book that not only is this lie in secular society and being accepted there, but in the churches of all denominations of Orthodox Christianity. You are saying that, āChristianity itself may well be facing the greatest challenge in its history.ā And you are saying that a series of powerful and growing seductions are subtly changing biblical interpretations and undermining the faith of millions of people. And you are saying that this coming in a disguise. Itās coming not in a frontal attack, itās coming in seductively. And you are saying this is how itās coming: it comes to some Christians āin the guise of faith-producing techniques for gaining spiritual power and experiencing miracles.ā Weāre hearing about the Christian Church all across the country where they are now starting to conduct courses in how to have a miracle; experiencing miracles. āAnd to others it is self-improvement psychologiesāāPositive Mental Attitude and other things along that lineāāfor fully realizing human potential and they are all seen as neutral scientific aids, to help successfully live the Christian life.ā Weād like to hear more about this. Start us off this week. What is this ālieā that is creeping in?
- Hunt: Well, John, itās witchcraft, as Johanna said already.
- Ankerberg: Define it. What do you mean by āwitchcraftā?
- Hunt: Well, witchcraft, sorcery, black magic. Itās an attempt to manipulate or create reality with our minds.
- Ankerberg: Because no church is putting in their bulletin, āWe having a service on witchcraft this Sunday,ā so, I mean, you know, what are you talking about?
- Hunt: Of course, right. John, I often put it like this. If a witchdoctor came dancing down the aisle in our churches in his paint and feathers and fetishes and rattles, we would throw him out. But, if a witchdoctor walks into our churches in a business suit or a clerical collar or a nice robe and he tells us that what he is offering is the latest innovations in psychology or theology or self-improvement course, Positive Mental Attitude and Success methodologies, then we donāt recognize him for who he is. And so we already have documented in past programs that the whole Success Motivation world out there is based upon a formula for success that was given to Napoleon Hill, the granddaddy of this thing, by demonic entities., okay? Now, that involves power that is within self that we can activate with our minds. It sweeps over into the religious realm. Let me give you kind of a bridge here, Science of MindāReligious ScienceāErnest Holmes, for example. Norman Vincent Peale says it was Ernest Holmes who made a āpositive thinkerā out of him.
- Ankerberg: What did Holmes say?
- Hunt: Terry Cole Whittaker graduated from the School of Religious Science in Los Angeles, and here Iām quoting from the textbook. And Ernest Holmes says, āScience of Mind teaches that man controls the course of his life by mental processes which function according to a universal law that we are creating our own day-to-day experiences by the form and procession of our thoughts. Man, by thinking, can bring into his experience whatsoever he desires.ā Thatās on page 30 of Science of Mind textbook.
- Now, in Positive Imaging, Norman Vincent Peale says, āYour unconscious mindā¦.ā Now, we talked a little bit about this, how Freud and Jungās theories dealing with the unconscious, which nobody can tell you what it is and how it works, came out under hypnosis when they hypnotized patients and so forth. This has been picked up because āsurely itās scientific?ā In spite of the fact that E. Fuller Torrey, one of the top research psychiatrists in the worldāand I could quote a lot of others, but we donāt have timeāheās on the National Board of Mental Health, Faculty to the Albert E. Einstein School of Medicine. And in his book, Mind Games, he says, āThe methods of Western psychiatrists, with few exceptions, are on the same scientific level as the methods of witchdoctors.ā We had a test not too long ago where we matched Western psychiatrists against witchdoctors and it came out a dead heat. The only difference was the witchdoctors charged less and released their patients sooner. But, anywayā¦.
- Ankerberg: Letās stop there, because weāve lost all our psychiatrists and psychologists in the audience. What they need to realize is that when we talk about science, weāre talking about a process that, if you want to see Ivory soap and find out whether or not it floats, you throw it into the bathtub a hundred times. And if it floats a hundred times, you come to the scientific conclusion after examining the evidence, cause and effect, it floatsāthatās our conclusion. Now, we say psychology is the same thing. What people donāt realize, and correct me if Iām wrong here, that Szasz and other psychologists and psychiatrists are simply saying in the secular world, as they are starting to turn away from it and trying to buttonhole it, they are simply saying there are 250 different psychological theories of what man isā¦.
- Hunt: Right. All contradicting one another.
- Ankerberg: All different. Letās put it that way: all different and contradicting. And also there are 10,000 techniques of how to apply the 250 different theories. Which means, if you go to 10 different psychologists for your problem, you get 10 different answers, or you can get 250 different answers. Now, we canāt call that āScienceā because if youāve got 250, obviously they canāt agree on what man is and what his basic problem is. Thatās where itās coming from and thatās why Torrey is saying that. Now, continue.
- Hunt: And it doesnāt work. I mean, the highest percentage of any profession that goes to psychiatrists is psychiatrists. The highest percentage of suicides and divorces and so forth. They canāt straighten one another out. It doesnāt work. So theyāre moving into the occult, which is where it really began. So the third and fourth waves of psychologyāwe donāt want to get too heavily into psychology because weāve got other thingsābut Humanistic Psychology and Transpersonal Psychology have gone whole-hog into the occult. In August ā84 at the 22nd Annual Convention of the Association for Humanistic Psychologyānow these are atheists, humanistsāhalf of theā¦.
- Ankerberg: What were their courses?
- Hunt: Half of the institutes or workshops you could have taken there involved such things as āMental Alchemy,ā āEducation as Alchemy,ā āShamanic states of ecstasyā and āTransformation,ā āVisualization.ā I mean, it was straight shamanism, witchcraft, occultism. But, you see, itās accepted because it comes under the guise of psychology and itās scientific and so forth.
- Ankerberg: Also, Dave, weāve got to put in here, because these psychologists are having mystical experiences through hypnosis and through mind techniques. And, Johanna, maybe you can bring us up to date here on yoga, because you used to teach it; youāre experienced it; youāve had the āout-of-body,ā youāve had all these kinds of experiences. Tell us from the secular side of the tracks, before you were ever a Christian, does this sound like what you were hearing before?
- Michaelsen: Thatās right down the track what was I was teaching in yoga. As a matter of fact, you know, I used to think, after I became a Christian, I could āChristianizeā it, which is whatās happened in the Church today. That I could simply tie Jesus into my meditation as I was focusing on the āthird eyeā and ācenteringā and that I could arouse a greater love and devotion for Christ through the practice of this. But at the core of it, yoga means to āyoke,ā āunion with.ā The whole purpose of yoga is to yoke you with your āhigher self,ā to put you in a state of altered consciousness through which you can realize that indeed you are god. And isnāt that what youāve been saying, Dave, that all the people in the occult are teaching that?
- Ankerberg: Yeah, but come back, Johanna, because when you get āin touch with your higher self,ā we would say āthatās the demonic,ā okay?
- Michaelsen: Yes, but it doesnāt feel like the demonic, you see. And whatās happening now is that the Church is basing its opinions on theology not on the basis of the objective Word of God or absolute Truth or any concept like that, which is deemed negative, but on the basis of their experience. āMy experience tells me that when I practice these meditations, itās holy and good. My experience tells meā¦.ā For example, my experience told me that yoga was bringing me closer to God. That I was working my way. What I was doing in the exercises, however, was opening an altered state of consciousness.
- Ankerberg: Alright. Let me back up. Weāve got two sides of the track here, and let me see if we can go back and pinpoint this. On the secular side of the fence, a lot of people say Transcendental Meditation is not even religious, so why are you guys talking about that? āYoga, you know, I can practice that. What does that have to do with religion?ā Okay, weāre talking about the human potential and of experiencing and looking on the inside. Now, you are making some religious statements on the basis of yoga and Transcendental Meditation. Would you kind of come back to me on that?
- Michaelsen: Well, Transcendental Meditation, to begin with, is a religion. The Supreme Court of the country has recognized it a religion. It is based on the ancient Vedantic writings. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi refers you to his ancient writings, in his own material, that is. He doesnāt tell you that when youāre sitting there in your initial courses, the Puja ceremony, you are bowing down to Hindu demon gods. You know, Dave, you gave an example a couple of programs ago of this young man who began discovering that this personal secret āmantraā that he had been given was the name indeed of a demon god.
- Ankerberg: What is a āmantraā?
- Michaelsen: A mantra is a little word. It is, in essence, a spell that youā¦.
- Ankerberg: Where do you get it?
- Michaelsen: Well, they give it to you.
- Ankerberg: Who?
- Michaelsen: Maharishi Mahesh Yogiās Transcendental Meditation teachers.
- Hunt: Or the āguru.ā
- Michaelsen: Or the āguruā or your own master who is giving it to you.
- Ankerberg: The teachers, when you are going into TM, okay. And what do they usually tell the people that donāt think itās a religion, they just tell them itās a what?
- Michaelsen: Itās a science. You can turn it on almost any channel now on cable TVā¦.
- Ankerberg: And the word does what? The word, the āmantra,ā does what?
- Hunt: Itās supposed to be a meaningless sound that will help you relax and develop your full potential.
- Michaelsen: A vibration.
- Ankerberg: Right. Weāve heard that. Okay, keep going.
- Hunt: In fact, it is the name or the code name of a Hindu god.
- Ankerberg: Give us some examples.
- Hunt: Well, āa-eemā for example.
- Ankerberg: That is one of the mantras that is given.
- Hunt: Right. There are eighteen basic mantras. But, anywayā¦.
- Ankerberg: What is āa-eemā?
- Hunt: Itās another god, another Hindu god.
- Ankerberg: How do you know itās another god?
- Hunt: Because itās in Hindu literature. Itās one of the names in their literature for one of the Hindu gods.
- Michaelsen: Yeah, itās in their literature.
- Ankerberg: In other words, reading the Hindu literatures themselves, as you read the books you will find out that it refers to that name as a deity, a Hindu god.
- Hunt: Of course. Maharishi is a Hindu and this is pure Hinduism he is teaching.
- Ankerberg: But, you see, Dave, a lot of people donāt know that.
- Hunt: Thatās right, because he calls it āThe Science of Creative Intelligence.ā
- Ankerberg: Okay. But youāre saying that if Iām given a word, and I am supposed to take that word and itās supposed to be just pure science, then it kind of opens me to the higher consciousness. And I donāt know that Iām calling on a āgodā in the Hindu religionāwhom we would say would be a demon. Now, youāre saying something really happens and something takes place there.
- Michaelsen: It doesnāt really matter that you know the meaning of the word or not. You see, itās irrelevant. The fact is that you are opening yourself up. You are calling out, sending out, if you will, āvibes;ā you know, that famous term that we were all growing up with in the Sixties. You are sending out vibrations that are indeed summoning gods to yourself. In other words, demons.
- Ankerberg: Because youāre calling its name.
- Hunt: Youāre surrendering yourself to demons, right.
- Michaelsen: Because youāre calling its name and you are surrendering yourself.
- Hunt: But, Johanna, youāve got open there a quote by Robert Schuller about meditation.
- Ankerberg: Okay. So thatās whatās happening on that side of the tracks. Now youāre saying on the Christian side of the tracks weāre paralleling that with the same kind of philosophy. Give us the quote.
- Michaelsen: Well, more than paralleling it, it is being openly embraced and encouraged and advocated. For example, Dave quoted Robert Schuller here, who says, āA variety of approaches to meditation is employed by many different religious as well as by various non-religious Mind Control systems. In all forms, TM, Zen Buddhism or yoga or meditation of the Judeo-Christian tradition, the meditator endeavors to overcome distractions of the conscious mind.ā And then he tells you down here that āthe most effective mantras employ the āMā sound.ā I mean, this is Dr. Schuller telling us this; that, āyou can get the feel of this mantra by repeating the words āI am,ā āI am,ā āI am,ā many times over. Transcendental Meditation or TM,ā he tells us, āis not a religion nor is it necessarily anti-Christian.ā But at its core itās anti-Christian. At its core it is Hinduism. And to say that Christians can adopt this openly is beyond understanding.
- Ankerberg: Dave, thereās been a guest that has been on television broadcast quite a few time. Tell us about Earl Paulk.
- Hunt: Well, Earl Paulk, for example, a pastor in Atlanta, Georgia, with a very large congregation says, āJust as dogs have puppies and cats have kittens, so God has little gods. And until you realize that you are a little god, you donāt really understand what the Bible is talking about.ā This idea that we can become gods, that we have this infinite power. You see, God becomes impersonal now, and there is a power that we can all develop. And in expressing these words or thinking these thoughts, weāre expressing this power thatās within all of us.
- Ankerberg: Okay, Dave, where does this ālooking inside of ourselvesā finally lead people, both in psychology and in the secular world? And where is it leading people in the Church who are advocating āselfā?
- Hunt: Well, if the answer is within, and the potential of power within us is infinite, then we must be āgods.ā
- Ankerberg: Who is saying that?
- Hunt: Well, the whole Human Potential movement. All of them are saying it. But let me just quote you a couple of Christians again. Norman Vincent Peale in his book Positive Imagingāand weāll get into āImagingā laterāsays, āYour unconscious mind,ā and, again, thatās a myth nobody knows what that is or how it works. But anywayā¦.
- Ankerberg: Letās just stop there, too. The psychologists keep referring to the subconscious, okay?
- Hunt: Right.
- Ankerberg: If you want to know what God thinks about that, ask yourself, āHow many verses in Scripture command us toward programming the subconscious?ā
- Hunt: Right.
- Ankerberg: When you get all those down on paper, talk to me.
- Hunt: Right.
- Ankerberg: Okay?
- Hunt: Okay. āYour unconscious mind has a power that turns wishes into realities when the wishes are strong enough.ā So weāve got the power within us. Robert Schuller, on his Amway tape, says, āYou donāt know what power you have within you. You make the world into anything you choose. Yes, you can make your world into whatever you want it to be.ā And the quote Johanna gave us about what Schuller has to say about meditation, these are all forms of tapping into this power. So, weāve got to get within. Edgar Mitchell, ex-astronaut, commander of Apollo 14 and sixth man to walk on the face of the moon, had a mystical experience on that trip of āUnity Consciousness,ā that āI am the universe, I am everything.ā It so transformed his life, when he came back to planet Earth he abandoned the outer space program to join the āinner spaceā program, which is the new frontier of modern science.
- Now, we have a Christian pastor, a Baptist, in Seattle, Washington, Rodney R. Romney is his name. He has written a book called Journey to Inner Space, finding God in us. On the back cover in large print it says āMission: To Find God. Method: By Finding Ourselves.ā Now, I could name Nobel Prize winners, such as Brian Josephson, for example, who literally believes that he is going to explore all reality from the microscopic, to the macroscopic to the farthest reaches of the universe, by looking within himself in yoga. And you say, āWell, this guy has really flipped out.ā No, theyāve got good scientific reasons for this. Of course, heās had mystical experiences that have caused him to believe this.
- But they tell us that soon the action will no longer be confined to the big screen but weāre going to have three dimensional images running up and down the aisles and all over the theater, called holograms. The interesting thing about a hologram is that no matter how many pieces you cut it up into, smaller and smaller, you still have the whole image, very much like a cell in your body, which is why, theoretically, we can clone an entire human being from a single cell because it has the complete DNA formula for replicating a whole being. Well, now, what could be more logical, then, than for these scientists, because of their mystical experiences, to say āthe universe is a hologram and we are each a little holographic image of the whole. Therefore each of us has within himself or herself all knowledge, all power, all wisdom, everything that ever was or ever will be. So, weāre gods.ā
- Now, that brings us into the Holistic movement, which is another word for the New Age movement. And you will see a triangle of mind, body, spiritāHolistic Medicine. Well, you better ask your doctor, āDoctor, what kind of medicine do you give to spirits.ā I mean, āDid you study about spirits in medical school?ā
- Ankerberg: Because youāre saying, āMind, body, spirit,ā they are dealing with the spirit?
- Hunt: Right.
- Ankerberg: So when you doctor, if heās into Holistic Medicine, thatās part of the thing that he has been trained to teach. Now youāve got to ask him, āWhat kind of theories are you going to give to me on my spirit?ā
- Hunt: Right. āDoctor, isnāt āspiritā really a religious term? Would you please tell me, Doctor, what religion is this that you are passing off on your patients in the name of the latest medical science?ā And Michael Harner, who is an anthropologist and not a critic like me, on page 136 of his book The Way of the Shaman, and he explains shamanism and witchcraft is identical everywhere on the face of the earth, even in cultures that have been isolated from one another and they are as different as day and night. But when you investigate their witchcraft, itās the same everywhere. Johanna can certainly testify to that. Thereās a common source of inspiration. And he believes in it. But on page 136 he says, āHolistic Medicine is simply a revival of witchcraft, of shamanism, under different namesā: visualization, psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and so forth.
- Now, this idea that we can become gods, Jack Gibb, a psychologist, says, āThe basic assumption that weāre making in the Holistic movement is that weāre gods.ā Iām god; youāre god, and that has great significance. That idea, believe it or not, has come into the Church of Jesus Christ.
- Ankerberg: Prove it!
- Hunt: Well, a gentleman, a man of God that I respect very much, in 1919 he was out there on the mission field with C. T. Studd. Heās one of the founders of World Evangelism Crusade and one of the founders of InterVarsity Crusade. Norman Grubb has written some classic books like Reese Howells, Intercessor, and he has written some forewords to some of my books in years gone by. He now is involved in what he calls Union Life. And Norman Grubb says, āThere is only One Person in the universe [God] and every thingāābe it man, or Satan, or animalsāāis just God in one of his various manifested forms.ā We are all gods. Johanna, youāve got something here.
- Michaelsen: Well, youāve got a quote here, too, Dave, where Bill Volkman, the Union Life editor, adds to that. He has written Living As Gods Without Denying Our Humanity, recognizing that āAll humans are incarnations of deity, just as Jesus was,ā which is what Ernest Holmes was teaching.
- Hunt: Right.
- Michaelsen: āYeah, Jesus is God, and so are you, and so am I, and so are we all.ā
- Ankerberg: You know, weāve had on our program Garner Ted Armstrong, where Garner Ted Armstrong said that we are progressing to become one with God. The Mormons have been on our program and said that their goal is that every Mormon will become a god. But besides some of these folks in the cults, now youāre having it into secular society where they are sayingāwhich is basically Hinduism, Eastern thoughtāthat we are all āone with God,ā that we are all a part of Him and we have to look inside of ourselves, and then they have these mystical experiences that prove it. But now you are saying that it is coming over even into the so-called Orthodox Christian Church. Now, apparently, that fellow that worked with Studd there, he must have changed his mind along the way. What is making these people change their minds?
- Hunt: Well, he tells us he began to read the mystics and he got involved in some of these mystical experiences himself which convinced him and gave him a new interpretation of the Bible. But, John, ten years ago when I tried to tell Christians that the goal of every Mormon is to become a god, they wouldnāt believe it. They would say, āOh, you misunderstood them,ā or āYou are maligning these fine people.ā Now, we have any number of peopleāas you know, we quote them in the book and document itāthat I could quote you who are saying, not that weāre going to become gods, we are gods. That man was created to be the god of this world. Charles Capps, for example, says that. I have it on his own letterhead. Other people on television are saying this. A young pastor, for example, of a very large church in Seattle, I have a tape of him with his congregation repeating, āāI am an exact duplicate of God.ā Say it after me. Repeat it. Yell it! Louder! Like you mean it! āI am an exact duplicate of God.ā When God looks in the mirror, He sees me! When I look in the mirror, I see God! People try to put me down and say āYouāre so cocky, you must think youāre God.ā Hallelujah! Youāve got the idea. Thatās who I am! Are you young people running around acting like gods? Well, you better, because God says we are gods.ā They say that we were made to have dominion over this world and that we were created to be little gods to run this world and Satan stole that dominion and became the god of this world, and now itās up to us to take that dominion back and begin to function as the gods.
- Ankerberg: Okay. Give me an affirmative word from Scripture that says just the opposite for people who are involved in that. Theyāre saying, āWhat are you offering in its place? What is Scripture saying?ā And then weāll pursue this further next week.
- Hunt: Well, Scripture certainly doesnāt tell me that Iām a āgod.ā It tells me that there is One God and One Mediator between God and men: the man Christ Jesus; that self needs to be denied, as weāve already said. I need to get in touch with Him. You know, weāve got about 4.6 billion little gods running around this world, is really the basic problem. And, until we abdicate the throne of our lives and come back under willing submission to the One True God and let Him begin to run our lives and direct us, there is no hope. But that can happen through Jesus Christ.
- Ankerberg: Okay. Join us next week and weāre going to pick this up with things about people that when they believe this, what do they start to teach? And weāre going to talk about that next week, so please join us.
[ā¦] Read Part 3 [ā¦]