The Secret Seduction (promoted by Oprah Winfrey) by Dave Hunt

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “A New Earth: The New Age Church Of Op…“, posted with vodpod

 

 

 

 

The Secret Seduction
Dave Hunt
June 30, 2007

The latest occult scam to capture the imagination of the West is called The Secret. The book by that name, a top New York Times bestseller, has quickly sold more than 6 million copies and the DVD over 2 million copies. Both contain numerous errors, misrepresentations, false premises, and false promises. Who cares? You should. With the following information, you could rescue someone from hell.

The numerous misrepresentations begin with the title itself. The Secret is not a secret at all, but recycled Hinduism, shamanism, and New Age folly. One of many huge lies is its claim: “You create your own reality with your mind.” This was the serpent’s false promise to Eve-the promise of godhood (Gen 3:5). Embracing that delusion cost Eve and her descendants Eden’s paradise-and would have barred mankind from heaven had not Christ died for the sins of the world. In the 6,000 years since Eden, the serpent’s promise has not been fulfilled in even one person’s life.

Misinformation and false claims follow one another in a dizzying parade of absurdities. Sprinkled throughout the book and DVD is the claim that the Secret is scientifically proved to be true. For example, “It has been scientifically proven that an affirmative thought is hundreds of times more powerful than a negative thought.”1 When? Where? How?

No scientific tests ever measured positive and negative thoughts, nor could there be any such tests because thoughts are nonphysical and their “power” cannot be measured. Thoughts exist outside the realm of physical science. Nor is there any such thing as “mental science” or a “science of the mind.” That fact is only one of many reasons why psychology could never be a science, in spite of decades of claiming that it is.

The bait on the hook of The Secret is stated repeatedly: “The Secret gives you anything you want: happiness, health, and wealth….You can have, do, or be anything you want….We can have whatever it is that we choose.”2 Common sense replies, “Thanks, but no thanks.” But millions being introduced to the Secret are excited and eager to make it work for them.

The foundational lies are basically that there is no personal God who created the universe and who makes laws that man must obey. The universe has always been here, yet we create it with our minds through numerous occult laws that exist to serve our selfish desires. One of the most enticing is “the law of attraction”: whatever thought (health, wealth, disaster, gain, loss, pain, joy, etc.) you hold in your mind, you will attract to yourself as a reality of your life. We are all gods who create our individual destinies with our thoughts.

The amorality of the Secret ought to be evident to anyone who stops to think. Hitler was no more responsible for the Holocaust than were its victims who collectively created it with their minds. So it was with the Titanic, the crash of every plane, and the victims of every rape and murder.

The book and DVD are based upon nothing more than statements of a number of supposed experts in the area of success motivation and positive thinking. Who are they? A “nonaligned, transreligious progressive…spiritual luminaries…teacher of spiritual metaphysics…Feng Shui master…successful business leaders…founders of the New Thought movement…a modern-day spiritual messenger, et al.” They are certainly not in the same class as Jesus Christ, who proved His deity with His sinless life and miracles, died for our sins, and rose from the dead. The “experts” cited and quoted in The Secret are not a group into whose hands anyone should trust their lives, much less their eternal destiny.

In the book and DVD, like a broken record, the same appealing but transparent lie is repeated over and over: “There isn’t a single thing that you cannot do with this knowledge…the Secret can give you whatever you want…if you see it in your mind, you’re going to hold it in your hand…you create your life with your thoughts…your thoughts are seeds, and the harvest you reap will depend on the seeds you plant…your life is in your hands…what you think about you bring about….You will attract everything that you require. If it’s money you need you will attract it…like Aladdin’s Genie, the law of attraction grants our every command… the moment you begin to ‘think properly’…this power within you that’s greater than the world…will take over your life…feed…clothe…guide…protect…direct you, sustain your very existence. If you let it. Now that is what I know, for sure….”

Now this is what I know for sure: while the historic individuals named and quoted in the book and DVD achieved some temporary material possessions and success, they all failed in that which is far more important: health. Yes, most, but not all, maintained a satisfactory level of good health most of their brief lives, but the health of every one of them eventually failed. One mark of failure they all share: they all died. In the end, the Secret could not keep them alive, though they tried every technique it offered. And those proponents of the Secret still alive today will inevitably suffer the same fate.

According to what these supposed masters of the Secret all declare with great confidence, they should not have died. If the Secret were true and they properly applied it-“The Secret can give you whatever you want”-they should all still be alive. In fact, none of the masters of the Secret even exceeded the normal life expectancy-but they surely should have if the Secret were true. The obvious fact is that the Secret is a deception that offers a false hope, which continues to deceive mankind-and an unconscionably amoral hope at that.

Let’s take a quick look at some of these “masters of the Secret.” Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of the most highly praised. He declared, “The secret is the answer to all that has been, all that is, and all that will ever be.” But Emerson lived in a state of deteriorating health and financial need for his last 10 years. He died at age 79. Surely he wanted to live a longer, healthier, happier life. Why didn’t he hold such thoughts and, by the law of attraction, bring what he wanted into actuality? For the same reason that no one else ever has or ever will. “The Secret” is a lie from Satan, “the father of lies” (John 8:44). It keeps those who believe it from faith in the true God and the salvation He provided for sinners through Christ’s sacrifice for the sins of all mankind upon the Cross.

What about Prentice Mulford, another of the supposed masters of the Secret and a founder of the New Thought movement, which is based upon the same delusion? He said that there is a material mind and a Spiritual mind; a lower self and a higher Self, and the latter receives thoughts from the “Supreme Power.”

But that “Power” failed him. It gave him the thought that he wanted to be a member of the California State Assembly. Mulford was nominated, but lost the election. Why didn’t his thoughts bring about his desire? The Secret, and New Thought, its mirror image, didn’t work for him, one of the “experts” held up as an example in the book and DVD. Finally, the Secret failed him entirely: he died at the age of 57-surely a shorter life than he had hoped to live.

Or what about Wallace Wattles, a diligent student of the Secret most of his short life and another founder of New Thought? His most famous book was The Science of Getting Rich, yet he lived most of his life in poverty. This crowning achievement of his life was published in 1910. He died in 1911 at the age of 51. Wouldn’t he have wanted to live longer to see the success of that book and to write more about the marvelous benefits of “the Secret,” though it failed him? But he couldn’t add one minute to his life. The Secret didn’t work for Wattles, one of its chief proponents.

The book and DVD also contain factual errors. The statement is made that through applying the Secret, the Babylonians, “became one of the wealthiest races in history.” No, it was through their military might at the cost of the lives, torture, and slavery of multitudes of victims. Babylon was one of the cruelest empires in history. And this commends the Secret? Thankfully, Babylon is no more. Why did it fall? Did the Secret fail the Babylonians, or did they fail to apply it? The evidence is overwhelming: the Secret is a lie.

This delusion that reality is created by the mind has been offering false hope to mankind for thousands of years. It is the standard teaching of Christian Science, the Church of Religious Science, Unity School of Christianity, New Thought, and other Mind Science cults. Never before, however, has it been packaged so attractively and cleverly for promotion to the general public as in The Secret. Disillusionment of multitudes will follow.

Most of the quick spread of this new presentation of the ancient and well-known supposed Secret is due to promotion by Larry King and Oprah Winfrey. Millions of their fans bought the book and DVD. On April 5, 2007, Oprah Winfrey discussed the Secret with alleged nonphysical entities “channeled” by Secret promoter, Esther Hicks. As we have often shown, so-called “spirit communication” with the dead that used to occur in séances (strictly forbidden in the Bible as demonic – Deut 18:11, Lev 20:6) is now called “channeling” and has long been promoted openly on radio and TV.

Anyone with even a small amount of common sense would recognize many moral and practical problems. What The Secret promotes is completely amoral and self-centered: “The law [of “attraction”] responds to your thoughts, no matter what they may be….People who have drawn wealth into their lives…think thoughts of abundance and wealth…nothing else exists in their minds.” “You’ve got to feel good about money to attract more to you….Start to say and feel…I am a money magnet. I love money.” (The Bible says not money itself but “the love of money is the root of all evil” – 1 Tim 6:10).

What about selfless love, kindness, mercy, goodness, charity, compassion, generosity, sharing with others? Such thoughts would interfere with the single-minded goal of drawing wealth to oneself. The Secret, believed and applied, cannot help but increase one’s selfishness and bring those applying it into conflict with one another.

Let’s say that “Jones” believes that the Secret will give him anything he wants. Wanting to be the president of the X corporation where he works, and using the “law of attraction” to get what he wants, Jones holds in his mind the thought, “I am the president of X Corporation.” Will Jones’s thoughts oust the current president and put himself in his place? Suppose there happen to be twenty other ambitious and avaricious people, from factory workers to janitors, from secretaries and bookkeepers to the vice president, who also want to be president of X corporation and are each relying upon the Secret’s “law of attraction” to fulfill their passion. To help accomplish their selfish desire, they each visualize themselves in the president’s chair behind the big desk in his plush office. Will the Secret simultaneously make each of them the president? Who will win this battle of minds in the selfish competition that this ancient, amoral, alleged secret has spawned?

One of the supposedly successful practitioners of the occult principles who is quoted in the book, Lisa Nichols, is described as a “powerful advocate of personal empowerment”-more selfishness. She says, “Thank God that there’s a time delay, that all your thoughts don’t come true instantly.”3 What “God” does she mean? Where would God fit into a universe He neither made nor controls and that is being recreated by human thoughts continually-a universe that stands ever ready to give mankind whatever selfish desires are directed toward it?

Advocates of the Secret and New Thought do not believe in the personal, living God of the Bible, who asks for man’s love and submission to His will. Their god is impersonal, a sort of Star Wars Force or universal Mind that has no mind of its own but exists solely to give us whatever we want. Joe Vitale is another one of the expert practitioners of the Secret quoted in the book and DVD. On Larry King Live a caller asked, I’m just curious, where does God come into “the Secret”?

Vitale responded, “God is all of us. God is the secret and everything about it. This is a law from God.”4 This, of course, is nonsense, the ancient religion of pantheism: you’re God, I’m God, the tree is God, everything is God. Then “God” is both good and evil, death as well as life, has no morals, etc. If everything is “God,” then “God” means nothing. Pantheism is virtual atheism.

Another ancient occult technique used by shamans for thousands of years is visualization: the belief that a mental picture held firmly in the mind will eventually manifest itself in the physical universe. Of course, this too is a delusion. No one has ever been able to demonstrate this ability. If we all had the power that The Secret promises, ours would be a terrifying existence with billions of Darth Vaders and Obe Wan Kenobies zapping one another with mind power!

Many Christians, as we have seen, teach basically the same occultism taught to C.G. Jung by “familiar spirits” (1 Sam 28:9; Isaiah 8:19). Yonggi Cho has taught and practiced the same for years, as have numerous Christian psychologists and charismatic leaders. Visualization to create one’s own reality was the heart and soul of all that Norman Vincent Peale taught and practiced: “The idea of imaging…has been implicit in all the speaking and writing I have done….”5 Robert Schuller has long taught the same occultism: “I have practiced and harnessed the power of the inner eye and it works….Thirty years ago we started with a vision of a church. It’s all come true.”6

Cho, pastor of the largest church in the world, claims that the Holy Spirit told him that he must visualize a clear picture of what he was praying for, or his prayer could not be answered. But all Cho could hold in his mind was the gross outline of what he wanted; he could not “see” or even imagine the atomic structure of these objects, which was their underlying reality.

Anyone who is willing to believe that mankind creates the universe with its collective thoughts (or that any individual, by visualization, can bring into existence anything that would be part of daily experience) has willfully given himself over to Satan and is susceptible to any other lie he offers. Obviously, the universe was here before man. To believe that the vast expanse of the cosmos with its trillions of stars and moons that no man has ever seen, including the many subatomic particles no one has even imagined, is all being created and held together with the collective thoughts of humanity, is to commit intellectual, moral, and spiritual suicide.

Those who believe such lies as The Secret offers have deliberately turned from the true God who has revealed Himself in each conscience and in the universe He made and have opened themselves to demonic delusion that will eventually lead them to eternal separation from the God who loves them and the Christ who died to redeem them. Let’s rescue as many as we can! TBC

Endnotes

1. Rhonda Byrnes, The Secret (New York: Atria Books, 2006), 1.
2. Ibid., 22.
3. Ibid., 194.
4. Larry King Live, March 8, 2007.
5. Norman Vincent Peale, Positive Imaging (Fawcett Crest, 1982), Introduction.
6. Robert Schuller booklet, The Power of the Inner Eye.

http://www.thebereancall.org/node/5571

=======================================================

CLICK THE LOGOS ABOVE TO GO TO THE HOME PAGE AND LISTEN TO THE RADIO SHOW

—————————————————————————-

***RECOMMEND THIS BLOG*** CLICK HERE TO SEND an E-mail referral to a friend

PART 2: The Jesus of the New Age Movement

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Paster Joe Schimmel on New Age Christ“, posted with vodpod

 

 

 

“The Jesus of the New Age Movement”
Part Two in a Two-Part Series on New Age Christology PART 1 is HERE
by Ron Rhodes

In her best-selling book, Out on a Limb, Shirley MacLaine recounts how a friend once said to her: “You know that nothing is recorded in the Bible about Christ from the time he was about twelve until he began to really teach at about thirty years old. Right?” “Yes,” MacLaine replied, “I had heard about that and I just figured he didn’t have much to say until he got older.” “Well, no,” her friend responded, “a lot of people think that those eighteen missing years were spent traveling in and around India and Tibet and Persia and the Near East. They say he became an adept yogi and mastered complete control over his body and the physical world around him[he] tried to teach people that they could do the same things too if they got more in touch with their spiritual selves and their own potential power.”[1]

Did Jesus travel to the East to study under gurus? Did He become “the Christ” as a result of what He learned and accomplished there? Are there mystical “gospels” that have been suppressed by the church, keeping us from knowing the real Jesus? In this article, we will look at these and other important questions related to the Jesus of the New Age movement. We begin by examining the claims of a controversial Russian writer.

THE LIFE OF SAINT ISSA

As the story goes, in 1887, Nicolas Notovitch – a Russian war correspondent – went on a journey through India. While en route to Leh, the capital of Ladakh (in Northern India along the Tibetan border), he heard a Tibetan lama (i.e., monk) in a monastery refer to a grand lama named Issa (the Tibetan form of “Jesus”). Notovitch inquired further, and discovered that a chronicle of the life of Issa existed with other sacred scrolls at the Convent of Himis (about 25 miles from Leh).

Notovitch visited this convent and was told by the chief lama that a scroll did in fact exist which provided details about the Prophet Issa. This holy man allegedly preached the same doctrines in Israel as he earlier did in India. The original scroll, the lama said, was written in the Pali language and later translated into Tibetan. The Convent of Himis possessed the Tibetan translation, while the original was said to be in the library of Lhassa (the traditional capital of Tibet).

Notovitch eventually persuaded the lama to read the scroll to him, and had it translated from Tibetan by an interpreter. According to Notovitch, the literal translation of the scroll was “disconnected and mingled with accounts of other contemporaneous events to which they bear no relation,” and so he took the liberty to arrange “all the fragments concerning the life of Issa in chronological order and [took] pains to impress upon them the character of unity, in which they were absolutely lacking.”[2] He went without sleep for many nights so he could order and remodel what he had heard.

From the scroll, Notovitch learned that “Jesus had wandered to India and to Tibet as a young man before he began his work in Palestine.”[3] The beginning of Jesus’ alleged journey is described in the scroll this way:

When Issa had attained the age of thirteen years, the epoch when an Israelite should take a wife, the house where his parents earned their living began to be a place of meeting for rich and noble people, desirous of having for a son-in-law the young Issa, already famous for his edifying discourses in the name of the almighty. Then it was that Issa left the parental house in secret, departed from Jerusalem, and with the merchants set out towards Sind, with the object of perfecting himself in the Divine Word and of studying the laws of the great Buddhas.[4]

According to Notovitch, the scroll proceeds to explain how, after briefly visiting with the Jains, young Issa studied for six years among the Brahmins at Juggernaut, Rajagriha, Benares, and other Indian holy cities. The priests of Brahma “taught him to read and understand the Vedas, to cure by aid of prayer, to teach, to explain the holy scriptures to the people, and to drive out evil spirits from the bodies of men, restoring unto them their sanity.”[5]

While there, the story continues, Issa sought to teach the scriptures to all the people of India – including the lower castes. The Brahmins and Kshatriyas (higher castes) opposed him in this, and told him that the Sudras (a lower caste) were forbidden to read or even contemplate the Vedas. Issa denounced them severely for this.

Because of Issa’s controversial teachings, a death plot was devised against him. But the Sudras warned him and he left Juggernaut, establishing himself in Gautamides (the birthplace of the Buddha Sakyamuni) where he studied the sacred writings of the Sutras. “Six years after, Issa, whom the Buddha had elected to spread his holy word, had become a perfect expositor of the sacred writings. Then he left Nepal and the Himalayan mountains, descended into the valley of Rajputana, and went towards the west, preaching to diverse peoples the supreme perfection of man.”[6] Following this, we are told, Issa briefly visited Persia where he preached to the Zoroastrians. Then, at 29, he returned to Israel and began to preach all that he had learned.

According to Notovitch’s “scroll,” by the end of Issa’s three-year ministry, Pilate had become so alarmed at his mushrooming popularity that he ordered one of his spies to accuse him falsely. Issa was then imprisoned and tortured by soldiers to force a confession which would permit his being executed. The Jewish priests tried to act in Issa’s behalf, but to no avail. Issa was falsely accused and Pilate ordered the death sentence:

At sunset the sufferings of Issa came to an end. He lost consciousness, and the soul of this just man left his body to become absorbed in the Divinity. Meanwhile, Pilate became afraid of his action and gave the body of the saint to his parents, who buried it near the spot of his execution. Three days after, the governor sent his soldiers to carry away the body of Issa to bury it elsewhere, fearing otherwise a popular insurrection. The next day the crowd found the tomb open and empty. At once the rumor spread that the supreme Judge had sent his angels to carry away the mortal remains of the saint in whom dwelt on earth a part of the Divine Spirit.[7]

Following this, some merchants in Palestine allegedly traveled to India, came upon some people who had known Issa as a casual student of Sanskrit and Pali during his youth in India, and filled them in on Issa’s demise at the hands of Pilate. And, as the story concludes, The Life of Saint Issa was written on a scroll – author(s) unknown – three or four years later.

Reactions to Notovitch

This alleged manuscript generated a number of lively responses. Let us briefly look at a sampling of these.

F. Max Muller. In October 1894, preeminent Orientalist Max Muller of Oxford University (who himself was an advocate of Eastern philosophy and therefore could not be accused of having a Christian bias) published a refutation of Notovitch in The Nineteenth Century, a scholarly review. Four of his arguments are noteworthy: (1) Muller asserted that an old document like the one Notovitch allegedly found would have been included in the Kandjur and Tandjur (catalogues in which all Tibetan literature is supposed to be listed). (2) He rejected Notovitch’s account of the origin of the book. He asked how Jewish merchants happened, among the millions of India, to meet the very people who had known Issa as a student, and still more “how those who had known Issa as a simple student in India saw at once that he was the same person who had been put to death under Pontius Pilate.”[8] (3) Muller cites a woman who had visited the monastery of Himis and made inquiries about Notovitch. According to a letter she wrote (dated June 29, 1894), “there is not a single word of truth in the whole story! There has been no Russian here. There is no life of Christ there at all!”[9] And (4) Muller questioned the great liberty Notovitch took in editing and arranging the alleged verses. Muller said this is something no reputable scholar would have done.

Notovitch promptly responded to Muller’s arguments in the preface to the London edition of The Life of Saint Issa which was published the following year (1895). But his response did little to satisfy his critics. He said: (1) The verses which were found would not be in any catalogues because “they are to be found scattered through more than one book without any title.”[10] (But in his first preface he said the Convent of Himis contained “a few copies of the manuscript in question.”[11]) (2) Regarding the unlikeliness of Jewish merchants encountering those who knew Issa as a child in India, Notovitch said “they were not Jewish but Indian merchants who happened to witness the crucifixion prior to returning home from Palestine.”[12] (Even so, it would still be unlikely that – among the millions in India – the merchants would come upon the precise people who knew Issa as a child.) (3) As for editing and arranging the verses in The Life of Saint Issa, Notovitch said that the same kind of editing was done with the Iliad and no one ever questioned that. (But how does this legitimize Notovitch’s modus operandi?) (4) As to the refusal by the lama of Himis to affirmatively answer questions about the manuscript (as he apparently did with the lady who wrote Muller), Notovitch says this was because “Orientals are in the habit of looking upon Europeans as robbers who introduce themselves in their midst to despoil them in the name of civilization.”[13] Notovitch succeeded only “because I made use of the Eastern diplomacy which I had learnt in my travels.”14 (This was a convenient rationalization, for Notovitch could always point to a lack of “Eastern diplomacy” on the part of a European challenger whenever a monk refused to corroborate the Issa legend.)

Assuming (wrongly) that his response to Muller laid criticism of his work to rest, Notovitch suggested that in the future his critics restrict themselves solely to the question: “Did those passages exist in the monastery of Himis, and have I faithfully reproduced their substance?”[15]

J. Archibald Douglas. J. Archibald Douglas, Professor at Government College in Agra, India, took a three-month vacation from the college and retraced Notovitch’s steps at the Himis monastery. He published an account of his journey in The Nineteenth Century (June 1895), the bulk of which reproduced an interview with the chief lama of the monastery. The lama said he had been chief lama for 15 years, which means he would have been the chief lama during Notovitch’s alleged visit. The lama asserted that during these 15 years, no European with a broken leg had ever sought refuge at the monastery.

When asked if he was aware of any book in any Buddhist monastery in Tibet pertaining to the life of Issa, he said: “I have never heard of [a manuscript] which mentions the name of Issa, and it is my firm and honest belief that none such exists. I have inquired of our principal Lamas in other monasteries of Tibet, and they are not acquainted with any books or manuscripts which mention the name of Issa.”[16] When portions of Notovitch’s book were read to the lama, he responded, “Lies, lies, lies, nothing but lies!”[17]

The interview was written down and witnessed by the lama, Douglas, and the interpreter, and on June 3, 1895, was stamped with the official seal of the lama. The credibility of The Life of Saint Issa was unquestionably damaged by Douglas’s investigation.

Nicholas Roerich. In The Lost Years of Jesus, Elizabeth Clare Prophet documents other supporters of Notovitch’s work, the most prominent of which was Nicholas Roerich. Roerich – a Theosophist – claimed that from 1924 to 1928 he traveled throughout Central Asia and discovered that legends about Issa were widespread. In his book, Himalaya, he makes reference to “writings” and “manuscripts” about Issa – some of which he claims to have seen and others about which people told him. Roerich allegedly recorded independently in his own travel diary the same legend of Issa that Notovitch had seen earlier.

Per Beskow – author of Strange Tales About Jesus – responded to Roerich’s work by suggesting that he leaned heavily on two previous “Jesus goes East” advocates: “The first part of his account is taken literally from Notovitch’s Life of Saint Issa, chapters 5-13 (only extracts but with all the verses in the right order). It is followed by ‘another version’ (pages 93-94), taken from chapter 16 of Dowling’s Aquarian Gospel.”[18] (We will consider the Aquarian Gospel shortly.)

Edgar J. Goodspeed. Notovitch’s The Life of Saint Issa refused to die; it was republished in New York in 1926. This motivated Edgar J. Goodspeed, Professor at the University of Chicago, to publish a Christian response. He commented that “it is worthwhile to call attention to [The Life of Saint Issa] because its republication in New York in 1926 was hailed by the press as a new and important discovery,”[19] even though first published over thirty years earlier (1894).

Three of Goodspeed’s arguments are noteworthy. (1) Goodspeed suggests a literary dependency of The Life of Saint Issa on Matthew, Luke, Acts, and Romans. This would not be odd except that The Life of Saint Issa was allegedly written three or four years after the death of Christ, whereas Matthew, Luke, Acts, and Romans were written two or three decades later. An example of this dependency relates to how The Life of Saint Issa attempts to fill in the silent years of Jesus between the ages of twelve and thirty: “these two ages are taken for granted by the author of this work, who unconsciously bases his scheme upon them. We know them from the Gospel of Luke alone, and the question arises: ‘Has the author of Issa obtained them from the same source?'”[20]

(2) Notovitch describes Luke as saying that Jesus “was in the desert until the day of his showing unto Israel.” This, Notovitch says, “conclusively proves that no one knew where the young man had gone, to so suddenly reappear sixteen years later.” But, says Goodspeed, “it is not of Jesus but of John that Luke says this (1:80), so that it will hardly yield the conclusive proof Notovitch seeks. At this point in Luke’s narrative, in fact, Jesus has not yet appeared.”[21]

(3) Goodspeed comments that The Life of Saint Issa does not purport to have been deciphered and translated by a competent scholar: “The lama read, the interpreter translated, Notovitch took notes. He could evidently not control either the lama or the interpreter, to make sure of what the Tibetan manuscripts contained.”[22]

Throughout the twentieth century, many individuals have responded positively to the work of Notovitch, including Janet and Richard Bock (makers of the film, “The Lost Years of Jesus”), Swami Abhedananda, Sai Baba, Paramahansa Yogananda of the Self-Realization Fellowship, and Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Evidence abounds that the Issa legend is alive and well today.

Max Muller, J. Archibald Douglas, and Edgar J. Goodspeed have all presented solid refutations of the legend. These should challenge any serious Issa advocate to reevaluate his or her position. I shall offer further arguments later. But first, it is necessary to examine additional features in the New Age profile of Jesus.

THE AQUARIAN GOSPEL OF JESUS THE CHRIST

Another major source for the New Age Jesus is The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ, written by Civil War army chaplain Levi Dowling (1844-1911). The title page of this “gospel” bears the words: “Transcribed from the Book of God’s Remembrances, known as the Akashic Records.” (Occultists believe the physical earth is surrounded by an immense spiritual field known as “Akasha” in which is impressed every impulse of human thought, will, and emotion. It is therefore believed to constitute a complete record of human history.) Hence, unlike Notovitch whose conclusions were based on an alleged objective ancient document, Levi’s book is based on an occult form of subjective (nonverifiable) illumination.

The bulk of Levi’s gospel, first published in 1911, focuses on the education and travels of Jesus. After studying with Rabbi Hillel (a Jewish scholar), Jesus allegedly traveled to India where he spent years studying among the Brahmins and Buddhists.

Jesus supposedly became interested in studying in the East after Joseph (Jesus’ father) hosted Prince Ravanna from India. During his visit, Ravanna asked “that he might be the patron of the child; might take him to the East where he could learn the wisdom of the Brahms. And Jesus longed to go that he might learn: and after many days his parents gave consent.” So “Jesus was accepted as a pupil in the temple Jagannath; and here he learned the Vedas and the Manic laws.”[23]

Jesus then visited the city of Benares of the Ganges. While there, “Jesus sought to learn the Hindu art of healing, and became the pupil of Udraka, greatest of the Hindu healers.”[24] And Jesus “remained with Udraka until he had learned from him all there was to be learned of the Hindu art of healing.”[25]

Levi proceeds to chronicle a visit to Tibet, where Jesus allegedly met Meng-ste, the greatest sage of the East: “And Jesus had access to all the sacred manuscripts, and, with the help of Meng-ste, read them all.”[26]

Jesus eventually arrived in Egypt, and – in what must be considered a climax of this account of the “lost years” – he joined the “Sacred Brotherhood” at Heliopolis. While there, he passed through seven degrees of initiation – Sincerity, Justice, Faith, Philanthropy, Heroism, Love Divine, and THE CHRIST. The Aquarian Gospel records the bestowal of this highest degree: “The hierophant arose and said, upon your brow I place this diadem, and in the Great Lodge of the heavens and earth you are THE CHRIST. You are a neophyte no more; but God himself will speak, and will confirm your title and degree. And then a voice that shook the very temple said, THIS IS THE CHRIST; and every living creature said, AMEN.”[27]

Later, following his three-year ministry as THE CHRIST and his subsequent death, Jesus’ resurrection is described by Levi in terms of a “transmutation” which all men may accomplish. He made many appearances to people all over the world to substantiate this transmutation. For example, he appeared to the “Silent Brotherhood” in Greece and said: “What I can do all men can do. Go preach the gospel of the omnipotence of man.”[28]

THE READINGS OF EDGAR CAYCE

Like Levi, Edgar Cayce claimed the ability to read the Akashic Record while in a trance. During his life, he gave over 16,000 readings, 5,000 of which deal with religious matters. It was from the Akashic Record that Cayce set forth an elaborate explanation of the early years of Jesus.

The person we know as Jesus, Cayce tells us, had 29 previous incarnations: “These included an early sun worshipper, the author of the Book of the Dead, and Hermes, who was supposedly the architect of the Great Pyramid. Jesus was also Zend (the father of Zoroaster), Amilius (an Atlantean) and other figures of ancient history.”[29] Other incarnations include Adam, Joseph, Joshua, Enoch, and Melchizedek.

This particular soul did not become “the Christ” until the thirtieth incarnation – as Jesus of Nazareth. The reason Jesus had to go through so many incarnations is that he – like all other human beings – had “karmic debt” (sin) to work off.

Jesus received a comprehensive education. Prior to his twelfth year, he attained a thorough knowledge of the Jewish law. “From his twelfth to his fifteenth or sixteenth year he was taught the prophecies by Judy [an Essene teacher] in her home at Carmel. Then began his education abroad. He was sent first again into Egypt for only a short period, then into India for three years, then into that later called Persia. From Persia he was called to Judea at the death of Joseph, then went into Egypt for the completion of his preparation as a teacher.”[30] During his alleged studies abroad, Jesus studied under many teachers (including Kahjian in India, Junner in Persia, and Zar in Egypt), and learned healing, weather control, telepathy, astrology, and other psychic arts. When his education was complete, he went back to his homeland where he performed “miracles” and taught the multitudes for three years.

JESUS THE CHRIST AND HIS TEACHINGS

There are many differing views regarding how Jesus attained “Christhood.” As we have seen, Levi said Jesus went through seven degrees of initiation, the seventh being THE CHRIST. Cayce said Jesus became “the Christ” in the thirtieth incarnation. Many modern New Agers say the human Jesus merely “attuned” to the cosmic Christ, or achieved at-one-ment with the Christ by raising his own “Christ-consciousness.” But, however, Jesus attained “Christhood,” New Agers agree that he was a teacher par excellence of New Age “truths.”

New Agers generally do one of two things with the teachings of Jesus. Some merely reinterpret the gospel sayings of Jesus to make it appear that Jesus was actually teaching New Age “truth.” Others add that long-lost (New Age) sayings of Jesus have been rediscovered. These “rediscovered” sayings can have one of two sources: reputed ancient extracanonical writings (like the “Gnostic gospels” which were allegedly suppressed by the early church and rediscovered at Nag Hammadi in 1945) and the Akashic Record. Let us now consider samplings of each of these.

The Gospel Sayings of Jesus. According to New Agers, we must all seek first the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 6:33), recognizing that the “kingdom” has reference to our inner divinity.[31] For indeed, Jesus said “Ye are gods” (John 10:34). The parable about those who foolishly build a house on sand (Matt. 7:24-27) teaches us that those who fail to recognize their divinity will not be able to stand against the storms of life.[32] But if we come unto Jesus, we will find rest, for his yoke (i.e., yoga) is easy and his burden is light (Matt. 11:28-30).[33]

“Newly Discovered” Sayings from Extracanonical Sources. Jesus taught a form of pantheism according to The Life of Saint Issa, for he said that “the Eternal Spirit [God] is the soul of all that is animate.”[34] He also taught that all humans have unlimited potential: “I came to show human possibilities; that which I am, all men will be.”[35] And, according to the Gnostic gospels, Jesus spoke of “illusion and enlightenment, not of sin and repentance.”[36] Indeed, man can save himself: “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.”[37]

“Newly Discovered” Sayings from the Akashic Record. According to Levi’s Aquarian Gospel, Jesus was just a way-shower: “And all the people were entranced, and would have worshipped Jesus as God; but Jesus said, I am your brother man just come to show the way to God; you shall not worship man.”[38] Jesus also taught pantheism and monism: “The universal God is one, yet he is more than one [i.e., he takes many forms]; all things are God; all things are one.”[39] Jesus also tells us that “the nations of the earth see God from different points of view, and so he does not seem the same to every one.”[40]

THE ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN RESPONSE

A Christian response to the New Age rendition of Jesus may begin with the observation that the accounts of Jesus going East have irreconcilable contradictions. This fact alone should make any objective investigator suspicious of the reliability of these documents.

Each of the accounts differ, for example, regarding the beginning of Jesus’ trek. The Life of Saint Issa portrays Jesus departing secretly from his parent’s house with some merchants on their way to India so he could perfect himself by studying the laws of the great Buddhas. Levi’s Aquarian Gospel depicts Prince Ravanna from India asking Jesus’ parents if he can escort Jesus to India where he can learn Indian wisdom. Cayce’s reading of the Akashic Record has an Essene teacher sending Jesus to India to study astrology and other psychic disciplines.

What is particularly revealing is that both Cayce and Levi allegedly obtained their “revelations” by reading the Akashic Record, yet their readings blatantly contradict each other. Since both Cayce and Levi are highly respected in New Age circles, how do New Agers account for the obvious failure of at least one of them to properly “read” the Akashic Record? Furthermore, if one of these top-rated New Age seers cannot be trusted, which one can be?

Not only do the accounts disagree with each other, they all disagree with the gospel accounts in the New Testament. And the New Testament has solid, irrefutable manuscript evidence – something that should be considered by those wanting to replace it so easily with Gnostic gospels or alleged ancient manuscripts claiming that Jesus went East.

The New Testament gospels are based on eyewitness testimony. Moreover, they were written very close to the time of the events which they report. It is crucial to recognize that the four canonical gospels are all dated much earlier than the Gnostic gospels. The earliest Gnostic gospels date from A.D. 150 to 200. The New Testament gospels date from A.D. 60 to 100 – approximately one century earlier. Clearly, the New Testament gospels are the authentic and reliable source for information on the life and teachings of Jesus.

On the other hand, all of the “Jesus goes East” accounts contain historical inaccuracies, several of which have already been mentioned. Other examples include: (1) Levi’s Aquarian Gospel said Herod Antipas was ruler in Jerusalem. Antipas, however, never ruled in Jerusalem but in Galilee. Dowling meant to say Herod the Great. This is especially significant since Levi’s transcriptions are claimed to be “true to the letter” in the introduction of his Aquarian Gospel![41] (2) Levi’s reference to Jesus visiting with Meng-ste was probably meant to be the great Chinese sage, Meng-tse (tse, not ste). Dowling apparently didn’t realized, however, that Meng-tse died in 289 B.C.

The deeper one probes, the clearer it becomes that the Jesus of the New Age movement lacks any basis in history. To many, The Life of Saint Issa appeared to provide this. However, the world still awaits bona fide hard evidence that can be physically examined by all interested parties. Even a photograph would be helpful. But as Notovitch lamented: “During my journey I took a considerable number of very curious photographs, but when on arrival at Bombay I examined the negatives, I found they had all become obliterated.”[42] I don’t want to be cynical, but

In order to find a New Age Jesus in authentic documents, New Agers are forced to deal with the language of the New Testament in a manipulative fashion. Tal Brooke comments: “It is a little like the problem of the Marxist who wishes to change the common understanding of the United States Constitution so that a gradualist skewing of word meaning can enable a socialistic interpretation of words whose intended meanings in the original were clearly different.”[43]

Though the New Testament does not directly address this issue, there are strong indirect evidences that Jesus never traveled East for eighteen years. First, Jesus was well-known as a carpenter (Mark 6:3) and as a carpenter’s son (Matt. 13:55). That His carpentry played a large role in His life up to the time of His ministry is clear from the fact that some of His parables and teachings drew upon His experience as a carpenter (e.g., building a house on rock as opposed to sand, Matt. 7:24-27). Moreover, the people in and around Nazareth displayed familiarity with Jesus, as if they had had regular contact with Him for a prolonged time. At the beginning of His three-year ministry, Jesus “went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read” (Luke 4:16). After He finished reading, “all spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his lips. ‘Isn’t this Joseph’s son?’ they asked” (Luke 4:22). This implies that those in the synagogue regarded Jesus as a local resident.

It is important to note that when Jesus stood up to read, He did so from the Old Testament Scriptures. And the Old Testament – for which Jesus often displayed reverence (cf. Matt. 5:18) – (1) contains numerous warnings and admonitions about staying away from false gods and false religious systems (cf. Exod. 20:2; 34:14; Deut. 6:14; 13:10; 2 Kings 17:35); (2) clearly distinguishes between the creation and the Creator, unlike Eastern thought; and (3) taught the need for redemption, not gnosis (knowledge). It is no coincidence that Jesus is often seen quoting from the Old Testament in the gospels, but not once does He quote from (or even mention) the Vedas!

While some in Nazareth were impressed at the graciousness of Jesus’ words, others were offended that He was attracting so much attention. They seemed to be treating Him with a contempt born of familiarity. We read in Matthew 13:54-57: “Coming to his hometown, he began teaching the people in their synagogue, and they were amazed. ‘Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas?…Where then did this man get all these things?’ And they took offense at him.”

Among those that became angriest at Jesus were the Jewish leaders. They accused Him of many offenses, including breaking the Sabbath (Matt. 12:1-14), blasphemy (John 8:58-59; 10:31-33), and doing miracles in Satan’s power (Matt. 12:24). But they never accused Him of teaching or practicing anything learned in the East. The Jews considered such teachings and practices to be idolatry and sorcery. Had Jesus actually gone to the East to study under “the great Buddhas,” this would have been excellent grounds for discrediting and disqualifying Him regarding His claim to be the promised Jewish Messiah.

It is noteworthy that the self-concept of the New Age Jesus is that he is just a man who became enlightened in the East, eventually achieving Christhood. The self-concept of the New Testament Jesus, however, is one in which He singles Himself out as God (cf. John 8:58).

It is understandable why the “Jesus who went East” refused to accept worship (cf. Dowling). The New Testament Jesus, by contrast, accepted worship on numerous occasions because He knew Himself to be the one and only God (note especially Matthew 28:17). Of course, only God can be worshiped (cf. Ex. 20:4-5; Deut. 6:4-5, 13). It is thus significant that even when Jesus was just a babe, the Magi (from the East) “fell down and worshiped Him” (Matt. 2:11).

The final word on this matter must belong to God the Father, for there is no higher authority in the universe. He Himself is quoted as saying to Jesus: “Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever” (Heb. 1:8). It is Jesus – the second Person of the Trinity – that we as Christians look forward to seeing; ‘we wait for the blessed hope – the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ” (Titus 2:13). And, as Christians, we exult in the truth that Jesus has a name that is above every name, and that at His name, every knee will bow – in heaven and on earth and under the earth (Phil. 2:9-10).

A CLOSING REFLECTION

What if – despite all the arguments presented above – a manuscript should one day surface in India which speaks of Issa? Would this prove that Jesus did in fact go East during His youth?

Christians acknowledge that news of Jesus eventually reached India and Tibet as a result of the missionary efforts of the early church. It is conceivable that when devotees of other religions heard about Jesus, they tried to modify what they heard to make it appear that Jesus and His teachings were compatible with their own belief systems. It is possible that – sometime between the first and nineteenth centuries – these unreliable legends were recorded on scrolls and circulated among the convents in India. This would not be unlike the distorted versions of the life of Jesus that emerged among the early Gnostics (and recorded in the Gnostic gospels).

But for such a manuscript to be convincing, it would have to have the same kind of irrefutable manuscript evidence as the New Testament, the same quality of eyewitness testimony, and be written very close to the events on which they report like the New Testament. Until such an authoritative document surfaces, is it wise to base one’s eternal destiny on a manuscript that has as little evidential support as Notovich’s?

Douglas Groothuis issues this challenge: “Should any supposed record of Jesus’ life come to the fore, let it marshal its historical merits in competition with holy writ. The competitors have an uphill battle against the incumbent.”[44]

NOTES AND GLOSSARY ARE HERE
http://home.earthlink.net/~ronrhodes/JesusNAM.html

PART 1: The Christ of the New Age Movement

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “New Age Oprah – World’s Most Dangerou…“, posted with vodpod

 

 

“The Christ of the New Age Movement”
Part One in a Two-Part Series on New Age Christology PART 2 is HERE
by Ron Rhodes

“Who do you say I am?” (Luke 9:20, NIV) The question was first asked of Peter by Christ nineteen centuries ago, and has continued since then to the present day to be the litmus test of spiritual authenticity. Perhaps never in the history of the Christian church has this question been more relevant than it is today. One reason for this is that New Agers have taken the New Testament sculpture (if you will) of Christ, crafted an esoteric/mystical chisel, and hammered away at this sculpture until a completely new image has been formed.

The new sculpture is one that fits nicely on a display shelf with sculptures of Buddha, Krishna, and other “holy men.” This Christ is broad-minded and nonjudgmental. He is a “Master” among “Masters,” who – with the others – is leading the human race into a New Age of enlightenment and harmony.

Fundamental to any discussion of New Age Christology is the recognition that New Agers distinguish between Jesus (a mere human vessel) and the Christ (variously defined, but always divine, and often a cosmic, impersonal entity). Part One of this series will therefore focus on the Christ of the New Age, and will provide a brief history of the various views as to his (or its) identity, his purpose, how he aims to accomplish this purpose, and his relationship to humanity. Part Two will focus on the Jesus of the New Age, and will address such issues as the “lost years” of Jesus (as described by Levi Dowling, Edgar Cayce, and others), his supposed training in Eastern/occultic concepts, his “attunement” to the Christ, and his “New Age teachings.”

Regarding methodology, this article will anchor on two reference points – one primary and one secondary – from which the history of New Age Christology will be traced. The primary reference point will be Theosophy; the secondary reference point will be the teachings of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. We might liken Theosophy and Quimby’s teachings to two trees which grew side by side, having been planted close to the same time (the mid to late 1800s) in the same soil, fertilized with common ingredients (nineteenth-century transcendentalism, the philosophy of Emmanuel Swedenborg, the influx of Hindu monism, etc.). Certainly, in many respects these two have distinct beliefs and different goals, but they both took root and flourished in the same mystical climate. Taken together, these represent an appropriate starting point for a study in New Age Christology.

THEOSOPHY AND ITS OFFSHOOTS

Theosophy, founded in 1875 by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, teaches that each human being evolves through seven planes of existence (the physical plane, the astral plane, the mental plane, etc.). Each plane a person evolves through brings him or her ever closer to union with the Absolute (God). Theosophists reason that this process can take a very long time, hence requiring innumerable reincarnations.

According to “revelations” received by Blavatsky, it is not only individuals who evolve; the human race as a whole also evolves. So far there have allegedly been three races: the Lemurian, the Atlantean, and the Aryan. Each of these three (which Theosophists call “rootraces”) are divided into “subraces.” Mankind is now in the third rootrace – the Aryan rootrace – and is about to enter the sixth subrace of the Aryan rootrace.

Theosophy teaches that at the beginning of each subrace, the Supreme World Teacher (also known as “the Christ,” the bestower of divine wisdom) enters the body of a disciple in order to assist and guide the spiritual evolution of man. Each “incarnation” reveals more to man about God than the previous one. The five incarnations of Christ in the five subraces of the Aryan rootrace were Buddha (in India), Hermes (in Egypt), Zoroaster (in Persia), Orpheus (in Greece), and Jesus (at the River Jordan, where the Christ came upon Jesus at His baptism).[1]

Jesus is said to have volunteered his body for use by the Christ. Annie Besant, who took over Theosophical leadership when Blavatsky died, said: “For Him [the Christ] was needed an earthly tabernacle, a human form, the body of a man. The man Jesus yielded himself a willing sacrifice, ‘offered himself without spot’ to the Lord of Love, who took unto Himself that pure form as tabernacle, and dwelt therein for three years of mortal life.”[2]

Theosophists reject any suggestion that Jesus died on the cross to pay for man’s sins. Man saves himself through continual reincarnations. This spiritual evolution leads men further and further away from the physical plane and closer and closer to spiritual planes of existence. Because of this process, every human being – regardless of race or religion – is a potential “Christ.”

Human beings who continue to evolve through reincarnation eventually become “Masters.” This is a group of formerly historical persons who have finished their earthly evolutions and voluntarily help lesser-evolved human beings to reach their level.

Because Theosophists believe the fifth subrace of the Aryan rootrace (the subrace of intellectual man) is about to give way to the sixth subrace (the subrace of spiritual man), they believe another incarnation of the Christ will soon take place. Note that since this will be the sixth appearance of the Christ in the Aryan rootrace, it is not spoken of as the “second coming.”

Annie Besant first announced the coming of this Messiah in 1906. Her aim was to groom Jiddu Krishnamurti for the role of World Teacher or Messiah. In 1925 she claimed for this young Indian man the title of “Messianic Leader and Reincarnation of the World Teacher.” But by 1929, Krishnamurti became convinced it was all a mistake. On November 20 of that year, he “refused to receive further adoration [saying frankly], ‘I am not an actor; I refuse to wear the robes of a Messiah; so I am again free of all possessions.'”[3] Theosophy’s Christ remains to appear.

Under the leadership of Annie Besant, dissension took its toll on Theosophy. The result of growing discontent within the Society was a four-pronged theological fork in the road. Theosophy continued along its traditional path (the first prong). But Rudolf Steiner broke away to form the Anthroposophical Society in 1912 (the second prong); Alice Bailey broke away to establish the Arcane School in 1923 (the third prong); and Guy and Edna Ballard broke away to lead the “I AM” movement in the 1930s (the fourth prong). Each “prong” has made an impact on New Age Christology.

The Christ of Anthroposophy

Dr. Rudolf Steiner was an active member of the Theosophical Society and headed the German charter of the group. However, when a Theosophical subgroup, the “Order of the Star of the East,” began promoting Krishnamurti as the new incarnation of the Christ, Steiner threatened to expel any member of the German charter who joined the Order. Annie Besant retaliated by canceling Steiner’s charter. Steiner then founded the Anthroposophical Society in 1912, and most of the German membership of Theosophy joined with him.

Steiner’s emphasis represents a significant departure from his Theosophical roots. Instead of arguing for a Christ who periodically incarnates into individuals as each new “subrace” begins, Steiner’s emphasis is on what the Christ accomplished through his decisive “incarnation” in the human Jesus.

Steiner’s Christology is based on his investigation into the “Akashic Records.” Occultists believe that the physical earth is surrounded by an immense spiritual field known as “Akasha” in which is impressed – like a celestial tape recording – every impulse of human thought, will, and emotion. It therefore constitutes a complete record of human history. Steiner claimed to be able to “read” the Akashic Records, thus enabling him to investigate human history without use of written records. Based on this, he discovered that the descent of the Christ on the human Jesus was the absolutely central event of human evolution.

In Steiner’s theology, the Christ’s descent on Jesus became necessary because man’s consciousness had progressively become too focused on the material realm and had completely lost touch with the spiritual nature behind physical reality. The danger was that this situation could become permanent.

To prevent this, the Christ’s initial goal was to “incarnate” into a human being (Jesus) so he could accomplish his greater goal of “incarnating” from Jesus into the “etheric earth.” Occultists believe an etheric earth exists behind the physical earth. The etheric earth is thought to be made up of a fine energy substance from which is created the mold for every form that is manifested in the physical plane. Every material object on the physical plane has an etheric counterpart. All material forms in the physical universe find their ultimate source in this energy substance of the etheric realm. The Christ desired to enter this etheric earth so he could bring about spiritual changes among people living on the physical earth. But in order to transfer from his spiritual realm to the etheric realm, he needed a human instrument through which to work. This instrument was found in Jesus.

The Christ “incarnated” into Jesus, and three years later was crucified. At the crucifixion, the Christ left Jesus’ body and “incarnated” into the etheric earth:

The blood flowed from the wounds of Jesus Christ. This blood must not be regarded simply as chemical substance, it must be recognized as something altogether unique. When it flowed from His wounds and into the earth, a substance was imparted to our earth which, in uniting with it, constituted an event of the greatest possible significance; this blood passed through a process of ‘etherization’…since the Mystery of Golgotha, the etherized blood of Christ Jesus has lived in the ether of the earth. The etheric body of the earth is permeated by what the blood that flowed on Golgotha became.[4]

Because of this, “ever since the Mystery of Golgotha man lives in a spiritual environment, an environment that has been Christianized because it has absorbed the Christ impulse.”[5]

Having mystically entered the etheric earth via his “etherized” blood, the Christ now seeks to “mass incarnate” into all humanity. This will lead to man’s redemption. Steiner says that the “Christ impulse will penetrate humanity. He belongs to the whole earth and can enter all human souls, regardless of nation and religion.”[6] This, says Steiner, is the true “second coming.”

The Christ of the Arcane School

Alice Bailey had been an active member in the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society (an inner group of trusted members who faithfully practiced Theosophy). But she eventually became critical of the organization’s policy that one could not become a disciple of a Master (which Bailey believed she already was) unless one was notified by Annie Besant (who seemed to have overlooked Bailey in this). This led to her dismissal from the Society, and shortly thereafter in 1923, she and her husband Foster founded the Arcane School.

Like Theosophy and Anthroposophy, Bailey believed that Jesus was a medium who allowed the Christ to use his body. But Bailey distinguished her beliefs from Anthroposophy by arguing that the “second coming” referred to the Christ coming in a single Avatar, not in all humanity.[7] According to Arcane thought, the Christ – along with his disciples, the Masters – will draw closer and closer to humanity and eventually appear on the physical plane. Bailey said this return necessitated three conditions that either have already come or are currently coming to pass: (1) catastrophic planetary conditions; (2) a spiritual awakening; and (3) a steadily mounting invocative prayer. This last condition involves use of The Great Invocation, a prayer which is intended to speed the reappearance of the Christ.

Preparation for the Second Coming is hence the responsibility of “attuned” human beings. Those who know about this Coming are to help create conditions of “spiritual alignment” which will ultimately draw the Christ forth into our midst. Without this, the Christ is impotent to act.

Bailey believed the Christ will come again in a way which will create no divisions or separations between men, either religious, social, or ideological. When he comes, it will be to establish through precept and example (in world service) the principles on which an interdependent world may create a new civilization.

While Bailey taught that the Second Coming will be in a single Avatar, she also affirmed that he will be mystically manifested in humanity: “There is a growing and developing belief that Christ is in us, as He was in the Master Jesus, and this belief will alter world affairs and mankind’s entire attitude to life.”[8]

The Christ of the “I AM” Movements

Guy and Edna Ballard were Theosophists up until Guy was contacted by Saint Germain, an “Ascended Master” who allegedly appeared to him in a physical body. Saint Germain informed him that he lived on Mount Teton with ninety-eight other Ascended Masters.

Saint Germain appointed Guy, Edna, and their son Donald as the only “accredited” spokespeople for the Ascended Masters. Saint Germain also taught Guy about the “Great Creative Word” (I AM). The “I AM Presence” is said to be in each person and represents a point of contact with divine reality. One can attune to the I AM Presence by chanting I AM decrees. Such chanting reportedly brings about dramatic results in the life of the one chanting.

The Ballards’ Christology is distinct in that Saint Germain is considered more important (in the dawning Aquarian Age) than Jesus, and is the primary object of worship among “I AM” devotees. Jesus – himself an “Ascended Master” – allegedly said that Saint Germain is “the Greatest Blessing that has ever come to mankind.”[9] The reason for this devotion to Saint Germain is that he has brought the Violet Consuming Flame: “The conscious use of the Violet Consuming Flame is the only means by which any human being can free himself or herself from his or her own human discord and imperfection.”[10] The I AM presence is invoked by chanting decrees, and this in turn activates the Violet Flame. The Violent Flame then burns away undesirable conditions in one’s life. Of course, this nullifies any need for Jesus’ work on the cross.

THE NEXT GENERATION

Having discussed the foundation for New Age Christology in Theosophy, Anthroposophy, the Arcane School, and the “I AM” movement, this article will now examine three representative contemporary New Age leaders to illustrate how this Christology has progressed historically.

Benjamin Creme and his Arcane Roots

From 1977 to the present Benjamin Creme has traveled around the world proclaiming that the coming of Maitreya (the Christ) is imminent. Maitreya, says Creme, is the leader of the Planetary Hierarchy and has been living incognito among human beings since 1977 when his consciousness entered a specially created body of manifestation, the “Mayavirupa.”

Creme originally claimed that by the end of spring 1982, Maitreya would reveal himself via worldwide television on the “Day of Declaration,” after which time would begin a new era of planetary happiness. This Christ would come not as a religious, political, or social leader, but as an “educationalist” who would solve all the world’s problems in these areas and usher in the New Age of love, peace, and shared wealth.

Obviously 1982 has come and gone and the Christ remains to appear. The most common explanation for the Christ’s no-show is that the media prevented it. Since the media represents humanity, the media’s apathy is indicative of the broader apathy of humanity. And since the Christ’s manifestation cannot occur against man’s wishes, his “declaration” has been delayed.

Some of Creme’s ideas are noticeably similar to Theosophy. For example, he divides the world and humanity into astral, ethereal, and physical planes. He also subscribes to the idea that the Christ inhabited the body of Jesus for three years.

But despite some Theosophical overtones, his ideas are primarily a reflection of Alice Bailey’s writings, particularly her book The Reappearance of the Christ. In this book are found almost everything Creme was later to propagate: the Age of Aquarius, world service, The Great Invocation, “overshadowing” (the occult means used by a Master to inhabit a human disciple’s body), and “transmission groups” (enlightened groups who “transmit” spiritual energy to the minds of other people in order to raise the Christ-consciousness of the planet).[11]

Despite such similarities, there are at least three notable differences between Creme and Bailey. First, Creme is a date-setter regarding Maitreya’s coming (i.e., spring 1982). Bailey was convinced the Christ would appear – and she had some idea about the general timing (sometime after 2025) – but she refused to set exact dates. She wrote: “It is not for us to set the date for the appearance of the Christ or to expect any spectacular aid or curious phenomena. If our work is rightly done, He will come at the set and appointed time.”[12]

Second, Bailey used the term “Christ” to refer to a person whereas Creme uses it in reference to an office or function. The present holder of this office, says Creme, is the Lord Maitreya, who has held it now for 2,600 years. It was Maitreya who – while holding this office – manifested himself through his disciple, Jesus, by the occult method of overshadowing.

Third, Christ and Buddha are the central figures in Bailey’s theology, while Maitreya is supreme in Creme’s thinking. Bailey mentions Maitreya on occasion, but never as the leader of the Hierarchy, as does Creme.

Creme’s following has understandably declined since 1982.

David Spangler and his Anthroposophic Roots

Like Rudolf Steiner, David Spangler understands Christ to be a cosmic spirit who utilized Jesus’ body to make the transfer from His own realm (the spiritual realm) to Jesus’ realm (the realm of matter).

Spangler sees the Christ as a cosmic principle: “Any old Christ will not do, not if we need to show that we have something better than the mainstream Christian traditions. It must be a cosmic Christ, a universal Christ, a New Age Christ.”[13] The Christ is not so much a religious figure, “but rather a cosmic principle, a spiritual presence whose quality infuses and appears in various ways in all the religions and philosophies that uplift humanity and seek unity with spirit.”[14]

Spangler believes a central purpose of the Christ is to act as a “universal educator.” He uses “educate” in the sense of the Latin root educare, which means “to lead out.” Most often he speaks of the Christ “leading out” man’s “inner divinity.”[15] The “universal Presence that calls out of form and spirit the higher potentials of Divine life waiting to be released into expression, is the Christ.”[16]

Like Steiner, Spangler believes the Christ entered the etheric earth at the crucifixion. By so doing, the Christ was able to reverse man’s “downward trend” toward a physical-oriented consciousness. The Christ is thus an “occult savior.”[17]

Spangler utilizes Christian terms to describe what the Christ accomplished through Jesus. For example, Spangler says that the Christ was occultly crucified (which resulted in placing his cosmic presence within the cross of matter, space, and time). The Christ was laid in a tomb (the tomb representing a level of life characterized by “great density” [i.e., the physical world], as opposed to the “low density” spiritual realm he was accustomed to). There he would stay until the resurrection (the outflowing of Christ-energies from the etheric earth) and ascension (the ascension of Christ-consciousness in humanity). Through this sacrifice, the cosmic Christ became a savior in that he no longer stood outside the evolution of the earth, but entered into that evolution by becoming incarnate into the earth.[18] There he would function as a guide of man’s spiritual evolution.

Like Steiner, Spangler believes the Christ is now incarnating into humanity from the etheric realm. This is not unlike what occurred in Jesus 2,000 years ago, for Jesus “was the prototype or the expression of the reality of the Christ consciousness which is inherent in us all.”[19] Spangler concludes that human beings can actually become “the Word made flesh.” In fact, he says that the Word will eventually be made all flesh.[20]

Elizabeth Clare Prophet and her “I AM” Roots

While the Ballards’ “I AM” movement has considerably declined since its heyday in the 1930s, another “I AM” movement has achieved high visibility and much popularity in New Age circles. This is the Church Universal and Triumphant, founded in 1958 by Mark Prophet and now headed by his widow, Elizabeth Clare Prophet.

Foundationally, certain aspects of the Prophets’ theology can be traced directly to Theosophy. These beliefs include (1) Masters who guide man’s spiritual evolution; (2) revelations to man from these Masters; (3) the Christ’s use of Jesus’ body; (4) human evolution through progressive stages; and (5) the belief that Blavatsky’s revelations marked the beginning of the Aquarian Age.

Beyond these similarities, the Prophets derived most of their theology from the Ballards. This is seen not only in their emphasis on the I AM Presence, but also on the prominent role of Saint Germain.

Elizabeth Clare Prophet says the I AM Presence has become hopelessly distorted within man due to negative energies from within and without. These negative energies impede spiritual progress, but are effectively combated by the “Violet Consuming Flame” which is poured out on the world by Saint Germain. This Flame changes negative energy into positive energy. It is therefore an antidote to sin.

This makes Jesus’ work on the cross unnecessary. In fact, Mark and Elizabeth Prophet dismiss the idea of Jesus’ atonement on the cross as an “erroneous doctrine which he himself never taught.”[21] Like the Ballards, the Prophets believe that Jesus attained Christhood as did other Ascended Masters. The “Christ” of “I AM” theology represents the divinity within all men: “God dwells in every man and not alone in His son Jesus the Christ. The only begotten Son of the Father, full of grace and truth, is the Christ whose Image the Lord has reproduced over and over again as the Christ-identity of every son and daughter who has come forth from the infinite Spirit of the Father-Mother God.”[22] The Prophets conclude that “to become the Christ, then, is the goal of every child of God.”[23]

PHINEAS PARKHURST QUIMBY

Unquestionably, Theosophy and the groups that emerged from it are the source of many of the essential tenets of New Age Christology. But Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (who died in 1866) and the “metaphysical” groups his philosophy spawned also played a significant role.

Quimby espoused the metaphysical idea that the source of physical healing lies in the mind. He was convinced that physical diseases were caused by wrong thinking or false beliefs. These false beliefs are remedied by “the Christ.”

Like other metaphysical writers, Quimby distinguished Jesus from the Christ. Quimby credited Jesus with discovering the “Truth” of how to correct the error of sickness. “Not that He as a man was any better,” said Quimby, “but He was the embodiment of a higher Wisdom, more so than any man who has ever lived.”[24] This “Truth” or “higher Wisdom” discovered by Jesus was an impersonal mind-principle Quimby called “the Christ.” Quimby’s metaphysical concept of the Christ spawned several important movements.

New Thought

New Thought developed slowly during the nineteenth century after Quimby’s death in 1866. Quimby did not create an organization himself. But individuals he helped adopted his ideas and passed them on to others, adding to or modifying them along the way. Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science is a major example of this, though this tradition is too exclusive to meld with today’s New Age movement. However, several smaller, more inclusive metaphysical groups also emerged, and in the 1890s the term “New Thought” surfaced as a way of describing them.

The Christ of New Thought was an outgrowth of Quimby’s metaphysics. The Christ was considered not a person but an impersonal Divine Nature or Principle. Jesus was believed to have embodied or appropriated the Christ-principle as no human had before. He had fully realized his Christ-nature. But Jesus was not a savior to mankind; he was merely a “way-shower.” Salvation is based not on Jesus but on the recognition of the Divine Nature or Christ-principle within.

Unity School of Christianity

The Unity School of Christianity, an offshoot of New Thought, was founded by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore in 1891. They are distinguished from mainstream New Thought by their belief in reincarnation.

In Unity, salvation is attained by “at-one-ment” with God – a reuniting of human consciousness with God-consciousness. Jesus attained this; all men can: “The difference between Jesus and us is not one of inherent spiritual capacity, but in difference of demonstration of it. Jesus was potentially perfect, and He expressed that perfection; we are potentially perfect, [but] we have not yet expressed it.”[25]

United Church of Religious Science

The United Church of Religious Science, another offshoot of New Thought, was founded by “Dr.” Ernest Holmes who wrote The Science of Mind in 1926. This book later became the textbook for Religious Science. Holmes was extremely eclectic, attempting to syncretize the metaphysical ideas he sifted from New Thought with psychology, philosophy, and the various world religions.

His ideas about Jesus, the Christ, and mankind are similar to other New Thought groups: “Every man is a potential Christ. From the least to the greatest the same life runs through all, threading itself into the patterns of our individuality. He is ‘over all, in all and through all.'”[26] Jesus was merely a way-shower who embodied the impersonal Christ.

NOTABLE MENTIONS

The groups and individuals described above have all contributed to the emergence of a mystical and esoteric theological climate. This has paved the way for numerous other individuals and groups to hop on the New Age bandwagon and offer their own reinterpretations of the person and work of Christ. Two of the more notable developments are the following:

A Course in Miracles. According to this New Age textbook, the “Son of God” was created by God in a state of “wakefulness.” Later, however, the Son fell asleep and had a dream of being separate from God. In the dream, the Son denied that he was created by God, asserting instead that he created himself. This usurping of God’s role as Creator marked the beginning of ego, and led the Son to conceive of himself as being separate from God.

God then created and commissioned the Holy Spirit to awaken the Son. But the Son wrongly interpreted the coming of the Holy Spirit as judge.

=======================================================

CLICK THE LOGOS ABOVE TO GO TO THE HOME PAGE AND LISTEN TO THE RADIO SHOW

—————————————————————————-

***RECOMMEND THIS BLOG*** CLICK HERE TO SEND an E-mail referral to a friend

I HAVE WHAT I THINK AND SAY I HAVE (SPEAKING THINGS INTO EXISTENCE) by LetUsReason.org

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Prosperity Pimps – Part 3“, posted with vodpod

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THIS IS A PART 2 OF THIS POST

 

 

Word Faith teaching- A spiritual copy of the Mind Sciences by LetUsReason.org Look for other post on the Word faith movement on this blog!

 

Power has always been attractive and one doesn’t have to be religious to want it. Many are trained to scan the scriptures for God’s promises then speak the word of faith for it to materialize. While the Bible does show those who had faith for a miracle and healed, this is not a general promise where all one has to do is have faith enough to move the mountain and it occurs. Jesus said it was faith only of a mustard seed that is needed. Its not the amount of faith as if it needs to hit the Richter scale to be effective in the natural realm. It is true faith to trust and believe in a promise. Its faith in the God who can move mountains, not the power of our faith.

Well known Pentecostal, David Wilkerson, writes in the late Keith Green’s Last Days Ministries newsletter, that he too has seen many Christians “throughout our nation, whose faith is shipwrecked” because of the “faith” movement. He writes that they began to “believe that getting every desire of the heart depended simply on getting their formulas correct. They were challenged to launch out in God for prosperity, perfect health, and whatever else their minds could conceive. “Conceive then believe. That includes removing from your vocabulary any negative thoughts, words, or confessions.”

Interesting that James says though our tongue is a small member yet it boasts great things. Many word of faith teachers give testimony of all the things they received or made happen by speaking words with faith. Jesus said out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. To want and covet shows what is inside these people’s hearts. I’m not saying everything is spent on themselves, but listen to the attitude and what they are saying, its a dead giveaway.

To word faith teachers faith is a force, a substance that is unseen, but can be tapped into, it is putty in the hands of the user even if they are a believer or not. it works the same for all. Confession brings possession.

Positive confession…

Your confession is your possession

Does God approve of such a thing?

Fred Price says,  “When 1 first got saved they didn’t tell me I could do anything. What they told me to do was that whenever I prayed I should always say, ‘The will of the Lord be done.,’ Now, doesn’t that sound humble? It does. Sounds like humility, it’s really stupidity. I mean, you know, really, we insult God. 1 mean, we really do insult our Heavenly Father. We do; we really insult Him without even realizing it. If you have to say, ‘If it be thy will or’ Thy will be done’-if you have to say that, then you’re calling God a fool because he’s the One that fold us to ask…. If God’s gonna give me what He wants me to have, then it doesn’t matter what I ask. I’m only gonna get what God wants me to have. So that’s an insult to God’s intelligence.”  (Ever Increasing Faith” program on TBN November 16 ,1990)

Benny Hinn has said “Never, ever, ever go the Lord and say, ‘If it be thy will….’ Don’t allow such faith-destroying words to be spoken from your mouth” (Rise and Be Healed! 1991, p.47-48).

If its not God’s will then whose is it? Yours!

This practice has commonly been practiced in occult groups and various Eastern pagan religions such as the Buddhist sect Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism.

The Church Universal and Triumphant a New Age group also teaches “the scientific use of the mantra or the dynamic decree of the Word,” otherwise known as “the exercise of God’s power according to the spoken Word” (Mark and Elizabeth Clare Prophet, The Lost Teachings of Jesus 2: Mysteries of the Higher Self [Livingston, MT: Summit University Press, 1988], 144, 207; cf. 103.)You can often hear them chanting I Am, or call on the healing power through the violet consuming flame.

 Benny Hinn actually claims that the Holy Spirit told him, “…that if witches and occultists can speak death by the supernatural power of words, then Christian can speak life and prosperity by the same power.” (B. Hinn,  December 1, 1990, Orlando Christian Centre, WACX-TV Channel 55. Quoted in The Facts on the Faith Movement, J. Ankerberg & J. Weldon, Harvest House, 1993, p.23)

Benny Hinn said, “confession activates heaven”, and that “confession releases the spirit world.” (November 6, 1990 sermon telecast on TBN)

K.Copeland says “He am healin’, He am deliverance, He am financial prosperity, mental prosperity, physical prosperity, family prosperity. It’s terrible grammar, but you understand what I’m sayin’. I’m sayin’ it to effect my mind.” (Believer’s Voice of Victory Broadcast, 7/9/1987)

But it is not our mind that will give the answer but God . Otherwise it is not prayer but occult affirmations, metaphysical science.

“Jesus said He had the God-kind of faith; He encouraged His disciples to exercise that kind of faith; and He said that .whosoever’ could do it…. That is why Jesus said, ‘whosoever shall say … and shall not doubt IN HIS HEART. ” (Having Faith in Your Faith Kenneth Hagin Ministries, 1988, 3.)

“In the first place-and this will help you don’t pray about money anymore; that is, the way you’ve been praying. Claim whatever you need.” (Metaphysical Elements In The Faith Movement, Compiled by Leon D. Stump, p.55, from the word of faith magazine, “How God Taught Me About Prosperity, “ Kenneth Hagin).

Copeland is not shy in his boasting of what he can claim by faith “Well, now, you need balance in this. get out there in that hyper faith. that name-it-and-claim-it- that blab-it-and-grab-it.” YEAH! We named it and claimed it and got it. (crowd cheers)-Blabbed it and grabbed it and still got it ! Hallelujah! And our bills are paid. (Aug 18,1999)

Creflo Dollar says, “I know what I’m talking about, I’m qualified to preach what I’m preachin tonight. I am qualified to say what I’m sayin’ tonight. Somebody says how are you qualified? You are sitting in a building. That manifested because of so great faith.”(10/4 /99)

So Creflo got his building not because of God but attributes it to the power of his own belief.  Creflo tells us he has control over the weather and circumstances “I bind you, satan.  I bind tragedy, I bind car wrecks, I bind cancer, sickness and disease.  I release miracle healings.”( first service Our Equality with God Through Righteousness Creflo Dollar 1/21/2001)  “The shingles fell off my roof one time, I said that ain’t happening no more. Newsman talking about this storm getting ready to come and it was black and nasty outside, the wind was blowing and the tree, I had a tree that needed to be cut. That thing wasn’t going to fall. Not on my stuff. I went outside and said in the name of Jesus, I command this storm to turn and it will not hurt my property. My neighbors out saying “that fools standing on the porch again”. I’m going to tell you what, trees fell but they knew the boundary of my house. Today, you can go in the back and trees fell but they stopped at an inch of my fence. Wouldn’t come across my property. Praying in the Holy Ghost until you tap the wisdom of God and spend time calling those things that are not as though they were.” (2nd service Our Equality with God Through Righteousness Creflo Dollar 1/21/2001)

“It is unscriptural to pray, ‘If it is the will of God.’ When you put an ‘if’ in your prayer, you are praying in doubt.( K.Hagin Exeedingly growing faith 2^nd ed. P.10 )

 ”I will”, not God’s will, has become the spiritual cliche’ of our time. It is the same trap of the “I wills” of Lucifer that made him fall. Isa. 14:12-14 “How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’

Ps.12:2-4: “Help, LORD, for the godly man ceases! For the faithful disappear from among the sons of men. They speak idly everyone with his neighbor; with flattering lips and a double heart they speak. May the LORD cut off all flattering lips, and the tongue that speaks proud things,”  Who have said, “With our tongue we will prevail; our lips are our own; who is lord over us?” “For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now I will arise,” says the LORD; “I will set him in the safety for which he yearns.”

James says in 4:13 about boasting what one will do to be successful and rebukes them because they have no control over tomorrow and their life is short, “Instead you ought to say “If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this and that.” He then tells them they are arrogant and this type of speaking is EVIL. In chpt. 5 he rebukes them for being rich letting them know this will be their downfall 5:5 “you have fattened your hearts as in the day of slaughter.” 1 John 5:14 clearly says, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.” (also Matthew 6:10; 26:39; ).

Was God a negative confessor when he said to Adam the day you eat of this fruit you will die!  Numerous warnings are in Scripture that would seem to not be positive in its statement, but certainly in effect.

Biblically you can’t have strength until you admit your weak, this is an attitude of true humility; without it, God cannot fill one up with His power until what is hindering is taken out of the way. It is self that is our biggest block, and it is self that is being proclaimed in the faith movement  disguised as the power of God. The faith in the word faith movement is disguised self esteem. It is centeerd on man having the power to declare and attract

At a healing crusade when people believe they are healed before they are,  is this Biblical faith by not looking at the symptoms and just claiming your healing. No! K. Hagin says if your sick ignore the symptoms and watch the word.” E.W. Kenyon said the same thing “confession always goes ahead of healing…symptoms are not the disease.” To deny the symptoms is to lie to yourself and God, he never said, say it as a methodology. If this is true then someone who goes to a doctor for medicine because of their sickness or they go into surgery to have a tumor removed would not be cured because its not real, its only their symptom. Not only that, it would not be faith to go to a doctor, since one is not standing on the word for their healing but trusting in medical science for a cure. The Bible teaches that God can use other means besides supernatural healing to heal.

Hagin says if your sick the solution is easy “Often you create your own negative situations yourself with wrong thinking, wrong believing, and wrong speaking. So start believing according to God’s Word. Then begin making positive confessions of faith and victory over your life. … You will never receive anything from God beyond the words you speak. … If you don’t like what you have in life, then begin to change the way you are thinking, believing, and speaking. Instead of speaking according to natural circumstances out of your head, learn to speak God’s Word from your spirit. Begin to confess God’s promises of life and health and victory into your situation. Then you can begin to enjoy God’s abundant life as you have what you say!” ( The Word of Faith, “You Can Have What You Say”)

“As a born-again believer, you are equipped with the Word. You have the power of God at your disposal. By getting the Word deep into your spirit and speaking it boldly out your mouth, you release spiritual power to change things in the natural circumstances.” (Kenneth Copeland, The Power of the Tongue, 15.)

“What you are saying is exactly what you are getting now. If you are living in poverty and lack and want, change what you are saying…. The powerful force of the spiritual world that creates the circumstances around us is controlled by the words of the mouth.” (The Laws of Prosperity, Kenneth Copeland, Ft. Worth: Kenneth Copeland Publications, 1974).

“Words are the most sacred things….This is a word planet…governed by words…created by words….Words cause it to function…cause life…cause death….Words go on forever….Words are holy.” (The Abrahamic Covenant, side 1.)

Gods word is eternal and holy, not mans. Jesus said we would be accountable for the words we speak, which means we do not speak correctly, truthfully nor Godly all the time.

Words are so powerful that we have the same ability that God does “You have the same creative faith and ability on the inside of you that God used when he created the heavens and the earth.” (Kenneth Copeland, Inner Image of the Covenant, side 2.)

In this World of using Scripture to gain access the wealth and health it only makes a difference in how ye thinketh.

“It makes a great deal of difference what one thinks. I believe that is why many people are sick, even though they are prayed for by everyone in the country. They get in every healing line and still never receive healing. The reason they are not getting healed is that they are thinking wrong.” (Kenneth Hagin, Right and Wrong Thinking , 1978 pg 19.)

Say it like you mean it, believe until it rises up out of your heart and your convinced that you are healed. Don’t listen to anyone saying otherwise, just keep on believing. I’ve been to these services where people say they are healed of a limp as they limp out of there. Actually there are just as many faith teachers who are sick and have died than us mere Christians who do not know how to use “the laws of faith.” So its not working for them either, but they just won’t tell you this!

E.W. Kenyon in his book the Hidden man on pg. 99 “I know that I am healed because I said that I am healed and it makes no difference what the symptoms may be in my body.” If they are coughing and you say you have a cold they say no I don’t, haven’t had a cold in years. That’s called denial at best and lying at worst. To say I’m healed even though their can be in tremendous pain. when your not telling the truth isn’t that called lying.

K. Hagin in his book “In the name of Jesus says In teaching on divine healing and health , I have so often said, I haven’t had a headache in so many years (45 to be exact) I guess the devil got tired of hearing me say it. Just a few months ago, as I left the office building and started home, suddenly my head started hurting, someone might say, “well, you had a headache. No, I didn’t have one! I don’t have headaches. I haven’t had a headache since August 1934. 45 years have come and gone .and I haven’t had a headache…but if I had a headache, I wouldn’t tell anybody. And if somebody asked me how I was feeling, I would say, I’m fine, thank you.” (In the name of Jesus, p.44) Notice he says he wouldn’t tell you how he really feels because words override the pain. Is this honest ? What do call this when someone acts in this way. If I went into a restaurant and ordered an expensive meal with only a dollar in my pocket and I didn’t tell the waiter that I couldn’t pay, what would you call this? …That’s exactly what you should call what Hagin is saying.

Faith teachers get sick also they have a headaches and stomach aches, they  stub their toes and bang their hand just like anyone else. They deny it despite what is certainly there. What they are saying is what you confess you will possess but you didn’t confess a headache to get it in the first place, it just came. So they need to put blame on someone and it usually is the devil. This is why they command Satan to leave their body. What one needs to ask is how did he get in there in the first place? Doesn’t this mean they were not walking in faith for him to invade them like this.

Would you go around saying that your the president of the company that you are just an employee of because you desire that position. If you were caught doing that they would say your lying . Try cashing a check as that president when your not and see what happens. What of scriptures such as God saying let there be light can someone of the faith movement ever say these same words and change the darkness of night to day, have you seen anyone move any mountains lately if not they do not have the faith of God.

What if this concept of healing were being brought to its logical conclusion. If you get a flat tire. Are you going to confess the tire is fixed and round again. Speak it back to restoration. No of course not. So why would you not do the same for anything else. If it doesn’t work for the inorganic. it won’t work for the organic either.

If one takes the Scripture by faith confessing God s word, why stop with healing? Why not go all the way and confess not dying as in John 11:26:”And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” Then one will never die. While all the promises of God are yea and amen. They are not for all people all the time. Many were given to specific people for a specific purpose.

The Force of faith

“Faith activates the force of God fear is a force that activates the Devil. Copeland says, God did not create the world out of nothing, He used the Force of His Faith.’ (Spirit, Soul and Body, #01-0601, Tape #1)

New Ager Benjamin Creme says, for example, “One doesn’t pray to oneself, one prays to the God within. The thing is to learn to invoke that energy which is the energy of God. Prayer and worship as we know it today will gradually die out and men will be trained to invoke the (inner) power of deity.” (The Reappearance of Christ and the Masters of Wisdom, pp. 135-136)

The New Age has the exact same methodology for success. This is not ignored by the word/faith promoters since they believe anyone can use this power, saint or sinner. In like manner this power is used to influence themselves, others, ( achieving their own self-interests), their environment  or what they deem as reality .

Techniques used are visualization which they internally create the form and project its image into the outer world. The word spoken as it is first incubated in thought it will become reality when continually spoken.

Copeland agrees and states, “You can have what you say! In fact, what you are saying is exactly what you are getting now. If you are living in poverty and lack and want, change what you are saying. It will change what you have…. Discipline your vocabulary. Discipline everything you do, everything you say, and everything you think to agree with what God does, what God says, and what God thinks. God will be obligated to meet your needs because of His Word…. If you stand firmly on this, your needs will be met.” ( D.L. McConnell p.173)

A.W.Tozer wrote… “imagination projects unreal images out of the mind and seeks to attach reality to them. Faith creates nothing; it simply reckons upon that which is already there.”

God has  some interesting things addressed to this type of nonsense. Lam 3:37-50 “Who is he who speaks and it comes to pass, when the Lord has not commanded it?   Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that woe and well-being proceed?   Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?   Let us search out and examine our ways, and turn back to the LORD;   Let us lift our hearts and hands to God in heaven.   We have transgressed and rebelled; you have not pardoned.   You have covered Yourself with anger and pursued us; you have slain and not pitied.  You have covered Yourself with a cloud, that prayer should not pass through.  You have made us an offscouring and refuse in the midst of the peoples.  All our enemies have opened their mouths against us. Fear and a snare have come upon us, desolation and destruction. My eyes overflow with rivers of water for the destruction of the daughter of my people.  My eyes flow and do not cease, without interruption, Till the LORD from heaven looks down and sees.” Like in Jeremiahs day this is the state of our present day church.

Creative faith for miracles

“Words are spiritual containers,” (Kenneth Copeland, Forces of the Recreated Human Spirit, 15; cf. 14.)

“Faith was the raw material substance that the Spirit of God used to form the universe.” (Kenneth Copeland, Authority of the Believer II (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland Ministries, 1987, audiotape #01-0302), side 1.) He doesn’t say this a few times but is a consistent teaching in his theological bent.

“Faith is God’s source of power.” (Freedom From Fear, 1983. p12.)

Not only does God use this faith but we can as well “You have the same creative faith and ability on the inside of you that God used when he created the heavens and the earth.” (Kenneth Copeland, Inner Image of the Covenant, side 2.) Copeland explains to Hinn how this all works “The law of faith, faith work by certain elements and when those elements from the word of God are put in, in release and in power than it always brings the same results , and I don’t care who it is I don’t care where you are or where you from  I don’t care what culture you come from, I don’t care what color your skin is I don’t care whether your rich man poor man beggar man or thief. When you put those elements into operation they will come connect to the anointing and the results will come Benny Hinn “MY GOD!” (so its not by God’s will but by ours). Copeland and B. Hinn this is your day  Aug.10,1999)

So this law that is suppose to be universal like gravity works even if you’re an unbeliever and a thief. how can one who is not right with God use faith? Because its not the same as biblical faith it is a natural law as Copeland explains. So it really has nothing to do with God, because he is not obligated to give a sinner any request lest he repents.

“When we use the spiritual laws that God has set up, God must obey what we request.” (Praise the Lord, TBN 2/5/86)

“Words create pictures, and pictures in your mind create words. And then the words come back out your mouth….And when that spiritual force comes out it is going to give substance to the image that’s on the inside of you. Aw, that’s that visualization stuff! Aw, that’s that New Age! No, New Age is trying to do this; and they’d get somewhat results out of it because this is spiritual law, brother.” (Believer’s Voice of Victory (television program), TBN, 28 March 1991.)

“God used words when He created the heaven and the earth….Each time God spoke, He released His faith — the creative power to bring His words to pass.” (The Power of the Tongue (Fort Worth: KCP Publications, 1980), 4.)

Isn’t it funny that not once will you find the word faith in the OT especially in the creation narrative of Genesis attributed to God. Nowhere does it say God used faith. Why? Because it is man who needs faith not God!

Recently on John Hagee’s program Copeland said, “The very faith that God used when He created, and what we read there in the first 2 chapters of Genesis, is the faith that’s burning in your spirit. But now if you’ve made Jesus the Lord of your life, it’s the same faith. Well, He created all those planets, how come you can’t create something? You don’t know as much about it as He does. He has a greater working knowledge of that faith than you do. But we’re learning. Our time is coming. And in some ways its already here.” (Aug 18,1999 )

Notice he says its coming because they don’t have the knowledge yet. But he’s been saying this as a fact for years! The only difference between God’s ability and ours is that He has a greater knowledge.

Kenneth Hagin: “Jesus used the fig tree to demonstrate that He had that God-kind of faith, then He said to the disciples-and to us-‘You have that kind of faith.’. . . Jesus said He had the God-kind of faith; He encouraged His disciples to exercise that kind of faith; and He said that .whosoever’ could do it…. That is why Jesus said, ‘whosoever shall say … and shall not doubt IN HIS HEART. ‘ “ (Having Faith in Your Faith, Kenneth Hagin Ministries, 1988 1, 3)

Mk.11:22 “Have the faith of God (in) This unclear passage is determined by other clear passages. The word ‘in’ is missing so it reads have faith God. This is a Hebraism: to have strong faith, or the strongest faith. When things look impossible. There is no such thing as a God kind faith. It means a faith that is wholly reliant on God.

Jesus had already stated, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”   (Matt 19:26)

But the faith movement states with ones words in faith we can change anything. Which means this faith is with man and not God. They believe that a failure to get what they ask for is a failure in faith.

This unclear passage is determined by other clear passages. However, this verse must not be isolated from other verses on prayer, and it is always important to make certain that we incorporate everything the Bible teaches on any one point before drawing our conclusions.

Throughout the Scripture it tells us to have faith in Christ John 14:1” Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.”   Faith means trust, its object is always God, If faith is put in any other object no matter how sacred it will fail. Does God have faith? No! Faith has an object. The Christian faiths object is God, not faith itself. It means to trust in someone other (in our instance greater) than oneself. If God has faith to create then whom did He trust in? This concept destroys the very nature of God Gods name is I Am that I am, the self sufficient self- existent one. He is perfect needing nothing outside Himself, He is a non dependent being not needing anything from anyone else. God is not using His faith as His power there is no such thing. God is able to do all things we are not. We cannot speak more stars into existence nor can we change a boy into a girl by our words. When Jesus spoke the words let it be according to your faith the individual was asking for a specific act from Jesus when he was physically present with him. He did these miracles to prove His personhood as God, it was not a blank check for anyone to say it to receive it. Is it really faith to demand our rights from God or is it pride and immaturity to demand things as spoiled little children. The faith in the word of faith movement is misplaced faith. Real faith involves time, it produces character as we go through our trials. It builds us up giving us endurance not by demanding God but from relying on his provision as we go through we have his assurance he is with us. Faith is only as good as the object it is placed in. Matthew 21:22 must be taken with I John 5:13-15, which also points out that God hears us only if we ask according To -will” in other words, if we make a request that is not His will to grant, no amount of faith will effect that petition. Prayer is unlimited in its possibilities except one, God’s will. If you are praying for something that is not God’s purpose, no amount of prayer will change it.

V.23.having a mountain removed and cast into the sea, is to have a thing to be far removed. It is not speaking of physical but spiritual obstacles to the progress of His kingdom. [the expression ‘rooting up mountains’ is in common Rabbinic use as a hyperbole for doing the impossible or the incredible.   [Babha B. 3 b; for the latter   Ber. 64 a; Sanh. 24 a; Horay. 14 a.]. Mountains in biblical symbolism means kings or kingdoms (Mt.17:20). This is why you have never seen a mountain thrown in the sea.

Jesus makes it clear in v. 24-26 “Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.” And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses. “But if you do not forgive, neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.” Faith gives anticipation in prayer that God hears us and that he will answer.   Faith is to have an absolute, yet simple assurance of God’s promise.  Mark also gives a condition for the Lords acceptance to our prayer. Mark connects the promise to move mountains with forgiveness our reconciliation with brothers, v.25-26

This principle is found when the disciples tried to cast out a demon with the authority Jesus gave them but were unsuccessful.

Mt. 17:19-21 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not cast him out?” “So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. “However, this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” It wasn’t just a lack of faith but they needed to ask and fast. The mountain Jesus interprets for us are those things opposing His kingdom; in this case a demon who had kept someone in bondage.

Paul writes in Romans can the potter talk back to the clay, I’ve never seen this happen until our time. They can order and decree from God whatever they please, even the shape of their own lives. Deceptive power does not come without a price. I have yet to see someone change a flat tire to round, much less actually move a mountain which the scripture mentions!

Heb.6:12: “That you not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.’ He then goes into Gods promise to Abraham and that he swore by himself because there is no one greater. Notice it is God’s promise and that we are to wait on him to fulfill it by having patience and faith. Not stand on it and demand it. In God’s timing and his way, just as he did for Abraham.

Real faith is neither a blind leap into the unknown nor is it mustering up belief for our own wants to possess something. A.C.Gabeleian says. “Faith is not blind confidence that demands to get whatever we want. For this is in effect, as one has said, would dethrone God, and place the scepter in our hands, making God obedient and irresisting power to do our unwise bidding (The Healing question pp.124-125) Faith is not in what we speak but in the God who spoke and the universe leaped into existence. True faith is in the one who can keep his word.

If faith is based on the immutable law of God in nature then even unbelievers can use it (Which is exactly what they say). Then it is without exception. So every time someone says something negative believing it, then it will come to pass. The last time I looked at the Bible and reality I have not seen God put this kind of power in the hands of sinful or saved men.

Faith is not telling a person they can see when they can’t or tell someone they are healed when they are dying. This cannot accomplish what is being said anymore than telling a person he can fly when he can’t fly or walk through walls when they can’t. Faith involves an assent to what is truth, not what is false.

Our faith is not what we speak using incantations from the word, but in the word and the one who spoke the word.  Praying in Jesus name is not a warranty to receive everything we say and we can certainly thank Him for that. He doesn’t want spoiled little children, but mature heavenly minded people who look at His Word and are willing to be conformed to His likeness even if it’s uncomfortable.  Those that can trust him in His decisions He can entrust to answer.  To pray in his name means “in his authority” according to his will, to ask in the understanding of what God wants to accomplish on earth. Romans 8.27: “ And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.” We need to line up our will with His, then we can be confident he hears us because it is what he wants to accomplish. So you must have the right kind of faith mixed with patience and trust to be “in the faith “ and be a true son of Abraham.  The faith Movements faith is not “Biblical faith”, it is defective and flawed, because it is self- focused on our wants, not trusting in God’s decisions. Until they learn this simple biblical lesson they will continue to expand their errors being deceived and deceiving others!

 

 

http://www.letusreason.org/Wf8.htm

=======================================================

CLICK THE LOGOS ABOVE TO GO TO THE HOME PAGE AND LISTEN TO THE RADIO SHOW

—————————————————————————-

***RECOMMEND THIS BLOG*** CLICK HERE TO SEND an E-mail referral to a friend

 

Word Faith teaching- A spiritual copy of the Mind Sciences by LetUsReason.org

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Prosperity Pimps – Part 2“, posted with vodpod

 

 

Recently the book and DVD called “the secret” has become popular. It was promoted by Oprah Winfrey, a mind science adherent. It has made a large impact in a short time in America and throughout the world. “The Secret” Book is a bestseller, on the USA Today, Wall Street Journal and New York Times bestseller lists. 6 million copies of the book have been sold so far. The Secret is also an 80 minute DVD that is the top-seller on Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com; 3 million copies have been bought. In other words this is in its beginning.

Many have accepted it as the newest success in life technique. It is really a potpourri of occult and metaphysical ideas. It is the basic message of the New age Movement- HUMAN POTENTIAL, which has its roots in mind science teachings. In this series of articles I want us to look at the similarities of the teachings of “the Secret” and its source and compare it to the word faith movements teachings.

The 29 co-contributors quoted by the author Rhonda Byrne of “The Secret.” All the authors agree with the metaphysical worldview and practice the concepts presented in the book and DVD.

Rhonda Byrne sums up “The Secret” as: “The law of attraction is the most powerful law.” “like attracts like. … The law of attraction is giving you what you are thinking about. It is working all the time. “What we do is we attract into our lives the things we want, and that is based on what we’re thinking and feeling,”“we create our own circumstances by the choices we make in life. And the choices we make are fueled by our thoughts—which means our thoughts are the most powerful things we have here on earth.” That’s something to really think about.

How does it work? Everything and everyone in the universe is energy and our thoughts put out a vibration, then things are attracted to us like a magnet

.

John Walsch of the Secret states Thoughts are like magnets, drawing effects to you.” (p. 188)

Michael Beckwith states on the DVD that this has been “scientifically proven”, Bob Proctor says this “law” is– “energy attracts like energy.” They seem to have overlooked that opposites attract in magnetism, like repels like. Oh well, so much for being scientific.

This concept is not exclusive to the Secret book- New Age participants have known this for years. John Randolph Price agrees; in his book “The Superbeings” he says: “Like attracts like. What you think in your mind will produce in your experience. … All the Power of the Universe is within you and this Power you can have anything on earth you desire.”  (xv The Superbeings John Randolph Price 1981 Quartus foundation)

To put it simply in there own words- the ‘universal mind’ is energy … which is everywhere, and we are all ‘One’ with it, and have power to control our reality. There is no personal Holy God in “The Secret,” instead they use the universe as a substitute, in fact- the closest they come to calling something God is by saying you are God.

P.46 of “The Secret” states “you are the master of the Universe the law obeys you.” — “Your wish is my command.” We are told “This law listens to everything we think and act.” You have got to be kiddin’, the law is an “it” but it has ears. It has a mind but none of its own, it obeys us.

Mind science promoter Robert Collier wrote about the same concepts in his books The God in You, The Secret Power, The Magic Word, and The Law of the Higher Potential. In his book “Secret of the Ages” he writes: “Being a part of Universal Mind, shar­ing that Universal Mind’s all-power, it has only to put the Creative Force all about it into the mold of your thought and bring the object into being” (Secret of the Ages p.62).

As we will see the word faith teachers are not far from the original tree that bore this fruit.

When and where did these ideas begin? In the middle of the 19th century to the early 1900’s a small spiritual revolution began, it used a mystical interpretation of Bible and combined other concepts to form a new type of spiritual system- it was called “New Thought.” Today we categorize it as the new age movement.

The founder of New Thought philosophy was Phineas Quimby, he was a student of spiritism, occultism, hypnosis and other expressions of parapsychology. His ideas gained prominence, and from his ideas was born Christian Science, Religious Science and became the basis for a number of cults, which include Unity School of Christianity.

New Thought’s basic teaching is that everything is in the mind. We create our own world of good or evil, health or sickness, prosperity or lack by our thoughts. Mary Baker Eddy was one of the early patients Quimby “healed” and she began a new interpretation of the Bible called “Christian science” that was based upon Quimby’s teachings-which she never admitted to. Her ideology was God is “Divine Mind,” and illness results from being out of tune with “Divine Mind.” Christian Science makes sickness an illusion and one overcomes it with correct thinking, it is the same thing in the word faith movement, they believe their body is lying to them. They disbelieve the symptoms, and stand on continual positive confession of the word to relieve them-selves.

The Unity School of Christianity (also known as Unity) was founded in 1889 by Charles and Myrtle Fillmore. Charles Fillmore is quoted in The Secret along with other New Thought teachers. One of Fillmore’s quotes in the book states: “Divine Mind is the one and only reality.” It is important to note that Phineas Quimby is the man who E.W. Kenyon studied and embraced his ideas. These same concepts were later embraced and copied by Kenneth Hagin. Both he and his disciple Kenneth Copeland popularized these teachings in the church. Kenyon denied that he taught religious science. Yet it is a fact that his schooling were from those who practiced that philosophy. His influence came through years attending the Emerson College School of Oratory. Charles Wesley Emerson was an adherent of New Thought metaphysics. Emerson joined Christian Science in 1903 and remained in that religion until his death in 1908.

 

Another New Thought church is Religious Science whose founder Ernest Holmes based his “Science of Mind” on the same concepts: Holmes doubted the answers he got in church. He discovered the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Reading Emerson is like drinking water to me.” He pursued his metaphysical studies which involved literature, science, philosophy, and religion. And finally embraced the Christian Science teachings of Mary Baker Eddy. He then came upon the works of Ralph Waldo Trine, Horatio Dresser and Phineas Quimby. He moved from Christian Science teachings to Larson’s works.

Ernest Holmes patterned his Science of Mind on: “Man, by thinking, can bring into his experience whatsoever he desires ….” “all is mind and that everything is governed by law, there comes another thought: it is that he can create, or have created for him from his own thinking. He can create such a strong mental atmosphere of success that its power of attraction will be irresistible. He can send his thought throughout the world and have it bring back to him whatever he wants” ( “Creative Mind and Success” by Ernest Holmes).

 

 

More recently-Norman Vincent Peale, a student of Holmes brought these same concepts into the church. He too based his positive-thinking principles on New Thought. Peale said as a youth he had “the worst inferiority complex of all,” and developed his positive thinking philosophy to help himself. Peale is what is known as a “progressive in religion-” one who did not believe in the bibles testimony of Jesus being the only way. In 1984, on the Phil Donahue program, Peale said, “It’s not necessary to be born again. You have your way to God; I have mine. I found eternal peace in a Shinto shrine …I’ve been to Shinto shrines, and God is everywhere:” Shocked, Phil Donahue responded, “But you’re a Christian minister; you’re supposed to tell me that Christ is the way and the truth and the life, aren’t you?” Peale replied, “Christ is one of the ways. God is everywhere.” (Christian News (May 12, 1997), 11.Peale taught “Your unconscious mind … [has a] power that turns wishes into realities when the wishes are strong enough.” ( Norman Vincent Peale, Positive Imaging (Fawcett Crest, 1982), p. 77.)He also taught: “God is energy. As you breathe God in, as you visualize His energy, you will be reenergized!” (Norman Vincent Peale, PLUS: The Magazine of Positive Thinking, 37:4, May 1986, Part 11, 23.) Similarly, John Walsch of “the Secret” states “God is the energy you call imagination.” p. 198).

These same concepts/teachings permeate the mind sciences.

Peale recommendation to visualizing this energy to permeate one’s being; inhale this energy as God

Is found in new age (occult) they visualize energies circulating around or through their body. The vineyard churches a number of years ago would scoop the air around people to bring it toward them calling the Holy spirit to fill them. This is known as pantheism, and is more like Hinduism’s prana, where one breathes the air in their yoga exercise for energizing themselves.

Peale is known to be a 33rd degree Mason. When a Mason reaches this level of illumination he is taught that the god of the Bible is really a false god and Lucifer the lightbearer is the true God.

Robert Schuller attributed to Peale to be the man who had the greatest influence upon his theology and ministry, (He even claimed Peale starting the positive thinking movement). Schuller changed the term positive thinking to Possibility thinking and continued to contain the principles of these same ideas.

There are Spiritual winds that blow from the same source in the same direction. We have watched the church copy the world but when the world starts to mimic the church- we need to pay attention. ‘The Secret’ DVD and book is sweeping the secular world. The word faith teachers in the church originally got their teaching from the new thought movement over one hundred years ago – both are from the same source.

Some of you may be surprised that Christians are attracted to the Secret (no pun meant). Why Not? Word faith teachers have been using these very same concepts inside the church for years and now they are acceptable because of their promotion on major Christian TV networks.

As we continue we are going to see a thread of commonality in the teachings of mind science and word faith. Interesting note- They both use many of the same scriptures.

 

Quotes from the Secret:

Whatever is going on in your mind is what you are attracting
We are like magnets – like attract like. You become AND attract what you think
Every thought has a frequency. Thoughts send out a magnetic energy
Those who speak most of illness have illness, those who speak most of prosperity have it.
When you get the hang of this, before you know it you will KNOW you are the creator…You are the only one that creates your reality….Play the picture in your mind – focus on the end result. “It’s OK that thoughts don’t manifest into reality immediately ….“VISUALIZE!!! Rehearse your future…VISUALIZE!!! See it, feel it! This is where action begins.
Create a Vision Board .. pictures of what you want to attract .. every day look at it and get into the feeling state of already having acquired these wants.
Decide what you want .. believe you can have it, believe you deserve it, believe it’s possible for you.
Close your eyes and visualize having what you already want – and the feeling of having it already….Checks are coming in the mail regularly’… or change your bank statement to whatever balance you want in there… and get behind the feeling of having it.

 

Mind science teacher W. Clement Stone, is quoted in the Secret: “Whatever the mind of man can conceive, it can achieve” Kenneth Copeland tells people to visualize: “Any image that you get down on the inside of you that is so vivid when you close your eyes you see it, it’ll come to pass. When God came at the Tower of Babel, He said, ‘Anything they can imagine, they can do.’“ (Copeland, Inner Image of the Covenant, side 2)

Indeed the Lord did say at the Tower of Babel in Gen. 11:6: “now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.” It wasn’t a good thing.

Rhonda Byrne, in her book and DVD, The Secret, tells how her daughter gave her a copy of The Science of Getting Rich, a book written in 1910 by Wallace D. Wattles. She believes she discovered the success of “the greatest people in history.” This book inspired Byrne to create her bestselling DVD. Wattle’s explains that the: “universal mind” underlies and permeates all creation. Through the process of visualization we can engage the law of attraction, impressing our thoughts upon “formless substance” to bring the desired result. . Once a person learns and obeys these laws, he will get rich with mathematical certainty.”Byrne, the author of The Secret, is also greatly influenced by a couple named Jerry and Esther Hicks‘. In the Acknowledgements of The Secret, she thanks them for the teachings of Abraham. On the Hicks website, we find: “Abraham, a group of obviously evolved teachers, speak their broader Non-physical perspective through the physical body of Esther” In other words this is channeling- spirit possession.

On April 5, 2007, Oprah Winfrey discussed the Secret with these spirits “channeled” by Secret promoter, Esther Hicks. Not that we should be surprised, “channeling” has long been promoted openly on Oprah’s TV show.

What do the Hicks teach—

‘You are a creator; you create with your every thought. Anything that you can imagine is yours to be or do or have.”

This is straight out of Mind Science

Jerry Hicks had also been a devotee of the book “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill. Napoleon Hill said of his book– “This book contains the secret” (Napoleon Hill Think and Grow Rich p.9). Hill was taught the same occult principles by demons who posed as Ascended Masters from a School of Wisdom on the astral plane. Hill stated “I know I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul” (Think and Grow Rich p.215-) – this is word for word from Charles Fillmore’s book “Dynamics for Living,” and Ernest Holmes Creative Mind and Success.

Ernest Holmes founder of Religious Science also came upon the same “Supreme Se­cret” that was revealed to Napoleon Hill- “Science of MIND teaches that Man controls the course of his life … by mental processes which function according to a Universal Law …”Rhonda Byrne’s book is connected to both Wattles and the Hicks. The Hicks is connected to Napoleon Hill.

So we see a common source for “the Secret” teaching- it is dictated by spirit guides. We will confirm that these same teachings permeate the word faith movement.

We are warned that the teaching of demons will come into the church 1 Tim. 4:1: “Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.” The reason for this is found in 2 Tim. 4:3-4 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables”.The secret teaches visualization- so do the mind sciences. Certain Christian leaders have been teaching visualization for years. In his booklet, The Power of the Inner Eye, Robert Schuller corrupts the Scripture by claiming that it advocates the occult technique of visualization. In an article dealing with . . . visualization …. “This is the vision that the Bible is talking about in the verse, “Where there is no vision the people perish.”. . . I have practiced and harnessed the power of the inner eye and it works …. Thirty years ago we started with a vision of a church. It’s all come true.” (May, 1985, issue of Psychology Today, “In the Mind’s Eye.”)

 

So he admits to practicing this occult technique.

Schuller wrote the forward of Yonggi Cho’s book “The Fourth Dimension,” which is filled with promoting new age visualization “I discovered the reality of that dynamic dimension in prayer that comes through visualizing….. Don’t try to understand it. Just start to enjoy it! It’s true. It works. I tried it.”

Visualization is one of the fastest ways to open oneself up to the spiritual realm—Cho teaches praying is not sufficient that “We should always try to visualize the end result as we pray…. If you have not visualized clearly in your heart exactly what you hope for, it cannot become a reality to you….” …. Through visualizing and dreaming, you can incubate your future and hatch the results” (The Fourth Dimension, Volume Two, pp. 25-28, 68, p. 44)

Aside from some Christian terms, I could mix up their quotes and you could not tell which is from mind/religious science and from the church.

David Cho explains of his four step plan for the incubation formula: 1) Visualize a clear-cut goal or idea in your mind; 2) have a burning desire for your objective; 3) pray until you get the guarantee or assurance from God that what you desire is already yours; 4) speak or confess the end result into existence.”

This the same formulae used in the secret- Play the picture in your mind – focus on the end result” VISUALIZE!!! Rehearse your future” “ VISUALIZE!!! See it, feel it! This is where action begins”
Create a Vision Board .. pictures of what you want to attract .. every day look at it and get into the feeling state of already having acquired these wants.
Decide what you want .. believe you can have it, believe you deserve it, believe it’s possible for you.
Close your eyes and visualize having what you already want – and the feeling of having it already.Bothj cho and the Secret are nearly identical of mind science teacher Robert Collier “There is no limit, you know, to Mind. Visualize this thing that you want. See it, feel it, BELIEVE in it. Make your mental blue-print, and begin to build! (Robert Collier, The Law of Higher Potential, p. 368 (1947).

 

 

Cho states “In that way, with the power of the Holy Spirit, we can incubate that which we want God to do for us…. We should always try to visualize the end result as we pray. If you have not visualized clearly in your heart exactly what you hope for, it cannot become a reality to you…. (Yonggi Cho, The Fourth Dimension, Volume One (So. Plainfield, NJ: Bridge Publishing, 1979), 9-35; vol. 2, 18-33)

“We have taught our people how to … visualize success …. Through visualizing and dreaming, you can incubate your future and hatch the results.”

(P. Yonggi Cho 4^th Dimension p.44, vol.2, pp.25-28, 68)

“This is what the Holy Spirit taught me.” (The Fourth Dimension p. 39-44)

How did the Holy Spirit teach him something that the Christian church never had in Scripture or was taught to the apostles for the early church? Occultists have been practicing this for thousands of years. It is one thing to receive a vision from God it is another to conjure it up oneself and expect God to obey.

What is the difference between someone seeing in the mind what they would want and have it materialize, and for example, seeing a picture to draw a blueprint of a house? The architect is not using the image or his mind to actually create the house- they are using they hands, physical labor to create it. The spiritual dimension (mind) is not controlling the material world.

Neither Jesus, Paul or anyone else used techniques as imaging or visualization for prayer or healing.

These same concepts – manipulating the spiritual realm though images or words to influence the physical world to materialize results has been used by shamans, witch doctors and occultists for millennia.

As mind Science teacher Fillmore said- “substance is first given form in the mind”Laura Cabot, a witch calls visualization, magic, contact with unconscious materials and images occur spontaneously. Imaginative possibilities are more sharply focused… For these reasons witches do most of their magical work in alpha” (Power of The Witch, p. 175 Laura Cabot).

In the occult: the “law of manifestation,” declares that thoughts held firmly in the mind, spoken aloud, or visualized will “manifest’ in the physical world. We will see the concepts and idea of visualization  is carried into the word faith teaching of speaking and confessing.

 

Pt.2 speaking things into existence

http://www.letusreason.org/WF48.htm

=======================================================

CLICK THE LOGOS ABOVE TO GO TO THE HOME PAGE AND LISTEN TO THE RADIO SHOW

—————————————————————————-

***RECOMMEND THIS BLOG*** CLICK HERE TO SEND an E-mail referral to a friend