The truth will set you free.
If all you have is mere factual knowledge and analysis, it won’t matter how much or how deep is your knowing, you are still trapped in this world and on the way to Hell. Whatever redemption does, it includes awakening something above the intellect and linking your soul outside this realm of existence. While we do refer to the resurrection of the spirit (AKA “born-again”), our brains and conscious awareness have no direct link to that part of us. Instead, the heart and it’s “brain” is the part that mediates between the Spirit-spirit communion and the intellect. You would have no spirit were it not united in Life to the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God writes His truth into the convictions of your heart.
The intellect can implement morality; it is utterly incapable of discerning what is and is not moral. Compare that statement to they symbolism of the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil” in the Eden narrative. Eating from that tree symbolizes the choice to place the intellect on the throne of moral decision — the Hebrew word for “knowledge” in this context includes the concept of judging and deciding. Since the intellect is incapable of the task, the results are what we see in our chaotic world today. Train the brain all you like; it is wholly incapable of rightly matching decision to reality as God created it without the guidance of the heart-mind.
So intellectual talent means nothing against the moral necessity of letting the heart rule. Among those who share this higher faculty, there is no discernible difference in ability or talent. There is only the difference between the moral choice of commitment. That word “faith” is just another word for the trust and obedience that comes with commitment. Moral choice is what distinguishes the power of faith from one person to the next. The potential is effectively equal as far as we can discuss it. We might struggle to discern it, but a complete imbecile can have faith to move life’s mountains.
Further, what you might have done to develop your intellect (and your physical talents) mean very little against the measure of faith. Don’t confuse moral character with talent. If your faith is strong, God has promised to fill in the rest and use you for mighty works for His glory. Faith is more important than talent, insofar as we can discuss relative merits. If you have high moral development, nothing else really matters much. So this is the thing we believe is most important and every other distinction we might gain in this world is valued only in how we can harness it to the heart-mind and moral truth.
And the best part is that moral truth is self-verifying. That is, for it to work at all, you must have your own “proof” internally, your own moral conviction that God Himself constructed in your soul. I can share my own experience in that realm, but you cannot possibly repeat it in detail, only in the broader sense of moral verification. Does it conform with the burning Presence of His Spirit in you? The threshold of moral verification is entirely different from intellectual factual verification. Your heart can tell you if what I say is accurate and applicable, and how much. You’ll hang out here because your heart tells you it’s a good moral environment for your moral development. You become morally independent from humans and as you become morally more dependent on God, the one who created all things. Conforming to what’s valid and real in the moral sphere means seeing it from the moral sensory faculty of the heart. Your intellect is just along for the ride.
Contrast this to the likes of factual verification for the intellect. A good scientist will give you sufficient information about the process so that you could falsify his results. That is, scientific proof is the failure to falsify when you specifically set out to prove the scientist wrong. That’s the standard protocol and good scientists love it. There is a scientific standard, and commonly accepted protocol of inquiry and testing so that no one “cheats” and stands up to beat their chest showing false data. That kind of competition is moderated by the agreed upon standards of testing and so forth. (The competition is not absent; some of the most petty rivalries can be found in the scientific research community. These days, deception is rampant in scientific journals because people are too lazy or too cheap to verify.)
However, the actual use of the results of scientific inquiry demands a moral frame of reference. Just because I know how to vaporize a whole city doesn’t mean I should test this at random. There is a moral decision involved and science cannot produce that. Lots of people pretend that a good scientific mind can discern the answer to moral questions, and that it can even discern what questions to ask, but you’ll find the resulting debate over what constitutes good morality ranges all over the place. Moral consensus on such things is nearly impossible. Yet, such moral consensus is necessary before we allow someone to do such a vaporization of cities. Who gets to decide to use it? On what grounds should they be permitted to choose one target over another?
And did it ever occur to anyone to wonder what moral good comes from knowing how to vaporize cities in the first place? What kind of morality seeks such a weapon?
Maybe you can make the leap to how this leads to human political endeavor. Government, whatever it might be in any given context, is the way we make decisions that affect larger numbers of humans. It’s not so much moral reasoning but a moral instinct (wired into human nature itself) that we can’t just make unilateral decisions for others without some kind of justification. Raw power has been tried and it’s effectiveness has limits. There is always somebody out there big enough or smart enough to trump however much raw power you have.
In these latter days, most government has sought to create a faux voluntary compliance. Messy, but far more efficient in the long run. To work, it requires various means to get folks to surrender their natural inclinations to ask too many questions. Most government today enslaves you with a sort of programming, and it presumes you have no heart-mind. All their efforts at control and manipulation aim at the intellect. To the degree those rulers are aware of something more powerful than intellect, they try to keep you from connecting your intellect to that higher power.
So we find ourselves with a whole range of people trying to build a structure for asserting authority over others so as to play God. It goes back to Cain over Abel and later the Tower of Babel. One of the fundamental questions in moral consideration is how we get along with other humans; it’s part of the wider question of how you interact with reality itself. In reality, there are other humans and we can’t count on them to dance when our fingers twitch. We have to make our way through life with a sort of moral calculus that recognizes there are other people who may want something different from what we want. They are not mere abstractions of our personal will. If someone can rise up with some kind of authority, they can cut out a lot of frivolous dissent and fighting so that we can find some range of compromise between conflicting wishes and needs. The problem is coming up with a model that meets the moral requirements woven into reality. We have to let God be God and limit our exercise of authority to boundaries He says He will enforce one way or another.
However, while He exercises most of that authority out of our direct view, to the degree He tells us anything, He shows His hand of power primarily through people who have that moral awareness that comes from a dominant heart-mind over the intellect. He tends to let the vast majority of people fall under the sway of despotism and slavery for reasons only He knows, but we do understand that the escape from that is to awaken the heart-mind. He has preserved through such people a record of revelation. People over the centuries have learned to revere that revelation, even if they tend to have trouble getting their mind to obey the heart. And a lot of folks are just faking it for all kinds of reasons, but mostly because it looks like a good system to use for asserting their will over others. They abuse the reverence for revelation by cloaking it from people’s full grasp.
I don’t pretend to know whether this or that religious leader is heart-led and morally aware. I don’t have to know. By my own heart leading, I know to presume distrust of myself first, and a similar distrust of everyone else. I can verify factual information well enough to grant a grudging trust to factual authorities. Maybe I can’t replicate the inquiry because it’s too time- and resource-intensive for me to repeat the whole thing. I can afford to trust someone who meets some minimal standards that represent a verification. As previously noted, factual data is not so important beyond it’s usefulness in my calling from God. It has no inherent value on the moral plane of reckoning, which is where I intend to live. But verifying moral authority cannot work that way, because the moral questions are the ultimate questions. Moral consideration requires I verify everything down to the smallest detail, because the effects of failure are eternal. Mere facts don’t have much effect on Eternity. Someone claiming moral authority must be ready and willing to engage me with a trust that I can test their message that way.
When a presumed moral authority hinders that kind of verification, they surrender all moral authority. Moral truth itself presumes the necessity of each actor having their own full freedom to choose voluntarily. Morality is meaningless without free volition on some level. Shortcutting that voluntary choice by pulling the question down to an intellectual level where verification might be far more expensive is immoral in itself. God provides all the resources necessary for each and every one of us to verify moral statements, so there is simply no excuse for shortcutting. A moral leader who tells me I must put my trust in his special talents, talents that he insists I don’t have, is a liar.
The biblical prophets never presented a word from God like that. Independent verification was always available, and we see examples of it where someone went off to check with another means to test that message. There were rules under the Law of Moses for such verification, but someone with a solid heart-mind awareness didn’t need that. Their hearts would witness the truth because it was written in their own convictions. If the prophet lied, the listeners’ hearts would know, regardless whether the intellect could work it out.
I strive to engage you with a demand up-front that you test my words against your own heart.
(Editorial Note: This series has been greatly enhanced by the probing questions of commenter Mr T. Convictions tend to be silent until there is a question to answer; good questions pull forth deep and satisfying answers. Some of tell me that God has blessed me with a good talent for writing those answers. The whole issue in this series is discerning how we should respond to questions about our faith. Religion is an organized implementation that responds to the calling of faith, so if you question my religion — including my blather about it — you strengthen my awareness of what faith demands. We all need to contemplate how we will answer such questions. God bless you, Mr. T!)
http://www.theswordbearer.org/p005_summaries.html
What do you think about this?
I’ll have to look at it when I have time, Steven.
Steven asked, “What do you think about this?” in reference to a linked site.
Steven, let’s start with initial impressions. The website sucks as web design goes. At the very least, bad web design can distract from your message, but that varies with your target audience. But there’s more: You can be subtly manipulative in the use of color, text, and the various mechanisms that can be at least a small factor in manipulating the psychological state of the reader. Whether the writer knows it or not, that page is designed to stir emotional noise in the background of the reader’s mind. It’s confrontational, and appeals to a certain set of character traits to build a frame of reference.
And the material adopts a confrontational tone. That has artistic uses, so it’s not wrong in itself, but this whole thing builds a context that supports the underlying message that is not particularly Christian nor Hebraic, but very much arising from the Anglo-Saxon culture. Instead of the Hebraic “war is sometimes a necessity,” the writer pulls out “war is life.” It is the essence, the very foundation of all his blather. Right away he posits that God is a warrior, that Satan is militantly rebellious, etc. It’s all cast in Western feudalism, the tribal warrior culture of the Germanic hordes that invaded the Roman Empire. This is the same Germanic warrior culture that the Roman Church embraced as the moral mythology behind their perverted gospel message.
Paul uses words to indicate he understood Roman imperial military thinking. The Old Testament records a lot of military conflict. The imagery serves a purpose. But a lot of people forget that there is a dramatic difference in the flavor and moral orientation of Old Testament warfare. I don’t have room to characterize it in much detail here, but that writer is rebuilding the Anglo-Saxon culture using the words of Scripture. His methods of interpretation are thoroughly Western. His attack on modern church structure is more a matter of, “Let’s go back in time to an earlier point on the same path.” It’s not about leaving that path.
“This series has been greatly enhanced by the probing questions of commenter Mr T. “
Thanks, I’ll try to be (accidentally?) of assistence in the future as well.
What do you think of the role of other religions in the world? Are they just “legacy stuff” before Christianity that will be conquered (for example Michael Heiser’s Psalm 82 view), creations on man, or deception, or functional parts of the whole spiritual system of Earth for now? Or something else?
What do you think of the role of other religions in the world?
That depends on the religion. Broadly speaking, the New Testament in particular hints that all humanity can find God because of the moral component in Creation. His moral nature is within reach of any human soul that awakens on that level, and Scripture leaves that door open. Only a Western mind gets totally lost on this; most every culture except the West acknowledges the heart as a sort of mind in itself and generally accepts the notion of a higher realm. Some religions represent an honest reaching for the ultimate moral truth, even if poorly informed. The Old Testament bluntly acknowledges its provisions apply only to the covenant nation, and that many would please God outside that covenant because it wasn’t for them in the first place. There is only one true God, and we can hardly put limits on whom He will redeem, and how. The centrality of Christ as a final revelation is not a legalistic provision; it does not exclude people who don’t know Him or people who hear about Him from really bad missionaries.
“You would have no spirit were it not united in Life to the Spirit of God. “
Are you sure about that? My current idea/understanding is that the Holy Spirit comes to live inside the spiritual component of man (which pretty much exists from birth/cenception, as well as body and soul) and cleanses all the spiritual crap we may have accumulated along the way. The “spiritual component/interface” of man could have other stuff than the Holy Spirit, but who wants those (apart from witches/satanists)?
For example the page https://bible.org/seriespage/2-man-trinity-spirit-soul-body says this: “The word “spirit” when used in the Scriptures has several meanings. Whenever the word “Spirit” appears used with a capital letter, it has but one meaning. It is the name of the third Person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit of God. The word “spirit” spelled with a small letter may have one of several different meanings. It can have direct reference to the spirit of man which is as much a part of the tripartite nature of man as the Spirit of the living God is a Person of the Holy Trinity. Or it can indicate an evil spirit such as any agent of the Devil. We will confine ourselves here to the Biblical usage of the word only as it relates to the spirit of man, one of the three constituent parts of his being.”
By the numbers, Mr. T:
1. Parabolic language: We cannot state with legalistic precision because we cannot be sure. The human spirit belongs to the higher realm, so there can be no literal statements. We have models, not precise descriptions.
2. Contextual emphasis: What is the effective difference between a dead spirit and no spirit at all?
3. Translation: Don’t confuse an English rendering with the original thoughts of the writers in Scripture. They were people, a people who thought in parables, and the current “Jewish” legalism came far later in history than the entire Old Testament. English is a crappy language for Hebrew thoughts.
Mr T – I’m going to split hairs now 🙂
“The “spiritual component/interface” of man could have other stuff than the Holy Spirit, but who wants those (apart from witches/satanists)?”
It seems you’ve fallen victim to popularized notions about witches and Satanists. For one, the terms are not really interchangeable, as using “/” would indicate you might be suggesting. To me it is important that we understand these are catch phrases, insults in fact, terms invented to exclude the possibility that anyone other than (a certain brand) of Christians could have access to God.
Satanism – if you ever met an actual Satanist, you wouldn’t know it. Those who call themselves Satanists aren’t, they’re posers. Or, lastly, there are the Satanists who are actually poking fun, the whole thing is satire, meant to provoke hysteria among the Bible-thumpers. Quite successfully, too, more’s the shame.
Witches – yes there are witches and they come in many flavours, but think of them as Mystics. They’re not dangerous or evil, but in tune with currents of reality other than those ‘approved’ by church or science. Often their abilities are inherited, such things run in families. Again, *most* who **claim** to be witches are probably posers; if they claim to use magic as a weapon for profit or revenge, then they are definitely posers. Lastly, the word “warlock” means traitor. Anyone who claims himself as such is so ignorant of the terms of the trade he is certainly a fake!
I know this may not seem important, but it is. It’s a matter of respect that we not go bandying about labels and insults to things we don’t fully understand. It also helps in the struggle many have to differentiate between sensationalism and reality.
“It seems you’ve fallen victim to popularized notions about witches and Satanists. “
Not really, thought admittedly my sample size is very small — and purposefully evil. There are actually narcissists (people with personality disorders) who do these things for the purposes of power and manipulation. And the rest of bad motivations. I didn’t really even believe in this spiritual stuff before coming across a member of this one who really went all the way to show that things can work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Order_of_Nine_Angles . But I do know what I’m talking about, unfortunately.
So yes, my experiences aren’t at all representative of that which is out there, but certainly not all witches let alone actual “supernaturally oriented” satanists are nice or functional people. And they do want to get revenge. Unfortunately there are nutcases and truly evil people in existence.
I believe it’s a question of terminology, not the actual individual examples, Mr. T.
Mr T., the Wiki link you offer has nothing to do with “spiritual stuff”. It has to do with personality disorders and possibly evil but I repeat, not the spiritual.
I’m going to continue to nip at your heels about terminology because we need to be as clear as we can about what we are talking about. All chickens are birds but not all birds are chickens.
If you want to know the difference between Satanism and the bunk you’ve so far come across that claims affiliation, may I suggest this site? http://www.churchofsatan.com/index.php
It’s actually not all that shocking and you’ll find that manipulation of weaker humans for fun and profit is not something a bonafide Satanist would do. It’s not “spiritual stuff” either, they are actually closer to atheists!
And here’s a nice 101 on Thelema for you and any other interested readers to wade through (relating to the work of Aleister Crowley mentioned in Ed’s post above this one.)
http://www.religioustolerance.org/thelema1.htm
“I believe it’s a question of terminology”
Certainly, I’m among the worst nit-pickers I know, and it’s probably normal among Christians to see especially those other groups as enemies without further consideration. “You shall not allow a sorceress to live”, mediaval witch hunts, and so on.
By the way, I was recently looking for an article I saw before that was about the Axial Age and Bible prophecy. I found only this, but it’s an interesting topic; God does guide history and obviously God does know about all the changes, whatever those “sinister acausal forces of history” are up to:
“Above all others, Jeremiah is the “axial” man prepared by God. God told Jeremiah, a prophet not only to Israel and Judah but to the nations and kingdoms, to root out, pull down, destroy, throw down, build, and plant.”
Matthew 24:14: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”
I’m thinking this is not the same militaristic new social order called “Imperium” that those ONA people are talking about. (Sorry about the flippancy, I think it’s among my current character faults as well.)
“Mr T., the Wiki link you offer has nothing to do with “spiritual stuff”. It has to do with personality disorders and possibly evil but I repeat, not the spiritual.”
I think that “spiritual stuff” (or supernatural or hyperdimensional or…) also covers the dark and evil aspects of things, such as child sacrifices to Moloch etc. that we can read in the Bible.
Apparently satanists also vary widely in their ideas of what it consists of, “traditional satanism” or something else. I’m not really interested in this or it’s definitions as such, I just encountered the fact that it works in real life (same as Christianity, thank God!) if you encounter the wrong (or right) people and one can use it to “do things” in the world — and have an impact. As I said I’m not sure how representative my encounters are of the spectrum of people that generally are involved (probably not that), but let’s just say that “left-hand occult path” can get really left-hand.
On the other hand they don’t seem to be fans of Western Civilization either: “The purpose of aeonic magick is to influence large numbers of people over a lengthy period of time, thus affecting the development of future aeons. In particular it is employed with the intent of disrupting the current socio-political system of the Western world, which the ONA believe has been corrupted by Judeo-Christian religion.”
“In particular it is employed with the intent of disrupting the current socio-political system of the Western world, which the ONA believe has been corrupted by Judeo-Christian religion.”
Well, instead of the germanizing of Jesus (as with British Israelism), it’s just a return to the older pagan Germanic religions, which is a strong element in Nazism. It identifies Jesus as a Jew-thing. I happen to agree that Judeo-Christianity is a serious problem for entirely different reasons. It’s a brand of faux Christian religion that agrees with the Judaism that crucified Christ, adopting the Pharisaical legalism as a fundamental epistemological orientation. Judeo-Christianity is the result after the Judaizers won their propaganda war against the ancient Hebraic (Abrahamic) faith Jesus taught. The ONA is wholly uninteresting to me.
My, but aren’t we having fun chasing all these rabbits? 🙂
“The ONA is wholly uninteresting to me.” And me, but apparently Mr T is pretty interested so I figured I’d have a look-see. Honestly? I find the ONA laughable – especially as we remember that anyone and their dog can make a Wiki entry – but I do also know that these groups and their ilk can be terribly dangerous to the gullible. And I care about the gullible. I had thought Mr T would be interested to know about the more serious and in some cases deeply religious and God-seeking aspects of “this spiritual stuff”.
I must have misinterpreted.
So – of course “this stuff” works Mr T (although we could debate what ‘works’ means too). Tell me, what is your real interest in it? Is there someone chasing you down these rabbit holes? You mentioned self defence earlier – why would you need it?
Do you have a program, ideas or some practical suggestions to improve or replace Western civilization? Or our individual positions in it? Or current mainstream Christianity? Or what are the main points you could do to improve your own thinking (fast) without all the vast intellectual background to be mastered? Usually you probably can’t entirely get out (and where to move?) because of family, jobs, personal history etc.
Do you have a program, ideas or some practical suggestions to improve or replace Western civilization? Or our individual positions in it? Or current mainstream Christianity?
Improve? No. The West is an empire built on sand. Replace? That’s above my pay grade; it’s already happening. Our individual position with it is the whole point of the practical portion of my teaching. I keep teaching that humans are wired for ANE feudal social and political structure. We don’t expect any modern nation or state to accept that, and it seems ever less likely. So to the extent possible, we recreate as much of that as we can in our church bodies. It’s not hard to prove that’s how the first churches were structured, and it’s not a giant leap to suggest Paul and the others attempted to sow the seeds of that structure in their church plants. It was no mere cultural bias, but the obvious implications of revelation up that point.
However, I’m wholly unwilling on moral grounds to propose a detailed pattern for it. I’ve been part of at least one Baptist church that came very close to this without violating Baptist rules on such things. Frankly, the state incorporation laws for obtaining a tax exemption puts restrictions on how churches do things, but that one church seemed the only one I’ve seen able to play along with the rules and still do what really mattered most. It was the first time I got a taste of serving as “elder in effect” and it opened a door to a lot of moral understanding.
Previous blog posts are peppered with frame-of-reference suggestions about making churches more like ANE feudal households. I suppose if churches bought into that, most could figure out a path they could tolerate and who’s to say it wouldn’t please God? However, I submit to you that a far bigger problem is the vast substrate of intellectual assumptions that have yielded the highly detailed systematic theology approach to religion itself that would be the biggest sticking point. I simply cannot imagine denominations suddenly deciding that orthodoxy just doesn’t matter and dissolving their hold on the membership.
Thus, I feel that starting with a virtual parish will at least help us to start thinking in a different way about church.
“You mentioned self defence earlier – why would you need it?”
Well, I found Robert Bruce’s “Practical Psychic Self Defense Handbook, The: A Survival Guide” handy when I was involved with a certain cult leader who first tried to manipulate and recruit me using all kinds of spiritual/occult methods. His background organisation was presumably that, but he has his own cult as well. It has Internet presence as well.
So my interest is generally “what is out there” and what is possible — and how to defend yourself against this kind of manipulation and occult stuff (as a Christian). You don’t want to get killed by these people psysically or by occult methods. Or manipulated.
Of course nowadays I hold my distance to these kinds of characters, but the experience was valuable in showing what kinds of people exits and how occult “spiritual stuff” can be used to have visible real life effects and try to control people. So I did become a Christian because of that episode: it’s evidence I couldn’t ignore that the spiritual/supernatural is real.
Christine: “this stuff” works
I mean all kinds of occult stuff works, astral projection/remote viewing, rituals, manifesting demons to harrass people, spirit guides, depth psychological manipulation — spiritual warfare from a Christian perspective… It was new to me — the whole fact it is possible at all — coming from a wholly nerdy naturalistic/agnostic pespective. It’s interesting but also “hard to model” at first, especially when it is being used to manipulate and control you.
So my first major encouter with “spiritual stuff” wasn’t positive at all and came from a major manipulator. But it showed what it can do in wrong (totally unethical and evil) hands. So my interest was first in explaining how it was possible at all and could I do something to defend myself.
Those were the first priorities; now it’s more broad and general. (So no, I’m not looking to manipulate people myself, which seems to be your take on my intentions.)
No, no, I never thought your take was wanting to manipulate anyone. I suspected you had got yourself into trouble in your explorations and were badly frightened. I also wanted to make clear that there are many versions of the occult/wiitchcraft/take yer pick and, in my experience, they’re legitimate explorations of reality by quite lovely people. So far, all your examples have been the worst of the bunch and I was hoping to steer you clear of them. Concern, not suspicion.
I imagine it must have been a shock to discover it wasn’t all pretend. I once got into some trouble by inadvertently attracting the attention of a very nasty self proclaimed “warlock”. Highly unpleasant experience; as it happened I knew my way around the playground so I came to no harm (Full disclosure – I am what is known as a hereditary witch, the working of spells & such was passed down through the women of my family). It was my own fault for sticking my nose in where I shouldn’t have. Lesson learned.
So, Mr T, I speak to you from experience. Play safe!
[sarcasm alert] *sniff-snuffle* Now I’m feeling all left out because nobody like that ever attacked me. I feel insulted an unwanted.
Okay, my experience has been more mundane in that sense. What I do know is that for the vast majority of us folks, we experience Satan’s power internally more than externally. Scripture uses parabolic language to indicate that he is circumscribed by the moral truth in the sense that we can avoid an awful lot of spooky stuff by simply absorbing the Law Covenants as indicators of moral boundaries. The Devil has a tough time transgressing the hedge of faithful obedience. We do have some Jobs out there who face unusual tests, but those tend to be rare. I had a tiny taste of his experience and it turns out Job was tougher than me.
However, obedience to the moral imperatives of conviction results in a powerful sense of confidence. I’m not spooked by things that go “bump” in the night. I’ll be glad to check out your favorite genuinely haunted house for you. I’m not tossing out a challenge to the Devil or to folks who like to dabble in dark arts, but I am at peace that God can handle that stuff. It’s that kind of faith I try to teach people who spent too much watching stupid horror flix.
Christine: “had got yourself into trouble in your explorations”
Mostly I’ve just read the Bible, and even the single most occult book I’ve read is probably that above mentioned Bruce’s Practical Psychic Self-Defence (can recommend!). Though I did try some astrology, mindfulness and i-ching before. Haven’t read (not to mention tried the methods of) any actual occult literature, but have read some Christian spiritual warfare and deliverance books. Montalk.net was quite useful & insightful for that “hyperdimensional war” stuff.
I’m guessing that to actually get usable real life results (using third eye, astral, etc.) would require a lot of study and personal effort, which I would rather not do. Reasons: laziness and fear of God and demonization. The most interesting new aspect was the time/acausal manipulation one, but I don’t want to do any weird rituals or blood sacrifices as a Christian.
I’d rather just try to be moral & Godly and pray occasionally or if the situation requires it. But I can read about esoteric stuff and study this way if you have any recommendations. At least I can now believe that all kinds of things can happen in reality and the spiritual worlds are very real and sometimes (too) concrete.
“and were badly frightened.”
You can say that; I was actually in a psychotic state for over 6 months after the attack (that’s my go to method for stress reduction, apparently).
The psychosis was trippy enough for me and also showed that your conscious/mental state can have weird effects on reality on its own. Untangling this spiritual attack and psychosis is still slightly uncertain terotory.
Psychosis alone is a turbo boost for you monadic consciousness in a sense, but can wreck your brain (delusions and strain). And I didn’t even notice that state (you can be pretty functional and functional looking yet psychotic; it’s presumably some kind of an dopamine and exploratory/sensory data/association overdose mode, see the two last paragraphs of this page) but God brought my mental state to my attention using other believers. Now I’m better and the antipsychotic drugs actually do work for me.
Ed: “he is circumscribed by the moral truth in the sense that we can avoid an awful lot of spooky stuff by simply absorbing the Law Covenants as indicators of moral boundaries.”
That’s true, I think. Of course there’s deliverance ministries and exorcists who have to deal with these kind of things.
You can’t really discuss this kind of material (spiritual, occult, esoteric) with your average Christian believer at least where I live. There’s a lot of things you can do throught spiritual methods, but the average Christian probably only knows about prayer — possibly that’s even a good thing.
Oh my .. if this is getting too personal we can take it to email Mr T, but in the meantime I believe our discussions may be revealing to others too. There’s a lot to address in your comment here and I’ll be cutting/pasting in a different order than you wrote it, hope you don’t mind..
“I was actually in a psychotic state for over 6 months after the attack (that’s my go to method for stress reduction, apparently).”
It’s this attack that you reference that I’m talking about, or more to the point how you got yourself into a position of vulnerability for it to happen. It sounds as though either on the internet or real life, you stumbled into a bad neighbourhood.
“The most interesting new aspect was the time/acausal manipulation one, but I don’t want to do any weird rituals or blood sacrifices as a Christian.”
Forgive me as I pound the pulpit for a moment: BLOOD SACRIFICES ARE JUST PLAIN OFF THE TABLE ANYWAY. They are not, nor have they ever have been, part of a legitimate exploration of “this spiritual stuff”. I don’t know what you mean by “weird rituals” but let’s agree that whatever it is, they’re not a good idea, nor are they necessary for anything you may want to achieve like astral travel. Get that notion that they are out of your head. If someone says EITHER of these are necessary, that someone is leading you astray.
“time/acausal manipulation” – NO. Don’t dick around with that stuff. Please. Just don’t. Human beings are designed to live within time. We have bodies and brains which rely on that. Mess with time you mess up your circadian rhythms and risk physical infirmity (like autoimmune diseases) and psychosis. God can do anything He wants with time, and sometimes our perception of time will vary, but don’t go thinking you can safely manipulate it. What’s the point, anyway? Just to say you can? That’s a power trip, *just thinking you could* is playing into the hands of your inner demons. (I speak here of the psychological demons we all have)
“Using third eye/astral stuff” is actually something we can all do, it is inherent in our make-up. “Astral stuff” is directed dreaming (google that) and the third eye is, or can be, an ability that comes from the heart-mind-brain connection. We all have pineal glands.
“Montalk.net was quite useful & insightful for that “hyperdimensional war” stuff.”
“Hyperdimensional war” is an illusion. There simply is no such thing. This dimension, right here, is all we need concern ourselves with and we have our hands full at that. IF there were others that would be none of our business. Here and now, that’s our business.
“At least I can now believe that all kinds of things can happen in reality and the spiritual worlds are very real and sometimes (too) concrete.”
Forget these so called spiritual worlds Mr T. If you were called by God to be involved in them He’d have grounded you much better in this one first. He never puts us to work unprepared. You’ve been mislead about a lot of things but that’s the nature of the internet; it’s a circus out there. (she says, noting the irony of writing this on the internet)
Mr T. here’s my advice – get grounded. No, I do NOT mean go to google and look up grounding and then buying gadgets and special shoes and the like. I mean get up early every morning and greet the dawn. I mean go for a walk every damn day no matter the weather. Eat 3 square meals of real food a day and snack on fruit. Try to get to a park and hang out under a nice big tree. Listen to the birds. Try not to use electronics after sundown.
In short, try to live in the world God gave you to live in, and get yourself back into your body so that your mind can quiet itself. It’s going to take some time, and that’s okay, it’s how it should be.
“I’d rather just try to be moral & Godly and pray occasionally or if the situation requires it. But I can read about esoteric stuff and study this way if you have any recommendations”
Pray daily. Pray first thing in the morning, pray on your walks, especially under a tree and pray last thing at night. Pour your heart out to the Lord, tell Him everything. Let Him calm your mind, because there is nothing He can’t handle for you.
I have no recommendations for esoteric reading right now. Stay with Buhner’s book, which will take you some time to get through anyway. Maybe some C.S. Lewis – “Mere Christianity” is excellent, or even the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (yes, it’s a children’s book yet it is much more, too. The movie is a crap in comparison). If you are going to read ‘esoteric stuff’ anyway, please just avoid sites and books that speak of aliens and interdimensional war. DO read Ed’s books, they’re excellent.
This got long, sorry. If you are still reading, please know that I care about you, which may seem odd as we are strangers, but that’s what happens at this virtual parish, we care about each other. Ed calls me “Mama Elder”, a role I didn’t understand until you came along, so I owe you a thank-you for helping me grow into it. It just happens that I’ve been (sort of) where you are now, and I hope to save you some grief by giving you the benefit of my experience there.
God bless you and keep you Mr T. I’m praying for you and I’ll help in any way I’m able.
Sister Christine, your long comment has my full endorsement. I think readers need to know that.
Thanks Ed
Mr T – just followed your link about Latent Inhibition. Buhner discusses that in his book, he calls it “gating”. You’ll find his take interesting.
About Ed’s books: I have read them ALL, both fiction and non. His books were the first to help me extricate myself from my ego lead life (as in my mind calling all the shots, defining who I was, interpreting all I read, experienced and etc) and finally learn how to breathe a deep, heart filled sigh! Now, I have very simple truths that guide and lead me. From harried to peaceful. From complex/complicated to simple/simplified.
No, Ed didn’t save me, but his writings are/were the catalyst that started me down this path.
I made the mistake of thinking that my intellect could most assuredly understand everything I needed to know and that the more I read the more I would ‘know’. Now, I know differently. My backyard teaches me more than my smarty pants mind could ever attempt to! (:-)
Thanks for the endorsement, Linda.
Christine, thanks for the tips and the concern!
But I want to emphasize that I’m NOT doing or plan to actually DO any of those occult/esoteric things I mentioned. They were just examples of what I now know are possibilities in reality.
And personally I need to know how/what is possible, but I (probably) would’t do or try to do it myself. My grasp on reality can be weak sometimes, but since these events occured and are possible, I had to find (intellectual) explanations.
So far I have basically just read the Bible and prayed in terms of “spiriritual methods, which is enough.
Well okay Mr T.
I’m not sure I got across that most of what I saw in the links you provided is not real .. honestly I was quite disturbed by what I saw. It would be very easy for anyone raised on virtual reality and the mythology of the Matrix to fall for it, the seduction/mind control techniques used in the design are really something.
Yep, disturbing.
Christine, “or more to the point how you got yourself into a position of vulnerability for it to happen.”
A couple of factors:
– I wasn’t a believer in the significance of spiritual matters before. Or that some things are possible in reality. (I am now.)
– I didn’t really believe that for example those cult people take themselves or their goals that seriously. (I was wrong. They can be serious.)
Also some existing mental health issues, such as anxiety/depression/tendency towards psychoticism.
“It sounds as though either on the internet or real life, you stumbled into a bad neighbourhood.”
I was careless.
“you may want to achieve like astral travel”
I’m not really looking for to actually archieve much, I’m kinda of the opinion that everything except the Bible and praying is of the Devil — or could be. (Approximately, as a precautionary principle.) Though I’m willing to revise my opinions. And I’m a nerdy intellectual anyway, doing things practically is quite often out of my comfort area.
The most practical idea I found in Robert Bruce’s Practical Psychic Self-Defence book was that I now have several water fountains. And you can ground yourself also using cables.
For example regarding Astral projection I saw this video months ago: “Astral Projection: What’s Really Happening When U Do This?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6y9iYCCVyk . I have no idea what really is going on, but as far as I know it could be accurate. “Astral projection is not possible unless you let spiritual power into your body…. but the spirits you let in are not of the most high God…. but they are Satanic forces.. These forces are hell bent on killing stealing and destroying.” Can’t really check this out, could be or could be not. Not willing to try.
““time/acausal manipulation” – NO. Don’t dick around with that stuff.”
The point was that I didn’t have any choice — those things dicked around with me without much warning. I’m not looking to do much, just understand what happened and to make sure that it doesn’t happen again. Of course God conceivably could have other ideas in store for me.
That suggestion to get grounded and also forget about (some/most) this stuff for a while was an excellent one. This can really get you out of touch with reality, especially if you already have the tendency.
C. S. Lewis is good, I’ve been reading several of his books.
T – No, you cannot ground yourself using cables. That’s for machinery, we’re not machines, we’re biological creatures. Fountains sound nice! The earth is what we need, good old planet earth. Bare feet in the grass is the best medicine for what ails you.
” “Astral projection is not possible unless you let spiritual power into your body…. but the spirits you let in are not of the most high God…. but they are Satanic forces.”
Ha! That’s utter twaddle. Except if it frightens people and makes them feel vulnerable, it’s not a laughing matter.
Just remember, fear is a big motivator and all these internet schiesters know it. Some of them may believe what they’re saying, but that’s their problem, not yours.
I think you’ll start to feel better with some time off from thinking about all this stuff. Enjoy your reading and walking!
Christine, No, you cannot ground yourself using cables. “
I read some time ago the Earthing book by Clinton Ober et al. (https://www.earthing.com/what-is-earthing/) which claims otherwise. It has to do with ions and your body. And grounding myself even using cables has had a positive effect on my mental state and body just like Robert Bruce says in his book.
Of course I would recommend getting outdoords as well, but it’s still pretty cold here, and there’s small amounts of snow still left. Melting fast, though. Your feet would’t exactly froze barefooted, but you would get cold — and a cold, maybe! (Current outdoor temperature is 1 degrees Celsius / 34 Fahrenheit.)
I also bought a Q Link pendant which can have an effect on your blood as well.
I’ve also tried to wear a Lakhovsky coil (http://www.copperhealth.com/coil_printable_version.htm) which did improve my back.
So I can recommend all of the previous, but you might need to have a pretty sensitive nervous system to notice big differences.
“Ha! That’s utter twaddle.”
The biggest problem I see is that ehere are so very many opinions regarding all matters. And since it’s the unseem realm, it’s hard to check. Many unknown variables.
For example perhaps the best single page about demons and things of that nature that I’ve found is Montalk’s “Dislodging Negative Entity Attachments” (http://montalk.net/notes/dislodging-negative-entity-attachments) and I’m not sure if there’s that much more information out there at all. But something like that should probably be known by everybody who has an interest in these things.
Christine, “I’m not sure I got across that most of what I saw in the links you provided is not real .. “
I think for Montalk.net to have value you pretty much have to extract all the (1) “science sounding speculations” (etheric/astral planes and so on) and empirical stuff from the (2) spiritual/esoteric/occult (possibly and likely inaccurate or false) background assumptions. For example his Gnostic take on the Bible, The Ark and Christ doesn’t make much sense to me. It’s really bad theology even for a beginner like me.
The good part is that he clearly can think and has an empirical mindset, the bad part is that clearly he has bought into much of that alien/Gnostic etc. mythology. My opinion: not much can be known for certain, except that God exists and even “normal” Christianity is true, anti-evil and something that can be trusted to have good spiritual and real-world effects relatively speaking. Also: weirdness exists.
By the way, if you’re looking for a take that is more Biblical and Christian and doesn’t have that many Gnostic/occult components/assumptions, I’ve found the following informative:
— The Bible, Physics, and the Abilities of Fallen Angels: http://paradoxbrown.com/biblephysicsfallenangels.htm/
— From L. A. Marzulli’s: The Cosmic Chess Match! Chapter 7: Job. A Look Into The Third Heaven! https://lamarzulli.wordpress.com/2013/04/14/sunday-go-to-meeting-bun-74/
— The Coming Great Deception and Luciferian Endgame: https://lamarzulli.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/the-coming-great-deception-4/
“I believe that the seemingly unrealistic scenario that I have described above very well may be the Luciferian “Endgame.” In other words, I believe that fallen angels disguised as aliens will in fact manifest, and lay claims to the creation of the human species, and execution of the miracles that have happened on earth; this will be the great “lie” against which the Bible warns. “
Christine: “Hyperdimensional war” is an illusion. There simply is no such thing. This dimension, right here, is all we need concern ourselves with and we have our hands full at that. IF there were others that would be none of our business. Here and now, that’s our business.”
That’s a very good point to keep in mind and to keep you grounded in the real world, but another way of looking at spiritual material is the following.
From http://paradoxbrown.com/biblephysicsfallenangels.htm/ :
“All of this leads to the point that this invisible spiritual realm may be composed of more dimensions, as per the scientific use of the term. The additional dimension(s) of the invisible spiritual realm, would be an extra dimension that is at least one more than the 4 dimensions that we perceive. Thus it would be fair to call angels “extra-dimensional”, meaning of more dimensions than us, esp. if the invisible spiritual realm correlates to extra dimensions, per the science use of the term.
However, God is not simply extra-dimensional. God is eternal, and therefore is what I call “outer-dimensional”. God is outside of dimensionality, being eternal and the Creator of everything that is, including all theoretical dimensions of the heavens and earth, and everything living in them. So to coin a term, God is “outer-dimensional”. This is an important distinction between the God the Creator, and His creation. The Bible says that all three of the heavens and the earth cannot contain God, which makes sense as He made them all; however they do manage to contain everything He created. “But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?” 1 Kin 8:27
Now, the Earth is made by God, and it has visible dimensions that science has studied many things in, and the same for the first and second heaven. We also know there is an invisible spiritual realm throughout God’s creation. Science has said much on the visible physical realm. But the fact that the spiritual realm is invisible does not mean that science will never have anything to say about it, or that no rules or bounds may operate upon the angels who live there. In fact, it seems that there are rules and bounds, like laws of physics, which are inherit in the spiritual realm as well. “
Mr. T posted a quote: “But the fact that the spiritual realm is invisible does not mean that science will never have anything to say about it, or that no rules or bounds may operate upon the angels who live there. In fact, it seems that there are rules and bounds, like laws of physics, which are inherit [sic] in the spiritual realm as well.”
I scanned the linked source and was quickly disappointed by the assertion of Western epistemology over parabolic language. I find it tiresome because I was there once, and discovered it was bogus. It’s an exercise in futility. Human rational science dies at the boundaries of this dimension. The very structure of thought and knowing do not survive the passage; you have to die and leave this human frame to pass over. Science is a construct of fallen humanity. That’s not a question about how well it works for its intended purpose, but simply to indicate the limitations.
Be aware that the people who wrote the Bible used a lot of figurative language (parabolic language) that had nothing to do with what they actually believed about things. If everybody and his dog uses the phrase, “bring my gray hairs down to Sheol,” it gains a vested meaning far beyond the words themselves. It reflects a primitive Mesopotamian mythology that is not consistent with revelation, but everyone knew what it meant as a colorful contextual expression. The same goes for the expression “third heaven” that Paul uses; it comes from the mythology of the Pharisees, not from revelation. You should not assume Paul describes an experience, but that he characterizes it. There’s nothing deceptive about that usage as it was commonly understood as a literary expression of his times. Sometimes they used such terms with sarcasm and Westerners don’t catch on.
All of this pretense to accurately slice and dice terms and phrases is a Western approach to extract data, and utterly miss the moral gravity behind the words. So the longer quote you use does sometimes approach the apparent factual basis at some points, but assumes too much importance in them. For example, science has yet to ascertain usable data on anything beyond the four dimensions we experience as fallen humans. Thus, you can use the term “dimension” either precisely in factual chatter, or you can use it merely as a figure of speech to color our discussions of things we could never understand in reference to spiritual things. You cannot presume to use factual structures to describe anything beyond the boundaries of those four dimensions we experience here. Revelation as a whole warns against trying to escape this realm alive. Whatever is “out there” beyond this realm of existence is not accessible to the human mind.
And you would be hard put to treat my response as stuffy orthodoxy, because I’m relying on the Holy Spirit and your own heart to verify what constitutes a prophetic warning that too much of that blather from the likes of “Paradox Brown” will pull you away from your divine calling. Whatever it is he is doing, he has no part in our faith.
Good morning all.
Mr T. – It sounds like your climate is much like ours. Spring is just taking forever and I’m not getting out as much as I know I should either. The thermometer reading isn’t the problem (we’re a bit colder than you) it’s the wind! I do my best to find a sheltered spot in the yard to sit in, bundled, and face the sun. I take my boots off while I sit there even in freezing temperatures, but you have to understand, I’m hardcore. I’ve never liked shoes, in fact my feet are essentially leather due to a lifetime of resisting any kind of footwear.
While technically speaking, cables can “ground” because ions, and I’m glad to hear it makes you feel better, I would still heartily disagree that it has the same benefits. The Earth, the sky, the sun, the bare branches in silhouette against the sky .. in combination, those physical components offer the body more than just ionic grounding. As creatures we need to hook back into Creation and through it to the Creator, to refresh our spirits and nourish our hearts.
You see, He has given us all this, and it is perfect for us, just as He created it. Humans (and this is part of the Fall) keep insisting that we can improve upon His gifts. It only gets us into trouble in the long term; in reality we can’t improve upon anything He’s provided. I prefer to cut out the middle man when it comes to my physical well being and stay as close to the Source as my life will permit. So much so that I do appear a bit odd I suppose, in my barefoot, wild food eating ways I’m something of a barbarian.
In a way, because you and I know nothing about each other’s lives, our conversations are hit and miss. Bit by bit we build up a picture of each other with snippets we reveal, and we’re bound to misunderstand each other’s motivations and interests here and there.
I’ve chosen not to cut/paste from your comments this time or respond to the links and quotes because they have no relevance to my life or my path to understanding what my life *means*. My interests do not include how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or any other human attempt to categorize what cannot be measured. I am content with Mystery. I am content to know that there is much I will never know. What matters to me is to live this physical existence with the guidance of the Holy Spirit in my life, that’s all. It is plenty!
Yes, I have studied Qabalah and yes, my background is in Thelema. I understand these as simply handy tools for my mind, a sort of language in which I can think or explain to myself concepts that the Western, English speaking education I have just didn’t touch. When I was younger I sought answers ‘out there’, and I even looked to others **for the questions***. In a gradual process, that process we call living, I’ve grown to understand that the seeking itself was a distraction. It dissipated my energy and kept me from living in the here and now.
The accumulation of theory is nothing in comparison to the lived experience.
Can you please comment on John 3:16
I could, Reba, if I knew what your specific question was. The world is awash in comment on that verse, as well as the rest of the passage in John 3. Please as a specific question.