I’m hoping to connect the dots here so that you’ll understand the confusion in our world today.
Refer to my long paper The Cult [PDF]. That paper was a condensed version of my book, A Course in Biblical Mysticism, but with a narrow focus on understanding how Judaism was used by Satan as his greatest tool. This series will in some ways parallel The Cult.
Let’s review the nature of the Fall: It’s closing off the supremacy of the heart over the intellect. Thus, in Eden the intellect was enthroned in human decision as the new god of moral truth. In essence, it places human frailty above revelation, since reason is not eternal, but a part of the ephemeral fleshly nature. We had to leave the Garden.
The Flaming Sword restores the primacy of the Creator by requiring the death of that kind of self-worship. The whole point of written revelation and Law Covenants is to manifest the nature of self-death and restoring faith/conviction as the source of moral truth in human decisions. You cannot obey Biblical Law without first reawakening the supremacy of the heart over the mind.
So Satan, having once in Eden taken us down the path of false self-reliance, now strives to keep us on that path. He will offer anything at all, whatever it takes to keep you deceived about the nature of the Flaming Sword.
There are some fundamental principles of how he operates among us today.
1. False dichotomy: false binary thinking. This is the most common thing about American culture in particular. So we have only two political parties, for example, and most folks will categorize you as one or the other. Everything is reasoned in two dimensions.
2. Anything but Christ: an appeal to whatever one internal barrier keeps people from embracing the Covenant of Christ. It seems there must be hundreds of different religions, many that claim His name, but always bearing under that name some peculiar things they do that prevent a heart-led pursuit of genuine faith.
3. Divide and conquer: combining the previous two items. First, create as many different kinds of religion as necessary to appeal to almost everyone. Then, establish the principle that everyone is either in or out based on some peculiar requirement with each religion. “You aren’t a Christian unless…” The Devil will feed folks different lies to build partisan animosity (false tribalism).
4. Bypass the Flaming Sword: Satan offers all different ways of crawling back into Eden, but by any means except the Flaming Sword. But instead of seeking the real Tree of Life and the lost fellowship with the Father, it always portrayed as some magical place of power over the natural world, including power over other people to bend them to your whims.
We have hints in the narrative of Noah about people trying desperately to find some competitive advantage over their fellow humans, some way of gaining leverage and control over the factors of this life. Sometimes it was some alleged secret knowledge, dark lore that was hidden from the rest of the world. It always led to some kind elitism, that those on the inside were somehow special, different and better than everyone else.
Thus, for example, Kabbalism is about manipulation of Creation using a false power of words and ritual magic (law magic as ritual magic). “Word Faith” Christian religion (name-it-and-claim-it) is Kabbalism in disguise. Using law magic, Kabbalists and others would seek to compel demons and angels to do them favors. The angelic beings are lower emanations of God, one step above humans. This hearkens back to the Gnostic notion that God is pure ideal. This gave birth to the heresy that Jesus was either too holy to be real, and thus a phantom who left no footprints on the sand, or He was too real to be holy and was just a wise man. The notion of multiple layers of emanation from God is also connected to Aristotle’s classified layers of reality.
Kabbalists claim that Jesus used the Tetragrammaton (four-letter Name of God) to perform miracles. This is the source of the supposed prohibition of speaking God’s Name when reading the Old Testament. There’s even supposed to be a secret name for God not in the Bible, but there is no agreement on what that is. The point is that Kabbalism asserts that what seems to work in this fallen world (science) should be the basis for understanding the Bible. This stands things upside down.
Virtually all Western occultism seems to have come from Kabbalism, in the sense that some of their basic ideas appeared first in the Kabbalah. That stream of common thought runs all the way down to Scientology, New Age stuff, and a lot of bogus modern “witchcraft”. The Kabbalah gave birth to a lot of strange children. These numerous paths claim to offer ways to cling to mystery and mysticism.
It’s not as if some secret human council or cult knowingly ginned all this stuff up; it’s the result of Satan working through people who saw only some measure of truth and felt the need to run with it. However, there does seem to be a common thread reaching back to the Judaizers of the New Testament days.
This is where it gets a little dicey writing about such things. A great deal of our references and factual information comes from sources who are either defending Judaism, or those deeply hostile to Judaism. Critical analysis is typically published most loudly by various antisemitic groups, even if the author is not one of theirs. It seems there is no safe place to stand and simply point out the obvious flaws without being targeted as the nastiest enemies of Israel. This kind of hysterical propaganda is typical of all-or-nothing, scorched earth tactics of Zionism. There is no room for friendly dissent.
Still, we have to tell the story.
Adopting the ANE mindset would eliminate any need for the story. That has to be my goal. Things sure are way out of hand and off base now in this world. Satan had done a good job.
We should be mindful of our Lord’s words in Matthew 10:16 ” Behold I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” There are others like us out there although, they may not be aware of it. I listen to what people say and I inspect fruit then I take it to the Lord in prayer and he puts me on hold until the time is ripe. Unsolicited advice; those who act all “spirit filled” and joyous are not good candidates because they think they have it all. It’s the quiet ones, the seekers and the reflective who are open. At least, that’s what I’ve learned so far.