NAVIGATION:
WE SUPPORT:
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The word Occult comes from the Latin Occultus, which means "concealed" or "hidden." It involves mystic knowledge and Magick powers received from the spirit world and dispensed for the benefit of devotees and/or directed destructively at enemies by those who have been initiated into its secrets. Practitioners of Occult power are variously known as medicine men (or women), witch doctors, Witches, psychics, priests, sorcerers, astrologers, gurus, yogis, Shamans, mediums, seers, or healers, depending upon the path, tradition or school of Occult thought the practitioner belongs to.
Some of those involved with Occult powers attribute them to a variety of deities, others to a "Force" inherent within the universe with a "dark" and "light" side which humans can tap into. Still others claim they are simply using a normal power of the mind which can be cultivated in a special state of consciousness. There are also those who attribute Occult powers to the God of the Bible.
Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary defines Occult as:
1) hidden; concealed:
2) secret; esoteric:
3) beyond human understanding, mysterious:
4) designating or of certain mystic arts or studies, such as Magick, alchemy, Astrology, etc.
In apparent agreement with the dictionary definition, and unabashedly identifying himself with the Occult, Native American Shamam Archie Fire Lame Deer boasts that a medicine man has "spiritual powers... to do something supernatural which cannot be explained by the white man's science..." An Occult connection is no embarrassment to a medicine man or practicing witch, but would be (or should be) to a priest, pastor, or televangelist, yet many professedly Christian leaders are involved in the.Occult and are leading their churches into this error, as we shall see.
Occultism has always involved three techniques for changing and creating reality: thinking, speaking, and visualizing. The first one is the most familiar, having been promoted in the world and the church as "Positive Thinking" by Norman Vincent Peale and as "Possibility Thinking" by Robert Schulter. The second is mostly known among Charismatics. It is the "Positive Confession" (or Positive Speaking) of the Faith movement.
The third technique is the most powerful. It is the fastest way to enter the world of the Occult and to pick up a spirit guide. Shamans, Witches, Ritual Magicians and other Occultists have used it for thousands of years... and now it is spreading through the body of Christ.
In his Magic: An Occult Primer, leading Occultist David Conway explains the absolute necessity of visualization for performing Ritual Magick:
"...the technique of visualization is something you will gradually master, and indeed must master if you are to make any progress at all in Magick... it is our only means of affecting the etheric atmosphere.
It enables us to build our own thought forms, contact those already in existence and channel the elemental energy we need down onto the physical plane."1
It was taught to Carl Jung by spirit beings, and through him influenced humanistic and transpersonal psychology.
It was taught to Napoleon Hill by the spirits that began to guide him. Agnes Sanford, of whom we will have more to say later, was the first to bring it into the church. Norman Vincent Peale was not far behind her, and his influence was much greater. He wrote:
"Suppose a trusted friend... said, 'There's a powerful new-old idea... a concept available to all of us that can shape and change human lives for the better in an astonishing way...' You'd say, 'Tell me about itl' wouldn't you. That's what I want to do in this book - tell you about it. The concept is a form of mental activity called imaging. It consists of vividly picturing, in your conscious mind, a desired goal or objective, and holding that image until it sinks into your unconscious mind, where it releases great, untapped energies... The idea of imaging... has been implicit in all the speaking and writing I have done... But only recently has it begun to... be recognized by scientists and medical authorities..."2
Yet this Occult technique has invaded the church. Certain leaders have been teaching visualization for years. In his booklet, The Power of the Inner Eye, Robert Schuller (like Paul Yonggi Cho and others) perverts Scripture by claiming that it advocates the Occult technique of visualization. He writes:
"In the May, 1985, issue of 'Psychology Today', there was a wonderful article entitled 'In the Mind's Eye.' [It] deals 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 yision of a church. It's all come true".
On the contrary, Solomon (Proverbs 29:18) is not encouraging the Occult practice of visualization! In it's correct context this verse is clearly referring to the visions that God gives by His own initiative to His chosen prophets in His own time and way for His own purpose, and not to someone initiating his own "vision" by fantasizing a vivid image in his imagination.
Yet this verse is used time and time again to support the false teaching that anyone (Christian or not) can conjure up his or her own visualized "vision" and that God must honour it. In Jeremiah 23:16 God warns against this very perversion:
"Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you. They are leading you into futility. They speak a vision of their own imagination, not
from the mouth of the Lord."
However, Norman Vincent Peale called visualization "positive thinking carried one step further."3 This is quite an endorsement from the man who spent his life promoting Positive Thinking! Amway Crown Direct Distributor Bunny Marks, explains the power of visualization in a motivational tape titled "What You See Is What You'll Be":
"So the first thing we must do if we wish to achieve and live the life of success, the life of plenty and happiness, is first of all to visualize it. We actually create reality by what we visualize. ...The picture you hold in your mind will develop the same way a fIlm develops... If you start visualizing what you desire, you shall have it! You can have anything you desire if you want it badly enough and begin to visualize it...
So the picture's the secret, that is the key; for the picture you hold is the picture you'll be."4
SOME SERIOUS PROBLEMS
It is astonishing that those who promote visualization never seem to deal with the obvious problems it creates. Aside from the fact that it is one of the fastest ways into Occultism, there are ethical considerations that are ignored. What right does anyone have to shuffle God's universe about with the power of his mind? And what about controlling the actions of other persons by imposing one's will upon them? Apparently oblivious to the serious implications, Agnes Sanford declared:
"Ater a few months of practice, I found that I could influence my children by 'remote control' ....in less than a minute, the child would change and the thing that I had seen in my mind would be brought forth.
It was like writing and staging a play, and seeing the picture that one had created in mind come to pass on the stage. We are indeed made in His image... He is first of
all a Creator - and so are we."5
Like so many Christian leaders today, Agnes Sanford believed that "there is a power and it does work" for anyone, Christian or not, because God works "through the application oflaws and of powers that He has created..."6 This is contradicted by both the Bible and logic.
The classical argument of the atheist is, "You just think that's a miracle because you don't yet understand the law of nature that governs in that situation." Everyone instinctively knows that anything governed by scientifically explicable laws is a natural process, whereas miracles are supernatural acts of God entirely outside the influence of the laws of cause-and-effect. Redemption, resurrection, forgiveness of sins, and instantaneous healing of organic illness are miracles beyond the limitations of physical laws and are thus acts of God's sovereign grace.
Agnes Sanford told of a young mother to whom she tried to teach visualization "in the name of Jesus Christ." The woman protested that she wasn't a Christian, to which Sanford replied that it didn't matter, since this power works for anyone: "Make the picture [in your mind] of the child as you want her to be..."7
From the stories Mrs. Sanford told, it appears that if we would all begin to visualize a world of harmony and love, planet Earth would be transformed into a paradise. She taught that "by sending forth the forgiving love of Christ," we could "bring out the natural goodness in those we meet."8 According to some of the experiences she related, Agnes was even able, through visualization, to zap an unsuspecting person with powerful thoughts and change him on the spot, even forgiving his sins and setting him free without speaking a word.9
GODS INDEED?
If, by applying certain principles or laws, we can change God's universe and remold those living in it to conform to our desires, then we are gods indeed. Norman Vincent Peale told how visualization compelled members of his congregation to fill the church on a stormy Sunday night10 and even to give him large sums of money. To illustrate this power further he writes:
"Brother Andrews said: 'There's a doctor downtown... we're going to pray that he will give you... five thousand dollars. We'll not only pray, we'll visualize him doing it.'
[Norman Vincent Peale returned triumphantly with the five thousand dollars to tell his waiting friend that after refusing him at first, the doctor suddenly changed his mind and gave him the' money.]
Brother Andrews explained: 'I just sent a thought hovering over you all the way down there that he would do it, and my thought hit him right between the eyes.'
[Dr. Peale] exclaimed, 'You know, I saw it hit him! '
He said, 'It penetrated his brain and it changed his thinking. But this should change your thinking, too. Just remember, when you want to achieve something, hold in your mind the picture of yourself achieving it
Paint in all the details. Make it as real as you possibly can."11
Dr. Peale was involved in visualization ever since, apparently without realizing that he is using an Occult technique in attempting to impose his will upon God and other people. Peale wrote, "Imaging has been...implicit in all the speaking, and writing I have done... only recently has it begun to... be recognized by scientists and medical authorities..."12
If reality can actually be created or manipulated by visualization, this would allow everyone to play God with the universe. What would happen when competing realities were being visualized by different persons? If visualization taps into some power inherent within the universe and available to anyone, it would be the ultimate weapon to hand over to human egos; and the result would not be paradise, but hell on earth.
THE ORIGINS OF INNER HEALING
The Occult technique of visualization is the key to inner healing. One visualizes a situation in the past, then visualizes Jesus coming into the scene and solving the problem. Often this "Jesus" comes alive and moves and speaks on its own. Contact has not been made with the Lord Jesus Christ but with a masquerading demon.
Since Sanford's death, inner healing has been carried on by those she trained and/or influenced, such as Ruth Carter Stapleton, Rosalind Rinker,John and Paula Sandford, William Vaswig, Rita Bennett, and others. Initially most prevalent among Charismatics and 'liberal' churches, inner healing has now spread widely in Evangelical circles. There it is practiced in a more sophisticated form by psychologists such as David Seamands, H. Norman Wright, and James G. Friesen and by a number of lay therapists like Fred and Florence Littauer.
John and Paula Sandford confess that Agnes Sanford was "for all of us the forerunner in the field of inner healing... [and] our own first mentor in the Lord, our friend and advisor..." They call her "a sound church woman... [who] founded the 'School of Pastoral Care'..." Those trained by Sanford included Roman Catholic leader Francis MacNutt.
This "mentor" of today's inner healers taught that:
"God's love was blacked out from man by the negative thought-vibration of this sinful... world... So our Lord... lowered His thought-vibrations to the thought-vibrations of humanity... [and] cleansed the thought-vibrations that surround this globe...
Therefore since He became a very part of the collective unconscious of the race, when He died upon the cross a part of humanity died with him... [and] an invisible and personalized energy of our spirits has already ascended with Him into the heavens...
His blood, that mysterious life-essence... remains upon this earth, in plasma form, blown by the winds... to every land... exploding in a chain reaction of spiritual power...
We direct this great flow of life into a closed mind... by doing penance for the sins of the world, or for [a] particular [person]... And by taking that one [by visualization] to the cross of Christ and there receiving for him forgiveness, healing and life...
I have learned to combine the sacramental with the metaphysical approach... the metaphysical methods."13
Sanford's books are so blatant in their Occultism that their acceptance stands as an indictment of the entire Charismatic movement. Indeed, after her Occultism was exposed in the book The Seduction of Christianity, Sanford was strongly defended by Charismatic leaders, and authors Dave Hunt and T.A. McMahon were castigated for having written that book.
John Sandford later claimed that he had cast a demon out of Sanford and led her to Christ - after she had mentored him and other inner healers!
For Sanford, anything was acceptable that enabled one to tap into what she called "this flow of energy,"14 this "high voltage of God's creativity."15 Claiming that "we are part of God,"16 Sanford also called God "primal energy"17 and Jesus "that most profound of psychiatrists."18 She even taught that one could forgive another's sins through visualization.19
Richard Foster wrote, "I have been greatly helped in my understanding of the value of the imagination in praying for others by Agnes Sanford... This advice... [of] prayer through the imagination... pictur[ing] the healing... and much more, was given to me by Agnes Sanford."20 She taught:
"In the healing of the memories one must firmly hold in the imagination the picture... of this person... [though evil, as] a saint of God, and turn in the imagination the dark and awful shadows of his nature into shining virtues and sources of power.
Indeed, they can be thus turned. This is redemption!"21
No it is not!
In the New Testament the idea of redemption has the suggestion of a ransom being paid. Men are held under the curse of the Law (Galatians 3:13), and of sin itself (Romans 7:23). Jesus Christ, our Redeemer purchased our deliverance by offering Himself as payment for their redemption (Ephesians 1:7; 1 Peter 1:18).
Despite Sandford's obvious errors in doctrine Foster endorsed her and her books and wrote, "I have discovered her [Sanford] to be an extremely wise and skillful counselor..."22 Yet she openly taught Eastern mysticism and Occultism. She taught that humans existed in heaven prior to coming to earth, trailing "a cloud of glory... [with] an unconscious memory" of that pre-earth existence.23 The following excerpts from Sanford's books stand as an indictment of those who endorse her and her teaching:
"Now in speaking in tongues... the unconscious may make rapport with the unconscious mind of someone else living... or of someone who has lived before or of someone who will live in the future or even of someone from heaven...
I cannot tell what my spirit does and whither it goes. But that it does travel and that God does work through my spiritual body even when my mind is quite unaware of it, becomes more and more apparent.
Therefore, simply call in your mind to me, or to someone else as a human channel for the love of Christ."24
Rebecca Brown also teaches that when one wakes up tired in the morning it is because God has been using one's "spirit body" all night in spiritual warfare. Much of Sanford's Occultism was undoubtedly learned from her pastor, Morton T. Kelsey, who studied at the C.G. Jung Institute near Zurich, Switzerland, and who became a Jungian psychologist, as did also Sanford's son, John Sanford, whose many books continue to spread similar Occult practices. Kelsey's books are very popular and have brought much Occultism into the church.
Kelsey equates Shamanistic powers with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, 25 believes that his mother died for him "as did our Lord,"26 and declared that a Shaman or witch doctor is "one in whom the power of God is concentrated and can thus flow out to others."27 Kelsey writes:
There is nothing intrinsically evil about... psi [psychic power] or its use... Psi experiences... are simply natural experiences of the human psyche...
Clairvoyance, telepathy, precognition, psychokinesis, and heal-ing have been observed in and around the lives of many religious leaders and nearly all Christian saints...28
My students begin to see the role Jesus was fulfilling when they read Mircea Eliade's Shamanism and Carlos Castaneda's Journey to Ixtlan [glorifying Shamanistic powers]..."29
The Bible does not teach such methods. Their danger lies in the fact that these Occultic visulaization techniques produce mental states that become a substitute for the real solution, which the Christian is to find through his relationship with Christ in the walk of faith.
MEETING YOUR OWN PERSONAL JESUS?
Those pursuing healing and success often fall prey to the temptation to accept whatever seems to work, and to adjust their interpretation of the Bible accordingly. Christians are being taught to "visualize" themselves on a beautiful, sandy beach or a peaceful, grassy knoll, and to "see" Jesus approaching them. All over the Western world, specialists in "healing of the memories" are leading entire congregations to visualize Jesus as present at some traumatic childhood or even prenatal event, which He sanctifies, forgives, or changes - and in the process delivers them from their past. Others who are not necessarily advocating the same type of inner healing, also promote a similar visualization of Jesus.
Calvin Miller, who is one of today's most honoured Christian writers, promotes the dangerous idea that we can visualize into existence with the power of our imagination even God and Christ. In a book that also presents much beneficial teaching, Miller writes:
"One door opens to the world of the spirit: imagination... To follow Christ, we must create in our minds God's unseen world, or never confront it at all. Thus we create in our minds the Christ...
We cannot commune with a Saviour whose form and shape elude us. Whenever I speak long distance to my son or daughter, I use their voices to hang a thousand images of who they are.
Likewise, in my conversation with Christ, I see him white robed, yet at ease in my own time. I drink the glory of his hazel eyes, thrill to the golden sunlight dancing on his auburn hair. I see his calloused hands reaching out for me and for all the world he loves.
What? Do you disagree? His hair is black? Eyes brown? Then have it your way. His lordship is your treasure as it is mine. His image must be real to you as to me, even if our images differ. The key to vitality, however, is the image...
Bit by bit, block by imaginary block, we define him and we adore him. The Bible writers did the same."30
Is this visualized "Jesus" merely an aid to faith, like an icon in a Greek Orthodox church? If so, are mental images of deity allowed while those made out of wood or stone are forbidden? Or is thts actually Jesus Himself coming to us whenever we image Him in our minds, as some are teaching? If that is the case, would it not seem that we have Jesus on a string and can make Him appear at will?
The Bible teaches that Christ has come to live within those who have opened their hearts to Him, receiving Him as Saviour and Lord. Jesus has promised never to leave or forsake the individual Christian, and has promised His presence in a special way wherever two or three are gathered together in His name. For Him actually to appear to His own, however, is something altogether different, and has only happened on rare occasions.
When Jesus suddenly appeared to the ten disciples who were hiding behind locked doors after His resurrection, it was a miraculous event initiated by Him for His own purposes. Doubting Thomas, who was not present on that occasion, had to wait a week before the risen Lord appeared again and allowed him to put his fingers in the nailprints and his hand in the spear wound in His side. We are being taught today, however, that Thomas need not have waited five minutes. He could have had the real Jesus appear to him by simply visualizing Him; and we can do the same any time we wish.
Jesus carefully told His disciples that He was going away, and that He would send the Holy Spirit to be with them. The Comforter has come, and we know His presence in our lives by faith in His promise and by the experience of the fruit of the Spirit.
Visualization of God or Jesus plays no part in this, is not necessary, and in fact is an attempt to make Him appear rather than to know His abiding presence. Our Lord certainly gave no instruction nor even hinted that anyone should visualize Him and that He would then appear.
The New Testament records a number of appearances of Jesus to His disciples during the 40 days after His resurrection and prior to His ascension, and even afterward to Paul on the Damascus road. Never is there a hint that any of these appearances were initiated by anyone except the Lord Himself, much less that they were brought about by visualization.
Indeed, had they been caused by visualization, Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 15 that these appearances proved the resurrection would have lost most of its power. Anyone who fantasizes contact with other humans, rather than making genuine contact with them, would be considered at the least eccentric. If he insisted that he was thereby making real contact with friends and family, he would surely be considered insane.
There is a genuine contact with Christ through faith, a communion in the heart that He gives to His own. He may even appear as He wills for some specific purpose. But to create a fantasy Jesus in our minds and insist that this is the real Jesus and that talking with this figment of our imagination is the way to genuine spiritual experience is to be deluded indeed. It is only marginally different, but still a delusion, to attempt to create an atmosphere of high suggestibility that will enable us to "feel" His presence or somehow encourage Him to appear.
In any such techniques, the definite possibility exists of opening the door to demonic contact or even of acquiring a demonic "spirit guide" that we think is the real Jesus.
BUT IT WORKS...
C. S. Lovett reminds us that "no one on earth knows, of course, what Jesus really looked like in human form."31 Therefore each person involved in this visualization process has fantasized his own individual "Jesus", with whom he now carries on a relationship in his imagination. Yet it seems to work. Rita Bennett led her husband Dennis, an Episcopal priest, through a healing-of-the-memories session in which he visualized Jesus with him in the past. "Dennis testifies, 'In the one simple piece of visualiza-tion, Jesus was able to change my whole basic feeling... about my childhood [and] about life in general.'"32 Like Lovett, Calvin Miller says that it doesn't matter what the Jesus one visualizes looks like; yet he says, "The key to vitality, however, is the image [visualized]."33
One can only wonder why the "image" is so important if it need bear no relationship to the actual appearance of the One it represents. It sounds like Christianized idolatry. Modern Neo-Pagans would argue, for example, that the thousands of varying images depicting their concept of deity are equally valid, for it isn't the form of the image but its utility in reminding the worshiper of the higher reality it supposedly represents. For Charismatic Catholic priests Dennis and Matthew Linn and Sheila Fabricant the visualized image brings actual contact with Jesus Himself. They declare: "Although she was using her imagination, it was not just her imagination but really Jesus touching her..."34
Richard Foster promises that through visualization we encounter the real Jesus Christ:
"...you can actually encounter the living Christ in the event. It can be more than an exercise of the imagination, it can be a genuine confrontation.
Jesus Christ will actually come to you".35
In spite of the fact that it is obviously not Biblical, the visualization of Jesus is an increasingly popular tool for Christian psychologists and inner healers. Ruth Carter Stapleton writes: "But as the guided meditation continued, Betty suddenly saw in her imagination Jesus standing before her. His arms went around her and he was saying he loved her. Such a mystical moment is not open to critical analysis. These spiritual dimensions lie far above the rational faculties."36 Some Christians even have very real experiences through visualizing themselves in God's presence, in spite of the fact that the Bible declares that He "dwells in unapproachable light; whom no man has seen or can see" (1 Timothy 6:16). Richard Foster writes:
"In your imagination allow your spiritual body, shining with light, to rise out of your physical body. Look back so that you can see yourself. . . and reassure your body that you will return momentarily...
Go deeper and deeper into outer space until there is nothing except the warm presence of the eternal Creator. Rest in his presence.
Listen quietly... [to] any instruction given."37
THE DANGER OF THE MENTAL IMAGE
Rita Bennett argues that if it is wrong to visualize Jesus simply because we don't know what he looks like, then it must also be wrong to paint pictures of Jesus.38 Of course, few Christians claim to receive guidance and healing from pictures of Jesus. Moreover, if all we have is a "picture" we have painted with the imagination in our minds, then it is just as foolish to commune with it as with a picture on the wall.
It was for this reason that A. W. Tozer insisted that "we must distinguish believing from visualizing. The two are not the same. One is moral and the other mental."39 Humans vary in their ability to visualize; some simply cannot do it at all. If depth of spiritual experience or reality depended upon visualizing a vivid image of Jesus, many would be at a disadvantage. Moreover, the real disadvantage would be to those who visualize, for they have been led to trust in their own imagination rather than in God. Tozer went on to explain:
"Unwillingness to believe proves that men love darkness rather than light, while inability to visualize indicates no more than lack of imagination, something that will not be held against us at the judgment seat of Christ...
The ability to visualize is found among vigorous-minded persons, whatever their moral or spiritual condition may be... The wise Christian will not let his assurance depend upon his powers of imagination."40
The danger of the mental picture is that it seems to be real, and therein lies its greater potential for seduction. For Brother Lawrence and Frank Laubach, the experience validates itself and this mystical "meeting God soul to soul and face to face" transcends any objective evaluation, even the Bible. Laubach declares that, dangerous though it may be, he is "going to take the risks... to achieve God-consciousness... [for that] is what made Christ, Christ."41 We do well to heed the words of John Calvin:
"...when miserable men do seek after God... they do not conceive of him in the character in which he is manifested, but imagine him to be whatever their own rashness has devised...
With such an idea of God, nothing which they may attetnpt to offer in the way of worship or obedience can have any value in his sight, because it is not him they worship, but, instead of him, the dream and figment of their own heart."42
There is an additional and more obvious (yet seemingly overlooked) problem. Since no painting of Jesus can claim to be accurate, it is clear that many - and perhaps all-such pictures could be misleading Christians by influencing the way they think of Him. Referring to a favorite picture of Jesus painted by his daughter Linda, C. S. Lovett admits, "Yes, it influences my concept of Jesus. I just love it."43 Yet not only Lovett but other advocates of visualizing Jesus and God seem unconcerned that, like paintings, visualized mental images of Jesus are also misleading - and the more seriously so, because they are mistaken for the real Jesus. Is the church being seduced by a new "Christianized" idolatry that is being taught and popularized today?
J. I. Packer makes the following interesting observation:
"...we take the second commandment - as in fact it has always been taken-as pointing us to the principle that (to quote Charles Hodge) 'idolatry consists not only in the worship of false gods, but also in the worship of the true God by images.'
In its Christian application, this means that we are not to make use of visual or pictorial representations of the Triune God, or of any person of the Trinity, for the purposes of Christian worship.
What harm is there, we ask, in the worshiper surrounding himself with statues and pictures, if they help him to lift his heart to God?... If people really do fmd them helpful, what more is there to be said?...
...it is certain that if you habitually focus your thoughts on an image or picture of the One to whom you are going to pray, you will come to think of Him, and pray to Him, as the image represents Him. Thus you will in this sense 'bow down' and 'worship' your image; and to the extent to which the image fails to tell the truth about God, to that extent you will fail to worship God in truth. That is why God forbids you and me to make use of images and pictures in our worship...
To follow the imagination of one's heart in the realm of theology is the way to remain ignorant of God, and to become an idol-worshiper-the idol in this case being a false mental image of God, 'made unto thee' by speculation and imagination."44
IDOLATRY AND DEMONS
Paul gives a powerful reason against idolatry when he explains that in worshiping idols the Gentiles are really worshiping devils: "No; but I say that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demon, and not to God; and I do not want you to become sharers in demon" (1 Corinthians 10:20). Scripture makes it clear that we must know the true God for who He really is, and that we must come to Him on His terms.
Satan or demon, however, will hide behind any mask and answer to any image or name. They are very broad-minded in their various ruses to get humans under their power. Paul seems to be saying that not just some idols but all idols are fronts for demon. This is what makes visualization of Jesus or God not just a minor error but extremely dangerous.
That visualization is ideally suited for contact with demon can be demonstrated in the fact that it has been used for that very purpose for thousands of years in various forms of Magick and Shamanism. And as any serious practitioner of Magick will tell you that it doesn't matter what image you conjure up, but conjure up an image you must.
Few idol-worshipers of any kind would say that they intend to worship demon. Most would protest that they look upon the idol as a symbol of the true God. Yet they get involved with devils because they are using a methodology that God has forbidden. Would "sincerity" in visualizing "Jesus" or "God" be any better an excuse? Demons would certainly not mind being mistaken for Jesus; that would serve their purpose extremely well.
C. S. Lewis sums it up in his allegory The Screwtape Letters. Screwtape is a senior devil advising his nephew Wormwood how better to seduce Christians. On this subject Screwtape says:
"Whenever they are attending to the Enemy Himself we are defeated, but there are ways of preventing them from doing this. The simplest is to turn their gaze away from Him toward themselves. Keep them watching their own minds and trying to produce feelings there by the action of their own wills...
The humans do not start from that direct perception of Him which we, unhappily, cannot avoid. They have never known that ghastly luminosity, that stabbing and searing glare which is the source of permanent pain in our lives. If you look into your patient's mind when he is praying, you will not find that image.
If you examine the picture on which he is concentrating, you will find that it is a composite of many quite ridiculous ingredients. There will be images derived from pictures of the Enemy as He appeared during the discreditable episode known as the Incarnation. In addition, there will be more vague, and perhaps quite barbaric, images associated with the other two Persons of the Trinity. There will even be some of his own reverence (and of bodily sensations accompanying it) attributed to the beloved image.
I have known cases where what the patient called his 'God' was actually located up and to the left at the comer of the bedroom ceiling or inside his own head or in a crucifix on the wall. But whatever the nature of the composite object, you must keep him praying to it - to the thing that he has made, not to the Person who has made him. You may even encourage him to attach great importance to the correction and improve-ment of his composite object. Suggest that he keep it steadily before his imagination during the whole prayer.
He must never come to make the distinction between the object and the Person. If he ever consciously directs his prayers, 'Not to what I think Thou art but to what thou knowest Thyself to be,' our situation is, for the moment, desperate. If this ever happens, he may cast aside all his thoughts and images. Or, he may retain them with a full recognition of their merely subjective nature. Then the man will trust himself to the com-pletely real, external, invisible Presence, who is with him in the room. This is the worst thing that could happen."45
see also: VISUALIZATION in the GLOSSARY Section.
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1 Conway, David. Magic: An Occult Primer, p. 59
2 Peale, Norman Vincent. Positive Imaging, (Fawcett Crest, 1982), Introduction
3 Peale, Norman Vincent. Positive Imaging, (Fawcett Crest, 1982), p. 1
4 Marks, Bunny. What You See is What You'll Be, Amway Tape
5 Sandford, Agnes. The Healing Light, (Macalester, 1947), p. 65
6 Sandford, Agnes. The Healing Gifts of the Holy Spirit, (Revell, 1982), p. 49
7 Sandford, Agnes. The Healing Light, (Macalester, 1947), p. 66
8 Sandford, Agnes. The Healing Light, (Macalester, 1947), p. 69
9 Sandford, Agnes. The Healing Light, (Macalester, 1947), p. 69
10 Peale, Norman Vincent. Positive Imaging, (Fawcett Crest, 1982), p. 20
11 Peale, Norman Vincent. Positive Imaging, (Fawcett Crest, 1982), p. 16, 17
12 Peale, Norman Vincent. Positive Imaging, (Fawcett Crest, 1982), Introduction
13 Sandford, Agnes. The Healing Light, (Macalester, 1947), pp. 125-26
13 Sandford, Agnes. The Healing Gifts of the Holy Spirit, (Revell, 1982), pp. 140-41
14 Sandford, Agnes. The Healing Gifts of the Holy Spirit, (Revell, 1982), p. 48
15 Sandford, Agnes. The Healing Light, (Macalester, 1947), p. 146
16 Sandford, Agnes. The Healing Light, (Macalester, 1947), pp. 10, 34-35
17 Sandford, Agnes. The Healing Light, (Macalester, 1947), p. 30
18 Sandford, Agnes. The Healing Light, (Macalester, 1947), p. 74
19 Sandford, Agnes. The Healing Light, (Macalester, 1947), pp. 63-64, 68, 112
20 Foster, Richard. Celebration of Discipline, (Harper & Row, 1978), p. 136
21 Sandford, Agnes. The Healing Gifts of the Holy Spirit, (Revell, 1982), p. 45
22 Foster, Richard. Celebration of Discipline, (Harper & Row, 1978), p. 136
23 Sandford, Agnes. The Healing Gifts of the Holy Spirit, (Revell, 1982), p. 45
24 Sandford, Agnes. The Healing Gifts of the Holy Spirit, (Revell, 1982), p. 30
25 Kelsey, Morton T. The Christian and the Supernatural, (Ausburg, 1976), pp. 120-43
26 Kelsey, Morton T. The Christian and the Supernatural, (Ausburg, 1976), p. 149
27 Kelsey, Morton T. The Christian and the Supernatural, (Ausburg, 1976), p. 93
28 Kelsey, Morton T. The Christian and the Supernatural, (Ausburg, 1976), pp. 109, 113, 142
29 Kelsey, Morton T. The Christian and the Supernatural, (Ausburg, 1976), p. 93
30 Miller, Calvin. The Table of Inwardness, (InterVarsity, 1984), pp. 93-94
31 Lovett, C. S. Longing, (InterVarsity, 1984), p. 68
32 Bennett, Rita. You Can Be Emotionally Free, (Fleming H. Revell, 1982), p. 85
33 Miller, Calvin. The Table of Inwardness, (InterVarsity, 1984), p. 94
34 Linn, Dennis and Linn, Matthew and Fabricant, Shiela. Praying for Another Healing, (Paulist Press, 1984), p. 30
35 Foster, Richard. Celebration of Discipline, (Harper & Row, 1978), p. 26
36 Stapleton, Ruth Carter. The Experience of Inner Healing, (Word Books, 1977), p. 17
37 Foster, Richard. Celebration of Discipline, (Harper & Row, 1978), p. 27
38 Bennett, Rita. You Can Be Emotionally Free, (Fleming H. Revell, 1982), p. 118
39 Tozer, A. W. That Incredible Christian, (Christian Publications, 1964), p. 68
40 Tozer, A. W. That Incredible Christian, (Christian Publications, 1964), pp. 68-69
41 Laubach, Frank. Practicing His Prescence: Brother Lawrence, Frank Laubach, (Christian Books, 1973), ed. Gene Edwards, pp. 10-11
42 Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book I, p. 46
43 Lovett, C. S. Longing, (InterVarsity, 1984), p. 89
44 Packer, J. I. Knowing God, (InterVarsity, 1973), pp. 38-39, 41-42
45 Lewis, C. S. The Screwtape Letters, (Spire, 1976), pp. 34-35
RESOURCES FROM OTHER CHRISTIAN SITES:
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VISUALIZATION at Ankerberg Theological Institute
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VISUALIZATION at Let Us Reason Ministries
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