The Occult

Over the past weeks I have shared some of my experiences with meditation, Buddhism, the Silva Method, and Scientology. Today I would like to talk about things that fall under the broad label of "the occult". Happily, my experiences here were always as an observer and not a participant. Looking back, I really feel that God was protecting me while allowing me to witness, first-hand, the detrimental effects of the occult in peoples' lives.

I was not raised in a Christian home, so I had no guidance when it came to spiritual matters. My journey started as an attempt to improve myself while seeking out the truth about the universe and my place within it. It started with meditation and went from there. Harmless enough, it seemed, but then this is how the enemy works. He ensnares you with the harmless stuff then, before you know it, you are dabbling in things that can put you into deep trouble, even placing your very soul in mortal danger. This is very much the case with the occult. For Christians, it conjures up all sorts of dark ideas, but it can start with something as simple as reading your horoscope in the newspaper, or having your palm read at a funfair. "For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it." (Matthew 7:13).

The word "occult" comes from the Latin occultus, meaning "hidden" or "secret". In terms of religion, it refers to things of a spiritual nature, not observable by science. Practitioners of the occult attempt to pull back the curtain separating the visible world from the hidden world of the spirit realm. As such, it covers a wide range of practices, from ESP (extra-sensory perception) to astrology. It even encompasses meditation, if that meditation is used as a tool to attain spiritual awareness.

During my teens, I seemed to be surrounded by people who were interested in the occult. A school friend (I'll call him Steve) tried his hand at Tarot cards and Ouija. He was struggling with feelings of rejection from his family and was trying to find a sense of control in his life. He once told me that he woke during the night to see a wall of evil-looking faces staring down at him, mere inches from his own face. Not long after that, Steve and I were talking with the parents of a friend when Steve became extremely agitated and kept insisting we leave. I eventually relented but, as we were saying our goodbyes, the father collapsed and died from a heart attack right in front of us. Later, Steve told me that he had dreamed that very thing a few nights earlier, which is why he had been so determined to leave. He knew the man was going to die. Steve, it seemed, had found a way to view "hidden things" and, even though it frightened him, he seemed to enjoy the sense of power that came with it.

Another person close to me, the mother of a school friend, was heavily into all things occult. She was a lovely person and extremely intelligent, but she eventually slipped into paranoid schizophrenia. For years, she practiced daily the I-Ching and the reading of tea-leaves. Like so many people who get involved in the occult, she seemed to be driven by a desire to know the future. Every person I have ever met who is involved in these "hidden" things is doing so to gain some sense of power in their lives. They want to know what is going to happen tomorrow, and this makes them feel in control of their destiny. Sadly, what they do not realize is that by delving into the spirit realm they are opening themselves up to all sorts of demonic activity. A woman who worked as a nurse at a mental institute once told my wife that approximately eighty percent of the people admitted to her hospital with paranoid schizophrenia had been involved in the occult at some time in their lives. If this is accurate, then the dangers are clear. People may think it is harmless fun, but dabbling in something forbidden by God is never a good idea.

I believe that God forbids this kind of activity for a very good reason. The Bible warns us: "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." (Ephesians 6:12). By taking part in occult practices, by attempting to draw back the curtain covering hidden places in the spirit realm, we are inviting attention from "spiritual wickedness". Our single point of contact in the spirit realm should be God. He loves us and has a plan for our lives. We should trust Him and turn to Him for all our needs, including our future. The enemy, on the other hand, will lie to us and try to deceive us. God wants to lead us down paths of righteousness whereas the enemy wants to drag us down to our destruction. The Bible instructs us to "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:" (1 Peter 5:8).

In my next post I would like like to share my conversion to Christianity. Not, as it turns out, the end of my spiritual journey, but the beginning.

Mind Control

In my last post I covered my encounter with Buddhism. Today, I would like to describe my experiences with the Silva Method (also called Silva Mind Control).

The Silva Method was developed by Jose Silva back in the 1940's as a means of increasing the IQ of his children through relaxation, visualization, and the activation of higher brain functions by inducing "alpha" brain-wave activity. His idea was that most people use the left, or logical, side of their brain almost exclusively. By learning to us the right, or creative, side, he believed it would be possible for people to gain access to information stored in their subconscious. The end result was Silva Mind Control, which he started marketing commercially in the 1960s.

I was nineteen when my wife (then my girlfriend) and I attended a Silva Mind Control seminar over a weekend. I had just finished the end of my second year of Psychology. I was intrigued by the human mind and how it works, particularly with regarding to memory, learning, and the possibility for extra-sensory capabilities. The claims of the Silva Method caught my eye. They seemed to fit in perfectly with my interest in meditation and my quest for self-improvement. I asked my wife to join me on a two-day course. She was a little hesitant, but agreed. At that point she was a Christian but, through negative input from significant others earlier in her life, not a practising one.

We arrived at the hotel and were directed to the conference room. The curtains were closed but it was still light and airy. Twenty or so chairs were fanned out across the floor in a rough semi-circle facing the low stage where a friendly-looking man greeted us with a warm smile. We found two places at the back and got comfortable on the big reclining chairs. Nobody spoke, but everyone seemed quite relaxed. It was a pleasant atmosphere. After fifteen minutes, all the seats were taken.

During the two days of the course we were led through the steps necessary to unlock this hidden potential, starting with learning how to relax through meditation. We then progressed on to visualization exercises, which I enjoyed tremendously. The course leader compared our minds to a team of wild horses. To think clearly, he said, we needed to bring that team of horses under control. This was all harmless enough. We sat on our comfy chairs, imagining everyday objects floating in front of a white screen in our minds.

On the second day, however, things took a surprising turn. For this session, we had been instructed to bring along information on two people we personally knew who had an ailment of some sort. We filled in a form for each person, stating their age, gender, and what the ailment was. We were to keep these forms on us and not show them to anyone. We were then told to partner up with someone in the seminar that we did not know. While one meditated, the other would ask questions. During the exercise, the one meditating was to visualize each of the two cases brought along by the other person. We had to picture each "patient" standing on a plinth, and try to "see" what was wrong with them.

I partnered up with someone I had seen but not actually spoken to. I sat on the recliner chair while he sat on a stool next to me, almost like a psychologist and patient. I did my relaxation exercises and said I was ready to proceed with trying to "diagnose" the two people on the forms he had brought along. I started with the first. I was told it was a woman, middle aged. As instructed, I visualized a middle-aged woman standing on my imaginary plinth. I rotated her in my mind, trying to "see" something wrong. My first two guesses received a quiet "try again" from my partner, which meant I had guessed incorrectly. I looked harder, wondering what on Earth I was supposed to be seeing. Then I saw a big black spot behind her left knee. I mentioned this, expecting to hear the usual "try again". Instead, there was a slight pause, followed by a mildly surprised "yes, that's right." Afterwards, as we reviewed the two cases, my partner said that the one woman had a bad varicose vein behind her left knee, exactly where I had seen it. When the exercise was finished and people shared their results, many of the others also reported correctly diagnosing one or more ailments.

Buoyed by my success, I was keen to see what we would be doing for the rest of the day. For the next exercise, we were instructed to enter a meditative state and "build" a workshop in our minds. It could be anything we wanted. The important thing was that the room should have two doors. We were then told to imagine the doors opening, one at a time, to reveal two "helpers". The idea was that, in order to access subconscious data, we could employ these helpers. As figments of our imagination, they would be better placed to access those parts of our brain that are normally out of reach of our conscious minds.

It sounds crazy, I know, but what harm is there in using your imagination in a creative way, right? After all, as a writer, I imagine characters all the time. I am constantly dreaming up new people and places and scenarios. Later, when the group compared notes, everyone seemed to have no problem imagining their assistants. They described them in great detail. Hair, eyes, facial features, clothes, and voices. I was able to imagine two people but, for some reason, could not see their faces. Try as I might, I could not put a face to my imaginary helpers. During this discussion, my wife became withdrawn and added little to the excited chatter. Only later did she tell me that she had been unable to imagine anyone coming through those doors. She told me she was embarrassed at having "failed" that part of the course.

Years later, after I became a Christian, my wife and I discussed that course. In particular, we talked about her inability to see her helpers and, to a lesser extent, how I could not put faces on mine. We believe that it was God protecting us. As a Christian (albeit a non-practicing one) she was under God's spiritual protection and He would not allow her to unwittingly open the door to demonic influences. As for me, we think that God knew I would one day accept His gift of redemption, and so I was also protected. The other big question we discussed as: how was I able to see the black spot on the back of the woman's knee? Very possibly it was just a coincidence. I guessed incorrectly twice before getting it right and I was way off on the other case. But many others managed to guess correctly. One woman got both her cases right first time. Where did this information come from? Was it some sort of extra-sensory perception, or did it come from the spiritual realm? We suspect the latter.

Like so much in the New Age, the slope away from God is a slippery one. It starts out with something harmless but before long you are sliding quickly towards a dangerous pit. The Silva Method starts out with harmless relaxation exercises, then meditation, then simple visualisation. This all appears harmless enough but then, before you know it, you find yourself inviting unknown beings into your life. Skeptics and atheists will say that it is all just imagination, that it is harmless, but as a Christian I believe in a spiritual realm inhabited by beings that are waiting for any opportunity to pull you away from God's protection.

More disturbing, however, is a practise I have seen among some young Christians recently, in which they visualize a room with a door. They then imagine Jesus walking through that door. The aim is to "invite" Jesus to come and help you. They believe that, by imagining Him, they can have instant access to Him for answering prayers or even just to talk. But, for me, as someone who has seen how the New Age works, I see this as a dangerous practice. Jesus cannot be summoned in this way. He hears all our prayers, but invoking an image of Him in your head is inviting trouble. I believe God protects us from unwitting errors, but the Bible is clear about the dangers of divination.

In Deuteronomy 18;10,11 it says:
There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch. Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines divination as : the art or practice that seeks to foresee or foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge usually by the interpretation of omens or by the aid of supernatural powers.

Indeed, the word "occult" is defined as: matters regarded as involving the action or influence of supernatural or supernormal powers or some secret knowledge of them.

 Like so much in the New Age, the Silva Method starts out harmlessly enough and can even have the appearance of godliness, but it can soon ends up with dabbling in the occult. The warning signs can be subtle but we Christians need to be careful and keep a sharp eye out. If we are not sure about something, we should ask God for guidance. And check it out in the Bible. It's all in there.

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.

Jeremiah 7:24 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear, but walked in the counsels and in the imagination of their evil heart, and went backward, and not forward.

2 Corinthians 11:14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.

1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour



Next time: my brief encounter with Scientology