Delusions from the Sixties 
Haight-Ashbury District
San Francisco

The stained-glass window in our Victorian tower turned the glory of the late afternoon sun into an unearthly light as seemingly divine intelligences gathered from a higher plane to lead us in our Calling. 
Through the centuries, seekers had used such drugs as LSD to penetrate spiritual realms, and now I, too, reached out to grasp the promised power. As I moved into the drug’s deeps, my surroundings seemed to yield before a mysterious power that transformed before my inner eyes into a portal to ancient, secret knowledge. But terrors came with the knowledge too. 

Sometimes I thought I sensed weird vibes from great UFOs sending out their telepathic signals to any soul unlucky enough to heed them. At such times, great terror engulfed me—terror that I would lose my sanity and be controlled by something ‘out there,’ and I tried to hide my naked soul from the contact they were initiating. 

But despite such experiences, nothing deterred us from our search—now religious in nature—and we continued to avidly soak up the psycho-spiritual views and techniques pouring in from both West and East. 

Sadly, we thought we were on the cutting edge of new revelation for the human race. 
_________________

Deceptive experiences and deceiving spirits go together in the psychedelic realm, as my account above reveals. 

So, while last month, I explored the mystical experience as central to the psychedelic experience, this month we’re looking at another common element of that experience—what’s referred to by some professionals as the “entity encounter,” but which we know better as simply a demon encounter. 
If you have trouble believing that’s what it is, please make up your mind after examining the evidence. 

Individuals vary greatly in their responses to psychedelic drugs, but it’s well known that a large number of people who take them encounter beings or “entities” and experience everything from supposedly “higher” teachings to manipulation to outright assault from them. 

Some even consider meeting these entities a main benefit of taking psychedelics. That’s the position of a 2020 article in the Journal of Psychedelic Studies, which suggests that psychedelics are therapeutic not only because of their ability to create a mystical experience but because of what it refers to as the “entity encounter.” [1]
Research suggests that the clinical and therapeutic effects of psychedelics are related to their ability to induce a mystical-type experience. One particularly interesting feature of the psychedelic mystical experience is the entity encounter.

Revelation with a Pill? That they exist and do appear to many who take psychedelics such as LSD, DMT, psilocybin, etc. is well established. The real questions are who are these beings, what do they teach, and what is so “therapeutic” about what they do in an encounter—if it is? 

Dozens of descriptions of such entities exist online and in the literature. They range from ’’‘beings,’ ‘guides,’ ‘spirits,’ ‘aliens,’ ‘helpers,’ ‘angels,’ ‘elves,’ and ‘plant spirits’…” to “prankish elves, ultra-dimensional teachers and guardians, reptiles, bees, robots, and extraterrestrials, to Buddha, Jesus Christ, Krishna, deceased loved ones, and ascended masters,” as well as “sci-fi aliens fitting descriptions of greys, blues, reptilians, Pleidins sic, Arcturians and more, employing the use of probes, implants, or surgeries usually for ‘research or ‘healing purposes.’”

Some view these encounters as among their most meaningful, while others are terrorized by alien abduction scenarios and visions of an eternity in Hell. Here are a few examples:
“…emotionless entities with a mechanical quality…began…‘deconstructing’ my reality.”
“…a giant mantis-like entity descended from the ceiling…” 
Psychedelic therapist Daniel McQueen calls all these beings ”aliens and god-like entities,” and he says that, “Your nervous system [on psychedelics]is super activated. It isn’t just floating around the earth—it’s having direct encounters with entities.” 

Three main theories exist about the nature of these entities. They are:
1.    Manifestations of ourselves, 
1.1  Drug-induced hallucinations, or 
1.2  Real spiritual beings. 

One clue to their real nature is the fact that shamans and witches have contacted them using psychedelic/hallucinatory drugs for centuries. The Bible makes their nature explicit: they are demons, and to conjure them is sorcery, which a holy God calls detestable. Deuteronomy 18:9-20 reveals God’s condemnation of such practices.

“When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord.

Note that the New Testament word for sorcery is the Greek term pharmakeia, which is the root of our word pharmacy—a dispensary of drugs. The connection between psychedelics and sorcery is all too obvious. But in our Bible-illiterate age, the importance of this connection is easily overlooked or ignored. 

But the article from the Journal of Psychedelic Studies goes on to assure us:
While there has been little empirical research into psychedelic entity phenomena, qualitative studies and anecdotal reports suggest that entity encounters can have profound and lasting positive after-effects. 

That’s good news, isn’t it? We don’t have to worry whether some mantis-shaped entity hanging from our ceiling is a threat or whether an Arcturian will chase us with an implant because of the possibiilty of “profound and lasting positive after-effects” to such encounters. 

So, let’s look at what the article calls “profound and lasting positive after-effects.” (Would you want them?)

For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect. Matthew 24:24 (ESV).

1.   They can alter our fundamental conception of reality. It’s widely accepted that psychedelics can radically transform one’s view of reality, including initiating psychosis. One survey study (2020) of 1,561 entity encounter experiences reported that 80% believed that the experience altered their fundamental conception of reality. So, whatever you may think of their variety or reality, their presence can substantially alter your beliefs about reality. Therefore, it’s vital to understand what they teach and where they lead. And that’s why we should look at the increasingly popular claims that such encounters can be “therapeutic.” 

…but test everything; hold fast what is good.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 (ESV).

2.    The most terrible deception these “entities” often bring is a false peace about dying without Jesus Christ.  Sadly, psychedelics are being used today in therapy sessions with those facing death. In one recent survey study of 168 people, the people reported that the message received from their entity encounter included themes about death, the afterlife, the pre-birth state, or reincarnation. Their comments included, “There was insight that death is not the end” and “Death is just the beginning of another greater universe.” This deception is widespread in entity encounters for they preach a New Age Jesus who isn’t Jesus Christ Crucified and Risen at all. Here’s an example from the article that shows how subtle this transformative process can be. 

“I then was given the understanding that all life, all we know, all I am, is energy, this energy is timeless and will continue on. I knew now the reality of this time and space is just something my energy has chosen to reside in for now.” 

In other words, the entities' teaching is that reality is only impersonal energy; after death you just continue on infinitely; there is no Father God, no personal relationship, no fallenness and sin, and no need for a Savior. 

3.   “Entities are frequently felt to be supremely powerful, wise and loving and encounters are often accompanied by positive emotions such as joy, trust, surprise, love, kindness and friendship (although fear is also a common emotion associated with entity encounters)…” I certainly experienced some of those positive feelings only to find later how cruelly deceptive they were. 

4.   Entities often give information, assign tasks, reveal purpose, insight, etc., which can make them seem beneficial. We encountered this often on psychedelics as well as in the spiritualist church. Demons will help you at one point in order to draw you into deeper bondage, and they delight in taking over your life.

5.   Sometimes seekers attain psychological insight on psychedelics. While you may get enough bits of truth to want more, you will certainly not receive the divine truth and guidance that only God and the Bible can give, and far more likely (speaking from experience), dependence upon this source will draw you far astray from real truth. What secular therapists deem “therapeutic” can be way off from what the Bible calls truth and healing.

Author Carl Teichrib sums up the demonic counterfeit message of these beings well: 
​
“We can become as gods. It’s the same messaging all the way through, isn’t it? Doesn’t matter if you read the writings of channeled UFO entities, if you take a look at what the New Age teaches, what Eastern spirituality gives us, or what the messages that come through the psychedelic experience show us. It always points back to Genesis 3: ‘We will be as gods.’ This is a gateway… a form of forbidden fruit.” [1]

There’s no doubt psychedelic experiences are incredibly transforming of life and beliefs. They can promise healing and transformation and a package of other wonderful-sounding changes, but they are a doorway the Bible firmly commands remain closed for very good reasons. 

As someone once said, there’s no way the devil and his demons can spin Hell as looking good, but they sure can spin the way there.

In conclusion, consider the following two quotes, the first by the discoverer of LSD himself, chemist Albert Hofmann; the second by psychiatrist Rick Strassman who extensively studied DMT research subjects and wrote a book about it. 

Hofmann writes:
“A demon had invaded me, had taken possession of my body, mind and soul. I jumped up and screamed, trying to free myself from him, but then sank down again and lay helpless on the sofa. The substance, with which I had wanted to experiment, had vanquished me. It was the demon that scornfully triumphed over my will.” —Albert Hofmann, chemist founder of LSD, about his LSD experience.

Psychiatrist Rick Strassman found at least half his research subjects had encountered an entity after taking DMT. He sums up his investigation like this:
“I was neither intellectually nor emotionally prepared for the frequency with which contact with beings occurred in our studies, nor the often utterly bizarre nature of these experiences….Their business appeared to be testing, examining, probing, and even modifying the volunteer’s mind and body. One patient described it this way: ‘It’s more like being possessed. During the experience there is a sense of someone or something else there taking control. It’s like you have to defend yourself against them, whoever they are, but they certainly are there. I’m aware of them, and they’re aware of me. It’s like they have an agenda.’” 

Clearly, these “entities” that come through the psychedelic portal are not benign. They are not reliable, honest, or safe. They do not point us to the truth. On the contrary, they are emissaries of Satan’s kingdom sent to deceive and ultimately destroy us, and they are intent on fueling a false revival.
Let us run from false teachers, whether on earth or in spiritual realms, and turn to the one pure source of truth and revelation that will never mislead us: the Holy Bible.

_________________________

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. Hebrews 4:12 ESV

But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 2 Corinthians 11:3 ESV

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Ephesians 6:10-13 ESV

________________

MAIN ARTICLE: “Entity Encounters and the Therapeutic Effect of the Psychedelic Mystical Experience,” by Anna Lutkajtis, the University of Sydney, Australia. November 11, 2020. Journal of Psychedelic Studies, (4), 2020, 3, 171-178.
​
RE THE MISSING END NOTES: I'm having technical problems with the endnotes entering correctly. Hopefully, I can get it fixed, but if you need the information now, contact me at [email protected].

Despite the popular expression, “If you remember the sixties, you weren’t there,” we do remember the sixties, at least a lot of it, and Richard and I were there—right in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury District, the vortex of the whirlwind. We were also among the first to drink the Kool-Aid of the countercultural revolution—LSD. 
At first, it seemed like a harmless ride on a merry-go-round or a weird dip into a strange religious landscape. It promised freedom, an uninhibited way of life, and eventually, we came to believe, even godhood.
But all too soon, the insanity, corruption, and violence—the rootlessness, the lawlessness, the madness of the experiment—began to manifest, and we watched the dream degenerate around us. Finally, in desperation, we moved south to the hills around Palo Alto, where we got into witchcraft. 
Miraculously, Jesus Christ rescued us in 1976, and then we began to watch America’s changing landscape from another perspective—Christ’s—as the psychedelic delirium went mainstream in America and fueled the “Woke” Revolution. [1]
It all began for me during my freshman year in a Christian college (1958-59), where I learned the basics of the new religion in my year-long psychology course.

The Psychological Paradigm Shift 

“Religion will be transformed into an activity concerned mainly with experience and intuition.” —Aldous Huxley 

I set out on my fifteen-year odyssey through six different colleges and universities on the West Coast determined to eventually earn a degree in psychology. But long before I earned that B.A., the precepts drummed into me in my first psychology course transformed me. They went something like this:
Real moral problems with real guilt needing real correction and punishment are not the real issue in society because “normal” is just a point on a bell-shaped curve—so probably, there isn’t even such a thing as normality or right or wrong anyway.
My favorite professor often hinted at the great changes psychology was bringing to our society and how it was transforming traditional views. Of course, he had to be careful what he said, but the message was clear enough: Christians are deceived. The old boundaries were rigid, unscientific, authoritarian, and based on superstition, while real love is human-centered, based on acceptance, tolerance, and freedom. 
Tolerance! Acceptance! Love! Freedom! What magical words to a naïve eighteen-year-old. It was all music to my itching young ears, and I devoured the philosophy. I began conspicuously carrying Bertrand Russell’s Why I’m Not A Christian to meals in the dining hall and attending meetings of the local Humanist Association. 
When old high school friends visited one weekend and suggested we attend church, I pushed for the Unitarian service. I admit it was boring, but I was puzzled by one friend’s lament: “Where’s Jesus!” What did that matter? I thought. Obviously, she was hopelessly out of date with the times. 
One day, my professor asked the class: “Where do we find God?” After some of the usual “old man on a throne” responses, Duke spoke up. Duke was one of the most popular students on the campus; he was handsome, wealthy, and drove his own sports car. “I look in the mirror,” he said. The professor’s approval fell on Duke in silent waves of assent and set me wondering. 
I wanted that approval.

The Third Force Prophets

Unknowingly, I was plunging into a momentous new wave that was subtly transforming America’s colleges and universities during the mid-fifties and early sixties. The patron saint of this movement was theologian/psychologist Carl Rogers, and its prophets were everywhere—they certainly were at my college. In fact, a graduate student I knew had just won a fellowship as Rogers’ assistant and was leaving for that mysterious land “Back East” where “Things Happened.” And I was determined to follow in her footsteps.
Known as the “Third Force” in psychology, Humanistic Psychology arrived like a gale wind promising unrestricted love and freedom and challenging the two previous giants in the field: the psychic determinism of Freud’s school of Psychoanalysis and the lifeless mechanics of Skinner’s Behaviorism. 
Rogers’ ideas were enormously attractive to many besides me. Originally, he sought training as a minister but rejected it in favor of psychology. His thinking lined up just enough with our then-Christianized culture to appear biblical for those who wanted to believe it was, while actually forming a bridge for those like myself who were seeking a way out of what appeared a dead orthodoxy. It was subtle indeed—far too subtle for someone like me. And apparently for those who had hired my professor as well. Eventually, he was fired not for his anti-Christian views but for acting on them too freely at the time.
Rogers wasn’t the only voice then insisting that sexual permissiveness is essential to life and growth, but he was one of the most influential. While emphasizing such biblical virtues as personal values and individual uniqueness, he rejected the external authority of the Bible and exalted self instead. He divorced honesty, love, and the importance of listening from biblical authority and refocused them entirely within the human self, creating a morally relative counseling system of “acceptance” nearly without limits. Freedom of choice became rooted in the individual’s value system rather than the Bible or tradition and thus became disconnected from any stable anchor. While the effects at first felt liberating, in the long run they were morally and socially devastating. 
But Rogers influenced me the most when he said that “no self-experience can be discriminated as more or less worthy of positive regard than any other.” 
That’s it! I thought. 
I’d found my new direction—and it was right in tune with the new spirit of the age. 
With love redefined as tolerance and acceptance, and morality riding the fluctuations of inner experience rather than objective outer standards based on truth (and especially the Bible), Rogers and his prophets laid an important part of the philosophical groundwork for the moral and spiritual upheaval just breaking in the fifties and early sixties. For this radical break with biblical authority in the name of therapy was the perfect bridge to the huge wave of occult revival and paganism that was soon to break in the mid-sixties and seventies and become known as the New Age Movement. 
By 1974, Rogers was promoting a glowing picture of the “new man,” a counterculture figure that rejects modern “straight society” and has no problem with the use of drugs or the occult or with sexual perversion. 
This willingness to look "within" without guidelines or restraints led me and many of his followers into such areas as drug-induced states of altered consciousness, a focus on dreams and meditation, concern with psychic phenomena, and interest in esoteric religious views. 
And, since this “new man” is his own authority, he is also free to break the law—either moral or legal—if he wants to. 
By the end of my first year in college, the fragile filaments of my old disintegrating value system had been seared as with a white-hot knife, replaced with a love redefined as tolerance and a morality I could call both scientific and therapeutic. Huxley’s 1958 quote (above) had become reality in me as my spiritual search focused not on truth but on experience and intuition.
I now had all the justification I needed to strike out at authority and “find myself.” 

The Fourth Force:
The Merger of Western Psychology and Eastern Mysticism

One of the first things Christ showed us after our salvation in 1976 was the deep paganism emerging in our previously Christianized culture and the way it was changing everything. At the same time that many were abandoning historical Christian beliefs, leaving the churches, and searching for meaning elsewhere, paganism and Eastern religious views were infiltrating the churches, watering down the Gospel, and perverting the biblical message.
As quoted above, literary icon and psychedelic pioneer Aldous Huxley had already predicted this transformation, and I had already undergone the conversion, become an evangelist for it, and was preaching it. Clearly, one of the main doorways through which this transformation was entering was in the field of psychology. 
Another doorway to radical change was the burgeoning use of psychedelics. Sooner or later, I’m convinced, using psychedelics will initiate a pantheistic mystical experience focused on feelings and self. For although psychedelics are relatively new to our age, they have a long history among indigenous tribes and their medicine men as door-openers to the occult spiritual realms. [2]
Since the 1960s, psychedelics have been changing America’s landscape in formerly unrecognizable ways. Their widespread use in the sixies and seventies greatly contributed to America's cultural shift Left and speeded today’s resulting social transitions. (The term psychedelic normally embraces LSD , Mescaline, Peyote, and high-THC concentrate marijuana, as well as “magic mushrooms” (psilocybin), Ayahuasca/DMT, and designer drugs like MDT and RAVE.) 
The use of psychedelics also paved the way for Alan Watts’s groundbreaking book in 1961, Psychotherapy East and West, in which Watts, an Episcopal minister and spiritual philosopher, celebrated the merging of Western psychology and Eastern mysticism.[3] (We had already been celebrating this merger on our LSD trips.)

From Transpersonal Psychology to Big Pharma
​
Before long, this focus on self and spiritual meaning became apparent in counseling practices as a new field of psychology was birthed: “transpersonal” psychology.
Transpersonal psychology seeks meaning by focusing upon spiritual and metaphysical aspects of human personality.[4] Practices such as meditation, hypnotherapy, dream analysis, visualization, journaling, yoga, and mindfulness are all avenues of this approach. It rode in on the New Age Movement and became popularized through such avenues as the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, the works of Gnostic psychiatrist Carl Jung,[5] Eastern meditative techniques and yoga, and especially in Christendom, aspects of the spiritual formation movement. 

Thus, the search for healing and spirituality in modern counseling psychology, untethered from the Bible, soon became intimately intertwined with pagan and Eastern religions, and psychedelic mysticism. Not surprisingly, these movements are now bringing sweeping changes to our established scientific medical and psychological professions—empowered by Big Pharma, Big Alcohol, and Big Tobacco—and other Big Money.[6].

The psychedelic pharma market is exploding, and it’s only beginning. It’s “currently a little over $2 billion and is expected to be valued at more than $6.8 billion by 2027 implying an annualized growth rate of a staggering 16.3%.”[7] “Psychedelics are a huge rising star in the drug therapy industry, and there’s almost no mental health condition right now that’s not being looked at.”[8]
In 2019, the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine formed the first ever (in the US) Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, where it is churning out dozens of research papers on psychedelics. Its opening just happened to “coincide” with a new classification by the Federal Drug and Food Administration for “breakthrough therapy” drugs—in this case, psilocybin, which is seen as a major promising pharmaceutical. 
In 2021, Francis Collins, Christian evangelical leader of the international Human Genome Project and former director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), praised the potential of psychedelic treatments and approved a massive grant for psilocybin research. [9]
As you might imagine, mega-investors are lining up for the enormous profits expected from medicines utilizing psychedelic, and courses to teach professionals in the mental health professions how to “do” psychedelic counseling are springing up like mushrooms (no pun intended).
In June 2023, a massive five-day conference in Denver called Psychedelic Science 2023,offered training in psychedelic counseling along with in-depth discussion about the future of psychedelic medicine. Such programs are appearing frequently along with \mountains of as yet unanswered questions and concerns.
Each psychedelic is unique in its structure and its effect on individuals. They are, in our experience and even with tiny doses, unpredictable substances that may give you a smooth ride one day and fling you into the depths of hell the next. How will a doctor or a pharmacist or a company determine how much of a psychedelic may be helpful for any given individual?
And then there are the effects of psychedelics on Christians. 
Psychedelics can corrupt the sanctification process and create spiritual turmoil in born-again Christians in whom the Holy Spirit is working. One of the main functions of psychedelics is unleashing powerful imagery that can blur or erase the lines between fantasy and reality, and imagination and biblical spirituality. Because the underlying spiritual nature and foundation of the psychedelic experience is paganism, it opens a Christian up again to an idolatrous belief system that rejects the Divine creator God and deifies creation. (See Romans 1:21–23.) They can inflame the fallen (pagan) mind and increase vulnerability to vain imaginations and doctrines of demons (Colossians 2:8, 1 Timothy 4:1). [10]
* * * 
In conclusion, here are a few of the questions that deeply concern me: 

-      Will psychedelics invade the Christian counseling office? And with it, the Christian Church?
-      How prepared are our churches and pastors to face what may be coming from our government and our medical and psychological establishments? Here in Washington State, the State has forbidden a Christian counselor to counsel a homosexual about coming out of that lifestyle. The case is currently making its way to the Supreme Court, but we can surely look forward to more of such persecution especially in the name of "Healing."
-      Will they have to be licensed in psychedelic therapy to do counseling? 
-      What will happen to individual Christians if this shift occurs? Counseling has become big business in many parts of the Body of Christ today. In some places, it’s greatly supplanted biblical teaching and what used to be called the care of souls. 
-      Is the Church prepared for the invasion of psychedelics?
-      Is it even aware of such a possibility? 
 At the very least, we should be praying about these issues. 
* * * 
My next article will examine some psychological counseling practices using psychedelics and especially their focus on the supposedly “healing” mystical experience that is said to be central. 
​* * * 
What do you think? Email us your thoughts at [email protected] 

FOOTNOTES
[1]           (You can read a slightly futuristic, sci-fi version of our own true story in The Glittering Web.)
[2]           For a full history of LSD, see https://bit.ly/3h1mJKQ
[3]           The original 1961 version is out of print. A 2007 version is now available here: 
bit.ly/3pSjdK7 
[4]           See the article, “What is Transpersonal Psychology? 9 Examples and Theories,” 13 Jun 2023 by Jo Nash, Ph.D. at bit.ly/3NXofgh
[5]           See our article, “Carl G. Jung: Man of Science or Modern Shaman?” (2008) at bit.ly/3Q0kw4k
[6]           See https://bit.ly/3xZSPg6
[7]           See bit.ly/44SEget
[8]           See https://cnb.cx/3ix1Kz6- See also our booklet, Psychedelic Seduction (Lighthouse Trails Publishing, 2022, $1.95) (fn), 
[9]           Seebit.ly/3K2VvkW
[10]         Taken from our booklet, Psychedelic Seduction, on sale at Lighthouse Trails Publishing for $1.95. bit.ly/3rziuLi

They called me Space Lane.
It was partly because my maiden name was Lane, which, unfortunately, the boys in my school discovered rhymed with lamebrain and insane dame. 
But it was also because I was enthralled by the spirit of the time. It was the early 50s, and talk was everywhere about space travel, going to the moon, and even Mars. Sci-fi was appearing on the drugstore magazine racks— Galaxy, Amazing Stories, Astounding Science Fiction, and others, and I began avidly following such pioneers as Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov.
I wrote to major observatories and received catalogs of planets, star clusters, faraway galaxies, and comets like Halley’s that swing by Earth every 75 years or so. I collected photos and articles and made a huge space scrapbook that won a blue ribbon at the state fair. And I had my own “space suit” and helmet with “real” plastic oxygen tanks. Robots and sci-fi peopled my thoughts, and the movie War of the Worlds terrified me. I even had my bedroom fitted with outer space wallpaper and a mini-planetarium that shone galaxies on the ceiling with the lights off.
It was the early 1950s; I was ten going on thirteen, and it was the spirit of the age. 
How times have changed! 
Or have they?
*  *  *
Have you seen the amazing robots Boston Dynamics is making? They turn somersaults, carry huge loads, dance, and do almost everything except brush your teeth for you. And maybe even that. [1]
And surely, you’ve watched Ameca the humanoid robot with the disturbingly sweet face,[2] and Sophia, who wants to destroy humans?[3] Oh, and the robot dogs?[4]
But robots aren’t all that’s happening. AI tools such as ChatGPT and MidJourney are rapidly enhancing human effort, taking only seconds to create complex narratives and stunning images and totally revolutionizing the fields of literature and graphic design. Other forms of AI are revolutionizing medical, industrial, and military situations. And already, some folks are fearing an AI takeover. 
This revolution is only just beginning, and it doesn’t stop with AI. AI is only a step toward what many proponents believe is the ultimate goal of transcending human limitation forever: transhumanism.
Transhumanism
Once the exclusive scope of superheroes and sci-fi, the proponents of transhumanism envision overcoming a material world by enhancement devices—a method that, taken to its ultimate, basically becomes self-glorification. On some levels, of course, it’s merely improving the human condition in increments—such as wearing glasses or hearing aids, adding artificial limbs, or enhancing the boundaries of intelligence and communication through computers—but others envision an actual ‘digital god.’ 
According to tech mogul Elon Musk, for some, such as Google co-founder Larry Page, the ultimate goal of the race to build artificial intelligence is to create a “digital god,” a silicon-based lifeform that “would understand everything in the world. . . . and give you back the exact right thing instantly.”[5]
ChatGPT reveals the strong secular, leftist biases of its creators, so it probably won’t be popular among those who already know their God. 
"Digital AI makes a sad god—a god crafted by humans and limited in its abilities by what we can create and program. It won’t save anyone, and it won’t turn this world into a utopia because it cannot solve the biggest problem every human being has—sin!" [6]
But there’s another approach to the problem of human limitation. 
Become “post-human.”
Radically modifying humanity to become “post-human” is the goal of many transhumanists: “Recent tools to pursue this vision include brain-computer interfaces (BCIs), nanotechnologies, and gene-editing tools like CRISPR.”[7] Some proponents are even talking about uploading our minds to the Cloud, where we will dwell forever! (Surely, a secularist’s idea of heaven!) This would involve scanning and mapping a biological brain in all its complexity, which, presently, is still stuff of science fiction. 
But that people are even considering and working toward it shows the intensity of the desire for transcendence and eternal life—a goal impossible to achieve by material, earthly means, but only by the completed work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross.
Do you fear technological advances more than God? 
He is more than up to the current AI / transhumanist revolution. Thousands of years ago, He foresaw the real needs of human beings and sent His only Son, Jesus Christ to overcome both the material and spiritual realms. The real enemy isn’t technology; it’s sin and the devil. 
Do you know Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord? He has taken care of sin once and for all on the Cross, and as for our bodies, those who follow Him will receive new ones in the world to come. 
Pursuing transhumanist goals for anything except momentary, earthly improvement and comfort is a futile undertaking.
Instead, turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, confess that you are a sinner, and be born again into a new and eternal realm where He has already taken care of the body and soul. Leave the attempts of transhumanists to transcend physical mortality to wither on the vine and follow instead the real Giver of transcendence and victory over death. [8].)

ENDNOTES
[1]           https://youtu.be/fn3KWM1kuAw
[2]           https://youtu.be/LzBUm31Vn3k
[3]           https://fb.watch/kTCgsAhbA/
[4]           https://youtu.be/mf2rvZ7Uv4s - 14 Most Advanced Robots Doing Complicated Actions Humanoid Robots, Robot Dogs And More
[5]          https://answersingenesis.org/technology/google-co-founder-wants-to-build-ai-digital-god/
[6]          Ibid.
[7]          Ibid.
[8]         This is an excellent article. "Thinking Biblically about  Transhumanist technologies." https://answersingenesis.org/human-evolution/thinking-biblically-about-transhumanist-technologies/- January 11, 2023

by Linda Nathan

Hindu ritual robots?
AI Jesus? [1]
Really?
Is there an “AI spirituality”? 

The biotech industry is exploding with ways to improve aging and performance and transcend our humanness. Many scientists are willing to go to extreme lengths to accomplish these ends by using such converging technologies as nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science. 
There’s no denying it. Robots are helpful in industry, and AI can write an essay, create a good book cover, and even win a war. An artificial leg, arm, or new heart can be a great blessing. We all want to overcome aging, but many transhumanists have a far greater goal. They hope to escape death and live eternally through the merger of humans and artificial intelligence. 
In other words, to become “post-human beings.” [2]
Dr. Martin Erdmann in his book, The Spiritualization of Technology: The Quest for Human Perfection (Verax Vox Media, 2022) rightly refers to its practitioners as “technicians of transcendence.”[3] And these “technicians” have increasingly powerful platforms in this world today. AI is suddenly everywhere; robots are moving into new spheres of industry and daily living, and of course there’s the military—whose secrets we mostly can only imagine.
But something else is happening too. 
AI is moving into religion as well. We might have expected that it’s already being used to rewrite the Bible, [4] and it’s bringing a new-old spirituality with it. 
One that’s been around a long, long time.
One place we can see that spirituality at work is in Hindu devotees and their robots.
​
AI Spirituality
The quote at the beginning of this article comes from another article that focuses on the use of robots and AI in religious ceremonies. It points out that their use works best in the type of religion that focuses on perfecting practice and not on belief. In other words, it doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you’ve got the method down right and do your best. In the case of Hinduism, “a robotic arm performs ‘aarti,’ a ritual in which a devotee offers an oil lamp to the deity to symbolize the removal of darkness.” A variety of other religious robots perform similar types of tasks throughout East Asia and South Asia. 
Christians know this approach as salvation by works, or as the Apostle Paul warned, “another Gospel”:

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. Galatians 1:6-9​

Accursed?
Really? Isn’t that kind of extreme? 
Why would you be accursed just for trying to do your best? What’s wrong with that?
What is Paul saying here? And why does it matter?

Works vs. Grace
Paul is making the life-shaping distinction between works and grace.
Every religion in the world except Christianity practices a works-based religion: Do your best, be a “good” person, please your “god,” kill infidels, and you’re headed for Paradise. Ring those temple bells, hold that yoga posture longer, meditate more, connect your brain to the Cloud and transcend mere humanity. It’s all human-based.
Only trouble is, have you ever tried to do your best—and failed? Tried over and over again? And failed? And failed again? Failed miserably? Given up? How many times have you turned that prayer wheel, burned that incense, and found no comfort? Have you ever done something against your conscience? What do you do with that guilt? Where do you turn? Do you suppress it? Harden your heart? Convince yourself through some form of “therapy” that it’s wrong to feel that way? Do more rituals of perfection? 
​
The Wheel of AI Spirituality
You can be free from the wheel of AI spirituality, the treadmill of works to save yourself. No amount of effort can wash away real guilt or give you new life and freedom. Jesus Christ came to give real freedom. He alone can wash away your guilt, your bitterness, your pain, and your failures and wrongdoing. Only Christ can cleanse your conscience. Only Christ can really forgive and free you from that “AI spirituality”—that endless treadmill of trying to work off your guilt—with His peace, grace, and love. Only Christ can give new life.
Works is an endless treadmill with no hope in sight.
Grace is a free gift. All you have to do is accept it.
Turn to Him now with all your burdens and ask Him to give you grace, peace, and new life. And He will.

Salvation is the greatest miracle of all. If you have not yet experienced this miracle, why not now?
The saving Gospel is simple to understand:

We are all sinners, born in sin, rebels following the prince of the power of the air, the devil, and headed for hell. The wrath of God is on us until we repent and turn to Jesus Christ. 

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. Ephesians 2:1–3.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. Romans 1:18

God has provided the only solution to our terrible situation: We must repent of our sins, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ who died on the cross for our sins, and be born again and filled with the Holy Spirit.
Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 1 Peter 2:24

How is one born again? 
But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” Romans 10:8–11

But how do you get that kind of faith? 
Read the Bible and pray for the gift of saving faith in Jesus Christ. Pray for forgiveness for lacking it.
So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Romans 10:17
But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, John 1:12

We become new creations in Christ Jesus. 
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. 2 Corinthians 5:17
“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20 

All other avenues are doomed to fail and be buried with our human bodies for there is no other way to transcend our humanness and enter eternal life than the way God has ordained: to be born again through repentance of our sin and faith in Jesus Christ.
​
(All Bible quotes are taken from the English Standard Version.)

​
REFERENCES & SUGGESTED RESEARCH

1. Religion Hub, ANS Religion News Service. “Robots are performing Hindu rituals — some devotees fear they’ll replace worshippers.” By Holly Walters, March 13, 2023.
2. “Experimental Google AI 'Bard' talks faith in the first person, says 'Christianity gives me hope.’” The Christian Post, By Ian M. Giatti, Christian Post Reporter. Friday, April 21, 2023. 
3. Erdmann, Dr. Martin. The Spiritualization of Technology: The Quest for Human Perfection. Verax Vox Media, 2022. Kindle version. Location 84 of 10464.
4. IFA Special Report: Made in Technology’s Image: The Plan to Dehumanize the World through Technology. Order free here. 
5. Altered Humans - How Biotech is Changing Who We Are, 4/23/23  

NOTES
[1]           https://ifapray.org/blog/artificial-intelligence-takes-aim-at-the-bible/
[2]           Erdmann, The Spiritualization of Technology, Kindle version, Location 84 of 10464.
[3]           Ibid.
[4]           https://ifapray.org/blog/artificial-intelligence-takes-aim-at-the-bible/

by Linda Nathan

Care for the environment ~ Climate change ~ Earth religion

What do these words all have in common?

Earth Day!

And it’s almost here. On Saturday, April 22, the United States will observe the 53rd annual Earth Day along with an enormous Earth Day network in around 184 countries worldwide. And this year's theme? Can you guess it? "Celebrate Diversity Month!" 

Originally founded in 1970 by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin to highlight and promote environmental issues, the event has since become worldwide. The day focuses on many educational and community service aspects, including tree planting, pollution cleanup, and education about wildlife and the earth. “To its credit, the day has brought some major change in policy such as the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and passage of the Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts.”[i] 

But there is another, darker side of Earth Day though, as many widely celebrate it as a religious event, with invocations to the earth and celebrations of "oneness." A key element underlying these darkly religious views is the widespread use of marijuana and psychedelics for Earth Day closely aligns with what has become an international counterculture celebration known as “420 Day.”

April 20 Global“ Marijuana ‘420’ Day" Celebration
 
"420 Day" is pot culture slang for celebrating marijuana and hashish around 4:20 pm on April 20. The title arose when five California high school students designated it as their time to meet and take marijuana. Now such “hash bashes” take place all over North America and as far afield as Mexico City, London, Australia, Slovenia, and Cypress with events focused on liberalization and legalization.

But despite its popularity and all the hype, marijuana can wreak devastating damage. Numerous studies and organizations are exposing its harmfulness to both adults and children. Our booklets, The Cross & the Marijuana Leaf and Psychedelic Seduction, available at Lighthouse Trails Publishing for only $1.95 each, thoroughly lay out the issues. See also AALM.info and Everybrainmatters.org.

Earth Mysticism
 
The widespread pagan religious movement going on now is not unique to our times, but it is unique in the dynamic and rapid way many Eastern and Western philosophies are continually converging and mutating into strange new hybrids. Following are some of the most common.

Cosmic Evolutionary Thought. One of these major hybrids is the marriage of science and occultism into mystical evolution­ary thinking and the new physics (based on Eastern religion. This popular view sees humanity as on the verge of a new evolutionary step leading to planetary salvation through a global civilization based on a single consciousness integrat­ing all earth systems. The earth is seen as a "living organism" (sometimes called Gaia) that is developing a "global brain. "Achieving this global unity is now the focus of many, whose efforts range from shaping education to encouraging worldwide mass meditation.  Lately, transhumanism has become a major part of this thrust. ​

The search for meaning in both science and religion, the emptiness of purpose in materialism, and a desire for spiritual power all contribute to the popularity of this view. A flood of ideas and techniques now focuses upon this longed-for evolution­ary leap of consciousness to personal godhood and the fulfillment of all desires. And Earth Day is the perfect rallying point.

Here are a few glimpses into other of these metamorphosing philosophies that coalesce around Earth Day. 

Creation Spirituality. After his expulsion from the Roman Catholic Dominican Order, Matthew Fox was ordained by the Episcopal Church in 1994. He “urges Christians to move beyond a theology based on sin and redemption toward a “creation spirituality” with nature as the primary revelation.”[iii],[iv] Fox founded the University of Creation Spirituality in California and is known for his “Techno Cosmic Masses.” 

Eco-feminism / Feminist spirituality. Feminists love the idea of Mother Earth and of being goddesses themselves. Women's spirituality movements are exploding in North America, including within mainline Protestantism. What began in the 1960s as a women’s reform movement within established religions today is frequently linked with the rapidly emerging modern goddess or Gaia cult (more below). This approach to femininity generally resists Christian forms of earth stewardship and promotes the belief that non-Christian mystical experiences bring environmental awareness. The spiritual heart of the movement is a belief in women's divinity and spiritual and psychic powers.[v]

Gaia, the Earth Mother. One popular form of pagan earth worship came from well-known atmospheric scientist James Lovelock more than 20 years ago—the concept of Gaia. “The premise of Gaian theory is that the Earth itself is a superorganism both living and divine.”[vi] Now some influential scholars see it as a new scientific model for the biological and environmental sciences.[vii],[viii]

Native American spirituality. The rise of Native American spirituality and its spread, including throughout the Christian Church, is yet another example of the popularity of earth mysticism.[ix] The book Muddy Waters: An Insider’s View of North American Native  Spirituality clearly contrasts the biblical view with the Native American view. The author, a Christian, is the daughter and granddaughter of medicine men. It’s available at Lighthouse Trails Publishing.

The Bible’s View. The Bible though takes another, far less popular view about the problems with the earth. 

The earth lies defiled
    under its inhabitants;
for they have transgressed the laws,
    violated the statutes,
    broken the everlasting covenant.
 Isaiah 24:5 (ESV)

Robert Sirico of the Action Institute summed it up well in 1994:

"There is no Commandment against littering, but there is a very straightforward one about worshiping false Gods"[x]

***
Our novel, The Glittering Web, is a Christian thriller based on the true story of our own rescue from earth spirituality. We wrote it "so that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places." Ephesians 3:10–12 (ESV)

________________________________
​ENDNOTES
[i]https://newyork.cbslocal.com/2015/04/08/earth-day-wiki-history-why-important/
[ii]Kjos, Berit, Under the Spell of Mother Earth. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1992, 146.
[iii]https://acton.org/public-policy/environmental-stewardship/eco-spirit/false-gods-earth-day
[iv]https://www.jubileecommunity.org/who-we-are/what-is-creation-spirituality/
[v]Points 1 to 3 and this summary taken from article by Alison Lentini, Spiritual Counterfeits Project Journal on Gaia: A Religion of the Earth, Vol. 16:1, 1992, 21–22.
[vi]Sirico, R. “The False Gods of Earth Day.” https://acton.org/public-policy/environmental-stewardship/eco-spirit/false-gods-earth-day
[vii]Spiritual Counterfeits Project, P.O. Box 4308, Berkeley, CA 94704. See SCP Journal on Gaia: A Religion of the Earth, Vol. 16:1, 1991.
[viii]http://nautil.us/blog/its-time-to-take-the-gaia-hypothesis-seriously
[ix]See Muddy Waters: An Insider’s View of North American Native Spirituality, Lighthouse Trails Publishing.
[x]https://acton.org/public-policy/environmental-stewardship/eco-spirit/false-gods-earth-day

Photo by Casey Horner, Unsplash

​

Is it Revival or deception? Are we quenching the Holy Spirit or being deceived? 
 
The Church has struggled with these questions for two thousand years, and as saints over the centuries have learned, there are often no easy answers. It can take time for the true nature of events to be revealed, for the true character of its participants to emerge, and for the true fruit of the Holy Spirit to become evident.
 
Since the events of Asbury have unfolded, and The Chosen and Jesus Revolution launched, we've been hearing voices from all over the spectrum: "A great revival is breaking out!" "No! It's deception!" "Yes, it's real!" "No, the people are sinners!" And etc., etc.
 
What's a Christian to believe? How do we discern?

Carefully.
 
The Lord saved us in 1976 amid a powerful revival in the Pacific Northwest in what many would consider a most unlikely place—a liberal Episcopal church in Oregon with very liberal pastors and an active gay community who proudly referred to themselves as the "once-born" and the "frozen chosen." Yet God chose it to save Linda from a scheduled hysterectomy by miraculously healing her of uterine cancer and then bringing us to new life in Christ. 

Ignorant of everything Christian, we plunged into the life of that church. Yet, despite much false teaching and open acceptance of sin, The Book of Common Prayer and the church's daily liturgy still promoted the Bible and the historical teachings of the 16th-century Reformation. The Holy Spirit thus slowly sanctified us through those powerful influences and the help of some godly people who took us under their wing. After several years, He moved us to another state, and we lost touch.

Ten years later, Richard graduated from seminary, and the Lord moved us back to Oregon for a time. There we met an Episcopal minister who turned out to have been an interim minister at that church where God saved us. We listened with awe as he shared how the fire of the Holy Spirit had fallen after we left. The liberal pastors were all gone, along with about two-thirds of the congregation, leaving the remaining one-third humbled and hungry for God's Word, which he had taught them.  ​
 
Over the years since then, we've been involved in several churches wrestling with the Holy Spirit working to bring revival, and sad to say, both closed down rather than yield to the Spirit's moving and corrections. We've learned to be very careful in deciding too soon what is real revival, who will respond, and who is “really” saved or beyond redemption--and just what the Holy Spirit might or might not do. Practically all of Paul’s Epistles focus on correction because even in the midst of that great awakening in the early church, there was much that needed correction. We are a sinful, stiff-necked people and can expect the same need of correction in our day. So let’s keep trying to test and discern spirits, teachings, and behaviors, but humbly and while manifesting Christ's love.  
 
PRAYING INTO REVIVAL. Whatever is happening needs a lot of prayer. We with many others long for real soul-changing, nation-changing revival, so we'd like to recommend an excellent prayer guide from Intercessors for America called "Praying Into Revival." You can download it free at https://ifapray.org/promo/praying-into-revival/)
Here are the guide’s key points:
 
KEY PRAYER POINTS:

• When God moves, expect opposition. Pray for protection. The devil will stir up trouble.  
• Avoid divisions and foolish quarrels. 
• Pray that Christians will discern man-made and/or demonic works, and that church leaders would resist trying to sustain (or resist) revival in their own flesh. 
• Pray for long duration and good and lasting fruit. John 12:32 
• Don’t be a spectator — be active. Share the Gospel.
• Jesus is CENTRAL. Keep your eyes fixed on Him. “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” (John 12:32)
• Pray for unity in the churches wherever this revival is experienced. Matt. 6:33
• Pray for the practical concerns.  
• May this move be known by no one name, denomination, or people group. 
• Pray for wisdom, strength, and strategy for leaders to meet and address ongoing needs. 
• Pray for those who carry the fire of revival. John 4:41-42 

May God help us all to humbly cooperate with the Holy Spirit. 

​I peered out of the antique store at the fat white flakes that had begun falling only an hour ago. Foolishly, I had decided to spend more time browsing the stores in the picturesque Dutch town of Lynden, Washington, instead of heading home before dark. Now this sudden snowfall surprised me. It was early this year. As I quickly gathered my packages, I thought about the treacherous road home out of the valley into the Mount Baker foothills where we lived near the town of Maple Falls. In the best of weather it would take half an hour. But this was already the worst weather I’d seen in quite a while.
Alarmed, I began the long drive home in my old 1989 Volvo sedan amidst sleeting winds and gathering darkness. The stretch of open highway across the valley was bad enough—the winds rocked even my tank-like car. But I knew it was going to get far worse up ahead when I began climbing into the foothills on Reese Hill Road with its dangerous hairpin curve. It’s a beautiful drive in good weather, but in bad weather, its hairpin curve is very dangerous for it’s situated right where the highway turns steep. I pondered this for a while and prayed whether to attempt it or to go around another way. But any other way would take hours, and I needed to get home. My health was precarious, and my food and water were running low.
At the time, I was recovering from a devastating breakdown of my immune system that had caused me to lose fifty pounds and nearly die. The ordeal had lasted over a year and a half, but by the grace of God I’d survived and was slowly improving. I was still quite sensitive to many foods and environmental conditions though. Today’s trip had been a special treat. I’d actually been able to endure the musty air in the antique shop without getting sick and bought some beautiful candleholders. But now my fling worried me. Maybe I’d been too hasty going so far from home in November.
Then—there it was—just ahead, nearly lost in the blizzard.
The road up into the foothills.
As I began my ascent, the scene confronting me confirmed my worst fears. Peering through the snowstorm, I could see the hairpin turn up ahead and just beyond that, over a dozen cars that had failed to make the turn piled helter-skelter along its snowy banks. And I was already halfway up the first hill out of the valley.
There was nowhere to turn around, and it was too late to turn back. I had to make a rapid decision. And I did.
Grimly, I gunned the motor with a panicky burst of energy, hoping to make it past the stranded vehicles.
But as I skidded into the icy curve, my Volvo spun out of control and lurched nose first to the right into a ditch under a large tree right on the cusp of the curve, its rear end pointing directly into the middle of the hairpin turn. Approaching cars could crash right into me, and every driver coming up the hill behind me seemed to have the same idea—to pour on the gas to make it around that curve. I was sure one would smash into me at any moment.
​Lord Jesus Christ, I gasped, my heart pounding in my throat. You said not to be anxious about anything . . . to lift our requests to you with praise and thanksgiving . . . Please rescue me, Lord!
Within minutes, several men appeared who pushed the back end of my car out of the highway and into the ditch. My pounding heart slowed down, and I began to breathe more easily. The whole car now rested in the ditch, leaning sideways against the tree, but it was still protruding somewhat dangerously on the cusp of the curve. It was getting dark, visibility was low, and though the snowstorm was abating slightly, snow was piling up. Behind me traffic was still hurtling up the hill and skidding around that hairpin turn and into the snowbanks.
But for the moment I was safe. And I had heat and lights. With a borrowed cell phone, I reached Triple A and also left a frantic call for prayer on a friend’s answering machine. There was nothing else I could do, so I settled in to read my Bible, pray, and wait. 
But as time passed and evening turned into a dark and ominous night, I grew antsy. My gas was running out and soon my heat and light would be gone. It would be cold—very cold. I needed food—and not just any food but my limited special diet. And Triple A had said it would be a long wait. 
I prayed.
And praised the Lord.
And prayed.
And finally, receiving no sense of direction after hours, I decided I had to act. I thrust the Bible aside and made a desperate decision on my own. 
I would try to go back down the hill I had come up, then turn south across the valley floor. Probably by now that highway was snowed in, but if it weren’t, maybe I could cross the valley and reach the Mount Baker Highway. That would take me up to Maple Falls another much longer way—but, even assuming I made it safely back down the hill, it would be a roundabout and possibly dangerous trip that could take hours.
If I made it at all…
Okay. Enough of this, I thought. I can’t wait any longer. I have to act. 
I weighed my steps.
First, I had to edge the car in reverse backward into the highway’s hairpin curve, then cautiously turn and aim down the hill—hoping no one suddenly roared up the icy hill out of the snowy night  and crashed into me as I was turning on the curve. And then I had to maneuver down that icy hill. That had its own problems because there was a steep wooded ravine on one side of the road and a deep ditch on the other. Even a gentle skid on that icy road could slide me right into one gulch or the other.
Risky.
Or I could hit another car head on that was barreling blindly up the hill. 
Foolhardy. Stupid.
Or I could plunge off the side of the road down to the valley floor…
​What was I thinking?
But, I argued with myself, I was hungry and tired of waiting, and my heater was going to quit soon. I pondered, struggled, gripped the wheel, and prayed a final prayer.  
Then just as I turned on the ignition, two young men appeared at my window. The closest one had on a ski cap and a blue parka
“We’ll lift your car out,” he said. “Once you’re on the road, just put it in low, accelerate, and keep going up the hill. You’ll be fine.”
As I stared at them incredulously, a truck appeared, depositing a layer of gravel over the icy road. Then the Triple A tow truck arrived behind it.
The man at my window repeated his instructions. 
What can I lose? I thought. Maybe it’ll work. It sounded a lot easier than my plan.
I smiled. “Okay, thanks.” 
They each went to an opposite end of my car, and with one heave, it was out of the ditch and on the road, pointed uphill. I let out a deep breath, accelerated, and, sure enough, I was free! As I mounted the hill, I looked for the two men among all the cars in the snowbanks on the edge of the road to wave a thank you, but they had disappeared. Funny—I’d thought they’d be helping others. It seemed a little odd—after all, there was nowhere for them to go—but I just kept going and didn’t give it any further thought.
That night I told my husband about my adventure. 
Richard eyed me, frowning slightly. “Did you say two young men lifted your car out of that ditch with one heave?” 
“Yes, that’s what happened.” 
“And you said they were slender? Slight build?”
“Right, yeah. Pleasant looking guys. Kind of nondescript.”
Richard stared at me.
“Do you know that your Volvo weighs around three thousand pounds? Two of the world’s biggest weightlifters couldn’t lift it, let alone on an icy hill where it’s tilted sideways against a tree in a ditch.”
It began to dawn on me what he was saying. God had answered my prayer for rescue. I hadn’t had to try to do it myself…
We stared at each other, goose bumps rising. 

 For he will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you in all your ways.
Psalm 91:11 ESV
​

​Full of curiosity and excitement,
​the young man wandered into one of the head shops springing up like weeds along San Francisco’s Haight Street. It was the early Sixties, and the shop was only one among many devoted to drug paraphernalia for LSD and marijuana. Its gaudy assortment of lights, crystal figurines, colored and flavored rolling papers, and flamboyant posters drew him on.
Struck by the electric message of one poster, he halted. Scrolling in psychedelic style beneath the picture of a wizard the words, “Gandalf Lives!” leaped out. He studied it for a moment, vaguely reminded of a similar term describing Jesus Christ: “Jesus Lives!” But in his new philosophy born of the emerging LSD/Eastern religious culture, it seemed a proper twist. Yes, a wizard instead of Christ! Excitement and magic—not that “old rugged cross” stuff! That day, an interest was kindled to read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, which, just like magic, the citizens of hippie town were already devouring.
The world of elves, sorcerers, nature spirits, and witches soon filled his impressionable mind and blended seamlessly into the early LSD-New Age culture springing up like mushrooms after a rain of enchantment. And although he thought in the monistic terms of Hinduism, he wasn’t bothered by the apparent dichotomy of good and evil The Rings presented. After all, the books made “white” magic charming and the idea of a cosmic battle exciting. Theosophy, too, had its White and Black Brotherhoods—with “white” magic fighting “black” magic on the earthly plane. What else could the Brotherhood of the Ring be except the White Brotherhood?—proven (ever so romantically) by the figure of Gandolf, the wise magician who used his magic for “good” (white witchcraft). 
And then there were the elves, beautiful, graceful beings who moved effortlessly in supernatural, clairvoyant ways without a word about Jesus Christ or holiness or God’s abhorrence of strange fire. The world of witchcraft beckoned sweetly throughout the pages, its poison obscured by the exciting battle between what seemed “good” and what was obviously evil. 
As my wife Linda and I moved smoothly from LSD into occult fantasy and spiritualism, these same images peopled our world. There again we encountered the great adventure of the White Brotherhood with its Ascended Masters guiding us as we sallied forth to defeat the Black Brotherhood (i.e., black witchcraft or Satanism).
*   *   *
Many years have passed since Christ rescued us from that glittering web of deadly deception and brought us into the His Kingdom through His pre-eminent grace. The culture has changed immensely from that early, naïve time. I thought I was safe.
Then I saw Evangelical Christians everywhere lauding The Lord of the Rings.  
What was going on? 
When I was enmeshed in darkness, did the Ring Chronicles bring me the Light of Christ? In all honesty, I must say they only increased my spiritual darkness by lending a cozy loveableness to witchcraft and nature spirits. 
Did a vague hint of the saving Gospel shine through to lead me out of darkness? 
No! There was no hint; rather, there was another gospel entirely—the gospel that it’s “heroism” that stands against evil!
A professor at my seminary once talked about the difference between the Gospel approach to life and the Quest approach popularized by Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth. This made startling sense to me of the strange dichotomies woven through the Middle Ages, where the medieval syncretism of Roman Catholicism, classical culture, and German paganism gave birth to chivalry—a peculiar amalgamation that justified being a “killer for Christ.” 
The Lord of the Rings springs from this same worldview, which has pushed today’s science fiction market into the fantasy realm and transformed the world of fiction. It has launched an avalanche of books and movies in the same genre, until we not only have sword and sorcery and speculative fiction, but Christian Fantasy, Christian Science Fiction, and Christian Futuristic Fiction (often apocalyptic). Furthermore, some popular and even Christian authors are now emphasizing disturbing elements common to pagan, occult, and secular novels.[i] It was to combat this avalanche that we wrote The Glittering Web and our Omega Point Series.[ii]

“Mere Neo-paganism”

It must be said: The promotion of a worldview that reduces the struggle of humanity to a battle between white and black magic is nothing more than neo-paganism.  And this worldview is a flood that undiscerning Christians are consuming in great draughts today. Media ministries are promoting it, and discernment ministries, which should be pointing it out, are lauding it instead. 
Dr. Ted Baehr, founder and chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission and publisher and editor-in-chief of MOVIEGUIDE(r): A Family Guide to Movies and Entertainment, stated many years ago: 
The movie also includes a brief occult element not in the book. Happily, however, the filmmakers have left in plenty of Christian author J. R. R. Tolkien's biblical, metaphorical Christian references. In doing this, they have fashioned a masterful blend of fantasy and adventure that has positive Christological implications.[iii]
Recent opinion polls have ranked The Lord of the Rings as one of the most popular literary works of this century.[iv]
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Where is the clear voice speaking to the crucial issues of the day with distinctly biblical, Christian answers? With tears we must say it is not there and that a large segment of the evangelical world has become seduced by the world spirit of this present age.
 –Francis Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster. Westchester, IL: Crossway Books, 1984, p. 14.
 
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. (Colossians 2:8)

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[i] For more on this topic, see the following articles by Richard and Linda Nathan:

• “’Christian’ Romanticism, the Inklings, and the Elevation of Mythology at https://buff.ly/3MeeV5O
• “Children of the Inklings: Emergent ‘Christian’ Fiction” at https://buff.ly/3stj4uL
• “When Fantasy Becomes the Voice of Faith: How Edgy ‘Christian’ Fiction Is Transforming Today’s Church” at https://buff.ly/3L5FvfO  

 
[ii] Read “Glorifying the Savior / Exposing Deception: Why We Wrote The Omega Point Series. Richard and Linda Nathan (3/8/21 on this blog). 

[iii] Baehr’s organization states that “MOVIEGUIDE(r) and the Christian Film & Television Commission are non-profit organizations dedicated to redeeming the values of the entertainment media according to biblical principles by influencing industry executives and by equipping the public to be active, media-wise consumers.”

[iv] From “Influences on The Lord of the Rings: The Impact of the Lord of the Rings.” Online at http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngbeyond/rings/influences.html Actually, there’s nothing “brief” about the book's occult elements. The entire worldview illustrates it.

​Photo by Tim Rebkavets on Unsplash

By Linda Nathan

When I grew up during the nineteen forties and fifties, Halloween was just a day at the end of October where we dressed up, ate popcorn and caramel apples, and collected candy from neighbors. Once I tried knocking on doors a day early and received green tomatoes. But that was it--we had no fears of being poisoned or of finding glass in our candy.

I made one of my favorite costumes from my mother's metallic-looking silver diet suit that was supposed to melt the pounds off while she exercised. I don't think it worked because she gave it to me, and it made a fantastic space suit. A plastic space helmet with bags for air tanks completed the effect, along with green cotton gloves with green thread sewn between the fingers for webs. It didn't scare anybody, but it sure was fun. 

The horrific and demonic were almost unknown in my West Seattle neighborhood. And as television was still relatively new—we young kids used to gather at a neighbor's house in the afternoons to watch The Lone Ranger—there were no ghastly cartoons or demonic rock groups to trouble our fun—or our sleep. If there were a few monsters, you could sometimes see the zippers down their backs.

​It wasn't long, though, before Hollywood started getting professional about horror. I still remember the terrible nightmares I experienced for weeks after watching the original War of the Worlds movie in 1953 when I was twelve. It wasn't until many years later that Jesus Christ freed me from the demons that harassed me from that movie.

Things began to change in major ways during and after the Sixties. And they changed for me too. My dad's sister was a spiritualist, and some years earlier, she'd introduced me to a few of her occult practices and given me a subscription to an occult magazine. She also convinced my mother and me to join her in a séance before I left for college. I started to become involved with evil, and it wasn't just "pretend" evil. It led to 14 years of deep involvement in psychedelics, spiritualism, and the New Age Movement. (For the full story, read Glorifying the Savior / Exposing Deception: Why We Wrote The Omega Point Series).

At the same time, horror and evil were becoming both popular and profitable in our culture. One important way it spreads is through the imagination, such as cartoons that we kids ate up and that kids still do. If it was "imaginative," it had to be okay. Sadly, Disney hasn't turned out to be the harmless fun it seemed at first. Fantasia, created to promote Mickey Mouse, not only blended animated imagery with classical music it also included vivid scenes of evil dominating good. One section that haunted Richard for years (a young boy when he saw it) was its depiction of Mussorgsky's "The Night on Bald Mountain," in which a gigantic rampaging Satan overpowered a tiny church. Even though Richard was raised as an atheist, the sheer overpowering visual evil was terrifying. Many years later, after he became a Christian, Jesus Christ sent those demons to flight. (When Richard went to seminary in the 1980s, one of his studies was on the theology of children's cartoons. The results weren't pretty, for by that time evil was coming in like a flood.)

Three Major Stages in the Downfall of a Nation

Dr. Mark Bubeck, in his book, The Satanic Revival[1], lists three major stages in the downfall of a nation, which he determined from studying God's actions in the Old Testament:

(Short portions of the following article are excerpted from the new booklet, Psychedelic Seduction: Drugging the Church, by Richard and Linda Nathan, coming fall 2021 through Lighthouse Trails Publishing.)

​A “psychedelic renaissance” is exploding across America. 

Why is it happening? What does that mean? Is it helpful or harmful?

The psychedelic movement began in 1938 when Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann discovered LSD. Within a short time, therapists were using it on their patients and the CIA was using it in mind control experiments in the Cold War. When Harvard psychologist Timothy Leary popularized his LSD experiments in the early ‘60s, it launched the American counterculture revolution. By 1970, its dangers were apparent, and the Federal Drug Administration labeled LSD a dangerous Schedule I drug, along with heroin, marijuana, Ecstasy, methaqualone, and peyote. (This means these drugs have "no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”) 

That didn’t stop efforts to legalize these drugs though, which went underground for decades. But now with the War on Drugs fading and marijuana legalization breaking old barriers, those efforts are bearing fruit. Powerful interests in our society are releasing them on a massive scale at breakneck speed, and they likely will be reclassified soon. Meantime, huge paradigm shifts are occurring in major areas like medicine, psychiatry, business, and politics. 

What does psychedelic mean?

The term refers to drugs “capable of producing abnormal psychic effects (such as hallucinations) and sometimes psychotic states.” (Merriam-Webster, online) It includes LSD, Mescaline, Peyote, and high-THC concentrate marijuana and its dangerous imitations, Spice, K2, and Kratom, as well as the “magic mushroom” (psilocybin), Ayahuasca/DMT, and designer drugs like MDMA (Ecstasy) and RAVE. 

Psychedelics manipulate ordinary consciousness by affecting the senses, altering thinking, time sense, and emotions, and changing perception, mood, and cognition. They can (and often do) produce hallucinations, deceptive mystical states, and psychosis. 

The goal of this “renaissance”

"The ultimate goal is the legalization of psychedelic drugs. … social transformation and spirituality and liberation."[2]

Once we become Christians, God begins transforming us from a pagan (rebellious, anti-God) mind to a Bible-based, Holy Spirit-led mind (Ephesians 2; Romans 1–14, 12:2). Psychedelics can create terrible turmoil by unleashing powerful imagery that can blur or erase the lines between fantasy and reality, and imagination and truth. The underlying spiritual nature and foundation of the psychedelic experience is paganism, which rejects the Divine creator God and deifies creation (Romans 1:21–23), eventually seducing users with the idea that we are all gods.

Therefore, this so-called renaissance is not liberation at all but basically a return to paganism for these drugs unlock the portals of sorcery (witchcraft). The New Testament word for sorcery is the Greek term pharmakeia, which is the root of our word pharmacy—a dispensary of drugs. Deuteronomy 18:9–12 shows that God hates sorcery.

”Aliens and god-like entities.” 

Another dangerous aspect of psychedelics involves the encounters users frequently have with what psychedelic therapist Daniel McQueen calls ”aliens and god-like entities.” The Bible calls these entities demons and warns about this warfare in Ephesians chapter 6:10-18. 

Psychiatrist Rick Strassman studied DMT research subjects extensively and found at least half had encountered an entity after taking DMT. He reports,
​
"I was neither intellectually nor emotionally prepared for the frequency with which contact with beings occurred in our studies, nor the often utterly bizarre nature of these experiences…. Their business appeared to be testing, examining, probing, and even modifying the volunteer’s mind and body. One patient described it this way: 'It’s more like being possessed. During the experience there is a sense of someone or something else there taking control. It’s like you have to defend yourself against them, whoever they are, but they certainly are there. I’m aware of them, and they’re aware of me. It’s like they have an agenda.'''[3]

Author Carl Teichrib perfectly sums up their deceptive agenda: 

We can become as gods. It's the same messaging all the way through, isn't it? Doesn't matter if you read the writings of channeled UFO entities, if you take a look at what the New Age teaches, what Eastern spirituality gives us, or what the messages that come through the psychedelic experience show us. It always points back to Genesis 3: ‘We will be as gods.’ This is a gateway… a form of forbidden fruit."[3]

While psychedelics may at times seem to provide captivating mystical experiences and insights or some mental or physical improvement, at the bottom, they are a portal to great instability and spiritual deception and danger. Expecting a hallucinogen ultimately to heal is like expecting a poisonous snake not to bite. 

Only Jesus Christ can save, set free, and truly transform.

Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6 

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

Read a fictionalized version of our escape in our novel The Glittering Web, Book 1 of the Omega Point Series here. Listen to the prequel free. Also read “Why We Wrote the Omega Point Series” here.

Take our one-minute survey: View of Psychedelics here. 
​
More:
-   The Cross & the Marijuana Leaf by Linda Nathan (2017). 20-page booklet. $1.95. Lighthouse Trails Publishing here. 
-    Linda answers questions about marijuana on the Parker J Cole Show here.
-    Richard & Linda discuss drugs, deception, and the spiritual realm on the Parker J Cole Show here. 

[1] Opening quotes from Changing Our Minds: Psychedelic Sacraments and the New Psychotherapy by Don Lattin, Synergetic Press, 2017.
[2] Ibid.
[3] https://bit.ly/2W2FLs8

By Richard and Linda Nathan

Stories teach. Whether we read a novel just to kick back and relax or to jump into an exciting adventure, we enter another view of reality—of one or possibly more worldviews.

Since our central purpose as Christians should be to glorify God and to grow in our knowledge of Him, we should be alert to a story’s influences—even when we read for pleasure.

In recent years, fiction aimed at Christians has exploded in the marketplace with such new categories as Christian Fantasy, Christian Science Fiction, Supernatural, and Christian Futuristic Fiction (often apocalyptic). Christian novels used to be relatively wholesome and instructive, but nowadays many popular and even Christian authors are emphasizing disturbing elements common to pagan, occult, and secular novels.

Some publishers are fueling the flood by trying to repeat the phenomenal sales of Frank Peretti’s spiritual warfare novels, the Left Behind series, and the fantasy novels of J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis with countless imitations and wannabes. (Estimates of the worldwide sales figures of The Lord of the Rings run from 150 to 200 million, according to Zaleski, 2015.) This is all part of an enormous rise in the love and promotion of fantasy and mythology. As the Zaleskis ' article about the Inklings says, “Fantasy became the voice of faith. And it made for a cracking good story.”

Nevertheless, we’ve found hardly any Evangelical Christians nowadays questioning the popularity of such mythological/fantasy thinking. Fifty or sixty years ago, this type of thinking would have been anathema to many biblical churches. 

​Why? Is fantasy really the voice of faith?