The opening sentence of Allen Bloom's celebrated book "The Closing of the American Mind," states somewhat hyperbolically: "There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of: almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative." Dora's reply misses the point: the point at issue is not the duplicitous STATED purpose of the channelers, but their HIDDEN agendas, i.e., the dangerous lie embedded with their occasional truths.
As already discussed, one of these lies is the rejection of the good vs evil polarity. Dora and Glen try to rescue Seth from this charge by noting that Seth links accountability with the fact that "you create your own reality." This absurd claim is decisively refuted by life experience, but that is a separate issue. The salient point is that "accountability" is not "moral" accountability if the good vs. evil polarity is rejected. The rejection of this polarity means that the only incentive to be moral is to preserve a pleasing self-image and life experience. The spiritual trap is this: moral relativists feel free to be immoral, even criminal, when it suits them, when it feels good, and when they imagine they can get away with it. Dora's reply fails to demonstrate that any of my key points are undermined by lifting quotes out of their Sethian context.
What Dora, Marilyn, Debbie, and Glen fail to realize and the Seth, Elias, and Ramtha entities perversely fail to acknowledge is this: my critique is more than personal belief; it is established by excellent sociological research. For example, a fairly recent sociological study indicates that when our youth reject moral absolutes and an objective standard of truth, they become:
36% more likely to lie to their parents
48% more likely to cheat on exams
twice as likely to try to physically hurt someone
2 1/4 times more likely to steal
6 times more likely to attempt suicide
twice as likely to lack purpose and be resentful and angry with life
twice as likely to get drunk and three times as likely to use illegal drugs
(see Josh McDowell and Bob Hostetler, "Right from 'Wrong," p. 14 and throughout).
Dora's reply misses the point about the exorcism and disillusioned channelers I discuss. Prior to his possession, Robbie's New Age family saw no reason to doubt their "verification" that the late Aunt Harriet was communicating from the astral realm and that the Ouija board was a safe spiritual tool. Raphael and Johanna initially embrace their channeling philosophy and have little concern about demonic intervention. it is the intrusion of the demonic, not their fears and beliefs, that initiate their disillusionment with New Age assumptions.
if Dora, Marilyn, and Debbie would just read Malachi Martin's seminal book "Hostage to the Devil," I'm confident they would be convinced that demonic power is very real and cannot be reduced to the Sethian notion of the Devil as a hallucinatory projection of our fears and beliefs. Why? What is so convincing about genuine exorcisms? Martin explains this clearly: what convinces the skeptic is not the sudden drop in temperature when a demon manifests, not the teleportation of objects around the room, not the victim's levitation, not the demon's disclosure of the most embarrassing secrets of members of the exorcist team, not even the supernatural threat words scratched on the victim's flesh by an unseen hand. These phenonema can be present, but what convinces that skeptic is the PRESENCE, the electrifyiing presence of seering and disorienting hatred, including (in Peck's phrase) the victim's "incredibly contemptuous grin of utter hostile malevolence."
My cousin E was 2 or 3 when a demon tried to possess him. Contrary to Dora's and Seth's assumptions, E was too young to believe in demons. But his Dad, a pastor, had just finished an exorcism inside a house, and E was left with his Mom in the car outside until its completion. The demon's attempt to possess young E coincided with the demon's expulsion from the lady in the house. E's eyes rolled up in his head with only the whites of his eyes visible. Of his deep trance, E can only remember being protected in Jesus' loving arms. Only his parents' fervent prayers helped E fend off the evil entity.
In my 16-year-old brother's exorcism of IB, his TV revelry was literally interrupted by God. As I watched, puzzled, God revealed to my brother (D), IB's possessed status, name, and location. When D arrived at the distant coffee shop, a stranger inexplicably approached him and oddly observed:
"You're here on a special mission, aren't you?" IB's gang soon arrived and started challenging patrons to a fight. D's courageous confrontation with IB and word of exorcism left IB writhing like a serpent on the pavement outside, frothing at the mouth, and finally able to quietly say, "Thank you." I'm still haunted by that amazing night in my home town. IB has since written an excellent book on Christian spirituality. The evidence for the demonic is far more impressive that that for the contrary insights of channeling.
Berserk
P.S. Glen, are you Amish? Your TV aversion made me wonder.
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Channeling Agendas: A Reply to Roger (Read 467983 times)
