Saturday, August 25, 2012

Charismatic Deceptions, Hinduism, Kundalini, Kriyas etc.

The most important influence in causing me to pull back from defending the Harbinger is the charismatic connections of its author, Jonathan Cahn. I learned years ago that many of the teachers he seems to be accepting in some way or another are deceived men and women who are leading other Christians astray. While I haven't been able to find such influences in the Harbinger itself I have to be alert to the possibility that there is some such influence that's outside my ability to detect, and if I want to find out one way or the other I'm going to have to suspend all judgment about it altogether for a while.

Meanwhile I want to take a tour through the charismatic deceptions as a sort of foundation for whatever I need to know about all this. So this morning I was listening to one of Brannon Howse's broadcasts about a prayer rally that's to be held tomorrow in which some charismatic leaders I KNOW are deceivers have apparently succeeded in deceiving some political leaders on the Right, such as Michele Bachman and Phyllis Schlafly. Here's the blurb from Howse's show:
Brannon’s guest is Justin Peters. Topic: Several well-known New Religious right leaders that include Michele Bachman, Jim Garlow, Rick Scarborough, David Barton, Tom Minnery of Focus on the family and others are listed as speakers at a prayer rally at the church of Rodney Howard-Browne. Do these people not have search engines on their computers? Hear audio clips of Rodney Howard-Browne and learn how he brought the idea of being “drunk in the spirit”, “holy laughter” and other manifestations into churches in the early 1990s. What is the source of these manifestations? What does it tell us about the condition of modern-day evangelicalism when a man with the theology of Browne can see members of the New Religious Right take part in a prayer rally at his church? Topic: Hear an audio clip by John MacArthur on how many of the NAR and WOF proponents are committing blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Topic: We take your calls and we hear from a caller that was part of this movement and is thankful we are exposing it as not being Biblical.
I've written on some of these manifestations in charismatic churches on this blog, but Howse pointed out a You Tube video that really brings it home how false they are, how they are EXACTLY what goes on in the pagan religion of Hinduism in the form of "Kundalini Yoga." I've heard many times how similar it all is without ever having witnessed it. In this case Andrew Strom, an ex-charismatic "prophet" who has been exposing this movement for years now, has put up footage of the same manifestations occurring in a Hindu context, and there is no doubt that this is satanic stuff.

Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, who set up shop in Oregon for a few years in the 80s and led many Americans to demon-possession, whose followers dressed in red, is shown in this film administering "shaktipat" to one of his disciples. Rajneesh is what he used to be called anyway, although as I recall he changed his name to something like Oshi(?) after his criminal activities in America got him deported. "Shaktipat" is most probably the touch of a demon-possessed person being given to another person to "impart" the demonic phenomena to the recipient, the "kriyas" or the jerkings and laughing and shakings and barkings and falling down and so on. The Hindu understanding is that it's "awakening" the "Kundalini," which is supposedly some sort of "energy" that's latent in the body, built into the human frame. In either case it's clearly something that goes on in pagan religions and doesn't belong in Christian churches.

I wonder if the presence of so many Hindu "gurus" in America back in the 60s through the 80s was somehow the origin of the demonic phenomena in the charismatic churches. The fact that the "spirit" can be passed from one person to another by touch suggests many ways this could have happened.

They are doing exactly the same thing in the "Christian" churches only not calling it "Shaktipat" or the phenomena "kriyas" but promoting it as "the power of the Holy Spirit."

There are at least two parts to this video at You Tube. Here's the first part. This video should be shown in all the charismatic churches, in ALL the churches for that matter.

It should bring all TRUE Christians out of the charismatic movement.

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Here's a description of "kriyas" by a Kundalini teacher.
Kriyas ( pronounced kree-yuhz) are automatic movements, vocalizations or actions that are part of the process of Kundalini clearing the karma held in the energy body. They may take almost infinite forms, from a simple urge to put the body into yoga postures, even if you have never studied yoga- to elaborate songs, chanting and dances, possibly in a language you are unfamiliar with.

Yoga postures, twitching and shaking are the most common types of kriyas. Kurt Keutzer's FAQ contains a simple analogy of what is actually happening: Imagine a garden hose, coiled up and kinked. Turn the water on (Kundalini energy) and the hose tends to thrash around until the water pressure causes it to straighten enough for the water to flow easily. Kriyas most often occur when the body's instinctive guidance is in the process of moving a blockage to the flow of spiritual life energy.

Most kriyas are simple tremors or twitches as tension held in the body, releases. However, they can be quite complex movements, breathing patterns, (pranayama) vocalizations, visions,... the body will do whatever it needs to do, to facilitate the blockage being cleared, and it has all the wisdom of the Collective consciousness, to draw upon. So, a Kriya may take the form of an African Dance, a Sanskrit song, an Aboriginal drum chant, or anything. Energy clearing techniques that have been used by different cultures for thousands of years, tend to have a higher resonance in the Collective, and the body-mind guidance will make use of that unconscious information, bring it forth.

That is why people who may never have studied Hatha Yoga, find their bodies wanting to assume Yoga postures, or why people who do not speak a foreign language may find themselves spontaneously chanting in Sanskrit.
Obviously obviously obviously this is the same stuff we're seeing in these "revivals," at Brownsville, in Toronto, at Lakeland and so on. It includes even "speaking in tongues" and the "[un]holy laughter" but most commonly the jerkings and spasmodic movements of the head and body. Whether it is a release of what Jessie Penn-Lewis and Watchman Nee call "soul power" or is demonically inspired, or both, I don't know for sure, but it's NOT the Holy Spirit.

What if I'm deceived about the Harbinger?

I am now seriously grappling with the possibility of having been deceived about the Harbinger.

One thing that keeps hitting me is that deception is VERY subtle. The devil knows exactly where to get us. Being moved by the message of the Harbinger COULD even be a deception, I'm not saying it is, but it COULD be. I already had a commitment to 9/11 as God's judgment on the nation and the Harbinger fit right in, and any time our favorite positions are confirmed COULD be an avenue to deception. Especially these days.

I remember from the time I had to face the possibility that I was being deceived in the charismatic movement just how HARD it was to recognize and accept my wrong judgment. It takes a real scouring soul-searching to begin to see and accept one's own deceptions. I have been unable to see any serious errors in the Harbinger itself, but my inability to see them doesn't prove anything I'm afraid. It could simply prove the subtlety of deception. It COULD. I'm willing to try to face this possibility.

So I'm going to pull back from taking any position on it for a while. As long as I commit to ANY position, if it should be a deception, the Lord won't show me where I'm wrong, I'm sure of that.

I know I have to be completely open to whatever the truth is, and that means being willing to abandon EVERYTHING I've thought if necessary. And that means a struggle with myself. If I've been right in defending the Harbinger and am willing to be completely wrong instead, THEN I can count on being shown the truth, but not while I'm committed to defending it -- or committed to ANY position for that matter.

I KNOW I MUST BE WILLING TO BE COMPLETELY WRONG BY THE LORD'S LIGHT, HUMBLED TO THE DUST, AND THAT'S A CRUCIFIXION OF THE FLESH THAT'S VERY HARD TO BEAR. BUT THE FRUIT OF IT COULD ONLY BE GLORIOUS.

Deception is afoot these days in so many ways, any of us can be deceived, we need to be willing to subject ourselves to a rigorous assessment of our motives. Try me O Lord and see if there is any wicked way in me. And there always is, you know, SOME wicked way in us. We're always easily deceived by our wicked hearts, but whether that will turn out to show that I've been deceived over the Harbinger or not I don't yet know.

I would hope that Jonathan Cahn himself would be willing to subject himself to such a scouring for his own sake. His being at all in favor of some of the charismatic teachers that I learned the hard way are seriously out of the Lord's will makes him especially vulnerable to deception.

It's possible I'll end up being more sure than ever that the Harbinger is from God, but I can't predict at the moment. All I know is that my inner turmoil about these things means I've got to pull back at least for a while.