Fred,

Many thanks for that website. This woman is very interesting indeed. I see she's had a number of similar experiences as I have and has reached same conclusions. I look forward to reading the whole book. Did you say you know her personally?

God's deep peace be with you,
Shasha

w.c.,

I would like to respond at length to your last post. Will probably get some time this weekend.

As a heads up on astrology, I'd like to share why I often encourage people who come for inner healing to renounce all contact with astrology. We actually perscribe a prayer to be set free of and repent of any contact with astrologers. So, a very different persepctive than yours...will elaborate later.

Dear Shasha,

I know Martie Dieperink from correspondence and telephone calls in the past, but never met her.
She must be in her sixties right now. She wrote on oecumenism (Catholic and Protestant Church) and on New Age (one book in Dutch is called 'Jesus and the Guru'). As I said I find her a bit conservative. There is few psychology, mysticism and sorts in her writing and thinking. She is a Pentecostal Christian and very reluctant towards alternative therapies and f.e. yoga. But she is a good woman and I had good contacts in the past.

Please see also this new thread on oecumenism!

Greetings,
Fred

quote:

Originally posted by w.c.:
So I'm not sure if I'm hearing you say that God's grace can't me made known to a Hindu, or not. Either way, it's a legitimate discussion if we check our biases from time to time.
...!

Sure, God's grace is always made known in every impulse we have towards love, truth, beauty, and justice, etc. across all religious frameworks. At the same time, there can be deception 'right next door' to truth. In the same sentence, one can hear a spiritual leader speak both truth and lies.

The story you share of the Roman goddess is interesting indeed. Do you suppose you, in a previous incarnation perhaps, or somebody in your family called on her at some point and so she got 'attached' to your ancestry? Is she a good, false god? Is there such a thing?

In St. Paul's day, he was respectful of the Artemis worshippers but was eager to preach Christ as Lord. Do you suppose all of God's created beings want to inherit His Kingdom, including the gods/goddesses that human's worship as Creator? They certainly don't all appear to be helpers of God the way angels are known to be.

Isn't their falsity in their self-promotion as God or in their enticing humans with powers that lead to eventual self-destruction?

That is my experience with Kali worship. As taught by a leader in the Kundalini Research Network, Kali, wife of Shiva, the destroyer is the same as Kundalini Shakti in the form of Creation "Herself." The author published a book about his love and dedication to Kali, the "divine within," and some of the teachings she gave him during their mystical union. Among those pearls, Kali says that she is the Creator of the world and the same energy as the Holy Spirit. "The world would be so much better off if they understood that she is the same as the Holy Spirit." (paraphrase). Unlikely.

Here's a short blurb on Kali from Groothuis in Unmasking the New Age:

The word thug originally referred to a class of religious assassins in northern India who terrorized the country for several hundred years before British pressure helped end their exploits. The thugs worshiped the Hindu goddess Kali, the wife of Shiva...a goddess of destruction and portrayed as smeared with blood, wearing a garland of human heads and chewing raw flesh. In their dedication to Kali, the thugs would go to great lengths of deception to ambush and strangle victims. As masters of their craft, they ritually sacrificed untold scores of people. Before the British crackdown in the 1830s approximately ten thousand thugs were at work. They destroyed life for their goddess. Nigel Davies helps the perplexed Westerner understand this bloodbath. We must detach ourselves from the Western, Christian idea that "God is love and the Devil is the enemy" in order to understand that for the Hindu: God is both good and bad...Man does not have to try to be good, but is perfectly free to copy either side of God's nature. The Hindu ascetic may aim at passive withdrawal from the world; but the Christian ideal of following in Jesus' footsteps of actively loving one's neighbor as oneself loses its point. If anything, the cruel side of the gods was easier to copy and the results more spectacular. Why should anyone have qualms about killing a fellow human being in a colorful ceremony, when the great Shiva himself and his wife Kali delighted in destruction, bore in their hands the instruments of death, and fed on human flesh?"(p. 154-155).

I forgot where in SP I go into the splitting of the so called "Feminine Divine." She has a good side and an evil side. You chant one set of mantras in her name to perform white magic and another set in her name to perform black magic; she's no respecter of morality.

That's all for now. Must get some sleep...

Peace to you, w.c..

w.c.,

What is taught about Kali is that she is God. This is a deception and I think of deceptive teachings as a kind of evil. Well-meaning people yes, but moved by forces that want to promote themselves.

You know that I never said anything about Ramakrishna being a thug. Why would you suggest that?

I said Kali has two sides: the good and the evil. The difference between the thugs of Kali and the bloodshed of Christians is a world apart. There is no teaching in Christianity which is a "how to" of calling on Christ to perform black magic or kill your enemies. In Kali worship, with some investigation, you could find ancient mantras and rituals which literally call on her to hurt others. Nothing in Christianity offers this kind of supernatural manipulation to promote evil. I know this kind of Kali worship is a departure from the mainstream Hindu/Buddist, but we are talking (on this thread) about particular gods whom I regard as false/deceptive.

Ramakrishna experienced the positive side of Kali; in fact, an ecstatic union with her. She is a real diety who so saturates one's being with an oceanic bliss that one is pulled away from the need for a consideration of conscience. There's no right or wrong, good or bad, because they're all the same when you become one with Kali. There is a kind of love that is promoted,yes, but I think it's not Christ's love. It's more of an oceanic bliss-type of alteration in consciousness. That was my personal experience; that it felt like love but was a delusion.

In the "Gospel of Ramakrishna," it is reported that he considered himself to be Christ and two of his disciples to be reincarnations of two of Jesus' apostles. Hmm...Kali is God and Ramakrishna is Christ? It's a grand delusion, in my opinion, when you enter into the world where Christ and God are portrayed like this.

you wrote: there's no need, in my world, to cast the dieties from these other religions as evil in order to see Him for Who He Is. Most of these helpers were probably not among the relatively small lot of fallen angels in the first place.

I don't need to cast them as evil in order to see God. As I said up a few posts ago, I prefer the conservative criteria for evaluating whether beings/gods/goddesses are helpers or evil disguised as good. Does this mean I'm driven by fear, yes, absolutely fear is a motivator in my criteria. Is it a healthy fear or unnecessary fear? Again, I'll err on the conservative side and not trust anything that does not profess that Jesus is Lord, and there is no other God. All others are suspect for how can we know what portion of these helpers are fallen angels and how extensive is the battle "against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly spheres" as Paul warns.

I appreciate your sharing with me on this topic. You know that I respect you very much, w.c., and I enjoy learning from your point of view and being challenged by it. Thank you.

Both your experiences are not mine, so it's difficult to put myself in your positions... But I had one thought today. St. Paul advises the Corinthians not to worship angels, because they should worship God primarily. This indicates that the worship of angels might have been popular, and that they weren't evil angels, that were perhaps experienced in visions and worshipped, by the angels of light. however, it might be that those angels are taken to be gods or God, even though they have no intention to pretend or replace God. Maybe that's the case with the beings you describe - not evil, and not specifically preaching the Gospel in visions? Just a thought.

quote:

Originally posted by Shasha:
Ransomed From Darkness: The New Age, Christian Faith, and the Battle for Souls by Moira Noonan

I've read that last one. I thought her personal story was interesting, but her sections where she tried to sketch out an encyclopedia of the New Age were very weak.

quote:

Originally posted by Derek:

quote:

Originally posted by Shasha:
Ransomed From Darkness: The New Age, Christian Faith, and the Battle for Souls by Moira Noonan

I've read that last one. I thought her personal story was interesting, but her sections where she tried to sketch out an encyclopedia of the New Age were very weak.

I've loaned out my copy of this book, so I can't check out that section right now. I don't remember an encyclopedia of the New Age. I do recall clearly that she included a chapter of her research on the origins of the Course in Miracles. She shares how the author produced this writing by channeling some ancient spirit-god, which identified itself as Jesus.

quote:

Originally posted by w.c.:
...The "evil" part of her potrayal, however abused this may have been within certain groups, conveys the power of the Divine to tranform dark into light, passions into devotion, etc . . . .

The devotion here is for her, Kali, who is not God. That's a problem, imo.

[/QUOTE]
Again, not that there isn't plenty of room to distort this, but it seems you have settled on the distortion, and having had that re-inforced through a painful experience where real evil may have entered through sinful and narcissistic human agency, misunderstood the orthodox Hindu pov.[/QUOTE]

Here, it seems you're open to "real evil" entering in, but want to preserve Kali as a helper of the Divine. ??

Yes, there's my sin and woundedness that got me entangled with Kali. Sure, we all walk around with a boat-load of persecutory, love-starved, ambivalent introjects which we need to manage. No doubt, this leads to distortion of external reality/ the supernatural, right? And you've rightly pointed out this pitfall among many fundamentalists who prefer to avoid/deny their unsavory impulses and attribute them to the devil.

However, I'd question who's distorting whom when you invite a diety into your life? My experience was that I allowed Kali to distort me by inviting her into my body/spirit. This seems true even after I bake in my motives.

In those months when I encountered Kali directly, I remember walking around some days blissed out, feeling and believing deeply that I was one with Kali. There was no time, no space, that I was always, eternally one with her very being. I heard her laugh; she danced through me. I felt a kind of oceanic "love" and Oneness, but it was a lie which she told me by infiltrating my spirit. She distorted me by altering my consciousness; I didn't experience anything Divine about her; she altered my state of consciousness in a direction that did not bear fruit or lead me closer to Christ. She doesn't acknowledge the supremacy of Christ nor do her ardent followers.

---
This Kali writer, typical of most, argues that devotion to Kali will bring us liberation and salvation, which he seems to understand as loss of individual self and merging into the void.

Here we need to understand that Kali comes with a form that devours everything that is represented by the self-focussed ego and ignorance. The destructive phase will be the time which will be full of turmoil and confusion but even during these times Kali is the one who is guiding us to true life. She carries us on her lap and brings us out into her world of infinite void. Here we lose all meaning and sense of the worldly matters and we lose the fear of life and death. We are shaken away from the self-focussed ego and we are shown the purpose of our life as decided by goddess Kali.

from: http://www.associatedcontent.c...darkness.html?cat=34

In my experience with K., the love wasn't real; the teachings are false; the unity consciousness was meaningless. Kali-absorption, though immersed in a cosmic expanse, was paradoxically a selfish, heroin-like bath. You lose your small self, but you exchange it for her grandiose one. Bad deal, imo.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Shasha,

I'm just catching up on some of the recent exchanges, and this is a very substantive one. Goodness knows we've been over the enlightenment vs. infused contemplation distinctions many times, and in some ways this seems another angle on the issue.

Shasha, you wrote: In those months when I encountered Kali directly, I remember walking around some days blissed out, feeling and believing deeply that I was one with Kali. There was no time, no space, that I was always, eternally one with her very being. I heard her laugh; she danced through me. I felt a kind of oceanic "love" and Oneness, . . . This all sounds like enlightenment, but not the usual "impersonal" kind as you had this sense of "Kali" who was making it possible. You then go on to say that it was all a deception that led away from Çhrist and brought about an unhealthy loss of self/ego. I'm wondering if you'd go so far as to say that this state of consciousness is somehow intrinsically closed to Christian faith? That doesn't seem to be the case with other enlightenment traditions like, say, Zen, where one can even find Catholic priests who know the two traditions are not the same, but neither are they opposed. It sounds like you're saying the difference is that Kali is something of a false god, even a demonic character, whose "enlightenment" is a seduction rather than a liberation.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil:
...I'm wondering if you'd go so far as to say that this state of consciousness is somehow intrinsically closed to Christian faith? That doesn't seem to be the case with other enlightenment traditions like, say, Zen, where one can even find Catholic priests who know the two traditions are not the same, but neither are they opposed. It sounds like you're saying the difference is that Kali is something of a false god, even a demonic character, whose "enlightenment" is a seduction rather than a liberation.

Yes, Phil, I am suggesting that the Kali-infused enlightenment I experienced was opposed to the Christian faith because it was a seduction away from where Christ was calling me to live and be.

I realize there are other kinds of enlightenment as you describe above, but with the Kali that I experienced (there may be others?), the pulling away from Christ was evident in my feeling drawn away from loving my family, a lack of purpose, self-absorption in the ecstacy, and more....during that state.

So, yes, I contend there are other forms of enlightenment that are not closed to Christian faith--as you know by yours and others experiences, but those are different. I, too, experience a kind of back-ground unity consciousness like my peripheral vision. At times, I feel merged with some formlessness, infinite thing. It's just there, but not suffused by any diety (thank GOD!) and not meaningful in the way my Faith is.

These reported experiences of different states of unity consciousness have led me to ask, on the BR thread I think, the question:

Is enlightenment one, objective state to which we are all destined somehow in our spiritual evolution OR are there as many different states of enlightenment as there are personalities?

We have tended to talk about enlightenment like fitting the former description, I think, but I suspect it's more like the latter.

Back to false gods...seems to me that when enlightenment is promised by and underwritten by a diety, then you're vulnerable to carrying unclean, spiritual baggage. God just doesn't want us colluding with other spirits; He is a jealous God for our exclusive love/attention because He know of the disaster otherwise. The warning is made clear in His Word-- a warning I'd never have believed valid if I hadn't experienced it myself, owing to my arrogance, ignorance, and misguided self-reliance, plus a dose of unconsciously driven desires to rebel, aggress, do it my way ).

Thank you for picking up on this important point.

God's Love and blessings to you, dear ones!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Shasha,

Hey guys!

Stephen here. Had to use new name to register with all the newness and all.

Funny, I was drawn back to SP today and now I see why.

I really have a lot of respect for both your positions, Shasha and w.c. Part of me wants to open up and be inclusive; the other part is more conservative because of my own experiences with evil supernatural entities. So I kinda understand both points of view.

Just today I saw this guy in a coffeee shop who I happen to know is a Christian. He pulled out a book on "Pauline angel magic" and the alarm bells started ringing in my ears. I also heard a story the other day of demonic activity amongst Christians in a certain church in Glasgow and it struck me that there is so much confusion and lack of insight and discernment about these issues in the Church, especially, I'm afraid, in charsimatic/pentecostal circles where the energies raised and shared open up spiritual realms way beyond our ken.

What I'm seeing is the vastness of the spiritual realms touching human spirituality in a variety of ways - from simple confusion about fallen angels to encounters with beings whose "allegiance" is altogether more difficult to pin down. Both the stories you guys tell concerning Roman goddesses and Kali worship interest me immensely and only magnifies the sense of how unknown the unknown really is. When one considers this in relation to the complexity of our own psyches, it's easy to see how and why there is so much confusion.

One thing I would pick up on is w.c's point about how these forces and/or entities respond to love. Sometimes here too the response can be ambiguous. When I try to pray with love over my own energetic instabilities or a perceived supernatural presence, or when someone else prays with me over same, the response in my body/psyche is often similar in its unsettling nature. Difficult to tell what's going on. Difficult to know just how or when to pray.

And if the outer spiritual realms are a web of confusion and complexity, so is the nature of the self. Right now I'm going through this weird "there is no me" thing. Very strange, very frightening, God is distant, I'm in a void and yet all I seem to have is faith. Faith is really all we have. And so if I'm faced with inner psychic upheaval or demonic/angelic supernatural presence, I have to return to that faith or try to find it somehow. I have to yield to the God of love and his Son the Lord Christ. Even this, however, gets mixed up and messed up with a kind of naive openness to spiritual phenomena, which is why, I'm afraid, all the dangers of new age "angel magic" and what not are infiltrating the church.

Having said that, I'm finding too that the received Christian wisdom on such things is sadly lacking when weighed against experience. How does the church account for the kind of thing w.c. experience, or the strange karmic events and synchronicities which unfold over our lives, or experiences of the self beyond what's understood as self (I'm talking parallel universe phenomena or interplanetary experience.) No wonder people are drawn to new agism.

All of this goes to show why dialogues like this are so important, why there has to be an openness to new spiritual experience/ encounter, somehow balanced with a conservatism that emphasises our faith in a triune God and the events of Calvary. The Eucharist is so important. It's incredibly nourishing and stregthens our own ability to actually see and perceive and discern in a riot of spiritual actuality.

Glad to find you guys still here and at it. Hope I've added a little to your discussion, which is, as I say, hugely interesting and supremely important in this day and age.

Lots of love,

Stephen.

Stephen! What a trip!

I was just thinking two nights ago while I was re-reading some old threads, "Now Where is Stephen? He would be interested in this discussion..."

W.c.'s story certainly opens my eyes to a world of possibility that I had not considered. The supernatural worlds are too many, too wild and I'm too sensitive to do any dabbling therein. I tend to be too scattered in my attention at times and need the Eucharist to keep me grounded. What does the Father want of me today? Plus, I'm greatly benefitting from guidance and prayers of my spiritual director. Praise God. I leave her apartment singing in tongues, just pours out of me.

Yes, what you say in your post is interesting; thanks for your response. I'd like to respond more specifically but gotta go for now.

Peace, Shasha

Stephen:

Good to hear from you. It's been many months.

I'm fine with personal testimony, Shasha. And while I understand your reluctance to re-enter cosmic explorations, it seems this thread has an unspoken premise about other faiths, and not at all one that assumes the real possibility of a legitimate participation in Divine Presence without self-deceit. We may nod to the possibility, but that's not the same thing as a serious consideration. Again, nobody can take responsibility for what they don't experience, but we need to claim our limits. Your being traumatized by a guru who appealed to Kali isn't the last word on Hinduism. I know you're not explicitly saying this, but do feel this is the conflicting spirit of the thread.

I'm reading through Ramakrishna's biography, and a book entitled "The Sword and the Flute: Kali and Krishna: Dark Visions of the Terrible and the Sublime in Hindu Mythology."

Much more to read before I try to detail some of the permutations of Kali's mythos, but here are a few points the author suggests are important:

Traditionally, Hindus have always sought an understanding of the Divine's presence in the most grisly or cataclysmic events, many of which they had little control over; these extremes of love and hatred, bliss and misery, peace and torment, poverty and wealth, weren't the polarized field of good versus evil which fundamentalist Christians conceive, but the Divine making Him/Herself known as inseperable from those events which were more powerful than people themselves.

I would not, for instance, view tornados and earthquakes as the wrathful hand of God. But if I were trying to make sense of such horrendous loss, elements for which I had no escape, I might seek the presence of God from within those events I have no control over. If you keep losing your family to pestilence and fire and flood, and your appeal to God provides no relief, well . . . . So yes, it can make much sense, and not just to protect one's religious sanity, but as in how a person might actually discover the Divine hidden in the worst of pains. We ourselves have the crucified, resurrected presence of Christ in any pain we experience if we trust and open to Him in this way. "If you can't beat 'um, join 'um," is apparently not a metaphor within some Hindu traditions. And we can even see God almost appearing in this sort of way to Moses, and to Abraham and Isaac, emerging from a time when sacrifice wasn't completely internalized, as the world hardly acommodated such musings, or perhaps even subjectivity as we know it. Not to justify human blood sacrifice, but to understand how it became a metaphor for internal surrender to the Divine Who, in order to be at least as powerful as those terrifying elements to a suffering people, had to be as deadly as She was loving. And this is what I think the author sees in Kali as he explores the history of her development in Hindu mythology.

As for Ramakrishna, Kali was his Mother, and he was her child. More on that later.

quote:

Originally posted by samson:
...What I'm seeing is the vastness of the spiritual realms touching human spirituality in a variety of ways - from simple confusion about fallen angels to encounters with beings whose "allegiance" is altogether more difficult to pin down. Both the stories you guys tell concerning Roman goddesses and Kali worship interest me immensely and only magnifies the sense of how unknown the unknown really is. When one considers this in relation to the complexity of our own psyches, it's easy to see how and why there is so much confusion.

One thing I would pick up on is w.c's point about how these forces and/or entities respond to love. Sometimes here too the response can be ambiguous. When I try to pray with love over my own energetic instabilities or a perceived supernatural presence, or when someone else prays with me over same, the response in my body/psyche is often similar in its unsettling nature. Difficult to tell what's going on. Difficult to know just how or when to pray.

Good points, here, Stephen. I do believe, however, that prayer is our only hope of wading through this kind of confusion. And knowing when to avoid the temptations of wanting or needing answers to issues that are not our business to meddle.

OTOH, it may be our calling/gifting to go after truths about the supernatural world, in which case Christ Jesus will surely supply us with the support. The end result will necessarily bring Glory to God by building up His Church. I don't think I'm one of those called or anointed in this respect so maybe I could follow my own advice and stick to my day-time job.

In fact, I'm reading Shengold's book, "Soul Murder: The Effects of Childhood Abuse and Deprivation." Now there's clear-cut evil that virtually nobody wants to deal with, a most wicked principality on it's own.

What I like about gathering testimonies of conversions to Christ, which is how/why I began this thread, is that they show a variety of how different personalities, from various walks of life, emerged from and integrated their brushes with deception in the supernatural. Any one experience alone can be interesting, but the multiple case approach provides data for establishing more solid patterns of what is reality-- not that outliers can't point to unusual realities worthy of discovery also.

So, I'm in the data collection stage of researching false gods/ conversions to the Lord. Thank you for your input... and diplomacy.

Good to have you back.

quote:

Originally posted by w.c.:
... legitimate participation in Divine Presence without self-deceit. .

"

Can you unpack this for me, w.c.

That a Hindu's experience of God, when it leads to increased virtue, can be treated by Christians as a legitimate example of transforming grace even when the form it takes is incongruent with our own images.

quote:

Originally posted by w.c.:
... Your being traumatized by a guru who appealed to Kali isn't the last word on Hinduism. I know you're not explicitly saying this, but do feel this is the conflicting spirit of the thread.

I don't think you've understood me here. My experiences surrounding Kali worship were not traumatizing. I was not abused at all. I've been somewhat vague because it's TOO PERSONAL, not too painful.

Even so, your point is well taken. I don't mean to cast aspersions on Hinduism, as a religion or Hindus as people. There are beautiful people all over the world. Any woman who holds her baby with any glimmer of love and wonder is reflecting God's nature--whatever else they're believing about who God is/isn't.

I understand and appreciate your compassion toward Hinduism. There needs to be your input here to remind me to check my biases.
I got that.

I'm not uneducable (just can't spell).

quote:

Originally posted by w.c.:
That a Hindu's experience of God, when it leads to increased virtue, can be treated by Christians as a legitimate example of transforming grace even when the form it takes is incongruent with our own images.

Of course, w.c. Have I said sth here that suggests I believe otherwise? My conclusions about the Kali I experienced don't negate this.

peace to you, Shasha

quote:

Originally posted by Shasha:
I do believe, however, that prayer is our only hope of wading through this kind of confusion. And knowing when to avoid the temptations of wanting or needing answers to issues that are not our business to meddle.

Absolutely. And for me it's quiet prayer, silent, still prayer which strengthens the inner man. When there is an upheaval, I've found that prayer can exacerbate the situation. Most times I've found it best to pray when energies/presence have calmed down a little.

I remember just a few years ago there was scandal in India over child sacrifices in a Kali cult. That and a few other testimonies put me off reading Ramakrishna's autobiography, which I felt inclined to do a while ago, although I know that he and others took a more enlightened approach to the deity.

I just wonder, w.c., if you think the OT injunctions forbidding the children of Israel from worshipping false gods and creating idols have any relevance here, particularly when it's implied on numerous occasions and I think expressly stated by Paul that such idols had demons/fallen angels etc associated with them.

I'm not averse to the idea that there are non-angelic beings, perhaps gods/goddesses, who are in service to God - the Psalms for example mention "gods" in that way. I just wonder too what mythology actually reveals about the deities/beings themselves, given the clearer light it sheds on the inner workings of a culture. And how are we to view atrocity as an act of devotion in relation to said being, given that Jehovah supposedly instigated some of his own in the OT? More about the perception of a particular society as they explore the divine, I think. And yet, that such atrocity as mentioned above could be carried out in Kali's name in the modern age sends shivers down the spine. I'm inclined to think that sacrifice not only mirrors inner sacrifice, but has some impact on the being/deity associated with it, so that it resonates energetically/karmically as well as mythologically/symbolically.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: samson,

Good discussion!

Taking things into a more "theological" direction, one must (in the Catholic tradition, that is) recall that everything created by God is good, and that would/should include metaphysical/spiritual creatures as well. They are all "sacramental" and revelatory of something of God's goodness, beauty, wisdom, etc. So there's just nothing "out there" or even within that is intrinsically evil, per se.

There are corrupted creatures, however, some of whom are in full rebellion against God, and this is where moral evil enters the universe. They can be found in the human race and undoubtedly in other orders of creation, including angels and other intelligent non-humans. The intra-psychic world also includes these "creatures," who live by the life of the soul, which has been wounded and corrupted by sin even while retaining something of its innate goodness.

So I think the bottom line in all of this comes down to discernment. Where do these various influences seem to come from and where do they lead? Once one has come to Christ in faith, there is the additional standard of evaluating things in terms of how they seem to effect our relationship with Him. Even with these guidelines, however, discernment can be difficult, and sometimes what seems to be an "angel of light" can turn out to be something deadly, and this is the caution I hear Shasha sharing. The converse is true as well, as w.c. reminds us in his post above. So it's complicated, for sure, but at least our faith helps to shed light on these issues.

Here is some of Raymond Brown's commentary on Paul's warnings in Colossians chapter 2:

"Combining these elements, many would describe the false teachers at Colossae as Jewish Christian syncretists in whose "philosophy" were combined (hellenized) Jewish, Christian and Pagan elements: a "self-devised religion . . . In it angels were associated with the stars and worshiped on feasts, at the new moon, and on the Sabbath almost as deities, who rule the universe and human life - elements in a cosmic pattern that people must follow in life. (As "sons of God" in the heavenly court, angels could be understood as similar to the deities of the Greco-Roman pantheon.) This syncretism could incorporate believers in Christ under the proviso that they rated him as subordinate to the angelic principalities and powers. After all, Christ was flesh while the principalities are spirits."

And so Paul seemed concerned with the order of things, i.e, in not confusing creature, and elements and powers of the universe, with the Creator made flesh, which may be a reference to variations of Hellenistic philosophy that lingered on in this Greek church, just as he criticized the Jewish Christian teachers in other churches for imposing circumcision. Some heretical church leanings had Christ purely spiritual, and others had Jesus subordinate to principalities and powers. Paul was a busy guy!!

"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. for in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everthing he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and thorugh hm to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross." (Colossians 1: 15-20)

Again what I'm seeing are wicked spirits active at the fringes of Christianity, rather subtly masquerading and even acknowledging the incarnation, so that there are Christian psychics, Christian mediums, Christian angel magicians who believe in Christ at a certain level but dabble with spirits too. There's obviously a false front here as the spirits themselves I've encountered are frighteningly wicked, and yet they offer things that one would associate with Christian experience, particularly mystical experience - lots of out of body stuff, ecstacies, astral travelling etc. So then many young or naive Christians see the "Christian" appellation and, because of their craving for experience or phenomena, are drawn into these "angel of light" systems and are inevitably burned rather badly.

The "Christ" test gets tricky because the front man or woman, the minister to these spirits, acknowledges Christ's incarnation, believes in Him at some level, even attends church (I know of one woman who actually preaches, but who's stories of encounters with spiritual beings are extremely dubious).

This is all very similar to new age practitioners who commune with spirits of light which are actually evil or demonic. (I had a massage from a woman who later told me about her spirit guide and was myself severely assaulted by her guide that night).

And so there is an impure alloy filtering into Christianity. Many non-Charismatic fundamentalists actually recognise this but go so far as to condemn any form of contemplation or meditation because of its supposed links with eastern religion, the occult etc. Nonsense, yes, but at least they recognise the dangers inherent in things getting mixed up so.

Discernment for me is a spiritual gift that comes to some with maturity in the church. That discerment has to acknowledge and accept things like your own goddess experience, w.c., and take into account the vast range of beings in service to the divine. I believe every spirit has its own energy, vibration, if you like, and most wicked spirits are detectable. It's just these frontmen, the guise they put on, their claims on belief and Christian teaching which stumbles many. And the "good things" that many supernatural beings offer - cf Shasha's experience.

As I say, a lot of the confusion is within the charismatic movement, where they refuse to acknowledge Kundalini because of its eastern associations and serpent symbolism, yet are so open to any supernatural beings pulled into their energy because they believe that energy to be Holy Spirit. It's all so ironically twisted.

I'm not sure I followed all of your post regarding Israel and the "relationship between internal pain and external atrocity". I do come from a place where I regard a lot of early seeking within the community as primitive (except in the cases of a few individuals whose communion with God was rich and profound and enlightened). By "cosmic presence in the physical world" are you referring to energetic principles/archetypes or supernatural entities? For me atrocity could be either or a mixture of both at different times. (I'm not talking about natural calamity so much as human atrocity). Kali for instance I'd regard as a supernatural being, not a cosmic force or aspect of God, and so I wouldn't discount her involvement in a lot of atrocity carried out in her name. And just how much the ancients were aware of cosmic or energetic forces, I'm not sure. Much of what happened around them, I believe, would be explained by external supernatural personalities which may or may not have been involved.

I don't mean to suggest that the psychic world is generally overflowing with evil spirits. Unfortunately, this has only been my own experience. Although I have read testimony of the saints, from Ignatius to Elder Joseph, who record visions of legions of demons with whom they are engaged in conflict. I'd say too that body awareness has helped me combat evil forces in that I'm able to detect subtle energy shifts and pre-empt attack or avoid the fiery darts as it were, and, as you suggest, distinguish between spirit presence and archetype. A lot of evil is detectable physically - certain blends of cold and hot energy, usually tinged with a sensation of filth or dirt and a sense of physical invasion. And yes, I'd say God's grace is very much present at the time of dying, therefore preventing an intrusion of evil.

It was my experience in the past that the evil I encountered was fully able to masquarade as good as long as I didn't challange that goodness. That goodness was displayed as loving, kind, purposeful, powerful etc. but it did demand my full submission.

It was only when I questioned its' goodness and withheld my full submission that its' true nature began to reveal itself. I don't know what would have happened had I not questioned its' goodness or had I submitted fully to its' authority - perhaps I would have become possesed?

But once I turned away from and declared that the power was evil it manifested as fully evil and depraved. There was no doubting it then, but without the grace of God I may never have seen the other side of the coin.

Therefore it is hard for me to go along with an understanding that evil will always manifest as evil and be turned off by love. This power could appear all-loving and give ecstatic bliss but at its' heart it was evil.

In like manner false gods like Kali may never have to display their inner-nature as long as there devotees do not question their goodness and given their spiritual history and framework they may never feel the need to?