A scary post about the occult and Christianity
You can't be an effective occultist unless you are foundationally a hardcore Calvinist.
What do I mean by that?
What is occultism? It's an all-purpose word to describe the "dark arts" which can involve anything from criminal rituals of murder and blood drinking to methods of being more awake in the moment in your everyday life. It can also mean teachings that are 'hidden' as in off the mainstream radar. I.e. occultism can be truly evil, criminal activity; or it can be rather innocent practices that Jesus Himself talked of; and anything in between. (I should also say occultism can involve drugs that destroy lives, and other activities that lead to self-destructive behavior.)
What is Calvinism? Apostolic biblical doctrine. Believing what the Bible says, hard truths and all, without negotiating it down, or watering it down to the demands of your fallen nature.
This world is a battlefield. A spiritual as well as a physical battlefield. The difference between victory and defeat is your spirit (whether you have the Holy Spirit or the spirit of Satan within you), your soul (whether you are of the Old Man Adam or the New Man Christ), and eternity (whether you spend it in hellfire suffering or in the New Heavens and New Earth in a glorified body living a glorified life).
Big stakes.
Why bring occultism into any of this? Why bring it into Christianity at all?
Because you can't be a Christian and be a no-effort dope. You can't be a Christian and be a shallow worldling entranced by and in fear of the world. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. Wisdom and understanding is something you seek and cultivate. You learn quickly that you can't pour new wine (understanding and wisdom) into old bottles (the current limits of your being).
To increase understanding you have to increase capacity for understanding.
First step, get out of the nursery. Second step, stop fearing the world.
Being wary of bad teachings is good, but when it causes you to mock and condemn the very teachings and commands of Jesus Christ Himself, in the very word of God itself, you are deep in the bondage of the Kingdom of Satan.
What teachings of Jesus do shallow Christians mock and condemn? Now it is high time to awake out of sleep. Romans 13:11. That's actually Paul, but it's all God's word. Jesus said numerous times in numerous places be awake. This is not referring to head-on-pillow sleep, folks. This is referring to sleep-walking through life entranced by the world. How do you get out of that? You do things that people will call occult. YOU DO THINGS THAT PEOPLE WILL CALL OCCULT.
What teachings of Jesus do shallow Christians ignore or ignorantly get wrong? Love your enemies. They usually see this as a moralizing thing. Or a way to demand their fellow humans accept demonic behavior in other humans. No, it's a deep teaching full of self-interest in the practicing of it. It's how you increase level of being. Be awake, and love your enemy. It's how you increase capacity in yourself to be able to contain more understanding. (Which is a scary thing to world-fearers who constantly police their environments to keep everything as stupid as possible.)
So where do you learn how to do these things? From sources that will be labelled occult. Not from systematic theologies. They don't broach such subjects as progressive santification and spiritual warfare. Not from the category of practical theology (where these things should reside). Establishment Christianity protects practical theology by telling people it's only about what pastors need to know to deal with drunks in their congregations and what not. How not to upset people with truth and what not. Practical stuff Christian leaders need to know.
Now it is high time to awake out of sleep.
(This post brought to you by the scary occult work Fourth Way by Ouspensky. Armor of God required. Calvinism required.)
2 Comments:
I came across this quote by Tozer the other day. It might contradict one of the main points of Calvinism - Total Depravity (Man is dead in sin and can do nothing until he is regenerated by God.
“God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make but that he should be free to make it. If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, 'What doest thou?' Man’s will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so.” -A.W. Tozer
I think total depravity is also termed total inability because it refers to man's inability to have faith in God without God first making the call.
I wasn't necessarily saying Tozer was a five point Calvinist, but I suspect he understood it and he understood people who disagreed with it and he felt it better that people move on rather than argue over the same things forever. He was kind of a C. S. Lewis type in that sense. Mere Christianity.
He had a predilection for the mystics. He desired practical experience of the faith. I have a biography of him I've read some. He was kind of a typical mid-west guy with a wife and six kids, so he couldn't be too much of a mystic, but that was the direction of his mind and heart. He didn't look like a mystic.
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