The Footprints of the Serpent: A Review Of The New Age Movement And Its Influence Upon Our Culture (IV)

Reflecting the New Age concept that man has not only evolved physically but is evolving spiritually, Carl Rogers said:

I believe that in our decaying culture we see the dim outlines of a new growth, of a new revolution, of a culture of a sharply different sort. I see that revolution as coming not in some great organized movement, not in a gun-carrying army with banners, not in manifestos and declarations, but through the emergence of a new kind of person, thrusting up through the dying, yellowing, putrefying leaves and stalks of our fading institutions.^[41]

Rogers said this new mutant, “Emerging Man,” will “change the fundamental nature of our society,” and concluded by saying, “I simply say with all my heart: power to the emerging person and the revolution he carries within.”^[42]

It can safely be said that the popularity of “encounter groups” owes more to Carl Rogers than to any other psychologist. He had a profound influence on the spread of liberal ideas in our schools during the sixties and seventies. Furthermore, our views about the institution of marriage have been sorely affected by Rogers’ ideas. And, of course, we must not forget the women’s movement. According to William Kirk Kilpatrick, himself a psychologist, “Rogers’ psychology primed the pump for sex-role liberation and provided a repertoire of words and concepts in which it could be framed.”^[43] Therefore, it should not have surprised us back in the middle eighties when we heard Feminist leader Gloria Steinem declare: “By the year 2000 we will, I hope, raise our children to believe in human potential, not God… ”^[44]

Students of Rogerian psychology used to refer to his book On Becoming a Person as “the Bible.” In that book, instead of asking sinful individuals to be baptized into Christ for the remission of their sins,^[45] Rogers asked them to be baptized in the bathing waters of “the self.” According to Rogers, the self has unlimited potential and is, therefore, virtually a god. For Rogers, the freedom to become oneself took precedence over all other claims. “Becoming” is simply listening to an inner voice that enticingly whispers, “come, follow me.” As a matter of fact, Rogerian “therapy,” which never condemns, is the Serpent’s Edenic lie “souped-up” in psychological terminology, in other words, “… ye shall be gods, knowing good and evil.”^[46]

Encounters Of The Third And Fourth Kind

Of course, we must not give Carl Rogers all the credit for the various ideas that make up the human potential movement. Carl Jung (1875-1961), Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957), and Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) formulated many of the ideas that are advocated today by Humanistic or “Third Force” psychologists like Erich Fromm, Rollo May, Carl Rogers et al. Furthermore, according to Douglas R. Groothuis, there is

A wholly new school of psychology … struggling to emerge as the dominant path to human understanding. This new school is called “transpersonal psychology” and is a logical extension of the humanistic school. Anthony Sutich in the first issue of the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology (Spring 1969), described transpersonal psychology (or “fourth force psychology”) as an emerging force interested in “ultimate human capacities” not incorporated into behaviorism (first force), classical psychoanalysis (second force), or humanistic psychology (third force). Among those capacities listed are unitive consciousness, peak experiences, mystical experience, self-actualization, oneness, cosmic awareness, and transcendental phenomena.^[47]

One New Age book defines “transpersonal” as “referring to those dimensions of being or consciousness wherein individuals share a common identity; those dimensions wherein we are one.”^[48] In other words, transpersonal psychology is a synthesis of Humanistic thought with Eastern pantheistic and monistic religions. The movement is popular not just because we have been culturally prepared for it, but because it offers both the credibility of Western thought and the exotic allurement of the East.

Furthermore, although the Secular Humanist (including the orthodox Freudian and Skinnerian) says, “There is no Deity; long live humanity,” the new transpersonal or cosmic humanist says, “There is no Deity but Humanity with a capital ‘H’.” Accordingly, this “fourth force” strips mankind of its scientific prowess and rationality and replaces them with psychic abilities and unlimited potential. The International Association of Transpersonal Psychologists, which claims to be the fastest-growing branch of psychology, specializes in ESP, paranormal phenomena, reincarnation, and out-of-body experiences. As a matter of fact, in 1980, the International Transpersonal Association announced it was setting up a “Spiritual Emergency Network,” but hastened to add that non-adepts need not apply:

In order for a person to be considered by the network, there would have to be a significant emphasis in the person’s unusual states of consciousness (e.g., symptoms of Kundalini awakening, experiences of death and (re)birth, past incarnation memories, archetypal phenomena, elements of extrasensory perception … and other forms of transpersonal experience).^[49]

Admittedly, many psychologists are embarrassed by the Eastern religious/occultic bent of modern psychology. But it simply cannot be denied. Both Carl Rogers and the late Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, the psychiatrist whose work created for psychology the then new field of thanatology (the study of death and dying), claimed to have had contacts with the spirits of those who had died. In his book, A Way of Being, Rogers told of the closing days of his wife Helen who was dying of cancer. According to Rogers, his wife “had visions of an inspiring white light which came close, lifted her from the bed, and then deposited her back on the bed.”^[50] He further related how that on the evening of his wife’s death, friends made contact with her through a medium and learned how she had experienced spirits coming for her, and how she had now been transformed into a young woman.^[51]

Evidently, the marriage of Eastern mysticism and Western psychology is now complete, as well it should be. For thousands of years, the Hindus and Buddhists have been saying the same thing modern psychologists are now saying: God is within—within you, me, and everyone—and there are techniques to discover or unfold this God-power within. As Shirley MacLaine (who back in the eighties was the most visible spokesperson of the New Age movement) said in her best-selling book, Dancing in the Light:

I know that I exist, therefore I AM. I know that the God source exists. Therefore IT IS. Since I am a part of that force, then I AM that I AM.^[52]

Ms. MacLaine’s syllogism is not only illogical, but patently blasphemous, as well. But such is typical of New Age thinking. Concerning her “daily affirmations,” a “technique” designed to make her feel better, and she’s still at it today, Ms. MacLaine said:

Affirmations are spoken resolutions which, when used properly, align the physical, mental, and spiritual energies. The ancient Hindu Vedas claimed that the spoken words I am, or Aum in Hindi, set up a vibrational frequency in the body and mind which align the individual with his or her higher self and thus with the God-source. The word in any language carries the highest vibrational frequency of any word in the language. Therefore, if one says audibly I am God, the sound vibrations literally align the energies of the body to a higher attunement.

You can use I am God or I am that I am as Christ often did, or you can extend the affirmation to fit your own needs.^[53]

In today’s society, all one needs to do to hear the Serpent’s Edenic lie is to stop, look, and listen. It is something that has been legitimized by modern psychology. Consequently, the techniques of occult magic have been Westernized, sanitized, and redefined to facilitate modern man’s ultimate ego trip. And, so we won’t forget that this is an age-old problem, focus your attention on Ezekial 28:2, where one cannot help but see the similarities our current generation shares with ancient Tyre. Speaking to that generation, Ezekial said:

…thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, “I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas”; yet thou art a man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God

With this established, it’s now time for us to turn our attention to some of the psychological techniques of self-deification.

The Power Of Positive Thinking And The “Supreme Secret”

According to Norman Vincent Peale, the popular expounder of Positive Thinking and Positive Imaging, which is, according to Peale, Positive Thinking taken one step further:

There is a powerful and mysterious force in human nature.., a kind of mental engineering … a powerful new-old idea…

The concept is a form of mental activity called imaging…

It consists of vividly picturing, in your conscious mind, a desired goal or objective, and holding that image until it sinks into your unconscious mind, where it releases great untapped energies …

When the imaging concept is applied steadily and systematically, it solves problems, strengthens personalities, improves health, and greatly enhances the chances for success in any kind of endeavor.

The idea of imaging has been around for a long time and it has been implicit in all the speaking and writing I have done in the past.^[54]

What Peale called a “powerful and mysterious force,” Napolean Hill, the granddaddy of PMA (Positive Mental Attitude), called the “Supreme Secret” (i.e., “Anything the human mind can believe, the human mind can achieve”).^[55] As a matter of fact, in another book he co-authored with W. Clement Stone, Hill said:

This is a universal law … that we translate into physical reality the thoughts and attitudes we hold in our minds, no matter what they are.^[56]

Of course, if Napolean Hill is correct about us achieving anything we can conceive (and I don’t for a moment think he is), then we must, indeed, be gods.

Furthermore, what Peale referred to as “imaging,” others, such as Shakti Gawain (who we referred to in a previous post), calls “Creative Visualization.” This technique, sometimes called “guided imagery,” is closely associated with PMA and is nothing less than ancient sorcery. If you remember, in a previous post, I defined sorcery as “any attempt to manipulate reality (internal, external, past, present, or future) by various mind-over-matter techniques that run the gamut from alchemy and astrology to positive/possibility thinking.” Therefore, as we use the terms “creative visualization,” “imaging,” “guided imagery,” etc., we will not be referring to the non-magical uses of the imagination. In other words, and this is very important, I am not being critical of seeing mental images of something being described in a book. I am not being critical of designing, planning, or rehearsing something in one’s mind. I am not being critical of recalling or remembering a place or event. Such mental processes are absolutely normal aids to everyday activities and do not involve an attempt to create or control reality through “mind-powers.”

Instead, the visualization I will be discussing with you has been used by the practitioners of ancient witchcraft for thousands of years. It is a technique that is an obvious thread that links ancient sorcery and the dark occultic arts with modern psychology and holistic medicine, and has grown in acceptance in today’s secular society. It has had a powerful influence on the denominations and has, unfortunately, crept in among us. It did so by masquerading as a neutral, scientific, nonreligious method for self-improvement. It is now ubiquitous in medicine, business, psychology, and education. As a result, more than a few Christians are now totally infected with that which in times past has always been identified as an “abomination” to the Lord.

I pray these posts will play some part in helping the church in “snatching from the fire” those who have already become enmeshed in this snare of Satan. The other purpose, of course, is for these post to aid Christians to vaccinate themselves against the “wiles of the Devil.” My task, as I see it, is to demonstrate that the techniques of PMA and creative visualization are really nothing other than the “syncretization” of pseudoscience (i.e., “… science, falsely so-called”),^[57] the occult, and Eastern religion. Hopefully, by now, you have absorbed enough to have already begun to piece this thing together in your own mind.

What Say The Experts?

Manly P. Hall, who we previously referred to, himself an occultist and one of the world’s leading occult authorities and historians, had this to say:

…there is abundant evidence that in many forms of modern thought—especially the so-called “prosperity” psychology, “will-power building” metaphysics and systems of “high-pressure” salesmanship—black magic has merely passed through a metamorphosis, and although its name may be changed, its nature remains the same.^[58]

According to E. Fuller Torrey, one of the world’s top research psychiatrists:

The techniques used by Western psychiatrists are, with few exceptions, on exactly the same scientific plane as the techniques used by witchdoctors.^[59]

Anthropologist Michael Harner of the New York Academy of Science identified visualization as being at the top of the list of now-popular psychospiritual techniques which, he says, represent a revival of shamanism.^[60] Shamanism, according to Harner, is sorcery and witchcraft.^[61] Elaborating on the central role visualization plays in shamanism, Harner said:

A shaman is a man or woman who enters an altered state of consciousness—at will—to contact and utilize an ordinarily hidden reality in order to acquire knowledge, power and to help other persons…

It is in the SSC (Shamanic State of Consciousness) that one “sees” shamanically. This may be called “visualizing,” “imaging,” or as expressed by Australian aborigines, using “the strong eye.” …

As the distinguished Australian anthropologist A. P. Elkins observes, the vision of an aborigine shaman “is no mere hallucination, it is a mental formation visualized and externalized, which may even exist for a time independent of its creator …”^[62]

Having considered the testimony of the experts, it is now time to give some consideration to a few shocking examples.

Examples

I think it would be shocking for most Christians to learn that a member of the Lord’s Body reported that she had been required by her Christian employer to engage in the practice of visualizing clients into
the office. When she asked her employer why she was to use such a technique, she was told her visualizing would have an influence on the clients’ decisions about coming into the office. In other words, this Christian was being instructed in the ancient mind-over-matter conjuring technique of the sorcerer.^[63]

During a lectureship conducted by a church of Christ, one of the speakers taught a series of lessons entitled “The Power of Positive Christianity.” In his introduction he said:

A – In recent years [I] have made an in-depth study of the areas of motivation, sales techniques, etc.
B – Waded through Zeigler, Schuller, Mandino, Peal, Ross, Nightingale, Linkletter, Maltz, and others.
C – Realized that the principles that they are teaching are actually Bible principles.
D – However, must issue a warning. They generally use these principles to equate success with financial prosperity.^[64]

It is sad the only thing this brother thinks you have to be careful of concerning the writings of these PMA authors is their emphasis on getting rich. The pursuit of riches is certainly dangerous spiritually. But even more dangerous, I believe, is the ready use of the techniques of sorcery (PMA techniques) by New Testament Christians. Generally, what these PMA and Human Potential Movement people teach about the mind is much more dangerous than their emphasis on wealth. Hopefully, when you are through with this study, you, too, will share in this belief.

Another example was discovered in a magazine article that appeared in one of the prominent religious journals among us. In an article entitled “Positive Mental Attitude And The Gospel,” a gospel preacher wrote:

I have been a student of PMA since 1966, having read well over a hundred books and magazines on the subject, while studying as many cassette tapes, and having held numerous seminars all over the North American Continent, teaching people its principles. PMA is not a passing hobby, I know it to be vital to the success of my business and is important to living a Christian life.

The expression “Positive Mental Attitude” is nowhere found in the gospel, but many of the principles that comprise the concept are found there. The expression itself consists of three main thoughts: (1) one must be a “believing” person; (2) the mental process as the key to behavior is a matter of choice; and (3) “attitude” is formulated in the mental process which determines one’s personality and approach to life.^[65]

He further defined an “attitude” as:

…the way a person thinks, feels and acts toward people, things, places and ideas in any situation in his total environment.^[66]

He then mentions the “Sub-conscious mind.” Concerning it, he said:

It forms the attitudes that find expression outwardly, and all below the awareness of the individual [Emphasis mine, AT].^[67]

He then informs us that our personality is really controlled by the “Sub-conscious.” According to our author, the personality is “the person that cannot hide himself.”^[68] In other words, what we really are (how we think, feel, and act) is all decided below the awareness of the individual by the “Sub-conscious.” If this is true, and I don’t for a moment believe it is, then we had better stop trying to convert conscious minds to Jesus Christ. Instead, we should be sending sinners to therapists so their “Sub-conscious” minds can be properly tuned or reprogrammed. If not, why not?

Of course, most of the PMA books, articles, and tapes I have listened to in researching this topic indicate that it is the “Sub-conscious,” “Superego,” “un-conscious,” or “Id” that is really “in charge.” As a matter of fact, a “New Age Thinking” seminar that was offered by The Pacific Institute of Seattle, Washington, “A corporation dedicated to human fulfillment,” teaches that the “Sub-conscious” is the “auto-pilot” of the human organism. If we can get the auto-pilot properly programmed for success, we are told, then we will ultimately be successful. And how do we program the auto-pilot? You guessed it, through creative visualization, verbal and written affirmations, and an altered state of consciousness (self-hypnosis). The Pacific Institute’s video curriculum was used by the IRS, CIA, U.S. Customs, U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. Department of the Interior, U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, NASA, General Motors, American Telephone and Telegraph, Rockwell International, Bank of America, Hughes Aircraft, and Weyerhauser, to name but a few of the big corporations involved.^[69]

After a compulsory showing of the “New Age Thinking” video in his police department, a police officer is reported to have said:

I reject statements made in the film such as “Hypnosis breaks through into the real conscience,” “Everybody has unending potential for development,” and “We’ve been told for too long that if we don’t believe we will go to hell … it’s time to stop thinking like this.”^[70]

He went on to say:

Not only is this another religion, but it is a religion which is in direct conflict with the one which I have already chosen as my own.^[71]

I encountered a Christian couple who had been subjected to this same “New Age Thinking” course at their place of work. Both of these individuals were enthusiastic about implementing the concepts they had learned in the course to their work in the Lord’s vineyard. They genuinely believed, like the author of the “Positive Mental Attitude And The Gospel” article, that these New Age ideas would make them better Christians. As a matter of fact, one of these individuals had already implemented some of the ideas taught in the course into her life and was resistant to providing me with any research information. According to her, I was simply mistaken to think there could be any thing wrong with what she was doing. After some persistence on my part, she let me examine both the printed materials and audio cassettes that come with the course. I was thoroughly appalled by the course’s blatant endorsement of New Age concepts. This course was later discreetly re-titled “Investment in Excellence.” As far as I know, the Christian in question never changed her views concerning the course, even though she was confronted with the evidence.

This reminds me of a rather lengthy conversation I had with a gospel preacher who regularly practices self-hypnosis. It was obvious from listening to him talk that he was well versed on the threat of Humanism. As I spoke about the relationship between Humanism and the New Age, he informed me that he had never made the connection between the two. When the subject of altered states of consciousness was mentioned as being a key to understanding both the New Age movement and ancient sorcery, he told me of his regular use of self-hypnosis. He used it, he said, because it works. Before making a point or two on this pragmatic “If it works, use it” philosophy, let me say that I, in turn, advised him that he needed to be very careful about the altered state of consciousness produced by the hypnotic technique. After discussing it with him all night, his final remarks were something very similar to:

Allan, I agree with you up to a point. Knowing what I do about hypnosis, I would never recommend its practice to another Christian because I realize it could have a very serious affect on his or her spirituality. Nevertheless, it works for me and I am convinced I can handle it.

Many Christians, it seems, are thoroughly enmeshed in pragmatism. For the pragmatist, truth is not determined by God’s Word, but by whether or not something works. If it works, then it’s true, according to the pragmatist. The utilitarian ethic is closely associated with pragmatism and informs us that the end justifies the means used to accomplish that end. As a result, many would have the church involved in “the social gospel.” “Isn’t it good,” we hear the advocates of these things saying, “that people’s physical needs are taken care of, and isn’t it good, as is the case with ‘liberation theology,’ that people are freed from political tyranny?” Answering these in the affirmative, the argument is then made that the church should be involved in these endeavors. The results are church-supported orphanages, hospitals, colleges, and anything else the brethren think is good. Subsequently, Bible authority is ignored in favor of pragmatism and utilitarianism.

Conversely, those who appeal to the Bible for authority and recognize that “the end does not justify the means” are identified as “Antis.” Although the “Antis” are frequently stereotyped as “religious crackpots” who were born in the “negative case” and the “kickative mood,” most, I’m convinced, have correctly rejected the various seductive philosophies of men in favor of those eternal truths taught in God’s Word.

It cannot be denied that for thousands of years hypnotism was an integral part of occultism. Today, it has been accepted as “scientific” and is even being used by Christians. Many who read this post will probably be able to identify more than one gospel preacher who is a practitioner of hypnotism. The following statement by two of the leading authorities in the field of hypnosis, William Kroger and William Fezler, should give these practitioners some serious food for thought:

The reader should not be confused by the supposed differences between hypnosis, Zen, Yoga and other Eastern healing methodologies. Although the ritual for each differs, they are fundamentally the same.^[72]

Furthermore, Bernard Diamond, a professor of law and clinical psychiatry and one of the world’s leading authorities on hypnosis, has said:

Can a hypnotist, through the exercise of skill and attention, avoid implanting suggestions in the mind of the hypnotized subject? No, such suggestions cannot be avoided.

During or after hypnosis, can the hypnotist or the subject himself sort out fact from fantasy in the recall? Again the answer is no. No one, regardless of experience, can verify the accuracy of the hypnotically enhanced memory.^[73]

Therefore, according to this expert, a hypnotist cannot avoid implanting suggestions in the hypnotized person’s mind even if he tried not to. In addition, it is interesting to note that hypnotists now are claiming to be “regressing” their “patients” back even prior to the womb so as to experience alleged prior lives. In one study involving six thousand hypnotically regressed subjects, approximately twenty percent claimed to have experienced “earlier existences on other planes.”⁷⁴ The truths taught in God’s Word clearly rule out the possibility of reincarnation and past lives, and all such teaching clearly bears the imprint of the Serpent.

It is my opinion that such reports should cause any Christian who might be using hypnosis to cease and desist, at least until more information is in on this subject.

Let us now return to the previously mentioned article “Positive Mental Attitude And The Gospel.” In it, the author tells us that humans have either positive or negative personalities (sorry, there is no in-between). There are, he says, certain “Laws of the Universe” which reflect the fact that “negativism repels and destroys,” while “positivism attracts and builds.” This, of course, brings up a few questions. For instance, how were these Laws of the Universe discovered, and who devised this “system of men”? Napolean Hill, of course!

I have already identified Napolean Hill as the granddaddy of the PMA movement. Let me see if I can conclusively demonstrate this to you. The late Earl Nightingale, who, during his time, was one of the most popular and influential success/motivation leaders, in a Success Motivation Institute (SMI) tape, had some very interesting things to say about Napolean Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich. After calling it “one of the most amazing books ever written,” he said:

Without question, this single book has had a greater influence on the lives, accomplishments and fortunes of more individuals than any other work of its kind.

All over the free world there are literally thousands of successful men in all lines of work who are where they are today because they once … bought a copy of Think and Grow Rich, and they’ll be quick to tell you so…

I’ve sat in richly-paneled, carpeted executive offices and listened to world-famous business leaders, some of them old enough to be my father, tell me that everything worked out fine after they had read Think and Grow Rich …

Why has this book out of all the thousands of self-help books remained the one towering giant?… When the last page of Think and Grow Rich was read, the hand which put the book down on the table was a different hand. The man who then stood and walked out into the world was a different, a changed man … The man was now the possessor of the unique, unseen talent for turning dreams into reality, thoughts into things … he who had been the passenger was now suddenly the captain.^[75]

According to Og Mandino, a super-salesman and top motivational speaker whose books sold more than 7 million copies, Think and Grow Rich is one of the twelve greatest self-help books of all time.^[76]

In Making the Most of Your Mind, co-authors Stephen B. Douglass and Lee Roddy, both of whom claimed to be Bible believers, had this to say about Napolean Hill:

In recent years, a number of secular books have related success to the power of the mind …

Napolean Hill was one such secular writer … After 20 years of research he wrote an eight-volume omnibus called The Law of Success, parts of which are condensed in his best-selling book, Think and Grow Rich … [He] probably did the most useful research in history…._[77]

Be this as it may, there are still a few things I have not told you about Mr. Hill. Although Hill was credited with discovering the Laws of the Universe concerning PMA, it is extremely enlightening to discover how Hill claims to have come upon this knowledge. In his book Grow Rich With Peace of Mind, he wrote:

Now and again I have had evidence that unseen friends hover about me, unknowable to the ordinary senses. In my studies I discovered there is a group of strange beings who maintain a school of wisdom …

The School has Masters who can disembody themselves and travel instantly to any place they choose … to give knowledge directly, by voice …

Now I knew that one of these Masters had come across thousands of miles, through the night, into my study …

I shall not set down every word he said … much of what he said already has been presented to you in the chapters of this book and will follow in other chapters.

“You have earned the right to reveal a Supreme Secret to others,” said the vibrant voice. “You have been under the guidance of the Great School … Now you must give the world a blueprint…”^[78]

As I pointed out earlier, this Supreme Secret is “Anything the human mind can believe, the human mind can achieve.” According to Hill, this “secret of the ages” is also called “The Magic Power of Belief.”^[79] In one of Hill’s books, co-authored with W. Clement Stone, one is supposedly taught how, through PMA, to tap into “the great universal storehouse of Infinite Intelligence, wherein is stored all knowledge and all facts, and which may be contacted through the subconscious…”^[80]

It all starts sounding alike after awhile, doesn’t it?. Whether it’s ancient sorcery, occultism, Eastern religion, modern psychology, the human potential movement, or PMA, they all bear the footprints of the Serpent and should be avoided by every child of God. Unfortunately, many New Testament Christians reflect the naturalism inherent in Secular Humanism by rejecting the supernaturalism taught in God’s Word. In truth, there is a real battle going on, albeit of a spiritual nature.^[81] But just because those we fight against are spiritual beings does not mean they are not real. I’m convinced that many Christians must snap out of the worldly thinking that causes them to equate the material, physical world and its inhabitants as being real, while time thinking the spiritual world and its inhabitants as being, somehow, unreal. Such thinking is plainly Humanistic.

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are supernatural, and so are the holy angels, as well as Satan and his angels. If the Bible says we fight “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places,” then let us believe God rather than man in this matter.

In the next post, we’ll take a look at New Age Science.

Notes

⁴⁰ Paul C. Vitz, Psychology As Religion: The Cult of Self Worship, 1977.↩

⁴¹ Quoted in William Kirk Kilpatrick, “Therapy for the Masses,” Christianity Today magazine, November 8, 1985, page 22.↩

⁴² Ibid.↩

⁴³ William Kirk Kilpatrick, The Emperor’s New Clothes: The Naked Truth About The New Psychology, 1985, page 133.↩

⁴⁴ Dove Hunt and T. A. McMahon, The Seduction of Christianity, 1985, page 31.↩

⁴⁵ Acts 2:38.↩

⁴⁶ Genesis 3:5.↩

⁴⁷ Douglas R. Groothius, Unmasking The New Age, 1986, pages 79-80.↩

⁴⁸ Barry McWaters, Conscious Evolution, 1981, page 149.↩

⁴⁹ Quoted in William Kirk Kilpatrick, The Emperor New Clothes, pages 34-35.↩

⁵⁰ William Kirk Kilpatrick, op. cit., page 177.↩

⁵¹ Ibid.↩

⁵² F. LaGard Smith, Out on a Broken Limb, 1986, page 180.↩

⁵³ F. LaGard Smith, op. cit., page 181.↩

⁵⁴ Norman Vincent Peale, Positive Imaging, 1982, Introduction, page 1.↩

⁵⁵ Napoleon Hill, Grow Rich With Peace of Mind, 1967, page 176.↩

⁵⁶ Napolean Hill and W. Clement Stone, Success Through A Positive Mental Attitude, 1977, page 78.↩

⁵⁷ I Timothy 6:20.↩

⁵⁸ Manly P. Hall, op. cit., pages CI, CII.↩

⁵⁹ E. Fuller Torrey, The Mind Games: Witchdoctors and Psychiatrists, 1972, page 8.↩

⁶⁰ Michael Harner, The Way of the Shaman, 1980, page 136.↩

⁶¹ Michael Harner, op. cit., page 20.↩

⁶² Michael Harner, op. cit., pages 20, 50.↩

⁶³ Based upon personal interview of the employee.↩

⁶⁴ An outline of this lecture is in my files.↩

⁶⁵ Dusty Owens, “Positive Mental Attitude And The Gospel,” Guardian of Truth magazine, Vol. XXVIII, No. 9, May 2, 1985, page 3.↩

⁶⁶ Ibid.↩

⁶⁷ Dusty Owens, op. cit., page 6. ↩

⁶⁸ Ibid.↩

⁶⁹ Caryl Matrisciana, op. cit., pages 176-177.↩

⁷⁰ Caryl Matrisciana, op. cit., page 177.↩

⁷¹ Ibid.↩

⁷² William Kroger and William Fezler, Hypnosis and Behavior Modification Imagery Conditioning, 1976, page 412.↩

⁷³ Bernard L. Diamond, “Inherent Problems in the Use of Pretrial Hypnosis on a Prospective Witness,” California Law Review, pages 333-337.↩

⁷⁴ Martin and Deidre Bobgan, Hypnosis and the Christian, 1984, page 23.↩

⁷⁵ Success Motivation Cassette Tapes (Waco, Texas) “Think and Grow Rich,” Side 1, in Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon, The Seduction of Christianity, 1985, page 17.↩

⁷⁶ Og Mandino, The Greatest Secret in the World, page 276.↩

⁷⁷Stephen B. Douglass and Lee Roddy, Making the Most of Your Mind, 1983, pages 18-19.↩

⁷⁸ Napolean Hill, Grow Rich With Peace of Mind, 1967, pages 158-160.↩

⁷⁹ Napolean Hill, op. cit., page 176.↩

⁸⁰ Napolern Hill and W. Clement Stone, op. cit., page 72.↩

⁸¹ Ephesians 6:10-18.