January 2006
I remember one time when I was a kid I went with my best friend Eva to a writing workshop at a local bookstore. The only part of it that stands out in my mind now though was the game we played "two truths and a lie" which I'm sure most of you have probably heard of--you tell two stories about yourself that are true, and one that's not. And then everyone has to guess which one is the lie. Simple right? Eva's were near impossible to guess correctly--and this was my best friend! And then it was asked how to pick good truths and lies to win the game. Eva had the answer to that one--you pick the most outrageous truths you can and the most believable lies.
If you were to be told absolute garbage, you wouldn't listen. But if you throw in a lot of good a a lure, they may just listen and believe the untruths that you sneak in there in between the truths. Its the same way that bills go through congress with some little unrelated thing tacked on--because if that little thing were by itself, it would obviously never pass. But tacked on with something really important, its let to slip through the cracks because the rest of the bill is important issues. Rat poision...same thing... you don't just put out a glob of poison and expect them to come eat it, no, you put out something that is primarily good food with just a little bit of poison in it; then they think they're eating good food for rats and ingest the poison.
And Satan works the same way. Isn't that kinda scary? I've heard Adolph Hitler quoted as saying that if you repeat something loud enough and long enough eventually people will accept it as truth. Psychology has a fancy word for that--conditioning.
So what Satan fed me was new-ageism. There was this psychic Edgar Cayce that I was told about. He had in some ways a quite amazing story--thousands upon thousands of people healed of medical maladies from his psychic readings. And when you look at the evidence, there is a lot of good evidence there of doing what seems like (and perhaps are) genuinely good things, and that this looks legit. Even a "non-believer" who was challenged by a friend to write a book about Edgar Cayce, who thought he was just a bunch of new-age hoopla coming in, went and interviewed eye-witnesses and whatnot, and became convicinced--this seems legit--and did write a book, a well selling book in fact.
But what's the the problem? Two truths and a lie. They'll tell you a lot of genuinely good christianity, but throw in just enough that you might be led astray. "We believe the bible" they tell you, "Edgar Cayce was a Methodist, and a Sunday School teacher at that." But what they teach is not 100% biblical. Even the demons believe in God the bible tells us. Edgar Cayce's "teachings" do contain a lot of genuinely good stuff, like how you should pray for God's will rather than "thine" (your own) , but then they cloud the gospel with a combination of distractions and untruths.
They talk about Jesus. They tell you all about his parents, about his brothers and sisters--anything and everything about him except the one thing that matters--that he IS God and can save you from going to hell, and offers you a free gift of salvation, of which all you have to do to accept is confess with your heart that Jesus is Lord and that you'd like him to forgive you of your sins and redeem you. Simple. Take a look at Romans 10:9 if you don't believe me. But never in their readings do they preach the message of salvation. They don't tell you how to get to heaven, or that you need to repent of your sins. Its okay to know about Jesus, its okay to like Jesus, but not okay to recognize his authority as God. Do you see it? Two truths and a lie, right there.
Instead of telling you that you are a beloved child of God, "the source" tells you, essentially that you can be like Gods. (Does this sound familiar to anyone? Say, like, Garden of Eden...the Serpent...what he tells Eve as he tempts her with the apple "you will be like God". That's what the phrase "divine wthin" tells us. No I'm sorry, the divine is not within, its above, plain and simple.
Even where you aren't being lied to by "the source", there's enough focus on anything and everything but the truth of who God is, to keep you distracted enough to not be spreading the truth about God. See, there was one other problem with Edgar Cayce that I was confronted by--self hypnosis is shutting out the conciousness. The concience is what makes us aware of God. Shutting that off is very dangerous and leaves us open to the influence of evil spirits without our concience guiding us that "something just ain't right about this".
So, it is with a small grain of sadness that I had to say "so long, farewell, and no I won't be back next summer" to a group of people who had for so long become once-a-year friends. Absolutely wonderful people. But in the words of a song by Everclear that mentions the name Edgar Cayce, "I know the truth about you. I know the truth", and therefore I just can't go back. Jesus, not "the Source" but the way, the truth, and the light.
For further investigation: A Christian ministry evaluates Edgar Cayce's Material