The NXR Podcast - THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - Neo-Paganism ｜ Ep 5 with @TheCultishShow

00:00:00.560 Neo-paganism is on the rise. There has been a modern revival of various pre-Christian 0.91

00:00:06.820 spiritual traditions, often drawing inspiration from ancient pagan religions. The resurgence

00:00:12.440 encompasses a diverse array of beliefs and practices, including Wicca, Druidry, Heathenry,

00:00:18.920 and various forms of nature spirituality. This growing movement is intentionally decentralized

00:00:24.380 with practitioners often forming small groups or covens.

00:00:28.260 But virtually every expression of this phenomenon is marked by the worship of nature,

00:00:34.060 a fascination with astrology, the belief in multiple deities,

00:00:37.500 or a pantheon of gods and goddesses, rituals involving magic or spell work,

00:00:42.800 all within the supreme focus on the actualization of the self.

00:00:47.420 Join us as we unveil the dark and sinister roots of neopaganism.

00:00:55.080 All right, here we are. Neopaganism, this is episode five for the viewer. And we've kind of

00:01:01.420 been talking about neopaganism for the last four episodes. So it's not like we haven't discussed it

00:01:08.300 at all. A lot of the different episodes that we're doing in this 10 part series,

00:01:13.140 all have their root in each other. And neopaganism being one of those roots. Burning Man

00:01:19.200 has, you know, has roots in neo-paganism and, well, a lot of stuff, the greys, we'll talk about

00:01:27.160 that, you know, it all kind of, the occult, you know, all these kinds of things kind of play into

00:01:30.920 one another. But maybe from the outset, Andrew, could you just, what is neo-paganism? Paganism,

00:01:38.320 you know, just these old pagan gods, but neo-paganism, what's that?

00:01:43.440 Yeah, new paganism or trying to resurrect what people would call pagan spirituality from the ancient days, right? Like even like Babylonian magic, in a sense, a form of paganism. So when we're thinking about new paganism, we're thinking about people who are trying to start doing practices again that had once died out because of Christendom and resurrect those practices.

00:02:08.540 So they're looking at what they would call history in order to try to resurrect these practices.

00:02:15.460 So for example, we have many people saying that Easter has its roots in a pagan holiday, right?

00:02:24.540 They'll go to Ishtar or Isatre.

00:02:27.880 But in reality, what we know about those Celtic practices in general, not Ishtar, but Isatre, for example,

00:02:37.040 we know from a monk named Bede. And he's like the one source that we have from around AD 800,

00:02:43.980 right? He's not a contemporary source for when these practices were taking place in the Celtic

00:02:49.500 world. So we really don't even know what the Celtic pagan rituals actually looked like. Now,

00:02:54.360 there's some archaeological evidence that can cite to like bonfires and things of that nature that

00:02:59.060 they find, but we don't know what the actual worship looked like. So when we're thinking of

00:03:02.920 neo-paganism, we're looking at people trying to go back in time through the history that we have

00:03:08.140 today to resurrect pagan practices and worship. So we're really looking through the lens darkly

00:03:14.980 and neo-paganism is trying to do worship when they really didn't even necessarily know what

00:03:20.820 the worship looked like to begin with. Does that make sense? So yeah, so a lot of ways the modern

00:03:24.820 is the resurgence of paganism, but in contrast to what it previously was, this would be fan fiction

00:03:31.060 to the best of their ability, because there's no primary sources. And that's where you kind of get

00:03:36.600 into, and this is kind of a part and partial to this, is that when we did our episode looking at

00:03:42.120 the origins of Halloween, a lot of times there are arguments that would say that the origins

00:03:47.480 would be in this pagan Celtic holiday known as Samhain. But in reality, we really don't know

00:03:56.160 what was actually even celebrated. It's vaguely mentioned in a couple of loose manuscripts,

00:04:02.060 and even what has been carried down is by tradition. And so what usually is projected

00:04:07.160 onto Christians falsely about the telephone game, which is not the case because you're

00:04:13.380 looking at transmission. We actually have physical copies of the original manuscripts

00:04:17.400 within the lifetime of the apostles. No other ancient work has then, let alone within pagandom.

00:04:23.040 And they didn't, that's not how they articulated stories.

00:04:26.060 It was word of mouth.

00:04:26.920 That's how they told stories around the fire.

00:04:28.680 Then one person told them to another and more sensationalism, more lore came out of that.

00:04:36.400 The literary tradition, it's not as though no culture ever wrote other than Christian

00:04:42.600 culture, but it is a fair statement to say that Christians, I mean, were, I mean, in

00:04:49.840 terms of literary emphases that the dominant uh that came through christians they were people of

00:04:57.860 the book everything else you know it was oral tradition but also um practices and things that

00:05:03.500 you know and mysticism and um but christians were people they were known as people of the text

00:05:09.800 people of the book like so very early on this uh massive emphases that was placed on write it down

00:05:17.660 And so we have, you know, which even I remember with, you know, all the woke controversy and stuff, it's like, you know, picking on, well, Europe used to do this and England did that and America did this.

00:05:29.480 And it's like, uh-huh, yeah.

00:05:31.180 And some of those things were wrong and some of them weren't.

00:05:34.360 Some of them, you're just, our culture is godless.

00:05:37.080 And so we call evil good and good evil.

00:05:39.900 But then some of those really, truly, according to God's standard, were wrong.

00:05:44.220 That's why we want Christendom 2.0 and not 1.0.

00:05:47.400 we do think that improvement by the grace of God can be made. However, another thing that I would

00:05:52.300 say is part of the reason it's hard to pick on some country in South Africa or South America

00:06:01.480 is because they didn't write anything down. It's easy to criticize the history of the West because

00:06:07.500 the West kept good records. And the West kept good records because it was steeped in Christendom.

00:06:13.640 and Christianity has always been the dominant religion of writing. 0.94

00:06:22.380 Yeah, no, that would make sense. 0.97

00:06:24.400 And when we talk about neo-paganism,

00:06:25.940 the one area that we've described,

00:06:27.780 maybe just giving a recap very briefly, is one or two.

00:06:31.300 When you look at a worldview of two,

00:06:33.180 and you're talking even about the Christian oral tradition,

00:06:35.720 that's a prominent worldview that encompasses a distinction

00:06:39.480 between the creator and the creation.

00:06:41.440 So in the same way how God has communicated to his people revelatory through his word throughout all time, in the same way we've emulated that, being image bearers of God, writing down historical records, in the same way how God has preserved his word.

00:06:58.500 So you see that sort of emulation trying to reciprocate that being in the image of God.

00:07:03.540 I think that's one very interesting aspect.

00:07:05.700 But in regards to oneism, which is a blending of the material and the immaterial, there's

00:07:11.700 no distinction between what all is divine, all is one, all is self.

00:07:16.480 The creation is worshipped rather than the creator.

00:07:19.260 The one thing that's very unique about every part of the world is so unique and distinct

00:07:24.000 from each other.

00:07:24.620 There's a very distinct culture in India in contrast to a lot of the Nordic European areas of the world that were where you saw a lot of like the Vikings and that area of like Nordic spirituality and the worshipping of the different, you know, gods of that time and trying to achieve Valhalla.

00:07:44.000 you know, there's a movie that came out a couple of years ago, The Northmen. And that movie is

00:07:50.320 basically, I'd call it like the Saving Private Ryan of Vikings movies. It just showed that world

00:07:56.200 in its very brutal form before those areas were Christianized. And what you really see is the same 1.00

00:08:02.920 thing. You see the sort of worship of the creation and sort of giving all this adherence to the

00:08:09.500 different gods. And it was such a brutal world and a brutal time. But again, you see occultism as

00:08:15.320 its whole and paganism. It is same in principle, but it gets carried out differently depending on

00:08:22.380 the culture. So you would see that articulated like in the Northmen, you would see that articulated

00:08:28.440 in a place like feudal Japan, where they were in contact with entities. And you would see a lot of

00:08:34.500 areas in which they would have many different cultures that had temples in the high places.

00:08:39.500 and trying to get in contact with the gods, and now I think you are seeing that on an unskilled

00:08:48.020 level because we're inherently spiritual, and now because we've abandoned God and how he gives a

00:08:54.980 directive for how to run society, now we're trying to grasp at that, and we're returning to one-ism.

00:09:01.000 Like one example, one of our friends, Josh Robinson, who's been on the podcast before,

00:09:05.360 Just in his area within West Virginia, there's been this large resurgence even amongst men to try and get back into sort of that Ragnar Lothbrok Vikings spirituality.

00:09:17.460 It seems like they're a very manly aesthetic to it, and they're extremely drawn to it.

00:09:22.600 And they're deterred against, they're going towards that and being deterred by Christianity because generally speaking, the evangelical message of the West is a very feminine thing.

00:09:36.260 How many men, there's just a post that came out with Stephen Furtick wearing this pink oversized Easter sweater that costs two grand at his Easter service.

00:09:44.320 Like what is, I think men are drawn more towards a Ragnar Lothbrok than Stephen Furtick in a giant pink oversized two grand sweater.

00:09:52.600 I think that's just like one small aspect of it, but ultimately you're looking at multiple different cultures in ancient times that would practice onism, would practice that, and it got carried out differently depending on their environment and their culture.

00:10:08.300 So the same way, while the practice, again, the same principle, you see a practice differently as articulated in the movie, The Northmen versus Feudal Japan. You had a lot of like, even like the ninjas that were known as that. They didn't just use their practice being stealth-like. They actually use a lot of like the dark arts.

00:10:26.660 In fact, Jeff, Pastor Jeff, from, if you guys follow Apologies Studios, when he was heavily in martial arts, he went around, he spent time in Japan, given that his dad was in the Air Force, he was an Air Force brat, and he got introduced into occultism by way of getting into ninjutsu, because there are processes where you can actually utilize within ninjutsu astral projection to try and, when you're trying to infiltrate a castle, they would utilize that as a way to spy to see what was in the next room.

00:10:56.660 And so there are areas in which even something like martial arts, you have to be careful because there are parts, there are ones that are just inherently physical, like a psychic is a psychic. There's a part of Taekwondo where you pivot the foot back and you pivot your foot in a certain way, it creates a lot more torque and power where it can easily dispatch someone with your legs versus if you don't use that.

00:11:21.740 But there's also aspects of different martial arts, like Tai Chi, that will incorporate a view of oneness. So you see that there, and then it's different in India. And you'll see that even now in the resurgence of that, one thing also as well, too, and I'll let you jump in here, Andrew, is that paganism is always syncretizing, it's constantly syncretizing, it's constantly blending and re-blending.

00:11:45.920 So in the same way how it's not linear, it's always circular. It's always taking new things. And so while, for example, in West Virginia, let's say there's a resurgence into the old Nordic spirituality trying to find some sort of masculine identity in that, it wouldn't just be the Nordic traditions as articulated in the movie The Northmen.

00:12:06.360 you also would be incorporating a lot of culture and folklore from west virginia as well too and

00:12:13.320 there's even like a lot of mysticism that comes up just from like the 1800s so they would take that

00:12:17.900 they have blended in all together um that's what joseph smith was a syncretist as well too

00:12:23.440 so that's the one thing too within paganism you see the general one versus two

00:12:27.040 but you will always see cultural constant and continual cultural syncretism one way uh you

00:12:33.920 saw this articulated was in the film wild wild country where you have this hindu cult the rosnish

00:12:40.200 they went up into oregon and they started this commune and they syncretized they took a lot of

00:12:46.380 what they learned from the east and they blended it in with the west right you know you had the

00:12:50.520 strange hypocrisy too where you had somebody who was saying get rid of all your possessions but

00:12:54.900 i'm gonna drive around and own a bunch of rolls royces right so you had somewhat of an inconsistency

00:13:00.480 there but i don't know what are your thoughts on that andrew real quick before we continue with the

00:13:04.540 show i wanted to let you know that this is actually just one episode of a 10-part series that we will

00:13:10.800 be slowly releasing to the public on places like youtube and your favorite podcast platform over

00:13:17.780 the coming months however if you want to get all 10 of these episodes right now early access and

00:13:25.420 ad-free, we are making them available exclusively for our Patreon members over at patreon.com

00:13:32.880 forward slash right response ministries. Here are the titles for just a few of those episodes.

00:13:39.200 We've got transhumanism and artificial intelligence. We also have DMT and the astral

00:13:46.280 realm. We also have neo-paganism and another of my favorite episodes is an entire episode devoted to

00:13:55.220 the grays. So again, head on over to patreon.com forward slash right response ministries and sign

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00:14:17.520 ad free for the full 10 episodes, plus an additional live stream that I and the guys who

00:14:24.280 join me for this series, that's Jeremiah Roberts and Andrew Sunkrant, the three of us will be doing

00:14:30.080 live streams where we'll be taking questions from you, our gold tier Patreon members, and providing

00:14:36.880 for you the best answers that we possibly can from the Word of God. So don't delay, go to patreon.com

00:14:43.460 forward slash right response ministries and become a supporter today. Yeah, when I think about

00:14:48.520 neo-paganism, I tend to think, well, how did it get here? What started the rise of neo-paganism?

00:14:53.880 Today, I see it really as the bastard children of atheism are really now pushing themselves full fledged into a form of spirituality, going away from the materialistic parents who had failed them in every aspect or regard, whether it be intellectually, or in the schools, emotionally, they were abandoning them in so many different aspects.

00:15:15.000 But before that, even thinking within America and the folk magic that was being practiced in the 19th century by many different people within the Americas, it's coming from the Enlightenment period, right? 0.64

00:15:27.980 Like post-Enlightenment period, we have the denying of God's word, the veracity of God's word, the truth of God's word.

00:15:34.680 Coming from that, we then have the Second Great Awakening.

00:15:37.660 We have so many different things going on in America with like spiritism, stating that there needs to be a restoration of the true gospel.

00:15:46.460 People weren't, you know, intellectuals were questioning God's word at this time.

00:15:51.400 Like this is this is a reality.

00:15:52.620 Like we get movements like Mormonism. 0.89

00:15:55.540 We have movements also like the Church of Christ, right? 0.98

00:15:58.940 The Campbellites.

00:16:00.140 We have movements like the Jehovah's Witnesses. 0.91

00:16:02.580 All of these came about just because of the questioning of God's word around that time period, which can create atheists even after that. 0.91

00:16:09.700 They're like, God's word, if it can't be trusted, you know what I mean?

00:16:12.540 Whatever presupposition they're trying to stand on by stating that there needs to be proof in general, we know as presuppositionalists, they're contradicting themselves.

00:16:20.840 But in terms of a society, we go to full-fledged materialism, right?

00:16:26.480 And not only that, since there's a questioning of God's word, besides the materialism, what's also developing is another form of spirituality that's going on where people are doing seances, right?

00:16:39.920 And they're trying to find an older religion than Christianity.

00:16:44.000 So what we see today on many TikTok videos is older means more true, right? 0.97

00:16:47.780 Buddhism's older than Christianity, therefore Buddhism must be true. 0.94

00:16:50.640 Hinduism's older than Buddhism, so that must be true. 0.97

00:16:53.540 And even within, like, the larger Christian banner, there's a push right now to, like, Eastern Orthodoxy. 0.96

00:17:00.560 Right.

00:17:01.000 Some to Roman Catholicism, a bit big on Eastern Orthodoxy because Eastern Orthodoxy, I mean, they're just right place, right time in the West, you know, right now.

00:17:11.300 Because you've got the optic, the allure of masculinity.

00:17:16.180 And I say optic.

00:17:17.200 It's a veneer.

00:17:17.860 It's not real.

00:17:19.880 But, you know, it looks like it.

00:17:22.880 It's like, here's a priest, he's a dude, he has a big beard, you know, and like, and then there's Stephen Furtick, he's got a pink sweater, and he's super duper gay, you know, and so like, so it looks masculine, then also you have the robes, the tassels, the candles, the incense that, you know, the icons, you know, all these things to venerate and to, and so it feels not only old, which gives it a sense of credibility, you know, tried and true, but it also feels mystical.

00:17:51.540 So like Eastern Orthodoxy and part of it being, you know, it differs both from Protestant and Roman Catholicism in the sense that it's like they, you know, the rationale is not nearly as important for them.

00:18:05.420 Like rational, consistent, you know, logic, those things are not as important of virtues as they are for the West.

00:18:16.200 For them, it's more about being one with God

00:18:19.940 than it is actually knowing God.

00:18:22.800 It's to be one with God.

00:18:23.900 And so Eastern Orthodoxy is really interesting

00:18:26.840 because it has some kind of, to me, in my opinion,

00:18:30.520 it has some kind of pagan elements to it.

00:18:33.100 But then it also has the old kind of thing to it.

00:18:36.740 And it's got, you know, the Christian, you know, veneer to it. 0.67

00:18:42.200 Um, and so, man, I, I, I mean, I personally know lots of, lots of men, young men, especially 0.88

00:18:49.000 who are flocking to Eastern Orthodoxy because they're, because Protestant is just so, uh,

00:18:55.260 Protestant men right now, pastors are so effeminate, but anyways, but back to you, Andrew,

00:19:00.580 but just saying that, you know, that I, I'm just agreeing with you, the idea of if it's 0.72

00:19:04.220 old, it must be true.

00:19:05.940 Cause you were saying TikTok, Buddhism, back to you. 0.91

00:19:08.980 Exactly.

00:19:09.380 Exactly. But what I find the most interesting about that is the fact that the reason why we

00:19:14.680 know about these ancient religions, let's say Asatru, which would be the Viking religion,

00:19:19.580 or even the old Celtic religions is because of the recorded history of Christians, which we

00:19:26.020 talked about. And they're not from contemporary sources. So we have people like Wiccans who are

00:19:31.320 saying that this has been a practice that's been going on for eons. Well, yes, there's nothing new 0.84

00:19:35.440 under the sun, but in terms of the worship that's being done through their rites and rituals,

00:19:40.440 it doesn't necessarily mean that those are the exact same rituals that were being done

00:19:43.640 hundreds or centuries ago. Of course, a lot of them can be extremely similar, but what I'm saying

00:19:48.760 is a witch today doesn't necessarily look like a witch from 1500, 1600 years ago. Does that make

00:19:54.620 sense? They're assuming the credibility of their religion because of the age of it, but the reality

00:19:59.120 is it's neo-paganism. This is a new form. Again, there's nothing new under the sun. It's paganism.

00:20:04.960 It's the idea that you can, through rites and rituals, have a connection with the divine in a sort of sense.

00:20:12.080 But it doesn't mean that what they're doing is actually ancient in the form that was practiced.

00:20:16.520 So then is there such a thing as paganism?

00:20:21.220 I mean, there was such a thing, but today, are there any pagan traditions being practiced today that aren't Neo?

00:20:30.300 that have, is there any pagan tradition that was preserved through time?

00:20:37.420 It's records, it's practices that hadn't actually even had records

00:20:40.700 or is it pretty much all from Greek gods and Roman gods,

00:20:46.460 you know, from Zeus and Thor all the way to, you know, whatever.

00:20:53.560 Like, is it all Neo?

00:20:55.260 Is it all kind of people are guessing?

00:20:58.920 Right.

00:20:59.400 Right. So in terms I'd say of like, I think like Roman worship or Greek worship and Hino theism, that's recorded in terms of their worship.

00:21:07.540 But when I'm talking about specifically like rites and rituals, like magic circles, things that the witches are practicing is not necessarily the same practices.

00:21:15.880 But in terms of the form of the basic underlying premise that there are certain things that need to be done in order to connect yourself with the divine, that's been going on forever, right?

00:21:26.480 Like we can talk about paganism and child sacrifice to Moloch.

00:21:30.500 Like that's still going on today.

00:21:31.900 I'd say that's a form of paganism.

00:21:33.860 It's a changed form, right? 0.95

00:21:35.680 Now we're killing them in the womb, but before they were having an altar of brass with its 0.99

00:21:41.260 hands out and they're putting their babies on top of it and watching them burn alive 0.99

00:21:44.120 and beat drums, you know?

00:21:45.440 So it changes form, but in terms of the actual, what Wiccan's practice comes from something

00:21:52.960 called the Corpus Hermeticum, which is a book which we'll talk about in another one of our

00:21:56.900 episodes on the occult. But it was a Latin translation of the Corpus Hermeticum, which I

00:22:02.800 believe it's Clement. I'd have to look at my notes, but it's Clement who actually mentions this even

00:22:07.300 in early church history, the 42 books of Hermes, that has rites and rituals that were supposedly

00:22:12.940 being practiced by the Egyptians that was then amalgamated by the Greeks. And in these rites

00:22:19.960 rituals, it's essentially like ancient Egyptian and Babylonian magic. So they take that translated

00:22:25.580 into Latin, and then they get books like the Magus. And there's even mentions of this in the

00:22:31.840 discovery of witchcraft, which is another book that was written to show that a lot of witchcraft

00:22:37.120 was mainly fake. But also it shows rituals that were being produced during the times of the

00:22:43.200 medieval period but the the point being is that it has many different forms throughout the ages

00:22:50.440 but to say that what the wiccan believes today is older than what christians have been practicing

00:22:55.960 is not necessarily historically true does that make sense and when you say not necessarily you

00:23:00.800 mean definitely not true yeah i mean like we don't have any like primary contemporary sources yeah

00:23:06.100 yeah they mean they don't the ultimate reliable primary source for for paganism would just be

00:23:11.560 genesis right and and you look at just the fallen and just when it says like on the day they should

00:23:16.620 you know quite one question hath god really said and that for the day that you eat of it you should

00:23:21.400 be as gods knowing good and evil so what you really have you know the original seeks uh the

00:23:27.320 original seeking of ascension is right there in genesis and what you see is the first attempt

00:23:31.880 for secret esoteric hidden knowledge and power outside of god to be like god uh knowing good

00:23:38.080 and evil and it's and we've been reciprocating that ever since you know there's a saying that

00:23:41.980 god made man in his own image we've been returning the favor ever since right and so the and even

00:23:47.400 then like and there are you know there are sources out there that do sort of show in like ancient

00:23:51.960 astrological charts and things that people were into but even though that documentation that we

00:23:57.240 have they were syncretizing on their time and we don't we don't know every single aspect of what

00:24:02.340 they were syncretizing and in the same way with even modern paganism you know you look at witch

00:24:07.500 talk for example you're you're looking at which talk we are which talk and people's that uh so

00:24:13.600 which talk i mentioned before that's the those who are witches who articulate their spells and

00:24:18.960 incantations and terror readings on tiktok under the hashtag which tack which there's around it's

00:24:24.940 like billions it's billions 40 billion or something yeah it's even larger than that i think the last

00:24:29.360 time i checked it's around 70 billion i just i just i i make a habit not having chinese spyware

00:24:33.840 on my phone yeah so um but that that's what you end up seeing so um so yeah so like when it comes

00:24:40.700 to witch talk singretism would take place where you're incorporating even old ancient traditions

00:24:46.920 you'd call that but now in the same way how transhumanism is trying to take the ascent to

00:24:53.860 godhead and in a seek ascension through technology and seeing us as a as a collective mind hive

00:24:58.960 now you are looking uh through the lens of tech talk and people who are witches are now incorporating

00:25:05.220 technology so in the same way how we can use this for good uh you're we're gonna this podcast is

00:25:10.680 going to be seen by thousands of people there's gonna be people engaging sharing it there are

00:25:14.980 people that we'll never meet on this side of attorney all over the world who are going to hear

00:25:19.160 this conversation that's being done for good they're incorporating and synchronizing in the

00:25:23.880 same technology to say, hey, here's my wick, here's what I'm doing. Here's my incantation.

00:25:29.520 Here's the incense and everything that would have been done, you know, in some time during the dark

00:25:34.520 ages, you know, you think, you think about some sort of medieval movie where there's that one

00:25:39.360 obscure person, you know, trying to do incantations or to give a hex on one or the other, like now

00:25:45.020 that's being syncretized, but now with technology. So that's, that would be an example of neo-paganism

00:25:51.020 That you would see the same thing with Burning Man now incorporating policies like climate change. So one of the areas that's connected to the Green New Deal and the idea of doing these now carbon taxes.

00:26:06.140 So we're going to take a certain percentage out of what you're paying to put gas in your car because that's going to, quote-unquote, harm the environment or to keep everything syncretized.

00:26:20.080 That worldview comes out of Gaia and planetary worship and attributing to the worship of the gods.

00:26:26.420 And in fact, Carl, who I mentioned in the other episode, he's from Canada, they already have that incorporated.

00:26:31.440 so what he's actually doing

00:26:33.560 when he's filling up the punt

00:26:35.280 he's having through the will of the state

00:26:38.040 through the mandate of the state

00:26:39.540 he's now having to pay a mandatory tithe

00:26:41.900 to the weather gods

00:26:43.440 to appease them

00:26:44.660 so if I have to

00:26:46.220 I now have to follow

00:26:47.460 these new policies

00:26:49.540 that are just dictated by the masses

00:26:51.400 by whoever deems

00:26:52.940 what is necessary to protect the planet

00:26:55.260 because if you don't want to do it

00:26:56.680 you're a denier

00:26:57.240 and you're going to be demonized

00:26:58.380 and all that sort of fun stuff

00:26:59.580 but the worldview that comes behind it is a, is planetary worship. It's a view of,

00:27:05.040 it's a view of one-ism. And so you see a lot of, you know, a lot of areas, again, 0.85

00:27:11.260 they're affecting your lives. That is a direct result of paganism and resurgence of the one. 0.99

00:27:16.780 Yeah, I think, I think that's absolutely accurate. In terms of paganism, what we get a good idea 0.94

00:27:22.300 of it is from the word of God, right? I mean, like Moses specifically through direct revelation from

00:27:28.000 God constructed Genesis in such a way it destroys paganism, right? In the beginning, God, right? 0.91

00:27:34.080 Paganism denies this fundamental reality that God is number one, tri-person, at least a trinity,

00:27:42.400 one God, three persons who exist outside of time and space and then creates everything. Paganism

00:27:47.920 doesn't have that. And in Genesis, we have it all over where Moses is using, like, I think it's

00:27:55.080 Baal is like the God of like lightning in a sense, but Moses corrects this understanding by saying 0.53

00:28:00.700 it's God who, Yahweh who created lightning in general is like a correction to the paganism

00:28:06.400 that was around during that time. So what we understand from the Bible, regardless of the 0.79

00:28:11.780 claims of a Wiccan pagan or ancient Babylonian religion and ancient magic, we have in the

00:28:18.440 beginning God, right? Through the book of Genesis that predates through special revelation, any claim

00:28:24.480 that anyone can make in being the oldest religion. 1.00

00:28:27.700 Right, right.

00:28:29.420 Okay, so neo-paganism, you would say,

00:28:32.740 I mean, it sounds like it's growing,

00:28:34.080 not just a fringe small group.

00:28:35.980 It sounds like there are multiple expressions.

00:28:38.840 Wicca, Druity, or how do you say it?

00:28:42.340 Yeah, Druidism.

00:28:43.500 Druidism.

00:28:43.980 I mean, have you guys heard anything 1.00

00:28:46.240 about like young people in the West, in America,

00:28:49.680 practicing that kind of stuff?

00:28:52.660 I hear about Wicca, I hear about witches, I hear about those kinds of things.

00:28:57.460 Are there any other, I guess my question,

00:28:59.080 any other specific expressions of neo-paganism that you feel like are on the rise?

00:29:04.520 I think it's in general.

00:29:06.400 I mean, I think I gave a couple of pinnacle examples.

00:29:08.440 I think as a whole, what you're seeing within just all of the fruits of,

00:29:14.580 even the conversations that are rising within the whole conversation,

00:29:17.860 like feminism and uh and even the divine feminine as we talked about and like those roles but also

00:29:25.000 more specifically even like the use of psychedelic use and as we'll get into even like the conversation

00:29:31.700 behind ufos and the grays like they're all those things are in those those things are a byproduct

00:29:38.700 of embracing a worldview of oneism yeah i think as a whole again i wouldn't be the foremost expert

00:29:46.100 as far as the exact numbers of Druidism,

00:29:50.600 because again, paganism is always in its form.

00:29:53.000 So even a modern-day Druid will be syncretizing.

00:29:56.420 They may be taking Druidism.

00:29:58.460 They may take parts of Nordic spirituality.

00:30:00.460 They may encompass parts of Burning Man.

00:30:04.780 They may take parts of just a lot of different things.

00:30:07.640 Let's just throw it in the soup and make it mine.

00:30:10.040 And that's the appeal.

00:30:11.060 That's the appeal of neo-paganism versus the new atheism,

00:30:15.500 which is pretty much has died out. 0.81

00:30:17.900 Again, that's why Richard Dawkins is now, you know, the cultural Christian.

00:30:21.380 But what you're seeing is that people get, you get to still be autonomous.

00:30:26.100 You get to be your own God,

00:30:27.600 but you can acknowledge the reality of the spiritual and the supernatural.

00:30:30.740 Right.

00:30:31.000 I think those, and again, coming from a presuppositional standpoint,

00:30:34.480 knowing what scripture says, atheists, they know that there's God.

00:30:38.080 Like, how do you know which God is real? 0.96

00:30:39.660 Well, the one that you hate the most.

00:30:41.180 You don't see atheists giving, putting the gods of Hinduism. 0.60

00:30:44.780 So mad at Thor.

00:30:45.500 Yeah, or even like, if you look, even like all the anger that they have against the decisions that God made in the Old Testament, 0.99

00:30:53.320 you look at what is in the Bhagavad Gita and the craziness of the stuff that the Hindu gods did, it's nuts. 0.91

00:31:00.240 It's peanuts in comparison to, you know, what their accusations of God and the Bible are, but they give them a pass. 1.00

00:31:05.720 But it's a made-up thing of fairy tales.

00:31:08.040 Why are you totally ignoring, like, all the craziness in the Bhagavad Gita and the fruits that have taken place

00:31:12.840 and the poverty that's in India as a direct result?

00:31:15.500 of one-ism, the amount of people who have starved

00:31:17.960 because you believe in the cowl are divine

00:31:19.900 and therefore you need to have people in the street

00:31:21.700 because they're going to starve to death

00:31:24.900 at the expense of animism.

00:31:26.660 Yeah, it's true.

00:31:27.320 But they're not bothered by that.

00:31:29.020 They're bothered by the Christian God 0.76

00:31:30.840 because they instinctively know he exists. 1.00

00:31:34.160 Romans 1, they're lying and suppressing the truth

00:31:36.120 and unrighteousness, but they know.

00:31:38.700 The triune God exists and they hate him.

00:31:41.820 Yeah, the Bible says, I am God, there is no other.

00:31:44.060 echoed so many times throughout scripture. And this idea of one ism is like, well, I

00:31:48.360 get to pick and choose what I want for spirituality, right? None of it really matters 0.86

00:31:54.120 altogether. As long as I'm searching for something higher than myself, that's the one ism. So I can

00:31:59.360 be a also true and search through my Viking origin, trying to worship the Viking gods,

00:32:05.220 or I can go ahead and believe that I'm worshiping some ancient Egyptian gods in order to be closer

00:32:10.980 with some weird form of comedic spirituality, or I can go and celebrate the Celtic festival

00:32:17.380 of Beltran and worship and do weird Druid rites and rituals because that's what fits

00:32:23.480 me and my personality.

00:32:24.820 It's the whole relativistic world that we are coming out of really that leads to this

00:32:30.480 idea of one-ism or even perennialism in a sense where all these different paths lead

00:32:35.380 to God as long as it feels good for you, right?

00:32:38.040 I mean, even androgynous gender ideology is the same thing.

00:32:41.640 As long as it feels okay for you, you might as well do it. 0.60

00:32:45.700 Even Mormonism, in a sense, I prayed about it and I have a burning in the bosom.

00:32:49.500 I feel that this is true for me.

00:32:51.440 It's just one piece of glass on a table that was broken.

00:32:55.360 This truth all equals and creates the one, you know, true religion.

00:32:59.860 So, but the reality of it is God says, I am God and there is no other.

00:33:04.220 I've revealed myself in the word.

00:33:05.860 This is truth.

00:33:07.440 Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.

00:33:09.920 And that's why there's-

00:33:10.500 This is true and you know it's true.

00:33:11.540 Exactly.

00:33:12.120 And that's why there's animosity against the Christian religion, because if we are acting

00:33:15.640 as Christians ought to act according to God's word, we say, no, there is no perennialism.

00:33:20.520 Not all paths lead to God.

00:33:21.860 Neo-paganism is false worship.

00:33:23.740 It's not going to save your life.

00:33:25.340 And the only way to truly be spiritual, right, is in Christ.

00:33:29.280 Like, what does it say?

00:33:29.840 I believe it's, is it Romans 7, where it says, you cannot be spiritual.

00:33:34.080 The natural man is at enmity with God.

00:33:36.100 There's no such thing as spirituality apart from God.

00:33:39.280 It's false.

00:33:40.320 It's fake.

00:33:41.120 It's not spiritual.

00:33:41.840 Yeah, seven and eight, like the mind of the sinful man is hostile towards God.

00:33:44.880 It does not submit to his law, nor can it.

00:33:47.300 And then, you know, also like, I think it's 2 Corinthians, it might be first, but where

00:33:52.660 Paul says, you know, the spiritual man makes spiritual judgments about all things, but

00:33:56.760 he himself is subject to no man's judgment.

00:34:00.320 You're not, yeah, all that just to articulate your point.

00:34:03.600 there's um this idea of being i'm not i'm not religious but i'm spiritual no you're not that's

00:34:09.120 not i mean you are you are you do have a soul right you're a spiritual you know both both

00:34:14.020 embodied you're an embodied soul like you have a body and a soul but um but no there is no true

00:34:19.980 spiritual enlightenment or wisdom or maturity spirituality in any true sense apart from

00:34:27.320 the christian religion apart from christ

00:34:33.600 Right Response Ministries 2025 conference is a go.

00:34:38.220 This is three days, full jam-packed conference

00:34:41.640 with eight main sessions,

00:34:43.260 three to four hour and a half long panels

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00:34:49.340 15 speakers in all.

00:34:51.060 Who are they?

00:34:51.920 Steve Dace, Jeff Durbin, Orne McIntyre,

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00:35:01.140 Dan Burkholder, the Christian Prince himself, Dusty Devers, Ben Garrett, David Reese, and yours

00:35:07.640 truly, Pastor Joel Webin. Again, this is April 3rd, 4th, and 5th, 2025, and the early registration is

00:35:15.860 open right now. This is the longest conference with the most speakers we've ever offered, and yet

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00:35:43.040 Visit TheWordSoap.com today. Again, that's TheWordSoap.com. Everyone needs soap,

00:35:50.300 so wash yourself in the Word.

00:35:55.160 Yeah, it's just the religion of the world, right? The wisdom of the world.

00:35:58.860 and none of it can save them, whether it be some practice that was practiced 2,000 years ago,

00:36:05.160 guess what? It's not actually worshiping the true and living God. It's not benefiting you.

00:36:09.480 Regardless, go make one up 2,000 years from then, still paganism, right? And it's not going to save 0.95

00:36:15.860 you from the wrath of God because you're going to die one day and you're going to actually meet

00:36:19.680 your creator. So we want the neo-pagan to understand that Jesus Christ and only through 0.95

00:36:26.420 him, you can actually have peace with God. He's the one who's going to solve your problems, 0.97

00:36:30.520 right? He can heal you from being a bastard child of atheism, from the emotional trauma that you've 0.99

00:36:37.040 suffered, physical, maybe even sexual trauma in your life. Jesus Christ, in finding hope and peace 0.99

00:36:42.580 in him is the only way where you can make sense of your life to begin with.

00:36:46.720 Yeah. And one other thing I'll wrap up here with saying this is that one of the areas that

00:36:52.480 ultimately, the distinction between one and two is how do you view creation? If creation is not

00:37:00.200 worship, then what is the role of creation? And I'll just paraphrase my friend Stephen Bancars

00:37:06.000 and his testimony when he came to know the Lord. I mean, he was someone who was raised in a Christian

00:37:09.760 household, and he went wayward, and he ended up becoming one of the biggest New Age bloggers in 0.95

00:37:16.680 the world. He had a big website called Spirit Science and Metaphysics, and he was making

00:37:22.360 like 30, 40 grand a month in ad spend. And, and his conversion, like his pinnacle point is when he

00:37:30.400 realized that creation wasn't divined, but he realized that creation was transcendent, but

00:37:36.620 it was in a world of two because all of a sudden he realized what creation was.

00:37:41.420 And he understood that all of a sudden in just a pivotal moment, that was Psalm 19,

00:37:48.020 Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands, and he

00:37:52.960 saw that all the creation around him wasn't part of some divine and personal conscience that we can

00:37:57.780 connect with, but it was transcendent that it was giving glory, and everything from the critters on

00:38:04.060 the ground to the leaves and all that is groaning out and is longing for that redemption, and is

00:38:10.440 declaring the glory of God, and him realizing that was the point to realize that, no, God is the

00:38:15.200 Creator, and this is me by Christ and for Christ. And that's ultimately where we have to, when we

00:38:21.960 wanted to ultimately, like, so what? Well, this is going to be the spiritual zeitgeist of our age,

00:38:28.180 I believe. I don't think that you're not going to really deal with people being sucked into cults

00:38:33.520 as a general purpose, as a general, like you look, I saw Jehovah's Witnesses in the airport. 0.91

00:38:38.700 Now, there are ladies who are in there, the typical Jehovah's Witness, you see them in their

00:38:42.000 40s and 50s. They're elderly folk. You don't really see too many young people that are there. 0.95

00:38:46.680 The only reason in time I've interacted with young Jehovah's Witnesses recently, like on the street, 0.99

00:38:51.520 they were gone for a little while in 2020, but they're back. And, you know, it's because they 0.98

00:38:56.980 grew up. There was their petri dish. But what you do see is not people getting sucked into cults,

00:39:01.660 like in the 70s and the 80s, specifically in California, which is why Walter Martin planted

00:39:06.380 the Christian Research Institute back then when he was a Bible Answer Man. But really,

00:39:11.140 you're going to have people who are just going to be going into neopaganism by the droves. So I

00:39:16.500 think understanding that they're going there, there's the appeal there that they get to be God,

00:39:20.660 they get to sort of write the world themselves and the world in their own image, but it's just

00:39:25.240 a matter of talking to them, explaining the gospel to them, and redirecting them that they were

00:39:29.720 created to have a relationship and fellowship with God. Not to go inward, not to define this,

00:39:36.460 not to go inward and try and find yourself because there's no one in sight. The worldview of oneness

00:39:42.140 is circular. There's no way to ascend when all is one, but it's to experience that glory and

00:39:48.800 share with the glory of the Father as articulated in the high priestly prayer in John 17.

00:39:55.700 And that's what we need to pray for ultimately is that let's pray to be salt and light. Let's pray

00:40:00.940 that God breaks our heart for those people who are going to it in droves, and let's bring the

00:40:05.720 gospel of peace, the gospel of hope, and empower them to do what they are created for, which is to

00:40:11.120 glorify God and enjoy Him forever. Amen. That's good. Thanks for tuning into this episode. A lot

00:40:17.100 of our episodes, this is a part of a 10-part series, and a lot of it deal with more specific

00:40:21.900 particular expressions of neo-paganism. Some of the latter episodes that we've yet to even get to

00:40:27.220 will deal with precisely that, Scientology, you know, talking about Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness,

00:40:34.380 and then we've done some of the more, and I think you're right.

00:40:36.980 I think some of those kind of classic cults are going to decline.

00:40:43.620 I think they might work their way out.

00:40:46.500 Like Scientology might end in our lifetime, you know.

00:40:49.580 But I think the general individuality of the appeal of a neo-paganism

00:40:55.980 where it's like, remember the stores in the mall where you could go,

00:40:58.440 it was called Build-A-Bear?

00:40:59.580 Yeah.

00:40:59.760 You got to make your own.

00:41:00.720 Oh, yeah. 0.94

00:41:01.000 I think, you know, build a pagan God, you know, build a pagan spirit. 0.99

00:41:05.100 That, I think, will probably be on the rise as, you know, as Christendom, as we're continuing in the West to apostatize against Christ. 0.95

00:41:13.920 And so there's this waning of Christendom.

00:41:16.880 A lot of those major cults, they were like parasites that attached themselves to Christendom. 0.98

00:41:22.420 They were Christian heresies. 0.99

00:41:24.200 You know what I mean? 1.00

00:41:24.940 Little Christian spinoffs. 0.98

00:41:26.640 So if Christianity is not faring very well, then Jehovah's Witness and Mormonism are, they're kind of screwed, you know, but, but give me, you know, 20% little personal religion, give me 20% Thor and 30% Jupiter with a sprinkle of the divine feminine and then some Taylor Swift. 0.99

00:41:47.500 And now we're talking that, that money, you know, so I could see that being one of the big things that we deal with. 0.96

00:41:53.120 So this whole idea of, you know, one-ism versus two-ism, right?

00:41:56.760 Is there actually a distinction that, you know, two, not one, but two, a distinction

00:42:00.660 between the creator and the creature?

00:42:03.320 Or is it just all is one and one is all?

00:42:05.900 And, you know, this pantheistic paganism kind of, you know, that is going to be, that's

00:42:10.940 going to be a big focus in the talk of the town for quite some time.

00:42:13.980 So buckle up.

00:42:14.700 If you're a Christian, you need to be prepared.

00:42:17.060 You need to listen to this series and other things like this.

00:42:19.820 Follow Cultish with their podcast.

00:42:21.940 read Walter Martin, Kingdom of the Colts, and get ready, because I do think that there's going to

00:42:28.740 be a lot of spiritual warfare, and a lot, by God's grace, of incredible evangelistic opportunities

00:42:35.400 in the near future. So thanks for tuning in. If you want to catch this series and be able to watch

00:42:39.920 all of it, right, so some of it's out, some of it's not out, depending on what date you're watching,

00:42:44.720 but we're launching each episode, 10 episodes, part of a 10-part series on Fridays at 4 p.m.

00:42:50.940 Central Time. This episode that you're listening to right now is somewhere right around in the

00:42:56.060 middle of this 10-part series. So there's some more episodes that have not yet even been released

00:43:00.300 if you're watching this episode promptly right after it's come out. So if you want to be able

00:43:04.100 to watch the unreleased episodes and maybe even a bonus episode or two, and you want to do it all

00:43:09.700 ad-free, then go ahead and join us on patreon.com forward slash right response ministries. Again,

00:43:16.180 that's patreon.com forward slash right response ministries, and you'll be able to catch the

00:43:20.120 whole series all right uh we'll see you in the next episode real quick before you go we hope

00:43:25.520 that you enjoyed the episode and we hope that you're eager for more however as i already said

00:43:30.780 these will be slow dripping out over the course of weeks and even a few months but not to worry

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00:43:43.940 join us as a Silver Tier member over on patreon.com forward slash Right Response Ministries. God bless.

The NXR Podcast - August 02, 2024

THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - Neo-Paganism ｜ Ep 5 with @TheCultishShow

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