The NXR Podcast - THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - The Occult w Cultish

00:00:00.000 The term occult refers to knowledge or practices that are far beyond the realm of ordinary

00:00:07.600 understanding. The word itself comes from the Latin word occultus, which means hidden

00:00:12.040 or secret. In a broad sense, the occult encompasses various esoteric beliefs, practices, and

00:00:18.240 phenomena that typically involve spiritual, mystical, or supernatural elements. This

00:00:23.160 can include practices such as divination, astrology, alchemy, ceremonial magic, terror

00:00:27.540 reading, and ritualistic practices aimed at accessing mystical forces and hidden knowledge.

00:00:33.240 The Occult has been a part of human culture and belief systems for millennia, appearing

00:00:37.780 in various forms across different cultures and historical periods, but is always associated

00:00:42.740 with mystery, mysticism, and secrecy.

00:00:45.340 While some people are under the illusion that the Occult is purely speculative or harmless

00:00:50.000 entertainment, many others are perfectly aware of the Occult's demonic power, and they are

00:00:54.440 seeking to harness this power in order to bring about a very dark and sinister end.

00:01:07.360 All right, here we are. This is episode six now, talking about the occult.

00:01:15.180 I don't know, what are some of the modern expressions? It seems like it's on the rise.

00:01:20.440 It is. It is. And I think one of the things, and Andrew's got some stuff, he's going to break down as far as the origins of it and some integral pieces of it. But if you look at the zoom out big picture, is the occultism, just to paraphrase in a previous episode, what Gary North says, that the rise of occultism usually peaks at the very end of a civilization.

00:01:46.120 And so what you are seeing right now is because occultism in many ways is very syncretistic.

00:01:53.580 It always blends in not only different philosophies, but it also blends in with a culture and it emulates the culture around it.

00:02:00.920 One of the ways you'd see, usually if you go to a bookstore, there's usually a back section somewhere in the corner where you'd have some of those weird fringe books.

00:02:12.020 But now if you go to Barnes & Noble or any of those other major bookstores, now you'll walk into the front door and you see books.

00:02:21.820 I think I did a video even on our Instagram a while back where I walked in and there was a whole set of books on spellcasting, on alchemy, a lot of things that Andrew said in his introduction, witchcraft and Wicca, astrology, and this is just right there, right in front of you.

00:02:41.400 So I think you see that in one way, for example, to, you know, right around October, there's always that question of people who are arguing about, you know, whether or not Christians should participate in Halloween.

00:02:55.320 And one of the things that is noticeable, and I've seen it just in the last 10 years, it's gone from going to a Spirit Halloween or other places around October where it's just, hey, here are some cool costume ideas.

00:03:08.880 Here's the movies that were trending, and here's some cute Avengers and stuff like that.

00:03:12.920 But now, I think in the last five to ten years, you're seeing, notably, a lot of occultic items, a lot of occultic materials,

00:03:21.900 where normally, like ten years ago, that was not the case to even run Halloween.

00:03:25.660 The last one out, there are tons of Ouija boards and tarot cards, and just a lot more.

00:03:32.880 It's just a carnival of occultism.

00:03:35.180 So you're really seeing that in the culture.

00:03:36.980 So it's just indicative of where we are, where as a whole we have rejected God's law as far as how to govern.

00:03:46.400 We're inherently spiritual, so atheism has really kind of come and gone.

00:03:51.780 You know, Richard Duggins did his best.

00:03:53.920 As we mentioned before, he's now a cultural Christian.

00:03:57.960 And so people are inherently spiritual, but they still want to be their own God.

00:04:01.760 So I think that's the perfect place where people like to land.

00:04:06.720 And you see that carried out.

00:04:08.460 I think that's just some of the appeal when it comes to the rise of the occult in our day and age.

00:04:13.780 Yeah.

00:04:14.100 So when thinking of occultism, we can also think biblically in the form of divination.

00:04:19.780 Right?

00:04:20.220 People who seek to get yes or no answers from another realm.

00:04:24.620 Using tools or objects like writing, ceremonial daggers.

00:04:30.260 people who think that maybe there's treasure underground, right? Or even dowsing hidden

00:04:36.160 water that could be found with a rod. So using specific types of instruments to bridge this

00:04:42.100 gap between what is known and what is unknown. So the question when we think about the occult is

00:04:49.140 we should go, well, where did this modern form that we're seeing today come from? We said things

00:04:54.480 like alchemy, tarot card reading, astrology. These things didn't just come out of nowhere,

00:05:00.740 right? They didn't appear in a vacuum. This is a very old school of thought that's been around

00:05:05.660 for quite some time. And we're going to get into that. Doing some research when I was doing,

00:05:11.540 you know, the origins of Mormonism, I came across something called Hermeticism. And many people

00:05:18.300 don't realize nowadays, but modern forms of Wicca, the rites and rituals and incantations that they

00:05:25.340 do, other forms of like folk magic, they all basically come from Hermeticism. If you've heard

00:05:32.720 of Rosicrucianism or the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, or even aspects of Freemasonry in

00:05:38.780 terms of the presuppositions to what they fundamentally believe, all of these things come

00:05:43.160 from Hermeticism. So let me give you a basic understanding of Hermeticism. We'll get into

00:05:50.660 some of the origins, but a basic understanding is like alchemy, okay? Hermeticism gave birth to

00:05:56.820 alchemy, all right? It did. Hermeticism believes that humans are of the same substance as God,

00:06:03.680 okay? It teaches that when you do certain rites in rituals, you can become that perfect self or

00:06:10.160 form of God. So various ceremonies, rites, and rituals. They also believe the same thing with

00:06:16.620 a stone, okay? The stone, just a rock, is of the same substance as gold, but through certain rites

00:06:22.920 and rituals, that stone can become gold. So that's a very basic presupposition. But where did these

00:06:29.300 thoughts come from? That's what we should ask ourselves. So Hermeticism is essentially a

00:06:34.520 blending of Egyptian magic or philosophy with Greek philosophy. It really started its development

00:06:40.900 during the Potomac period of the Egyptian dynasty, which is when Alexander the Great conquered

00:06:45.780 Egypt. So we had Greek thought also invading Egyptian thought. And what is believed about

00:06:53.440 the Corpus Hermeticum, it's a book of writings, I believe it's 42 to 43 different texts, is that

00:06:59.840 is written by someone called Hermes Tresmegustus, which means the thrice holy Hermes. But the

00:07:06.480 literature in and of itself is a pseudepigrapha. No one knows who wrote it. So it's attributed to

00:07:12.940 this person. But if you noticed, I said Hermes, right? Was Hermes real or was Hermes just a Greek

00:07:20.260 god? Plato, I think, had five different theories of who Hermes could be. But essentially, this

00:07:26.280 Hermes Tresmegustus was a blending of the Egyptian god Thoth and Hermes. So, what happened

00:07:34.480 was this Corpus Hermeticum, this body of writings, actually didn't start becoming developed until

00:07:41.700 at least what we have historical evidence for from AD 100 to AD 300, okay? So, even during

00:07:50.540 early Gnosticism, Hermeticism was also around. Clement of Alexandria in the third century

00:07:58.480 actually wrote in the Stramata book six about the Corpus Hermeticum. This is an early church

00:08:02.660 father, right? And I'll quote, he says, from chapter four of Stramata book six, he says,

00:08:07.080 there are then 42 books of Hermes, indispensably necessary, of which the six and 30 containing

00:08:11.920 the whole philosophy of the Egyptians are learned by the forementioned personages,

00:08:15.540 and the other six, which are medical by the pastophoroi, treating of the structure of the

00:08:21.320 body and of diseases and instruments and medicines about the eyes and the last about women, such are

00:08:25.640 the customs of the Egyptians. Just briefly, that's what he says. So even within this body of the

00:08:30.400 Corpus Hermeticum, we also do find medical things. So this was a Greek body of writings from around

00:08:38.640 that time. And not only did it contain things about medicine, but there was, I believe, 17

00:08:46.560 different writings, which are actually the most popular today, which we get many forms of occultism

00:08:51.540 from, which is called the Philosophical Hermetica. And the Philosophical Hermetica is what details

00:08:56.840 the origin of creation, what details alchemy, astrology, and certain rites and rituals. So many

00:09:06.100 modern forms of occult practices come from this. But the question is, how did we get it today?

00:09:14.480 Well, it wasn't translated from Greek into Latin until around, I believe it's the 16th century.

00:09:23.640 The first translation, because these Greek texts were found, were during the Renaissance period.

00:09:28.740 And what do we find even in the Renaissance period? People started forging science with

00:09:33.380 magical practices. But what's interesting about the Hermetic tradition really is that

00:09:41.660 this blending of the sciences along with searching for alchemy also gave birth to some modern forms

00:09:49.360 of medicine that we even have today. I mean, it's just the reality. Isaac Newton was a known

00:09:54.720 alchemist who practiced things from the Philosophica Hermetica. So it's interesting

00:10:01.760 things anyways, but the people who translated these Greek texts into Latin, uh, was, uh,

00:10:08.080 Marcello Festino. I cannot even pronounce her names. Right. I don't even know. I don't speak.

00:10:12.320 I'm not from that era. Right. Uh, Lodoviccio Lazarelli. You're syncretizing to the best of

00:10:18.040 your body. I'm syncretizing to the best I can, but in a nutshell, um, Hermeticism is perennial

00:10:24.240 in nature, right? Different paths can lead to God, but certain rites and rituals can, uh,

00:10:30.040 make that happen faster. And so it's not unlike Gnosticism, but it's different in the terms that

00:10:37.900 there can be actual devices that can connect you to this other realm. So it's ancient, but it's

00:10:45.040 also an ancient heresy, which I don't think it's talked about enough. Like when we think about

00:10:49.040 ancient heresies that plagued the early church, we think of Gnosticism, right? Docetism, which is

00:10:55.140 because it was extremely popular, but it was, this was also extremely popular, but it just didn't

00:11:00.260 pop back up into history until around the 15th, 16th century. And then from there, man, it took

00:11:06.640 off like a wildfire. Like those people, those great thinkers of the Renaissance, many of them

00:11:12.740 practice things from the Hermetic tradition. And that's what we're seeing actually influence

00:11:17.880 our society today. So modern forms of Wicca, for example, with like earth, water, wind, fire in

00:11:24.940 the four elements, where does that come from? It comes from the philosophical Hermetica.

00:11:29.800 The phrase, have you ever heard of this, Joel? As above, so below. That's from the philosophical

00:11:35.020 Hermetica. So in terms of occult ritual magic, astrology, alchemy, all of these things are based

00:11:44.160 from this body of literature and text. Real quick, before we continue with the show,

00:11:48.960 I wanted to let you know that this is actually just one episode of a 10-part series that we

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00:12:14.700 over at patreon.com forward slash right response ministries. Here are the titles for just a few

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00:13:31.000 today as above so below isn't that like aristotle and a guy you know i'm thinking of like forms i

00:13:40.220 guess that would be more plato but this idea of like everything that we have is not really true

00:13:46.020 in and of itself but it's it's only as it it's only as true as it is insofar as it accurately

00:13:54.040 represents the true form that is somewhere else is that you know that that saying as above so

00:14:00.820 below would that fall into like a platonic you know or aristotelian kind of yeah i see what

00:14:09.880 you're saying thought i i think that probably definitely has influence to it so since plato

00:14:14.480 and aristotle would predate the writings of the philosophical hermetica i would definitely think

00:14:20.200 that they have some form of influence uh so thinking about like because even c.s lewis like

00:14:26.240 i don't know if you guys remember this but remember in the narnia series his last book uh the last

00:14:31.440 battle when when it's all finally said and done this door you know into the stable where puzzle

00:14:38.880 the donkey had been pretending to be Aslan with the, you know, the lion, uh, coat that he was

00:14:44.680 wearing. And then Tash takes up quarters, you know, in, in there. And then Aslan finally appears

00:14:50.780 and defeats Tash. And then the door into that stable, you know, it, it expands and it becomes

00:14:57.220 like this gateway, uh, into Aslan's country. And so everyone is, is, you know, brought through, 0.94

00:15:03.920 corralled through this door into Aslan's country and all those who were bad, you know, are, you

00:15:10.980 know, Calamans and, you know, are, are kind of sent off into Aslan's shadow, you know, with this

00:15:18.340 terrified forlorn, you know, countenance on their face. And all, you know, the, the Narnians who are 0.98

00:15:24.440 true and loyal are, you know, welcomed into Aslan's country into this, this place of pleasure

00:15:31.140 and bliss and peace and joy and then you know they're standing and looking back into narnia

00:15:37.380 the world that they left and you know it ends up uh you know freezing over the dragons come out

00:15:43.020 from the depths and eat up all the greenery and all the life and then this giant awakes you know

00:15:48.640 and grabs the sun and squeezes out you know its final bits of life and everything freezes over

00:15:55.360 and it's done you know um but then they're like okay there there's a sense of mourning they're

00:16:01.620 happy because they're with aslan and they're in aslan's country you know that this you know

00:16:05.500 symbol of heaven uh but they still have a sense of grief and mourning because they love narnia

00:16:10.980 you know and and even though it was imperfect it was home and uh and it's sad to see narnia

00:16:16.660 done and and over but now they're beginning to explore aslan's country and i think it's philip

00:16:22.440 the horse, uh, or, or it might've been one of the centaurs that, uh, as they're going in and

00:16:28.920 exploring, you know, they're in the classic line, further up and further in, further up and further

00:16:32.940 in the running and they don't grow weary, you know, and they can actually like swim up a

00:16:36.960 waterfall, you know, and they're further up and further in. And then the great revelation that

00:16:41.000 they have that brings them so much joy is they realize not only are we in Aslan's country and,

00:16:45.540 in Aslan's presence, Aslan himself, but Aslan's country is Narnia. They start to look and they

00:16:53.140 say, there's care paravel, you know, and there's this and there's that, you know, and all these

00:16:57.120 different things that they recognize. And like, this is, it's not just another place besides

00:17:03.140 Narnia that's wonderful, but it's, it's another place that is wonderful, but it's actually

00:17:07.020 the true Narnia. And one of them says, I think it's Philip again, the talking horse, but he says,

00:17:14.320 it's all in Plato. It's all in Plato. And, you know, and that's one of the few times, you know,

00:17:19.900 I'm a big C.S. Lewis fan, but that's one of the few times where he loses me because here's my

00:17:26.220 final point. It's because in a sense, what that says is that the Narnia, where all of redemptive

00:17:33.480 history has taken place, where Aslan gave himself and his life on the stone table, you know, to

00:17:39.080 appease not the witch, the white witch, but ultimately the deep magic that, you know, that

00:17:43.840 appeasing his own law words, you know, and fulfilling that to save Edmund and all this

00:17:50.280 beautiful gospel story that plays out. It basically says that the story is still real,

00:17:58.820 but the place and that it wasn't, that it's when he says, you know, Philip, I believe it's the

00:18:05.960 talking horse. It's all in Plato. What he's ultimately saying is that that Narnia that

00:18:10.960 just, you know, 15 seconds ago, we were mourning as we saw its final destruction and demise.

00:18:18.120 We really don't need to mourn that any longer because it wasn't ever real. It was just

00:18:25.220 a facade, a shape of the true form, a true Narnia. And this is the real Narnia. That was never the

00:18:35.140 real Narnia. This is the real Narnia. You know, the classic thing that you got a statue of Plato

00:18:40.500 and then Aristotle and Plato's pointing up, you know, and Aristotle's pointing down. And in that

00:18:45.580 sense, I am more of the Aristotelian, you know, persuasion that like, I don't think like, like

00:18:54.760 the, you know, like even in the scripture where it says that all creation groans with eager

00:18:58.440 expectations for the sons of God to be revealed. I would strongly disagree with the kind of

00:19:04.480 Westminster Escondido form of Westminster, that's, you know, the radical two kingdom position was,

00:19:11.600 they would actually interpret that. Van Druden, other guys, Michael Horton,

00:19:16.300 they would actually interpret that passage of scripture to say that the creation,

00:19:21.020 rocks and trees and mountains and rivers are groaning with eager expectations for the sons

00:19:25.360 of God to be revealed because in the revealing of the sons of God and the culmination of history,

00:19:30.840 The creation will then finally, that is groaning under the curse of sin, will finally receive from the Lord a mercy killing.

00:19:39.760 That God will take the creation out back behind the woodshed and put her down.

00:19:44.920 I don't believe that.

00:19:46.160 I don't believe that that's biblical.

00:19:47.460 I believe that they're groaning.

00:19:49.020 The creation is groaning with eager expectations because in the revealing of the sons of God, the creation will be restored.

00:19:55.040 Proper dominion.

00:19:55.940 Yeah, that the creation matters, that it's good.

00:19:58.860 It's under a curse, but it's going to be restored.

00:20:01.460 And so in this final eschaton, the new heavens and the new earth, when we say the new earth,

00:20:07.180 we're not speaking of another earth.

00:20:09.140 We're speaking of actually this rock in space being made new and heaven, the new heavens

00:20:16.260 coming to the new earth so that as we are being redeemed, so are rocks and rivers and

00:20:22.560 trees and that our final state, there'll be this interim period where we are, our souls

00:20:28.800 are in heaven as we wait for the final culmination of history and the physical final return of

00:20:32.780 Christ. But when that occurs, our final state will be an embodied state with our bodies,

00:20:39.720 not another body, but this body put back together by Jesus and glorified. And heaven will not just

00:20:46.420 be floating on the clouds in a 17th dimension, but it'll actually be this planet. And I think

00:20:53.160 we'll be able to look around and say, there's the Himalayas, but glorified. And the same way

00:20:59.420 that I'll be able to look at, that's Andrew. I know him, but glorified. I've never known him

00:21:04.260 like this, but I know him. I can still recognize him. He's not utterly different. I think that

00:21:10.560 it'll be similar for the creation, that that's not just the story of the doctrine of glorification

00:21:15.440 for the saints, but that doctrine of glorification applies to mountains and rivers and trees and

00:21:23.080 And so all that being said, my point is, yeah, I think that's where, you know, guys like Plato, I struggle with because at some level, it basically said, you know, a circle isn't even real.

00:21:37.500 It just contains, it's a good circle insofar as it contains the true circle-ness of the one true circle that exists somewhere else in another dimension that's a real circle.

00:21:50.660 And all these are fake circles.

00:21:52.360 The ideal.

00:21:53.080 good fakes or bad fakes. I, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When I'm thinking about, does that apply to the,

00:21:59.100 oh dude, say the word again, the Hermetic tradition, the Hermetica Philosophica.

00:22:04.520 So my question is, would they be of the Plato sentiment kind of that? Yeah. None of it's

00:22:09.320 really real. And that's why you can just, a rock. Yeah, sure. Why can't it be gold? Because it's

00:22:13.560 not, reality is not a thing. Yeah. I think what it is, is what it's as above, so below is more

00:22:19.780 mind over matter in a sense. So because the matter is not real. So yeah, right. There's

00:22:27.080 one that supersedes the other, but I'm thinking about what you're talking about. I love it because

00:22:31.160 you know, Jesus, when the first thing he does is what he meant, he tends to a garden after

00:22:35.000 the resurrection. They think he's a gardener, right? He's not making, he's making all things

00:22:39.940 new, not making all new things. So I agree with you 110%. But with regard to this hermetic

00:22:47.140 tradition here, what we can find, I think, is actually a bastardization of Plato and Aristotle,

00:22:54.400 right? So with Aristotle, we have the materials of the earth, right? Like a scientific logical

00:22:59.060 thinking. With Plato, we have logic and forms of ideals, like you talked about the circle.

00:23:03.520 So we have that ideal circle that exists transcendent outside of us, but we can't

00:23:07.340 reproduce that perfect circle on earth. No one can make a perfect circle. God can make a perfect

00:23:12.880 circle. But anyways, in forms of the Hermetic tradition, what they would say, well, let's use

00:23:17.520 the objects of the earth, like Aristotle, in order to try to bring the ideal here, right? So let me

00:23:23.840 get into some of the beliefs of the Hermetic tradition in terms of the creation account.

00:23:28.720 I'm going to tell you guys some things, and I think it's going to make you think about some

00:23:32.400 stuff because you're going to notice the era in which this philosophy was developed, and you're 0.58

00:23:37.120 going to go, I see now how this is like a Christian heresy because they have to deal with Jesus. 0.56

00:23:42.120 Right. 0.84

00:23:42.300 Remember, these writings are from the second to third century.

00:23:46.240 I feel like you're about to get into it because of the rock and gold, like water and wine kind of.

00:23:50.580 Oh, interesting.

00:23:51.580 Seems like a similar.

00:23:53.000 So listen to this.

00:23:53.900 So from the Corpus Hermeticum, from their creation account is this, okay?

00:23:58.400 In the first book, God by his own will creates primary matter, which is what the cosmos is made from.

00:24:04.140 From that matter, God separates the primary elements into four groups, earth, air, fire, water.

00:24:10.000 Probably making you even think of Wicca. 0.99

00:24:11.780 right? I don't know if you ever saw the movie, The Craft. It makes me, and I'm going to embarrass

00:24:16.940 myself, but it makes me think of Avatar. Oh, okay. Earth, water, wind, fire. Yeah. That makes

00:24:22.200 me think of Captain Planet. Captain Planet. Oh man, that's funny. Yeah, you need heart there.

00:24:27.940 But that shows a show that environmentalism even is like based in this. Oh, dude. Absolutely. So

00:24:35.160 listen, God then orders these elements into the seven heavens. The seven heavens are to be the

00:24:40.780 spheres of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Sun, and the moon, which travel in circles and

00:24:45.380 govern our destiny. Astrology, right? But then listen to this, the word logos, it's from Greek,

00:24:51.280 the logos leaps forth from the materializing elements and then makes the heavens spin. And

00:24:55.720 from them, creatures without speech spring forth. The earth is then separated from water

00:25:00.900 and animals are brought forth. So what do you hear there, right? The logos is leaping forth

00:25:08.900 from creation, right? Yeah. So they have to deal with Jesus somehow, right? So what does John say?

00:25:14.480 The logos became flesh, but that logos was prostantheon in John chapter one. He was

00:25:19.580 face to face with the father and he has been with the father from all eternity past. Right.

00:25:24.720 In the beginning was the word. Yeah. The word doesn't have any beginning. Exactly. In the

00:25:29.180 beginning was the word. Yeah. And what I noticed, Andrew, too, is as you're commentating on this,

00:25:33.840 And this is brand new for a lot of your audience here, it may be, but again, if you look at

00:25:39.340 it in simplistic terms, one versus two, oneism versus two, and all the presuppositions within

00:25:44.920 Hermeticism, everything you're talking about, they are presumptions that there is a blending

00:25:50.480 of, there's no distinction between the material and the immaterial.

00:25:54.240 There's no distinction between what is divine and what is not divine.

00:25:58.200 So you do see that oneism really integrated without.

00:26:01.660 And one last thing before you jump back to this is that while many, even today, will be practicing hermeticism, and we've even had people on our podcast who were involved in the hermetic order of the Golden Dawn, is that they are embracing modernity.

00:26:18.880 They think they're embracing something that's brand new, bending the materials to their will, when in reality, there's nothing new under the sun.

00:26:26.700 In fact, I was just pulled this up.

00:26:28.840 I'm glad you have a couple of Bibles here.

00:26:30.260 Yeah, yeah.

00:26:30.420 It looks kind of nice.

00:26:30.720 This is a nicer step than pulling it up in my phone.

00:26:34.180 But in Colossians chapter 2, you notice this is what Paul is dealing with.

00:26:38.200 First century, in the first century with Christians in a very pagan city in Colossians. 0.85

00:26:44.120 Like this is an internal burning man, like a 24-7 burning man on steroids. 0.79

00:26:48.820 But this is what he says in Colossians 2 verse 8.

00:26:52.380 He says,

00:26:52.780 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

00:27:05.700 And he counteracts that by explaining that Christ is deity in bodily form, for in him the fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him who is the head of all authority.

00:27:19.540 And so he makes this point of talking about the distinctiveness of Christ, that the fullness of deity lies in bodily form, and that the way to understand paganism, the way to revert and to avoid it, you have to view everything through the lens of the incarnation.

00:27:37.120 because Gnosticism denies the reality of the flesh.

00:27:41.100 It always makes this emphasis on the spirit.

00:27:43.120 The flesh is bad.

00:27:43.940 The spirit is good.

00:27:45.180 But when you view the world through the lens of the incarnation,

00:27:49.680 you can get full of credence to the material and the immaterial.

00:27:53.680 And once you become familiar with that,

00:27:55.860 whether it's hermeticism or anything as we've talked in our podcast,

00:27:59.120 it'll stick out like a sore thumb,

00:28:00.780 the same way in which people who study, who detect counterfeit bills,

00:28:06.040 they detect it by way of just handling authentic currency

00:28:10.760 for weeks upon end

00:28:12.420 so the moment a counterfeit bill goes through their fingers

00:28:16.060 like they don't even have to look

00:28:17.680 they know what the ink pressing feels like

00:28:20.660 they know if something is slightly off with the paper

00:28:23.540 or the amount of ink that's in it

00:28:25.560 and so in many ways I would encourage our audience

00:28:29.320 that you don't necessarily have to become an expert

00:28:32.340 on all these different branches of occultism

00:28:34.620 You don't need to read all these mystical books, like become, understand who the work

00:28:39.580 and person of Jesus Christ is, and you'll never be fooled by anyone.

00:28:43.220 You'll know how to answer that because what you end up seeing is that everyone has to

00:28:47.100 have Jesus on their team.

00:28:48.760 Even as you see here, they're trying to define the Logos in a way that's completely

00:28:53.880 antithetical to how he is self-revealed.

00:28:56.720 So that's something to really think as we continue to unpack this.

00:28:59.900 Yeah, yeah.

00:29:00.200 So it's, what's really important about this too, is this, what I'm, what I'm talking

00:29:03.560 about from the Corpus Hermeticum is actually giving fingerprints to when it was also written,

00:29:07.400 right? So claims that this is some ancient Egyptian magic blended with Greek thought,

00:29:12.200 which could be true to a sense, but the fingerprints are, is they're having to deal

00:29:15.460 with the Logos, right? I know the Logos is part of Greek philosophy, but in terms of

00:29:19.740 when this was written and the Logos being a form of a creator God, according to the Corpus

00:29:24.120 Hermeticum, it's a fingerprint that this is actually after Christ, right? In terms of when

00:29:28.900 it was written, because they're having to, they're having to deal with number one, the creation

00:29:31.700 account, according to Moses from God, and now Jesus being part of that creation account.

00:29:37.200 So then in the created order, it says, according to the Corpus Hermeticum, that God then created

00:29:42.480 androgynous man, man without sex, okay? In God's own image and handed them over to creation. So

00:29:51.340 this is what it says, and I'll quote from the Corpus Hermeticum in an English translation here.

00:29:55.580 It says, man carefully observed the creation and received from God man's authority over all

00:30:01.380 creation man then rose up above the spheres right the the planets paths in order to better view

00:30:06.940 creation he then showed the form of the all to nature nature fell in love with the all in man

00:30:13.240 seeing his reflection in water fell in love with nature and wished to dwell in it immediately man

00:30:18.720 became one with nature and became a slave to its limitations such as sex and sleep so gender is 0.86

00:30:25.680 sin, right? Gender enslaves you to nature. In this way, man became speechless having lost 1.00

00:30:33.120 the word, the logos, and he became double being mortal in body yet immortal in spirit and having

00:30:39.020 authority over all creation yet subject to its destiny. Do you hear the Gnosticism? So falling

00:30:44.700 in love with the creation as man gives you sex as sin. And it also makes it to where when you

00:30:51.020 have a mortal body, you're, you're separate from this immortal truth. So when I'm reading this,

00:30:57.620 this is an, this is ancient, right? This is, what do we see today though? LGBT. LGBT. Right. I'm not

00:31:03.840 going to be confined to the prison of a binary system. I'm going to transcend, transcend beyond

00:31:10.100 that. Like this only the, you know, the, the system that says, you know, insists that there

00:31:16.280 are only two genders is oppressive and imprisoning and limiting. It's not blessing. It's not good

00:31:24.180 design. It's not original purpose. It's a human construct and a constraint and an oppressive

00:31:32.760 system. And I'm going to actualize my true identity and potential by transcending above

00:31:42.100 it and what and what does that mean you know for for many it means i'm gay i'm lesbian um but it

00:31:48.340 we're already starting to you know because it doesn't stop there and so we're already starting

00:31:52.740 to to realize that um that the higher forms and you it's not worded that way but but that is kind

00:32:00.900 of the uh the connotation is like oh you're you're just gay that was so 2006 you know like oh you're

00:32:08.580 just lesbian what a normie you know like i'm uh i'm non-binary you know or i'm you know x y and z

00:32:16.840 you know and it's already within the lgbtq framework it it does appear as though there's

00:32:23.160 a ladder of you know of different levels and the higher levels are not just uh i'm male

00:32:30.100 but attracted to other men or i'm female but attracted to other women uh because that's still

00:32:36.100 you know the uh the l and the g still rely on you know the system of two genders you know

00:32:43.460 but it seems like the higher forms the higher levels of enlightenment within the lgbtq

00:32:50.080 you know madness is uh transcend beyond just same-sex attraction but but actually um

00:32:57.360 throw the the whole concept of sex out the window entirely and are something other you know and

00:33:04.300 And I've always said, I've said this for years, I said, you know, because people would talk about, man, now, you know, there used to be two genders, and then there's, you know, 30, and then there's 50, and then there's 80, and then there's 134. And then, and I, from the very beginning, you know, it's just God's grace and giving me some discernment. But I realized that the end goal, what's the end goal? The end goal is not, it is not to get to 500 or 5,000 or a billion genders. The end goal is to eradicate gender altogether.

00:33:33.980 but it's easier to go from two to three than to go from two to one like it's it's easier to go

00:33:41.100 to you know if if you're thinking about how to uh for that to actually be palatable and and an

00:33:47.760 achievable goal within a society where there's still you know a decent amount of common sense

00:33:53.580 people are going to be like that's ridiculous of course you know of course there's not just one

00:33:57.360 you know non-conforming gender you know there are two so easier to go from two to three and

00:34:04.740 then to five and then to 12 and then to 30 and then to eight then to go from two to one 0.98

00:34:10.100 but what they're trying to get to is is back to the one and two they're trying to get to oneism

00:34:16.240 applied to you know the the topic of gender but the way to go from the the transition from

00:34:23.920 two-ism to one-ism as it pertains to gender that is such a radical uh uh radical change shift

00:34:32.080 it's easier to to go from two all the way up to thousands first and then and then it just blends

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00:35:52.560 Well, you have to go back to zero logically within one-ism

00:35:55.340 because ultimately you can't give an accounting for distinctions.

00:35:58.800 Right.

00:35:59.080 So you have that.

00:36:00.360 And again...

00:36:00.980 Yeah, and that's my point.

00:36:02.820 The one really translates to zero.

00:36:05.340 None.

00:36:05.540 One is none.

00:36:06.780 Yeah, and one last thing before I jump back,

00:36:08.700 I'm going to have you jump back in, Andrew,

00:36:10.320 is that again, just in very simplistic terms,

00:36:12.740 what you always see is that you have, you turn everything on its head when it comes to the

00:36:17.640 created order. Everything becomes inverted. Instead of giving correct worship and adoration

00:36:23.600 to the creator who is the father on which every family under heaven and earth are named, 0.88

00:36:28.460 it's now adoration and worship of the divine feminine. So the created order is reversed.

00:36:33.780 You see the men act shamefully with men, the women act shamefully with women, 0.51

00:36:38.020 and the men change their roles. The men become women and the women become men. 0.58

00:36:42.080 like you see that throughout paganism. And again, what happens when the creation is worshipped,

00:36:47.760 it's animism, it's worshipping reptiles and beasts and created things. But again, it's not

00:36:52.460 just a worship exchange, it is a sexual exchange. Because while neutrality is a myth, we have to

00:36:58.120 always inherently worship with our bodies. And while many, even now within the, you know,

00:37:04.980 it changes every other day with whether, you know, you're LGBTQ+, trans, Jenga, you name it.

00:37:12.080 You say trans-Jenga?

00:37:13.800 Yeah.

00:37:15.020 That's what it is.

00:37:16.440 Yeah.

00:37:17.420 It all comes crashing down eventually.

00:37:18.980 Yeah, because I just will not give credence to that. 0.91

00:37:21.900 I'd say Jenga instead of gender, and I'm not going to apologize for that. 0.97

00:37:24.800 That's funny.

00:37:25.580 But the reality is that they're embracing modernity,

00:37:29.780 and they think that this is something – any purple-haired they-them 0.97

00:37:33.600 are thinking that this is something that's brand new, that's revolutionary. 0.90

00:37:37.820 We're the first generation to discover this,

00:37:39.900 when in reality, there's nothing new under the sun.

00:37:43.120 Like everything you're saying with the hermetic order,

00:37:44.840 as soon as you see it,

00:37:45.400 like there's the blurring of gender there.

00:37:46.640 And this is from hundreds of years ago.

00:37:48.400 Yeah, so the way I kind of want to think about it

00:37:51.740 in this discussion today is,

00:37:53.520 so within the 16th century,

00:37:55.060 we're finding this rebirth of the occult, okay? 0.75

00:37:58.620 Of course, there's medieval witchcraft

00:38:00.600 and stuff like that,

00:38:01.440 but that bleeds out from earlier views

00:38:02.940 of the Corpus Hermeticum.

00:38:03.980 I mean, even Clement of Alexandria

00:38:05.640 was talking about this as an early church father.

00:38:07.300 But when we think of occult practice today, it goes from early folk magic, right? Like of Joseph Smith in treasure digging, dowsing, all of that comes from practices from the Corpus Hermeticum, even astrology to its fullest form of the occult, which is no longer using materials and objects from the earth, but self-sacrificing your own body, right?

00:38:30.380 And that's what we're finding today. So we have people, like you've mentioned already, this androgynous, quote unquote, culture that is actually practicing the occult with their own body. Like, that's the reality. Because inside of themselves is this spark of the man, the image of the God.

00:38:49.560 the divine. Yes, people practice tarot cards, people practice astrology, but what does it lead

00:38:55.480 to? It leads to self-sacrifice, right? In order to be their true selves, whatever the heck that

00:39:03.120 means. But like you said, in Romans 1, it talks about the fullness of their revelation, which is

00:39:08.420 they are sexually immoral, they hardly approve of wickedness, and they're inventors of evil.

00:39:13.080 So the end of the destruction of society, I'd say, at least coming from the 16th century, 0.92

00:39:18.200 the Renaissance thinkers, the Enlightenments, to the First Great Awakening, which is wonderful

00:39:23.640 and amazing, a gift from God, right, to preserve society with Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield,

00:39:28.520 to post-Enlightenment, to the Second Great Awakening, to the influence of the occult

00:39:34.240 and to the Americas coming from Europe, because this is where the Corpus Hermeticum was translated,

00:39:39.500 to early practicing of this magic, to now actually using our bodies as the main source

00:39:46.680 of occultic revelation for the individuals that live in this country. So that's like

00:39:51.280 the progression of destruction in society. And so we can see that through Romans one is happening 0.60

00:39:57.420 exactly today. So it absolutely blows my mind. We just skip the nonsense. Now we skip all of

00:40:05.300 the magic because that's silly. Let's just sacrifice our bodies. Right. And this is what's 0.67

00:40:10.200 difficult is that, and this is why the word, the gospel comes in is because every person that I've

00:40:15.680 talked with and engaged with

00:40:17.460 the last five or six years we've been doing this

00:40:19.620 podcast with people who are

00:40:21.460 new agers when they come out of it is

00:40:23.700 that there is this initial

00:40:25.600 appearance, this excitement

00:40:26.800 of this, you know, I'm going to find this

00:40:29.540 new secret and esoteric knowledge, but

00:40:31.640 it is very much, you have

00:40:33.440 almost, you call it spiritual, it's

00:40:35.580 a spiritual narcotic. Yep. You

00:40:37.360 continue, it's not just, you always have to

00:40:39.540 continually define the next thing, so

00:40:41.500 one person will get into the new

00:40:43.560 age or the occult by way of tarot card

00:40:45.540 reading or like I said, there'll be somebody who will have a health problem and then they start

00:40:49.980 doing yoga and yoga will lead to transcendental meditation, not to do tarot card readings and

00:40:55.880 then they'll have to do this and that. And you'll see this continual escalation of the different

00:41:00.980 practices and rituals, but you always end up back at you because ultimately they don't realize at

00:41:11.400 the time that they are just a sinful and broken person. You're trying to be told that within you

00:41:17.080 is a spark of the divine, but we know what does scripture self-attest to us is that we are

00:41:22.180 sinners. We are lost. We are in need of a savior. We've broken God's law. Our conscience bears

00:41:29.100 witness of it, and we suppress the truth and unrighteousness. And you, in the same way as

00:41:34.060 the imagery in Pilgrim's Progress, they have as Christian prior to coming to Calvary,

00:41:40.160 had this burden on his back.

00:41:42.640 And he went to many different practitioners

00:41:44.440 to remove that burden.

00:41:46.900 And so what I want to do is just,

00:41:48.500 this is the point of reference

00:41:49.920 and why this,

00:41:52.400 when you have somebody who comes into the New Age,

00:41:55.100 they're very broken people.

00:41:57.260 They will put on a facade of arrogance as a shield

00:42:00.860 that internally they are broken

00:42:02.380 and they know that they need a savior

00:42:04.020 because their ultimate point of reference is themselves.

00:42:07.540 um and so i want to just pair i want to read this is actually a quote uh from a book called

00:42:14.480 second coming of the new age by steven bancars so it's a great apologetic resource would definitely

00:42:19.020 recommend those who want to get an understanding of how to reach those who are in the new age uh

00:42:24.580 just it's really a great book i'd recommend but this is a quote from the book it says if you are

00:42:30.800 your own god you are as good as it gets for you no one can help you spiritually because no one

00:42:36.640 is your God. Only you are. Your limited experience on earth is all you have to guide you through the

00:42:43.160 mysteries of the universe, death, and beyond. You have to figure out how to provide your own

00:42:48.460 afterlife without even knowing what happens after you die. Choosing to be your own God means you are

00:42:54.800 worshiping a being who cannot create anything new, cannot save you from death, cannot provide

00:43:00.820 you any of the answers you already know, cannot tell you what will happen for you, and cannot

00:43:07.540 provide a divine meaning or plan for your life, and cannot understand anything about the reality

00:43:13.060 outside of a human perspective. In fact, if you are your own God, then your God cares so little

00:43:20.120 for you that he or she believes you deserve nothing better than to be worshipped a flawed

00:43:25.620 and finite God who will die someday and cannot offer any firsthand perspective on life after

00:43:30.460 death that is that's what the new age offers right that's why it's a spiritual narcotic that's why

00:43:37.840 you have you know this whole plethora i made a meme one time where it's this guy who jumps on

00:43:43.240 this water slide and he catapults this way and as he's i this meme where it's like hey this is

00:43:49.220 yoga tarot cards meditation all this burning man on the way down this all the way down now i'm

00:43:54.560 going to ascend into 5d conscious now i'm going to crash and burn and like in the guy belly flops

00:43:59.620 at the end. And a bunch of former New Agers, when I made this meme a couple of years ago,

00:44:04.100 they're all laughing because they're saying, oh my goodness, this is so true. This is what I was 1.00

00:44:09.320 trying to do and trying to find my identity and the latest astrology chart or finding out that

00:44:17.580 I'm a Pisces or I'm an Aries or I'm trying to, I've done another DMT trip. I've gone through,

00:44:26.320 You know, like Aaron Rodgers, he did this some sort of ritual where it's like, hey, I spent like three days in darkness, totally isolated with my own thoughts to try and find stillness and oneness.

00:44:39.140 And it's like, well, that didn't work because now he's trying like a new thing.

00:44:43.440 And there's like no end in sight for these people.

00:44:45.900 And that's why when you see somebody, I love talking to brand new new agers. 0.72

00:44:50.380 They're like totally cage staged and freaking out, but they're like, oh my gosh, like this is, you know, they realize that just the treasure that they have in Christ, like you see what happens when it talks about, like Paul makes that indicative in Colossians where he says, in Christ are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. 0.95

00:45:14.260 and it's an apologetic refutation of clastic Gnosticism and paganism

00:45:19.720 because what does that ultimately articulate?

00:45:22.440 Whether it's astrology, whether it's the Masonic Lodge,

00:45:25.740 or whether it's the Hermetic Order or the Golden Dawn,

00:45:27.860 or whatever it is, it always depicts that I have secret, hidden, esoteric knowledge

00:45:34.480 that gives myself true meaning and value.

00:45:37.580 Where Paul says, no, he actually used that language,

00:45:39.600 it's hidden all of the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

00:45:44.260 is hidden not in some impersonal, esoteric, divine spark.

00:45:49.120 It's within the eternal God, the God-man, Jesus Christ,

00:45:53.860 and the person of Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity

00:45:57.360 that you were created, not just to have your sins forgiven,

00:46:00.420 where you can have a clear conscience,

00:46:02.460 but you can actually now be in worship and fellowship with him.

00:46:07.860 It's really unique, though.

00:46:09.680 It's such a stark contrast,

00:46:13.420 because it's all the,

00:46:15.300 so you think there are hidden treasures

00:46:16.980 in somehow, you know,

00:46:19.160 achieving a state of enlightenment

00:46:20.640 that would come through this tarot chart

00:46:23.200 or it would come through the stars

00:46:24.480 or it would come through this esoteric,

00:46:27.000 you know, whatever chant or that, you know,

00:46:29.120 but so much of it is impersonal.

00:46:31.100 So like you think like you're going to achieve

00:46:33.320 this state of understanding and comprehension

00:46:37.280 and secret knowledge through an impersonal channel,

00:46:41.920 but it actually comes through a person.

00:46:45.220 And you think that the physical is the problem,

00:46:49.040 but it doesn't just come through a personal God,

00:46:54.960 but it comes through the personal God man

00:46:57.140 who is embodied in flesh.

00:46:59.400 So at every level, it's this complete opposite contrast.

00:47:05.360 You think it'll be impersonal.

00:47:07.180 It's a person.

00:47:08.080 His name is Jesus.

00:47:08.780 You think it'll be exclusively spiritual with a complete rejection of the created physical world.

00:47:16.220 It's not only God, it's the God-man who's embodied in flesh.

00:47:20.340 So at every level, there's just this, like Paul is saying, it's the opposite of what knowledge is.

00:47:28.940 It's found in the opposite source of what you've been looking for.

00:47:33.980 But I love how, like, you know, Paul's gospel turn, if we could call it that, is not, there is no such thing as secret knowledge.

00:47:45.120 That's not his point.

00:47:46.360 His point is, you know, it's kind of cool that he gives, he tips the hat, he gives credence to the new age, you know, occult, you know, Gnostic mindset and say that, no, there is secret knowledge.

00:47:59.640 And not just about a few things, but all things.

00:48:01.560 but you're looking in the wrong place right yeah walter martin would always utilize the nature of

00:48:08.240 his he knew his audience and he would depict the gospel in a particular way in fact there's one

00:48:12.280 time where he's giving this i think he was talking about buddhism and specifically like hari krishna's

00:48:18.440 and those element and and a couple other groups that kind of fall in that category but he referred

00:48:24.160 to salvation and a relationship with christ as the ultimate trip of the human soul that a human

00:48:30.600 soul can take. And I was like, ah, he just had a way of articulating, you know, what in someone's

00:48:36.260 native tongue, just what the beauty of the gospel is in contrast to the spiritual counterfeit

00:48:41.720 that is offered. And so I think that's the area that, you know, I guess the takeaway here is to 0.60

00:48:49.100 know that this is what people are hungry and longing for and to bring that gospel out there

00:48:54.280 because there are so many people that are flooding into the new age and the occult in droves thinking

00:49:00.220 and they can find some sort of secret esoteric hidden knowledge

00:49:03.840 because we have a God-Jesus-shaped hole.

00:49:06.620 But they can't fill it.

00:49:07.480 Because again, philosophically, when you talk about 1 versus 2,

00:49:10.580 the goal in all of these is to take this esoteric hidden knowledge

00:49:14.820 to unlock the divine spark within

00:49:18.860 and to be able to transcend and to be able to ascend.

00:49:23.560 But the problem is within one-ism, because it's circular,

00:49:26.920 there's no distinction, there's nowhere to go.

00:49:30.220 Because wherever you go, you are still within the one.

00:49:34.240 So you always start back at square one.

00:49:37.400 So the whole presupposition is in you and you're in everything else.

00:49:40.300 And I can transcend from here to there, but that doesn't represent any improvement.

00:49:46.180 Right.

00:49:46.500 Because if I can transcend to this mountaintop or this higher plane or whatever,

00:49:52.300 but we've already established it's a giant contradiction

00:49:55.320 because we've already established that that is in me and I am in that.

00:49:59.640 So, you know, wherever you go, you really haven't gone anywhere at all.

00:50:05.260 You know, it's...

00:50:06.360 Right. And even like, for example, many...

00:50:08.120 There is no transcending in a one plane singularity.

00:50:12.060 Right. And I'll just say one last thing is that many New Agers, for example, that, you know, many of them come from, they're very like emotionally sensitive people many times.

00:50:20.700 And a lot of them like have very difficult traumatic, you know, childhoods, backgrounds, upbringing.

00:50:26.940 And so the whole idea, too, is to, you know, you want to go through a lot of these things, these meditation retreats and a lot of these things to deal with your trauma.

00:50:35.000 But the reality is that even that dealing with that, you have to argue for uniqueness and for distinctions and unique personhood.

00:50:44.740 And ultimately, you have to embrace the fact that if you embrace one-ism, you can't give any accounting for uniqueness or personhood.

00:50:53.500 like the person if someone is dealing with you know sexual trauma if they were raped then what's

00:51:00.140 the there's no distinction that that person that raped you is no different they're just

00:51:05.660 they're blended with the divine just as you are so how do you account for distinctions humanity

00:51:11.160 dignity worth it just it just happened it's just part of the one that's the logical conclusion and

00:51:16.760 that's why the people who are in the new age they go from practice to practice to practice to practice

00:51:23.220 with no end in sight um that's the ultimate logical conclusion that's why they need christ

00:51:28.760 yeah the ultimate the ultimate catalyst to uh tattooism yeah like so so my hope is that since

00:51:36.400 we're getting to the end logical conclusion of self-sacrifice and also the sacrificing of others

00:51:41.200 that god will use this to bring a revival right that he is the only hope they can't go any further

00:51:47.740 than they are now right i mean they're sacrificing even their own children and then they're trying to

00:51:52.280 take the children of others through government schools like that's that's the reality because

00:51:56.600 they're not proper uh they're not propagating right if that's the correct word but uh thinking

00:52:01.460 in terms of the new age uh why it's so dangerous is because it's not taking just the hermetic 0.80

00:52:06.400 philosophy but it's amalgamating that with um hinduism right so then we get transcendental

00:52:11.700 meditation we get yoga which is a whole other branch of like a form of gnosticism and a philosophy

00:52:18.860 that it's just all just making this crazy package

00:52:22.500 of trying to get that bridge to total freedom,

00:52:24.740 but it always ends up with self-sacrifice.

00:52:28.600 And it's not going to solve the problem.

00:52:31.160 But what I do find is through God's judgment,

00:52:34.700 at least that he does it for a reason.

00:52:37.580 He does it for a purpose.

00:52:38.720 He says he works all things for the good of those who love him

00:52:42.220 according to his purpose, right?

00:52:44.580 And I got to trust in that purpose.

00:52:46.300 And I, only thing I can do living in this world is preach the gospel to those who need a savior.

00:52:54.020 And that's everybody who doesn't know Jesus.

00:52:55.780 And that's how the world gets changed.

00:52:58.260 Right.

00:52:58.720 Yeah.

00:52:58.940 It sounds like the, you know, the end of all new ageism and the occult is a self-sacrifice.

00:53:05.000 And the answer is that it's a self-sacrifice to become God.

00:53:08.880 But the answer is that God sacrificed his own son, not so that you could become God,

00:53:14.700 but so that you could have union and communion with God.

00:53:18.880 The whole idea of Christian, you know, like even in terms of like meditation,

00:53:22.400 it's not that Christians are against meditation,

00:53:24.280 but we believe in Christian meditation,

00:53:26.380 which is the opposite of Eastern mantra meditation.

00:53:29.560 Eastern mantra meditation, that in a nutshell,

00:53:31.960 the goal is to empty the mind of all rational thought,

00:53:35.700 to rid yourself from the burden of all substance,

00:53:38.700 because that would really just be a distraction and a hindrance, you know.

00:53:42.000 So you might even take like a seven syllable phrase, you know, and repeat it over and over

00:53:46.640 not to draw your focus of your mind onto that phrase and its meaning.

00:53:51.780 You're using the phrase not to focus your thought.

00:53:55.840 You're using the phrase and with such extreme repetition so that it becomes meaningless

00:54:04.040 so that it actually serves as a, it's not something to focus your mind on.

00:54:09.960 It's meant to serve as an anchor so that anytime your mind attempts to focus on something, it brings you back to the focus of nothing, to nothing, to nothing.

00:54:20.360 Empty the mind, empty the mind, empty the mind.

00:54:23.620 And so mantra, Eastern meditation, is seeking to empty the mind.

00:54:27.260 And in the process of emptying the mind, that you would attain some state of transcendental oneness with everything, and therefore a sense of oneness with the God who is in everything.

00:54:45.220 And here's the point. And therefore, the end goal, the end final aim is that through Eastern

00:54:54.260 meditation and New Age and all that, that the end goal is to attain the experience of being God,

00:55:03.780 of being God. Whereas Christian meditation, which there is a category for meditation within

00:55:09.060 Christian terms. Psalm 1, that I meditate on your law day and night. But again, it's a direct

00:55:17.600 contrast with Christian meditation. It's not trying to rid and empty the mind of rational

00:55:22.820 thought. Instead, it's trying to feast the mind on substance, the thoughts of God, thinking his

00:55:29.760 thoughts after him, taking the law of God and not just memorizing it, but meditating, thinking about

00:55:37.360 how it works, what it means, how it applies. And as we meditate on not seeking to rid our minds of

00:55:45.680 substance and all rational thought, but filling our minds with that which is the truest substance,

00:55:52.420 the purest substance, and truly logical, truly, perfectly rational thought, namely God's thoughts,

00:55:58.600 his word. In doing that, the highest goal, the end goal is not to experience being God,

00:56:06.360 but instead to experience relationship with God.

00:56:12.240 It's a new age and the occult and mantra meditation and yoga.

00:56:18.720 They all want the experience of being God. 0.98

00:56:21.560 Christians want to know God. 0.83

00:56:24.040 One wants to be God.

00:56:25.400 One wants to know God.

00:56:27.080 We want to know God and we're content with knowing God

00:56:31.860 because Jesus says, and this is eternal life,

00:56:35.360 that they might know me and you, the father.

00:56:40.300 And in knowing God, we believe it's just,

00:56:45.260 we're not, and it's only God's grace.

00:56:47.400 It's not because anything special, you know,

00:56:49.240 in and of ourselves, but by the grace of God,

00:56:51.700 we're not so deceived by our own arrogance and pride.

00:56:58.080 Like we recognize that we can never be God.

00:57:01.560 And even if we could, we'd mess the whole thing up.

00:57:03.760 That would actually be a terrible reality.

00:57:05.200 We don't want to be God.

00:57:07.320 We are content.

00:57:08.800 We're simply knowing God, that he is so glorious and so he is the true, the good and the beautiful.

00:57:15.820 And in knowing him, all of our desires are satisfied.

00:57:20.880 And that's where true joy and true peace doesn't come from the experience of being God.

00:57:26.660 Peace comes from knowing God.

00:57:29.440 So Christian meditation is, I actually do want to think and love the Lord my God with all my mind.

00:57:36.080 I want to fill my mind, not empty it, but fill my mind.

00:57:39.960 And namely, particularly fill my mind on God's substance, God's word, God's truth, so that I might know him.

00:57:47.340 Whereas mantra, Eastern meditation, New Age, I want to empty my mind so that I can reach some kind of transcendental state,

00:57:55.780 a trance so that I might

00:57:57.800 experience being God

00:57:59.540 right and I'll just say one last thing

00:58:01.560 in closing and you can give me

00:58:03.500 last thoughts too is that you know when you think

00:58:05.520 about we've talked

00:58:07.500 about the longing for transcendence

00:58:09.520 through the lens of oneism and how

00:58:11.400 it leads you right back to yourself and there's no

00:58:13.440 end in sight I believe that the ultimate

00:58:15.580 longing that new agers have

00:58:17.580 they have the longing for transcendence

00:58:19.360 but the ultimate the only way they can truly

00:58:21.220 find the end game

00:58:23.060 and true transcendence is

00:58:25.360 through the lens of what Jesus said in John 17, the high priestly prayer. This is ultimate

00:58:31.640 transcendence that Jesus longed for those who God would call to himself. This is in the high

00:58:37.100 priestly prayer in John 17, 24. He said, Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me

00:58:43.560 may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you love me before the

00:58:50.280 foundation of the world. So that perfect triune unity that the father had with the son,

00:58:57.480 what I love though, when you think about the fact that within New Ageism and the New Age and the

00:59:02.380 occult, even the concept of love is extremely impersonal because when there's no distinction,

00:59:07.820 you can't give an accounting for personhood, love requires there to be an actual object and to be

00:59:13.140 given accounting for that object. And so because of the fact that God is triune, you have one

00:59:20.020 what, three who's, three persons within the one being of God, is that God is able to love and be

00:59:27.840 loved independent of anything outside of himself. But he doesn't want that just for himself within

00:59:34.240 the three persons of the Trinity. He wants to bring those that the Father has given to the Son.

00:59:40.760 They want to bring those into the beauty and the glory. And that's what I love is that.

00:59:46.400 Into that relationship of love.

00:59:47.480 And that's where you see, and it also states in Peter, I think it's in first or second Peter, that it's that Christ died for our sins to bring us to God.

00:59:58.140 So the beauty of the gospel isn't that we just get our sins forgiven, that we can be made whole, but we actually, we get God.

01:00:05.100 John Owen talks about it.

01:00:06.480 He says that like the highest, within the reformed world, we're constantly talking about justification and justification is the heart of the gospel.

01:00:12.820 And so yes and amen a thousand times, like we can always talk about justification.

01:00:16.540 But to be fair, Owen, who was absolutely reformed, he said that justification is the heart of the gospel, but it's not the end of the gospel.

01:00:25.300 The end of the gospel is not simply recounting the doctrines of justification again and again and again.

01:00:33.120 The end of the gospel is not simply how we were saved, but it's for what purpose were we saved.

01:00:42.100 The end of the gospel is not justification.

01:00:43.880 that's the heart of the gospel but the end of the gospel is communion with the triune god forever

01:00:48.780 so the end of the gospel um is not just uh substitutionary atonement that christ died for

01:00:53.760 my sins um but the end of the gospel is uh in the final analysis uh it's the people of god

01:01:01.980 bellying up at the table for the the wedding supper of the lamp and laughing and dining

01:01:08.880 with the choices of meats and the best of wines forever.

01:01:12.600 It's further up and further in, you know, so any thoughts, Andrew?

01:01:16.720 I think that's a beautiful, I have some thoughts,

01:01:18.400 but I think that's a beautiful way to end it, to be honest.

01:01:20.240 Yeah.

01:01:20.520 All right.

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01:02:36.800 You

The NXR Podcast - August 09, 2024

THE FRIDAY SPECIAL - The Occult w Cultish

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