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NEW
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Meditation -- Part
8
by Dr.
John Ankerberg, Dr. John Weldon |
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Occult nature, continued
The Possibility of Spirit Possession
One problem with ASCs and psychic abilities is not only the false
ideas that they produce, but that they can easily lead to demonic
influence or possession. Even advanced meditators freely confess this.
For example, Rolling Thunder, a shaman leader in the Shoshone and
Cherokee tribes, states, "If it is not done correctly, evil spirits
can get into people while they are meditating."1
But the problem is that when meditation is done correctly,
ASCs foster spiritistic influence or possession. Channeler Laeh
Garfield writes in Companion in Spirit: A Guide to Working with
Your Spirit Helpers, "Meditation simultaneously calms you down,
uplifts you and sharpens your awareness, so that discarnate teachers
can come through to you with the messages they convey."2
Because of modern reluctance to deal forthrightly and responsibly
with the category of the demonic, meditation is one of the common
methods available for becoming possessed by spirits who are really
demons. Endless numbers of gurus, psychics, mediums, other occultists,
and even scholarly authorities testify to this. For example, Dr.
Weldon’s Ph.D. dissertation researched over 30 different Hindu and
Buddhist gurus, and every one had been spirit-influenced or possessed,
apparently during their meditative practices.3
Should we believe that the spirits’ will not make use of
meditative practices that alter people’s consciousness? Should we
believe that this will not facilitate the spirits’ ability to
possess individuals, when this is what serves their purposes? Indeed,
the very nature and goals of meditation suggest the probability
of spiritistic involvement. In Spirit Communication for the
Millions, Doris H. Buckley correctly observes that through
meditation "greater power [becomes available] so that the
[mediumistic] channel develops more quickly."4
Furthermore, the spirits themselves endorse New Age meditation. The
books the spirits dictate through their human mediums enthusiastically
recommend meditative practices as a means to contact them. For
example, Ruth Montgomery, a former hard-nosed, skeptical newspaper
reporter who eventually became a medium, has single-handedly
interested millions of people in the spirit world through more than a
dozen books inspired or dictated by her spirit guides. In one of her
books, A World Beyond, the alleged spirit of a famous trance
medium, Arthur Ford, endorses New Age meditation; "Now let’s speak of
the value of meditation.... Remember in meditation to breathe deeply
at first... use the mantra ... and feel yourself melding with the
universal whole…. [S]pend at least fifteen or twenty minutes each day
in this stillness."5
Here we cite several authorities to show that meditation can and
does lead to demon possession. India-born Douglas Shah, the grandson
of Yogi Ishwar Dayal, observes, "I have watched Hindu worshipers by
the scores chanting for hours before idols during a special Puja
(worship) Season, and I have literally felt the supernatural presence
of the gods they were invoking."6
He comments that "being taken over by an evil spirit… is a very real
possibility" in meditation.7 British scholar Os Guinness states: "Many… who practice yoga or Zen
Meditation have found they have opened their minds to blackness and
spiritism, seeing themselves as mediums and describing themselves as
possessed."8
Consider an experience of Swami Muktananda, who describes the
results of his meditation. In his spiritual autobiography he writes
that "when I sat for meditation [my] own body acted as if [it] were
possessed by a god or a bad spirit."9
Muktananda details an entire chapter of such experiences, including
more bizarre encounters than we list below. We quote at length to give
the reader an accurate feel for the potential consequences of
meditation:
I was assailed by all sorts of perverse and defiling emotions. My
body started to move, and went on like this in a confused sort of
way.... After a time, my breathing changed, becoming disturbed.
Sometimes my abdomen would swell with air, after which I would
exhale it with great force. Often the breath that I took in would be
held inside me. I became more and more frightened.
My mind was sick with fear. I called Babu Rao and said to him, "Babu,
go home now. The rhythm of my heart and the state of my mind are not
good. I feel sure that I am going to die tonight of heart
failure.... I don’t think I shall live through this night, and if I
do, it will be to go mad. I am losing my mind...."
My thoughts became confused, meaningless. My limbs and body got
hotter and hotter. My head felt heavy, and every pore in me began to
ache. When I breathed out, my breath stopped outside. When I
breathed in, it stopped inside. This was terribly painful, and I
lost my courage. Something told me that I would die at any moment.
By now it was after 9:00. Someone had seated himself in my eyes
and was making me see things. It seemed that I was being controlled
by some power which made me do all these things. I no longer had a
will of my own. My madness was growing all the time. My intellect
was completely unstable.
My fear increased every second. I heard hordes of people
screaming frightfully, as if it were the end of the world. I looked
out of the small window of my hut and saw strange creatures from six
to fifty feet tall, neither demons nor demigods, but human in form,
dancing naked, their mouths gaping open. The screeching was horrible
and apocalyptic. I was completely conscious, but was watching my
madness, which appeared to be real.
Then, from over the water, a moonlike sphere about four feet in
diameter came floating in. It stopped in front of me. This radiant,
white ball struck against my eyes and then passed inside me. I am
writing this just as I saw it. It is not a dream or an allegory, but
a scene which actually happened—that sphere came down from the sky
and entered me. A second later the bright light penetrated into my
nadis [psychic channels]. My tongue curled up against my
palate, and my eyes closed. I saw a dazzling light in my forehead
and I was terrified. I was still locked up in the lotus posture, and
then my head was forced down and glued to the ground.... Afterward I
sat down in the lotus posture and once again started to meditate on
the Guru. As soon as I sat down, my mind became completely indrawn.
My body, fixed in lotus posture, began to sway.... This Meditation
went on for an hour and a half, and then a new process began.
I started to make a sound like a camel, which alternated with the
roaring of a tiger. I must have roared very loudly, for the people
around actually thought that a tiger had gotten into the sugarcane
field.
I am in a terrible state. I have gone completely insane.... My
body began to twist. Now, it was not I who meditated; Meditation
forced itself on me. It came spontaneously; it was in all the joints
of my body. All the blood cells in my body were spinning, and
prana flowed through the nadis at an astounding speed.
Then, suddenly, a red light came before me with such force that it
seemed to have been living inside me. It was two feet tall and shone
brightly. I clearly saw myself burning, but I did not feel the heart
of the fire on the outside. Every part of my body was emitting loud
crackling and popping sounds.10
After it was all over, Muktananda concluded that he had been
spiritually enlightened. Like endless gurus with similar experiences,
he teaches his students that while following the meditative path, they
too will experience what he did. But, he tells them, they should not
worry, for it is all part of the normal results of meditation leading
to spiritual enlightenment. He also observes how easily their
meditation will lead them to spirit contact: "They talk to and receive
instruction from gods and goddesses."11
Da (Bubba) Free John (Franklin Jones) also illustrates various
kinds of possession, in particular being possessed by the "spiritual
form" of the guru or master. His book Garbage and the Goddess
describes the experiences he and his disciples underwent at his
Persimmon, New York, ashram from March to July, 1974. While Free John
describes normal everyday living as being "possessed by the most
insidious demonic force in the universe,"12
one would hardly suspect it from the descriptions of, as he calls it,
"life in God." In light of the experiences described, perhaps Free
John is correct: "True wisdom is the capacity for perfect madness."13
We cite several examples by different individuals who encountered this
phenomenon of mass possession, as given in Free John’s Garbage and
the Goddess. The descriptions are reminiscent of the mass Shaker
possessions in the 1840s and related spiritistic incidents14:
The most significant thing about this event is that contrary to
the usual beliefs, even of traditional spirituality, the Guru
literally enters and transforms. It is a kind of possession. It
is God-Possession. Bubba animates this body.15
People were screaming and howling and weeping, emitting strange
grunts and snarls, their bodies jerking, writhing, and assuming
yogic mudras.…16
I felt utterly possessed, my body was possessed, and my hands
started to move, and I couldn’t control them. I had no control at
all. My face started taking on expressions.17
My body wasn’t mine. I didn’t even feel my body as mine. There
was only this sensation I’ve had before in Bubba’s Presence, the
feeling that this body is being used.... I went in and at first I
was totally out of my mind. I was screaming for a long time.... I
was making very strange sounds.... It is God-Possession. It is God
totally taking over your form.18
I was so insane I didn’t know what was happening at all.…19
... Last night I was led to this spontaneous experience of
conducting the Force, and I felt possessed, really possessed. Then
suddenly I wasn’t my body any more.20
Muktananda’s and Free John’s experiences and teachings are not
unique; they are the norm among gurus and their followers. Consider
several other examples:
Swami Rudrananda
Slowly Swami Nityananda [in spirit form] came toward me and
entered into my physical body. For three hours I felt nothing of
myself but that the saint had possessed me. It was a terrifying
experience and it required all my faith not to fight it.21
Swami Satchidananda
I felt myself fall into a sort of trance.... I was overjoyed with
the feeling that my Master [Sivananda] had entered into my own
system [body].22
Rudrananda
... There are times when the
psychic system of the teacher will seem to control the student. He
will feel possessed by his teacher. There is nothing to fear from
this. It is only a stage of growth through which he [the student] is
passing.23
Sri Chinmoy
... If you remain calm and
quiet and allow your spiritual Guide to enter into you, you will
become flooded with Peace. This kind of tuning in is not only a
valid and correct practice, but is essential for one who has
placed himself under the guidance of a spiritual Master.24
Rajneesh
Whenever a master wants to help you, cleanse your energy
channels, your passage [kundalini spinal passage], if it is blocked,
he simply possesses you. He simply descends into you.... If the
disciple is really surrendered, the master can possess him
immediately.25
From all of the above, we conclude that New Age meditation is
generally occult in nature because it cultivates altered states of
consciousness, psychic abilities, and fosters demonic influence and
possession.
Notes:
1 Cited by Stanley Krippner in
Song of the Siren (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1975), p.
110.
2 Laeh M. Garfield, Jack
Grant, Companions in Spirit: A Guide to Working with Your Spirit
Helpers (Berkeley, CA: Celestial Arts, 1984), p. 36.
3 John Weldon, "Eastern Gurus
in a Western Milieu: A Critique from the Perspective of Biblical
Revelation," Ph.D. Dissertation, Pacific College of Graduate
Studies, Melbourne, Australia, 1988; Tal Brooke, Riders of the
Cosmic Circuit: Rajneesh, Sai Baba, Muktananda…Gods of the New Age
(Batavia, IL: Lion, 1986.
4 Doris H. Buckley, Spirit
Communication for the Millions (Los Angeles, CA: Sherbourne
Press, 1967), p. 156.
5 Ruth Montgomery, A World
Beyond (New York: Coward McCann and Geoghegan, 1971), p. 141.
6 Douglas Shah, The
Meditators (Plainfield NJ: Logos, 1975), p. 98.
7 Ibid., p. 102.
8 Os Guinness, The Dust of
Death (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973), p. 298.
9 Swami Muktananda, Play of
Consciousness (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), p. 122.
10 Ibid., pp. 75-79.
11 Ibid., p. xxii.
12 Bubba Free John, Garbage
and the Goddess (Lower Lake, CA: Dawn Horse Press, 1974), p. 51.
13 Da Free John, A New
Tradition: An Introduction to the Laughingman Institute and the
Crazy Wisdom Fellowship (Clear Lake, CA: The Laughing Man
Institute, 1980), p. 1.
14 See Slater Brown, The
Heyday of Spiritualism (New York: Pocket Books, 1972), pp.
75-83.
15 Bubba Free John, Garbage
and the Goddess, p. 151.
16 Ibid., p. 72.
17 Ibid., p. 263.
18 Ibid., pp. 282-285,285.
19 Ibid., p. 66.
20 Ibid., p. 312.
21 Rudi [Swami Rudrananda],
Spiritual Cannibalism (Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1978), p.
13.
22 Sita Wiener, Swami
Satchidananda (San Francisco, CA: Straight Arrow Books, 1970),
pp. 119-20.
23 Rudi, Spiritual
Cannibalism, p. 103.
24 Sri Chinmoy, Yoga and
the Spiritual Life: The Journey of India’s Soul (Jamaica, NY:
Agni Press, 1974), p. 113, emphasis added.
25 Yarti, Swami Anand, comp.,
The Sound of Running Water, a Photo-Biography of Bhagwan Shree
Rajneesh and His Work, 1974-78 (Poona, India: Rajneesh
Foundation, 1980), p. 68.
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ANKERBERG SHOW |
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Copyright 2006, Ankerberg Theological Research Institute
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