So if there’s no devil and demonic spirits, explain the occult.

[First posted in 2012. Check out the following related posts if you haven’t yet done so; these are listed under the heading CHRISTIANITY. Why? Because only the New Testament teaches the existence of fallen angels, and that’s another topic discussed in our posts:

After reading all these posts, we’d like to know if you’ve shifted in your thinking about the devil and demonic spirits, i.e., so you believe they exist? Leave a comment or debate with us on DISCOURSE! —ADMIN1]

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If you’ve been following this series of articles that argue against the existence of fallen angels, here’s more to freak out on.

So . . . no devil, no demons, no hell. So far, so good, don’t you think? Unless you remain unconvinced because you think, or you believe, or you know, or you are absolutely certain—that you have experienced something you cannot quite explain and therefore have attributed it to the devil or the occult.

Image from www.patheos.com

Someone wrote [sorry, can’t remember who] that the biggest LIE that the devil has successfully promoted is that he and his ilk do not exist! Well, in this case, if the devil really does exist, he has finally told a TRUTH!

If God did not create angels who could fall and rebel against Him and influence mankind toward bad, then the next question is—-how do we account for voodoo, witchcraft, humans who act like they’re possessed by demonic spirits, and so on?

One answer is right on our level of human psychology. We humans can psyche ourselves up to imagining anything and everything we set our minds to. For instance, full and absolute concentration on something is an amazing ability of mind over matter that could make people accomplish unusual feats, where the mind simply zeros out the rest of the world! I remember as a child when a friend and I pretended we were concert pianists and played the only duet we knew at that point–chopsticks; in the midst of our pretend-concert, a truck fell down a slope and crowds gathered around it screaming, sirens from ambulances rousing the whole neighborhood . . . and yet we missed all the excitement. Never heard anything while we were “play-acting”!

Scare tactics starting from parents or people in authority, mind control, hypnotism, superstition and the like, all belong to that capability of the mind to either believe in everything or disbelieve. Advertisers and religionists understand human gullibility, it’s all about the propensity of any person to swallow what is told or sold to him, without investigating, without questioning, without even logically thinking for himself! And when the source is stamped with “authority” or “time-worn reliability” we tend to think it must be true, or good, or healthy, or cheap!

Then there’s the influence of forbidden as well as legal pharmaceutical drugs playing havoc with our brain functions; artists who smoke pot claim the influence on their mental acuity enhances their creativity.

The better and more reliable answer is of course from the Bible. Since God has given man free will, He leaves it entirely to us to make choices every step of the way. Think of how your personal choices have been made by you, or for you by others. As children, our parents make choices for us—if they’re responsible and good parents, then chances are we will be trained to be like them. If not, then . . . .

There is a saying that the child is father to the man. How true that is! Most of what we become as adults are rooted in what we experienced as children. In some ways, the biblical admonition about the sins of the fathers being visited upon children to the 4th generation might hold true, unless someone in the chain breaks the pattern. Let us not forget there is always that free will to choose differently and not to accept one’s miserable lot. Great men and women did not get where they are by giving in to the herd mentality or opting for the easy way out.

So how does this connect with occultic phenomena and other supernatural forces that we cannot logically explain? The Hebrew Scriptures consistently teach one lesson among many, about the nature of the God of Israel, Who is the God of all mankind, and it is this: when we keep making the same choice so that inspite of God’s teachings that tell us it’s a wrong choice, at some point, if we continue to stubbornly go the same way, believe the same way, choose the same way—then God allows us to go according to our pattern of choice, our consistent choice. How many chances did Adonai YHWH give the Pharaoh of Egypt to change his stubborn will not to let Israelites go? As many plagues as were sent to afflict the Egyptians. And we read the refrain, “Pharaoh hardened his heart” until the absolutely last one when “YHWH hardened Pharaoh’s heart.” The point of no turning around.

We see the same pattern in the history of Israel, a nation blessed by the God of the universe with Torah, and Land, and a destiny but not without responsibility. Does God deal the same way with other nations and with individual gentiles?

If people keep believing in superstition, witchcraft, demonic spirits, the Devil, horoscopes, voodoo, demonic possession and the like, God lets go and allows people to follow their delusions. That goes for believing that dead spirits can come back and haunt the living. Media is full of “ghost stories” and “witches” and “vampires”. Centuries-old figures of men’s fantasies and the wonder is people still believe in them to this day!

Who knows, God might even be aiding this delusion if the multitudes would rather indulge in checking their horoscopes and watching films on these figures than reading HIS TORAH!

How so? There is an incident in the book of 1 Samuel 28 that demonstrates this; ponder on it keeping in mind all the foregoing discussion and reach your own conclusion. Remember, this website simply offers an alternative way of thinking; the choice is always yours to bite the apple, chew, digest or spit out! Meanwhile, do your homework to your own satisfaction . . .or to prove us wrong!

NSB@S6K

Source: Exodus/Shemoth 24 – "the sight of the Glory of YHVH (was) like a consuming fire" -- We gentiles living in this 21st century are able to experience that climactic moment [God appearing on Sinai] by reading and studying this portion of the TORAH. Indeed, we see YHWH not quite as dramatically as the mixed multitude did, but perhaps even better through these accounts recorded in Exodus. There is a saying that hindsight is 20/20 vision, i.e., we begin to see and understand the question marks in our past only later in our lives, as we mature and hopefully become wiser and more introspective about the meaning or seeming meaninglessness of happenings in history, whether personal, national, or universal. Søren Kierkegaard adds a twist to this: “Only 20:20 vision is hindsight. Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” As we endeavor to understand each portion in the TORAH of YHWH, much of it will seem irrelevant to our current situation but if we see beyond the time-bound cultural and religious situations and begin to understand what truly has not change—human nature and the Great Revelator who designed the perfect blueprint for living in peace, happily and contentedly with family, community, country and the nations, the unquestionable conclusion is: TORAH is relevant to ALL humankind, not just to Israel, to this very day.

So if there’s no devil and demonic spirits, explain the occult.

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