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Welcome to Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call featuring Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon. I’m Gary Carmichael, it’s great to have you with us. Coming up in this week’s broadcast in our Understanding the Scriptures segment, Dave and Tom will continue their in-depth study of the Book of Acts, and “Who was Phillip the evangelist?” In Religion in the News, “Certifying psychics.” We’ll take a look at that story and examine the question: “Is there a good role model in the Bible?” We hope you can stay with us. Our ministry, The Berean Call, offers a wide variety of teaching materials, including books, tracts, audio and video disks, and copies of our weekly broadcast on compact disk or DVD. You may also subscribe to our monthly newsletter, which we offer free of charge. We’ll let you know how to order later in the program.
Now, this week’s Cover Article. Tom and Dave conclude their series of programs addressing the popular spiritual phenomenon known as “The Secret.” This week we focus on the question, “Is God’s truth really a “secret?” Along with Dave Hunt, here’s T.A. McMahon.
Tom:
Thanks, Gary . You’re listening to Search the Scriptures Daily, a program in which we encourage everyone who desires to know God’s truth to look to God’s Word for all that is essential for salvation and living one’s life in a way that is pleasing to Him. We’re wrapping up our evaluation of The Secret a book that has been atop the New York Times Best Seller List for the past twenty weeks and counting. It’s based upon the video by the same title and they have sold nearly a combined ten million copies. It’s success is thanks in part to being featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show and Larry King Live following which the stores like Wal-Mart completely sold out of the books and the DVD. The Secret is basically a “how-to” book and the “how-to” is how to get whatever you want. What is the secret behind “ The Secret ”? Well, it’s grasping and applying the concepts taught in the mind sciences, such as religious science, Christian science, Unity School of Christianity, etc. And, of course, their roots go back to Hinduism, eastern mysticism, the occult, shamanism, witchcraft, etc. Basically, the idea is that there exists an universal mind that is impersonal, some call it God, or Brahman, or The Force, and it is activated by personal minds through various techniques such as meditation, mantras, one’s thinking or beliefs, and according to “The Secret” this universal mind acts like a genie, which gives you whatever you think. If you think positive thoughts, that’s what it delivers, if you think negative thoughts, you’re going to reap negative results. It all depends on a person’s thoughts, or so we are told, and how well he or she can master the techniques. “The Secret” promotes a visualization as the most powerful technique a person can develop. Now, here’s a quote from the book: “The reason visualization is so powerful is because, as you create pictures in your mind of seeing yourself with what it is you want, you are generating thoughts and feelings of having it now. Visualization is simply powerfully focused thoughts and pictures, and it causes equally powerful feelings.” One of the principles in the video says, and I’m quoting: “When you are visualizing you are emitting that powerful frequency out into the universe. The law of attraction will take hold of that powerful signal and return those pictures back to you just as you saw them in your mind.” And as we mentioned last week, along with its emphasis upon mental healing, they are two of the most dangerous aspects of the message of “The Secret.” Now Dave, what about visualization? Don’t we all visualize to some degree, and does that put us in harm’s way?
Dave:
Well, Tom, just a quick word, this is unbelievable stuff, unbelievable to a sensible mind. But if you are desirous of this, you know, you think this is the quick way—
Tom:
You’re going to get something out of it, and some big time stuff.
Dave:
Yeah, you really want it. First of all, Tom, nobody has ever done this, so why aren’t these guys doing it? They absolutely are not, they are not creating health, they are not creating long lives, and we’ve talked about that.
Tom:
Well they are wealthy, Dave.
Dave:
Well, yes.
Tom:
But it’s not through visualizing or anything like that. They’re selling, I think they are selling snake oil to be honest with you.
Dave:
Yeah. So, visualization—well, if you’re an architect, an engineer, or whatever, you have seen in your mind what you are going to create on paper, or a designer of automobiles or clothes, or whatever, nothing wrong with that. The visualization that is, not only wrong, but evil—it opens you to the world of the demonic, is the kind of visualization they are talking about. Visualizing in order to create, in order to become a creator or to become God, and that, with your mind by visualizing you can bring anything into existence you want. Now, we didn’t lead the world into existence because we weren’t here. Okay. Suddenly, twenty million people were jarred out of their sleep, and some of them knocked out of their beds in Mexico City when they had a big earthquake. Now, was that the universal mind coughing or sneezing or—they certainly were not visualizing this. Tom, everything that happens in this world is mostly not visualized by someone unless it’s the careful creation of a house or whatever. So, this is just so much nonsense, but it’s deadly, dangerous nonsense, because what happens? When you visualize—
Tom:
Dave, before you go there let me give the audience an example, because we know in sports, this is becoming a technique a lot of coaches are implementing. Let’s say somebody is standing up at the free throw line, and he’s rehearsing in his mind, it’s a rehearsal of where his body should be, how his arm should be, and so on. So, it also happens in golf, you know, you’re waiting on the tee, and you’re going to step up and hit the ball, and you’re rehearsing in your mind. Now, I don’t have any problem with the idea of a rehearsal, but they were also teaching, in some cases, not in all cases, that, for example, whether you’re hitting the golf ball or whether you’re letting the ball go from the free throw line, you’re visualizing the ark of the ball. You’re actually trying to, through your mind, control the ball, whether it be in golf or so on. Now, that’s, I believe you’ve stepped over the line, you’ve gone from simple rehearsal to creating a reality, or attempting to create a reality, which is this mind control.
Dave:
Tom, there is a connection between the mind and the body, of course. So, if you’re only rehearsing the motion that you’re going to make at the free throw line, as you said, I see nothing wrong with that. But if you think that you can make that you can make the ball go through the hoop by visualizing it going through the hoop, then you have entered into the occult. Now, Michael Harner, one of the world’s leading anthropologists, and also a practicing shaman, he says, Shamanism, witchcraft, is the same all over the world. Isolated tribes that have never been in contact with one another, they all have the same thing. I can go to the South Pacific on an island, Tom, I can tell the witchdoctors what they are involved in before they tell me, because you have seen it all over the world. Now, Michael Harner says, Visualization is the number one technique of the witchdoctor or the shaman to complete what he wants to do. He goes into a journey, into the upper or lower world, into the past or into the future in his mind, and there he meets his spirit guide, among other things. Now, if you took Silva Method, it used to be called, Silva Mind Control, you create an entire laboratory in your mind, and when the big day comes you visualize the elevator door opening and out step two creatures, male and female. This is the anima and animus of Carl Jung, and these become your spirit guides, and it is through them that you do these miracles. Now, why the universal mind needs visualization, I thought just a thought was enough, but by the way, Yongi Cho, pastor of the largest church in the world, he claims this is how God created the universe, through visualization, and he says that God told him that he cannot answer prayer until you visualize exactly what you are praying for. For example, he gives us a case, he says this woman was praying for a husband, she wasn’t getting any answer, and Cho told her, What kind of a husband do you want? You’ve got to see him in your mind, you’ve got to be definite about this. And what do you know? She started picturing the man she wanted and, what do you know? She got him. Now, he says God told him the same thing if he is praying for a bicycle. God said, supposedly, Well, what kind of a bicycle do you want? Do you want a French bike, an American bike or a trail bike, or a racing bike, what do you want? You’ve got to visualize it or I can’t give it to you. Now, Jesus said: Look, your visualization is not going to help God, I mean, He didn’t say that directly, but let me say what Jesus said. He said, Your heavenly Father knows what you have need of before you ask. Now, there’s a difference between getting what you want and getting what you need. Now, this universal mind, or whatever, will give you what you what you want. No mind of it’s own, just give me the message and I’ll give it to you. Jesus said: Your heavenly Father knows what you have need of before you ask. So it’s a question of your heavenly Father, the Lord Jesus Christ who died for our sins on the cross, the Bible, proven through prophecy and so forth, or this universal mind that these people tell us about. And we’ve been over it, Tom, they haven’t lived any longer than anybody else, they’ve died of disease, some of them died in poverty, deteriorating health, and so forth, it doesn’t work, it isn’t true, but the worst thing is it’s going to lead people far astray.
Tom:
Now Dave, the sad thing is, there are so many testimonies, I mean, the book is nothing but testimonies of supposed successes. But as you’ve pointed out in previous programs, if we could follow these people around, I mean, there may be some chance things, there may be even some, if this is out of the pit of hell, it may be some help from the adversary, from Satan. On the other hand, there are these testimonies which draw people in, and I think people have to think them through. These people could be lying, or as I said, it could be just a chance occurrence.
Dave:
Yeah, but what do you mean by a testimony, give us an example, Tom.
Tom:
Well, for example, they are showing you the house that they visualized, the mansion, and so on.
Dave:
But wait a minute.
Tom:
They’re showing you Jack Canfield talking about his book, Chicken Soup for the Soul , and how that sold things, and how he worked these techniques, and now he’s a multi-millionaire.
Dave:
Right, but Tom, they visualized the house, and suddenly there it appeared. Now, we’ve got another real problem here. Visualizing a house or visualizing a car I want, all you’ve got is the gross outline of this thing. The reality of that is involved in atoms, molecules, in subatomic particles, many which we haven’t even discovered yet. Now that is the reality that makes this thing up. They claim it’s all made out of energy. Well, did you visualize the energy and what energy is? So Tom, it didn’t just appear out of the sky, they worked for it, they earned some money, or they got people to send them money because they sold them this idea, so there’s a whole lot more to it than that.
Tom:
Dave, one last thing on this before going to our next item here. Visualizing Jesus, I mean, that’s shocking to us. Twenty-two years ago, you know, we wrote about this in, The Seduction of Christianity , but somebody attempting to visualize Jesus? The quickest way to pick up a spirit guide, a demon in fact.
Dave:
Yeah, well, Richard Foster says, You visualize Jesus, focus on Him carefully, it will be more than an exercise of imagination, Jesus will come to you and speak to you. Okay. Now, I can guarantee you, from God’s Word or from a little common sense, Jesus is not just waiting to appear to people on this earth, He’s at the Father’s right hand. Supposing a thousand different people visualized Jesus, following these directions, Jesus is in a thousand different places at once physically, and speaking with you? It isn’t true, but although Jesus will not leave the Father’s right hand to oblige you, demons, as you intimated, demons will certainly be willing to come and pretend to be Jesus.
Tom:
Dave, for as bad as visualization is, I believe there’s even a more spiritually dangerous belief in “The Secret.” I’m going to give you a couple of quotes, and I’ve got a few of them here, I’d like to go through all of them, but after I finish one, you jump all over it, you know, and give me your comment. This person says, this is in “The Secret” on page 158-59, “You go to a quantum physicist and you ask, What creates the world? And he will say to you, energy. Well, describe energy. Okay, it can never be created or destroyed, it always was and always has been, everything that ever existed always exists, it’s moving into form, through form and out of form. You go to a theologian and ask the question, What created the universe? He or she will say, God. Okay, describe God. Always was and always has been, can never be created or destroyed, all that ever was always will be always moving into form, through form and out of form. You see, it’s the same description, it’s just different terminology.”
Dave:
Okay, Tom, so God is energy. We’ve got a lot of problems with that. That’s the first law of thermodynamics that they are quoting, energy can neither be created or destroyed. All right, second law of thermodynamics says, It’s the law of entropy, it becomes less and less useful. All right, now, if the first law of thermodynamics is true, then energy has been here forever. The Bible says God has been here forever, He never changes, He is the I AM. If energy has been here forever, it should have entropied by now. There shouldn’t have been any useable part of it left, it’s just dispersed into the universe. Now, energy did not create anything. Man uses energy to do work with, and so forth. Energy is unthinking. Don’t say God is unthinking. God said, Let us make man in our image. God spoke and He created the universe. Energy does not speak. So, you cannot possibly equate this, it simply isn’t true. Now, energy can’t be created? Yes, it must be created, and there must be someone who created it, otherwise none of it would be useable now. Yet to equate God and energy, Tom, is just gross deception.
Tom:
It’s totally bogus. Here’s another quote: “We often get distracted with this thing called our body, and our physical being, that just holds your spirit, and your spirit is so big it fills a room. You are eternal life, you are God manifested in human form made to perfection.”
Dave:
Well, Tom, anyone who can believe that should be in the loony bin. I mean, show me somebody who—well, you’re God? I’ll demonstrate it: you don’t act like God. You know, it’s like Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, or we’ll teach you through TM how to fly. Well, they might bounce off the floor some way or another, but I notice he flies in airplanes, he flies in helicopters, rain lands on him unless he holds up an umbrella. He is not God, and neither are these people God. I’d like to see one of them demonstrate they really are God! Uncreated? Uncreated, you are uncreated, you have been here forever, you are all powerful. You don’t look like God to me, Tom.
Tom:
Well, wait a minute Dave, let me read you the next quote, and then see if you change your mind. You know, one of the things about “The Secret” is, talk about syrup, I mean, talk about pouring it on—well, listen to this, Dave. “You are God in a physical body, you are a spirit in the flesh, you are eternal life expressing itself as you. You are a cosmic being, you are all power, you are all wisdom, you are all intelligence, you are perfection, you are magnificent.” Dave, you start getting nauseous, I’m just about finished with it. “You are the creator, and you are creating the creation of you on this planet.”
Dave:
Was I doing that when I was born? Was I doing that when I failed that exam there in grammar school? If you’re all wisdom, and you’re God, why don’t you get 100% on every test—why do you even have to take a test?
Tom:
One last quote, Dave, it’s pretty much the same thing, which you find throughout this book. “Every tradition has told you that you were created in the image and likeness of “the creative force.” That means that you have God potential and power to create your world.” Now Dave, you remember, these were ideas that were promoted by the Word Faith Positive Confession people, who claimed to be evangelical Christians.
Dave:
Still are promoted by them.
Tom:
Right. Now, this last item, that we are gods—
Dave:
Well, let me just—“created by a creative force” (the Bible doesn’t say that) it says “every tradition.” I don’t care about the traditions, we have something called God’s Word, we can prove this is God’s Word by the prophecies that have been fulfilled, hundreds and hundreds of them. Okay. Now what do these people have to show us that we should believe them? It’s not true.
Tom:
Well, Jeremiah 10:11 , here’s the challenge for these folks. “Thus shall ye say unto them—
Dave:
This is God speaking.
Tom:
This is God speaking through the prophet Jeremiah, and let’s address the people who are promoting “The Secret” those who are into it. “Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens.” Dave, it’s interesting, starting in the Garden of Eden, actually it began in heaven with Lucifer wanting to be as the “most high” and then he promoted that lie to Eve, “ye shall be as gods.” In the last days, at the end of time setting himself up to be God, being worshipped as God. So, this lie is throughout the scripture, and now we are getting it in a slick package called “The Secret” and sadly, Christians are buying into it.
Dave:
Tom, I remember being in India, talking with a yogi or, I forget exactly what he claimed to be, it was in a Hindu temple, and he claimed that he was God. Well, I said, did you create the universe? Well, um, um. You got no answer to that question. You are always, you are all power, you are creating you, you didn’t even create you when you were a fetus in your mother’s womb, now how did you get to this point? Were you creating you when you were nursing at your mother’s breast? Were you creating you when you were in kindergarten having a little quarrel with somebody? Tom, it’s just ridiculous, and that anyone could swallow this is beyond my comprehension.
Tom:
Well, Dave, that brings us to really wrapping this up. What would you say to our audience—let’s say they are aware of the problems here but they have friends who bought into this, how should they go about ministering, bringing information to them? How would you approach this with somebody that you knew was into this.
Dave:
Well, first of all you are going to have to pray, because these people are under demonic delusion. Then, God says, Come now, let us reason together, so we try to reason with them, reason with them the way we have been doing. Oh, they’re promising you that you can become God? Well, I guess they really are God already, show me a demonstration. Have they healed anybody? Jesus didn’t just heal somebody 100%. Have they given us prophecies? Have they foretold the future infallibly centuries, thousands of years, before it happened? I mean, this is such a delusion, but I would try to reason with them about this.
Tom:
And it is a delusion of the last days. I’m quoting 1 Timothy Chapter 4 Verse 1, “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.” That’s why this is a powerful delusion, it’s irrational and so forth, but people, as you said, Dave, people need to be prayed up but then be used of the Lord where they have opportunities.
Dave:
Tom, you can very quickly reason with them like this: Supposing that everyone in this world got this power, do they all agree with what they want? We gave an illustration long ago. Twenty guys want to become president of this corporation, they’re all going to become president? Who is going to become president? Se,, the problem with this whole thing is, Tom, there is nobody that holds the reins of this power. “You can be God, I can be God” that was Satan’s delusion. But it would create chaos, and this is what we have in this world. A bunch of little gods running around already trying to rule over their own empire, and they come into conflict with one another.
Tom:
Dave, along with what you are saying, one recommendation I have is to ask the person, which is one of my favorite lines, Well, how does that work? Let them try and explain it to you. That’s where you come up empty big time.
Dave:
But Tom, they would say, We take it by faith, in quantum mechanics you can’t explain it so—. Tom, as to, how does this work? Well, if it works, we’ve got an irresolvable conflict between six-plus-billion little gods who are each going to create their own reality. It would be horrible. We’ve got to point people back to the Bible, to God’s Word, to Jesus Christ, who is the Savior of sinners, and we’ve got a sin problem in this world and in individual lives. He’s the only solution because He paid the penalty for our sins on the cross, and that’s no “Secret”!
