Apostasy Update # 11 Are You Following The Pied Piper of Psychology Into Mysticism?

Tom: Welcome to Apostasy Update. I’m T. A. McMahon and this is the ninth program in our series addressing biblical eschatology, what the Bible has to say prophetically about the last days prior to the return of Jesus Christ. My partner in this discussion is Carl Teichrib. He’s the author of Game of Gods: The Temple of Man in the Age of Re-enchantment.

Carl, welcome back, and thanks for joining me in these ongoing discussions that we’re having where the world and Christendom are headed according to the Scripture as history draws to a close. So welcome back, bro.

Carl: Well, thank you. It’s been a pleasure to be a part of this conversation. Golly, we live in such interesting times, don’t we? There’s so much happening across so many different fronts. As we were discussing before the recording started, just looking at the situation in the United States and praying and hoping that people recognize that they need a Savior, that as the world is seemingly spinning out of control, ultimately it points to the fact that we do need a Messiah, and that Messiah is Jesus Christ.

Tom: Right, right. You know, and as I’ve been saying each week during our discussions, much of the information that we’re presenting is taken from four books: your book, Carl, Game of Gods; America, the Sorcerer’s New Apprentice; Christianity and Anti-Christianity in Their Final Conflict; and most importantly the Bible, which is God’s direct communication to mankind.

For the last few weeks we’ve been focusing on the insights from Samuel Andrews’ book Christianity and Anti-Christianity in Their Final Conflict written in 1898. But now we’re moving on to a book published 32 years ago in 1988 titled America, the Sorcerer’s New Apprentice: The Rise of New Age Shamanism. I had the privilege of helping my best friend in the Lord, Dave Hunt, with his book. Dave died in 2013 and he’s now home with Jesus, our Lord and Savior. And the book focuses on the New Age movement, which drew upon the beliefs of Hinduism and beliefs that were introduced to the West in ways that, well, that could fit in with and be acceptable to our prevailing culture. For example, the religion of yoga was sold as a “health exercise system.” The meditation practices were promoted as “stress and anxiety release techniques” as well as “developing one’s [alleged] infinite potential.” And during the late 1970s and then throughout the 1980s, a host of Hindu gurus invaded the West as evangelists for Eastern mysticism. They attracted many in the movie industry and the entertainment business. The Beatles, for example, became followers of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Executives in some of our country’s largest corporations turned to Hindu spiritual beliefs for management concepts. 

You know, Dave, my buddy Dave, was very knowledgeable about Hinduism having ministered in India and written two books addressing the religion of more than 30 million gods. His books were God of the Untouchables, written in 1976, and then Death of a Guru in 1978. The…Carl, the motivation, as you know, for writing America, the Sorcerer’s New Apprentice was not because we at that time saw Eastern mysticism influencing the evangelical church. Rather, we recognized that many Christians had unsaved family members, friends, neighbors who were buying into the New Age programs and practices. So our primary objective in writing the book was to help believers understand what the New Age movement was all about, or for them to simply give the book to those who were concerned about it.

Now, that was 32 years ago, but I have to interject this: years before we wrote the book and were speaking about the New Age movement, when it was just really beginning to establish itself, one of the leaders in evangelical apologetics said we had made up the whole thing just to sell books. Now that ad hominem accusation aside, Dave really had a way of being ahead of the curve in many of his writings. Then when the movement couldn’t be denied, the tune was changed to, “Oh, it’s simply a fad that the world is going through.” Well, the so-called fad has pretty much overtaken our culture. Our country has been mesmerized, yoga-sized, mindfulness-sized, and sold the bogus idea that, well, normal consciousness is terribly inferior to an altered state of consciousness, whether induced through psychedelic drugs or through some nondrug methods.

So, Carl, let’s do a brief comparison between some of the things Dave and I address in America, the Sorcerer’s New Apprentice and what Samuel Andrews wrote in his book of 120 years ago. So what comes to mind for you?

Carl: Well, as we discussed in the last episode, the 1893 Parliament of World Religions, it was a watershed moment, a turning point. But what’s really important, and, you know, I haven’t read this for a while, so I picked it up again to reread it. 

One of the things that struck me, too, is your referencing back in 1988 Swami Vivekananda, who was a rockstar at the 1893 parliament. Swami Vivekananda told the audience at the 1893 gathering that there is no sin, that you’re all a higher self, a higher divine being, that we’re all brothers and sisters in spirit. His message resonated so powerfully with the people at that time, and then after the parliament was done, he was traveling across the United States and then into Europe preaching this gospel of really what we would now recognize as a form of Eastern selfism saying that there is no sin, and that, you know, the greatest sin is to even call mankind sinful. Andrews already was picking up on that, because that event was in his lifetime. And then as I’m going through America, the Sorcerer’s New Apprentice, it’s there again! You’re bringing Swami Vivekananda back up again!

As you were going through some of the history of writing the book and the impact of Eastern mysticism and Hinduism in particular, that was coming directly out of Samuel Andrews’ period. That’s the beginning point for American, Western interest in Eastern spirituality. There is a solid link between the two books, yours and Andrews, when it comes to understanding this thread or this trajectory of history. And Andrews was there at that beginning point when the West all of a sudden became enamored, and now you’re right! In the 1980s, corporate America was not only buying it, but they were peddling it to their employees. They were…there was a lot of self-help training seminars, management seminars built around Eastern techniques, meditative techniques. And what all of a sudden was recognized in the past as being an Eastern religious practice—like meditation, like yoga—all of a sudden became scientific. It became popular, and it was stripped of its spiritual language and its spiritual terminology, but it never lost its spiritual meaning or its spiritual flavor. 

And so spirituality, Eastern spirituality, was sold to the West as science. It was sold to the West as self-help. It was sold to the West as a positive development to help expand your human potential, and the West, we bought it like candy! We’ve been eating it ever since. And it’s no longer the realm of just corporate America looking to train up a more efficient or a more creative or in-tune workforce, it’s in our churches! 

Tom: Yeah. You know, as I think about the difference with Samuel Andrews and our day, he was picking it out. He was astute. He was perceptive. You know, he dealt with the philosophers of the time, and newspaper writers and fictional writers and all that, seeing this thing come in. Carl, I think he would be blown away today. You know, I say that because some of the things that I was privileged to work on with Dave, I know if Dave were here today, he would be, with all of his insight and all of his knowledge of all that, he would be blown away by how this has overwhelmed and overtaken not just the West, but as you point out, the church now.

You see, again, when we wrote the book, we didn’t see this in the evangelical church. Now we’ve got—is it in the church today? Well, try the contemplative movement, try moving…churches moving their pews back to practice yoga in church! I mean, this is small items with regard to the influence…well, they’re not small, but they’re overwhelming! You know…go ahead.

Carl: Can I give you one example? This is a personal example: I was supposed to speak at a church…this is about, oh, I can’t remember, maybe eight years back or so—I was supposed to speak at a church that was renting space at a Christian university in Western Canada, and it was in my province of Manitoba. It was in Winnipeg, and so I had arrived at the university early enough so that I could, you know, arrange my material and get ready to do the presentation. And I arrive, and the pastor greets me at the door, and he said, “We’ve been renting this facility, or this space, for…” whatever it was, ten years or more. And he says, “We have just been told we have to move down the hall to a different room, a smaller room, because the room that we have been renting, the school has now allowed a Sunday morning yoga class to take place in our space.” And this is in a Christian institution!

Tom: Sure, sure. You know, the other thing that we’re going to deal with…but just to point out some things that Samuel Andrews didn’t have to deal with, or didn’t recognize, the reason being is because it wasn’t as pervasive as it is today—I’m talking about psychology, primarily psychotherapy. 

Folks, if you’ve had the opportunity to look at our conference, 2020 conference and so on, I address that. 

But the issue being is that Freud was alive, Jung was alive, but they didn’t get rolling with psychotherapy…actually in our country it started in a big way right after World War II, psychotherapy, okay? And if there’s anything, any movement that’s so akin to ushering in Eastern mysticism—in their words, not in mine! They’re looking to the gurus, just as you mentioned in the business world, Carl. They’re looking for answers and looking for hope, and it’s delusionary. It’s absolutely delusionary. 

Psychotherapy, you know, as I mentioned, it’s…it’s talk! It’s talk therapy. It has nothing to do with science, it has to do with philosophies and beliefs and all of that. And they…those who are running the show in that—and I think it’s a $300 billion industry in the United States. Is it in the church? To the max, starting in the ‘70s, okay, and then the ‘80s. It was the whole self-esteem movement, self-love movement. Self is part of the problem! I mean, it is the problem for humanity. God or self? If you reject God, you’ve got to make self “god,” and we’ve been talking about that for weeks.

So that’s one thing that, at least at the time, Samuel Andrews and the church didn’t have to deal with. But it’s in the evangelical church right up to their eyebrows. So…

Carl: Well, one of the phrases that Andrews used that I picked up on right away, and no doubt you did as well, is the phrase he used repeatedly: New Age. He used that term! He talked about a coming “new age,” and how this is the New Age. I mean, this is late 1890s he’s putting that language together, and today—well, we’re in the thick of this, aren’t we? 

I appreciate the fact you brought up psychology. Again, there’s a common tie or common connection to some of this. Carl Jung was influenced in part, and then in significant part by the worldview of Swami Vivekananda—again, coming out of the 1893 parliament. Huxley was influenced…Aldous Huxley was influenced with his perennial philosophy directly through Vivekananda. There’s a reason that was considered a turning point in Western culture and Western spirituality, and that’s one of those bridges between your book and Andrews’ book. Now it’s a full-blown, and you just described it, $300 billion industry. Spirituality, the quest to find some meaning in a higher self, is…it’s a growth development. 

Tom: Yeah. It was back to Genesis 3: “You will be as God.” That’s…if you reject the God of the Bible, that’s your only option, and you’ve got to make it work, and it hasn’t worked. We’ve been over that over the past few weeks.

The other thing that was not in the book, and who’s to know—I don’t know the mindset of Samuel Andrews in terms of, well, was he picking and choosing because there was too much, okay? But the other thing is shamanism. I mean, he dealt with the church proper, as it were. He dealt with society and so on, but shamanism, that has to do with contact with spirit entities. 

That’s the other thing we point out in the book—you know, well, I’ll go to a couple of other things with regard to…how about UFOs?

Carl: Hmm. 

Tom: And here’s the connection with shamanism: there was a wave of UFOs in the late 1800s. They had sailing ships over San Francisco, Stockton, and so on. There were manifestations in Chile and all over. These are documented, and so on. 

So out of that, folks, if you’re not familiar with all this, when there are contacts, whether it be encounters of a third kind, whatever it might be, there is a cosmic gospel that goes along with it, and it reissues or it confirms stuff that went before: confirmation that we are gods. You know, it’s like the Mormon gods, okay? We went over that. 

“As you are, we once were. As we are gods, you’ll become.” This is the lie, and it comes, as I said, the cosmic gospel through…. “Well, Tom, are you just talking about UFOs? Come on, that’s kind of conspiracy stuff.” No, let’s go to channeling. Let’s go to necromancy, let’s go to divination, let’s go to all of these things—they’re selling the same thing, right, Carl?

Carl: Absolutely. In fact, while you were speaking, I had to turn into my own book because I’ve got a section on alien encounters, and the message that comes through, specifically the channeling technique, the message is repeatedly, systematically it is, “You are divine beings. You have to recognize your higher self.” 

The other messaging is…okay, so that’s the New Age. First of all, that’s the New Age message. That’s the message in the time period of writing America, the Sorcerer’s New Apprentice; that’s Shirley MacLaine’s Out on a Limb miniseries where she’s saying, “I am God! I am God!” And then the other thing that channeled alien messages bring into play is we need a new system of global governance; we need a new order where everything is united as one. I’ve got a lot of channeled messages…books on channeled messaging in my library, and as I’m reading this stuff, and it’s always the same thing, Tom! Always the same!

And the other thing to bring into play is we have to save the earth, we have to save the environment. So you’ve come billions of lightyears away to give us the gospel of Shirley MacLaine, the worldview of Karl Marx and the United Nations, and the gospel of Al Gore? Really? Really? No, I think we know who you are by your messaging. 

Tom: You know, we do, because we know what the Word of God says, okay? We know because He’s communicated to us in His Word who He is, what He’s about, what the problems are, what His solution is, and so on. And we just say, “Well, wait a minute,” you know, whether it be A Course in Miracles, okay…I mean, folks, we don’t want to overwhelm you with this on the one hand, but maybe we do, so that…. For what reason, for what purpose? For protection; for understanding these things as they relate to the Word of God so you’re not seduced, so you’re not deceived by all of this. That’s the purpose, because people buy into it because it sounds good. 

You know, twice in Proverbs it says, “There’s a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Now, it’s not talking, per se, about physical death, it’s talking about separation. Death always involves separation. It’s the separation from the truth. You buy into the lie even in a small way, well, it’s going to increase. It may start to trickle, but it’s going to turn into a flood, which—hey, haven’t we just been describing the flood that we’re in?

Carl: Yes, yes. Absolutely. Here’s…just to give your audience a sense of the “gospel,” and I’m using this in its alternative antichrist sense—allow me to read a couple statements from so-called aliens who have channeled a message: “The second coming is imminent, and you may as well get ready. This is a particularly good idea, because you’re it. You are the second coming. Become your own messiah.”

One example, another example…and again, you’re right: Andrews didn’t have to deal with this. This wasn’t there, though you’re absolutely correct in that there was already a foreshadowing or a foretaste—there were already things in the sky, and that was compelling man to now search out for those deeper meanings and deeper answers. For there is even a darker side to this, Tom. Just allow me to read a little piece…

Tom: Sure.

Carl: Okay, this is…“And there is a broader community within the wholeness,” speaking about this wholeness that these “angels of light,” or these channeled messages are giving you. “There is a broader community within the wholeness. We must return to the light with the other angels,” specifically Lucifer, who, according to Solera…now, Solera is a UFO channeled cult. That’s still around! According to Solera, [Lucifer] “came to earth as a beneficial volunteer, a star seed, traveling under a golden beam of light” (that’s their language) “to interlock with matter.” Supposedly we arise and take our rightful place in full union. Now, this is what Solera says: “Eventually, if we achieve our chosen task on planet Earth to transmit duality into oneness, then Lucifer, too, with his fallen angels must arise up into the light to once again sit at the right hand of God as one of the brightest of the angels, for nothing and no one is to remain separate from God. Within the greater reality, everything is God.” 

Wow!

Tom: This is where we are!

Carl: This is where we are!

Tom: Yeah. Carl, I want to go back to—it relates to what you just said. I want to go back to shamanism. Folks, if you don’t know, shamanism, it’s…a shaman is a word that comes from the Tungus…well, from, in Siberia, the Tungus tribe. And they use that, they’ve developed that word because shamanism, whether you’re in the Fiji Islands, whether you’re in Africa, South America, or Siberia, it’s all the same. So what does that tell us? Well, a shaman—for example, I’ve interviewed a Yanomamo shaman from Venezuela, and his job, he said, was to communicate with the spirit beings, all right? And his approach to it was no different than those in Siberia, no different than those. So there’s a common belief system, there’s a common practice and ritual—some may be slightly different, but it’s…I don’t see the Fiji people going to Siberia to pick this up, okay? Point being is that there’s a spirit behind this, and it’s consistent. 

So the reason I’m bringing that up is that now, in our day, we’re finding the psychotherapists, the psychologists looking to the East, looking to…even though they might say, “Well, no, this isn’t really an actual spirit entity, this is from the collective unconscious,” okay? So they’ve got their ways of making it so-called “science.” I mean, it’s bogus. It’s not science at all, and they’re…well, missing—that would be an understatement! They’re turning there for the sake of trying to solve the problems of the world, and they’re going back to, not just pagan societies, but they’re going back to witchcraft. They’re going back to medicine men. They’re going back to all of these spiritual promoters or workers or shamanism. 

So…but there’s, again, there’s a communication that you just described, whether it be UFOs, whether it be through a Ouija board, you name it, it’s all out there, and it’s all for the purpose of deceiving. 

Remember Matthew 24, when Jesus was asked by His disciples, “What’s going to be the sign of the last days and of Your coming?” He started right off with, “Take heed that no man deceive you.” So, you know, we talked about it last week: whether it’s the apostasy, you want to call it that, whether it’s a huge deception…that we need to be in the Word of God! We need to be following Christ!

We also talked last week about how has apostasy began? Revelation 2, the church at Ephesus: “You have lost your first love.” Once we drift that way, we’ve drifted away from the only protection that we have. And it’s not a good deal.

So I would say, Carl, that we’re going to talk maybe for the next week or two about America, the Sorcerer’s New Apprentice, and we’re going to deal with specific issues. I know we’ve just touched upon these things, like the tip of the iceberg, but I think we need to major on and explain how this stuff is affecting the world. But a greater concern for me is, and I’m sure for you, how it’s affecting the church. So what do you think?

Carl: I think it’s good. We need to address those issues.

Tom, there is a common thread all the way through just what we have discussed here in this presentation, or in our talk together. And there’s a common thread, and some people will look at this and go, “This is negative. There’s a negativity.” Look at…the negative aspect of what we have just described points to something that is even greater and better and more beautiful, something that is positive. It points to the fact that we are living in a Genesis 3 world, and we always have been. It plays out continually in the lives of our culture—in our own lives, if we’re honest about it—and all that points to the fact that there is a God who does exist, a God who created us. The sad part is we’re at war with that God, but it doesn’t negate who He is. It doesn’t negate what His will is; it doesn’t negate His beauty, His truth, His greatness. It doesn’t negate any of that. In fact, His goodness is amplified even more. Not that He needs us to sin to amplify His goodness, but there is…we see He is good while the rest of the world, His own creation, is at war with Him.

Tom: Right. Carl, the other thing that brings to mind is…all we’re trying to do here, folks, is point out what the Word of God says, and just as Samuel Andrews did, just as you’ve done in your book, which we will get to, and Dave and I did in our book, we’re showing how this stuff is a fulfillment of prophecy. If there’s a better apologetic for God being God, He’s the only One that knows the beginning from the end, okay? And He writes it out in His book, and His book can be proven by what we’re experiencing, what we’re seeing today. You can only be the God who knows the future and then lays it out and then says, “Hey, test Me in this. Check it out.”

“To the law and the prophets, if they speak not according to this Word,” okay? We’re going there to encourage people that God’s in charge, He knows what’s going on, and by telling us ahead of time what’s taking place, He says, “Hey, I’m the only one.” Go through Isaiah 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, and 45: “I alone am God! Now, talk to your idols, talk to your demons, all that; they don’t know the future, but I do, and I’m the only one.”

Carl: Right.

Tom: That’s our encouragement. It may seem negative, but it’s not! It’s proof that God is who He says He is.

Carl: Absolutely. Absolutely, and I mean, we have to ask then the question, and David brings this up in Psalm 56: Who do we…who do we fear? Are we afraid of man? God is on our side. Why are we afraid of man? Why are we afraid of what man can do to us? God is the one who judges, God is the one who is in control. God is the one upon whom we stand. And so while this is challenging, it’s also encouraging. 

Tom: Sure.

Carl: This is the time we live in, and it should rouse us now to be more vigilant in terms of understanding our Bible, understanding the times we are in, and then to be truth tellers for the good news of Jesus Christ. 

Tom: And the God you’ve just talked about will never leave us nor forsake us.

Carl: Right.

Tom: That’s our confidence—not in ourselves, but in Him.

Okay, brother, until we get together next week! Looking forward to it. Thank you!

Carl: All right, talk to you later!