Eternal Gateways

Julie Parker's Chariot Ride

2012-03-01T01:52:00.001-08:00

I pulled this story off of a message sent out to Kathie Walter’s list.Kathie is an international Christian conference leader and author. In her meetings,there is often a unique manifestation. People email her later with tales ofhaving taken a chariot ride with an angel. Yes, that’s a chariot like in theOld Testament, like when the prophet Elijah was taken bodily up to heaven.There’s a horse and a very real sense of having traveled somewhere distant andwonderful with joyful, magnificent escorts.

The story following is from a woman who attended one of Kathie’s meetingsand had such an experience. She gave me permission by email to share her story.I changed a comma or two but not the wording of her post-conference email toKathie Walters. . .

“Kathie, I thoroughly enjoyed your conference in Clinton, NJ this pastweekend. It was wonderful getting to know you, and I truly appreciate your timewith me. I surely experienced the Holy Spirit and I loved the smell of lavenderand pine trees! I’m also reading Celtic Flames… just love it!

You told me to describe to you my vision of the Chariot ride! So, here itis:

I was lying on the floor with my eyes closed, and Sharon next to mestarted to giggle. I immediately saw myself riding the Chariot, all in gold,then I saw my gloves which were all gold as well, along with my helmet. Myhelmet was beautiful, with feathers on the top of the gold section. Very ornateindeed!

My armor was white, almost like a satin white with stitching on it, andall the trim was in gold. I also was holding a golden sword.

My horse was a beautiful white stallion, with long blondish white mane,and the most beautiful part was the long thin purple scarf tied to the horse’smane or where the reigns were connected to. Then the chariot started quicklyrising, and we approached these HUGE white doors… Heaven’s doors!

The chariot “floated” by a narrow road... not sure if it was concrete, orsatin... it stopped and I saw Jesus sitting on his throne with a crown on hishead, wearing a beautiful white robe. All this golden, bright light came fromhim, and he stood up, and Jesus lifted his sword, and it was in flames! (Brightorange/red flames!)

He looked at me and smiled… and the vision was finished! I was a bitdizzy when I got up from the floor. It was quite a ride!

I just loved seeing HIM. He has appeared twice before to me, once with mymom, and the other time, I was riding a white stallion with my armor and sword,and I was riding right next to Jesus, who was on a horse as well, he had asword, and we were going to a battle. I looked at him and told him that I wouldfight for him and do anything he asked of me.

Kathie, I feel like I’m his soldier, I’m going to battle for him. I knowhe is pleased with me. I felt so accepted and loved by him in all my visions.

After my mother’s death over 3 years ago, I prayed that I would see her,and that God would let me know she was all right in heaven… and indeed, 3 yearslater I saw her, so beautiful and young, with gorgeous loving brown eyes, allthe light radiating from her and Jesus, who was standing right behind her. It’sstill so clear in my mind.

I’m just so grateful He has allowed me to see her, and to get a glimpseof the beauty of heaven. One day, I’ll be there completely. I have no doubtwhatsoever.” Julie Parker, 2012

In this blog, I’ve shared a number of experiences that people claim to havehad. Some were poked, prodded, raped, manipulated, etc. byaliens. Some alien abductions purportto direct the abductee to expand in their consciousness, even if growth requires teasing,pain, illness, terror, and torture.

Some near-death experiencers claim to have seen deceased relatives,heaven, or hell. Others have spirit guides, or they have memories of a pastlife, or they have seen visions of the Virgin Mary. The Fatima children werethreatened with being boiled in oil if they didn’t recant their claim, yet noneof them did. If I thought for a minute that these experiences were all delusional,I wouldn’t be blogging about them. I’d be doing something altogether different.Something useful that paid the bills.

In all of these experiences, there are entities involved, including thepast life scenarios. The question is, who are these entities and why do theymanifest the way that they do? How credible are they? Why are they all sodifferent? I believe that people like Julie have the best of it.

Julie has no fear or expectation of waking up in the night and seeing 4ft. entities floating through her window. She believes that she is a breathaway from coming into the presence of her Source. She has no fear of death orhell or winding up on the planet Venus for eternity. She trusts that she willsee her mother and that the two of them will spend a very long time in a stateof peace and wholeness with their own identities and memories. She was notrequired to inform the world that Japan will sink into the sea or that anearthquake will level New York.

Which kind of experience would I want for myself or my kids? Which wouldyou?

Do You Believe in Reincarnation?

2012-02-13T15:19:00.000-08:00

My friendasked me this question the other day and I promised her an answer. Of course, Ihave no smoking gun, definitive answer to such questions, but I can point towhat I have read and heard of afterlife issues, which comprises quite a lot ofmaterial since 2009.

The Protestant/Evangelical box

I can’t helpbut picture the TV guru, Dr. Oz. He takes one of his audience members by thehand and leads them to a table. He uncovers whatever he wants to show them,then takes them to the next table.

So, comewith me, Reader. Let’s go to this first table, on which is a box labeled “Protestant/Evangelical.”Looking in this box we find all kinds of books and ‘testimonies’ about healings,miracles, prophecies, exorcisms, changed lives, media scandals (alas), and evenresurrections from the dead. The people in this box believe that Jesus Christis truly the Son of God, Who died on a painful cross, was resurrected fromdeath by the power of the Holy Spirit, and now represents all of those whotrust in Him as an advocate before the Eternal Father. There is a real heavenand a hell, and you either enter heaven through a relationship with JesusChrist or you go to hell. In this box, you might find a story like “Khosrow’s Journey”on youtube, in which a depressed young Muslim converts to Christianity due to avision of Jesus offering him a hand. In this box, there is no priesthood, otherthan that of every believer. Angels do God’s bidding and are often seen, as isChrist Himself, and even occasionally God the Father.

I haveshelves of books full of such positive stories and can’t begin to catalogue allof the proofs here. For example, there are all of the usual afterlife books onthe market now. The soul leaves the body, goes into the tunnel, sees a loving,Being of Light (or Jesus Christ), receives an enlightening life review, sees adeceased relative or friend, then comes back a changed human being. Someactually see hell. A skydiver named Mickey Robinson almost got caught there. Oneinteresting new source of proof is the TV show, “I Survived Beyond and Back,”on the Biography Channel. Two of the men on that show, first names only, claimedthat they came within a hair of winding up in hell. They were rescued at thelast minute and sent back to earth. Others had more heavenly experiences, sawhints of their unborn grandchildren, saw beloved relatives, and saw the bestplace they had ever been to. I believe firmly that the Kingdom of God existsand is at work in this box.

By the way, mostof the people in all of the boxes only know about what is in their box. Theyare not interested in the other boxes… which is why I am calling it a box.

The Catholic box

OK, nowlet’s move to box number two, “The Catholic Box,” and here, for lack of timeand space, I will deal only with the western version of the catholic churches.They hail the Pope as the “Vicar of Christ” on Earth and the “Most HolyFather,” (which is fine, except that it denies the possibility that God’spresence could inhabit another world leader or denominational chief. It alsogoes against the warning of Jesus Christ to not call anyone on Earth ‘good’ or‘Father.’ Um, but that is splitting hairs for now and is off topic.)

Almosteverything that was said in paragraph one above can be applied to theCatholics. They also have their miracles, healings, prophecies, exorcisms,scandals, and resurrections. They have all kinds of delicious and arcanehistory that goes way back into the Middle Ages. They have Crusades, hermits,visionary saints, levitating ascetics, rituals, liturgy, massive pockets ofcorruption and persecution of Others (same with the Protestants), and of course,St. Peter’s Basilica, with its fabulous art, architecture, décor, and incalculablewealth.

In this boxit is the Catholic Church that mediates salvation. Be baptized a Catholic or goto hell. Even the baptized must confess their sins to a priest or go to hell. Idon’t know how it is today but when I was young, you could be baptized,confirmed, confessed on Friday, but if you missed Mass through your ownnegligence on Sunday, and died on Monday, it’s still the hot place for you. Yousizzle along with all the poor souls that left the Catholic Church to become anEvangelical.

There isalso Mary, who brought the concept of “the most holy Rosary” into the church.In her visitations she brings new titles and declarations of who she is and howshe should be addressed. I read one the other day, given to a Bernadine sistersome time before 1938, in which Mary designated herself as “August Queen ofheaven! Sovereign Mistress of Angels!” It was she who crushed the head of Satanin Genesis 3, and it is her legions that will rout Satan’s demons in the endtimes (Prophecy for Today, by Edward Connor, Tan Books, 1984, p. 48).

Well, someof the items in the Catholic box, I’m happy to leave there, but many of us whowere raised Catholic and are now Evangelicals will admit that growing upCatholic was not so bad. It was a long, warm-and-fuzzy hug that kept [some of] ussafe and planted values in our hearts. And where genuine faith is, God isthere. If we reach out to God, He reaches back. I believe that the Kingdom ofGod is at work in this box.

Other boxes

There are somany other boxes. There’s a Jewish box, an alien box, a ghostie-ghoulie box, aNew Age box, a Buddhist box, and many more. There is a shaman box in which thewestern shaman plays with dangerous underworld entities. But we can’t deal with them allin one blog, so let’s just walk over to the table with the reincarnation box.After all, that was the original question.

The reincarnation box

Do I believein reincarnation? In a word, yes. And don’t think I’m comfortable saying that.

The storiesare too numerous and compelling to dismiss. Even religious people occasionallyhave past life memories. My friend and her sister were both raised Catholic, yetSandy claims to recall a past life, something not promoted by the CatholicChurch.

There aresome tremendous researchers in this box. One of the finest was Dr. Ian Stevenson who spent decadesstudying anecdotes all over the world. His approach and results cannot befaulted. I can’t say that his research demonstrated a coherent system or howit works, but one cannot simply say that it doesn’t. He dealt mainly with children,and would not employ hypnotism. Very often a child from one family, let’s sayin India, would have such accurate memories of another family nearby that he or she wouldnot accept the current family and name as their own.

As thematter was investigated further, the former family might make a claim on thechild as their beloved deceased family member. If the growing child was aformer bride, the bereaved husband might come and visit until the child wastired of it all and wanted to just move on. It seemed that the older the childgrew, the more the memories faded, and the past life was of much less interest.(Ian Stevenson, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, 1966).

In themeantime, ripples of hurt needed to heal. The current mother was rejected forthe previous mother and thus was deeply hurt. The child that couldn’t acceptthe new home was confused. The family that lost a loved one and thenhad to deal with new and shocking claims of rebirth was stunned.

Thesememories are such a complex phenomenon that it would take another whole blog todiscuss it properly. The approach taken by Christian author James Garlow (Heaven and the Afterlife, Ch. 20) is that reincarnation maycomprise an entity intrusion into a body where it doesn’t belong. He points outthat even Dr. Stevenson considered this option as a possibility.

I can thinkof two incidences that I recently came across, one on the internet sent by afriend, and the other on TV. In one case a man known only as Tony was hit bylightning. Afterward, he began to be obsessed with the idea of becoming aconcert pianist. He had a new ability to play and compose. His interest became more of an addiction rather thanjust a new talent because music was downloaded "in torrents" into his brain. Hefelt he was leading a double life. So is this a bump in IQ or something else? Ultimately, ittore up his family life, and he and his wife separated. Both now have theirregrets that the whole thing ever happened.

In the second event, it was a manwho found a sudden ability to paint. He began to see scenes of Italy in hishead, so he painted what he saw. It’s fascinating and impressive, but what ifit’s like a home invasion robbery? An unhappy soul in the afterlife wants tolive again. Is that someone with whom we want to share our life and body?

In the caseof a 6-year-old child knowing things about airplanes and war and friends of adeceased pilot, it’s clear that the intrusive soul in that child is already an “adult”with adult memories. Because such a child has his or her own soul, which isdeveloping normally, the memories of a former life may fade in time. The factis, those memories don’t really belong there and probably aren’t helping anything. (See my first post on Dr. Frank Ritchie for a description of the aural layer of protection cracking open to allow intruders.)

When Jesuswas on Earth, He admonished us not to be anxious about what we will eat ordrink or wear, because each day’s evil is enough of a burden to bear. Anxietyabout tomorrow can wait until tomorrow. The same could be said about anxietyabout our past. Our Heavenly Father knows what we need and will provide it if we ask (Matt. 6:34).

As forworking out karma, if you read the literature, you find that trying to undo thekarmic knots of this life and former lives is hard work, and the results arepretty random. There seem to be all kinds of entities involved and they don't claim to be angels. That is why Christ paid the price for us at Calvary. Paulexpressed it this way: “Therefore if any man is in Christ, he is a newcreature. Old things are passed away, all things become new” (2 Corinthians5:17).

So here is my answer. Even ifreincarnation is true, I’m not sure God is in it, and I’m not sure it’shelpful. I can’t say I have all the answers or that I understand it all, but asfor me, I’m happy to trust in Christ’s free gift of eternal life in a real placethat some describe as the best place they’ve ever been.

Those Infuriating Political Emails

2012-02-04T16:02:00.000-08:00

Ah, the Internet! A source of wisdom and knowledge. A sourceof deception and manipulation. Which will it be for you?

I admit it, I’m a Democrat. I have no intention of turningthis blog into a political forum. This is the first, and I hope only, politicalpost I will ever make here, but there is something I just gotta say. For goingon 4 years now I have been receiving political emails regarding the evils ofeverything liberal, including the evil Barack Obama. They come/came from 5 or 6sources… really nice people, one elderly, most middle class Christians, some alittle better off than that, two military types. They are all friends or greatinternet contacts.

The political emails, which are sent to 10 to 30 people at atime, are so far all GOP. Thank God the Dems aren’t doing this yet, at leastnot in emails from private individuals sent to huge lists of their privatecontacts.

The problem with these messages is that they are full of politicalhooey.

1. They drop information out that affects the meaning.Consider the recent storm over Mitt Romney saying that he’s not concerned aboutthe poor. The rest of the sentence is what he really meant.

2. They stir up info that may be very old, from another eraand make it sound like a current issue. An example is the Cindy Williamsmessage I received the other day. The super pac that paid the PR firm (I'm just guessing about that) to tweakthat old information from the Clinton era and 2000 wants you to think thatObama appointed a woman who thinks that the military people make enough moneyalready. She is not an Obama appointee.

3. They drop the context and make quick political haywithout revealing why something was said or done. An example would be thespeech made by Obama to Turkish journalists in Turkey when he said that Americais not a Christian nation but a nation with a lot of Christians in it. Hispoint is that we are a diverse nation with many religions but we are notblowing each other up or cutting each others’ throats over religion. Jesus isnot in our constitution. Mention of God and prayer leaves an opportunity foreveryone with various religious beliefs (Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Sikhs, Buddhists, New Agers, etc.) to participate in the national dialogue. The Turks should thinkabout that as a model for their own nation. That is what the president meant.

4. They push buttons that mean a lot to people, likereligion, soldiers, babies, kittens, mom and apple pie, the elderly, and whenthey’ve got you stirred up and thinking that you MUST send this on, they throwin the name of Obama, who actually had nothing to do with the issue, so youwill connect your anger with the O at election time.

5. They lie. So do the Dems. That’s why from now on, we ALL need to be checking everything we read and hear of a political nature.

6. They alarm the reader with manipulative language like,“Alert! Alert! Alert!” or “!!!!” or “Send this to everyone on your list.” Infact, whenever you see the latter remark for whatever reason, you shouldn’t do it. Or they play the Jesus card. If you love Jesus send this on. If not, delete it. Who would delete Jesus?

7. In addition to demonizing the other side, you can alwaysmake them look stupid. I’m not talking about political cartoons. I have noissue with genuine political satire. I’m talking about things that did nothappen at all, then saying, “Look what that idiot said or did. What a clown!”Or you put a Hitler mustache on someone’s picture. That’s not only ignorant,it’s a cheap, offensive shot. If someone did that to George Bush I would saythe same thing. I’m told that it happened, but I didn’t happen to see it.

Both sides are accusing each other of fomenting hatred. Notjust strong opinions, which we have always had in our Democratic way ofgovernment, but actual hatred. Among Christians, this is unacceptable. We can’tchange each others’ ideologies, but we can cool the rhetoric with each other.

There are plenty of places to check the facts (see below),but a clearly left or right-leaning source is not the best choice. Of course,we will all absolutely continue to return to our favorite RW or LW mediaoutlet, but calling the other guy’s choice ‘the drive-by media’ or ‘lamestreammedia’ is just… lame.

We need to cut the hysteria and remain as civil as possible.GOPers that I know and love, when you send these missives out to all yourchurch friends and colleagues, remember that more than half the country votedfor Barack Obama. I haven’t seen any signs as of yet that he is theAnti-Christ. Some of the people on your list are Democrats. Have a littlecaution. Check the contents of the message before you send it out. Best yet,don’t send it at all. Dems, please don’t even think about it.

I really do believe that the hysteria of today’s politicaldivisions contributed somewhat to the shooting of Gabby Gifford. Don’t say itcan’t happen. Two Kennedys and MLK were assassinated here in America, andRonald Reagan only lived by a frog hair. Now that we have the Internet with itsinstant communication capability, we ALL need to go a little slower, be alittle more cautious, more thoughtful, and a lot less easy to manipulate.

Here are some options for fact checking: www.snopes.com;www.truthorfiction.com; www.politifact.com; www.factcheck.org; or just google aphrase and see what you find on the internet.

Testimony of Claudia King, Part II, Still Plagued by Evil Spirits

2012-01-14T15:37:00.000-08:00

A note from Janet: Itry to limit my blog posts to a certain word count, so this story, written inher own words, has been continued from the previous post. Claudia is a friend ofa good friend. I have never met her, but have spoken with her on the phone andcommunicated by email. There are several important aspects to this story.First, Claudia brought undeniably dark and damaging forces into her life eventhough she was young, an innocent who was just experimenting. Second, there areseveral similarities in her story to those who claim to be alien abductees.Third, Claudia was ultimately delivered from these entities through the powerof the name of Jesus.

My parents found those ‘religious materials’ underneath mybed and threw them in the garbage. I was forbidden to be around the Christians.I snuck out of the house on a few occasions to go to bible studies, but when myparents finally caught me they kicked me out of the house. So, at eighteen, Ifound myself alone in an apartment and working two jobs. I was free now. Icould go to church.

Many years passed; I was continually visited by evilpresences. I was thrown down a flight of stairs by a force I could not see, Isaw things following me into certain rooms of my house, and I heard deep malevoices speaking in other rooms when no one else was home. At times when Ilooked in the mirror, I could see another presence in me. The closer I wantedto get to God, the more intense the fear became. I continued to attend Biblefellowships and was baptized, but the presences didn’t go away. If God was sogood, why didn’t he protect me and make them go away? I thought that if I was aChristian, everything was going to be different, but things were the same. Iwas confused, so I decided to go into intense prayer and ask God to reveal thereason for this.

At thirty-one, I was living in Missouri. The presences hadstayed with me the entire seventeen years. No matter where I moved, they followed.It wasn’t the location, it was me. The church never talked about such things.Sure, Paul and Peter had to deal with demons, but what about me? Was I crazy?Who would believe me?

About that time, I took a trip to Florida by Greyhound busand the bus stopped at about 2:30a.m. in a dimly lit parking area. No one wasaround but the driver and me and two people who were working inside theGreyhound Terminal. I was sitting alone, outside on a bench, when a mansuddenly appeared in front of me. He had a brown skin tone, and bright greeneyes. He said, “You look sad.” I didn’t answer him. He said, “The God thatbrought you this far will bring you the rest of the way.” He told me to readPsalm 27, then he was gone. Just like that. Psalm 27 deals with fear. In verse 10 it says, “Even if yourfather and mother abandon you, the Lord will hold you close.” My God hadheard me.

The night of my freedom and deliverance took place on August9, 1991. I went to a Bible study, and the woman who led the study told me thatsomething was wrong with me, and she needed to pray for me. When she locked thekitchen door, I started to panic. I pushed her aside and said, “No, I cantstay -- they wont let me.” I was shocked when I heard myself say that. What didit mean? I spoke it before I realized what I had said.

She grabbed my arm and sat me down and started to pray forme. I was frozen in the chair. I could not move; it was as though I wasparalyzed -- but I felt unseen hands on my shoulders keeping me in the seat.When she started to pray out loud, I went completely deaf. I tried to read herlips and immediately I went blind. I could not see what she was saying. Then Iwas sick to my stomach. I was extremely afraid, but I could not leave. After along time, my sight came back and I began to hear her praying in the “Name ofJesus of Nazareth”. She had prayed for me for six hours, but it seemed likefifteen minutes! From 9 pm until 3am she didn’t stop. At one point I told her,“Stop, I don’t want to listen, you can’t make me leave,” but it was not mesaying it. I screamed, I cried, and I begged her to let me go. Another time, shelooked at me, and I have never seenanyone so scared in my life. She was looking at my physical body, but she wasseeing something else. She continued to pray. The chair moved across the roomwith me in it. Other things happened that I will not detail here.

Then things came to a sudden stop. It was still. I was lyingacross the kitchen table completely exhausted. I opened my eyes and saweverything as ‘new’ for the first time in my life. And I cried with JOY. Myfriend told me that ‘they’ were gone. I got down on my knees and repented ofeverything I had ever done to hurt the heart of God. I repented for the day asa teenager, when I verbally rejected Jesus and for experimenting with spiritualthings I had no right delving into. Then I was baptized in my friend’s bathtub.

Why was the second baptism necessary? When I was baptized ateighteen, I simply believed in who Jesus was. The Bible tells us that even thedemons believe that and tremble. I was no more saved then they are. Thisbaptism was different. I repented, I wastruly sorry, and I completely submitted my will and life to Him. That madeall the difference.

I am a Mary Magdelene story.Jesus cast seven demons out of Mary Magdelene. After spending many hours withmy friend in her kitchen that night, I found out that I had been dealing withthree demons. Somewhere in my life, I had invited them in -- maybe it was thechants I said in my room that night when I verbally rejected Jesus, maybe itwas the constant sin I was living in. All I knew is, I had a new mind, a newheart. I was set free!!

Was that the end of it? Nope!Two years after that, at thirty-three, I was in California with baby Steven(who was two at the time). In the middle of the night three presences (probablythe three that were cast out) tried to put fear into me -- only this time wasdifferent. They could not physically touch me as they had in the past. They hadto stay outside the room that I was in. I spoke the powerful WORD of God tothem with authority -- I quoted every scripture verse I could think of thatdealt with my being a child of the King and that my sins were forgiven. Just asJesus in the wilderness, quoted scripture, I did the same, and it worked. After an intense fight, the demons left. God had puta protective barrier between them and me. God had set a boundary for thosedemons because I was now HIS.

Claudia King Story, Part I, Opening the Door

2012-01-14T14:38:00.000-08:00

A note fromJanet: Claudia is a friend of a goodfriend. I have never met her, but have spoken with her on the phone andcommunicated by email. She is the real deal, and this story is not exaggerated.I try to limit my blog posts to a certain word count, so this story, written inher own words, will be offered in two consecutive posts. It does have an indirect ufo component to it.

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Eph. 6:2: For we are not fighting against people madeof flesh and blood, but we fight against the evil rulers and authorities of theunseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, andagainst wicked spirits in the heavenly realms.

This passage refers to all Christians, yet you will onlymeet a handful of Christians that have actually experienced the demonic realm. I am one of those people. I willpresent my story as honestly and as transparently as I can. I have no agenda insharing my story with you- other than offering you a vision of the spirit realmfrom a personal perspective. It is my intention that my story will serve towarn, edify and challenge you in your own walk.

I was raised in an atheist home. It’s different than anon-Christian home because in atheist homes, Christ is spoken against and God is mocked openly,Christians are thought of as ignorant fools, and God’s Word is consideredgarbage.

My father was a criminal, involved in Mafia Activity in NYCand actually worked with the Gallo Brothers of Italy to import liquor to the U.S.illegally through the NYC docks. It was a life of crime, deception, and murder.Although my father lived this secret life, my brother and I would watch as thecars pulled up in front of the house for meetings in the middle of the nightwith men coming to our house at all hours. There were many conversations behindclosed doors – secret conversations. He was not home much, but when he was, hewas not available to me because he was always on the phone.

Because of his dangerous lifestyle, it became necessary forhim to send me to a Catholic boarding School for girls for my safety. I livedthere for three years. I had no contact with my parents during that time. Thisschool, a converted mansion, had elevators and chandeliers. It was a schoolthat only the rich could afford. It stood on 135 acres of land. During theyears I attended, I learned to speak French, play classical violin, and ballroomdance. The horse stables behind the school gave me a reason to explore outsidethe confining walls of my new home, and horseback riding in the woods became myfirst love.

Unlike my parents, I was exposed to the ‘concept’ of Godevery day as I lived with the nuns and priests at the Brentwood School. I strolledacross the acres of land with a nun by the name of Sister Mary Helen who becamelike a mother to me. I asked a lot of questions. She was exhausted by theexplanations I begged her to give me about who ‘God’ is.

Then, as suddenly as I was sent away, my parents moved toHawaii from New York and took me with them. Hawaii is a paradise, but myexperience there was a lonely one. At least at the school in New York, I hadthe companionship of adults who thought my questions about God wereinteresting. I was not allowed to speak about God at home. My parents were gonea lot, and I found myself engrossed in books that developed my naturalcuriosity for the spirit realm. While other kids were outside playing, Istudied hundreds of books on Christianity, but my mind was also drawn to otherspiritual topics such as witchcraft. What I found intriguing was that thewitchcraft books offered simple and easy solutions to common human problem’s,including loneliness. The books on Christianity spoke of being ‘emptied’ beforeGod and of self-sacrifice. That appeared too difficult to a fourteen-year-oldwho just wanted some simple answers to her questions.

There was one book, in particular, to which I was drawn. Itdescribed a chant, with a diagram, and two candles -- simple enough. I repeatedthe words from that book in my room that night and did everything it instructedme to do. I rejected Jesus verbally and called upon spirits I knew nothingabout for power. After a short time, it all seemed silly, so I went to bed.

After being asleep for a while, I woke up to an intensegrowling under my bed -- near my head. I sat up and listened, becoming morefrightened. After a few minutes it went away. I laid back down on my side andfell asleep. I remember waking up to adjust my pillow. I could not find it. Iopened my eyes to find I had levitated almost to the ceiling and my pillow wason my bed beneath me. I remember one of the books saying that you could ‘will’things to happen to you – so I ‘willed’ myself to go down to my bed. At thispoint I turned my bedroom light on and kept it on for a long time.

I went to the kitchen and got a glass of juice. I returnedto my room, not believing my own experience and went back to bed. Maybe thegrowling and the levitating was just some freaky dream! I convinced myself thatit was just that I was tired -- and I settled into a comfortable position on mystomach when two very large demonic hands grabbed my ankles and proceeded topull me off my bed. They didn’t feel like human hands -- but I have no way todescribe how I knew that. I grabbed the top of my mattress and the force was sostrong that the mattress bent in the direction I was being pulled. I don’t knowwhy I said it, but I whispered, ‘Jesus’ and immediately the hands let go andlike a vacuum, the evil presence was sucked from the room. I could hear itleave.

That day began a seventeen-year struggle against demonicforces, which did not stop until I was thirty-one years old. I did not knowthat I had opened a door to the dark realm through my curiosity. I didn’t knowthat one moment of rejecting Jesus would have years of painful circumstances.

From fourteen to seventeen years old, I didn’t read anythingabout Christianity. Since I had previously spent an enormous amount of timestudying about Jesus behind my parents back, I felt an obvious emptiness. Butafter that demonic experience, I was afraid to delve into anything I didn’tcompletely understand. During those three years, I felt presences from thekingdom of darkness letting me know they were still around.

At eighteen, a friend from work invited me to a Bible studygroup. Though I had been exposed to God at the boarding school in New York, arelationship with God was foreign to me. I went to the study and came home toyelling parents who ridiculed me for being with a bunch of lunatic Christians.My mom threw my Bible at me (the one I had lying on my bed). My parents hadparties at the house several times a month. Sometimes they had me bartend forthem. On the nights they didn’t need me, I locked myself in the bedroom andread the Christian booklets that I got from some people in the youth group.

Every time I started to read them, an intense fear came uponme and I could feel presences in the room with me. I had to stop reading.Sometimes I would feel sick to my stomach. I had no understanding of what washappening to me, and I had no one to ask. I would cry to God, but there was awall between us, and He never seemed to answer me.

To be continued…

"The Babe" and the Doctrine of Inerrancy

2012-01-08T00:54:00.000-08:00

Today Ted and I spent his last day of freedom from teachingby driving into the Sierras. Tomorrow, it’s back to long weeks of grading. Wetook a nice walk by a river. Then we drove up a highway and decided to make a smalltown in the middle of the piney woods our goal. On the map it was quite simple.Turn off Hwy XX onto a paved road, stop at this tiny little town for a cup ofcoffee, continue through town on the same road, loop back to Hwy XX, and go onhome. I’ll call the town Pittsville, because I have some not so nice things tosay about it.

Not only did we have the map to guide us, we had “The Babe,”Ted’s GPS. How could we lose?

It turned out that Pittsville was not a cute little townwith barns and antique shops. It was the armpit of the Sierras, full of brokendown houses and scary looking people. Two kids playing outside were quitestunned to see us driving by them on their one-lane street, the main street inwhat you might call a town, except the only business in town was ascary-looking bar.

So we programmed the Babe to get us out of there. She sentus onto a dirt road on the other side of town. It was a rough road. We bouncedalong until we came to a bridge with a sign recommending that only four wheeldrive vehicles proceed further. On the other side of the bridge was a grade sosteep, we knew our car would never make it. So, we turned around and bouncedback to town, past the two kids and an old dog. Ted tinkered with the Babe, andshe started sending us around in circles to get us back to that road. “Recalculating. In .1miles, turn left.” I began to envision a paranormal horror story where twonaïve flatlanders wander into a dark portal where the town’s roads all close inon themselves and you can never get out again. I told Ted, “Either the Babe hasturned to the dark side and she’s trying to kill us or she’s just stupid.” Inmy imagination, the flatlanders battle evil for three days and finally bustout, bringing the two kids and the dog with them … just as the earth is openingup and swallowing the town of Pittsville.

Ted tinkered some more. We passed the two kids and the dog athird time. I was praising God at that point that I hadn’t ordered a diet cokefor lunch. The Babe led us onto a decent, unpaved Forest Service road thatwound and snaked through the trees seemingly forever. As the sun began to fadebelow the horizon, we broke out onto Hwy XX. Just as my emotions were beginningto register on the crabometer, we were home free.

Driving down the freeway, I couldn’t help but think of howthe doctrine of inerrancy is often like The Babe. It’s useful, but it has adark side, not because it’s stupid but because it’s mechanical. It can’t think,can’t change, can’t breathe or stretch, can’t apply common sense. It’s an old wineskin,rigidly locking the church and synagogue into attitudes, particularly aboutwomen, that are millennia old.

I just finished reading an autobiography written by Theresaof Avila. She is one of two women that the Catholic Church has designated as a Doctorof the Church. Toward the end of her life and ministry, many of her ownchurchmen were questioning her travels and activities. In 1571 she wrote, “Itseemed to me, considering what Paul says about women, how they should stay athome—people reminded me lately of this, and, indeed, I had heard it before,--itmight be the will of God I should do so too. He [Jesus] said to me: Tell themthey are not to follow part of the Scripture by itself, without looking to theother parts also; perhaps, if they would, they would like to tie My hands”[from: The Autobiography of St. Theresa of Avila, Tan Books, 1997, p. 447]. Shehas brought to light one of the conundrums of inerrancy, that it is usuallyapplied to just this Scripture and not to that one. Not to both blended or heldin tension together.

As if to bring home the point, tonight I watched another Independent Lens documentary on another African woman who hastransformed her nation (in this case Kenya), another African woman who has won a Nobel Prize for showing decadesof innovation and courage in educating her people, showing them a better wayof life. She was one female leader standing against another selfish, brutaldictator, pillaging his nation to enrich himself and his cronies. The women whofollowed her were beaten and their families were thrown in prison, but in theend, the dictator fell and the nation moved to a multi-party democracy.

I believe that to marginalize the potential leadership ofwomen in the church, society, education, and government is truly an abominationin the sight of God. I believe that obedience to the Spirit of God in the issueof promoting women in pastoral and denominational leadership is more preciousto our Lord than big churches, high praises, or years of service.

I believe that God is looking for male denominationalleaders who are as courageous as the many women of the world who suffered yearsof persecution, often from men who want to hide behind small portions ofScripture to promote an agenda that really comes from the human flesh. What avictory for the devil. Suppress half the Christian army in the very name ofGod.

Marian Apparitions, Part VI, More on Bayside Mary

2011-12-28T22:41:00.000-08:00

Sources: www.rosesfromheaven.com

www.apparitionsofthevirginmary.com www.tldm.org

John J. Delaney,editor, A Woman Clothed With the Sun

Because the New York apparitions went on for 25years, there is almost more material available than can be absorbed withoutweeks and months of study. It used to be on the website “rosesfromheaven,” butfor some reason most of it has been removed. Another website, “tldm.org/Bayside”carries some of the more important statements. Check out their Index to findstatements and directives by topic.

Mary had so many negative accusations against thenuns, priests, Roman cardinals, and Vatican II, that she may have done moredamage than the Communists detractors. At a later date, when the apparitions atMedjugorje began to be widely known, the Church would be arguing over which wasthe real Mary. Medjugorje Mary and Bayside Mary could not have been moredifferent. Medjugorje Mary never mentioned the Pope at all. She was much moreecumenical and far less theological.

Apparently Catholics who followed the Baysiderevelations began to panic when they realized that their parish and theirchurch was trying to modernize. They feared that their priests had beencorrupted and that the Mass, Communion, baptisms, etc., were not valid. “Mary”had to assure them that they should stay put. The Mass was valid even if thepriest was a rogue.

Mary’s most amazing revelation was about the plotagainst Pope Paul VI. Veronica was shown that he would be martyred. By March of ’72 the assassin had already beenchosen. By April 23 the pope would be removed from the seat of Peter unlessenough prayers go up. His replacement had been chosen. Forged documents would come out of Rome toblame Paul and put him in a bad light. These conspirators wanted an international religion.Pope Paul was imprisoned in chains, crying for help [6-8-72]. Apparentlyall those rosaries had a good effect because as of May 30 he was still alive [bvm,5-30], as he was in 1978. “666, Luciferand his agents, will make a concerted effort to dethrone the present Vicar(9-28-78).”

Thestatus of women will not progress under Bayside Mary. The Apostle Paul showedup to proclaim,

“Listen,my child, how Satan has corrupted the word.” Veronica: And now he’s becomingquite angry and pointing, jabbing with his finger the Book and saying, “Observe:Women shall be meek in the presence of their husbands. We hear the call of ‘liberation’!Whom shall woman be liberated to but satan! A man, as a figure of the Christ,my child, shall be the head of his household. So it is from the Lord. “A womanshall adorn herself not in pearls and braided hair, but in goodness and pietyand good example to her children. A woman will not expose her body as a pagan.What manner of example has she given to her children? Woe to the parent whobrings scandal to her children! Woman, remove your arrogance! You are searchingin darkness. As a sign of reverence, you will cover your head. It is not that Icall it custom, My children; it is that the angels demand this in the presenceof the Sacrifice, Mass!” [March 22, 1975].

One of the weirdest directives callsfor women to wear blue berets as a sign of their submission: “They will wear the blue berets, for theywill not be above their husbands. They will do as they have done in the past inhonor of the Father; and in the path of the Father, they will listen to theirhusbands and honor their husbands within the home. If they do thus, they willreceive honor from their children. The example in the homes is very, very poor.So husbands, now, you will act with love to your wives, but you will keep themin discipline. Many of them have lost their way.” [http://www.tldm.org/directives/d248.htm].

Here are some of theIndex entries regarding Woman/Women: (www.tldm.org/Bayside)

Asked to dress to ankles as example ofmodesty ‘75: 8-21

Destroying your image before God andman ‘74: 11-1

Jesus: “No woman shall stand in MyHouse to represent Me.” ‘75: 12-27

Must cover heads during prayer and theMass ‘72: 2-1; ‘74: 8-14, 11-23; ‘75: 3-18, 3-22, 9-6; ‘76: 5-29, 9-28, 12-7;‘77: 11-19; ‘78: 7-15

Must not enter holy place of Sacrifice‘74: 3-24, 11-1; ‘77: 7-15; ‘78: 9-13

Must not expose flesh ‘74: 7-15

Must not wear slacks ‘73: 6-8

Must return to her place; been misled‘73: 7-25; ‘74: 3-24

Not to be on altar ‘77: 7-15; ‘87: 10-2

Not to be priests ‘88: 10-1

Satan has set her to rebel against herdestiny ‘74: 3-24

Seek to cast off role of mother,housekeeper and woman ‘75: 3-18, 7-15

Shall not become a priest ‘76: 3-18,12-7

Shall not wear shorts, slacks in thepresence of Jesus ‘74: 7-25

Who display nakedness will burn ‘71:7-25, 11-20; ‘79: 6-2

Will wear prayer shawls, Blue Berets,honor husbands ‘74: 4-13

Would regain glory by child-bearing‘74: 3-24

Young, should be placed under guidanceof holy ones ‘75: 9-6

As for the disasters prophesied by Bayside Mary, theLady of Roses site has a version of the third prophecy of Fatima. Here are afew statements from the page http://www.apparitionsofthevirginmary.com/fatima_3rd_secret.htm:“A great chastisement will come up all mankind; not today or tomorrow, but inthe second half of the twentieth century . . . If mankind will not oppose theseevils [the manufacture and proliferation of deadly modern weapons], I will beobliged to let fall my Son’s arm. If the chief rulers of the world and of theChurch will not actively oppose these evils, I will ask God my Father to visitHis justice upon mankind. Then will God punish mankind even more severely thanhe did at the time of the Great Deluge. The great and powerful will die alongwith the lowly and weak . . . There will be no escape. The good will die withthe wicked, the great with the lowly, the princes of the Church with thefaithful, the rulers of the nations with their people. Death will reigneverywhere, raised to triumph by erring men, the helpers of Satan who will bethe masters of the earth. . .”

The fact that these dire prophecies did not cometo pass is a flashing sign that these apparitions are bogus. But there isanother that speaks directly to me about Mary’s veracity. She stated:

“Do not abandon My Son any longer by rejecting His Church. Do not judgeMy Son's Church by man. The foundation is My Son, Jesus. And though the wallsmay develop cracks, the foundation is solid. Will you not remain and patchthese cracks, My children? We do not wish that you break apart into smallgroups of discord. No schisms must take place in My Son’s Church. For all whoare baptized a Roman Catholic must die Roman Catholics to enter Heaven. Arejection of the papacy, a rejection of the Faith because of human reasoningshall not be accepted by the Eternal Father in Heaven. Remain faithful and trueforever unto the end.” – Our Lady, November 20,1979 [http://www.tldm.org/directives/d265.htm].

Evangelical churches are full of ex-Catholics likemyself. The Church got us halfway to God, which we appreciate, but we didn’tlearn to pray, to read the Bible, and to go directly to God with our sins andneeds. All of us can say without a shadow of doubt, we are not bound for helland we are not going back to the Catholic Church. I could understand if mymother, or some priest, or the Pope himself made that statement, but for thereal Mary to say that? No way. Bayside Mary is a fraud.

Remember that the first Mary appeared as a 14 yearold Native Mexican Indian. She can appear as anything, including a lovely Caucasianwoman. Demons and/or aliens can appear as your relative, a saint, Jesus or Mary(compare my series on the Gulf Breeze Six, where “Mary” comes through a OuijaBoard). The real Mary would really uphold the Bible and notjust the dogmas of the traditional Catholic Church. That means no statues![First Commandment] No goddesses. Aliens and demons love to make direpredictions to promote fear and terror and to create an environment of control.Demons are the accusers of the brethren [Rev. 12:10]. Jesus Christ is only themediator between man and God [1 Tim. 2:5].

Such a nice idea! Sweet Mother Mary. But rememberthat the New Testament tells us that Lucifer is the “ruler of the kingdom ofthe air” [Eph. 2:2]. He is the great dragon who deceives the whole world. He isthe shape-shifting prince of liars. If devotion to Mary truly leads thebeliever to Christ, then so be it. If Mary, statues, medals, fear, andcondemnation replace Christ in the heart and in the Church, she is a fraud.

Marian Apparitions, Part V, Mary of Bayside New York

2011-12-28T14:35:00.000-08:00

Sources: www.rosesfromheaven.com

www.apparitionsofthevirginmary.com www.tldm.org

John J. Delaney,editor, A Woman Clothed With the Sun

Appearing in the headlines during interestingeras

One thing about the Mary of the apparitions, shecertainly comes at politically auspicious moments in history. She was stunningthe Catholic Church in Mexico during the sixteenth century Spanish conquest, thesame decades during which Copernicus was developing his new and controversial cosmology,also when St. Theresa of Avila was being levitated during her ecstasies, andwhen the Protestant Reformation was just catching on in Europe.

She was in France in the 1800’s during decades ofpolitical and social upheaval (Paris, La Salette, Lourdes). She was in Fatima (1917) while Marxism was changingthe face of Russia, just before the world-wide Spanish flu epidemic of 1918,and just before the end of the WW I. She was in Belgium (Beauraing, Banneux)during the terrible Great Depression, just before Anti-Christ of WWII began hisugly rise to power. In Belgium she called herself The Virgin of the Poor(Delaney), putting herself in direct competition with Marx and Lenin, thealleged champions of the Proletariat, and with the claims of Hitler.

What intrigues me is that “she” came at times andseasons when mankind should have been crying for a sign, for a supernaturalintervention or correction, or for hope and divine comfort. Mary showed up whenyou would want to see God do something dramatic. As I wrote in my early blog,if God isn’t behind the Marianapparitions, He should have been. No wonder Catholics love her so much.

Her 1971 appearance in New York, theheadquarters of the United Nations, was another matter. She came to announcethrough visionary Veronica Lueken that God’s patience with mankind is used up.The heavy, angry hand of Jesus, like the hammer of Thor, was about to come downin spite of her constant pleas for mercy. She warned of unspeakable catastrophes:there was the plot by Cardinals to murder Pope Paul VI and replace him with alook-alike actor. Agents of the Anti-Christ had taken over the Vatican as earlyas 1971. Not just a sort-of Anti-Christ, but 666, the one that would usher inthe Second Coming.

To bolster her claims, she brought in retinue manywell-known Catholic Saints, including (allegedly) little Jacinta, the child ofFatima, who died in the flu epidemic. And of course, “Jesus” came with her, toassure the Church that He Himself authorized the threats and complaints againstthe Church.

Mary the Queen of Heaven mourns and weeps for thestate of the Catholic Church. She complains about the evils of abortion, theerror of Vatican II, the horrors of guitars in the church, the scandal ofhigher hemlines for worldly nuns, the deceptive new Bible translations, and therepulsive Mass in English. Priests were being led astray. Some Cardinals areagents of Satan. The Pope is in danger of being replaced.

As a result of these evils, God would send a plagueequal to the Spanish flu that would particularly strike young children. Theywould die in their mothers’ arms, but be spared losing their souls in hell. NewYork will be destroyed, possibly by a tsunami. If abortion doesn’t stop and ifpeople don’t obey Mary’s demands, the US would be embroiled in another war(1994). As if that wasn’t bad enough, the human race will be almost annihilatedby the Ball of Redemption, a comet that would strike the earth. This boogieball was mentioned month after month after month with ghastly visions of thedestruction it would cause.

It all caused me to nickname her Scareware Mary.Scareware on your computer is a false pop-up alert that attempts to frightenyou into clicking on a malicious virus link. I first learned about scarewareafter I ran the scan-scam and fried my hard drive.

HerQueenship already established

By the time of the Belgium visitations in theearly 1930’s, again to children, Mary was already hailed as The Queen ofHeaven, The Immaculate Conception, A Co-Redemptress with Jesus Christ, theMediatrix of all Graces going to and coming from God, a way leading to God. Shehad a “golden” Immaculate Heart equal to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. At Baysideshe called herself, Our Lady of Roses,the Help of Mothers. In 1973, Michael the Archangel tells Veronica, “Make haste and listen well to the words ofthe High Queen of Heaven. Her directions will be followed or you will receivethe punishment due an ungrateful generation” (rfh, 2-10-73).

By 1972, severaldire prophecies are in place

Millions will be killed by the Ball of Redemptionor the Chastisement, a huge, round fiery comet, spinning and glowing orangewith fire and heat [Actually, comets are made of dust and ice]. Earth will be“planet-struck.” The air will burn, choking those who don’t die by fire, and fewwill be left. This is for the cleansing of mankind. Resulting tidal waves willwash away buildings and flood the streets. At some point, New York will beleveled [rfh, 2-1-72; 3-24-72; 5-30-72]. A plague will take away many infantsbefore Satan can corrupt them. The sword [of war?] was predicted by Michael,Raphael, and Gabriel [rfh, 3-24-72]. World War III is coming in which hoardsfrom China march across the land. The Pope is being slowly poisoned andweakened. They want to kill him and replace him. The Anti-christ is in America,and in the Church. [bvm, 11-20-79, tldm] The UN is evil and should be banished.[2-1-72; 4-10-72. rfh]

Complaintsagainst modernization

St. Theresa is horrified at the modernizedgarments for nuns. She wants arms covered, no hair showing, and skirts to thefloor. Today’s nuns will burn in hell for their immodesty. Women must continueto cover their head in Mass (bvm, 2-1-72).

Babies created in a test tube will have no soul [bvm,2-1-72].

Priests who leave the priesthood will burn in hell, as will all those baptized into the Church who leave for other faiths.

Thesolutions

Victim souls, no matter how young, must offertheir sufferings for atonement for sins, reparation for offenses against God,and conversion of sinners.

People were told to bring their rosaries, medals,and scapulas, etc., for Jesus and Mary to bless them. This practice of lookingto medals and statues with extra-natural powers is one of the issues dividingCatholics and Protestants. As a Charismatic Protestant since 1965, I find itamazing that Mary would bind people to this practice rather than wean them awayfrom it. She told people to wear them continually and never take them off. Theywere also told to wear their rosaries and make their children wear thesetalismans. And of course, the medals and scapulas are all about her!

When Mary appeared to Catherine Laboure in the 1830’s,she revealed by vision a sacred medal that would keep people safely under hermantle of protection. The Christian approach has always been to put awayanimistic objects, which really often do carry spiritual influence, at the timeof conversion. When we pray the rosary, we are certainly inviting spiritualenergy into our environment, whether for good or ill. If we have doubts aboutwho Mary is, then we should NOT pray the rosary. She seems to thrive on theenergy those repetitious prayers create.

When we wear the scapula, it may be similar tomeditation with a mantra. Though this energy may seem protective, it goes withus, influencing our lives. We don’t actually need those things. Protestantsbelieve that sincere prayer is quickly heard by our Lord. The power of Godcovers those who love him and call on Him. The Atonement of Christ keeps us allsafe if we abide in the secret place with Him (Ps 91:1). He has promised tonever leave us nor forsakes us (Heb. 13:5). Evangelicals believe and haveexperienced the fact that “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Cor. 12:9). Hesaid, “My peace I leave you” (John 14:27). And “Come unto me all you who are wearyand heavy laden and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28).

The fear aroused by warnings to constantly wearsacred medals is the bondage of superstition. If someone wants to wear a medal,let it have Scripture on it or a picture of Jesus. Let it be something normal,and not an intense, cultic symbol like a heart with thorns around it.

And we should never put our trust in a medal,thinking it is a talisman of salvation. Mary practically guaranteed salvationto all those who wear the scapula.

Tune in again soon for Part VI, More About BaysideMary, and what, in my view, it all means.

Marian Apparitions, Part IV, Mary's Rise to Power

2011-12-17T20:16:00.000-08:00

Source: A Woman Clothed With the Sun, by John J. Delaney, 1961.

There are 3 major pillars upon which the entity identified as Mary has established her claim to near divinity. The first is Revelations 12:1-2ff, “A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.” A dragon with 7 heads and 10 horns challenges her, intending to kill the child. She cries out in pain, gives birth, and the Manchild is taken up to the throne of God. Satan and his minions are driven out of heaven, but they come down to earth to make war on the rest of the seed of the woman.

Catholics have somewhat of a point when they claim that the woman is none other than Mary. There is a shadow of her there, the birth and resurrection of Christ, and the attempt of King Herod to kill the child. If the woman was only Mary, then she is in fact adorned and glorified as a deity, clothed and crowned with creation as if she and the universe were eternally one.

But the Protestants also have a point when they point out that these images are mystical apocalyptic symbols with no linear timeline. The woman’s birth pangs are surely more than Mary in the cave. They denote the sufferings and persecutions of God’s people being birthed in the Kingdom of Heaven. The war takes place after the Manchild ascends to the throne of God. The dragon is Satan, but it is also the satanic, anti-christ world system comprising nations and governments. The woman is the mother of all the seed of God, thus representing the Judeo-Christian Messianic community which is persecuted by the world system.

The Marian apparitions, however, clearly place the Lady squarely in Rev. 12:1. She appeared to Catherine Laboure with 12 stars on her head. She talks about being Queen of the world, but, with the exception of Medjugorje, she comes only to Catholics and acts as if Protestants don’t even exist. She appears bathed in light, arrayed as royalty, and often has rays coming from her hands. Those are difficult images to resist.

The second pillar is the subtle supplanting of Mary as the fulfillment of Genesis 3:15, where Jesus says to the serpent, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed, and he will bruise your head and you will bruise his heel.” It’s not just that Mary was the woman bringing forth the promised Seed (perhaps she was) but that the ‘he’ becomes ‘she.’ Mary crushed the head of the serpent. This idea arose in 1531 when Mary appeared to an Aztec Indian in Mexico, speaking to him affectionately in his native language. She called for a basilica to be built. When the bishop required a sign, Juan Diego’s tilma was impinted with a beautiful image of the Lady of Guadalupe, which means ‘river of the wolf.’ It’s otherwise a beautiful story. In 7 years, 8 million native Mexicans were baptized into the church. One scholar suggests that the real word in the Nahuatl language was Coatlalupej, which would sound to the Spaniards like Guadalupe, a word they were familiar with. It means ‘stone serpent trodden on.’ From then on, Mary was celebrated as crushing the serpent-god Quetzacoatl, to whom many humans were sacrificed (p. 54, 55). In a genuinely lovely speech, she sweeps away all doubt as to her continued virgin state after the birth of Jesus. “Dear little son, I love you. I want you to know who I am. I am the ever-virgin Mary, mother of the true God who gives life and maintains it in existence. He created all things. He is in all places.” Powerful words. She then requests that a basilica be built so that she can console the people and help them in their sorrow.

The third pillar is the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception and the bodily resurrection and Assumption of Mary. Where did the Catholic Church get those ideas? From Mary herself. In 1830, a nun named Catherine Laboure was introduced to Mary by a child (that wasn’t really a child as it turned out, p. 71). She was granted a two-hour interview in which Mary spoke about the future of France. In the next appearance 4 months later, Mary stood on a half-globe with a spotted snake at her feet. She is holding a ball, representing the "world and all individuals," with a cross above it in her hands. Rays representing graces glowed from her hands. An oval frame began to form around the picture and words appeared, “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” A medal was to be struck, which would protect the wearer and bring them graces (gifts and protection).

On the back was another picture – a cross, beneath which is an M, under that a bar, under that two hearts, side by side. One had a crown of thorns (Jesus), the other had a sword through it (Mary). Mary also wanted a statue to be made and dedicated to “the Virgin of the Globe.”

So [1] Mary’s Immaculate Conception and Immaculate Heart was approved by the magisterium of the Catholic Church. The medal was struck and sold. The statue eventually made. Author of the article, J. Dirvin, writes that these apparitions [2] resulted in the doctrine that Mary is the Mediatrix of all graces. All prayers and graces coming and going to and from God go through Mary. Without her apparitions and words, this whole idea would seem like nonsense, even to the Catholic Church. Mary is launching her gradual campaign for equality with Christ upon irresistible Catholic sensitivities and beliefs. [3] Mary was called Co-Redemptress of the human race. [4] The 12 stars crowning her head placed her as the Woman in Rev. 12:1. [5] She promised salvation to all who would wear the medal (which makes her an Eternal Judge, like Jesus).

But Mary didn’t stop there. 1846, La Salette France in the French Alps, Mary appeared to two little cattle herders, Melanie, aged 14 and Maximin, 11. She shared her displeasure with the world saying, “I have appointed you six days for working. The seventh I have reserved for myself. And no one will give it to me. That is which causes my Son’s arm to be so crushing.” No, that is not Yahweh of the Old Testament talking, that is Mary! She is now pre-existant, an ancient giver of Sacred Law. She stands as an advocate between an angry Jesus who would punish mankind with disasters and plagues – Jesus, who is said in the New Testament to be our Advocate before the Father.

She made a threat that would be repeated in subsequent generations, including Bayside, NY. If people don’t turn away from sin and neglect of religion, a severe plague would come that would cause many young children to die in their mothers’ arms. Crops would fail, and people would starve. While the Church deliberated over these prodigies, a spring appeared and miraculous cures were reported. Eventually the Catholic Church authorized the cult of Our Lady of La Salette.

At Lourdes the Rosary was central, and sacred candles became a requested mode of showing devotion. Another cove, another spring, another basilica. When asked who she was, the beautiful Lady did not say, “I am the one conceived without sin.” No, her pronouncement was “I am the Immaculate Conception” (p. 137). The ‘I am’ statement echoes Yahweh and Jesus who made similar statements as to who they were beyond their attributes.

In the revelations of Fatima (see Part II) Mary reveals to Lucia that her Immaculate Heart will be a refuge and a way that will lead her to God. But my word count is up and the best is yet to come, so in another post I will discuss Bayside, NY, the culmination of melodramatic, threatening, petulant Goddess power. There is a lot about Marian apparitions that I could accept if it were not for her mighty scepter waving over the world. If God Almighty came to me and told me it was all true, I don’t know if I could submit to it. I do know that I find it soooo troubling that humans, on our beautiful blue pearl of a planet, are afflicted with such difficult and opaque mysteries.

Did the KGB Sabotage a UAL Flight During the Korean War?

2011-12-16T19:01:00.000-08:00

I am actually close to posting Part IV of my Marian Apparitions series, but in the meantime, I received a very interesting email from a stranger addressing the issue of a UAL crash in Colorado in 1951. To better understand this email, you could read my research story at www.coloradowreckchasing.com. Click on Civilian flights, then Crystal Mountain, DC-6B, then look for “Capt. Appleby’s daughter…” The question of the research is, was Flight 610 hijacked and sabotaged, a question close to my heart since my father was the captain of this flight which killed all aboard.

Hi Janet, I know this may be a bit strange getting this crazy email from some random stranger. What I'm about to tell you might seem crazy too. Last night, I took a class in Fort Collins, Colorado for paranormal activity. I thought it would be fun entertainment but never expected to see and hear I did. We visited a garage in old town where apparently the remains of the aircraft were stored while the investigation was being done. This building is quite old and is only used for storage for the restaurant on which the property sits currently. From my understanding there had been two suicides in the building and one fatal police shooting among the remains from the airplane.

Anyway, we used an EMF sensor that detects electrical transmissions in certain areas. You may be familiar with this already. This building is so old it really should be torn down but they have left it up due to the cost of demolition and have since turned off any power to it for safety reasons. As we were standing in the middle of the room the EMF meter started going off. Interesting but not conclusive, so we walked around with it and it would continue to go off in certain areas. Those areas were constantly moving. There were also warm spots in that area that you could feel. The temperature in the garage was 27 degrees last night and in those warm spots you could read 40 degree plus. You could feel a wind being pushed directly from the concrete straight upward where the meter was going off too. I know at this point it sounds hokey but it does get a little more interesting.

There is a controversial application you can download on your iPhone called the iOvilus. The tour guide had been "playing" with this app recently but wasn't sure about its credibility. So as this EMF reader was going crazy, the iOvilus was starting to say words that pertained to the plane crash. Keep in mind there is no way to program this app to do anything, you download it and it just works. The words that were spoken were ‘plane,’ ‘casket,’ ‘ascending,’ one of the names of those who perished ‘Frank.’

Those words by themselves could be taken for anything, but the one that surprised me the most was ‘Crystal.’ I decided to come home and research about the crash and see if anything else was said on the device that struck me as odd. As I was reading your article I about fell out of my seat as one of the words that were said was ‘Hijack.’

From my understanding the lady that used this app had also used it in many other places and she said there never seems to be anything of importance said unless she is in an area that is stated to have paranormal activity. You may or may not believe in this, however, it was quite real to me. We did take a digital recording of the whole event and if you are interested in it I could send it to you once I receive it. Please don’t think I’m nuts, but I did find it very interesting and thought I would share with you. Erika F.

A flurry of further correspondence produced this message from a woman who runs haunted tours of Fort Collins and who has also visited the garage.

I have to admit that the app on the iphone sounds like a really non-credible source. We’ve just had some really specific words come through along with random, nonsensical things as well. We had a young man on our tour a few months ago with the same app, and the words that came through in a row included ‘fly,’ ‘explode,’ ‘metal,’ ‘suppress,’ ‘hijack.’ Later that week I had mine on, and this was before I’d read your report, and words included ‘Korea’ and ‘atom’ popped up, which I thought were odd but at that point saw no relation to the garage. When I read your report I wished I had kept a log of other things it said.

I am a bit of a skeptic myself about what is and isn't real in our search for contact with whomever may be ‘just out of reach’ as I call it, but I will keep you posted about anything new that we hear in that old garage. Lori Juszak, www.fortcollinstours.com.

Thanks to these people who took the time to share their experience in a garage where pieces of the plane were stored after the crash.

Apparitions of Mary, Part III, Inanna of Sumer

2011-12-12T00:15:00.000-08:00

It’s interesting how ancient Sumerian documents are all the rage in UFO studies these days. UFO scholars actually take the legends seriously as echoing actual interaction between aliens and humans. The comparison I am drawing between Inanna and the apparition at Fatima does not indicate that I think Inanna was a real goddess and that she has returned as Mary. I just want to point out the similarity of devotion between Inanna’s worshipers and that of the Blessed Virgin.

The document is called “The Exaltation of Inanna,” translated by William Hallo, and can be found in The Context of Scripture, Vol. I, Canonical Compositions, edited by William Hallo and K. Lawson Younger, Jr., Brill, 519-522.

This psalm of exaltation was written by Enheduanna, the actual daughter of Sargon the Great. She is so far the first non-anonymous ancient author that we know of. She was a priestess who was pleading for Inanna’s help against her enemies, men who worshiped Nanna the moon god. Portions of verse 1,

Lady of all the divine attributes, resplendent light, Righteous woman clothed in radiance, beloved of Heaven and Earth, Hierodule of An, . . . You have picked up the divine attributes, you have hung the divine attributes on your hand, You have gathered up the divine attributes, you have clasped the divine attributes to your breast.

I could not help, as I read this, to think of Mary with the rosary draped over her hands. Mary has become her own Trinity in a way. She is the Mediatrix of all graces, the Mother of Earth, the Queen of the Universe (sometimes the Queen of Heaven). I’ll write more about that in my next post. She heals the sick, and becomes a doorway to God. She claims to be light. She is the Immaculate Conception, and she portrays an Immaculate Heart. (See the two previous posts) But don’t cross her. Offenses against the Eternal Father, her Son Jesus, or against her or the Church will result in severe punishment, such as a flaming comet, the Ball of Redemption, that will cleanse the Earth by annihilating most of the human race. Before that will be a plague taking the lives of many children. Then will come WW III. In that sense, she and Inanna are alike.

Like a dragon, you have deposited venom on the foreign land. When you roar at the earth like Thunder, no vegetation can stand up to you. . . . Raining the flaming fire down upon the nation, Endowed with divine attributes by An, lady mounted on a beast, Who makes decisions at the holy command of An.

The city of Uruk displeased her ladyship because the people would not dedicate themselves to her. She left the city and cursed the inhabitants to barrenness. The lines below are almost a perfect echo of Mary’s insistence that Russia be publically dedicated to her Immaculate Conception.

Because the city has not declared ‘The land is yours,’ Because they have not declared ‘It is your father’s, your begettor’s, You have spoken your holy command, have verily turned it back from your path, Have verily removed your foot from out of its byre.

Even Mary’s special birth, free from original, sin is echoed in this psalm.

You of the appropriate divine attributes, great lady of ladies, Issued from the holy womb, supreme over the mother who bore you, Omniscient sage, lady of all the foreign lands, Sustenance of the multitudes, I have verily recited your sacred song!

Enheduanna addresses Inanna in the same manner that Catholics address Mary.

Let me, Enheduanna, recite a prayer to her. My tears like sweet drink. Let me give free vent to for the holy Inanna, Let me say ‘Hail!’ to her!

Of course, there is one appellation given to Inanna that we won’t hear attributed to Mary. Enheduanna called her affectionately, “My impetuous wild cow.” After listing her persecutions, Enheduanna continues,

Of the heavenly foundations and zenith you are the “senior” queen. The Anunna have submitted to you. From birth on you were the “junior” queen. Over the great gods, the Anunna, how supreme you are. The Anunna with their lips kiss the ground (in obeisance) to you.

So Mary received a heavenly promotion. The junior queen would be revered, but the senior queen has serious authority. The final doxology reads,

For that her (Enheduanna’s) speaking to the Hierodule (Inanna) was exalted – (To) the devastatrix of the foreign lands, endowed with divine attributes from An, (To) my lady wrapped in beauty, (to) Inanna, Praise!

Of course, the similarities between Inanna and Mary don’t negate the possibility that our Mary is who she says she is. However, we will see in the next post that Bayside Mary is very controlling, old fashioned, melodramatic, and absolutely abusive in demanding that rosaries be said, sacrifices be made, atonement be offered, sanctuaries be built, medals and scapulars in her honor be worn for protection, etc. Modernization is taboo for Mary of Bayside, NY. There are so many reasons to be damned to hell and burn forever that one can hardly categorize it all. Bayside Mary split the Catholic Church and terrorized the devout. If you want to know just how, check out my next post.

As for the veracity of Sumerian documents, they reflect the fact that people of ancient times had to deal with the same devils, ghosts and gods that we do. These same entities are reflected in the Bible, which UFO researchers love to ignore. These ancient entities are very deceptive and manipulative. One of the most effective ways to manipulate humans is through religion. The devil just loves religion. But God the Eternal Father loves virtue over religion. He loves us. He wants to be loved by us and He wants us to love one another. He wants us to walk humbly before Him and do what is right. After that, most religious stuff is just fluff.

Apparitions of Mary, Part II, Fatima

2011-12-04T23:54:00.001-08:00

One of the most amazing events of the 20^th century, well besides WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf Wars, the Roswell crash, the nuclear age, etc., was the appearance of “the Blessed Virgin Mary” to three little shepherd kids in Portugal. If you are a Catholic, it was a big deal. If you are not, odds are you stuff that event in the Weird Closet of your mind with other anomalies like aliens and ghosts and Chris Angel Mindfreak. The closet is locked. There is nothing in there you need, so basically, all those things don’t exist.

Mary appeared during a time of political and social upheaval. It was in May, 1917, during the Great War (WWI), shortly before the Spanish flu epidemic, which killed millions of people. Women were fighting hard for suffrage (the right to vote). It was the era of the Model T automobile, and humans were building the first flying machines. Controversial Pentecostal denominations, with their miraculous manifestations, were spreading around the world.

Most notably was the return of Lenin to the post-Tsarist chaos in Russia. The Germans sent him there in a sealed train in April, 1917, about a month before Mary appeared in Portugal. Throughout the year, Russia teetered between western ideas of democracy and socialism. Lenin and Marx were the catalysts introducing a new, secular, ideologically-driven oppression. In 1917, you could almost hear the wheels of history groaning and turning.

For an expanded explanation of the general message of Fatima, click here. Below is a sample.

“Our Lady indicated to us the specific root of all the troubles of the world, the one that causes world wars and such terrible suffering: sin. She then gave a solution, first to individuals, then to the Church’s leaders. God asks each one of us to stop offending Him. We must pray, especially the Rosary. By this frequent prayer of the Rosary, we can get the graces we need to overcome sin. God wants us have devotion to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and to work to spread this devotion throughout the world. Our Lady said, ‘My Immaculate Heart will be your refuge and a way that will lead you to God.’ If we wish to go to God, we have a sure way to Him through true devotion to the Immaculate Heart of His Mother.

When Sister Lucy asked Our Lord as to why He would not convert Russia without the solemn public consecration of that nation specifically, Jesus answered, ‘Because I want my whole Church to acknowledge that consecration as a triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, so that it may extend its homage later on, and put the devotion to This Immaculate Heart beside the devotion to My Sacred Heart.’”

If this consecration of Russia were not performed by the pope and the bishops, the errors of Russia would spread throughout all the world. There would be wars, plagues, misery, and death.

Of course the visitations were confirmed with miraculous weather phenomena, a spinning, dancing sun, healings, etc. For extra protection from the wiles of satan, Mary wanted people to wear the brown scapular, a sacramental picture pendant which she had miraculously delivered to a previous visionary. The faithful were commanded to pray the rosary daily, make sacrifices for the salvation of souls and reparations for offenses against Jesus and Mary.

So reading carefully what is stated above, while Marx and Lenin were ambitious to spread the message of Communism throughout the world, Mary wanted devotion to her Immaculate Heart to spread throughout the world. And Jesus is setting her Immaculate Heart right next to his as receptor of devotion and a dispenser of protection and grace. Mary then becomes a doorway to God equal to Jesus. So what in thunderation is Mary’s Immaculate Heart?

A good Catholic explanation can be found here. Basically it does not mean that Mary’s conception was of a miraculous nature, but that she was immediately delivered by the Father from the curse of original sin, a doctrine promoted by St. Augustine. So while other humans are born sinful and separated from God, Mary was never in that state, or was only there for a split second.

Now, if God wanted to do that miracle with Mary, fine. He is God, He can do anything He wants. If Jesus wants us to love His mother, I say why not? She must have been pretty special. However, there are two troublesome aspects to that dogma. One is that it is Catholic Tradition; it is not in the Bible. And here is one of the major divisions between Catholics and Protestants. Catholicism has no objection to establishing major theological streams that come from visions, revelations, papal proclamations, and extra-biblical documents. If the Pope finalizes it with a special encyclical, it becomes firm Catholic belief. Protestants fought back with the concept of sola scriptura. If it aint in the Bible, it aint so.

The other worrisome problem is that it sets Mary up to be a goddess. Catholics deny that, but if you stop and think what Mary became in the 20^th century, (and I will elaborate on that in another post), she is truly like the fourth member of the Godhead. The doctrine of the Immaculate Heart was dividing even Catholics at one point. It had no chance of being accepted by Protestants. Why would God fight one of the most pernicious ideologies of the 20^th century with a doctrine that isolates the battle to Roman Catholics, and that has nothing to do with the Person of Jesus Christ, our true Messiah?

Our Lady of Fatima is one ambitious entity! The whole idea was so shocking that the Catholic Hierarchy waffled for decades. They were commanded to open a letter from Mary in 1960, and they couldn’t even bring themselves to do that. In 1942, Pop Pius XII dedicated the whole world to Mary’s Immaculate Heart. The whole dedication can be found here. It doesn’t mention Russia. Below are a couple of the verses.

Queen of the Holy Rosary, Help of the Christians, Refuge of the human race, Conqueress of God’s battlefields, To You and Your Immaculate Heart In this tragic hour of human history We entrust and consecrate ourselves, And the Holy Church.

She [the Church] is the mystical Body of Your Jesus, Suffering and bleeding in so many parts And tormented in so many ways, We consecrate to You the whole world torn by bitter strife And consumed by the fire of hatred, The victim of its own wickedness . . .

. . . All of humanity were once consecrated to the heart of Your Son. All our hopes rest in Him, Who is in all times Sign and pledge of victory and salvation. Forever we consecrate ourselves to You And to Your Immaculate Heart, O Mary, Queen of the World.

How is that not a goddess? I don’t want to bash Catholicism in this blog, because Catholics worship Jesus. I was raised Catholic. It kept me out of all kinds of trouble when I was young. But Mother Mary makes me really nervous. In Part III, I want to turn to a particular document from ancient Sumer that reminds me of what is happening with Marian apparitions in the 20^th century.

Learning from "Learning from the Light"

2011-11-29T15:15:00.000-08:00

In my first post about John Lerma, a review of his book Into the Light, I expressed my discomfort about the long, guru-like monologues that all of his stories relayed. All of the dying patients, no matter who they were or how old they were, sounded like a Lerma lecture. They all called him Dr. Lerma, using his name frequently. Never Doc, or Doctor, or John. They never have meltdowns. In this second book, published in 2009, I got the same squeamish feeling, even when he described the death of his own father.

When Lerma writes, “Dad said the angels told him…” or some other patient says the same thing, it almost becomes “ex-cathedra” dogma, as if Moses or the Pope said it. Who can argue with the angels? It certainly puts Dr. Lerma into the position of an authoritative, sacred scribe transmitting End Times truth. That is if you believe it all.

Dr. Lerma, who was raised Catholic, has worked many years in hospice care in Houston and San Antonio, TX, so I have to assume that at least half of what he wrote is based on real events and people. Many of the incidents are classic PDE and NDE fare, so there is no reason to question or doubt all of what is described. There are some persistent Lerma themes that come through the “angels” in the second book. One is the pre-birth covenant in which people agree to suffer and die to aid the enlightenment of mankind and the salvation of souls. Another is the need for self-forgiveness and self love (as opposed to forgiving and loving others, which of course he would also espouse). The angels apparently have a lot to say on self-forgiveness.

Then there is the theme, mentioned at least four times in the book, where our lower selves must discover our higher selves and the two must be united. That is what Jesus meant (in Lerma’s interpretation) wherever two or three of you are gathered together, I will be in the midst. The two are the higher and the lower self. I cannot begin to accept that New Age proposition as being so important to the angels of God, and I’m sure that that is not what Jesus meant when He talked about two or three being gathered together.

Toward the end of the book, there is another reference to Jesus Christ that takes Him out of the nebulous realm of New Age Christ-force Being of Energy and Light. Lerma tells the story of “Syriana,” a Lebanese girl whose family was bombed in their home during Ramadan. The mother, a sister, and the brother were instantly killed. The father and 15-year-old Syriana survived. But due to exposure to Plutonium shells, she, like many of her playmates, contracted cancer. That is what brought her to Lerma’s hospital and hospice care in Houston.

As her family paused at the gate of eternity, they told her that there was a secret about the One Truth that she would find within. This Truth is something that they had always heard was a lie. She promised them she would never stop looking for it. As a 12-year-old child she had met an entity that she knew as the Prophet Jesus. “He took me into Israel and spoke to me of the richness of the Islamic, Christian, and Jewish faiths.”

This entity continued to guide her in hospice care. At one point, Lerma asked her if she believed that Jesus was the Messiah. She still saw Him as a prophet at that point because He had never told her He was Messiah or the Son of God. She asked Lerma what he thought. He answered, “Syriana, honestly, I will never assume to know what Jesus is thinking or wants.”

Just before she died, Syriana saw Him at the foot of her bed.

“She looked at all of us with tears rolling down her face. ‘Don’t you see him?’ ‘See who?’ ‘Jesus. He said he is Jesus Christ who died for our sins. He was crucified and died for us, Dr. Lerma. Dr. Lerma, when he was washing my feet ever so gently and with a radiating sense of non-condemnation, I felt his wounds. When I looked up to look up at his wounds, I saw all of them. They were not bleeding. They had the whitest light I ever saw radiating from them. Before my daddy died, he told me he saw the light from his wounds as well. He is standing in front of all of us now. He is all white, and the angels, my family, and the other prophets are now singing to him. Oh my! He is God! The one God! My God! I’m so sorry, God! I’m so sorry!’” (p. 217)

Well, if that story is true, that certainly should close the book on who Jesus is. And if that doesn’t do it, the New Testament says the same thing.

However, there is a story about the UFO crash in Roswell, NM in 1947 that undermines the credibility of Lerma’s other stories. A Col. Marsh Bradfield wound up in his care as he died. Because death was imminent, he was ready to tell the story of his experience at Roswell, NM when the saucer crashed. He was stationed at Wright-Patterson AFB in Ohio, but he was visiting family on the 4^th of July. There were thunderstorms in the region. On the morning of July 5^th, Mac Brazel showed up at the Bradfield door to announce that something weird had occurred on his ranch. The two of them drove out to the crash site, arriving just and the Army did. There was time, however, to put some of the pieces together to get a better idea about the symbols. There was one symbol that they recognized. It was the German Iron Cross which was found on Nazi military vehicles and aircraft. The Army then began a disinformation campaign to convince the public that this vehicle, an experiment concocted by imported German scientists, was actually from another world.

I’ve been reading about Roswell for decades. I don’t recall anyone mentioning that such a symbol was found among the wreckage. Furthermore, the Army tried to make the public believe that this other-world incident was really a weather balloon. They’ve been trying to explain it away ever since 1947. I suspect that this tale is total BS, but just in case I know who to call on to check it out. Stanton Friedman, a physicist, ufo researcher, and columnist for the Mutual UFO Network would know of this situation if it ever existed.

In the meantime, there is so much in Lerma’s books that I want to believe. I really would love to pass this book out to all my friends and family as a definitive commentary alongside the Bible as a guide to what the afterlife is really all about. But I keep recognizing things that one would find in books about our quantum universe, remote viewing, ufo contactee lore in which our DNA is evolving to a higher consciousness, things I heard from Don Ware when I wrote the Gulf Breeze Six story, thing from Robert Monroe, things from New Age and reincarnation stories. It’s quite a spiritual, consciousness-raising casserole.

Yet, how could someone who is trying to make the world a better place make this stuff up? Wouldn’t you reap a karmacopia of bad energy? When all is said and done, I don’t know what to think about Dr. John Lerma. I do know I won’t be giving his books to friends for Christmas.

Here is Dr. Friedman's quick response:

Janet:

As the nuclear physicist who began the civilian investigation of the Roswell incident in the 1970s and who found many key witnesses, I can place no credence in the notion of supposed Nazi UFO with the Iron Cross.Anybody can listen to 27 first hand witnesses to Roswell (almost all now deceased) on a DVD "Recollections of Roswell" noted at my website www.stantonfriedman.com Not the slightest hint of such nonsense. If the Germans had had technology to place such a craft in New Mexico with the materials that have been described such as in my "Crash at Corona", why didn't they use such vehicles during WW2?. The supposed Nazi connections with Roswell as described in the frequently erroneous book "Area 51" by Annie Jacobsen are not at all supported by evidence either.

Stan Friedman

Thank you Dr. Friedman!!!

Apparitions of Mary, Part I, Medjugorje

2011-11-22T15:53:00.000-08:00

Sources: Wayne Weible, Medjugorje the Message and Medjugorje the Mission. www.medjugorje.com. http://www.unknowncountry.com/journal/white-house-says-were-alone-so-whats-going#ixzz1dKiU8thpv

The quote below from Whitley Strieber’s recent journal is not added here to suggest that Mary is an alien (nor to deny it) but to suggest that apparitions of Mary are part of our strange paranormal/spiritual/miraculous universe. They should not be ignored.

“Everyone involved in these denials [of ufo and abduction phenomena] is an oppressor of the human spirit, and as life on earth becomes more and more difficult, their presence in leadership is going to become harder and harder for people to bear until, in the end, there will be an explosion against it, and whatever is known behind the scenes will finally be revealed. I would not be surprised if it involves a secretive ET presence here. But I would also not be surprised if it turns out that ET is NOT here, and that the origin of the strange phenomena that we see all around us is very much stranger.”

Why investigate Mary?

I want to look at the phenomenon from all sides, pro and con, but first I want to emphasize that these events, which have taken place since the sixteenth century, are Earth shaking, global, and, for better or worse, paranormal/spiritual in nature. I do not believe for a second that they are hoaxes.

Furthermore, it’s very easy for everyone on Earth who is not a Catholic to compartmentalize away these apparitions and just pretend they never happened. Don’t read about them. Don’t think about them. We do that with things that are beyond all possibility of comprehension. Understanding the Mary phenom, or at least noting its influential and mysterious existence, is important. And I have to admit that with all my study, I don’t have all the answers. I only have lots of questions.

Whole books have been written about all of the apparitions. Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico swept thousands of Native Mexican Indians into the Catholic Church and also rebuked the hubris and vanity of the oppressive church officials from Europe. After reading the story, I stomped around for an hour telling God that if He didn’t arrange that situation, He should have. It was something that the Earth was crying out for. It was a huge slap in the face to all that was going wrong in the European culture and the Catholic Church.

A rather ecumenical Mary

In this post, however, I want to address the most recent apparitions which began in the Croatian city of Medjugorje. In 1981, Mary and the infant Jesus appeared on Podbrdo Hill to several teens of the rural village. Six of them became regular visionaries. Word spread quickly, changing the city’s destiny, and later appearance, forever.

Mary’s messages were fairly simple. Pray, pray, pray. Pray the rosary, pray at home with your your kids, pray for peace. Prayer and fasting can stop wars and suspend laws of nature. The way to conversion is through prayer, fasting, and penance. Confess your sins. Give yourselves wholly to God, to Jesus her son, and to her Immaculate Heart and her message.

She seemed to know that bloody, tragic war was on the horizon and had a plan to mitigate it or stop it altogether. But of course, her nemesis Satan was always on the prowl and was trying to thwart her plan, so that aspect of her plan was not successful. From the Balkans to the Soviet Union to the Middle East, war was lurking at the gates and hasn’t ceased even today.

She had some things to say that I found really surprising. (I use the word “she” with a grain of salt because in the spirit realm, what you see is not always what you get.) She verified that she cannot heal. Only God heals. People should pray to Jesus rather than to her. Hell is only for people who are exceeding wicked and really don’t want anything to do with God. Their rejection of Him is total. Most people go to Purgatory. Many are released from there on All Saints Day or on Christmas. Some people in Purgatory who pray a lot are allowed to communicate with the living.

To get to heaven, just live a simple and good life. No one has to do great penance or have a great amount of faith. (She didn’t say you have to be Catholic.) Every home should have one sacred object. Homes should be blessed regularly. (Any Christian who studies ufos or alien abduction could understand why ‘she’ might encourage that.) Respect all religions. Not all are equal, but “people of all religions are accepted by her son.” Basically, religions are similar. This is a crucial statement in a region where Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and Muslims kill each other on a regular basis (See Medjugorje the Message, Chapter 7).

The end of the world as we know it?

She also seemed to hinting at a future apocalypse of some kind. She had 10 secrets to give to the 6 visionaries. The first ones were personal. The 7^th was quickly done away with through prayer and penance of the people. The last 3 were serious global judgments would occur close together. They could not be prayed away, but could be lessened. Each visionary was to select a priest to share these last secrets with when the time came for them to occur. I assume that the purpose of the sharing is to verify that the event is God’s prophesied judgment rather than just a natural occurrence. As the secrets come to pass, people of the earth will have to convert quickly or perish. It sounds as if more will die than be left alive.

Medjugorje and today’s charismatic movement

There were miracles. Silver rosary chains would turn to gold, sometimes while in the pocket, sometimes while the rosary was being used. The sun would dance and spin as it did in Fatima; people would be miraculously converted; some were healed of dread conditions; the ethnically diverse and scrappy city quit growing tobacco as a main crop; ethnic clashes diminished; people called into Mary's service would sometimes hear a gentle, guiding voice that corrected them like a mother corrects a child; obstructive difficulties were dealt with in miraculous ways.

Many of the priests favoring the Medjugorje apparitions are charismatic, believing in the gifts mentioned in the Bible such as healing, prophecy, speaking in tongues. They are full of the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, etc. So the Medjugorje tree has produced lots of good spiritual fruit. Many Catholics have been renewed in their faith and are living better lives.

Silver chains turning to gold is not much different than some very convincing Evangelical claims that gold crowns appear in the mouths of the needy. Gold dust appears on this speaker, that one finds manna in his Bible, feathers fall from the ceiling and gems are found on the floor. And of course, there are exorcisms and healings in the Pentecostal world. Everyone agrees that the greatest miracle is when lives are changed. Forgiveness replaces hatred, violence turns to peace. These things happen all across Christendom.

The nagging concerns

I would rather cut my hand off than speak a word against something that God really approved of. I would feel awful if I dismissed this whole affair as satanic, then got to heaven and found out that in my narrow, doctrinaire viewpoint I had trashed an important work of the Holy Spirit on Earth. After all, Mary made it clear that she cannot just make her own plans. She cooperates with the will of God.

But there are questions. Nagging concerns. Biblical passages to look at. Connections with Fatima. The Part II post will deal with those concerns, but gently, because the Medjugorje apparitions have born much good fruit and have not belabored the people with a load of dogma and superstition.

Part III will deal with the apparitions of Bayside, New York. When we get there, stand back. I have no hesitation as to what to say about that event.

Some Awful Facts About Dieting

2011-11-01T22:50:00.000-07:00

I am not a nutrition expert, so I do not guarantee the accuracy of what is written below.

For the past several years I have been trying to deal with the weight I’ve gained since the mid-90’s when I was an aging seminary student. As a result, I’ve read bits and pieces here and there about the science of eating, weight gain, and dieting. It’s a grim pursuit. There is nothing but bad news to report, with the exception that early in the morning there are lots of slender elderly ladies exercise-walking at the local mall. Of course, it’s the light weight ones with white hair who are still walking in their seventies and eighties. The heavy ones are using walkers.

So, what do I think I have learned?

Well, people who carry their weight lower down need a low-fat diet and people with all that dangerous toxic fat around the middle need a low-carb diet. So sez Dr. Oz.

The expert lady on the car radio said that when you lose a lot of weight, your metabolism slows down. We all knew that, but what I didn’t know is that it slows down forever. For the rest of your life. The more you yo-yo, the worse it gets. Once you get to the same weight as your friend who was never on a diet, you will have to eat less than him or her forever to maintain your weight loss.

And of course, you have to eat less as you age anyway, because the aging process turns muscle to fat. We all know that muscle burns more calories than fat. That’s why men use more calories than women. That and the fact that women have five times more fat cells than men. O yes and the fact that their fat cells are bigger. But what is fairly new in the you-don’t-want-to-hear-this department is that fat cells, when they sense a consistent negative calorie input, fight back with enzymes that tell you that you are hungry and you need to eat eat eat.

If you eat until you are full and you stretch your stomach, your stomach sends a famine message to your body to store what you ate as fat.

If you try try try to eat less and you get hungry and your stomach starts to growl, your body makes an enzyme called grehlyn (sp?) which tells your metabolism to store what fuel there is as fat.

If you go to bed a little calorie starved because you don’t want to sleep on those carbs, your liver will make up for it by shooting stored carbs into your system while you sleep. That produces insulin just as if ate a jelly donut. Insulin produces fat.

If you go more than 5 hours without eating anything, your liver produces the fuel, which produces the insulin, which calls for fat storage.

If you are stressed, even about your struggle to lose weight, your body produces cortisol, which sends the message to your metabolism to store fat around the waist. So quit stressing about your flippin’ weight!!

The gurus used to tell us that it’s all about calories, so just make a simple adjustment on your diet and do everything else the same. The negative calories will add up and you’ll start to lose weight. Simple math. But it’s not simple math. Your body is not a computer. It’s an organic, responding, changing, morphing, pouting, adjusting, subversive chemistry factory that knows that famine is coming and the Huns are at the gates and you need all your fat cells to bring the hay into the barn. Your body doesn’t know about your bridge club and your Facebook account.

Furthermore, all those fat cells are a toxic waste dump. They store nasty, gooey things that mayhap will be released into your body if you do manage to shrink them a little.

So what’s the solution?

Quit dieting. Change the way you think about food. Change the way you eat, but make it a life change and not a diet, so make it be something you can live with forever. Don’t be thinking you only have to survive it for 3 weeks.

Lose the weight slowly. Firmly explain to your body you are not dieting and hope it believes you.

Don’t give up sweets and goodies altogether, but seriously reduce carb and sugar spikes. Don’t wait until you are 50 years old and are becoming insulin resistant to start that habit.

Eat breakfast, but make it a complex carbohydrate rather than the jelly donut.

Eat more often, but make it be less than a meal.

Put the cookies and cake in the freezer. Eat salad for dinner. Eat your heavy meal in the middle of the day. Go for the fiber. Even if you are young.

Don’t give up all carbs. Just eat less of them. Eat more protein. Have a protein shake.

Have a piece of meat or cheese before you go to bed.

Take a vitamin with iodine in it. Your thyroid needs iodine.

Drink a couple glasses of ice water each day.

Be a little more physically active. (Yeah, right. Easy to say.)

Last of all, have a happy life-change. I hope you are better at following all of this great advice than I am.

A Short Note to My International Readers

2011-10-31T13:22:00.000-07:00

First, you are much appreciated.

Perhaps some of you can read English, but feel that writing or speaking it is too difficult. I understand totally. If you speak French, Spanish, or German, you can comment on these posts in any of those 3 languages. I can't speak them, but I can read them and translate them (using a good dictionary) and can craft a basic response. This blog has readers in many different countries such as the Philippines, Germany, Canada, England, Belgium, Argentina, Sweden, Norway, and many other countries. It would be interesting and fun to hear from some of you in the 'comment' section. It would also be very encouraging (I hope). You can sign up as a follower or to receive email alerts.

Posts that I am working on for the near future:

I want to explore the appearances of the Virgin Mary in Medjugorje and in Bayside, New York. That will be a compare-contrast message with an evaluation. I am also working on how the ancient legends of the Annunaki and Igigi gods really fit into UFO lore (as well as how they don't). I will also address whether UFO 'scholars' should be dragging Adam and Eve into the conversation.

Biblical Creation: Six 24-Hour Days?

2011-10-15T22:43:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine sparked this post by sending me a flyer which advertises educational material published by an organization called Answers in Genesis. They offer seminars, DVDs, books, and have built a Creation Museum. My evangelical friends and I will never agree on the amount of time God spent in creating our beautiful and breathtaking earth, but one thing we have in common is that God’s hand was in all of it. For many reasons, I cannot accept a literal six-day creation. Here is just a few of them. (I tried hard to keep it as short as possible.)

When Genesis 1 and 2 were written down, probably in the tenth century (although we really don’t know when), Hebrew was already a newish language, emerging from Canaanite, Eblaite, and Sumerian, and the Israelites were emerging as a coherent people and state unto themselves. Genesis 2 describes an era in history that was not only pre-Hebrew, it was pre-Sumer. It was pre-historic, pre-writing, pre-walled cities. Adam and Eve wouldn’t have spoken Hebrew. If indeed they were real historical characters, they weren’t Jewish. There was no Jewish.

Nor were they cave people or hunter-gatherers. They lived in the Age of Copper (c. 4000 BCE), when smelting, pottery, animal husbandry, irrigation, and agriculture were still relatively new and exciting innovations. Although serpents and dragons are sometimes depicted on the pottery that has survived since early times, there are no T-Rexes or brontosaurs. There is a vivid carving of a man being killed by a lion, but not one of a child being eaten by a raptor. There are hundreds of species of dinosaurs all over the globe. There are no human or mammal bones in the same fossil layers, nor cave drawings of a stegosaurus.

But there were cave people and hunter-gatherers before there was animal husbandry and agriculture. And Cain, banished from his own family unit, was afraid of being killed by a different and primitive ethnic group that would not recognize who he was.

Now let’s look at the 3 major creation stories in the Bible and compare/contrast them. I’m going to say something shocking here, but bear with me until I can explain. Everyone says, “But Genesis 1 is God’s holy word. How can you deny the authority of God?” Here’s the thing. Genesis 1, isolated from all other Bible Scripture is not God’s word. My finger is not me. A broken egg, some flour and sugar is not a muffin. God’s mind is revealed in all of the Bible taken together, and understood within the historical context out of which it all came.

A skill in understanding the languages of the Bible doesn’t hurt. The thing that is so miraculous about this debate is that so many are so expert about so much that they know so little about.

First let’s look at Genesis 1 versus Genesis 2. I first studied Hebrew at the kitchen table of a dear Rabbi in Lexington, Kentucky. After a year, Rabbi Schwab challenged me to start reading and translating from Genesis 1:1 and see how far I could get. He sat and listened as I read to chapter 4 or 5. But as I read, something dawned on me. The names of God changed from chapter to chapter. I had always argued emphatically that the scholars who claimed that there were several different documents in the early chapters of Genesis were irresponsible evil-doers who didn’t care if they destroyed people’s faith.

At one point, I quit reading and said aloud, “The scholars were right. There are three documents here.” Now I realize that the real evil, or rather tragedy, is the lack of diligent study among evangelicals conjoined with a vociferous certainty that the Bible is easy to understand and it’s the scholars and scientists who don’t get it.

So, in Genesis 1:1 to 2:3, God’s name is always Elohim. The phrase “heaven and earth” are always in that order. Genesis 2:4 is a bridge verse between what came before and what came next. In 4a the name is still Elohim, and heaven still comes before earth, but the concept of “the generations of” is introduced. In 4b, the name changes to Yahweh Elohim, and earth is placed before heavens. Although there are significant differences between the two passages, the author is tying them together without trying to reconcile all the statements. That is because each passage has a theological point to make, and each is considered sacred in its own right.

Genesis 1 is very exalted in tone, very organized, and poetic. Genesis 2 is more of a narrative that is almost casual about the order of creation.

In Genesis 1, the land, sea, sun, stars, trees, etc. were all in place when Elohim created man and woman. In Genesis 2, God created mankind first, because there was no need for herbs, rain, or plants if there was no one to till the soil. So mankind was created to be a tiller of the soil. The harbinger of his creation was a mist rising out of the ground to water it. God was making the ground tillable for the planter-to-be. The time-frame is difficult to picture because the progression of what really came first or second in this passage or how long it took isn’t that important. What is important is that after God made the man, he planted a garden with no reference as to how long it took to do so. He didn’t “create” the garden or “form” it, he “planted” it. That could take some time.

In Genesis 1, the man and the woman were “created” on the same afternoon. All of the land species, including dinosaurs I presume, all of the insects, the ecosystems that work together and are dependent on each other, were all swept into existence out of nothing. In Genesis 2, the man is “formed” from the mud of the newly watered and viable earth. He is alone long enough to study the behavior of animals and realize that he is unique in being one of a kind. He is alone long enough for God to declare that he needs a mate.

In Genesis 2 Adam is put into the Garden twice. In v. 8 God “puts” the man whom he had formed into the Garden. In v. 15 he “settles” the man in the Garden to till it and keep it. In between, the entire Tigris-Euphrates Valley with the two rivers and mineral resources has been described. Adam has to learn about all the flora and fauna of his environment. This could take some time. Finally Eve is “formed” (not created) from his rib.

The third part of the creation story is in Psalm 104. This psalm has a different agenda, but is clearly tied to Genesis 1. Unlike Genesis 1, however, mankind, beasts, and created environment are all rolled together, mutually supportive and all acknowledging the sustaining power of the Creator.

And that is the important message of these three inspired creation narratives. Psalm 104 ties it all together with God’s benevolent care over all creatures being the central theme. God dwells IN his creation, he sees it all, he made it all to work together. If we come away with that message, we will do well. If we carp over inerrant portions of this or that, we actually dilute the whole point and drag the Judeo-Christian reputation into a slough of scientific absurdities.

The Gulf Breeze Sightings, Part 6, The Ouija Predicts the Coming of the Anti-Christ (And Other Disasters)

2011-10-08T22:26:00.000-07:00

In the last blog post, I wrote about Vance Davis’s dream of confronting Satan in a webby, spooky cave. The dialogue between the two was like something out of a George Lucas film:

I felt a strength and resolve come over me that I had never felt in real life. I created a glowing ball of white energy in my right hand and threw it at this being. It hit him squarely in the chest and tossed him across the room. He ricocheted off the wall and hit the floor. The energy had clearly stunned and hurt him, but he rose to his feet.

“They have allowed your training and powers to come to earth with you, Old One,” he growled, “But it is not enough. Now it is time to die!”

Red balls and white flew back and forth until Satan was about to deliver the fatal coup de gras. Suddenly the Jesus entity appears and Vance is delivered by wielding his name.

There are various possibilities as to the source of this dialogue. Vance may have written it himself, or it may have come from God to arm him with his best weapon against dark forces, or it may have come from the Enemy to pump up Vance’s ego and prepare him to view himself in later years as a chosen, End Times warrior. Later, when entities claiming to represent heavenly forces speak through the Ouija, Vance can look back and think, yes, I was chosen for this moment even from my youth. Now it all makes sense.

And thrown into the mystic casserole are notions of the pre-existence of the soul, the age-old war in the heavens (a very biblical concept), and warrior spirits that incarnate to join The Last Battle. If Vance really didn’t make up this dream script himself, it’s quite an ego booster. It seems a little odd that if Vance has incarnated for that battle that the Apostle Paul, the 4 Gospel writers, and Timothy are left incarnate, to talk to a group of young, theologically untrained, spiritually naïve cryptographers through a Ouija Board.

Channeling and Disaster Predictions

Almost every nationally known channeler or fortune teller begins their enterprise by making some exceedingly accurate predictions. Jean Dixon predicted JFK’s assassination. It did no good, of course, because no one listened. But she hit enough bull’s eyes to garner national attention. In the end she became hyper-mystical, and her predictions became less accurate. She predicted that a comet would hit the earth in 1985, which didn’t happen.

Edgar Cayce predicted that Japan would sink into the sea and Atlantis would arise, and the poles would shift. One thing that every abductee researcher notices is that aliens manipulate their contactees with predictions of horror. Ninety-four percent of all humans will be eaten. There will be a nuclear war by such and such a date. Earthquakes, floods, alien invasion… you need us. Without us you will not survive.

The entities of the Board knew how to gain Vance’s attention and possibly that of government administrators. They predicted an earthquake in Iran in which over 300,000 would be killed. It happened. They predicted a terrorist bomb in New York (the first World Trade Bldg bombing, the Gulf War, the break up of the Soviet Union, the unification of Germany, and the European Union, all of which happened. They warned of danger to a shuttle mission, which may have saved it from exploding.

These are the kinds of nuggets that the CIA eats for breakfast. Presidents thrive on it. The channeler of such tidbits becomes an overnight celebrity. The entities actually know the future and seemed willing to share it with us for our benefit. They were the good guys, the ones we could work with and count on.

What lies ahead? What lies!

It’s really hard not to get sucked into a drama like that. Do I think the Gulf Breeze Six were dumb to believe the entities of the Board? Not at all. The spirits knew everything about all of those young people. They knew their past, their future, what to say, which buttons to push. They supported their cause with signs and wonders. They were really good at what they did.

Some predictions were exaggerated. For instance, when they were told to go AWOL, they wanted to go to California. Safire vetoed that because in 1996 there would be an earthquake in Los Angeles measuring 14.6 (if the scale went that high, which it doesn’t). Seattle? Nope. There would be earthquakes there and then Mt. Rainier would blow between ’93 and ‘95. East coast? Nope. Earthquakes there. New York would suffer a bad one, destroying a portion of the city (p. 113).

None of those events came to pass. In 1994 southern California had the North Ridge quake, which was registered as 6.7/6.9. Because the quake occurred at 4:30 a.m., only fifty-seven people died. Many more would have been killed had it happened later. It was a terrible event, with billions in damage, but it’s what California does. It doesn’t mitigate any damage to lose sleep because of a half-baked, unverifiable prediction.

Other predictions: THE US STOCK MARKET WOULD CRASH. IT WILL RISE TO 4000 BEFORE THE EVENT. MARTIAL LAW DECLARED IN ALL MAJOR CITIES LIKE NEW YORK, LOS ANGELES, CHCAGO, PUTTSBURGH, ETC. GOVERNMENT CLOSES BORDERS WITH CANADA AND MEXICO. U.S. AIR SPACE RESTRICTED. 1 AIRLINER SHOT DOWN, 302 PEOPLE LOST. A MAN WILL DECLARE HIMSELF TO BE MESSIAH IN 1998. Etc.

The poles will shift, 50 scientists will go missing, special people will emerge around the world to teach truth by 2000. The seven thunders of the Bible will be revealed. The New World Order will be the new religion. Upheavals of the earth near Florida would reveal lost cities. Bible treasures would be found [like the ark of the covenant perhaps?]. A meteorite will hit the Pacific Ocean by 2005, causing significant damage and flooding (They didn’t mention Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans nor the 2004 9.1 off Sumatra.)

Anti-Christ on the Horizon

The most compelling prediction, besides that they had to leave Germany because a bloody war would soon break out between Europe and the U.S., was that the Anti-Christ would arise in Europe, start a new religion, and establish the New World Order. The Six were all chosen to be warriors in this End Times scenario.

A final letter was dictated from the heavenly messengers. Each one took turns adding something. Just a taste of what was said:

From Mark, “If you listen to this letter…you who claim to be of Christ our Lord…then you will harken unto these words that follow…then leave all and search for the elect and their followers as they are of Gods chosen leaders…”

From Simon Peter, “This is but the last warning from us that teaches of Christ without bloodshed…the elect were chosen…but volunteered when the world was new…follow those that are humble in spirit but ferocious in Christs words…You of the world listen carefully…the time is now to wake up your spirits and heed the warning…I am the last to speak to you ever…now the elect take over the mission of the apostles…God speed.”

From John, “And it was said in the end that a great shout would be heard around the land…then all would see the trembling of the great king of whore…then from the back cometh a great cry of the chosen of God and the mighty warriors led by them….from the earth cometh the elect to render the great king a murderous heart toward the one called Jesus…” etc.

And so, goaded by pleas allegedly from on high, the intrepid group made their plans. With the help and encouragement of sweet Mary and the boys from the Bible, they headed off to Atlanta and the rest of their lives.

I can’t hardly blame them, considering who they were and what they knew. They were trying to do the right thing. They just fell into a really slick, well-played demonic scam. Nothing useful will ever come through a Ouija Board. What really would have helped the Twin Towers and the city of New Orleans is if the people in power had gotten off their ignorant, self-interested behinds and listened to the experts who were predicting those disasters based on solid information. Neither disaster had to happen.

Blog Entry: The Gulf Breeze Sightings, Vance Davis’s Wonky Dream

2011-10-05T20:47:00.000-07:00

At the end of my last blog post, I promised to deal with the issue of the predictions from the Ouija Board entities, and I still promise to bring that up next post. We will also analyze the value of channeled information, whether it is through an animistic object like the Ouija or whether it comes through an individual in a trance. However, for this post I want to describe a significant and wonky dream that Vance had when he was about 16.

First, some clarifications, taken from Davis’s book Unbroken Promises, 1994.

The Six came to the U.S. because a variety of entities, speaking through the OB and telepathically through Vance, told them to. The first of them, the apparent moderator of the board entities, was a deceased woman named Safire (Velda in her earth life). [Note: just because I report the facts as related by others doesn’t mean I believe what the entities are claiming. In fact, I don’t.] Others were biblical characters: Zacharias from the Old Testament; the four Gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; Paul the Apostle and his protégé Timothy; and not least of all Mary the Mother of Jesus. “Mary” managed to touch Annette’s heart and break down all resistance to her going AWOL with her two boys.

They did not come to Gulf Breeze to assassinate the Anti-Christ, meet Jesus in a space ship, or speak to Ed Walters. The only connection between Walters and Davis is that Anna Foster’s daughter, Lotus (“Kathy” in The Gulf Breeze Sightings), spent several days with “Frances Hanson, wife of Ed Walters” and Laura, their daughter, after the Six were arrested. Lotus and Anna also spent some time at the police station in handcuffs, but were released. Once the Six eluded an Army tracker at the Atlanta airport, they headed for Gulf Breeze because Ken Beason wanted to develop a relationship with Anna Foster.

The Six did come home due to an elaborate apocalyptic End Times scenario presented to them by the OB entities. The Anti-Christ would arise in Europe soon. There was an assertion that there would soon be a bloody war between the U.S. and Europe, which is why it was imperative that the Six leave Augsburg soon. There would be a Middle Eastern Gulf War, the Soviet Union would dissolve, there would be an earthquake in Iran, over 300,000 killed. Global warming would result in weather disasters, there would be riots in the cities, martial law, terrorist attacks, a false Rapture, etc. The gloom was unrelenting, but the Six were Christ’s own holy warriors whose job it was to awaken the sleeping masses and prepare them for the upheavals to come. There were just enough true predictions and signs and wonders to convince them all to take the leap. Without the messages from the OB, they would never have contemplated such an action.

As stated, I will deal specifically with the predictions in my next post.

After 5 of the 6 were arrested, Annette Eccleston and her two boys were found at a local campsite where the eight were staying for a while. They were first taken to Fort Benning, Georgia. It didn’t take long for political pressure to weigh in favor of releasing the Six. They were even given the option of staying in their old jobs in the Army. They all declined. Two went their separate ways. Vance and Anna’s roommate, Diana, immediately fell in love and later married. Ken and Anna did the same. Ultimately the relationship between Ken and Vance would sour. Vance continued with his speaking engagements. He and Diana moved to Albuquerque, NM.

It’s quite possible that the weird events in Gulf Breeze from ’87 to ’90 created an atmosphere where President George Bush, Senator Dole, and others in power could forgive the young, ardent psychic warriors, however misadvised they felt they were. Another possibility is that the Gulf War was planned, but hadn’t started yet. Who wants that to come out in a media circus psychic court martial?

A Silva Mind Control Seminar Opens the Elevator Door

When Vance Davis was a teenager, he was allowed to attend a Silva Mind Control seminar. They taught him to hypnotize himself and to build a safe home space with multiple rooms and an elevator. When one wanted advice or direction, they were to mentally call a guide, then picture an elevator coming down to the home space. Out will step a guide. [Kids, don’t try this at home!] When Vance tried it, it worked. He had some nice conversations with “Sigmund Freud” about being a nerdy, insecure teenager. One day a lovely alien named Kia stepped out of the elevator, the very Kia who became his guide of choice, the Kia who was leading an armada of aliens to earth to help the Alliance (the good guys) fight The Others (the bad aliens). Vance didn’t know it at the time, but what he was developing an aptitude for in these exercises was remote viewing techniques.

One of the things that Kia helped Vance do is to create a medical “lab” in his psi home space. There she proceeded to heal and re-form his inward-turned feet. This change in his real, physical body happened overnight.

Vance Confronts one Devil of a Boogey Man

Vance was about 16 when that happened. That same year he had a very significant dream. He found himself in a huge cavern where two teams were playing. He was coach of one of them. It wasn’t exactly a game; the stakes were serious, losing was unthinkable. Suddenly one of his players seemed to fall into a hole and disappear. He sent in another. That one vanished. Then another. Soon he would run out of players. He turned around and saw one of the most charming women he had ever seen. Before he could collect himself, she ran into the game and vanished also. There was only one thing to do. Run in after them and see if he could figure out what happened to them. So Vance ran onto the field and tumbled down the same hole.

It was a cobwebby cave with bread ovens full of charred corpses. A LIFE magazine lay on the floor. It was dated Jan. 17, 1964, 9 months before he was born. “On the cover was a picture of Pope Paul VI kissing the rock at the Chapel of Primacy at the Sea of Galilee” where Jesus allegedly gave Peter charge over the founding of His church. [Mind you, Vance was not a Catholic and knew almost nothing about the Bible. I would be shocked if he knew anything at all about Paul VI.]

The lovely lady he saw on the bench was tied to a stalactite. He untied her, but she quickly vanished. Vance hears a voice, turns to see an exquisite, perfect man with blond hair and a white suit. He said, “Come join me, Vance, for your power and strength could serve me well.” Then he tempted Vance with all the worldly wealth and goods that he offered Jesus in Matthew 4 of the Bible.

Vance sensed that something wasn’t right. He asked Mr. Perfect, “Who is Lord?” Answer, “I am.” Vance, “In Jesus’ name, show thy true self, Satan!” Suddenly Vance knew he was in the presence of pure evil. He was given Satan’s true name [satan simply means ‘adversary.’] The entity threatened Vance with death if he did not submit. He said, “You chose to follow Jesus during the War in Heaven, and helped to cause my defeat. Now you have come back to overthrow my power here on Earth.”

Vance answered with what almost sounded like another voice, calm and strong. “I have chosen my path and it’s not with you.” Wow, he realized that he himself just said that. The beast was enraged. They lobbed balls of energy at each other. Satan was winning.

“Ask for me, my brother,” whispered a new voice. “I will help, but you must ask.” Vance used the last of his energy to scream, “In the name of Jesus, get me out of here, Please!” Suddenly he awoke to see his mother comforting him.

This dream undoubtedly had components in it that were way beyond what Vance would know to do or say. It’s so biblical and orthodox in content, it’s almost corny. Do I believe it? I do. In the lives of the Gulf Breeze Six, the tale that they all proclaim is true is as whacky as anything you will find in science fiction.

In the dream Vance defeated the enemy, who may be looming on the horizon of history, in a face to face confrontation. When he got to Germany, he picked up the planchette of a Ouija Board, against the better judgment of several of the group. In part 6, we will ask the question of whether or not that same entity, Satan, came in the back door, clothed in saintly garb, using the religious, Christian sentiments of the group to send them on a wild goose chase.

The Gulf Breeze Sightings, Part 4, The Gulf Breeze Six

2011-09-23T23:22:00.000-07:00

Sources for the material below: Ed and Frances Walters, UFO Abductions in Gulf Breeze; Vance Davis, Unbroken Promises; email exchanges with Don Ware; http://www.philipcoppens.com/gulfbreeze6.html ; http://www.umf.net/umf/data/text/MANU.TXT ;

http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=18268 ; http://xdell.blogspot.com/2010_10_01_archive.html ;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88fMHr5WmEo&feature=autoplay&list=PL62FC7DF8B14EDD7E&lf=results_video&playnext=1 (This is a 12-part interview on Youtube in which Art Bell interviews Vance Davis and Richard Hoagland on Sept. 2, 1998.

A group of young cryptologists working at a listening post for the National Security Agency in Augsburg, Germany; alleged New Testament entities communicating through a Ouija Board; desertion of post; love triangles; rumors about the Anti-christ; Naval Intelligence in Gulf Breeze; UFO’s, and perhaps the end of the world. It’s all there in the story of the Gulf Breeze 6!

The first book by Ed and Frances Walters (see previous posts) dealt with the beginning of the UFO flap in Gulf Breeze and the controversy inflamed there by Ed’s photos.

In their second book, hypnotic regression reveals that Ed has been an abductee since his childhood. He also elaborates upon the skeptical challenges to his story and the debunker dirty tricks that occupied most of 1990. The third book by Ed Walters and Bruce Maccabee, UFOS Are Real: Here’s the Proof, reviews old stories, but adds new sightings, photos, and stories of videos that go on through 1995. Unfortunately, in this book, Ed reveals that he and Frances split. Ed married a woman who did investigations for MUFON. I will mention who Fran married at the end of this post.

One of the many gripping stories in UFO Abductions involved 6 young cryptographers, 5 men and 1 woman, working in Augsburg, Germany, for the NAS under the 701^st Military Intelligence Brigade. These 6 had extremely high security clearances and were privy to highly sensitive information.

Vance Davis, 26, learned self-hypnosis at a Silva Mind Control seminar as a teenager. This practice opened the door to an entity named Kia who claimed to be from another planet. She and the last of her kind had come to earth in 5 ships to help the Alliance save mankind from themselves and from “the Others.” She was the Commander and became Davis’s guide. Davis believes that it was his subsequent telepathic abilities that caused the NSA to pull him out of the military and give him an NSA security clearance.

Two things allegedly rattled the group. One was that they learned things in their profession about UFO’s and the government and the government within the government that have never been fully revealed. The other world shaker for them began when they started to use a Ouija Board in 1989.

An entity named Safire came through it that made many startling predictions for the U.S. Other entities that came through claimed to be biblical characters that immediately resonated with the Christians in the group, including Vance Davis. The prophet Zechariah, Timothy, Mark, and Mary, mother of Jesus all allegedly had things to say. “Mary” had many theological answers for Sgt. Annette Eccleston. For example, she wished that Catholics would quit making graven images of her. They should worship only the Father. All of these entities acknowledged that Jesus Christ was the one and only Lord in the universe, which made Vance Davis more comfortable with their presence and their messages.

The 6 took copious notes on these messages, totaling over 1500 pages. “Safire” told them to abandon their post and go hide out in the U.S. She assured them that all would be well in spite of the fact that desertion of a post in a time of war could result in a very long prison sentence.

The group managed to land in Chattanooga, Tennessee in July, 1990. The exact date is disputable, but on July 9, one of them was stopped for a broken headlight. A check of Pfc. Michael Hueckstaedt’s I.D. indicated that he was wanted for desertion. The authorities arrested him and quickly found 4 of the 6 at the home of Anna Foster. (Heuckstaedt swears that he did not tell them where to find them.) It turned out that Spc. Kenneth Beason had known her when he was in training at Curtiss Station in Pensacola, and he was in love with her. She was a divorcee with a daughter who happened to be best friends with Laura, daughter of Ed and Frances.

Anna had a roommate named Diana. When Vance Davis met her, he recognized her from a vision of his soul mate that he had had years before. They soon became enamored. The 6 had been told to leave town before Friday, pick up supplies in Texas, head for the mountain states to continue their spiritual advancement, and prepare for what was to come. Love caused them to linger.

Anna and “Kathy” were put in handcuffs along with the men, but the local police talked the FBI into removing the handcuffs and letting them go. “Kathy” spent the night with the Walters.

Annette Eccleston was rounded up at her sister’s house, and all were spirited off to Fort Knox (Benning?). There they were kept in dusty old cages in solitary confinement. They could not call anyone. They all felt that they were going to disappear and not be heard from again. They turned their copious notes over to the authorities and pleaded for the predictions to be given to the president. One important prediction was that in 1998 a false messiah would arise. The year was 3 times his number, 666. [Osama bin Laden?] Another prediction was that Israel should not enter into the Gulf War or there would be terrible consequences. Israel did refrain from getting involved.

Meanwhile speculation created a media circus. There were tales that they came to murder the Anti-christ, that they wanted to talk to Ed Walters, that they belonged to a cult called The End of the World, that they just wanted to see their families because they were tired of the military, that they came home because of messages from a Ouija Board. Some of it was true, some false, but what was actually true sounded so crazy that it was impossible to separate the rumors from facts. Davis assured Art Bell in 1998 that there was no End of the World cult, and they did not come to assassinate the Anti-christ.

On July 23, a letter arrived at various media stations from an anonymous source claiming that if the 6 were not released that some extremely sensitive information would be released to the public. "Free the Gulf Breeze Six. We have the missing files, the box of 500+ UFO photos and the plans you want back." [My own private speculation about that material is that it had something to do with the planning for the beginning of the Gulf War and the fact that “Safire” confirmed that the U.S. was “in cahoots” with the aliens.]

Davis claimed in that interview that the tide turned for them due to family pressure and the fact that a CNN camera man climbed a security fence at Ft. Benning, Georgia and took pictures of them. Also, a Colonel in charge of The Army Times was told to not publish anything about the 6, but he did anyway. So on Aug. 7, the story was outed, and so was the blackmail letter.

In the end, Senator Dole, George Bush, Sr., and the Joint Chiefs of Staff all agreed that the 6 should be released with full military honors. Some powerful personalities objected enough that the 6 were fully demoted and had pay deducted. Military and intelligence insiders were stunned that deserters with high clearances would be released like that. That same month, the 6 were released from prison and from the military. Their release is one of the ongoing mysteries associated with the story of the Gulf Breeze Six.

Beason eventually married Anna Foster. Frances Walters married Anna’s ex-husband. Ed married his new love, Marsha Athey. The Gulf Breeze story ended for Ed around 1995, but only after he actually videotaped his own physical abduction. Unfortunately, the aliens erased the tape.

The Ouija Board entities made some startling hits with their predictions. But there were major misses as well. Some of those predictions can be found in the links listed above. Davis’s book has been shipped to me and is in the mail. In Part 5, I will discuss those hits and misses.

The Gulf Breeze Sightings, Part 3, The Illusion of Absolute Reality

2011-09-20T16:29:00.000-07:00

As the controversy rages on about whether abducting aliens are “space brothers” here to raise our consciousness or whether they are exploitative predators, one aspect of abduction that recurs in many hypnotic regression sessions is the ability of aliens to create hallucinations that are so realistic that the savviest of abductees cannot tell what is real and what is illusion.

In the first book by Ed and Frances Walters (The Gulf Breeze Sightings), Ed mentioned that twice the aliens, in their initial contacts, sent him a series of visions in his head. The first was of all kinds of dogs. Later it was naked women, all ages, races, and shapes.

During the regression years with hypnotist Dr. Dan Overlade, (as described in the second book by Ed and Frances, UFO Abductions in Gulf Breeze), Ed recalled their last attempt on May 1, 1988 to drag him onto the craft. Although he called them out and challenged them to take him, when they showed up, he put up a prodigious fight. They quickly sent him a vision of his daughter choking on a table on the craft. That sent Ed into a tizzy of fatherly protection. He went willing onto the craft to be with his daughter, but it was soon clear that she wasn’t really there. It was a ruse. He was told that she was safe at home.

Those were just a few of the many visions Ed was shown. There were other memories, however, that went way beyond the vision level of mental manipulation.

Two events which were brought out under hypnosis are especially significant. The first was that Ed was shown short moving clips of what were obviously supposed to be past lives. These were not images that he watched. He actually seemed to relive them. In the first was a black soldier in the old west, tired, angry, desperately thirsty, scratched by thick brush, dying. In the second he was a half breed trapper full of bitterness. In the third, he was an Indian boy watching his village burn because of a plague. He, too, had signs of the plague. Each scene was designed to elicit strong human emotions. They were brought about by a female alien stroking his forehead. The alleged purpose was to pass these memories and emotions on to the infant aliens that had been brought into the room. (Chapter 11)

Ed was smart enough to suspect that the above sensations may represent real past life memories, but they may also have been illusions. He made no judgment about them, and I personally think he was wise to withhold an opinion as to how real they were. They certainly felt real.

The other scenario reminded me of the holodeck on Star Trek, which had a safety setting that could be released for a more challenging experience. Ed found himself in a hallway, which was again recalled by regression. A red light flashed, indicating the beginning of the new scenario. There were two crying children that he had to protect and three giant lizard creatures lumbering after them. Suddenly the hallway ended. There were two containers, big enough for one person. One person had to be sacrificed. Ed chose to save the kids. But, of course, just as the great and horrible jaws were about to crunch down on Ed’s mid-section, a blue light came on and shut down the whole experience. (Chapter 10)

A headset was placed on Ed’s head. He was made to relive many highly emotional experiences in his life. There were funny ones, but others showed grief, pride, love, and joy. He had to relive them over and over until each little “infant” alien had received those images. It was very much like the life review described in classic NDE experiences. Those images, however, are for the purpose of life reflection for the benefit of the individual whose time has not yet come. Ed’s emotions and life images were being exploited for the benefit of the aliens.

It reminded me of a very old Star Trek show in which the Enterprise visits a planet that has been quarantined by the Federation of Planets because it is too dangerous. The danger was that the inhabitants could create realities so perfect and convincing that no one could tell that they were living in an illusion. The handsome captain of the ship (not James Kirk) was in a wheel chair due to an accident. There was a gorgeous human woman on the planet who wooed this captain. On the planet, he was whole and healthy. It turned out that it was all an illusion. The human woman was really horribly scarred from a fire, but the aliens there were looking for a mate for her. Once the ruse was exposed, the disabled captain decided to stay on the planet and live the illusion because it was so lifelike and better than his real life.

I can think of other things I’ve read in recent years in which illusions are created as a test. Robert Monroe’s books are full of such illusions. He was made to think that he himself was really an alien who had a strong urge to return home. But when he got there, he sensed that what he was seeing was a lovely, looping scenario. Suddenly, as he realized this, the cover was pulled away and he saw the mechanical process and the entities that were creating it. It was like a computer program, only more like a holodeck.

Rather than admitting that he had been snookered, his reaction was simply to say that he couldn’t go home again because there was nothing new there. He had outgrown his home. This is like a biologist being presented with a deep lake but commenting only on the top 3 inches of it.

I recall reading about a remote viewer who was trying to wake up from an OBE. It took five waking, four of them false, to finally be in the real world. Each false awakening was so vivid and real that he could not tell that he wasn’t really awake. Something in the experience wasn’t right, so that clued him that he had to keep trying to come back to the world of flesh and blood. Until that last awakening, he was virtually in a coma.

The aliens that abducted Ed slowly got their alleged agenda across to him. The human race and the present alien race are both declining. A new hybrid race is needed. But the new little beings can’t produce their own emotions so they need to experience ours in order to learn.

Of course, that may also be an illusion. There is a video of the late UFO researcher Karla Turner on the web. She is giving a speech at a MUFON symposium. In it she describes a woman being shown an infant. Suddenly the infant is thrown into a blender. The aliens says, “Oh, don’t worry. It wasn’t really alive anyway. And we won’t waste the living tissue.”

Karla Turner’s books are available on the web. They are well worth reading! They show without any doubt that some of the warm fuzzy memories that abductees often recall in regression are actually screen memories covering up a rape or a horrible humiliation. If perchance there are aliens out there who are our friendly space brothers, and I personally doubt that, just as many are as mean and exploitative as any human devil roaming this planet. But, like us, they can be cunning liars and deceivers.

Next blog post: Part 4, the Gulf Breeze Six and marriage trouble for the Walters.

The Gulf Breeze Sightings, Part 2, Ed Just Loves Attention

2011-09-12T22:33:00.000-07:00

Sources: The Gulf Breeze Sightings, Ed and Frances Walters; http://paul.rutgers.edu/~mcgrew/ufo/don.allen/gulf-breeze2; http://www.freewebs.com/donware/; http://www.ufocasebook.com/gulfbreeze.html; http://ricksblog.biz/gulf-breeze-ufo-hoax/; http://ufos.about.com/od/visualproofphotosvideo/p/gulfbreeze.htm; http://uforn.bravehost.com/copyright.html; http://j_kidd.tripod.com/b/203.html; http://www.history.com/videos/gulf-breeze-florida#gulf-breeze-florida; http://www.ufoera.com/articles/report-on-the-reopening-of-the-walters-ufo-case_1190311230.html

Also, snippets of videos which I can no longer find, and several emails between myself and Don Ware, the MUFON State Director for Florida at the time. He and several other Field Investigators researched the Gulf Breeze case as soon as Ed Walters decided to take his story to the public.

Just when MUFON thought it had found the gold standard of UFO events in the Gulf Breeze, FL sightings of ’87 to ’88, the case began to unravel in a horrendous way. The site that best conveys an overview of the 1990 developments is http://www.ufocasebook.com/gulfbreeze.html.

The press had a tendency to camp out at the Walters’ home in Gulf Breeze, so they decided to move. It was an ominous sign that three times Ed thwarted people going through his garbage. His house laid empty for almost a year before it sold. At some point a reporter (from the Pensacola Journal?) came to the door with a TV camera in tow. The reporter was allegedly looking for the Walters, but since they had moved on, the new resident, a middle-aged man, was asked if any photos or mementos of the Gulf Breeze sightings had been found in the house. The answer was no. Were there any models of the UFO left behind. Why yes. It just so happened that 3 months previous, the new owner was trying to turn off the water to fix a refrigerator, so he was moving insulation in the attic and found a model of the Gulf Breeze UFO. It was made of pie plates and pieces of Ed’s architectural drawings. The reporter asked if he could have the model. The owner reckoned it would be OK. The story was headlines in the Pensacola Journal.

It was an explosive charge. When I saw this charge on the youtube segments, I thought, “No way! What kind of dummy would leave that behind?” In fact, Ed made the same claim. “Only a fool would leave that kind of evidence behind.” Furthermore, it turned out that the model was made from drawings of a failed house deal from two years after the Gulf Breeze sightings. Considering that it was a newspaper competing with the Sentinel that broke the story, that Ed’s home was long vacant, and that the date of the model material suggested planted evidence, the Walters rode out the first storm with relative ease.

Rick Outzer, a columnist for the PJ, was always dead certain that the Walters were hoaxers. Of course, it’s easy to say that Ed is a genius and knew how to double expose his little old camera, especially if one ignores all the other photos and videos, the claims of others that saw ‘Bubba,’ the investigations and interviews done by the MUFON investigators, and the claim of Duane Cook, editor of the Sentinel, that he was filming Ed when Ed took one of the photos. Cook actually stood by as the photo came out of the camera.

For some reason, Ed Walters was the lightning rod for the debunkers. Destroy Ed’s credibility and Bubba will just disappear like a bad dream, like it never happened, like there were no other witnesses or sightings.

But Cook was not the only one who claimed to be beside Ed as he took a photo. I recently tracked down Don Ware, the MUFON State Director for FL at the time. In an email he wrote: “I saw the lighted objects near Gulf Breeze seven times myself, often while standing beside Ed as he photographed them, once with a diffraction grating on his camera. That time it changed from the red phase to the white phase while slowly moving away, appearing the same size to my eye in both phases. Yet the Polaroid image in the white phase was 15 times the diameter of the red phase image. This shows that the object was ionizing a volume of air around it that changed between the red and white phases.”

In June of 1990, a week after the PJ story, a second challenge arose. A teenager named Tommy Smith claimed that he watched Ed hoax the photos, using the model, by double exposing them. One of the documentaries shows Tommy recreating the procedure. It looked a lot like what Bruce Maccabee described in the appendix of the book, which had been published that March. What gave the charge additional credibility is that his parents backed up the claim.

I asked Don Ware if he thought Tommy was part of a plot, if a lot of money had perhaps changed hands. After all, there is the issue of other photos from people who had no connection to Ed Walters. And why would a clever hoaxer show his work to some random teenager and use the boy to send the phony photos to the newspaper? That is about as logical as Ed leaving his one and only model in the attic. Don wrote that he thought Tommy had taken his own photos of the UFO but didn’t want to admit it to his dad. He and his dad had issues. The dad never changed his story in supporting Tommy.

I don’t know if Don’s suggestion comes from an interview with Tommy or if he is just speculating. Tommy’s story sounded real enough to shake up the whole community. BUT, to believe Tommy is to ignore a mountain of other evidence supporting the reality of the sightings.

Tommy’s claim caused MUFON to send out a Florida couple to review the photos. Much had been made of the fact that an independent lab would neither affirm the photos as genuine or fake. What slips through the cracks about that is the fact that the lab stated before examining the photos that they would be able to spot a double exposed photo, but lacking evidence of a hoax, they would not be able to affirm that the photos were real.

Rex and Carol Salisberry reproduced a detailed report, found at http://www.ufoera.com/articles/report-on-the-reopening-of-the-walters-ufo-case_1190311230.html, which called into question photo number 19, the ufo on the road. From there they extrapolated that all of the photos were hoaxed. The report is full of mathematical charts and graphs. Almost no one reading it would understand it.

That wasn’t the end of it. I found a website, included above, that claimed that Ed invented the first two people to send photos anonymously to the Sentinel were inventions of Ed and that Ed actually took the photos. He tried to prove it by examining copyright laws. I asked Don if he knew who Believer Bill was. He answered, “I think 'Believer Bill' was actually R. G. [I am withholding the full name]. R--- demonstrated mysterious powers, and he was associated telepathically with the UFO occupants. He was also a participant in our monthly MUFON/Truthseeker meetings.”

This post is way too long, so I will close here with a quote from another MUFON investigator:

“It should be noted that statistically speaking, there are now on record over 50 sightings of UFO activity in the Gulf Breeze area that have no connection to the noted photographer Ed. There are now on record five photographers of UFO’s only one of which has not been in direct contact with MUFON investigators. There is now reported to be a second video tape of a moving and hovering UFO; the photographer is in no way related to Ed. And, there are over 100 witnesses of sightings who have asked to file reports, with some accounts involving five and six witnesses.” (See bravehost above, Bob Oeschler)

Addendum: Here are Don Ware's comments regarding the above information: Dear Janet, Thanks for your informative Part 2 on The Golf Breeze Sightings. I have two comments;

Ed's reason for moving, as told to me by Ed, was because Frances wanted more garage space to keep her antique cars. I don't think that "media attention" was a factor in his move from the Silverthorne home. At that time he was not getting much media attention, except from his friend Duane Cook, Editor of the Gulf Breeze Sentinel, who lived a few blocks away. The new house had a three-car garage and a three-car carport. Aliens continued to show their vehicles to him at both of those homes. When he moved again to the north shore of Pensacola Beach, across the sound from Shoreline Park where the nightly sky watches occurred, they let him photograph their vehicles in full daylight below eye level in his back yard, twice. Bland Pugh, MUFON SD, took a picture of one while with Ed in the front yard of that home. I think it is the same 8-ft-diameter unmanned vehicle Ed photographed by his pool in the back yard. Bland's photo showed a 2-ft-dia red light on the bottom.

You said the Tommy "caused MUFON to review the photos." That was a lie told to other UFO photographers by Rex Salisbury. [This is a really important point. John Schuessler, ID, stood by the Walters story.] When Rex worked his way into a SSD position and decided to show his true colors as a debunker, he chose to "reinvestigate" cases of other photographers of the UFO's. No other Pensacola/Gulf Breeze MUFON board member knew he was doing that until the doctor complained.

Best Wishes, Don Ware, Former MUFON FI, SSD, SD, and Region 1 Director.

PS: My file on Northwest Florida MUFON Case #15, Ed Walters is nine inches thick.

Thanks to Don for those comments. Don also thinks that Rex Salisberry was a CIA plant to debunk UFO sightings. He had a CIA source/friend who told him it was entirely possible and feasible. Don's personal website is listed above.

I just recieved Ed Walters other book in the mail UFO Abductions in Gulf Breeze. At some point in the near future I will blog about that as well.

The Gulf Breeze Sightings, Part 1, "Zeehass, Step Forward."

2011-09-08T18:38:00.000-07:00

Also, snippets of videos which I can no longer find, and several emails between myself and Don Ware, the MUFON State Director for Florida at the time. He and two other Field Investigators researched the Gulf Breeze case as soon as Ed Walters decided to take his story to the public.

Walter Andrus, state director of MUFON studied the case for three years. His conclusions were: “The overwhelming evidence is in. Gulf Breeze is indeed one of the most incredible cases in modern UFO history.”

I couldn’t agree more. As I re-read the book, viewed the photos, and considered the people who were drawn into the investigation, I thought, “This is a slam dunk. Stunningly documented and convincing.” But that was in ’87 and ’88. In 1990, the cry of hoax arose in Gulf Breeze that still divides the community today. I was totally shocked as I perused the events of 1990 on the web. However, as I peeled back the layers of accusation, I discovered some interesting developments and statements that you may never have heard.

The First UFO Intrusions

Since there are so many summaries of the book on the blogosphere today, I’ll try to point out what I thought was extra interesting as I recap the original story. Ed and Fran Walters had spent time in Costa Rica as a kind of life adventure, so he knew a little Spanish. That is important because Ed’s alien stalkers and some of their abductees seem to speak Spanish with South American slang. He quickly developed a telepathic connection with the ship and its occupants.

They first appeared on his personal radar on Nov. 11, 1989. He was in his home office, working on a construction project, when he saw something strange out the window. He ran out with his old Polaroid camera and snapped a picture of it as it played peek-a-boo behind a pine tree.

It was as big as the houses and three times as high. It had portholes. It hit him with a paralyzing blue light that almost lifted him into the craft. When he mentally resisted, they assured him that they would not hurt him. They told him to calm down and tried to assist in getting him to cooperate by flashing visions of dogs in his head. He thinks that a small plane flying by in the vicinity saved him from being abducted, but when he got back to the house, he smelled like ammonia and cinnamon.

The UFO stalked Ed and his family for about 7 months, at least in the book. They wanted him on their craft for tests. On the second encounter, they showed him naked women and tempted him with a female voice assuring him that they hadn’t been hurt, they were going home now, and that he couldn’t resist them forever. In that one ploy there were 4 clever psychological applications. A) Come on board to see naked women. B) We didn’t hurt them, although we have the power to. They are going home now, and so will you. C) Resistance is futile. We always get our way. D) We can smite you with paralyzing blue beams, but we can also stalk you telepathically.

What did they want?

What they seemed to want most from Ed was his capitulation. They plagued him with visits to his back yard, commands to step forward, commands to not take pictures while they practically posed in his back yard, etc. They assured him he was in danger and they only wanted to help. They gave him a nickname, Zeehass. Someone suggested that it was the Spanish word for eyebrows, cejas. They just wanted to do a few simple tests. Nothing harmful. No reason to resist.

But Ed did resist over the months. His wife seemed to have some weird and unusual capacity to shield him from total vulnerability to their plans. Ed took over 40 pictures in those months. He alerted the press and the Mutual UFO Network. At first he pretended the messages were from Mr. X, but eventually everyone in town figured it out.

The Gulf Breeze crafts were also essentially thumbing their noses (if they have any) at the 3 Naval bases in the region. You want mind control, secret experiments, and psychological ops? Hey, look what we can do, and you can’t stop us! Don’t think for a millisecond that the Navy wasn’t interested in the taunting UFO’s.

Friends and supporters

Ed wasn’t the only one seeing UFOs on the Gulf coast during the winter of ’87 to ’88. An anonymous observer named Believer Bill and another named Jane also took photos that were published in the Sentinel. Many reports, photos, and videos began to flow in. So many people saw the UFOs that the town named it Bubba. Duane Cook, editor of the Sentinel, was with Ed when he took one of his photos. Duane actually pulled the photo from the camera. Unsolved Mysteries TV documentary turned up about 170 other witnesses. Some saw alien creatures as Ed did, 6 reported blue beams, 9 reported missing time (p. 347).

MUFON showed up with three investigators, all of whom were supportive of Ed’s case. The State Director Don Ware coordinated the activities of seven local MUFON investigators. They handed the photos to physicist and UFO researcher Bruce Maccabee, who could find no fault with the photos. An outside lab investigated them. Abductee researcher Budd Hopkins helped Ed realize that he may have been an abductee in his youth. A special Nimslo 3-D camera and a stereo camera using 2 Polaroid 600 LMS’s helped produce the 41 images by Ed. Last but not least, Ed passed two lie detectors.

Ed finally caves

On May 1, 1988, Ed Walters gave it up. His daughter was asleep. His wife was out of town. He went out the park and called to the pesky aliens to take him and get it over with. They did.

There was a white flash in his head. Then he awoke about 2:25 a.m. on the sand several feet away from where he knew he had been. His head pounded and he was dizzy. His hands reeked so badly that it made him sick. Back at home he had to wrap them to block the stench. He spent the rest of the night beside his daughter’s bedroom door to make sure she was OK. Around daybreak he fell into bed and slept until noon.

Ed wrote in his book that as he combed his hair, he noticed a bruise at the back of his neck. Puzzled, he went to the mirror. “A large bruise, with a red dot in the center, was prominent between my eyes right at the bridge of my nose. Two more similar red marks were centered on my temples, surrounded by a bruise. I was shocked. What the hell had they done to me?”

The six-figure book deal brings howls of protest

Wherever MUFON goes, the debunkers and skeptics follow. They are on all the talk shows, they write articles and blogs, and they do esoteric research to prove the falseness of every claim. Gulf Breeze was no exception. When the TV documentaries appeared, it was clear to the debunkers that Ed was just a bright, creative attention-seeker. When the book deal was signed, that was proof that it was all about money. This development surprises no one.

However, when I began to google the web to find a follow-up on the Walters, I was shocked at the howls of foul that arose in 1990. Even MUFON began to have doubts.

To be continued: Amazing accusations, and Don Ware’s unpublished perspective.

“Lay Hands On Her and Pray That She’ll Have a Seizure”

2011-09-04T20:15:00.000-07:00

Today, while our regular senior pastor and most of the congregation frolicked at Lake Rollins family camp, Pastor Mike Marczak preached to a small contingent of regulars who did not attend camp. He shared a personal story.

A woman he knew developed a brain tumor and began to have seizures. It shut down her life because she couldn’t be alone or drive. To get a better diagnosis, her doctors put her into a program in which she was monitored in a hospital 8 hours a day for 5 days. She was hooked up to machines that would be able to pinpoint just where the seizures were located. The catch was that she had to have a strong seizure for the diagnosis to work.

The woman entered the program, but only had tiny seizures. On day 4, Suzanne Marczak and another woman from our church stayed with her all day for moral support. On day 5, Mike himself spent the day with her. He said they had a good time laughing and crying and telling stories, but at the end of the day, the expensive treatment had not produced the needed diagnosis.

Pastor Mike put the problem to the Lord. The nurses had asked him to leave. The program was over. It hadn’t worked.

Suddenly Mike heard a clear command from God. “Lay hands on her and pray that she will have a seizure.”

Huh? Not that she’ll be healed?? But Mike approached his friend and said, “If you will permit me, I’m going to pray the weirdest prayer I’ve ever prayed.” He laid a hand on her head and said, “Lord, let her have the biggest, baddest seizure that she’s ever had.” As he withdrew his hand, the woman’s lip began to quiver. Her eyes rolled back. She went grand mal. Alarms buzzed, bells rang, medical personnel came running.

All of this was on video. Furthermore, there was a microphone hanging down right over the bed, so the chaos was preserved for medical posterity. What made the record even more compelling is that 12 other patients in the ward, 6 on one direction of the ward and 6 on the other, all had grand mal seizures at the same time. And there were only 5 medical personnel to deal with it!

The Jim He Should Have Been

2011-09-02T22:29:00.000-07:00

I had such an interesting dream about my deceased brother this morning. Jim died at age 50 from cirrhosis of the liver (alcoholism) in 1994.

My mom, my brother, and my dad were all very technical people with little interest in philosophical reflection. Mom was an occupational health nurse (one that works for a corporation), dad was an airline pilot (he died in a UAL crash in 1951 when we were 5 and 6), and Jim was always interested in electronics. My dad was somewhat spiritual and philosophical, but we were just too young to really know him. My mom had her moments of trying to figure out why things in life work out as they do, but mostly she was all about her career.

We were raised Catholic, but only in the shallowest sense. It was better than no religious training at all, but it didn’t stick. By college, I was an agnostic.

Early on, Jim found some great employment in electronics in the San Francisco Bay Area’s Silicon Valley. He had security clearances, traveled to military-industrial installations, and made some very interesting friends. He always wanted to be a spy and work for the CIA. He applied late in his life. They told him he had the mental acumen, but there was that little problem of the alcohol. He never married. Never finished college. He died a pretty much a failure, having lived a very sad life. He lost his friends, his jobs, his dreams, and his self esteem.

So my dream this morning was about Jim Appleby super-spy. He was showing off that he was a physical marvel and could do feats of climbing, strength, and balance. He even had his equipment pack with him that he would take on his new deployment. My physically unfit, sedentary brother could never do those things in real life.

So we sat down next to each other to chat. I talked a little about how he had a mathematical mind (I am the opposite), but that it really takes determination and focus to make it all work. He was sitting on my right with his left arm resting on the arm of the stuffed chair. I laid my right hand on top of his (something I’d have never done in our real lives) and said something like, “Jim, things are so different here. How is all this happening? What made the difference?”

In other words, in the dream, Jim was the Jim he coulda/shoulda/would have been but for some psychological wound or problem in his youth that was never addressed and thus never healed. All the teachers, friends, and neighbors saw trouble coming. They knew Jim needed help. My mom totally denied it. Had she seen it, she’d have had no idea what to do about it. If raised in another family, Jim might have been an entirely different person. He might have been the person in my dream.

I came close to being like the real Jim. I was a psychological mess in High School. I never drank, but I could never see a future for myself. I had no idea who I was or which way to go in life. I was psychologically depressed for many years after I became a Christian at the age of 20. It took years to find a career. But slowly, my fractured personality came together and my inner wounds healed. My life has surpassed my own dreams in some ways. I have two great kids, a wonderful husband, a home, wonderful in-laws, good friends, health, and a Ph.D.

Had I been raised in another family, I might have started my present journey 25 years earlier. But that’s OK. I'm content with how things have developed. I ask myself, “How did things turn out this way? What made the difference?” For me, the difference was the transformative power of walking with God. It’s not just about church or religion, but a day by day relationship with Jesus Christ.

Coming soon: The Gulf Breeze Sightings. You may have read the book and seen the photos, but have you heard the rest of the story?

The Battle for MUFON, Part 4, The Firings and Resignations

2011-08-23T20:43:00.000-07:00

This information is taken largely from interviews recently conducted on Jerry Pippen’s www.ufoshows2go/mufon_under_seige.htm.

“We looked around and the bodies were lying everywhere. We looked at each other and said, Well I’ll be damned.” And so, the troupe of newly and summarily fired started a group called The Committee to Reform Mufon. (From Elaine Douglass, founder of the group)

In the early months of 2011 a surprising number of MUFON State Directors, Field Investigators, and Assistant State Directors were either dismissed, urged to resign, or resigned in protest. Two of the biggest names, Ken Cherry (former State Director of TX) and James Carrion (former International Director), had already left. Several members left with Cherry, but once they were gone, things stabilized. For a while. Then the investigations began, but they didn’t follow the kind of logic that would leave a sense of closure.

Stunning Arrogance

Chase Kloetzke, Star Team Manager under Clifford Clift (not the troubled STIP program), was becoming increasingly dissatisfied with the ego-centric management style of Marie Malzahn, which focused on the image of the organization rather than on its needs. Chase had had questions as to why there were “phony” GPS coordinates on the CMS website, why the third party sharing clause was still on the report form, and why cases were being deleted from the CMS reporting site.

But when her questions crossed a pet project of Deputy Director Chuck Modlin, although she won the debate, Chase got a dressing down that singed her eyebrows. Chuck called her at home and blistered her for half an hour, a call that was witnessed by two other people. He was shaking with anger and said things like, How dare you? Do you know who I am? I have shaken the hand of every president except Bill Clinton, and I didn’t shake his because I didn’t want to. I am the one who personally introduced MUFON to Mr. Bigelow. You don’t know who you are dealing with here, Chase. I am one of the original Star Team members long before Bigelow, long before STIP, long before Chase was around. I don’t need to fill out an application because I’ve been doing these cases for a long time. Know your place.

Malzahn, former colleague Chuck Reever, and Clift left Chase to deal with the wrath of Modlin alone.

Chase wondered, are the seven still active? Who are these people? Is this where our cases are going? When she asked Marie about it, she didn’t know. In spite of further inquiries, she got no further answers about the original seven Star Team members.

Meanwhile Jerry Pippin had his employees on the phone trying to figure out who Chuck Modlin was. He came on with MUFON about three and a half years ago, just about the time MUFON signed the contract with BAASS (Bigelow Aerospace Advanced Space Studies). He lives in Wisconsin, where his wife is State Director. Jerry wondered if Modlin lied about being around long before Bigelow. He muttered something about James Carrion’s suspicion that Modlin was a government insider.

Chase was devastated, but she recovered. When a call came in from Washington state about a possible landing, she and the Assistant STM and the regional STM secured the information quickly. Chase said that her phone began to ring off the hook. Modlin wanted the GPS coordinates of that case and he wanted them NOW. Chase refused. He was not authorized to have them.

Malzahn then called and told Chase that from now on, when a case like that comes in the first person she is to call is not the State Director or the Star Team people but Chuck Modlin. If he asks for information, she is to give it to him. Chase emailed and called Reever and Clift, but they did not respond. Malzahn would not answer her phone.

Chase knew that the Star Team program with its confidentiality and swift deployment was dead. The promise of integrity and respect which she made to the State Directors was dead. She knew she was through with MUFON. She wondered why Modlin wanted the coordinates. Is he selling them to a corporation? Does he still have a relationship with Bigelow?

The odd thing is, when she resigned, no one asked why. Clift later declared that he had no idea why. Chase wonders, why didn’t he just ask? Chase is now working for EPIC.

I Am Your Superior!

You don’t get two chances to snot off at James Clarkson, former State Director of Washington state. His career as a police investigator has taught him to spit nails and not be surprised by anything. However, after 25 years in MUFON, he was totally blindsided by his encounter with “Field Marshall Malzahn.”

He was proud of his recruits for MUFON. One was a pilot, one lady was a state employee, and a third man was doing great as he uncovered some black triangle sightings. One day the lady found herself locked out of the CMS system. The man found that he was completely dropped from the system altogether. Clarkson was perplexed. He made inquiries.

Board members sent him from person to person. Each said, it wasn’t me. Finally it came to talking to Marie Malzahn. He didn’t know much about her except that previously she had been the State Director of Idaho. She called him and asked if he could take over some Idaho investigations because she would be doing work for the Board. The next thing he knew, she was on the Board.

Clarkson was already developing an unease about the scuttlebutt around MUFON. Then Malzahn answered his email, explaining that she was his superior and didn’t have to explain anything that was decided by the Board. Stunned, Clarkson wondered where these people came from and how did they get on the Board so fast?

At that point, Clarkson and his whole team were ready to bale. He stated that he wouldn’t be talked to that way at work where he is paid for it, so why would he put up with it at MUFON where his services are free? He wrote a long explanation to Clift. Clift wrote back simply that if that’s what he felt he had to do, his resignation was accepted. More talent, commitment, and expertise went out the door to EPIC.

A Call for Reform

Elaine Douglass is the tiger you don’t want to grab by the tail. She’s not perfect. She erred when somehow last December she got the idea that her that her Assistant State Director, Marlee Spendlove, was recruiting interest in MUFON by passing around new “raw reports.” The simple solution proposed in an email by Douglass was to drop Spendlove from the distribution list. That was just a detail. The real question was, why was MUFON publishing “raw” reports when there were so many investigated reports available?

Although she got no responses to the latter question, reaction to the statement about Spendlove was immediate. She was immediately placed under investigation. Elaine quickly checked with Spendlove, who denied giving out any reports. Douglass wrote the Board and assured them that Spendlove was innocent. She herself had made an error.

Nevertheless, Spendlove was dismissed, even though no one from the Board had actually spoken to her. Douglass protested strongly. Douglass herself was then under investigation. During that time the Board contacted Spendlove, who once again denied passing around any new reports. The Board wrote to Douglass, “We have uncovered your wrongdoing.” Douglass was dismissed as State Director of Utah.

None of the SDs, FIs, and Assistants who were dismissed had a clue what was coming. The goal of the Committee to Reform MUFON was to get the Board to cease abusive practices and to allow a vote by members as to who would be on the Board. As it stands, the Board appoints whomever they choose. That is a more efficient way of doing business, but if the Board becomes corrupted in any way, as so many suspect, it is almost impossible to root out the problem people. For better or for worse, the Board of Directors virtually has MUFON by the balls.

EPIC-logue

Ken Cherry’s new organization, Extraordinary Phenomena Investigations Council, reaped the benefit of a large number of displaced investigators and leaders who had already demonstrated years of commitment to UFO investigations. Many MUFON members immediately joined. No one on the MUFON Board seems to be concerned.

There is an incredible irony buried in the Jerry Pippin interviews. Clift told Jerry in his interview that Douglass was dismissed because she was not truthful about her colleague, and if she could not be truthful about someone she worked with, what would she do in an investigation? The Board was concerned about the integrity of it all.

When Jerry heard Douglass’s account, he fired off an email to Clift asking if Clift is really calling Douglass a liar. Clift wrote back that he didn’t say she lied, she told an “untruth.” That means that Douglass erred. But in everyday American language, if you say that someone is not truthful, you are calling them a liar. If you mean that they erred, you should use that word, not “untruth.” Jerry found that amazing.

Has anyone noticed that in using the word “untruth” rather than “error” (especially on the radio!) that Clifford Clift, International Director of MUFON, told the same kind of “untruth” as did Elaine Douglass? Perhaps it's time someone should dismiss Clifford Clift.

So, my reader friend, I’m done beating up on MUFON. If the current State Directors don’t care what is going on with the Board of Directors, then I don’t either.

The Battle for MUFON, Part 3, The Disappearing Cases

2011-08-21T21:11:00.000-07:00

This information is taken largely from interviews recently posted on Jerry Pippin’s www.ufoshows2go.com/mufon_under_seige.htm.

If Clifton Clift, the International Director of MUFON after James Carrion resigned, thought that dismissing Ken Cherry (former State Director of TX) would settle the oncoming ruckus, he was wrong. Rattled by a pattern of unsettling and mystifying events, the insurrection continued.

In Chase Kloetzke’s interview (member since ’96), she described her thrill at being named Star Team Manager for MUFON. She promised her friend Elaine that if she couldn’t be honest and straightforward she would resign. She assured the State Directors that she would not by-pass them, steal cases, or bully their Field Investigators. That made everyone happy. Even after Cherry left, “they had every part of me that was good.” She had an impressive resume of service to the military to prove that she had expertise. Essentially, MUFON was on track.

She and Chuck Reever (former Dir of Investigations, now on the Board of Directors) wrote the Star Team manual, receiving praise from all who saw it. The Star Team Impact Project, paid for with Bigelow funds, was designed to get Investigators to an event site before the press or the curious could annoy the witnesses or muddy the evidence.

The problem was that Bigelow representatives would often get there first without notifying the State Directors and would sometimes discourage the witnesses from talking to MUFON people. Clift admitted that there was no protocol in the contract to deal with the tensions that arose from that situation.

Compromised Cases

Chase claimed that every investigation that she organized was compromised in some way. For instance, when a backyard UFO landing case came in from FL, Chase and Sandy G (Dispatcher) had 2 investigators on their way within 17 minutes. Arriving with a chemist, they interviewed the witness (a man in law enforcement) and took trace samples, sending them to unnamed labs. They had nailed it, and Chase was ecstatic.

Two days later, while the homeowner was away, two men were seen by a neighbor entering his backyard. They torched everything in it. Chase said that the location of the case site had to be compromised by one of 16 people who had access to the CMS reporting system. For this reason, confidentiality is crucial for MUFON to maintain the trust of witnesses.

A case in TX (Stevensville sightings?) was intended to be a training exercise. Before MUFON could get there, unknown persons arrived, took the witness information, and convinced them not to talk to MUFON. Who were the interlopers and how did they know where to go?

In a Georgia case, unknown persons got to the site first and took witness information. The witness was shocked when MUFON investigators showed up, because they thought the first people were from MUFON. Clift claimed that they were from Homeland Security. MUFON reps now carry badges and ID.

James Clarkson relates that during the contract era, there were two separate incidences in which his wife, who was a Field Investigator, was told by witnesses that field representatives of Bigelow got to them first and told them not to talk to MUFON.

Disappearing Cases and Unanswered Questions

Chase began to hear from Dispatchers and State Directors that critical cases were being deleted from the CMS. They would come in late at night, but by morning, they were gone. Elaine Douglass states that when L. G., Star Team Manager for a short time, asked Marie Malzahn about it, her answer was, don’t worry about it, those are probably just military security cases. Larry let it go.

When Chase asked the webmaster about why GPS info for cases was available to anyone on the website, he answered that the coordinates were incorrect. They were just random points within a zip code. Chase wondered, why are they there then if they are not accurate? She let it go.

Elaine Douglass told of a recent email from Morgan Beall to several Star Team people, written on Feb. 6 of this year. It states, “I have observed missing case numbers and bribery. Yes, that is right. I was bribed to hand over personal witness information by BAASS personnel while on the Star Team during the previous project. I was offered a money and a job by BAASS. I declined respectfully and moved on. I reported the incident.”

The Status Today

One might ask, why are they talking about past issues? Clift stated clearly in his interview that all relations with BAASS ended in 2010. However, Chase said something in her interview that would indicate otherwise. She hated the drama that ensued when Chuck Reever resigned and Marie Malzahn took over as Director of Investigations. Today, Marie is listed as the State Director of NV. Suddenly she was on the Board. The State Directors were perplexed as to how that happened to someone from a small state who had not been with MUFON that long.

Suddenly, according to Chase, there were secret agendas, egos, and future projects involving Bigelow and his money. There was horror and angst that James Carrion was going to make a public statement on the radio, that Elaine Douglass started a group called the Committee to Reform MUFON, that Ken Cherry was going to write a tell-all book with Jim Marrs. Chase’s reaction was, “Who cares?” We have 500 cases a month. Let’s just get working on them and it will all turn out OK. All of the above events took place this year.

Notice, “future projects with Bigelow and his money.”

There is one more suggestion in Elaine Douglass’s interview that the BAASS game is still afoot in MUFON. It is unverified but so shocking that I will simply encourage the reader to go to Part 3 of her interview and listen.

During the Clarkson interview, Larry Bryant emailed a wry quip, “Who woulda thunk that MUFON would be run like a corporation… a rico corporation.” A rico business is one that demonstrates a pattern of corruption. Larry later explained that he meant that some in MUFON may be trending toward that kind of behavior. OK, Larry has a strange sense of humor. He didn’t totally mean it. But is there a grain of truth in his tongue-in-cheek comment?

To be continued: Part 4: The Firings and Resignations. Why?

The Battle for MUFON, Part 2, The Contract

2011-08-18T23:27:00.000-07:00

The information below is from recent interviews by Jerry Pippen at www.ufoshows2go.com /mufon_under_siege.htm.

It changed MUFON. It generated mistrust, recriminations, secrecy, and bitter fights.

The contract between MUFON and Bigelow Aeronautic and Advanced Space Studies (BAASS) was signed in February 2009. Here is how the Committee to Reform MUFON described it in a March 2011 email to the members of MUFON:

“According to the contract, Bigelow is buying ‘the Seller's existing CMS database. . .and all other data,’ as well as ‘field investigative services and all information and material derived from those services, including but not limited to. . .physical evidence. . .photographs, film, data from detection devices. . .radar. . .satellite data, ground disturbance site information. . .electronic information, interview transcripts, any testimony, including recordings. . .as well as any other item that may be recovered from prior, present and future field investigations [of] MUFON.’”

In other words, with that 5-page contract, the present MUFON Board of Directors sold temporary access to the resources of the organization for $672,000, gave the key to BAASS, and said we will take all the risks and liability, and you can take whatever you want.

Elaine Douglass, founder of the Committee to Reform MUFON (CRM), was able to quote portions of the contract because it was sent to her by an anonymous supporter. She still does not know who sent it.

What was the purpose of the deal? MUFON needed the money while, according to Clift, BAASS wanted the technological advantage that might be gleaned from significant events. It could potentially save Bigelow millions of dollars in the end. Carrion felt at the time of signing that the confidentiality of the witnesses was protected because they could opt to not check the third party box on the report form.

The Deal Goes Sour

For a while all went well, but in time, things began to go seriously awry. This blogger is not going to intrude into the complex legal issues regarding the terms of the Contract or who broke it. Suffice to say that it resulted in broken relationships and mutual recriminations. It ended in February 2010, at which time James Carrion, the acting International Director (ID), resigned MUFON in bitterness and disgust. And the fun may not be over yet between Carrion and the Board. According to the present ID, Clifford Clift, all relationship with Bigelow and BAASS ended at that time. But, here’s how the progression goes from there…

BAASS had some big financial backers, but their identity was proprietary information, and no one besides John Schuessler could know who they were. Not even the International Director. Now, ordinarily a corporation entering into a contract does NOT have to reveal its backers. But one needs to ask here,

is a partnership between a large, competitive corporation that surely has connections to government agencies, an appropriate match for a small, civilian, volunteer research organization where trust, integrity, and witness confidentiality is essential for viability? MUFON is a 501c3 charitable organization which is beholding to the public. What if the big corporation gets pushy and bossy and wants its own agenda to take precedence?

Carrion claimed that that is exactly what happened. He feels that today the Board is still being 'managed' and 'manipulated' by forces 'within' and 'without.' Even Clift had to admit that without proper protocols in place, “things got out of hand.”

John Schuessler received a security clearance with BAASS. That’s not against any law. Corporations do offer security clearances. But John is on the Board of MUFON. Therefore he may have established a relationship with the unknown financial backers. And who knows, they might be the Alphabets. The CIA, DoD, AFOSI, DIA, NSA, etc. They could possibly be the very representatives of the government agencies responsible for the UFO coverup.

Who deploys the Men in Black? Who flies the unmarked black helicopters? Who taps the phones of major witness reporters? Who spreads confusion and disinformation among the ufo community? Who ran Project Blue Book? Who scooped up every last shred of evidence at Roswell and then lied multiple times about what really happened? Who paid Rick Doty to totally deceive and disorient Paul Bennowitz? The ufo community will answer that it’s the alphabet agencies.

Furthermore, due to the increasing non-disclosure clauses, the disgruntled in MUFON feared that the organization had begun to be a “cryptocracy,” a culture of secrecy and repression of information, (Clarkson interview, word borrowed from Jim Marrs.)

So of course, it stands to reason that when the competition for witness information became intense between MUFON and BAASS in 2009, and when cases and evidence began to disappear, and State Directors’ feathers got ruffled due to being bypassed, which was not supposed to happen, what was the first thing people thought? BAASS or the government is/could be doing all this.

As for John Schuessler, even if he is second cousin to Mother Theresa, a sweet man and honest as John the Baptist, in the new MUFON culture, he became a theoretical link between the Members/Volunteers and the Cryptocracy.

People may ppfffttt all this and say, that’s just gossip and suspicion--there is no foundation to it. That may be true, but in a cryptocracy, suspicion, speculation, and gossip is all people have to go on, and it does affect morale. And it may be accurate.

Non-stop bitter recriminations

Today, Carrion is still claiming that there is a government infiltration into MUFON (interview and blogs). Privately, he names a name and a government organization, and he’s not the only one making such claims. Even Clift suspects government intrusion. He stated that he and John Schuessler agree that MUFON seems to be attacked in some way when they get close to a significant report. Clift is blaming the dissenters for being the source of this trouble. He points to “the Elaine Douglasses,” (founder of The Committee to Reform MUFON) who are being “funded and fueled by disinformation artists.” The dissenters point to the Board.

In 2009, Ken Cherry, former State Director of TX, began an Advocacy Group which proposed what he felt were needful changes in MUFON. One point was that a new background check form was way too involved for a volunteer organization like MUFON. It’s the kind of thing you might undergo if you were being hired by the FBI. The result of Cherry’s discontent was that he was told to apologize for all the mean things he said about MUFON or he would be replaced. Of course, he would not apologize. He left and started a new paranormal research group called EPIC. Clift points to Ken Cherry’s complaints as the beginning of MUFON’S troubles.

That was the beginning of the Exodus.

If all connection with BAASS had ceased in both appearance and in reality at the end of the contract period, if the Board had gone on from there and managed MUFON in an intelligent manner, and if no further troubling circumstances had arisen at MUFON, the rolling ship would have righted itself and sailed on. But alas, the stage had been set, the atmosphere infected, and the troubles persisted.

Competition with BAASS for cases created mind-boggling situations in the day to day MUFON investigations. Were there government spies in MUFON’S midst? There was plenty of trouble and mystery to come that would suggest that there are.

To be continued: The disappearing cases.

The Battle for MUFON, Part 1

2011-08-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

UFO history is once again being made.

The UFO phenomenon really hit the airwaves in 1947 with three major cases. I will only name them here because in UFO lore they are already famous. I speak of the Roswell crash, the Maury Island case, and Kenneth Arnold’s sighting of the discs that became known as flying saucers. The Air Force got involved with Project Sign in 1947, which became Project Grudge In 1949, and Project Blue Book in 1951. In 1953 another committee produced a report called the Robertson Panel, which concluded that UFOs are not a significant threat to public safety or national security and do not require official attention. Scientists interested in UFO research, experiencers, and believers all found the methodology and conclusions of these projects to be extremely unsatisfying. In 1969 Project Blue Book (which should have been called Project Eyeroll) was closed. That year another committee report, the result of two years of study, came out to settle the question once and for all. J. Allen Hynek’s opinion of the Condon Report was that “it was a masterpiece of throwing a scrap of political meat to the critic dogs” [The UFO Experience, 1974, 218]. The Condon Report contributed greatly to the demise of a well-known UFO research group called NICAP (National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena). (J. Allen Hynek, d. 1986, was an astronomer and college professor, and was a consultant for the AF during Project Blue Book)

The latter chapters of Hynek’s book reflect his utter frustration with the lack of proper scientific attention to the topic of UFOs and the blindness of officialdom to the potential importance of the phenomenon. He called for further intelligent and professional assessment of the many reports that were accumulating all over the globe. Enter MUFON, Mutual UFO Network, a large, international organization with a well-known journal called the MUFON Journal. Wikipedia reports: MUFON was originally established as the Mid-west UFO Network in Quincy, Illinois on May 30, 1969 by Walter H. Andrus, Allen Utke, John Schuessler, and others. Most of MUFON's early members had earlier been associated with Aerial Phenomena Research Organization (APRO).

Thus, for over 40 years, MUFON has brought together the average citizen on the street, the highly trained specialists, and everything in between to answer the call for careful, methodical UFO research for the betterment of humanity. There are now thousands of members. The hierarchy includes the witness who reports an incident on the MUFON website, dispatchers who sort the cases, State Directors (SDs), Asst. SDs, regional investigators, local Field Investigators (FIs), Star Team responders (able to deploy within 24 hours, have their own sophisticated equipment, and can pay their own travel expenses). There are oversight positions such as Star Team Manager, Director of Investigations, Deputy Director. Then there is the Board of Directors and the International Director. All these positions are voluntary except for a rather low salary for the ID and his two secretaries. The volunteers for the most part are extremely loyal to MUFON. They work hard, take their jobs seriously, and believe that what they do is really important. Up to just a few years ago, MUFON was a relatively orderly, well-cared-for garden. I say relatively only because it is run by people, and no organization with that many people in it can be perfect. But, for the most part, the volunteers loved their work and the people that they worked with.

In all of this apparent bliss, there was one thing that MUFON did not have an abundance of. Money. Money for research, money for their symposiums, money for travel, money for salaries, phone bills, printing costs, etc. MUFON barely stayed in the black with the sale of merchandise, donations, and membership fees.

In 2009, a new presence presented itself in the MUFON garden, an entity proffering a partnership… MUFON research services for bags and bundles of money. Money beyond the wildest dreams of the ID and the Board of Directors. Enter stage left, billionaire Robert Bigelow, Las Vegas entrepreneur.

Mr. Robert Bigelow had previously founded a paranormal research group called NIDS (National Institute of Discovery Science). He funded a research project on a ranch in Utah which allegedly had a reputation for being a paranormal hotspot. He had a board of eminent academicians and scientists whose job it was to keep the ranch research as credible and scientific as possible. In the end, an excellent book was written about it by Colm Kelleher called The Hunt for the Skinwalker. Mr. Bigelow was generous in his support. When a significant event occurred at the ranch, a simple phone call would bring the researchers post haste to the ranch on a corporate jet. When I came to the last page of that book for the second time, I had nothing but respect for Robert Bigelow and the two people that I personally knew on their board.

So when the conversations began in January 2009 between John Schuessler, MUFON ID James Carrion, Jan Harzan, and Bigelow’s company BAASS (Bigelow Aerospace Advance Space Studies Company) it seemed like a good idea. A small contract with BAASS had already closed with satisfactory results. BAASS was offering $56,000/month for a year for access to MUFON’S CMS reporting site, past files, and future investigations. They had the right to question witnesses if those witnesses checked a box on the website report form allowing their information to be shared with third parties. There would be two funding dates during the year in which the contract could be reviewed. It could be terminated then, or re-funded, or funding could be increased. If funding was dropped, the contract would cease. It was made known that Mr. Bigelow was not using his own money. He had backers, but no one knew who they were except John Schuessler, and he was not to disclose that information.

The branches of the tree hung low to the ground, laden with tantalizing fruit. It looked good, it smelled good. What could possibly….go…..wrong…..?

To be continued…

Woman Dies, Experiences Hell

2011-07-27T00:55:00.000-07:00

In March of 2004, Walt Willet and his wife Kate were recently retired from twenty years of mission work in Papua New Guinea. Walt worked as a financial advisor and Kate served as a nurse practitioner. They visited me after their return and told me a story. And let me assure you, my reader friend, that if Walt and Kate said this happened, it did. There is not a cell in their being that would exaggerate a story or change a fact.

About ten years previously, a PNG woman named Daisy was visiting her brother, William Edoni, a national employee who is a devout, spirit-filled Christian at Ukarumpa. Daisy was a confessed Christian, but had not been living a righteous life. Kate was urgently called to the clinic one evening when Daisy suffered a severe asthma attack.

When Kate arrived, Daisy was having great difficulty breathing. Kate administered medications, but they didn’t help. She started CPR while William, his wife, and friends were earnestly praying in the next room. Kate believed that Daisy was dying or dead, but continued CPR until the doctor arrived to pronounce her dead. She tried to get William’s attention to call the doctor, but he couldn’t hear because he and the others were crying out for God to heal Daisy. Eventually Kate grew fatigued and was just going through the motions. She was convinced that Daisy had died. Suddenly Daisy gasped and took a breath. Stunned, Kate said, “Daisy, do it again,” and she took another. Then she began to breathe normally.

Afterwards, Daisy told them all that she felt that she was sinking in a deep pit. Strong cords around her chest were keeping her from breathing, and demons were pulling her down. At the top of the pit, she could see William and the others praying. Suddenly, the demons let the cords go, and she was able to start breathing and rise out of the pit. When Daisy told Kate the story, Kate said, “Daisy, God saved you because He has a purpose for your life. You must serve Him and live for Him.” Daisy agreed that it was time that she took her faith more seriously.

So not all NDE’s are pleasant with the tunnel, the loving Being of Life, the life review. What would have happened to Daisy if she had not been in the presence of praying relatives?

The Serpent vs. the Dove

2011-07-18T22:39:00.000-07:00

I have recently begun reading a book called “Return of the Serpents of Wisdom,” [Adventures Unlimited, 1997, by Mark Amaru (it means snake) Pinkham]. According to this strange book, the biblical story of the serpent in the Garden of Eden turned reality upside down because the Hebrew deity is falsely depicted as the fount of Life and Wisdom, whereas it is really the Serpent who offers those gifts. The book is slithering with mystical serpents all across the pages, the ages and the globe. These reptilians came from the Sirius and Pleiades star systems, to Atlantis until it sank. They taught humans their magical and psychic arts, causing adepts and priests to become enlightened. They taught us healing, sorcery, alchemy, and soul travel. The Kundalini fire serpent is ubiquitous in anthropological literature. In Pinkham's world it was really the Christian Church that formulated the Serpents of Wisdom as the foe of mankind. The author doesn’t impute a motive for this slander (as far as I’ve read), but the usual line of thinking is that the Catholic Church was vying for the loyalty and the money of the masses, as well as the authority over their domains.

There is so much to say about the war between the Judeo-Christian deity and the Serpent of Genesis 3. The battle was not just engaged in the time of Christ, but formally began under the Law of Moses when the Hebrews were forbidden to bow down to any image, man or beast, because their God was a Spirit. Have you ever heard the phrase “lower than a snake’s belly?” Genesis 3 deliberately depicts the serpent as cursed by God, humiliated, caused to slither on the ground, lower than all the beasts and livestock, eating dust. In the Ancient Near East, the icon of tree, garden, goddess, serpent, and life force was common from Mesopotamia to Egypt. Genesis 2-4 was written to dissuade the Hebrew/Israelite people from choosing the serpent’s promise (with accompanying goddess worship) because those promises lead to spiritual death rather than life. In fact, in Psalm 91, the followers of Yahweh are promised the ability to victoriously tread on serpents and scorpions.

Pinkham is correct that serpent worship was ubiquitous throughout the history of mankind. In fact, Genesis 3 and 4 is far more important as a statement of theology than as a history of human origins. In the Old and New Testaments, Jews and Christians are forbidden to participate in of the occult arts associated with the serpent. In Genesis, the genuine Tree of Life goes untouched. It fades out of the picture as Adam and Eve are driven out into the world. They found the wisdom offered by the serpent more attractive and more imminently available than that offered by the Tree of Life.

Adam and Eve are not alone in that choice. Even today, when it’s not fashionable to bow down to an image of a snake or to dance around the campfire wearing a snake around one’s neck, New Agers, Buddhists, and Hindus talk about the Kundalini spirit, which is a serpent entity that is invited to wind around the spine of the devotee, passing through the 7 chakra power centers of the body until it reaches the base of the neck. At that point the devotee becomes spiritually energized, enlightened, transformed, empowered . . . or perhaps demon possessed, according to one’s belief system.

Numbers 21 tells the story of a time when the Israelites came to a place in the Wilderness which was infested with poisonous snakes. At that time the tribes were being guided through the desert by Moses’s in-laws, who happened to be Midianites. The archaeological record reveals that the Midianites worshiped bronze serpents on poles. The biblical record claims that Moses ordered one such icon to be constructed as a magical defense against the desert serpent’s fatal bite. This action was in direct disobedience against the first of the Ten Commandments and was a serious compromise. But the people did it, and apparently it worked. The icon became an occult power object for the Israelites for many years to come. The Bible says that it was kept in the Temple itself, along with the ark of the covenant, and became a snare to the people until it was destroyed by King Hezekiah of Judah.

Jesus Christ pitted Himself against the serpent that was raised in the wilderness. In John 3:14, 15 he states, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son that whosoever should believe on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

How ironic that today we have the same choice as depicted for Adam and Eve and the ancient Israelites. On one hand, there is the Holy Spirit that came upon Jesus Christ at his baptism in the form of a dove. He is the ultimate Tree of Life. On the other, we have serpents of worldly wisdom and occult arts. Both offer healing from illnesses, and both deliver. Both offer wisdom and immortality. The secret initiation rites described in Pinkham’s book don't seem very wise. They are beyond dark and creepy, and they may take place underground or under the sea.

I assure you my reader friend, Pinkham is right in the sense that the serpent and the dove are still foes. They are incompatible. I personally chose Jesus long ago. I hope that you will, too.

Hypnotism and False Memories

2011-06-19T19:00:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine went on a cruise and had a great time with all aspects of it, including the hypnotist entertainer. He hypnotized several of the passengers, got them dancing on stage and thinking they were naked in their room in front of their mirror, etc. All harmless entertainment. He also induced a group of women to think that the minute a certain employee came down the aisle, they were to run up to him and tell him that they had a ticket to prove that they had just won the lottery. When that employee appeared in the ailse, he was accosted by all of those women. In other words, although the hypnotist used his powers to influence people in amusing, harmless ways, he demonstrated that hypnotism is a power to be reckoned with. He planted a false memory in their minds. Used in wrong ways, such abilities could bring about tremendous deception and harm.

In the book Extraordinary Knowing, therapist Elizabeth LLoyd Mayer shared about the psychic bond that can appear out of nowhere between a psychologist and his/her client. She tells a story of one "brilliant clinician" whose brother drowned on Oct. 2 while trying to save someone's life. She would often think of her brother on the anniversary of his death. Dr. Coates was treating a 4-year-old girl on a later Oct. 2. She wasn't aware of having any thoughts about her brother at that time, but suddenly the girl looked up and said, "Your brother is drowning, you have to save him!" The stunned therapist assured her that no one was drowning, so the girl went back to what she was doing. (pg. 14, 15) No hypnotism was mentioned in connection with this story. Neither the therapist nor the girl were identified as psychic. Yet, something extraordinary, for just a moment, happened between them. Imagine then, what could happen between someone who is repeatedly hypnotized by the same person.

When hypnotists regress a person who is a suspected alien abductee, they know to be very careful how they pose their questions. If the client, who may be remembering real events, thinks for a second that something does not make sense to the hypnotherapist, they are capable of inventing something out of whole cloth, something just as real as the actual event. Separating the real and imagined events can be challenging.

When past-life regression is involved, something else may occur. While the client is hypnotized, the psyche is open and vulnerable. Dr. Michael Newton's clients don't just acquire memories of their previous life; they often begin channeling the alleged basic soul of the client, the one with an other-worldly name. This one can talk about many past lives. This soul can also describe the Bardo, the region where souls abide between lives. Dr. Newton and his patients see nothing dangerous or wrong with this scenario. They believe in the truth of all that is channeled and revealed. Why would it not be otherwise? One has to hope that the universe is basically benevolent and that the powers that be would not deceive us about something so important. Why would they?

The problem is that as I study the paranormal in all of its different aspects, it becomes clear that invisible entities have a tremendous ability to get into our minds if we let them. They can appear, and often do, as friends or relatives, or a beautiful woman, or a handsome man. They can mimic a gendered voice and be very charming...until they are disobeyed or crossed. If the charade doesn't work, the facade is dropped and the real entity comes out. Instead of asking why would they, we should ask, why wouldn't they? With all of the deception, manipulation, greed, and coercion that goes on in our dimension, why do we assume that other dimensions are so pure? Where do all the evil, greedy, mean, exploitative humans go when they die? Out there in the next dimension up. Could they not take their negative energies and meanness with them to pollute that world as well?

Jesus made it clear that there really is a satan (simply meaning 'adversary'). The epitome of this genre of entity is called Satan or Abaddon. They are, according to the walking, talking, miracle-working, leper-touching Christ Consciousness, deceptive and destructive. So if the goal of so much religion is to get into and acquire the Christ Consciousness, let's get into what He said. He said that there is LOTS of this negative energy over there (and here as well). Before His death and resurrection, he had a chat with His disciples, saying to them, "Then if anyone says to you, 'Behold, here is the Christ,' or 'There He is,' do not believe him. For false Christs and false prophets will arise and will show great signs and wonders, so as to mislead, if possible, even the elect." He then assured His followers that when He appears to earth again, it will be like lightning flashing. It will begin in the east and flash westward. (Think of how our time zones go.) His return will probably have some kind of electro-magnetic, plasma element to it. (I use those terms having no idea what they mean.) No man walking the earth today claiming to be Christ could possibly be Christ, because He will return in the air; He will not be born of a woman again.

So if there is deception even in what we see, as in a magic act or a movie like Jurassic Park and its special effects, how much more could there be deception when we mess with what we can't see? If the UFO researchers are correct that aliens can read minds, paralyze their prey, force humans to go with them against their wills, take their seed and their babies, etc. it's clear that they have a tremendous power and advantage over us. An abductee may recall what was done to him or her. But there may be things done that are beyond our ability to wrap our minds around. The implantation of false memories could be one of those things.

I know a man who declares that he can absolutely make you think that you took a bus trip that you never took. If that is so, and a man can do that, then perhaps a spiritual entity can make you think you lived a life you didn't live or that you took a trip to Venus that never happened, or that you met a lovely, sweet female angel that is really a male reptilian demon.

With all due respect to others and their beliefs, I'm just urging caution here. I'm saying don't believe every visionary experience you have just because it was other-worldly. Test the spirits. Be very cautious about hypnotism, channeling, Ouija Boards, or any portal-opening activity that seems alluring. Be careful what you wish for and how you wish for it. You may get the opposite.

I'm going to posit a theory: I think each human is surrounded by some kind of energy that often appears as an aura. It's like a psychic skin. Some people have healthy auras while others have defective ones due to their mental state or life style. Trauma, illness, accident, or occult activities can sometimes crack open these engergy skins. Things can get in, like spiritual viruses. We need to apply some spiritual hygiene. The very best soap I can suggest are the teachings of Christ. Better yet, His very Presence in your life.

Jesus told his followers to be wise as serpents but harmless as doves. What that means is, know how your enemy thinks, but don't mimic his deeds.

Kaitee Lusk Gets the Call of a Lifetime

2011-05-28T22:48:00.000-07:00

Kaitee Lusk used to live in Citrus Heights, California, my present city of residence. Her daughter accepted Christ at the age of 2 1/2. Heather attended the same High School as my two boys, and like my eldest, she was valedictorian of her class. I never met Kaitee in person, but I have spoken to her by phone and corresponded with her. I was told about her by a man in my church who had his own miracle story to tell.

Kaitee's adventure began in July, 1989, with a coveted invitation to a Christian conference (Lausanne II), in Manila. Flight arrangements were made to come and go by way of Korea. Before the trip, her pastor's secretary made a joke about Kaitee stopping in Hawaii on the way home to see the Philippine's President, Ferdinand Marcos. He was ill and in a hospital there. Kaitee joked back that if it was God's will she just might do it, but actually, she didn't even know who Marcos was. The secretary filled her in, but assured her that no one would be allowed to gain entrance into Marcos's room. However, in the following days, Kaitee felt very strongly that God was calling her to do that very thing. He told her, "Marcos needs Me. He's asking for Me and is crying to Me for help." He also told her that Marcos would not be able to speak to her, but he would understand everything that she said. He told her that others were to read the Gospel of John to him for 7 days. The man I mentioned above helped Kaitee with the funds she would need to change her reservations to include a stop in Hawaii. Of course, she was told that there were waiting lists a mile long for people wanting to stop over in Hawaii. Kaitee told the airline that she needed to see someone there who was critically ill. They told her to keep calling, especially when she got to the Philippines.

Kaitee was to travel with other missionaries. If she got to Honolulu, she would meet up with Claire, a woman who lived there whom she met at a previous event in Washington, D.C. Travel was fraught with peril. Their flight out of Sacramento was cancelled, so they were routed through Los Angeles and Seoul. Most of their luggage went on to Manila without them. The plane almost crashed in Korea, causing a day's delay. At the Ambassador Hotel, they experienced riots, firebombs, tear gas, and rocks. Finally the exhausted team arrived in Manila.

After some anxious maneuvering, Kaitee got her miracle ticket to Hawaii. When the conference ended, she met up with her friend Claire. They immediately began their attempt to gain entrance into Marcos's hospital room. To make a long story short, they were repeatedly told by guards and nurses that no one gets in to see Marcos except doctors and immediate family. The First Lady would not return their call. Kaitee was running out of time, and the ladies were about to give up. She prayed one last prayer with Marcos's guard Alex. Afterwards, he thought that he could give her Col. Art Aruiza's phone number. Being Marcos's right hand man, he might be able to pull some strings. Kaitee called him and told him that God had sent her from Sacramento to deliver a message to President Marcos. Amazingly, he responded, "I believe you." She gasped, "You do?" He said that he had letters on his desk from several people around the world who said the same thing. "The difference between you and them," he said, "Is that you are here and they are not."

Col. Aruiza connected the ladies with Dr. Zagala, Marcos's physician of 25 years. She was a devout Christian, and was open to Kaitee's story. Kaitee and Claire rushed to the hospital to meet Dr. Zagala and Irene Araneta, Marcos's daughter. Claire had to stay out of the ICU room. Kaitee and 6 others were in the room when she delivered her message. Marcos had a breathing tube, which was why he was not able to speak to Kaitee, but he responded to her message with amazement, then smiles and tears. Kaitee assured him that God loved him and had heard his cry. She talked about how a baby in the womb pushes from darkness into light. Marcos was in a similar position. He was needing to be birthed into the light. Jesus was the light. He indicated with his eyes that he was willing to repent of all sin and ask Jesus into his life. Kaitee led him in a prayer, then gave him a Bible. She told him that someone would be reading it to him for 7 days. Kaitee found out years later that 7 was Marcos's favorite number. All in the room took mention of 7 as a sign that Kaitee really did hear from God. All were in tears at the end of the interview.

In time, Irene Araneta and Col. Aruiza both accepted Christ, as did Marcos's son Bong. The major portion of Kaitee's experience with the Marcos family and entourage can be found in Kaitee's book, Eternal Makeovers. Although the other people who were called of God to deliver that message may regret that they never got to Honolulu, the very fact that they wrote those letters undoubtedly played an important part in Kaitee's success. Marcos had a reputation of being a repressive dictator. Almost everyone knew about Imelda's closet full of shoes. He is not one who would garner sympathy as he died. But God heard his sincere heart's cry, and Kaitee heard God's call, the call of a lifetime.

Three Descriptions of Eternity

2011-04-27T23:07:00.000-07:00

1. The Reptilian version

For years, Laura Knight-Jadczyk met with friends on Friday nights. They were interested in the paranormal and felt that they might be alien abductees. They put their hands lightly on the planchette of the Ouija Board and took notes on what the spirits had to say. Most of it they didn't take seriously, but one day an entity showed up calling itself a Cassiopeaen. This entity had much to say about alien abductions, especially about a group called the Orions, a "Service to Self" group often called Reptilians, or in slang, Lizards or Lizzies. According to the Cassiopaeans, the Lizards plan to supplant humans in time. Here is a sample of information attained in those interviews:
Q. Bob Lazar referred to the fact that aliens supposedly refer to humans as containers. What does this mean?
A. All are containers; 94 percent will be used.
Q. (L) Used for what?
A. Consumption.
Q. (L) What do you mean by "consumption?" You mean eaten?
A. Total consumption. Consumed for ingredients.
Q. Ingredients for what?
A. New race. Important. 13 years approximately when project will be finished.
Q. (L) Why are humans consumed?
A. They are used for parts.
Q. (L) We don't understand. How can humans be used for parts?
A. Reprototype. The Vats exist. Missing persons often go there and especially missing children (The High Strangeness of Dimensions, Densities, and the Process of Alien Abduction, by Knight-Jadczyk, p. 276). Later in the book the entity explains that slicing humans is the best way to feed because they agony of death enhances the experience. The Cassiopaeans, of course, are Service to Other entities and want to help humans escape their doom.

Laura was horrified at what the Cassiopaean was telling her. Her response was:
Q. (L) Okay, we are having these lessons. You have told us what is going on. We see it going on around us. I am convinced that what you have said is so from a LOT of other circumstantial evidence as well as the research of others who have come to the same conclusions and, DAMN IT, IT'S UGLY! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?! IT's UGLY!
A. That is your perception.

By the way, the Cassiopaean twice advised reading of the Bible (pp. 247, 248). Regarding my last post about shamanism ala Michael Harner, the entity was asked if Jesus believed in animal spirits or totems. The answer was no. As for shamanism itself, the spirit claimed that it was "Lizard inspired" (p. 280). Meaning, it's a Reptilian construction, surely not in our best interest. Please understand, I am not repeating these statements as a means of advocating the use of Ouija Boards. I am not! Nor does anyone have to believe that Knight-Jadczyk is a paragon of truth or that the entity to whom she speaks is the only aetheric Source in the history of mankind that is passing on the Truth to us. I'm just pointing out what's out there. The remedy, according to the Cassiopaean entity, is knowledge because one can put up a psychic defense and confuse the enemy. But...if you are not a reader or are not prepared with the proper knowledge...a Vat awaits. You are literally a prisoner, 'dead meat.'

2. A man who left his Christian wife because he would not accept Jesus

This man collapsed in a hospital with a "widowmaker" heart attack. He in fact did die. The ER personnel worked on him for 40 minutes. A heart specialist named Chauncey Crandall walked and pronounced the man dead. His lips, toes, and fingers and toes were "black with death," and he had been flatlined for some time. Papers were drawn up for the morgue. As Dr. Crandall left the room, a strong impression came upon him to turn around and pray for the man. He did so. He called him back from death in the name of Jesus to give him one more chance to get his heart right with God. He ordered another doctor to hit Jeff Markin with the paddles one more time. When this was done, Markin's heart began to beat with a strong and normal rhythm. Medical personnel who knew about the incident were horrified, because even if this improbable, frankensteinish thing really happened, the man would be a vegetable. But he wasn't. Markin totally returned to normal living. You can read about this incident in Raising the Dead: A Doctor Encounters the Miraculous, by Chauncey W. Crandall, IV. You can also find the story on youtube.com.

Later, Dr. Crandall asked Markin what he experienced while he was dead. He said he was terribly disappointed. He was alone in a dark room. He saw his casket. No one came to visit. He was there for all eternity, and at the end of it all, some men came in, wrapped up his body, and threw it into the trash. Crandall led Markin to Christ at that point. Crandall had already shared his story with a friend who was a banker, who shared it with his wife, who worked at a Christian school. She shared it with a coworker there. That coworker declared, "Do you know who that man is? He's my ex-husband. Twenty years ago he left me and our two children because I accepted the Lord as Savior. I was going the way of Jesus, and he decided he didn't want that and left the family. For twenty years I've been praying for his salvation" (p. 190).

3. The Christian experience

Dr. Crandall well knew the meaning of suffering and loss. After a long battle and much prayer, his beloved son Chad died of leukemia. The young man died in peace, with full expectation of a blissful eternity. He had already seen Jesus in a vision and had no doubts or fears. About the time of his death, a woman known for her influential prayers saw a vision of Chad. He was dressed in white sports clothes, sitting on a mountain overlook. "I saw the boy you've been praying for. He was talking with the Lord. The Lord asked him what he wanted to do. Did he want to come home with the Lord or go back?" Chad chose to stay (p. 137).

Since those days, Crandall has had many experiences of laying hands on the sick in the name of Jesus and seeing them be healed. Some do not get healed, but others have breath-taking recoveries. The thing that he emphasizes is that he is not the miracle worker. Jesus is the healer, and the greatest miracle is when people are freed from personal darkness and bondage.

Did a Western Shaman See the Fall of Satan?

2011-04-12T19:10:00.000-07:00

Michael Harner, Ph.D., author of The Way of the Shaman, learned the craft of the shaman from some of the remotest tribes on the globe. No adventurer ever trekked further or sought more diligently the hidden secrets of the spirit world. For Harner, the purpose of shamanism is to help people who are bound and diseased by the intrusion of negative energy and spirits. A person needs power to combat these dark forces of nature. That power often comes from the spirit of a power animal, which has left the patient and has returned to its abode in Lower World. The shaman's job is to attain a shaman state of consciousness (SSC), with or without drugs, to leave the physical body, to combat or avoid the malicious spirits in the portal-tunnel (they may appear as fanged spiders or vipers, etc.), to recognize the appropriate spirit animal, to grab it securely so it can't bolt away, and bring it to the ailing participant. To be able to do so, of course, the shaman must have already gone to Lower World, via to the remote jungles of South America, or the deserts of the U.S., or some other place where master shamans abide. Through dangerous rituals that carry a risk of madness or death, the shaman-to-be acquires various spirits called tsentsak to serve and protect him/her. So the shaman must be power-full as he/she ministers to the ill. The shaman may suck the illness out of the person and blow it into a pot. He then blows the power animal into the chest of the patient, restoring their own power and protection. This is all done in darkness, perhaps to better maintain the proper state of consciousness. It may sound loony to our modern ears, but the shamans declare that it works. In the pursuit of this activity, I have to assume that the shaman believes that the spirits acquired will remain benevolent. Even though they may appear as a plant, human, or animal (or all three), their ability to shape-shift and affect the physical reality of our world will allegedly not be abused. These tsentsak are morally neutral and will heal or kill according to the wish of the shaman. The creed seems to be that they were placed in Lower World to be retrieved and pressed into service of living, mortal humans by a benevolent universe that knew we would need extra help now and then. Harner assures the reader that the shaman possesses the spirits; the spirits do not possess the shaman. They need to be exercised, not exorcised (p. 68). We hope that Harner is right, because if he is not, he is leading his disciples to hell and back with tagalong entities that certainly do want to possess them. To prepare for his first encounter with the spirits of Lower World, Harner drank some ayahuasca, a hallucinogenic drug. He saw something "like a huge fun house, a supernatural carnival of demons. In the midst of it all, he saw a huge crocodilian head, out of which gushed a flood of water. Then he saw two boats approach. They joined into one, with a dragon-headed prow, rowed by humans with blue jay heads. He began to physically die and his soul essence began to be gathered to the boat. In spite of the lovely music he heard, giant reptilian creatures "told" him that since he was dying, he would be shown secrets. He saw the Earth as it was eons ago. Black specks rained down onto the primordial scene. The specks were black, shiny entities with pterodactyl-like wings and bodies like whales. They had come to earth from outer space to escape their enemy. They claimed to have created life to disguise their presence here. They claimed to be the masters of humanity, and since we were their servants, they were able to speak to him from within himself. When Harner related his vision to an old shaman, about how the bat-like animals claimed to be masters of the universe, the shaman smiled and said, "Oh, they're always saying that. But they are only the Masters of Outer Darkness." So the little bats were prone to exaggeration. Harner then presented the tale to two missionaries up the river from his location in the Peruvian Andes. They pointed him to two verses in the biblical Book of Revelation, chapter 12. Harner only mentions vv. 7-9 and 15 because those verses affirm exactly what he saw. But the fact is, the chapter names the serpent as Satan. His tail swept away a third of the stars (former angels) and hurled them to the earth. There was a war in heaven resulting in Satan and his followers being cast to earth (7-9). A child is born in the chapter, which can be none other than Jesus Christ. Harner never mentions Christ or Michael the prince of angels in his book. Satan casts a flood of water out of his mouth (v. 15) to destroy the woman who gave birth to the child, but the earth thwarted Satan by helping the woman. Satan then makes war on the rest of her seed, "those who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony about Jesus." Not only is Satan shown as cast out of God's heaven (into Outer Darkness), he is described as an entity who "deceives the whole world." Harner's vision is amazing, but like so many masters of the paranormal, he cherry picks the Bible and sees only what he wants to see. He obviously came within a hair of death in his drugged state. He saw the demons that were in process of taking his soul. He pulled back because he realized that he didn't belong with them and they might be evil. Some other intrepid experimenter may not be able to whisper, "Medicine!" in time. The reality of a great, crocodilian beast as described in Revelation 12 became part of Harner's new experiential knowledge. But the implication that Christ must then also exist didn't seem to phase him. The suggestion that Satan may dwell in Lower World, that the bat creatures lie about who they are, that he even admits that they desire to dwell in human flesh, that he almost died and went to hell, etc....these dots are not connected by Harner. He seems to think that because he lived, he overcame these beasts and they will have no further hold on him. We, gentle reader, should do ourselves a favor and connect the dots that Harner ignores. If his story is true, those who do NOT have the testimony of Jesus may spend eternity with the bat creatures in Lower World.

The Times That Try Mens' Souls

2011-03-24T20:16:00.000-07:00

My husband and I have been watching a series on Netflix called "Into the West." I highly recommend it, but it can be pretty depressing. It covers the expansion of white people from the east to the west throughout the nineteenth century. It focuses on the conflict between the whites and Native Americans as the inexorable tsunami of wagons crossed the plains. Indian wars, broken treaties, the near extinction of the buffalo, stolen lands . . . For the whites, the 1800's were a time of prosperity and gain. Inventions made life easier, the railroad brought the coasts together, while gold mines, industry, banking made some people millionaires. Huge cattle ranches and drives were the stuff of legend. Literature, politics, education, entertainment, journalism . . . There was nothing withheld from the irrepressible, enterprising whites of eighteenth century America.

For the Indians, it was a time, with a few exceptions, of humiliation and loss. They fought bravely for what they felt was theirs, but it was a lost cause from the start. Radical change for them was coming, no matter what they said or did. It is heartbreaking to see how they were treated, but the alien, white culture invaded their space in such overwhelming numbers that it was a matter of join them or perish. As I watch the series, my heart breaks and I'm ashamed, but the series is careful to end each segment with the point that the westward movement changed and challenged everyone. We brutally murdered plenty of Native Americans, blacks, Chinese, and other minorities in our greed and prejudice, but the West chewed up plenty of Caucasian lives and spit them out as well.

Later it dawned on me that the challenge to change or be exploited forever was not just a Native American problem. Women fought long and hard for an entire generation to gain the right to be educated and to vote. Then it took WW II to push us into the job market where we learned what we could really do. Black citizens were emancipated after the Civil War, but the Jim Crow laws weren't far behind, and the non-violent Civil Rights movement fomented a holocaust of hatred that stuns me every time I see the documentaries on TV. The Jews weren't just hated in Germany. At the beginning of WW II there were parks, careers, and clubs in America that Jews could not enter. Catholics and Protestants anathematized each other in their theology. Poles, Hungarians, Armenians, etc., each ethnic group has a story of persecution almost to the point of extinction.

Once the Nazi madness was crushed, a new political beast arose from the masses. It was called Communism. It's zealots caused trouble all over the globe for decades. In the late eighties, Communism imploded. One day, the iron curtain fell, as did the Berlin Wall, and Germans walked from East to West to embrace their relatives. However, dictators have continued to rape and pillage their nations. One day a really frustrated, thwarted, abused merchant in Tunisia decided he couldn't live life under the caprice of a selfish, useless, exploitative government. He set himself on fire, and there has been chaos in the Middle East ever since. Could it be that the era of unresponsive, self-serving, nepotistic dictators is coming to an end? Could it be that people are tired of being abused and they know they deserve a better life? I pray that it is so.

There is a key to maintaining freedom and equality once it is gained. One has to then offer it to all others. If the pursuit of happiness and self-realization is not available to all, it will profit no one for long. As for nurturing vengeance and hatred against the groups that exploited us in the past, we should let that go and see that era of our history as a time of testing to strengthen us and force us to grow. After all, the other key to freedom and equality is that it has to be earned.

Debi's story: Fire of God in the Church

2011-03-12T15:07:00.000-08:00

Debi Smith and I were in the same church in San Jose during the '70's. I had just graduated from San Jose State College when I joined. Debi had little education and came from a dysfunctional, economically poor, uneducated family. Nevertheless, we became friends and have been ever since. I can verify that when Debi says below that she had a demon in her, you can take that to the bank. Having dabbled in drugs and the occult, she did indeed have a severe need of deliverance. She also suffered from raging migraines, epileptic fits, and addiction to pain meds. She was the kind of person that the church mentors passed around because she was too much for any one person to deal with for an extended period of time. But when she was feeling good and walking with God, she loved to study the Old Testament with me. She played the guitar, sang, wrote soulful Scripture songs, and enjoyed a good laugh. She could be fun. Below is her story in her own words with minimal fixing by me.

"The night I got delivered.. at the end of the meeting they stood to sing. I thought I can't raise my hands and sing.. I have a demon inside of me. Then I thought I want to be doing this when they pray for me when we get home tonight. Then I thought.. No.. he has caused me so much trouble in my life.. I will cause him trouble and make him suffer and shot my hands up.

Then I opened my eyes and looked at the ceiling... I saw Flames.... I looked to the back by the doors that was near the nursery... and the entire room what filled with those flames. Not one area that wasn't fully engulfed... and it scared me, so I closed my eyes and bowed my head. But then I got to wondering... did I just see what I think I saw? And after some time passed I just had to look up again.. just in case I was just seeing things.

And SURE Nuff... the whole room was filled with this visible-to-me fire.. no smell of smoke or difference in heat. I stared at it in wonder. I knew what it was, and it was so massive, and no one else saw it. I was awed and bowed my head, then the next thing I remember I was sitting on the bench. Sister Dropko lookin at me... my shoes were off... gum in my hair... and I didn't know where I was or what had just happened to me. Karen E. and another nurse had been there... they said my heart stopped beating and I wasn't breathing..."

This is the second first-hand story I have heard of Holy Ghost fire appearing on a church. The other is referenced in another of my blogs. A blog search for "Linette" or "roof" will bring up the story of the fire department occasionally being called to douse the flames of an old fashioned Pentecostal church in Oklahoma. The story was shared in Sunday School by the church pastor's daughter, who was a senior citizen by the time she recounted the story.

In his letter to the first century Hebrews, the Apostle Paul (quoting Psalm 104:4 from the Old Testament) writes (Hebrews 1:7) - "And about the angels He says: He makes His angels winds, and his servants a fiery flame." Apparently, the ancient Israelite prophet who wrote that Psalms passage had the same kind of visions that we do today.

The King's Speech -- Classic God-At-Work

2011-03-01T00:58:00.000-08:00

Ted and I went to see the movie, The King's Speech. The entire movie laid a foundation so that the viewer could understand the historical importance of George VI ascending to the throne of England and making an all important speech on the eve of WW II. The problem was that the man stuttered so badly that he could not even read a simple speech written by another. Thus, His Majesty (Bertie) had to rely on the skill of a "Dr." who had no training or credentials. He was also a stage reject, in spite of the fact that he had all of Shakespeare's plays memorized. In the meantime, Hitler was mesmerizing Germany with long, enchanting rants. One of the most important lines in the movie was when George's daughter asked what Hitler was saying in one of his speeches. George answered, "I don't know, but he seems to be saying it rather well." If Hitler's spies had informed him that the new King of England couldn't even read a speech, he would have laughed and been convinced that fate had arranged for a pathetic loser to lead Britain to its doom. That contrast was pretty much the thrust of the movie.

So many Christians today could roll their eyes and say, "That is so like God!" First of all, He loves to wait until the last minute to come through for us. For example, when Christ's friend Lazarus died, the family expected Jesus to come running in right away to raise him up. They all knew He could do it, so of course He would. But he didn't. He waited four agonizing days to show up, after the body was in the tomb, after it had begun to stink. He waited too long. It was too late. But we know from the story in the Gospel of John (ch. 11) that it wasn't too late because the family, as familiar as they were with Jesus's ability to heal, still underestimated the power of God to re-create the decaying body of Lazarus.

The second frustrating principal by our human standards is that God loves to reveal His strength through our weakness. Paul the Apostle begged God to relieve him of a distressful condition that he would only call "a thorn in the flesh." He wrote, "Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness'"(2 Cor. 12:9). In the Old Testament the barren wife Hannah endures ridicule and judgment from her husband's other wife. Hannah was barren, but God answered her prayer and gave her a son who became a prophet. That prophet anointed the shepherd boy David to be Israel's second king. Hannah wrote a psalm and put into words a classic principal: "The bows of the warriors are broken, but those who stumbled are armed with strength. Those who were full hire themselves out for food, but those who were hungry hunger no more. She who was barren has borne seven children, but she who has had many sons pines away...He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap; he seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honor" (1 Sam. 2:4-8).

Even the writer of the script of the movie had to wait on God's timing. Decades ago he approached the queen, wife of George IV, about writing the story of Lionel and Bertie. She answered, "Not while I'm alive." The chivalrous author agreed to wait. So she died around age 100 and he finally wrote late in life. Very late. But not too late. It was a delightful script, and a delightful way to learn history, and it surely deserved the award it received, best film of the year.

Why I Attend Church on Sunday

2011-02-17T17:16:00.000-08:00

A friend recently asked me if I had ever considered switching to Sabbath services in light of the Old Testament command to keep Yahweh's Sabbath. I said no. Here's why.

If you are going to keep the Law, keep it all. Look at what the Law says about food. In Leviticus 11:41-45. God is literally shouting about foods that defile the human who eats them. That unclean human is therefore unfit to approach God’s holiness in ritual worship. Figuring that God never changes, it would appear that we should all be keeping kosher. But look at Mark 7:14-23. Jesus is not just declaring all foods clean. If you think about what he is saying, it is spiritual dullness that makes us think that food could ever have defiled anyone. It is sin that defiles. Why would food spiritually defile anyone when, as Jesus says, it goes in the stomach, comes out the other end processed and smelly, and winds up in the sewer.

Fasting is a powerful spiritual activity. Since Jesus fasted, we should, too. But in Isaiah 58, God and the prophet make it clear that social justice, mercy, kindness, generosity, forgiveness, visiting the sick, releasing the prisoner, forgiving debt, etc., is what God really prefers. Jesus Christ described a Judgment Day in which He sets people on his left hand for banishment because they didn’t perform any of these merciful acts. He exalts the people that did them.

The heart of OT worship was animal sacrifice, and yet Isaiah 1:10-17 and 66:1-3, Amos 5:21-24, Psalms 50:1-15 and other such passages indicate that God would trade ritual sacrifice for relationship in a heartbeat. Even in the OT, God is trying to tell the people that He wants us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, and he wants us to love Him above all. The Prophet Micah (6:8) declares that God wants humility, mercy, and justice. Psalm 15 is about behavior, purity of motive, integrity. Even to Cain, God said, Just do what is right. Then you will be respected. You will receive your inheritance and be the respected new patriarch. But Cain couldn’t get it. It was just too simple. It wasn’t religious enough.

As for NT Scripture regarding Sunday worship possibly being corrupted, the OT is full of religious rites that were required by the people before they could take any new religion seriously. Monotheism was breathlessly new, counterintuitive, and scary back in the days of Abraham and Moses, so a set of new ideas were blended into an ancient matrix which was very similar in many ways to Canaanite ways and rituals. It helped the people to cope with the anxiety of a major change in worldview. Giving up their idols was trauma enough.

Paul in Colossians 2:13-23 deals with the futility of trying to keep the law. He does the same in Galatians where he admonishes the believer to stand fast in freedom from the Law. I really have no problem with people worshiping on the Saturday Sabbath. However, there are some legalisms that I would advise against, like refusing to eat pork. Such law keeping made Paul crazy, because he knew that such things “indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.” Religious sophistry is a little like the fruit of Eden...it tastes good, seems to be nourishing, looks good, looks like all the other fruit that we all eat, it seems to make one wise...so why not?

One last important passage: in Matt. 5:17-20 it sounds like Jesus is saying that we must keep every jot and tittle of the Law, but the law he is referring to is not the Mosaic Law but the one that he is about to declare, beginning in v. 21 ff. He goes beyond the Ten Commandments, raises the bar, and requires that we drop the blinders and get with the real program. There are no temples, no holy beards, no funny clothes, no sacred weapons, no food restriction, no rituals, no sacred places, no holy days, no ritual prayers, no medals, no religious posturing whatsoever. What God wants is love, purity, humility, mercy, social justice, honesty, and relationship. So I can worship on the Sabbath. No problem. But I can also worship on Sunday.

Dust or Dew: Immortality in the Ancient Near East and in Psalm 49

2011-02-04T22:09:00.000-08:00

Here is some early marketing information for Dust or Dew:

Wipf and Stock will has it available on their website for $24.80 + shipping. You can also call their customer service on M - F at 541-344-1528. They are located in Eugene OR, so no tax. Go to http://www.wipfandstock.com/ and enter "dust or dew" into the search box. There are discounts for ordering 5 or more.

It will be available online around mid-April (amazon.com, etc.). Amazon retail will be $31 plus shipping. At that time, a Kindle version will be available for about $19.

It's an academic book, so it might be a hard read for some, but there are chapters that are readable for those who know something about the Old Testament. My approach is that God's revelation to us fully human types was gradual. He stepped into their ancient culture and spoke through a contemporaneous worldview. The step-by-step process of changing their worldview was often jarring. Blood was spilled, families were divided as people tried to cope with something that we all fear . . . change. The book tells in narrative form the history of the clan of Korahites that aided King David in his attempt to establish a new, relationship-based kind of worship in ancient Israel. It also takes a close look at the message of the Psalms, which point the way to a new definition of afterlife, bringing with it a new hope for the righteous.

Chapters:
1. Introduction
2. A Review of Literature on the Afterlife
3. Who Were the Korahites?
4. A Pilgrimage through the Korahite Psalter
5. Psalm 49, Translation and Commentary
6. The Grim Afterlife in the Ancient Near East
7. The Path of Death or Life in the Hebrew Bible
8. Conclusion

Bibliography and Indexes

Alien Abduction Leads to Alien Seduction

2011-01-22T22:32:00.000-08:00

In my studies of the paranormal and how it relates to Christianity I like to look for smoking guns that explicitly demonstrate that the two arenas are not only incompatible but are in open conflict with one another. I have stated in other posts that all entities other than angels loyal to Jesus Christ dismiss Jesus as just a teacher, just a god-force much like what we find within our own selves, or an alien plant to teach us to be more spiritual. They do not ever use the four-letter s-word..."save"...even though His very name means "salvation." The other word you will never hear in the realm of reincarnation, Buddhist mysticism, alien abduction, shamanism, etc. is "redemption" or "sin." There is no sin. There is only growth...or not. No-growth just means delay.

In the Ted Rice story (a past blog post), Ted's grandma is presented with an imitation of her late beloved husband that was so real that she was convinced it was really him, come to her from his afterlife. As she made love to him, he turned out to be a reptilian alien. In Derrel Sims' book Alien Hunter, one of Derrel's contacts tells him the story of a beautiful alien who was sweetly pressing him to join Derrel's support group. For all of his attraction to the lovely woman, the man resisted. Each time she urged him to join, she was less sweet. When Ed firmly said no, she pointed to his old football injury in his knee and caused so much pain that he screamed. Suddenly the real identity of the alien is revealed. In Ed's own words: "It's that same old son of a b*# that always comes for me. The SOB!" Derrel asked Ed why the alien wanted him to attend the meeting. Ed said that the aliens want to find out what is going on in them and who is attending.

In 1998, Patricia Gray, the co-author of Alien Hunter, found herself in the midst of an experience wherein she was instructed to look at some symbols displayed on her wall. The sense was that if she complied, they would change her forever. Instead she began to recite the Apostles Creed, which broke the paralysis and caused the intrusion to end. In 2003 they came at her again. In her words: "I put my up my right hand (like an officer directing traffic to stop), and once more speak...first in slow motion, and then quickly accelerating, I say meaningly and forcefully, 'In Jesus name you will leave now!' There is a pause of about two or three seconds...an eternity. Suddenly they leave. I go back to bed, shaking, but a winner." One thing I like about Catholicism, they taught us as children to recite the Apostle's Creed and the Lord's Prayer.

Debbie Jordan, on the other hand, in her book co-authored by her sister Kathy, has absorbed the symbols. She dreams them, scribbles them in her notebooks, and paints them. She trusts that someday we will understand what they mean. In the meantime, in spite of the fact that she swears she was pregnant with a hybrid baby that was stolen from her womb, she feels that she and Kathy are being lifted into a new realm of spirituality and global awareness. She has always had intriguing psychic powers, which makes up for the fact that she was exposed to radiation burns in one abduction incident that permanently affected her eyes and health. It also slowly killed her dog. She is convinced that the space brothers mean well and that in the end all will be as it must be. They seem to evoke some higher wisdom that we can't quite yet grasp.

Channeling through Debbie, these entities explain Jesus: "Religion is a sociological phenomenon, unique to your species. This is a creation of man. Not to be confused with the Spirit. "God" is the Spirit. Jesus was a man, created by the Spirit to help you to understand, on your own level, in your own terms and times. Obviously you were not ready." About God: "Do not fear. God is life, eternal...Remember, there is only life if you believe, there is only love if you believe, there is only evil if you believe. If you believe that these things exist for you, then they will. If you do not believe that they exist for you, then they will not. You have been given that choice." They also state: "Our method of worship is a meditation to our inner selves. We become attuned to the universal life-force."

So, you on are a boat in the middle of the ocean and the wind changes and you are knocked out of the boat and it floats away. You touch your thumbs to your index fingers, hum "ooooohm," and meditate on the life-force in your inner self. But you can't doubt. You must believe or it all goes away and you are alone with the sharks. Me, I would rather call on Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Savior of my soul, the Redeemer of all who call on Him, the Son of the Eternal Father who exists whether I acknowledge Him or not. Jesus is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world to draw mankind back to relationship with the Father. All that I read assures me that demons, ghosts, entities, and aliens don't like Him and cannot overcome Him.

Help, I'm hearing voices!

2010-12-06T23:01:00.000-08:00

Tonight I listened to a CD with the story of how Sid Roth, Messianic Jew and TV host, came to Christ. He wasn't raised that way. He tells an audience of Jewish people in Boca Raton, Florida, that he was separated from his wife and daughter at the time when he was encouraged by a friend to attend a New Age training center. There they taught people to meditate and accelerate their brain cells in order to become enlightened. They promised the clients that if they complete the training and their program doesn't work, they would refund their money. Sid thought it was just crazy stuff and wanted his money back, so he toughed it out. At the end, they encourage the clients to meditate and to invite a counselor spirit into their head. As proof that something new had entered Sid's life they presented him with the name of a woman about whom he knew nothing. Suddenly he saw a vision which suggested to him that she had cancer in her left breast. They said that was exactly right. At first Sid thought it was pretty cool and exciting.

The voice in his head gave him lots of information that he couldn't have known otherwise. He had become psychic. The problem was that he felt a little nuts and frightened. He wanted it to stop but didn't know how to make it happen. He didn't dare tell his parents, his wife, or his rabbi. He knew that none of them would understand.

He approached one of his mentors at the training center and said, "You are more advanced than I am. Would you enquire of your counselor and see what I'm going to be doing in a year?" The man's answer is extremely enlightening and should make us all sit up and take warning. He said, "Sid, this has never happened to me before! My counselor swore and cursed at me and wouldn't answer."

Sid's anguish grew until he really didn't care if he lived or died. At that point, a friend led him to Christ. Sid was so desperate that he didn't care who threw him a lifeline. He was willing to try anything. He went to bed that night in the pit of despair. He awoke in the morning filled with peace and joy. A clear voice spoke to him and said, "Return to your wife and daughter." He did that and has been happily married ever since. He is proud of his grandkids and they love their granddad. Sid's TV program is called It's Supernatural. He's kind of a dorky guy. His jokes were so bad on the CD I listened to that he had to explain that they were jokes. But God showed up at that meeting and people were healed. His TV show guests are all mediators of miracles and all have amazing stories to tell. Not one of them would suggest that the culture of supernatural healings and prophecy in their lives is a power from their own subconscious. They attribute every act to God. They know they are just the channel. The difference is that God doesn't babble about random news. His messages are focused on growth and deliverance in the lives of His people.

I recall another story where a woman bought a Ouija Board. She got so proficient with it that she put it away in her garage. Two spirits came through the portal of that board and just moved into her head. She didn't need the board anymore because the spirits just talked straight to her. One day she was invited to church. The spirits begged her not to go. She went anyway and accepted Christ. Unfortunately, they were still in her head. One day she went to her pastor and asked why. It turned out that the OB was still in her garage cupboard. The pastor came over for a board burning. As it burned, two sparks came out of the fire place and a scream was heard. But after that, the voices were gone for good.

Mind you, neither Sid nor the woman were bad, evil people who deserved to be demon possessed due to bad behavior. They were seekers. They were curious. They were just like you or me or anyone else. The spirits seemed so benign at first. Counselors. It's interesting to be psychic, and it could be quite helpful on occasion. The problem arises when one realizes the enmity these spirits have with Christianity and Jesus Christ. There is a profound incompatibility!

If Jesus is the essence of all that is good and loving, what does that say about these spirits? And if Jesus is just another teacher-guru, a nice man who taught us to be loving on the earth, why is He such a point of contention to these entities? Their hatred exalts Him and should be a directional pointer to Christ as a figure of immense power and presence.

What Lessons Can We Learn from the Ghosts?

2010-11-15T11:47:00.000-08:00

Today there are several TV shows here in the US that deal with ghost hunting. . .Ghost Hunters, Ghost Adventures, Ghost Stories, Celebrity Ghost Stories, Paranormal State, and an occasional documentary about a famous exorcism or haunted house. Charismatic, TV-friendly hunters bring in high tech equipment such as digital recorders to record ghostly voices called Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP). There are night vision TV cameras, computer monitors watching every room, walkie talkies, Electromagnetic Frequency monitors, and heat sensing equipment. There is the interview with clients: We heard children crying or giggling, we saw a lady dressed in last century's fashion, we were touched, we heard a voice telling us to get out, we heard footsteps, things fly off the kitchen counter, something appears to me at night, we feel watched all the time, a voice tells me to kill myself or kill my parents or my kids, etc. In a haunted home, people live in terror as things literally go bump in the night. If local research is properly done, the actual name of the departed spirit may be discovered.

Some ghosts turn out to be benign. When local research is done, it might turn out to be a mom whose three daughters died or a civil war nurse. It might be a sad ghost that was driven to suicide by malevolent voices of other spirits. It might be a woman who was murdered and whose body was never found to be properly buried.

In other cases, the spirits are not benign or harmless at all. There were people who were abusive and destructive in their lifetime who are still trying to control and terrify living family members. There are spirits who encourage those in the home to commit suicide, cut themselves, or harm others. These are often invited into the home space by family members dabbling with the occult or playing with Ouija Boards. Ouija (or Spirit) Boards are a guaranteed portal through which all kinds of entities can enter the home. People think they are a toy for children to play with. A parent may as well run out to the sidewalk in front of their home and invite in any stranger that they meet to come in and play with their children. No one can say for sure what or who is coming through the board.

It's not easy to get rid of such entities. Most ghost hunters don't even bother. The Paranormal State team does the most research to find out why the building or home is haunted. They usually uncover the root cause of the problem. The solution might be a baptism for a house member, an exorcism by a priest, advice to change the way the family relates to one another, an empowerment speech to the victims of the haunting, an empathetic burial ritual, or a priestly house blessing. They usually get positive results.

One thing has not yet happened in TV land. Hollywood has produced shows focused solely on miracles and now shows focused on ghosts. There is a fairly recent tidal wave of books, but no TV shows, about the afterlife. Some are all about reincarnation, while others are about near death experiences (NDE) or pre-death experiences (PDE). In those cases there is the out-of-body (OBE) journey through a tunnel or across a river toward a loving light being who shows the newly deceased everything they ever did or thought. There is no sense of anger or vengeance, but the soul feels its own disappointment as they see their life in a totally new way. They come back determined to change and do better. Some see deceased relatives or angels. Others glimpse a huge city of light or gorgeous vistas that await them. Their thrill is so intense that they often have to be forced back into the world of pain and uncertainty. Sometimes they are given a choice, and only the thought of loved ones brings them back.

So what is the lesson? Ghosts do not seem to have seen the face of God. They are often frightened and trapped. No angel, relative, or light being has come to scoop them up and convey them to Paradise. They can't seem to leave the arena where they spent much of their life. They hang around buildings that used to be alive with activity and are now abandoned or owned by others. They want their old life back and can't even touch it. They can't move on. They are alone. They try to inhabit human bodies to have the sensations that the living feel or they try to drive the living away from their old haunt so they can have the building to themselves. The addicted are still addicted. The abusers are still abusers. The angry are still angry and the depressed still depressed. How fun is that???

The lesson the ghosts would pass on to us is either, kill yourself and join me in my hellish misery, or quit living the life you are living so you don't join me here. Ghosts clearly fear the name of Jesus and they don't thrive where there is love and peace. You are not immortal. Your money cannot save you. Like Bernie Madoff, whose vast estate is being auctioned off to repay his fraud victims the billions he stole from them, all your worldly goods will go to others. Even if they are buried in the grave with you, it all dissolves and turns to dust and worms. Change your life! Not everyone goes to "a better place" as we all wish to believe.

A Tree Planted by Water

2010-11-08T00:53:00.000-08:00

Psalm 1 says, "Happy is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers (NRSV).

A poetic metaphor, of course. But what does it really mean? That nothing bad will ever happen to a God-centered person? Of course not. We all know that such people can have car accidents, develop cancer, lose their homes, lose a child, wind up divorced, or become depressed and angry. Goodness knows Israel and every major hero and heroine in the Hebrew Bible had crosses to bear and trials to overcome. So what point was the author of the psalm making with such confidence?

The water represents God's presence in our lives... an otherworldly energy that brings them through all tests and trials stronger and wiser than before. There are trees that are potted and trees that are planted. Those planted in God's covenant grace will grow taller, wider, and older than the potted trees. They will bear more fruit, meaning that at life's end, the person will be able to look back and be content with what he or she produced with the effort of their life. They were a resource for others, a shelter in a storm, shade on a blistering day. At their funeral, people will line up to declare the wonderful aroma their life exuded.

In economic terms, it means that that person will inherit a possession that far outweighs what wall street has to offer. This is an inheritance that passes on to generations.

In terms of physics, the believer has laid hands on the ultimate quantum reality, the one that ultimately leads to green pastures rather than to spooky nonsense and spiritual confusion.

In mathematical terms, it is the overcoming of the chaos of the universe. The fractal begins to make sense; eternity and infinity are a source of peace and joy.

In psychological terms, it is the peace that passes all understanding.

In political terms, it represents submission to the Peace Child of Isaiah 9, the One who governs wisely, who was prophetically given 7 designations: Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty, God, Eternal, Father, Prince of Peace.

The tree planted by the waters of God's Presence will experience storms and drought, but the leaf will not wither. This tree is an overcomer which passes on its strength and longevity to future generations.

The Big New Job

2010-10-03T13:41:00.000-07:00

One more year of college for son Ben. His girlfriend has already graduated and gotten her first job. Son Chris has one more year of classwork in his Ph.D. program. After that he prepares for his comps and outlines his dissertation. So next summer will be a time fraught with life-changing decisions and commitments for those 3 young adults. It reminds me a little of my own story when I was in Kentucky sometime in late 1980.

I had a wonderful job as a Geologic Draftsperson for the Kentucky Geological Survey, located on the U.K. campus in Lexington, KY. I loved what I did, where I worked, and who I worked with. The problem was that I was listed as a Teacher's Aid and I made the same salary. I was grindingly poor. Life was like quick sand. Pull one foot out and the other sinks. I lived with a cat named Mugsy in a small trailer in a trailer park. The park had its own ambiance which wasn't entirely unpleasant, but I could barely afford to feed the two of us and keep the trailer is basic repair. Someone once asked me why I had so many problems if I was the Christian and God was supposed to be helping me. I had no answer, but privately, as I considered it, my foundational problem was poverty. And I was really tired of it.

One day the pastor of our small Assembly of God Church decided to have a talk about tithing, after which he called people up to testify. I did so, because I had never ceased to tithe. I guess that's why the editor at work once said to me, "God just keeps your nose above water." After I spoke, the pastor said, "When you get that big new job, you come and tell us about it." I answered, "Oh, I love my job! I'm not planning to apply anywhere. I just wish I could earn a living wage." He said, "Well, I think God has a big new job for you, and when it comes, you come back here and tell us."

Not too long after that a flyer came from the California Division of Mines and Geology in San Francisco. The beginning pay for exactly what I was doing in Kentucky was the same as the Assistant Geologists were making. I didn't have to think twice. I applied for the job and was granted an interview. My mother bought me an airplane ticket. I was quickly hired and had very little time to pack everything in Kentucky that my car could carry and hit the road to California. Events developed so quickly that I never got back to the church to tell them about the big new job. It was located in the Ferry Building, across from a BART station and right beside the Oakland Bay Bridge. I had a nice little apartment in Fremont. A fluffy little stray kitten adopted me right away. I still wasn't rich. When my car engine froze, I couldn't afford to replace it. I allowed the car be repossessed. Rain or shine, I rode a squeaky old bike that I bought for $15. But I kept tithing and calling out to God for some further progress.

After a couple of years, a very nice young geologist announced that his wife had left him. He and I began to date. We had an idyllic courtship as we explored SF restaurants or rode around the Bay Area on his motorcycle. We were married about three and a half years after I began work there. In spite of the fact that I was 39 years old, I quickly became pregnant and had a perfect baby boy. The rest is history.

Transition times are the most difficult eras of our lives. We moms can barely hold back the tears when our first one goes off to kindergarten. When kids go off to college or the military, there is angst both with child and parent. When they marry and move away, a parent's heart has to stiffen against the bittersweet parting. When a spouse dies, the living mourn and rearrange their lives. But when we serve Christ, we know that God always has a plan... a good one... and we are never going through those unfamiliar pathways alone.

Why I, a Protestant, Now Believe in Purgatory

2010-09-13T11:55:00.000-07:00

It may not be fire, but it has been graphically described by several authors who have stumbled onto different versions of it.

Dr. Frank Ritchie and Angie Fenimore began as nonbelievers but ended as devout Christians because of what they saw in Otherworld. Robert A. Monroe and Rosalind McKnight practiced decades of out of body experiments with no particular religious orientation. They did not encounter God or Jesus Christ, but they did describe many a miserable, lost, and benighted spirit. Monroe was occasionally accosted by spooky, sexual entities who tried to seduce him into an erotic encounter. Monroe describes the fate of two of his close intellectual friends and that of his father, none of whom were in a peaceful heavenly situation. One of them came up to greet him through a hole in the floor of some Otherworld room. He appeared as a gaseous cloud. As he began to address Monroe, guiding hands interrupted the interview and led Monroe away. Monroe's description of angry, desperate, addicted earthbound spirits precisely matches that of Dr. Ritchie. Whitley Strieber describes the death of a good friend who, despite spiritualistic songs and ceremonies, seemed to have slipped into hell before Whitley's eyes. Authors who write about near death experiences have related tales of trapped souls. The show Paranormal State dealt with earthbound spirits who were certainly not in heaven or 'in the light' and were often still malicious troublemakers. Numerous Christian authors have described missing hell by a hair before their conversion. Others have visited heaven for a brief time but, while they were over there, they saw many others going elsewhere. Even the books promoting reincarnation for everyone admit that some human souls get stuck. For years, I hoped that the declaration of Jesus about the way to heaven being narrow was wrong, but after months of my recent research, I accept it to be a heart wrenching fact.

I have read two of Monroe's three books. I began with Journey's Out of the Body and moved on to Far Journeys. I'm not convinced that everything he describes is real. Some of it doesn't ring true. He might be exaggerating or he may be the victim of entity simulations, which can be so real that telling the difference between the simulation and reality is difficult. However, some intriguing points come through consistently. One of them is that the end game is love. Monroe is not talking about sexual love. In Far Journeys he describes a wet, sweaty, writhing mass of humans who had permanently left their physical state, but were trying to regain the sensation of total unrestrained sex in Otherworld. He pulled one man out by the leg and made three attempts to communicate with him. The man seemed not to notice. He could not wait to get back into the writhing ball. But says Monroe, there is no satisfaction in the non-material world because there is no real human body. That pretty much is the Christian message. In the Kingdom of heaven there is no marriage or giving in marriage, and the end game is love. The New Testament Greek word is agape, which indicates God's unconditional love for all mankind. Jesus also described hell as a place where the fire is not quenched and the worm does not die. Take that in a metaphorical sense and the OOBers and NDEers are describing a kind of hell.

The consistent message in all of the books I've read (although not explicitly stated) is that two things seem to open the way to a pleasant eternity. One is to learn to live a life of sacrificial love, putting others first and denying our bonds to evanescent desires. Genuinely repent of damaging things that we've done to our self and others and change our life, letting go of our attachment to addictions, ego, and to the things of this earth. Another is to call on Jesus Christ to forgive our sins, renew our souls, and open the way to the Father. That is the sure way. The books I have been reading often proclaim the Christian message, just in other words. The problem is that they lack the Christ who said the some of the same things first. The Christ Force can't change your life or forgive your sins. Jesus the guru can't lead you to the Father. Jesus stripped of the cross can not be the door to heaven. Jesus of the Bible is the only one that counts. Any entity, alien, or spirit that would deny who He is and what He did will lead you to hell.

A Modern Christian Sophistry

2010-09-08T14:07:00.000-07:00

A sophistry is something that looks good, feels good, and sounds really good...so good that it becomes an absolute truth for long periods of time, deeply impacting culture, before people realize that it's just wrong and they have to let the idea go. A sophistry stops all progress until it is exposed. One example in our own history in the U.S. is that black people are not fully human, so it's OK to buy and sell them on the open market. One of the biggest sophistries in the world today is promoted by the global Christian church. It is the evangelical belief that the Bible is inerrant, that there is no error in the Scripture, that all ideas expressed are those of God Himself.

The belief that there can be no human content or cultural bias in the writing of the Bible is just wrong. To continually aver that the Bible is perfect, inerrant, and always reflects God's current view of the world sounds so good, so pious, so holy, so heroic...and is always rewarded with amens and "well said" from all the brethren with whom we want to stay connected and by whom we want to be admired. But if Jesus is the way, the TRUTH, and the life, how can clinging to a pious sophistry further the life of the soul? What it really does is make the church irrelevant in our day and age. It makes God look retroactive and unappealing. It overlooks the dynamic for growth and change that is embedded into the Scriptures that allows the message, like a new wine skin, to change shape over diverse times and cultures. Divesting ourselves of the doctrine of inerrancy does mean that we have to think about our theology a little more. It means that we can't default to former cultures, even those depicted in the Bible, to express God's message to our world. We do not need to treat our wives, daughters, and women like the leaders of the first century church did. We do not have to love our wives as Abraham loved Sarah. We have to gain the mind of Christ, define how His love plays out in our era, and model a love that speaks to our decade.

One of the first things that would change is how the church defines women in leadership and in the home. We would have to reconsider whether a woman needs the 'covering' of a man in order to stay spiritually strong and acceptable to God. Such a doctrine does disservice to the blood and redemption work of Jesus Christ. It is also unnecessarily demeaning to women, as if they are intrinsically defective in some way. Historically, there are too many examples of strong Christian women who supported their families in prayer, putting that female intercessor in the place of "high priest." The fact is, evangelicals are proud of proclaiming the fact that Jesus is our High Priest and none other. Paul proclaimed the man as the head of the woman in an era in which a woman had no rights or public presence. Because of such pronouncements, it wasn't until 1920 that women could vote. The women fighting publicly for the right to vote were beaten, ridiculed, and persecuted. I'm sure many a good preacher vilified them from the pulpit, using Scripture to back their claim that those women are out of proper order.

If we acknowledge that God speaks through His messengers in a voice and at a level of knowledge which is appropriate for the era of the message, we could also reconsider how literally we should read Genesis 1. The difference in tone between Gen. 1 and 2 would be more recognizable, as would the progression of creation events, which vary in the two documents. The name of God changes three times in the early chapters of Genesis. Psalm 104 would be added to the creation epic. All would be recognized for what they are, theological poetry. If we could step back and appreciate the exalted language and the simplification of concepts, the debate between religion and science would be greatly diminished.

I personally do believe that the Bible is perfect. It is a perfect reconstruction of mankind grappling with new revelations and old traditions. Haggai's name, which means "my wrestling," is a good alternate moniker for the entire biblical message. Men and women continually have to wrestle with God and with each other and with the enemy of our souls to properly interpret and re-communicate God's message to the contemporary world.

Remote Viewers Target Jesus

2010-08-08T13:44:00.000-07:00

I quit blogging for some time now because I realized that the ideas and info I was sharing in my blog are the same content that I want to write about in a book. However, I just have to express my frustration as I read about the Invisible Helpers who guided Rosalyn McKnight around the cosmos. Robert A. Monroe of the Monroe Institute was her monitor.

A remote viewer is not informed about the actual target he or she is supposed to view. The monitor receives an envelope from a client (eg. CIA, DIA, a corporation). The monitor does not open the envelope, but he might say, the target is a person. The idea is to not 'frontload' the viewer with information that may taint the results. After the viewing, the envelope is opened and the viewer gets 'feedback,' an important step in quality development and control. Sometimes the target is Jesus or Jesus Christ. When it is, Jesus is actually out there. The viewer who may or may not be a Christian, will probably not recognize him as Jesus, but will describe his attributes. They may say that he is an energy light being who somehow came to earth many years ago, or that he is a male who is innocent of all wrongdoing and is wonderful, lovable, warm, and able to scan the viewer and help that viewer see his own life in a new way. No trumpeter announces that this is the Son of God, but the viewer comes away impressed. So make no mistake, Jesus is out there. I could point to 3 or 4 RV descriptions of Jesus.

In books by or about Edgar Cayce, Jean Dixon, to some degree Ruth Montgomery, the spirits acknowledge that Jesus is central and highly exalted. But sometimes he is more of a celebrity just out there somewhere. As with a dead Christian denomination, he is given lip service, but not worshiped and not central to the life of the practitioner. Finally, we have books promoting belief in reincarnation where the spirits affirm that there is no God, no throne, no heaven, no hell, no evil, no punishment. Existence is about trying, trying, trying tryingtrying to improve oneself.

Beginning in the 1980's many remote viewers or trainees were sent to the Monroe Institute in the beautiful Virginia mountains to see if OBE training could enhance the psi spy program. In ROMC's book about her experience roaming around the cosmos in OBE state, led by her Invisible Helpers and watched over by her monitor, Robt. Monroe, the spirits very quickly indicated their desire to channel through her much like they did through Edgar Cayce. In this case ROMC was awake enough to describe things that she was experiencing and hearing. For this group of spirits Jesus the Christ is the highest vibrational energy form that there is. He came to earth to help raise the consciousness level of the earth and the people on it (they don't say how). He is part of the god-force (yes, that's a small G) but there is no God that punishes. In this view, the words evil are not used, although in her roamings she saw many miserable, trapped souls and even heard screams of pain. Maybe not physical pain, but certainly some kind of anguish of existence. Those are all the lower and lowest of vibrational levels. The words good, bad, choice, and consequence are not at issue. The words level, vibrations, low, high, higher, consciousness are used over and over ad nauseum. In her travels through our earthly woods, she sees happy little fairies and smiling flowers. She also sees musical gnomes, little woodchucks living in the trees, and little sun beings who slide down on sunbeams and go into the plants and trees to make energy. There are no demons in her woods. All is happiness, gratitude, joy, and music.

Her spirits told Monroe that it's not about religion and ethics or worship of any higher power. It's all about raising vibrational levels, balance and rhythm in the universe. No path to follow is offered except to be more loving and grateful for the earth. People reincarnating may bring balance to their being by being in a high vibrational level in one life and then choose the lowest level in another. So... would the lowest would be like a Mayan priest who celebrated victory in war by cutting the beating heart out of living victims and throwing their bloody corpse down the pyramid stairs? Or Jack the Ripper? Or Bernie Madoff? What would the New Age readers think if the Bible suggested that we balance our lives out by choosing to be brutes in one life and saints in another? The laughing would never end.

Jesus was all about ethics and choice and helping the poor and forgiving those that abuse you. He gave us a solid, practical path to follow. You can find it in Matthew, ch. 5 - 7. Why don't the spirits suggest that one read the New Testament and find out what this high vibrational light being had to say? The reason is that what Jesus had to say is the opposite of what the spirits have to say. Intelligent, educated individuals would rather hear about the body being divided into chakra segments and enhanced by a serpent entity that winds up their spine into their brainstem than hear about avoiding sin. The very word sin, love your neighbor, angels, heaven, hell are soooo yesterday. Boooooring. Passe. Talk to a high IQ about laser beams, vibrations, gnomes and fairies and balance in the universe and kundalini serpents and it's all "Whooooo, coool!!" Christian literature might boast about the blind being able to see, the lame walking, drug addicts delivered, a damaged heart or liver being made completely new in a moment, even the dead being raised (I'm talking about today) but that's booooooooring and only for the naive, the simple minds who don't understand about laser beams.

For the sake of brevity, let's put it this way. If Jesus and the devil opened competing restaurants, Jesus would serve you a real juicy steak that you could chew and swallow, and he'd give you a salt shaker to salt it. He'd say, "I am giving you this because I love you, and when you're done, I want you to share my bounty with others." The devil would give you a bowl of vibrations and an empty salt skaker. He'd say, "The vibrations are full of light and the shaker full of love. Enjoy and advance to a higher level." (Boooooooring!)

Dr. John Lerma, Into the Light

2010-06-11T12:56:00.000-07:00

Dr. John Lerma is a hospice doctor with the Houston Medical Center, hospice care. He is in a perfect position to examine afterlife experiences by interviewing his own patients and inquiring about their pre-death visions and revelations. His book is fascinating, enlightening, and perplexing at the same time. First of all, one thinks of angelic visitations as a relatively rare event, but in Lerma's book angels are everywhere. Of course, we only hear the stories where they appear, so that could make perfect sense. Second,the patients give long explanations as to what the angels tell them. Whether the age is 4 or 9 or 88, they all sound lecturish with consistent themes in several of the lectures such as the covenant agreement of the adult soul prior to conception in which the soul chooses its fate. That fate may include drug addiction, murder, drunk driving, or rape. It's all for the benefit of humanity. It all works out perfectly. Another popular theme is that there are no dark spirits. Every human has 'the dark' in them and if we let that take over our life, it can 'create' a temporary 'entity' that cooperates with the light angels in showing us that the dark is counter-productive. Third, all of the lectures given to Dr. Lerma sound like... well, like Dr. Lerma.

So I found myself wondering if he took the liberty to embellish the stories a bit or to insert just a tad of his own worldviews into the lectures. That's why the last two stories were so startling. Rachel was a Jewish lady from Argentina who had a really terrible disease called Huntington's chorea. It causes involuntary muscle spasms and ends with dementia and death. In hospice she had a tube down her throat so she couldn't talk. During that time she began to have visions of Jesus Christ. After a while they removed it and inserted a breathing apparatus through her nose. About a week before she died she stunned a roomful of people, including her husband, her synagogue friends, a nurse, and Dr. Lerma himself, when she announced what she had been seeing and hearing.

She claimed that Jesus Christ was standing at the foot of her bed washing her feet. I had a friend long ago who suffered greatly in her life who also had such a vision. Rachel gave a very personal message from Jesus to both Lerma and the nurse which blew them out of their socks because it was about their children. One child was deceased and was standing next to Jesus. The other was that God did not want Lerma to move to protect his children from predation. All would be well.

The Jewish friends and husband in the room were stunned and offended, thinking that she must be on some kind of medication. Lerma asked, "Are you sure it was Jesus?" She answered yes and said that she had accepted him as her Messiah and Son of God. She wanted her husband to know that it was real and that he must do the same. The reference to Jesus as the Son of God reminded me of Dr. Ritchie standing in the presence of the Son of God. Of course there was that tiny little nuance: "I chose to follow him as the Son of God." So... to her he is the Son of God, but his personna is fluid enough that for someone else he can be a nice teacher? That sounds a little wishy-washy. Either he is the Son of God or he's not.

The fact that she was so lucid and the messages were so accurate was considered a miracle. She did not have dementia. Then there were the other interesting insights. Her suffering was for the purpose of raising the level of humanity (a Catholic teaching and a frequent theme in the Lerma stories) and she and Jesus chose this path for her before she was born. Well, people have been suffering a LOT since we quit swinging in the tree branches. When is all the suffering supposed to bear the fruit of elevation and enlightenment? Rawanda? Idi Amin? Sudan? the Congo? Kosovo? The Middle Ages? Apartheid? Martin L. King assassination? Hmm, don't see it yet.

Even though Lerma was raised Catholic, I can't imagine that he would simply invent a Jewish woman who would tell her family and friends that Jesus is their Messiah. I could perhaps with enough compelling proof entertain the thought that our suffering might help others, although I can't see that the world is a better place for it all. I have to reject the idea that we agree with Jesus or the good aliens or the directors and masters of the universe to come to earth and do harm, to fall, to harm ourselves, to kill 4 teens in a drunken accident, etc. all to raise the level of humanity.

So the readers of Lerma's book will have to decide for themselves how credible it all is. I'm happy that the first and last couple of stories show Jesus Christ as the center of our advancement and salvation. Lerma asked Jesus through Rachel why some patients saw Jesus, but none had ever seen Buddha or Muhammud. Now that is a question I would love to ask Jesus myself. I feel I know the answer, but to hear him say it?? I would fall off my chair to have that opportunity. Rachel herself answered it: "That's not important." Rachel, Rachel....

What Do the Hoover Dam and the Wedding at Cana Have in Common?

2010-06-03T18:12:00.000-07:00

In my previous blog, I promised to write about Dr. Richard Eby's father, who worked for G.E.'s High Voltage Bushing Department. The company's president told Mr. Eby that bushings were an essential part of America's future. The lack of bushing technology was holding back progress in the electrification of the country. What was needed was some type of porcelain or material that could withstand millions of volts of electricity, not only from the electricity generated but from the lightning storms that hit the wires. When Hoover Dam was being built, the issue of bushings became critical.

After many years, four labs were getting nowhere. Finally Eby Sr. gave up and asked for God's help. The next morning, his Bible fell open to John 2, the story of the Wedding at Cana where Jesus Christ turned the water in six large ceramic pots into wine. Suddenly he felt God speaking directly to his mind. Six large ceramic pots that withstood the energy or power it would take to rearrange the molecules of water. They also withstood the pressure needed to hold about 25 gallons of water. That morning Eby Sr. came down to breakfast happy that he now had confidence that the problem would be solved and it would have something to do blast-proof pottery.

Eby closed down his whole division for a month so everyone could rest. When they all returned, he encouraged people to tell stories about their time away. Nothing turned up immediately, but pressure was rising because cement was being poured into Boulder Dam and the bushing problem was holding things up. In desperation, Eby called up the ceramic expert at another plant and asked him what he did on his time off. The man went traveling all through Europe, wound up at the royal tombs in Egypt, and bribed a guard for a souvenir. At 4 am, Eby called him again and asked him what the souvenir was that he brought home. Turned out to be a piece of pottery from Tut's tomb that still looked to be in good shape. Eby was ecstatic. He knew this would be the answer. He ordered Cermak to examine and make a bushing out of whatever it was. Two weeks later the new bushing was ready for testing. They sent enough electricity through it to shake the building, but it didn't explode. An hour later President Hoover was notified that the bushing problem was solved at last.

As stated in my earlier post, this story is found in Dr. Richard Eby's 1978 book called "Caught Up Into Paradise."

Dr. Richard Eby Visits Paradise

2010-05-31T14:51:00.000-07:00

In his book Caught Up Into Paradise (1978), Dr. Richard Eby tells the true tale of what happened after he fell off a rotted balcony and landed on his head on cement. His skull was cracked open and blood gushed everywhere. He was told by doctors later that he actually bled out by the time he got to the hospital. The ER refused to waste blood on this dying 60-year-old man. They thought they could earn a few extra pennies by sewing the scalp back together and save the morgue from having to do it. Forty cents per stitch, is what they told Eby later, but they did a sloppy job of it because after all, the man was dead.

Meanwhile, Eby was in eternity, for just a while. He examined his robed, ghostly body. He smelled the air of Paradise, examined the flowers. They were all perfect, therefore all the same. His body was transparent. No genitals. There were no shadows because light was everywhere. Colors were brilliant, including the white of the little flowers.

To make a long story short, Eby's healing was nothing short of miraculous. The jagged gash on his head healed so quickly that the stitches were no longer needed. But his head and face were still out of kilter because no one bothered to put the skull back together right. When he got home from the hospital (way earlier than thought possible) a specialist physician made a special trip to his home to rearrange his skull.

During his early recovery, Eby had an encounter with a cloud that he recognized as Jesus Christ. It said twice, "My peace I leave with you. You will heal with your hands." He had one more encounter. After he was sufficiently recovered, he and his wife took a trip to Israel. It was 1977, and they were in what is called the Garden Tomb. Suddenly the lights went out, and all were plunged into total blackness. Suddenly Eby felt the presence of Christ beside him. He was told that he had been allowed to visit Paradise, but now he was to experience hell. Suddenly foul smells, demonic thoughts, and utter despair swept over Eby. He was alone in total darkness, but knew that he was in the presence of creepy Pit-mates. It only lasted a couple of minutes, but it was the worst thing he had ever experienced. Jesus commanded him to tell people the reality of both places. The book he wrote fulfills that command.

It's odd how hypnotherapists who regress their clients into past lives never hear reports of demons, dysfunctional ghosts, spiritual warfare, deception, or aliens--entities that are so real for so many. I think one of the reasons that many people hate Christianity is because Christians not only believe what the Bible says about hell being real, they temporarily experience it in the afterlife or in visions. Hell suggests to such critics that God is unforgiving and sadistic. I would far rather agree with the reincarnationists and believe that the afterlife is all therapy, therapy, therapy. But the reports of those who are regressed are somewhat contradictory, so there can't be one unified reincarnation machine running the whole world. Furthermore, as compelling as many such reports are, there are too many elements missing for me to believe everything I read about it. They never see anything genuinely dark, but I KNOW that such things exist. Eby's testimony about Paradise and hell, confirmed by his experience of the Presence of Jesus Christ, is worthy of serious consideration.

My next blog post will be about Richard Eby's father. The title will be, "What does Hoover Dam and the Wedding at Cana Have in Common?"

Why We Should Dedicate Our Children

2010-05-25T23:53:00.000-07:00

Exodus 20:4-6, NIV reads:
4 "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand {generations} of those who love me and keep my commandments.

It sounds a little unfair for God to punish one generation for the sins of a former generation, but I think what is happening here is not an unfair dispersal of God's punishment but a cause and effect relationship of negative influences passed from one generation to another. That still isn't fair, but anyone with open eyes can see that the sins or indiscretions of one generation can cause tremendous despair, failure, and difficulties for the next, and that those influences can last for generations of dysfunctional families. Gods and devils don't need to have anything to do with it.

However, I do believe that they do have quite a lot to do with what happens in our families. When you take the Bible seriously, and even if you don't, if you study the occult or the paranormal long enough, you soon discover that spiritual influences follow family lines like velcro. People who believe that they are alien abductees declare that their children are taken even from the crib, and there is nothing they can do about it. People who are into spiritualism know that certain children are picked from a very early age to carry on the family occult activities. Ditto for people who believe in reincarnation. It is children from the ages of 2 to 6 who recall their former lives without hypnotic regression. It's not fair, but it's a fact. One way or another we often pass on to our children what we do and what we are. If that is negative, it will hurt generations of our descendants.

On the other hand, blessings can also be passed down. Charlie Shedd wrote a book about children and angels. He relates that when he was young, he fell into bad company. Bad deeds escalted among his pack of friends. Finally one declared on the phone that they were going to rob a trolly. Young Charlie felt a hand on his shoulder, and his grandfather's voice suggested that he not go, that he make some popcorn and watch a movie. Charlie's grandfather was deceased, but because of the hand and the voice, he declined to go. Two friends of his robbed the trolley. They were recognized by the aged driver, so one panicked and shot him. Both boys wound up in prison for life. Why did Charlie not suffer the same fate? It's not fair that a hand and a voice caused him to stay home that night while the other boys had no one to suggest they were making a huge mistake, but it happened anyway. His two friends regretted what they did, but it was too late.

The more I study the occult, the more I want to stay close to a church family. I think we should not only dedicate our young children, we should begin to pray for our children in the womb, and even before their conception. The best inheritance that we can offer them is the blessing and covering of God on their lives. Somewhere they have to make their own choices and live with the consequences, good or bad, but lucky is the child that has generations before them that understand the power of the blessing of God. Lucky are they who have loving parents to pray for them. Paul the Apostle wrote about one saved family member sanctifying other unbelieving members. It's true. Prayer and virtue are powerful treasures to pass on to our descendants. It's never too early to dedicate them to God.

Linette and the Little Black Blob

2010-05-18T14:22:00.000-07:00

The little black blob appeared in the home of Ron and Linette shortly after a woman she knew dropped by the house for a visit. That woman had been playing with a Ouija Board in her former location. Linette knew that playing with the OB could open portals in the spirit world, so everyone who knew her knew that she wouldn't approve, including this lady. Linette is an evangelical Christian who has no interest in playing games with the spirit world.

Nevertheless, when the woman left, she left behind a 'hitchhiker,' a deposit of something spiritual, but not Christian. Linette began to notice that when she got up at night to get a drink or use the bathroom, a little black shadow would appear here and there. She ignored it, or told herself that it was her little black dog Boo Boo. Boo Boo used to follow her around at night.

One day Linette was dancing around the house singing a worship song that she had recently written. She was having a great time, totally focused on the Lord. Ron was in the other room and it was daylight, so lack of vision was not an issue, but perhaps it was lack of focus that made her think that Boo Boo was wanting to go out. The little dog would stand by the door and she would open it, so that's what she did. The little dark shadow went out, and she closed the door. The problem was that when she turned around, her dog and cat were sitting right behind her, looking at her intently. Stunned, she thought, 'What did I just let out the door?' Needless to say, she didn't see the little shadow after that. Her attempt to recall when she started noticing the shadow brought to mind the lady who came to visit after having played with the Ouija Board. Was there a connection? What was evident was that the shadow had never been Boo Boo, and furthermore, there was something about an atmosphere of genuine Christian worship that caused the presence to leave.

When I was in seminary, the Old Testament professor kept talking about 'crash helmet Christianity.' Wouldn't it be wonderful to experience it, he kept saying. About the third time he mentioned that phrase, I raised my hand and said, "If crash helmet Christianity came to your church, you would reject it. You'd throw it right out the window. The fact is, that kind of Christianity already exists and you don't want it." I reflected on the old Pentecostal church where the neighbors would occasionally call the fire department out to the church during a service, because they would see flames on the roof. The trucks would arrive only to see a bunch of crazy Pentecostal praising God. I thought about the stories of the Azuza Street Revival (They Told Me Their Stories, by Tommy Welchel) in which limbs grew out and the blind were made to see. There is Kaitee Lusk, who received a message from God to fly to the Philippines and lead Ferdinand Marcos to Christ. She did so (Eternal Makeovers) by pure faith. She found him on his death bed, with a breathing tube down his throat, but she led him to Christ shortly before he died. Members of the bodyguard and of the Marcos family followed suit. More recently, there are two DVD's made by Darren Wilson (Finger of God and Furious Love) that are so radical that even I am amazed.

I'm in a wonderful church right now that I really love, but it's not what you would call crash helmet Christianity because you always know what is going to happen next. Great worship songs, funny video, greeting, sermon, announcements, collection, all in an hour and 15 minutes.) There are major blessings here and there, but you don't need to fasten your seat belt when you sit down in the chairs. At least not yet.

Back in the seminary class, discussion arose about miracles and unexpected events occurring in church. One woman said that her father was a Methodist pastor. He didn't deny the possibility of miracles and deliverances in church, he just didn't want them to happen in his church. I assured her that he need have no fear, it will never happen in his church. It happens where people are desperate to see people saved and delivered, so much so that they want whatever it takes to make that happen... in their church and outside of it, too. That's what I long for, not because it brings attention to this person or that, but because the Holy Spirit can accomplish in 5 minutes what we could do in 5 years. Salvation, deliverance, discipleship, love, that is what it's all about.

Yahweh Rebukes the Fundamentalists

2010-05-13T20:22:00.000-07:00

Fundamentalists love the Book of Job. Besides the fact that it's great literature, who can't empathize with Job's predicament? He is being tested by God. He has lost his children, his goods, and his health. His wife is shrieking at him and his supposed friends, those misguided comforters, are accusing him of being a sinner. Furthermore, Job doesn't understand what is happening with his God. God is behaving in ways that don't make sense. Something is terribly wrong, but what and why?

The fact is, Job's friends were standing on solid ground. They were standing on God's Holy, inerrant, unchanging Word. Deuteronomy 27 and 28 assure the reader that bad things happen to the disobedient sinners. Good things happened to the obedient. They had tradition on their side. "Ask the former generations and find out what their fathers learned, for we were born only yesterday and know nothing, and our days on earth are but a shadow. Will they not instruct you and tell you?" They had piety on their side. How could any sane person impugn God's holy and pure justice? The friends had an eloquent repertoire of speeches with which to defend God. How could they not be on perfectly safe ground, not only with God but with every man they knew on earth. Their argument was a sure thing, their reputations secure. The longer they pleaded with Job to mend his ways and confess his error, the holier these men felt.

As for Job, he was the miscreant. How dare he accuse God? What new idea is this, that a good man could suffer so? One thing fundamentalists know is that they know it all. They have the whole revelation and there will surely never be anything new. God must uphold all of the righteous revelations of the past. He cannot waver. Cannot change. That would be imperfect. Old is good. Formulations are safe and good. Job was calling for an arbiter, an advocate who had a foot in heaven and a foot on earth, one who could plead man's cause with God and explain the inscrutable deity to mankind. Job suggested that there were gray areas in this understanding of suffering. The old formulas don't always work.

And yet, when all of the speeches had been made, with Job crying out in confusion and doubt and the 3 friends laying out how things have always been, God rebuked the friends and defended Job. "After the LORD had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, 'I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has.'" They had to sacrifice seven bulls and seven rams and Job had to pray for their atonement. Job became their priest in a sense. He also became an instrument of (gasp) a broader understanding of God. Good people can suffer! It's not all cut and dried. It's not that Deuteronomy was totally wrong--it's just that the problem is a little more complicated than those two chapters can resolve.

That's why Jesus warned against putting new wine in an old wineskin. Old skins are brittle and will crack. They can't take the pressure of new thoughts and new understandings. They are faithful stewards of all that is old and fixed, but anything new is dangerous and is a slippery slope that the truly pious will avoid at all cost. Furthermore, they rebuke, chasten, and persecute anything that isn't frozen in time, you know, like wives submitting to their husbands in all things. Like the priesthood. Liturgies. Formulas for baptisms. So many dogmas, quite a few of them very old. We stand guard with our swords at the ready to cut down any new thought or way of worship.

Well, some new things should be cut down, but there is no stop sign at the end of the apostolic era. The Holy Spirit blew right past it and is still at work in the world today. Our ears and eyes need to stay open. God is still afoot in the world and I don't ever want to miss what He is doing.

You've Got to Show That There's a War Going On...

2010-05-08T11:48:00.000-07:00

and you've got to show that the only way to win that war is through love.

Those are the words of God directly and clearly to Darren Wilson, the producer of a movie called The Finger of God. Darren was set on his course to make that movie from two spectacular circumstances. One was that his aunt Patsy and uncle Bob both got gold teeth set into their mouths while at a Pentecostal church service. The other is that an angel named Breakthrough confronted him directly and commanded him to make the movie he was contemplating. That first movie was about miracles, Christian miracles. They included things like gold dust appearing on people as they preached, gemstones appearing in church, and gold teeth appearing in people's mouths.

The second movie was first prophesied by Heidi Baker, who told him that God wanted him to go into the darkness to show the light. Later, in a service at the Toronto Airport church, he was shoved back into his seat and spoken to in no uncertain terms about the second movie, which would deal with the occult and paranormal. He called it Furious Love. He began that filming by going to a New Age convention to "pick a fight." God restrained those efforts and reminded him that it wasn't about fighting, but about love.

When I first heard that I thought two things. First, people don't want to admit that the spiritual realm is also a place of conflict where freewill, good, and evil clash. There is so much of that here in our physical plane, it just seems more that we can grasp that it all goes on there as well. We want to believe that the afterlife or the dimension beyond or physical realm is a place where all issues get resolved, all evil is reconciled with good, and everyone rests in peace. Kind of like Hollywood where improbable happy endings to severe conflicts in our movies make us feel good. Nice people require a nice, benevolent universe, and cannot accept that a God would allow a universe to harbor demons or evil spirits. But God says it isn't so, and so does the Bible, from Genesis 3 to Revelation. The Bible is full of spiritual conflict.

The second thought is that dang, I wish God had said that to Moses, you know, the part about love. Instead we have, "Show them no mercy," and "kill them all." Maybe that's why Jesus was never able to call God Yahweh. He always talked about Him as Father. What a concept! This mighty entity, with the power to nuke the entire globe if He wanted to, doesn't require the title of "Your Mighty, Holy, Highness God of the Universe." It seems the Pope demands more acknowledgement of holiness and authority than God does. God wants to be addressed by all of us as Father, and he doesn't care if we are men or women, slave or free, Canaanite or Israelite, black or white. We don't have to claim to be the dirt under His feet like the Canaanite mayors wrote to the Egyptian Pharaoh in the Amarna Letters. We are His children and He is our inheritance.

I'm not suggesting that the God of Moses isn't the same God that Jesus served. But I guess we have to acknowledge that God is so far above our own understanding that it takes generations and generations to fully grasp who He is and what He wants of us. Moses's job was to show that God is One and has much to offer us. Jesus's job was to show that He offers it because He loves us.

There are a few hints that the Israelites didn't really go in and "kill them all." The Amarna Letters would suggest that the invaders of Canaan made treaties with several cities. Also Joshua made his famous proclamation, "If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." Joshua is not talking about a situation where the idol nazis are going to prowl the villages, pull out the offenders, and beat them to death on the spot. He is talking about choice. He is saying, "You can be stupid and wrong if you want, but I know which way is the right one and my family is going to follow me on that path. I know that it's the best inheritance I can give them."

The Ground Beneath Her Feet

2010-05-04T02:28:00.000-07:00

In Jonathan Welton's book, The School of the Seers, he mentions a medley of passages that are theologically more important that they would seem at first glance. "The Word says that we move: from grace to grace (John 1:16) because grace and truth trump the law given through Moses; strength to strength (Ps. 84:7); Faith to faith (Rom. 1:17) because the righteous live by faith; glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18) because it is the Spirit that forms the image of Christ in us. Last but not least, he cites Prov. 4:18 which reads "The path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, shining brighter and brighter until midday" (Holmans). He goes on to state, "The Kingdom of God is never stagnant; it is always progressing forward and taking ground" pp. 173-174.

And that is exactly why, in our day and age, when a church or a denomination continues to deny leadership and pastoral roles to women, they are falling prey to a false doctrine, the consequences of which become more serious as time goes by. The New Testament gives 3 justifications for denying women full leadership status. One is that she was created second, so she was created in the image of man rather than the image of God. Patriarchal men have long thought that men were more intelligent and competent than women. The second reason is that Eve was in the transgression, suggesting that women are morally and intellectually weaker than men. Reason 3 is that women were punished by being put under submission to men by God Himself. These are all seen as being timeless, unchangeable situations that not even the very grace of Christ's death on the cross can alter.

Leaving women in this stagnant, barren limbo ignores the authority that Deborah, Hannah, and Huldah exercised as prophetesses in the Old Testament. It ignores the promise of Joel 2:28, 29, in which God pours out His Spirit on all humanity, including male and female slaves. It bypasses the courage and insight of women like Ruth, Rahab, the New Testament heroines, and the woman at the well. Women showed their mettle in the Roman arenas where death was the result of refusing to deny Christ.

Quenching the Spirit of God is a serious matter, a sure-fire way to guarantee that God will stifle the ambitions and aspirations of those who participate in shutting off His work.

I had a discussion with a fellow Bible College student many years ago. Rueben came from Romania, a very patriarchal country. A woman in the congregation had a prophetic gift which the pastor resented because she was exercising too much influence and authority. He told her to stop using that gift. She complied for a year, but finally came to him with this message: God is very grieved because you have not just cut off this servant of God but have denied the work of the Holy Spirit. If you don't take back the ruling about the woman's gifting, God will take your life within two weeks and your brains will be smeared across the wall.

Talk about courage! I personally would be terrified to deliver such a message, even if Gabriel himself shook his fist at me and said deliver it. The pastor did not believe the warning. The church waited with bated breath to see what would happen. Ten days later the pastor was walking down a street lined by a wall. A car ran off the road and hit him pressing him against the wall and literally smearing his brains against it.

In Josh. 1:3 the Lord promised Joshua that he would give him every place where his foot treads. When Reuben was telling me his story, he suggested that maybe women were too sensitive to be pastors. I reminded him that even as we were speaking there was a female astronaut in outer space helping to fix the Hubble Telescope. I said, "Do you have any idea the competence and training it takes to be in that position? Do you know how much money the US invested in preparing her to be there? Why are we having this conversation?"

The feet of women have tread the halls of Congress and the White House. We have marched across the mission fields of the world. Women have been the presidents of nations. They are university professors and deans, including in conservative evangelical colleges. They have run charities, been spies, fought in wars. What will it take for evangelical men to realize that the first century view of the perfect woman is a repressive abomination in our day? How can we say that we are loving people when we insult and repress half of our own population, which includes our wives, mothers, and sisters?

Robin H's Battle of the call

2010-05-02T16:04:00.000-07:00

Robin Harfouche knew from the time she was little that she had a special gift. She could read people's minds and sometimes tell the future. On one side of her family she had relatives into witchcraft and esp. They called it 'the veil,' and Robin was told that she had it. All throughout her childhood and youth, she believed that it was a gift from God to do good things in the world.

On the other side of her family, she had Pentecostal Christians. She wasn't close to them at all and came to her adulthood without ever having gone to church. One day at college, she heard a whistle. She turned around to see a very tall angel who told her that she had been chosen to be a spokesperson for a new religion called New Age. She went on to become a dancer in Hollywood. She got hooked up with the man who managed several major actors, including Michael Jackson, Marilyn Monroe, and Shirley McClain. He pressed her to begin training for her call, so she wound up at a seminar to learn to channel spirits. When she heard a woman manifest a deep male voice, she was totally freaked out and left. She told the manager that she wasn't going to participate in the channeling business. He told her that she had no choice because it was her destiny.

She wound up as a waitress in Sonny Bono's restaurant in Hollywood. Some customers were disrespectful to her so she decided to let someone else wait on them. Her spirit guide, however, told her she had to stand up to them. She grabbed a tray of drinks. On her way out, a door slammed onto her head, putting her into a 6 week coma. When she awoke, she was told she would never walk again. She was in pain every day.

A friend invited her to church one day. The minute she passed through the doors, she was overwhelmed by the Presence of God. She wound up on the floor, physically and emotionally overcome. When she recovered, she was healed. Today, she walks normally. She wound up getting married to one of the evangelists there, Christian Harfouche. She now has a healing ministry of her own, but this time, all is done in the name of Jesus Christ. The miracles are often of the 'creative' kind, meaning that people are given limbs or organs that they didn't have before. She was taken to heaven by Jesus Christ the year after her healing. He told her that the enemy has managed to imitate the gifts that He has supplied for His people. He showed her worship in heaven on a grand scale and told her that the time has come when worship on earth and in heaven will bring the two realms together, allowing for spectacular healings and miracles. He said that one thing the adversary cannot do is create. They can only manipulate what is already there.

It is not at all uncommon for people in the occult to experience a calling to service. The same is true for alien abductees, journalists writing about the Virgin Mary, scientists writing about reincarnation, mediums, etc. Diverse spiritual realms have been vying for the loyalty and service of humans since the dawn of time. Genesis 3 is a perfect example. The testimonies of Christians called to service cannot even be quantified due to the vast amount of them. But all of these various spiritual callings are from different sources, with different messages. It's all very real, but it does not lead us all to the same end game or the same eternal destiny.

Estonia Sings to the Well

2010-04-23T16:08:00.000-07:00

Numbers 21:16-18: Then Israel sang this song, "Spring up, O Well, Sing about it, About the well that the princes dug, that the nobles of the people sank--the nobles with scepters and staffs." From there they continued to Beer, the well where the Lord told Moses, "Gather the people together and I will give them water."

Do the Israelites sound superstitious? Why would they have the nobles and princes of the people dig a well, which apparently wasn't fully effective, and then sing to it to release the ground water into the well? Who could possibly believe that such an approach could be effective?

Never say never. Yesterday my husband and I watched a beautiful documentary about the fall of the Soviet Union. It began with a song! The Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian people were all caught between incursions of the Germans during the war and the Russians afterward. Their occupation seemed endless, and the men and women who disappeared numbered in the thousands. Some were went to German concentration camps, or to Siberia, while others were just shot. Life under the Soviets was that of repression and grinding, ridiculous propaganda. First, there was the original attempt to kill off the leadership and intelligentsia, then to crush and destroy the language and culture. The one Estonian tradition that did not die was the annual song fest where thousands of Estonians would gather to sing. Some of the songs were patriotic. They seemed to have an almost magical ability to fan the flames of hunger for national identity and freedom. The DVD documentary that we watched was called "The Singing Revolution" and I recommend that anyone who reads this blog rent it and watch it. I recall many of these events taking place in the 80's, but I never put them together in context. I had no idea the brave and amazing bid for independence that was made by these non-violent people, who had no weapons, no jets, no bombs, no terrorist philosophy, and no political clout. Only their courage, their inspiring festival, AND an amazing unity amongst themselves.

Their situation was complicated by a plan as old as ancient Assyria. Move the native people out and replace them with your own. Then claim that those people need the protection of their own government. A further excuse for continued occupation.

Rent the video and watch it! But ladies, have a box of kleenex nearby. We sent our soldiers to Vietnam with guns, planes and chemical weapons because we feared that if Vietnam fell there would be a domino effect which would sweep all of Southeast Asia into the communist net. In the case of Estonia, the dominoes fell the other way with a shot being fired. With the moderate and progressive leader Mikael Gorbachav playing a key role, the Soviet Union fell in a very short time. Nation after nation declared independence, including Russia itself.

Please don't tell me that the Old Testament stories are just silly legends. Estonia sang to the well of Freedom, and God gave them water.

Little Girl Ghost Saves Lost Child

2010-04-22T15:38:00.000-07:00

I just finished Russell Targ's autobiographical book, Do You See What I See? He has three compelling afterlife stories in it. One involves an Icelandic sailor who drowned decades previously. His body washed ashore and was badly mutilated by birds and dogs. He was buried in the local cemetery. His thigh bone was discovered later and for some reason built into the wall of a home. When the owner of the home was present at a seance, the ghost appeared and indicated that he wanted his thigh bone back. He revealed its location, and sure enough it was there. One must ask, what did he think he was going to do with it? It was claimed from previous seances that he still had a craving for alcohol, tobacco, and colorful speech. If there is a heaven, this guy did not go there. Nor is he locked up in a fiery hell as we Christians would think, but neither is he having much fun in the afterlife. He is hanging around earth longing for things he can't have and wouldn't do him any good if he got them.

Another story involved a medium who was requested to hunt up a Grand Master chess player. Iceland is particularly fond of chess. An experimental match was called for between a deceased Master and a living one. The living person won, but other GM's verified that the game was played at a Masters level. I wonder if the former Master hangs around chess games wishing he could play or if he just couldn't resist an unusual opportunity.

The most compelling story was the one where Targ's little granddaughter was lost in the wilderness for 3 days. A psychic declared that she was OK and being taken care of by a nice lady. When Haley was found, she said that a little girl stayed with her and guided her to her present position. After a historical investigation by the Targ family, the girl turned out to be the ghost of a child who was murdered by a cult many years previous. The mother was in fact, still alive and in prison. This would be another of numerous cases in which the spirit of a child still manifests as a child--as if they never grow up. I am happy to read that the child was found, especially since Russell Targ lost his lovely and brilliant daughter to cancer when she was only 40.

It would not be surprising that children remain in the spirit world the same age they were when they died. The question that it raises for me, however, is that in the case of reincarnation, all souls seem to be adult, even if they are in infant bodies or in a child's body. They are not just temporarily adult, but they have been adult for eons. They even have a spirit name that follows them from life time to life time. Children who remember past lives struggle to express the images they see with their currant, infantile vocabularies. They also are unable to replicate the language of their former lives, although the images and many names are still available to them.

The case of the murdered child had a double happy ending. The mother in prison was informed of the rescue and was beside herself with relief and happiness. The odds are great that she had been blinded and controlled by the cult leader and was manipulated into killing the child by claiming that she was demon possessed. The mercy and goodness of the fruit of that whole rescue encounter suggests to me that the child was either manifesting as her young self to accomplish this task (the psychic indicated that a nice lady was taking care of Haley) or that she was allowed by benevolent forces to aid in the rescue. Hopefully, her afterlife is a little more positive than that of the sailor.

My studies in the paranormal have altered my thinking a bit. a) I think that when Jesus said, "In my Father's house there are many mansions," He may have meant various levels of existence. Maybe a fiery hell is not the fate of all unbelievers. b) But I would say that the metaphor of worms would be applicable to the regret that many must feel when they find themselves just powerlessly floating about with no purpose and no joy. c) I also believe that Jesus Christ is truly the Door to the Holy City. No one will get in without Him. d) We need to dedicate our children. In fact, I think dedicating them in the womb is not too soon.

The Kundalini Portal

2010-04-18T21:37:00.000-07:00

This is an excerpt from Do You See What I See, (2010) by physicist and remote viewer Russell Targ:

"Mollie also taught me kundalini meditation while I was at Columbia. I practiced this diligently for a year before significantly scaring myself with an out-of-control explosion of energy racing up my spine---a hundred times more powerful than any orgasm. I wasn't prepared for this kind of success. I think of this as "the white hot poker up the ass trick"---very dangerous without an experienced teacher.

The revered Indian yogi, Gopi Krishna, describes his own disastrous premature experience in his autobiography, The Awakening Kundalini. It left him hospitalized and mentally ill with buzzing sounds and flashing lights in his head for years, until he finally integrated the experience---a very scary tale. I wish I had read it before, rather than after, my own adventure in the fire---another glimpse into the unseen world." page 59.

I admit, I haven't finished Targ's book yet, so I may be pre-judging his message, but it seems to me that he is dealing with his experience as if the kundalini energy was somewhat like electricity, like Ben Franklin and others experimenting with this neutral but powerful force in order to learn to tame it. The kundalini spirit is often described as a serpent spirit that winds around your spine in 6 stages until it reaches the base of the brain. Serpents have been associated with various gods and goddesses and sentient spirits of some kind since pre-historic times. What if it really is a spirit? What if the meditation and rituals that engage this spiritual dimension really open a portal to a dimension that is far more than just neutral cosmic energy that needs to be channeled? Think about a snake. What if you found one in your back yard? What if it approached your dog or child? You would take a hoe and kill it. Many years ago, Jean Dixon claimed that a serpent wrapped itself around her body and gave her a revelation about the coming of the anti-Christ. In Genesis, a serpent represents the enemy of God. The Pharaohs of ancient Egypt wore a serpent on their crown that represented a magical, fire-breathing goddess-protectress. Christians and practicing Jews are encouraged to "tread on serpents and adders" (a metaphorical allusion to evil in the world and to demonic forces) in Psalm 91.

When Ouija Boards and certain occult rituals are activated, spiritual portals are opened, often by children just playing what they think is a game, or adults looking for exotic entertainment. Houses become haunted that way. I have a friend who used the board to tell the future. Two spirits began to chat with her all day long, so she didn't need the board anymore. She put it in a cupboard in the the garage and forgot about it. When she decided to go to church one day, the spirits pleaded with her to not do so. When she became a Christian, she asked her pastor why the spirits were still in her house. He asked her what she did with the board, which was still in the garage. He came over to her house and together they burned it in the fireplace. They claim they heard screams as two sparks came flying out into the living room. After that, the spirits left for good.

So, in my humble opinion, there is no amount of training that would make me want a snake spirit coiling up my spine or that of anyone that I care about.