Chapter 1 -

Qualities of the wrong anointing

 

 

 

 

As we noted in the foreword, it is possible to make a mistake in determining which power is affecting you. In other words, it is possible for someone to think that he or she is acting in the power of God, even when this is not true.

  However, there are certain properties from which occultist abilities and in general anointing from the wrong source can be recognised. These properties include, for example, the issues listed below. If you notice several of these features in your life, your ‘gifts’ are probably not from God:

 

- passiveness

- guiding spirits

- continuous visions of the spirit world

- repeated out of body experiences

- supernatural information

- not remembering

- phenomena in the family

- great exhaustion

- compulsion

- arbitrariness

- the effect on the life of faith

 

Passiveness. The first feature that we can see in the wrong anointing is that it requires passiveness and an empty mind. In order for it to affect through someone, the devil and the evil spirits always need an empty mind and a passive body. These things, and the fact that the person is like an automatic machine, seem to be the most important prerequisites for them to act.

  A good example of passiveness is the description of Raphael Gasson below. He speaks from the point of view of a former medium, but in the same way spirit healers, clairvoyants, and crystal gazers can try and reach a similar condition. Some of them may, as a consequence of their passiveness, reach certain trance conditions, some mediums even go into a deep trance, and have no recollection of these events afterwards:

 

Someone who wants to become a medium must learn to relax his body and concentrate his thoughts in one point, until he will achieve a passive condition, a condition resembling self hypnosis, where he can no longer control his thoughts. The person will become like an automate and who can be used by the evil spirits because of the passiveness. (1)

 

Also the next description refers to the same issue. It is about a woman who read cards but who could have also used any other instrument. Her activity also required a passive, trance-like state in order for her to read the cards more effectively. (The well-known Edgar Cayce and Jeane Dixon have also pursued such a state. Cayce was even called a ‘sleeping prophet’ because of his passive trance. Likewise, Dixon wrote in her book The Call to Glory about how she tried to empty her mind in order to foretell effectively.)

 

“Nowadays I foretell from ordinary cards, but it does not matter what tool I use. There just has to be an object in which you focus until you reach a trance. I once foretold from a rug hanging on a wall.

  “It takes about four hours to reach a trance and it drains energy from you as if you were doing some physical work. After that I can foretell all day," she says. (2)

 

There are several methods that people use to achieve a passive state and a few of them are listed below. Even though these methods may at first seem to differ from each other quite much, they all finally produce a relaxed, passive condition, where the evil spirits can act. Many of these methods may seem especially familiar to someone who has worked amongst the New Age movement:

 

Breath- and concentration training are very usual in different methods. They are also a part of yoga that in a way is meditation for the whole body with the purpose of uniting man with the Hindu god Brahman (the word yoga literally means yoking to the same yoke and binding together).

 

Different forms of Oriental meditation where you turn inwards and seek to calm and empty your mind are one of the most common gate to passiveness in people's lives.

  The best-known method is probably transcendental meditation, i.e., meditation which in the Western countries has been advertised as a scientific technique and a method of relaxation and that is said to have nothing to do with religion or philosophy. It has also been said that it is a stress-relieving method that brings about a feeling of peace and increases one’s mental resources.

  However, it is good to note that TM (Transcendental Meditation) is based completely upon the Hindu philosophy, although people seek to deny its religious background. Thus, mantras which are used in meditation, for example, are usually the names of Hindu gods – people are calling their names – or some other basic concepts of the Hinduism. Rabi Maharaj, a former Hindu guru who also practised a lot of meditation stated: "TM is Hinduism in disguise, misleadingly described in scientific terms. Its religious nature is denied and so western people are led astray." (3)

  The fulfillment of the promises of TM is questionable at the least. It is true that many may experience a superficial feeling of peace in the beginning, but later on, the consequences are usually not good. When people who practiced meditation were studied in the University of Stanford (Leon S. Otis, Adverse Effects of Transcendental Meditation, Update 9 Vol No 1 March 1985), it was found that the longer the meditation continued, the more negative consequences were observed. Symptoms such as pain, confusion, frustration, and depression – which are typical in occultism – were common consequences of meditation. Some even compared their meditation to drug addiction; they attempted to stop meditating but could not do it because being in the normal state had become a problem for them. If they did not start meditating again soon, their condition would worsen so that they would finally have to do it. So, they had become addicts of transcendental meditation!

 

Repeated reciting of spells and repetition, also the mantras of TM, are one way. However, Jesus warned us about this kind of futile repetition when He said, "But when you pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking." (Matt 6:7).

 

Continuous drumming is common, especially for many shamans. They may also use drugs or mushrooms that cause hallucinations to achieve a passive state.

 

Hypnosis is one method that leads to passiveness. It is a certain kind of sleep-like state which people attempt to reach by creating a vacuum void of thoughts and by driving the body and mind into a relaxed and passive state.

  One indication of the harmfulness of hypnosis is that many Christians have had difficulties with praying to God after hypnosis, and they have lost their will to read the Bible. (Kurt Koch tells in his book Between Christ and Satan examples concerning this issue.) Therefore, this is not a neutral method, but it will leads a person into the subordination of a wrong kind of guidance, as all methods leading to passiveness.

 

Prolonged looking at the mirror is a method that is used by, for example, clairvoyants. They may also use other objects, such as crystal balls or rugs hanging on walls – the object is not important – in order to achieve a passive condition.

 

Also music, especially the mysterious New Age music which seeks to bring about a ‘therapeutic and a deep, calm state’ can lead to passiveness.

  In fact, this kind of music does not differ from the monotonous drumming of the shamans in the middle of a forest, except in that it is more beautifully played. The result in both is the same: a deep relaxed state which is a prerequisite for the access to a trance.

 

Oriental self defense can lead to passiveness if something like zen meditation is included. This kind of meditation that is based on emptying the mind does not appear in all methods, neither do all practice it, but some have taken it as a part of their practices.

  It can be regarded as a general rule that if you can do something that normally would hurt you but it now does not harm you, you are dealing with demonic powers. Based on some fast films it has been said that bricks have broken under the hand a split second before the hand even touched them. This indicates that these people are already bound and betrayed by the powers of darkness.

 

Visualization or imagining of internal visions and creating mental pictures is also another gate to passiveness. It is often used as a part of relaxation courses for businessmen and in courses that are connected to controlling the mind (Silva Mind Control, etc.), but as a matter of fact it is an old occultist method used to gain connection with the spirit world. This method will not be sanctified even if a Christian uses it while thinking of being healed – imagining in his mind how small men attack the sick cells, for example – because healing that comes from God is always received through faith, by believing in the word of God; by seeing God as trustworthy, not by means of visualization.

 

Role games (like many modern computer games) are also a similar method to visualization because almost all the activity in them takes place almost entirely in ones imagination and mind.

  The problem with these games is that they are a doorway to the spiritual world, especially since they display the basic elements of occultism in the form of a game, such as reciting spells, curses, the use of magic, and calling on the names of powers and gods. Hence, they easily lead to occultism and also to the above-mentioned visualization, where a person can see the game before his eyes all the time, and be unable to separate reality from daydreams.

  For example, the following quote indicates to which these games can lead; especially the games where violence is common, when someone is totally enslaved by them. The example is told of by a former player of the role game Dungeons and Dragons,  who was convicted to a life sentence for murder:

 

The game takes place completely in the player's mind and imagination. (…) If you play it three or five times a week, four or eight hours a time, for example, your conscious mind will get used to the violence. You no longer control your own thoughts. The game becomes true. You start to live the game as if it was reality. Everything you say or do is connected to the game. You no longer play for fun but because you have to. The game has completely taken your over. It is so dangerous that I cannot even explain it. (4)

 

Tapes for developing oneself that can be bought from shops and that speak about relaxation, controlling stress, losing weight, learning, building your self-esteem, concentration, controlling your life, etc. can also be a door to passiveness. These tapes that mean well but that have covert effects can commonly include sounds which make the listener empty his mind. Likewise, they can include other methods that advise you to passiveness, such as turning inwards, ‘drawing from your internal resources’, meditation, self hypnosis, and visualization. All these methods can make a person passive, which is one of the basic characteristic of wrong guidance.

 

Guiding spirits. The second feature of the wrong anointing, in addition to passiveness, can be guiding spirits in people's lives. If someone has practiced, for example, passive meditation for a long time and worked with parapsychological issues, it is possible that he has got this kind of ‘companion’, i.e., a guide who is usually thought to have been human before, but who now lives in the spiritual world and from there helps people with their spiritual growth.

  The following description is also an example about this issue. It refers to a connection with a guiding spirit, but it could just as well be named with other terms of the New Age movement, such as resurrected masters, a friend, the masters of wisdom, the white fraternity, a power beast, an internal advisor, a higher me, an angel, etc. The man in this example – who had gone astray – was, however, freed from the deception:

 

A young man came to me in the university where I was teaching and told me, “You know what, I am being led in a very miraculous way. There is always someone close to me. Whenever I ask something, I will immediately receive an answer.”

   I immediately became suspicious and started to ask this young man questions. He was clearly dealing with the ‘familiar spirit’, about which the Bible also speaks. This quite simply means that he had formed a close relationship with a spirit from the supernatural world. As it often happens, this spirit presented himself as the Holy Spirit.

   I thought about this and prayed to God that I could distinguish the spirits from one another. After two days, when the young man came to my office again, I bluntly asked him, “Have you ever been dealing with fortune telling or mind reading?”

   A curious expression came to his eyes, like he had have seen through me and he said, “How did you guess? Ever since I was a child, my mother has taken me to fortune tellers.”

  (…) As I was speaking, I powerfully felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in the room and the man begun to understand. So I told him, “People use these wrong ways of guidance to find out hidden information, future events, secret wisdom, and supernatural powers. But do you understand that all of this and more can be found with the help of the Holy Spirit? Are you ready to give up this false guidance and follow the truthful and biblical guidance?”

   He nodded and said that he wanted to be freed. We prayed for his release on the basis of the Covenant which the blood of Jesus Christ has made possible for us. When he left my office, he was a new a person. Nowadays, he works for the Lord.” (5)

 

However, a man who has a connection with guiding spirits, "advisers" or "masters of wisdom",  should note that it is one of the more clear signs of a false anointing. These guides, whatever their name is (sometimes they may even appear as Jesus, as the Holy Spirit, or as Gods angels), are in reality just the evil spirits mentioned in the Bible. They may very well appear as resurrected masters, advisers, or God’s angels but their purpose for everyone is to betray and lead astray. The following verses refer to this:

 

- (2 Cor 11:14) And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.

 

- (Lev 19:31) Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God.

 

- (Lev 20:6) And the soul that turns after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.

 

- (Deut 18:10-12) There shall not be found among you any one that makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that uses divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch.

11  Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer.

12  For all that do these things are an abomination to the LORD: and because of these abominations the LORD your God does drive them out from before you.

 

- (2 Kings 21:6) And he made his son pass through the fire, and observed times, and used enchantments, and dealt with familiar spirits and wizards: he worked much wickedness in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger.

 

- (Isa 8:19) And when they shall say to you, Seek to them that have familiar spirits, and to wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek to their God? for the living to the dead?

 

In addition, the following verse from the letter of Paul to the Colossians also slightly refers to this. Paul writes about certain kind of men who delight in voluntary humility (mental growth?), worshipping of angels (spirit guides?), boasting of what they have seen (continuous seeing into the spirit world is one of the most typical features of the wrong anointing) and fleshy pride (being proud of special guidance can be connected with the previous issues). Perhaps these words of Paul describe many people who have the wrong anointing and those people who work in the New Age movement and who have similar experiences:

 

- (Col 2:18) Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,

 

Continuous visions of the spirit world. An issue that is connected with the above, that is, the guiding spirits, is having continuous visions of the spiritual world. People who have guiding spirits in their lives often have frequent visions of the spirit world. They may see UFOs, humanoids, people's auras, human faces, fairies, elves, pixies, and all kinds of things that do not even always exist.

  However, we must note that the above-mentioned repeated and continuous seeing into the spirit world is a quality of the false anointing. It is one of the more common properties and usually arises from people giving room for the devil in some way through, for example, different forms of passive meditation or by contacting the spirit world themselves.

  Another issue that is good to note is the fact that most of the visions these people have are illusions that the devil gives them. They are illusions, taking place inside the mind (like dreams), but do not always exist in reality. The following description of Neil T. Anderson refers to the same issue. In the description, a former Mormon woman sees her dead father, but it is only an illusion of hers:

 

A former Mormon woman prayed the prayer of this step, when she suddenly fell silent stricken by panic. "Tell me what you hear," I prompted her.

  "Don't you see him then?"

  "Who?"

  "My dead father – he is standing right behind you."

  I did not look behind me because the thing that she saw was in her mind and it was not her father.

  "What about your father?" I asked.

  "I am responsible for him," the woman said. Mormons believe that they are responsible for their family members. They even marry and get baptized on behalf of their deceased relatives. When this woman disclaimed the connection with this spirit and her Mormon beliefs, she was freed from the power of the demons. (6)

 

Repeated out of body experiences or so-called OOBE experiences, where a man can see himself and believes that he is moving in this state are one possible characteristic of the false anointing. It is common that people who have parapsychic abilities also have these mysterious out of body experiences, which often disappear when they find salvation.

  These experiences are caused simply by the fact that these people have somehow – perhaps by meditation, using drugs or by similar means – made their minds passive so that they can experience these things. These kinds of experiences do not come by accident; they require passiveness which seems to be a vital condition for the activity of the evil spirits. The spirits need the passive condition in order to bestow their false experiences on someone.

  Rabi Maharaj, a former Hindu guru who believed that he had, among other things, been “in the secret universe of the unknown planets to see the Glorified Masters" as a consequence of meditation, said later about his journeys, "it was a lie, a trick of evil spirits which enabled them to get the upper hand of me when I released my mind from my control." (p. 161. Gurun kuolema [Death of a Guru]). He also stated (p. 162) that both meditation and drugs can cause changes in consciousness because evil spirits can act through these methods:

 

I learned that drugs caused changes in consciousness that were similar to those caused by meditation. They made it possible for demons to manipulate neurons in the brain and create all kinds of apparently real experiences which actually were deceitful delusions. The same evil spirits that had led me to ever deeper meditation in order to get the upper hand of me, were obviously also behind the drug movement for the same satanic reason.

 

We must, therefore, understand that most (not necessarily all) out of body experiences are probably just experiences in the mind, like dreams. This similarity becomes apparent in that neither of them are usually remembered well (for example, Shirley MacLaine's friend David states in the book Out on a Limb about his own out of body experiences, "Unfortunately, it often happens that when you return back to your body and wake up, you don't remember where you have been. Quite like having a dream.") and that in both cases you see yourself moving elsewhere, even though your body never leaves the bed.

  The following description gives a good example about this. It refers to the connection with Carl's astral journeys and the ‘Tortoise’. This person's astral journeys were not real but arranged by the ‘Tortoise’. Carl, a professor of parapsychology, had drifted into this condition when exercising his paranormal experiments for a long time:

 

When the spirit was asked whether it had arranged Carl's astral journeys (OOBE), the spirit used Carl's mouth to answer: "Yes." (Cf. Mark 5:7 s).

  When asked how it happened, the spirit replied: "When we get our hands on the soul life of a person, we can make anyone hear, touch, taste, know, and want the impossible. He was ours. He is ours. He belongs to our kingdom."

  The spirit was asked whether Carl saw the so-called ‘aura’ (which is spoken of by the theosophists and also MacLaine), and the spirit replied yes. Had ‘the Tortoise’ shown Carl his aura? The answer was affirmative. When the spirit was asked whether Carl knew who the ‘Tortoise’ was, it assured that he knew.

  The spirit was asked again whether Carl had been out of his body during his astral journeys, in the places he had mentioned. The answer was no. "What happened then?" "We gave him information concerning different places as if he had really been there."

  The questioning continued and it was very revealing. The respondent was a demon who was liar just like his host. However, in this situation the demon was "out on a limb" i.e. in an awkward position. It was being driven out of Carl and it did not want to go. It exposed Satan's secrets in order to stay. It was scared to death of going to the abyss. (cmp. Mark 1:24, luke 8:31) (…)

  Driving out ‘the Tortoise’ from Carl was like an electric shock to him; it changed him in a second. Jesus Christ moved in to live in him and the real identity of ‘the Tortoise’ became crystal-clear to him.

  The professor wrote an apology to his students whom he had misled, and confessed that he had knowingly and voluntarily let an evil spirit take over him. Even though the spirit had come to Carl in disguise, pretending that it had come to save him, to perfect him, to help him help others, he had known all along that it was an evil spirit. "I never enjoyed the out of body experiences, they were only delusions." Carl confessed that all his psychic gifts had come from the same source. (7)

 

Supernatural information can also be a property of the wrong anointing. It can appear as, for example, imitated words of knowledge and foretelling, which can resemble prophesying. Likewise, such forms of foretelling as reading cards, reading the hand, crystal gazing, and psychometrics or gaining information from dead objects can be connected with this issue.

  We will not examine these forms of foretelling further. It will suffice to say that there is no guarantee that supernatural information is always from God, because it can just as well be from the evil spirit world. (However, the spirits are not omniscient as God is. They get their information from the future principally in two ways: either by knowing the intentions of people or by what they themselves intend to put into effect through people.) So it is very possible that if this kind of supernatural information appears in the life of a person, he is probably in connection with the evil spirits. The following description in the Acts also refers to the same issue: a damsel who was directly under the power of a spirit and who made money for her master by her soothsaying. This woman was freed, however, when Paul commanded the spirit to leave. Her foretelling immediately ceased:

 

- (Acts 16:16-19) And it came to pass, as we went to prayer, a certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination met us, which brought her masters much gain by soothsaying:

17  The same followed Paul and us, and cried, saying, These men are the servants of the most high God, which show to us the way of salvation.

18  And this did she many days. But Paul, being grieved, turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.  And he came out the same hour.

19  And when her masters saw that the hope of their gains was gone, they caught Paul and Silas, and drew them into the marketplace to the rulers,

 

- (Lev 19:26,31) You shall not eat any thing with the blood: neither shall you use enchantment, nor observe times.

31  Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God.'Do not eat any meat with the blood still in it.

 

- (Lev 20:6) And the soul that turns after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.

 

Not remembering. Not remembering is another feature of the wrong anointing – although it does not apply to all activities in this sector. People under the false anointing often have gaps in consciousness and memory: some periods in their life seem to have been wiped away. They can also easily lose their sense of time: one moment can seem like an hour and a longer period like one moment. Also, they are sometimes unable to know at all what they have done or said under this ‘anointing’.

  This kind of forgetfulness is especially common among deep trance mediums who, once in a trance, do not understand at all what they are speaking. Afterwards, they may wonder what they have heard themselves say.

  This kind of forgetting is also common among UFO experiences. These contact persons do not remember their experiences afterwards either – they forget it all. That is why they may use hypnosis to remember their experiences (cf. examining reincarnation with the help of hypnosis). One example of this kind of forgetfulness is an article in the magazine Apu (36 / 1991. p. 66), where Rauni-Leena Luukanen was interviewed. She has also written a few books about UFOs. She tells how she also had difficulties remembering anything of her UFO experiences:

 

Nowadays Rauni-Leena Luukanen is flying with UFOs on a weekly basis, but she cannot remember anything about the events without hypnosis.

  This forgetting is called a cover memory. Rauni-Leena remembered under hypnosis how a humanoid forbade her to remember anything about the events on the vessel. They do this to protect people because the events may feel frightening in broad daylight. (…)

  If Rauni-Leena wakes up very tired in the morning, she knows that she has been examined in the night. They have taken specimens of her ovule, skin, muscles, and her nose. She has noticed marks of taking of the samples on her skin and the marks of straps that had been tied around her chest and pelvis. (…)

 - But in the morning I did not remember anything, Rauni-Leena regrets.

 

Phenomena in the family. These abilities of false anointing can be passed on in the family, just like any earthly tradition. (It is good to note that God's gifts are never passed on.) It is usual for someone possessing parapsychological gifts that these kinds of phenomena have appeared in the family: in a father, mother, or grandmother, for example. In other words, they may have possessed a gift of clairvoyance, foretelling, conjuring, spirit healing, using a magic wand, or other paranormal abilities that may have been passed on to the descendants as a mental inheritance and an encumbrance in the family. Many people who have this kind of a background may argue in the following way (does this sound familiar to you?):

 

- This is nothing new. I have had these experiences ever since I was a child. It seems that I inherited these abilities from my mother and father or from my grandparents.

 

Great exhaustion. Another property of the false anointing is great exhaustion: a great weakness that can be experienced by those who possess the wrong anointing after they have ceased practicing it. Very often when the anointing has ceased acting in these people, they may experience great weakness, boredom, headaches, and other symptoms. The more they have acted or the deeper the trance in which they have been, the greater the symptoms usually are.

  The following example in Kurt Koch's book also refers to the same issue. It talks about a former medium and her activity, and how she experienced exhaustion after her sessions. Similar exhaustion can very well appear in many spirit healers' lives after they have stopped their healing sessions (it is true, however, that their ‘abilities’ may develop quickly in also this area):

 

  …But there is another side to the story. After every session, my mother was completely exhausted. In the course of time she began to suffer also from depression and fits of rage during which she screamed and shouted. Sometimes her mouth would foam. Once, during a fit, she attacked me with a knife in her hand and if it wasn't for the training I received in the army, I would have been badly hurt. Her memory also suffered and she became mentally unstable. In my own life, participation in spiritualism showed as the lust to smoke and drink, and the quick-tempered side of my nature often came out. (8)

 

Compulsion. We discussed above how the evil spirits desire to turn a person into a passive automatic machine through whom they can work (automatic writing, mediums, etc.), and this issue also includes forcing of the supernatural that is also another feature of the false anointing. The forcing can become apparent in at least the following ways. If one notices these kinds of feature in his own life, he can be freed from them if he first hands over his life to Jesus and resists the devil in the name of Jesus Christ.

 

Unable to control. The first element that can be noted is that a person under the power of the false anointing often has trouble controlling the ‘gifts’ he uses, or controlling his speech and actions in general. If a person has, for example, an imitated gift of speaking in tongues or a gift of false prophecy, it is as if a force is forcing them to use these gifts. However, God never forces us, but He calls us. In addition, if we have the gift of speaking in tongues and prophecy that God has given to us, we can also control these gifts and speak only in suitable situations. Paul wrote about the same issue in his time:

 

- (1 Cor 14:27-33) If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most by three, and that by course; and let one interpret.

28  But if there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church; and let him speak to himself, and to God.

29  Let the prophets speak two or three, and let the other judge.

30  If any thing be revealed to another that sits by, let the first hold his peace.

31  For you may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted.

32  And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.

33  For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

 

Symptoms if one does not obey. An example of this kind of compulsion is that mediums or other similar persons who are usually extremely deep in deceit often get sick right after trying to stop their activity. Almost immediately when they seek to rid themselves of these things, they may catch mysterious illnesses and diseases that force them to start again.

  We can certainly find many examples about this (for example, Shirley MacLaine in her book: Matka sisimpään tells about three people,  Orbito, Gasparetto, and Mauricio, who experienced this – they could not stop their activity because they would immediately have fallen ill), but perhaps the following quote indicates where the false anointing can lead:

 

The claim that shamanism is not hazardous to a healthy man was, of course, the main goal of the entire report, but those direct contacts that I had with the full-time shamans in Japan told an entirely different story. Sooner or later, the spirits will take the shaman into such a firm hold that they will become their slaves and will be forced to suffer very deep pain. Finally, the shaman can break down mentally, but still be able to show surprising demonstrations of his abilities. Shamanism is, in the course of time, as enslaving a power as drug addiction that is often connected to it. (9)

 

Obsessions, internal voices, and commands may also be included in this. The people living under the false anointing often come across thoughts, voices, and commands that are completely foreign to them. In other words, they may have a dialogue in their head – voices and thoughts that they do not recognize as their own. Some may even feel that there are two different persons in them. They may even end up hurting themselves or the person closest to them on the voice's command – things that they would never do in a normal state. (In jurisprudence, an act performed under this state is called an act done non compos mentis, ‘not of sound mind’.)

  The man from the region of Gerasenes, mentioned in the Bible, who tried to hurt himself and who was directly under the power of unclean spirits can be regarded as an extreme example. (This certainly does not mean that all who have obsessions are in the same condition. The devil – who is the accuser, tormentor, murderer, and liar [Ilm 12:10 Matt 4:3, john 8:44] – can just as well affect a person from the outside. Perhaps most cases are like this.) However, he was freed and received complete understanding after having faced Jesus:

 

- (Mark 5:1-15) And they came over to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes.

2  And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,

3  Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains:

4  Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him.

5  And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.

6  But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him,

7  And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with you, Jesus, you Son of the most high God? I adjure you by God, that you torment me not.

8  For he said to him, Come out of the man, you unclean spirit.

9  And he asked him, What is your name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many.

10  And he sought him much that he would not send them away out of the country.

11  Now there was there near to the mountains a great herd of swine feeding.

12  And all the devils sought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.

13  And immediately Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea.

14  And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done.

15  And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.

 

Arbitrariness. An indication of an anointing not being of God is one being able to decide when the anointing acts or a miracle takes place. If one can control any ‘power’ or ‘energy’, they are always of evil spirits. They can easily be in co-operation with the person, but the purpose of it all is to pull the person deeper into deceit and finally into eternal damnation.

  As a distinction to the works of God, we can say that God always wants us to be dependant upon him, upon his grace, and upon his leading. He does not want us to be arbitrary heroes of faith, but He wants that we ourselves find out His plan, what He does, and what He wants to do in every situation. This was the principle of Jesus' ministry on the Earth and it should be the principle of every man, because the arbitrariness of man in this issue will only lead to magic. (In Jesus' temptations in the desert, it was a question of the same issue: He was tempted to perform miracles which were not the Father's plan for His life. He was tempted to change stones into bread, which he refused: Matt 4:3: And when the tempter came to him, he said, If you be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.) Jesus' own words can be found in, for example, the Gospel of John:

 

- (John 5:19) Then answered Jesus and said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he sees the Father do: for what things soever he does, these also does the Son likewise.

 

The effect on the life of faith. If a person has acted under the false anointing or has received a gift of tongues from the wrong source, for example (sometimes even a genuinely saved person can become a partaker of an imitated gift, if he lets a spirit healer or a person possessing a false anointing to place his hands on himself; a second possibility is that the person has driven his mind into passiveness and repeated, for example, a word thousands of times, which has resulted in him receiving the ‘gift’ in question, although it is not from God), these matters are bound to affect the life of faith. Their affect will in no way promote the life of faith. The following issues are the most common symptoms that can be seen:

 

- Firstly, if a person is under the power of a false anointing, it always prevents normal, genuine, prayer in which man turns to God who is in Heaven through Jesus Christ. This can especially occur when a person sincerely turns to God and wants to repent; he may even lose consciousness. However, those who have the gift of tongues form the false source can indeed pray in this language, but not in a normal state.

 

- Reading and understanding the Bible may also be impossible. The person may feel like nothing sticks to mind and as if someone is snatching his thoughts.

 

- When a person is under the power of the false anointing, he can often drift into a sinful life. He may drift into sinful living in, for example, the way that he will deem fornication, homosexuality, or any other sin acceptable, or even the guidance of God. The person will not take into consideration the fact that God never leads us to sin and to anything that is against His word.

  When God leads us, He always wants to release us from sin and not to drive us to it. In other words, if some force acts to the contrary, it cannot be a power of God.

 

- In pastoral care, a person may experience threats, accusations, or statements in their mind: "This won't work, go away, you will never be freed!" The internal resistance in these situations is powerful. There may also be blasphemous thoughts and deeds.

 

- The effect on the life of faith can especially appear in a situation where a person wants to turn to God and to Jesus Christ for the first time. Often, a person burdened by occultism and a false anointing can be at peace in the world, but as soon as the person wants to turn to God, the troubles will begin – troubles that are caused by the devil not wanting to let go of the person whom he deems a foolproof case.

  The following case described by Kurt Koch refers to the same issue that is usual for a person burdened by occultism. The description tells of a man who had been taken to a magician when he was young, but who as an adult wanted to turn to God. (It is good to note that in addition to a visit to a spirit healer, or something similar, the tie to occultism may have been formed as a family encumbrance or through ones own actions.) The troubles in his life began only after his conversion, but he was finally freed from them completely:

 

The word of God spoke to the man, and he wanted to follow Christ. Once he had made the decision, he started to suffer from severe oppression, depression, and suicidal thoughts. This oppressed man told me in pastoral care that his life had been normal after being healed. Only after he started praying and reading the Bible did all hell brake loose. The depressions were so powerful that he had attempted suicide three times. A doctor had saved his life, however. When the doctor saw the package of poison on him, he said, “This amount of poison would have been enough to kill ten men." (…) The fight lasted for a few months. Eventually Christ won. The man was completely freed of the consequences of the magician's magic. Where sin had become great, grace became even greater. (10)