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RJR_fan -> RE: Golden Gate Outpouring (9/14/2008 3:38:05 AM)
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quote:
What is described as soaking or marinating is extrabiblical and has roots in new age practices.
Good old American pragmatism. If it works, do it. And don't look too closely at what "it" is. A favorite verse used by new agers (been there, done that, barely escaped with my sanity) is "Be still and know that I am God." The desired point of transcendence happens when one experiences said verse as ...
Be still and know that I am God.
As GKC said nearly a century ago, "For Jones to worship the inner light means ultimately for Jones to worship Jones."
The one major hurdle to achieving this sense of one's own divinity is that nagging little detail called common sense. I'm obviously not God. Therefore, to enter the desired transcendent state of consciousness, one must find ways to turn off one's mind. Repeat some mantra over and over, for example. Focus your attention on a koan -- a nonsense concept, like "the sound of one hand clapping" -- until your brain gets bored enough to go offline.
Or, a fragment of Scripture set to a droning, childish, melody.
The fact that a whole crowd can experience "it" together, simultaneously, has nothing to do with God. Tens of thousands of Mary-worshippers "saw" the sun spinning and throwing off colored arcs at Fatima. Those Hindus who are burning Christian homes in India today are having one heck of a spiritually exalting experience while they do it, like those Muslims who beheaded three Christian schoolgirls in Indonesia recently.
"Watchman Nee's" book[1] The Latent Power of the Soul convincingly makes the point that fallen man can, through various techniques, tap into and use the supernatural power given Adam to rule a world filled with other creatures. But today, only by giving up one's soul, or a chunk of it.
The problem is (and here I speak from experience as well as Scripture) -- once you've learned how to "turn off" your mind, and discovered how good it feels to "space out," how do you get a grip on life? Or on mentally-demanding activity? When it's so easy to "go on autopilot" and drift through life?
[1] A number of Nee's books were actually written by someone else, under his name, and to his great distress. A Chinese man would never, for example, refer to "people of color," himself included, as members of "the subject races."
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