Chapter 13: Modern Spiritual Deceptions
The Paths That Lead Nowhere
The deepest deceptions often target the most sincere seekers.
Some may believe enlightenment has been achieved. Through sustained Vipassana meditation, various states of absorption may be experienced where individual consciousness seems to dissolve into universal awareness.
Such experiences can be thoroughly deceptive.
My journey took me through every spiritual door humanity has opened, including some we should have left closed. This isn't theory. I'm not speculating about paths I've never walked. I spent years (literal years) seeking truth through systems that promised liberation, enlightenment, cosmic consciousness, divine union.
I felt my way down each path until it bore no more fruit. I experienced what their adepts described: the states, the energies, the phenomena. Each system delivered something at first, then less, then nothing at all. Diminishing returns on a logarithmic scale.
All of it led nowhere but deeper deception.
I speak with authority because I wasted years so you don't have to.
Spiritual deception checklist: https://theremnantthread.com/studies/deception-detector
Counterfeit vs truth comparison: https://theremnantthread.com/studies/counterfeit-table
Opening Doors to the Spirit Realm
I practiced lucid dreaming and attempted astral projection, convinced these techniques would unlock spiritual enlightenment. The practices promised access to guides, wisdom, proof that consciousness survives death.
The entire system was designed to make Scripture irrelevant.
"And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works."
Those who succeed at these practices find something, but not what they sought. Occultists cite Ecclesiastes 12:6 as proof: "Or ever the silver cord be loosed." But read the context: the silver cord loosening describes death, not a technique for soul travel. And the Hebrew word for "soul" (nephesh) doesn't mean a detachable ghost. "Man became a living soul" (Genesis 2:7). Dust plus breath equals the whole person. Scripture warned me; I learned too late.
Divination and Eastern Paths
I spent years in Vedic astrology, Hindu yoga paths, and mantra practice. The systems worked. Predictions came true, experiences matched what texts described, the philosophies were sophisticated. The problem was their source.
"There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch. Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD."
The accuracy wasn't proof of truth. Something real was happening, but Scripture told me not to participate. "An abomination unto the LORD."
"Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils."
The Hindu paths were sophisticated, more intellectually rigorous than most Western Christianity. But sophistication isn't the test. Scripture is explicit: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3). Not because other systems lack wisdom. Because the Father claims exclusive authority.
Comparing world religions to Christ: https://theremnantthread.com/studies/religions-compare
Claims explorer reference: https://theremnantthread.com/studies/claims-explorer
The Vain Repetitions
"But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking."
I had done exactly this: sixty-four malas of 108 beads per session, 6,912 repetitions of Sanskrit syllables in a single sitting. Ten-hour days of mantra. The belief that more repetition meant more power, more merit, more spiritual progress.
"The heathen do this," Jesus said. "Don't."
The warning was there all along. I could have read one verse and known. Instead, I spent years doing precisely what Christ forbade, believing that my much speaking would be heard.
It wasn't superstition. It was disobedience. The Bible explicitly told me not to do it. I did it anyway, calling it spiritual practice.
Real Spirits, Wrong Source
The experiences weren't fake. Things happened in my house when metal deities sat on my altar. The spiritual encounters were intense and undeniable. That was the problem.
As described in Chapter 3, I practiced full Hindu worship with brass idols, mandir cabinet, and traditional rituals. My mother witnessed oppressive presences, saw the idol faces move when she prayed against them, and found her Bible mysteriously highlighted at Deuteronomy 7:26, the warning about cursed things in your house. I experienced powerful energy at sacred sites, signed declarations of devotion at Tirupati, felt like I could leap to the ceiling after certain meditations. The spiritual realm responded.
But the more I practiced, the worse my life became. Ten-hour sessions of 64 malas (6,912 mantra repetitions), yet diminishing returns on every measure. More effort, less blessing. A logarithmic scale toward nothing good. Eventually, we threw the idols into a lake, not because we stopped believing in the spiritual realm, but because we finally understood whose realm we'd entered.
Paul explains what was happening:
"But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils."
The presence wasn't imaginary. The practices worked. That was the danger. Power flowed. Entities manifested. Experiences were genuine. But Scripture had warned me all along, and I'd called the warning primitive. The spiritual realm is real. That's precisely what makes it dangerous.
Buddhist Meditation and the Empty House
I practiced multiple forms of Buddhist meditation. Vipassana for insight. Samatha for concentration. Metta for loving-kindness. Tonglen for compassion. I spent weeks in silent meditation retreats, hours each day watching the breath, observing thoughts arise and pass away.
I experienced the states the texts describe. The dissolution of ego boundaries. The perception of impermanence. The sense of interconnectedness with all beings. The peace that comes from letting go of attachment.
Buddhism correctly perceives that clinging causes suffering. It rightly teaches that the ego is a constructed illusion. It accurately observes that all phenomena are impermanent.
But it empties the house without filling it with the right occupant.
"When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first."
Buddhist meditation empties the mind. It quiets thought, observes without attachment, creates space. An empty house, swept and garnished. The question is what fills it.
I thought I was achieving liberation. I was becoming more vulnerable.
A Tibetan Monk's Witness
My Buddhist journey was shallow compared to Tenzin Lahkpa's.
Born in the mountains of Amdo (the same region as the Dalai Lama), Tenzin was given to a monastery at fifteen as an offering to Buddha. He didn't just practice meditation. He was ordained. He lived the monastic life. He studied the sacred texts. He even made an excruciating two-thousand-mile barefoot trek over the Himalayas to study under the Dalai Lama himself.
Tenzin achieved what few Western seekers ever approach. He learned the "deep mysteries" of Tibetan Buddhism from the highest teachers.
And then he met a Christian doctor.
Tenzin had become desperately ill, beyond what medicine could cure. A Swedish Christian doctor asked if he could pray for him. Tenzin agreed.
His description:
"The doctor walked closer to my bed, put his right hand on my right arm, and began speaking in a language I was not familiar with. Suddenly, without warning, I felt something flow through my arm. It was like a warm, soft blanket. It moved into my shoulders and chest, and then throughout my entire body. I could not understand the doctor's words, but his prayer had something my prayers lacked: it had power."1 Tenzin Lahkpa and Eugene Bach, Leaving Buddha: A Tibetan Monk's Encounter with the Living God (New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 2019). "Tenzin Lahkpa" is a pseudonym to protect the author's identity. ISBN 978-1641231022.
After a lifetime of Buddhist practice, Tenzin recognized something his meditation had never produced: not technique or philosophy, but power from a God who heals.
When Tenzin declared his faith, the monks tried to kill him. Dozens of monks (including his own brother) beat him nearly to death.
The reaction revealed more than the teaching ever could.
Tenzin survived. Today he leads a small house fellowship on the plateau where he once served Buddha.
New Age Practices
The New Age buffet offered something for every taste. I sampled it all.
I collected expensive crystals, convinced each had properties. I wore a fourteen-mukhi rudraksha (the devi mani, "gem of the gods"), supposedly the most powerful of all, blessed by Brahmin priests. I spent significant money on objects that did nothing.
Twisted copper bracelets worn for energy balancing. Orgone energy devices, blocks of resin embedded with metal shavings and crystals, supposedly converting negative energy to positive.
All of it was idolatry wrapped in scientific-sounding language. I was trusting physical objects to provide spiritual protection. I was consulting the creation instead of the Creator. I was practicing magic while calling it energy work.
The Law of Attraction (Abraham Hicks, The Secret) taught that thoughts create reality, that we are gods of our own experience. It was Genesis 3:5 repackaged: "Ye shall be as gods."
The techniques sometimes "worked" because the enemy has power to provide counterfeit blessings. Satan offered Jesus "all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them" (Matthew 4:8); he had something real to offer. Demons can orchestrate the parking space, the synchronicity, the unexpected check. Anything to convince you that you have the power, that you are the source, that the Father is unnecessary. "With all power and signs and lying wonders" (2 Thessalonians 2:9).
The Pattern Across All Paths
Every system I explored shared common threads:
- They worked to some degree. The experiences were real. The phenomena were genuine. The synchronicities multiplied. But Satan comes "with all power and signs and lying wonders" (2 Thessalonians 2:9). Power proves nothing about truth.
- They led away from the Bible. Every teacher, every guru, every master positioned Scripture as primitive, limiting, fear-based, or superseded by their enlightened understanding. The one book I needed most was the one they all taught me to dismiss.
- They promised liberation but delivered bondage. Each path claimed to free me from ignorance, karma, suffering, limitation. Each path added new practices, new teachers, new workshops, new levels, new secrets. Freedom was always one more initiation away.
- They discovered partial truths. This is what made them so compelling and so dangerous. Buddhism perceives that ultimate reality is One. But it makes that oneness an impersonal void rather than the personal Father. Every path found fragments of truth. Many even point to Jesus. The Bhavishya Purana calls Him "Isha Masiha," Islam honors Him as prophet, Buddhism respects Him as teacher. But only one path makes the exclusive claim and backs it with documented history: Jesus Christ attested by Tacitus, Josephus, Pliny; calendars splitting at His birth; the Sabbath He kept that the Roman Catholic Church admits it changed.
Partial truth is more dangerous than complete lies.
A Scientist's Testimony
My experience isn't unique. Walter Veith was a zoology professor at the University of Cape Town, a committed atheist who taught evolution as established fact. Materialism was his worldview. The supernatural didn't exist.
Then he explored the occult. Tarot cards. Astrology. What happened next shattered his materialism: poltergeist activity in his home. A sense of demonic oppression he couldn't explain away. The spiritual realm he'd denied was forcing itself into his experience.Walter Veith, "From Evolutionist to Creationist: Personal Testimony," Amazing Discoveries, https://adtv.watch/single-episode/from-evolutionist-to-creationist-testimony (Archive.org). Veith's journey from atheist professor at University of Cape Town through occult experiences to Christian faith is documented in his lecture series.
A trained scientist, forced by evidence to acknowledge what his worldview denied: there is a spiritual realm, and opening doors to it has consequences.
Veith eventually found his way to Scripture and abandoned both evolutionism and occultism. His testimony matters because it wasn't born from religious upbringing or emotional need. It was born from a materialist confronting phenomena his materialism couldn't explain.
The spiritual realm is real. The question is which doors you open, and who answers.
The Modern Channelers
The most sophisticated deceptions come through channeling, the practice of allowing entities to speak through human vessels, dictating teachings, answering questions, offering guidance from "higher dimensions."
I studied them all. I believed many of them. I practiced the techniques myself.
Now I recognize them for what they are: familiar spirits masquerading as ascended masters, extraterrestrials, and angels of light.
Abraham Hicks: The Comforting Deception
Esther Hicks claims to channel "Abraham," not the biblical patriarch but a "group of non-physical entities" who teach the Law of Attraction through her voice.2 Esther Hicks and Jerry Hicks, Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires (Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2004). The book presents teachings channeled from "Abraham," described as "a group of nonphysical entities" who teach the Law of Attraction and manifestation techniques. ISBN 978-1401907990.
The teachings are seductive. You create your own reality. The universe wants you to be happy. Reach for the thought that feels better. There's no right or wrong, only alignment with your desires.
Millions follow these teachings. Books sell. Workshops fill. The message feels empowering.
However, several key elements are absent: sin, repentance, judgment, commandments, the cross, the Sabbath, and the Father's authority.
Abraham Hicks teaches that you are the center of your universe, that your feelings are the ultimate guide, that there are no absolute moral standards, only vibrational alignment with what you want.
It's the serpent's promise in modern language: "Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5).
"For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light."
The "Abraham" entity speaks eloquently. It offers comfort and permission. It makes you feel empowered rather than convicted.
Bashar and Seth: The Pattern Repeats
Darryl Anka channels "Bashar," who claims to be an extraterrestrial from a parallel reality.3 Darryl Anka, Bashar: Blueprint for Change--A Message from Our Future (Simi Valley, CA: New Solutions Publishing, 1990). ISBN 1562841130. The teachings are intellectually sophisticated: Follow your highest excitement. You are infinite consciousness having a temporary physical experience.
Jane Roberts channeled "Seth" for over twenty years, producing books filled with sophisticated metaphysics considered foundational to the New Age movement.4 Jane Roberts, Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972). ISBN 013807206X. I read several of the books, convinced Seth represented genuine contact with higher intelligence. What's telling: Seth initially identified himself as "Frank Withers," a dead man who'd been a spice merchant. Only later did the entity switch to the more impressive "Seth." Jane Roberts thought she was contacting a dead person. Scripture has a name for that.
But test the spirits (1 John 4:1-3). Neither confesses Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh. Both teach that reality is a dream, that we create everything through thought, that there is no objective truth, no final judgment.
The pattern repeats: Ramtha, Kryon, Ra. Different names, different backstories, identical destination: away from Scripture, repentance, and the Father's commandments.
A Course in Miracles: The Most Dangerous Deception
Helen Schucman, an atheist psychologist, claimed Jesus Christ Himself dictated "A Course in Miracles" through her inner voice over seven years.5 Helen Schucman, A Course in Miracles, 3rd ed. (Mill Valley, CA: Foundation for Inner Peace, 2007). Originally published 1976. Schucman, an atheist psychologist at Columbia University, claimed an "inner voice" identifying itself as Jesus Christ dictated the material between 1965 and 1972. The work systematically inverts fundamental Christian doctrines while using Christian terminology. ISBN 1883360269.
This is the most dangerous channeled material in modern circulation.
Why? Because it claims the name of Jesus while denying everything He taught.
The Course teaches:
- There is no sin (only errors in perception)
- There is no atonement needed (because there's no sin)
- There is no judgment (because God is only love)
- There is no hell (because all is illusion)
- The crucifixion was a mistake (not necessary for salvation)
- You are Christ (because separation from God is impossible)
Every fundamental doctrine of Christianity is systematically inverted while using Jesus's name.
"Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son."
The "Jesus" of A Course in Miracles denies the Father's judgment, denies the need for repentance, denies the reality of sin, denies His own sacrifice. This is textbook antichrist spirit: using the name while denying the person, the work, the authority.
Millions of Christians study A Course in Miracles, believing it's compatible with Scripture. It's not compatible. It's counterfeit. It's poison in a beautiful bottle with Jesus's name on the label.
Why Channeling Works
The mechanics are simple: familiar spirits.
"Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God."
A "familiar spirit" is a demon that becomes familiar with a person, their life, their patterns, their questions. It provides information, comfort, and guidance in exchange for access.
The channel enters a trance state, quiets their own mind, and invites something else to speak through them. The invitation is accepted. The spirit is familiar. The teachings begin.
What comes through is calculated to:
- Sound wise and compassionate
- Avoid topics that would lead to repentance
- Make the follower feel special, enlightened, chosen
- Keep them away from Scripture
- Keep them away from the Sabbath
- Keep them away from the Father
It works because people want:
- Comfort without conviction
- Wisdom without obedience
- Spirituality without submission
- Enlightenment without the cross
The channeled entities provide exactly that. And in doing so, they lead millions away from the narrow way.
Spiritism and the Lie of Reincarnation
In 1857, a French educator named Allan Kardec published The Spirits' Book, containing over a thousand questions allegedly answered by spirits through mediums.6 Allan Kardec (pen name of Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail), Le Livre des Esprits (Paris: E. Dentu, 1857). First English translation: The Spirits' Book, trans. Anna Blackwell (London: Trübner & Co., 1875). Kardec systematized "Spiritism" as a philosophical doctrine based on communications allegedly received from departed souls through mediums. This became the foundation of Spiritism, a movement claiming millions of adherents in Brazil alone.
The core teachings:
- The soul is immortal and continues evolving after death
- Reincarnation is the mechanism for spiritual growth
- Communication with "departed souls" is possible and beneficial
- There is no eternal punishment, only learning through successive lives
- Jesus was an evolved spirit, not God incarnate
My ayahuasca shaman recommended Kardec. These systems reinforce each other. The pharmakeia opens doors, and Spiritism provides the framework for interpreting what comes through. Different deceptions, same source.
The claim is that Spiritism explains near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, and children who remember past lives. The comforting promise: death is merely transition, your loved ones are happy and evolving, you'll see them again.
It's comforting because it's the serpent's first lie repackaged:
"And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die."
But what does Scripture actually say about the dead?
The State of the Dead
The Bible is explicit: the dead are unconscious.
"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun."
"His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish."
"For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave who shall give thee thanks?"
The dead "know not any thing." Their "thoughts perish." There is "no remembrance."
If the dead are unconscious, if their very thoughts have ceased, who is communicating through Kardec's mediums?
"Familiar Spirits": The Biblical Explanation
The Bible already has a category for this phenomenon. The Hebrew word is ob (אוֹב), translated "familiar spirit" in the KJV. It appears repeatedly:
"Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God."
"And the soul that turneth 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."
A "familiar spirit" wasn't the dead person. It was a spirit familiar with the deceased, a demon that knew their life, their details, their secrets, and could impersonate them convincingly.
This is the mechanism behind all spirit communication:
- Demons observe human lives (they've existed since before humanity)
- A human dies
- The demon retains knowledge of that life
- Later, it communicates that information through a medium or to a susceptible mind
- The living believe they're contacting the dead
- The demon teaches doctrines that lead away from Scripture
Kardec's entire system is built on necromancy, the practice explicitly forbidden:
"There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch. Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the LORD."
Deuteronomy 18:10-12 (emphasis added)
Necromancer: one who consults the dead. That's literally what Spiritism systematizes and defends.
Isaiah's Test
"And when they shall say unto you, Seek unto them that have familiar spirits, and unto wizards that peep, and that mutter: should not a people seek unto their God? for the living to the dead? To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them."
"To the law and to the testimony." That's the test. Does the teaching align with Scripture?
Kardec's spirits teach reincarnation. Scripture says:
"And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment."
Not "die, reincarnate, die again." Once to die, then judgment. The Greek is unambiguous.
Kardec's spirits deny eternal judgment. Scripture affirms it throughout.
Kardec's spirits make Jesus a highly evolved soul. Scripture makes Him the only begotten Son of God.
"There is no light in them."
Children's "Past Life Memories"
The most compelling argument for reincarnation comes from research on children who describe detailed memories of strangers' lives, often with verifiable accuracy.
Ian Stevenson at the University of Virginia documented over 2,500 cases of children claiming past-life memories.7 Ian Stevenson, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, 2nd ed. (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1974). Stevenson spent forty years documenting cases but doesn't address the biblical "familiar spirit" explanation. Children who couldn't have known certain people described their lives with startling accuracy. Some recognized family members of the deceased stranger.
If reincarnation is false, how do we explain these cases? Some are genuinely compelling: American children with no cultural expectation remembering specific, verifiable details of strangers' deaths. Not dismissible as fantasy or cultural conditioning.
Scripture's answer: familiar spirits. A spirit observes a human life across decades. That human dies. The spirit later transmits those memories to a susceptible child. The verification proves information transfer, not the source we assumed.
The question isn't whether the memories are real. It's who's transmitting them.
Why children? They're more susceptible. Less developed discernment. The "memories" typically fade by age seven or eight, when cognitive discernment develops.
"He that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more."
The children's experiences may be genuine. The information may be accurate. The source isn't reincarnation. It's familiar spirits doing what they've always done.
Why This Deception Matters
Reincarnation isn't just wrong. It's spiritually catastrophic.
- It removes salvation urgency: "I'll have another chance next life"
- It denies the atonement: If we evolve spiritually through lives, we don't need a Savior
- It trivializes death: Just a transition, not "the wages of sin"
- It eliminates judgment: No final reckoning, just endless evolution toward enlightenment
- It opens doors to spiritism: If past lives are real, why not contact spirits directly?
It's the serpent's promise elaborated: You shall not surely die. You just keep evolving. You become god eventually.
The same lie. Different packaging. Same destination.
Near-Death Experiences
"I died and saw Jesus." "I went to heaven and came back." Millions believe these testimonies. Compelling stories. Transformed lives.
A few problems.
First: some are fabricated. Alex Malarkey's The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven sold over a million copies before he recanted: "I did not die. I did not go to Heaven. I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention."Alex Malarkey's January 2015 open letter stated: "I did not die. I did not go to Heaven. I said I went to heaven because I thought it would get me attention." Tyndale House withdrew the book. "The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven Retraction," Christianity Today, January 15, 2015. Available at: https://www.christianitytoday.com/2015/01/boy-who-came-back-from-heaven-retraction/ (Archive.org) The publisher pulled the book. A million Christians had believed a fabrication.
Second: the experiences show strong cultural conditioning. Research shows NDEs match expectations:Athappilly, G. K., Greyson, B., and Stevenson, I., "Do prevailing societal models influence reports of near-death experiences?" Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 194, no. 3 (2006): 218-222. Cross-cultural research shows NDEs reflect cultural expectations while sharing universal features.
- Christians see Jesus or heaven
- Indians see Hindu deities or Yamatoots (messengers of death)
- Japanese Buddhists see Buddha in bright light
- The "being of light" is interpreted according to background
If everyone were meeting the same God, wouldn't they report the same experience?
Some conversions do occur. Howard Storm was an atheist art professor who experienced a hellish NDE and became a Christian minister.Howard Storm, My Descent Into Death: A Second Chance at Life (New York: Doubleday, 2005). ISBN 978-0385513760. But Storm's experience led him to Jesus, repentance, and changed behavior, not to universalism.
The test isn't the intensity of the experience. It's whether the experience contradicts what God already revealed.
Scripture is explicit about the state of the dead:
"For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing."
The dead know nothing. Scripture offers no qualifications, no exceptions for tunnel experiences, no loopholes for beings of light.
NDEs assume the opposite: consciousness continues, experiences happen, communication occurs. These positions are mutually exclusive. Either Scripture is wrong about death, or NDEs aren't encounters with what they claim.
If the dead know nothing, who are experiencers meeting? Scripture has an answer: familiar spirits. The same entities that impersonate the dead for mediums can create experiences for the dying. They have power to produce visions, feelings, even accurate information. But they aren't the dead, because the dead know nothing.
NDE accounts vary widely. Some include intense life reviews with moral accountability. Some include hellish experiences. Some (especially the bestselling ones) emphasize universal acceptance. The variation itself is telling: if everyone were meeting the same God, the testimony would be consistent.
Howard Storm came back transformed and became a minister. Genuine fruit. But even his experience (powerful as it was) doesn't change what Scripture explicitly states about death. The question isn't whether NDEs produce changed lives. It's whether Scripture's clear teaching holds authority over experiences that contradict it.
The Bible says the dead know nothing. NDEs say otherwise. Choose your authority.
Psychedelics as Pharmakeia
Ayahuasca. Psilocybin. LSD. Iboga. I tried them. I experienced what the advocates promise: the snowglobe effect, life shaking loose and reforming, everything rearranged.
These teachings omit a critical danger: these substances open you to the spirit realm like swiss cheese, leaving you without protection. Without Jesus, you have no power over principalities and are inviting contact with something you cannot control.
The Biblical Word: Pharmakeia
Most modern Bible translations render Galatians 5:20 as "sorcery" or "witchcraft." But the Greek word is specific: pharmakeia (φαρμακεία).
"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God."
Galatians 5:19-21 (emphasis added)
Pharmakeia means the use of drugs, potions, or substances for magical or spiritual purposes. It's where we get our English word "pharmacy."
The ancient world understood this. Mystery religions used psychoactive substances in their initiation rites. The Oracle of Delphi inhaled vapors before prophesying. Shamans across cultures consumed plant medicines to contact the spirit world.
This wasn't recreational drug use. This was intentional opening of spiritual doors through chemical means.
That's exactly what modern psychedelic use is: pharmakeia rebranded as "plant medicine," "entheogen," or "consciousness tool."
The Entities Are Real
One of the most consistent reports from DMT users is encountering intelligent entities, beings that seem autonomous, interactive, and knowledgeable. Machine elves. Jesters. Mantis beings. Reptilians. Light beings.
These entities communicate. They teach. They show the user intricate geometric patterns and cosmic truths. They sometimes claim to be aliens, ancestors, or aspects of the user's higher self.
These entities are demons, not metaphorical demons or symbols of the subconscious but actual demonic entities who inhabit spiritual dimensions and are delighted when humans chemically blast open the doors of perception to contact them directly.
"For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places."
These principalities and powers don't need to hide when you voluntarily enter their realm. They present themselves as benevolent guides, cosmic teachers, ancient wisdom keepers.
But their teaching always leads away from Scripture, away from repentance, away from the Father's commandments, always toward self-deification, moral relativism, and rejection of biblical authority.
Why the Experiences Feel Profound
"But the experiences are so powerful! So meaningful! They changed my life!"
I don't doubt it. I experienced the same thing.
What psychedelic advocates don't want to acknowledge: Satan has power.
"Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders."
"All power and signs and lying wonders." That's the key phrase. The experiences are powerful because these entities have power. Scripture acknowledges this: "with all power and signs and lying wonders." The revelations feel profound because something has been observing humanity for millennia.
The Egyptian sorcerers replicated Moses' miracles (Exodus 7:11-12). Until they couldn't (Exodus 8:18-19). Power has a source, and not all power comes from God.
The question isn't "Did you experience something powerful?" The question is: What was the source, and where did it lead you? If it led away from Scripture, repentance, the Sabbath, and the Father's commandments, the source wasn't divine, no matter how beautiful it felt.
Each Path's Partial Truth
This is what makes discernment so difficult: every deceptive path contains genuine truth.
If they were entirely false, no intelligent seeker would follow them. Satan's most effective lies are 95% truth with 5% poison. The truth makes the poison palatable.
What each major path discovered, and where each stops short:
Buddhism: Seeking the One, Missing the Person
Truth discovered: Ultimate reality is unified, not fragmented.
Buddhism correctly perceives that the material world's multiplicity isn't ultimate. Behind the chaos of appearances, something singular exists. The seeking mind wants to transcend fragmentation and touch the One.
Where it stops short: Buddhism makes that Oneness an impersonal force. Think of sunyata (emptiness), nirvana (extinction), Brahman (undifferentiated consciousness). You dissolve into it. You don't relate to it. It doesn't love you. It doesn't know your name.
Biblical reality: The One behind all things is a Person. A Father. He created you to know Him, not dissolve into Him.
"And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."
The goal isn't extinction of self. It's relationship with a Father who calls you by name (Isaiah 43:1). Buddhism found unity but missed the Person at its heart.
Meditation: The Mind Is a Battlefield
Truth discovered: The mind requires intentional discipline and vigilance.
Meditation practices correctly recognize that untrained minds wander, obsess, and spiral into destructive patterns. The observation of thoughts without attachment has value. Breath awareness can calm the nervous system.
Where it stops short: Buddhist and Hindu meditation techniques aim to empty the mind, quiet thought, dissolve the self.
Biblical reality: Empty houses invite worse occupants.
"When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first."
Biblical meditation fills the mind with Scripture, not empties it. "His delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night" (Psalm 1:2).
Meditation isn't inherently wrong. The object of meditation determines the destination.
The test is simple: "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7). The spirit God gives produces clarity, not trance. Counterfeit systems use sensory overload (incense, rhythmic repetition, hypnotic chanting) to bypass discernment. A sound mind tests all things; an altered state accepts whatever enters.
The Contemplative Depth You're Seeking
If you came from Eastern practices, you've tasted genuine spiritual depth: the stillness, the presence, the sense of something vast beyond ordinary consciousness. You may fear that following Scripture means surrendering that depth for something shallow.
It doesn't. The depth you sought exists in Scripture. You were looking in the wrong direction.
"Be still, and know that I am God."
The Hebrew word for "still" is raphah, meaning to relax, let go, cease striving. The stillness you achieved through meditation technique? Scripture commands it. The presence you sensed? It was the Father, available all along through His Word rather than through emptying.
Jesus Himself demonstrated contemplative practice. He withdrew to wilderness places to pray (Luke 5:16). He spent entire nights in prayer on mountains (Luke 6:12). He rose early to seek solitude (Mark 1:35). This wasn't performance or duty. It was communion.
Paul wrote "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17), describing continuous awareness of God's presence, not just scheduled prayer sessions. This resembles what Eastern traditions call mindfulness, but the object differs entirely: awareness of the Father who has a name, a character, a will, rather than awareness of impersonal void.
The contrast is fundamental:
- Eastern meditation empties. The goal is cessation of thought, of self, of desire. The void awaits, and something fills it.
- Biblical meditation fills. "His delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night" (Psalm 1:2). The mind engages with revelation rather than dissolving into silence.
The Sabbath itself is contemplative structure, 24 hours of intentional rest and presence with the Creator. Weekly reset from striving. Commanded stillness. The depth Eastern practitioners seek through retreats, the Father builds into every week for those who obey.
You can have stillness. You can have depth. You can have presence that transforms.
The door isn't the ashram. The door is the Word. The Sabbath. The Father who speaks, not the void that absorbs.
Astral Projection: The Spiritual Realm Is Real
Truth discovered: Reality has dimensions beyond the physical. Consciousness can operate independent of the body. The spiritual realm is absolutely real.
Out-of-body experiences prove materialism false. Consciousness isn't produced by the brain; it uses the brain. Death isn't extinction. The spiritual dimension exists.
Where it stops short: The entities encountered during astral projection present themselves as guides, teachers, ascended masters, or angels of light.
Biblical reality: Those aren't guides. Scripture identifies them as deceiving spirits.
"And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light."
The spiritual realm is real. That's precisely why it's dangerous to enter it without the Father's protection, outside His commandments, seeking wisdom from entities whose purposes are hidden.
The astral traveler discovers a real realm and real beings, but mistakes enemies for friends.
Islam: One Day Off
I practiced the Islamic prayers, the cleanliness rituals, the five daily submissions. The discipline is real. When millions stop everything to bow toward Mecca, the commitment is genuine.
Where it stops short: They moved worship to Friday.
The Quran even acknowledges the Sabbath command:
"You shall observe the Sabbath as a perpetual covenant."
Quran 16:124 (Sahih International)
Friday isn't the seal. Saturday is. They missed the seal by one day.
A Muslim Scholar's Witness
My exploration of Islam was shallow compared to Nabeel Qureshi's.
Born to Pakistani parents, raised Ahmadiyya Muslim, his father a Muslim missionary, Nabeel didn't just practice Islam. He defended it. He debated Christians. He knew the arguments.
Then he met David Wood at Old Dominion University. For years they debated, not casually but rigorously investigating historical claims. Nabeel didn't want to convert. He was looking for reasons not to.
He couldn't find them.
His description of conversion:
"This was the most painful thing I ever did."
He lost his family. He lost his community. He lost nearly every relationship he had.
Nabeel went on to earn degrees from Biola, Duke, and Oxford. His book Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus became a New York Times bestseller. He died of stomach cancer in 2017 at thirty-four.Nabeel Qureshi, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2014). ISBN 978-0310527237.
Tenzin left Buddhism. Nabeel left Islam. Both found the same Jesus. Both paid everything.
The cost wasn't coincidence. It was evidence.
Why They All Stop Short
Every path finds pieces. None finds the whole.
Why?
Because Satan's strategy isn't to keep you from all truth. It's to keep you from the one truth that saves.
You can discover God is One. You can keep Saturday. You can study Torah. You can meditate on Scripture. You can practice discipline and devotion.
But if you don't come to the Father through His Son, if you don't repent and obey His commandments, including His Sabbath on His day as His seal, partial truth becomes complete deception.
"And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."
"Strong delusion," not weak deception. Not obvious lies. Strong delusion that feels like enlightenment, that seems like wisdom, that appears as truth.
The psychedelic user encounters real spiritual entities and calls them guides.
The channeler receives real information and calls it higher consciousness.
The Buddhist achieves real states of awareness and calls it liberation.
The Hebrew Roots seeker recovers biblical truth but adds rabbinic requirements.
Each path leads to the door. None walks through it.
Why? Because walking through requires submission to all of the Father's Word, not just the parts that appeal to you.
It requires keeping Saturday when Sunday is easier. It requires obeying commandments when grace teachers call it legalism. It requires leaving Babylon when Babylon is comfortable.
The remnant thread is narrow because it demands everything.
Questions to Answer
If Satan had no power, why would anyone follow him?
If demons couldn't provide real experiences, real knowledge, real phenomena, their deceptions would fail immediately. The fact that channelers receive accurate information, that psychedelics produce profound experiences, that meditation creates genuine states of consciousness: none of this proves divine origin. It proves something with power is answering, but power isn't the test.
Power proves nothing about truth.
If deception wasn't convincing, who would it deceive?
The Greek word for "deception" (πλάνη, plané) means "wandering," "roaming," or "going astray." It implies following a path that seems right but leads to destruction.
"There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."
Every path I walked seemed right. The teachers were sincere. The experiences were powerful. The philosophies were sophisticated. The communities were loving.
All of it led away from the Father's commandments.
What if the most convincing spiritual experience is the most dangerous?
DMT feels more real than reality. Channeled entities speak with more wisdom than human teachers. Astral projection seems to prove consciousness survives death. Buddhist meditation produces states that feel like ultimate truth.
If power determined truth, these experiences would prove themselves. But Jesus warned:
"For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect."
Great signs. Great wonders. Powerful enough to deceive the elect, if it were possible.
The most convincing deceptions target the most sincere seekers. The path that feels most enlightened may be the one that binds you most securely.
Which is more trustworthy: years of seeking or God's written Word?
I spent years seeking. I felt my way through each system until it bore no more fruit. I collected truths from every tradition.
I was thoroughly lost.
The Father's Word was there all along. I didn't need cosmic consciousness. I needed Scripture. I didn't need mystical experiences. I needed obedience. I didn't need years of seeking. I needed to stop seeking and start obeying.
"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding."
Fear doesn't mean terror. It means reverent submission, recognizing that God is God and you are not, that His commandments are wisdom and your spiritual seeking without them is rebellion.
How many dead-end paths are you willing to try before you test the thread the martyrs died for?
I wasted years so you don't have to.
The remnant thread is accessible. It's in Scripture. It's been there since Eden. It survived 1,260 years of genocide. It's hidden in plain sight, waiting for those willing to see it.
The exodus isn't from Egypt this time.
It's from every path that leads away from Him.
And when a person stops seeking and starts obeying, they do not become just another spiritual tourist with a new destination. They become a son in the Father's house (Romans 8:14). A joint-heir with Christ (Romans 8:17). Not a servant who doesn't know the master's business, but a friend entrusted with it (John 15:15).
The seeker becomes family. The wanderer finds home. The door-shopper stops opening doors because He opens them now.