Visualization
A number of years ago Karen Mains pretty much torpedoed the ministry of Chapel of the Air, her own ministry, and that of David, her husband, when she wrote Lonely No More. In that book she chronicled her journey into Jungian psychology, visualization and the occult. She of course denied any involvement with the occult, but judge for yourself. Mains describes dreams about her “male-self,” a man she called Eddie Bishop. “He was tall … well formed and trim, somewhere in his early thirties … His fine, dark hair fell in a thick lock across his forehead … his blue-gray eyes looking earnestly into mine.” The details of his communication are specific: “‘You are everything I have ever wanted spiritually,’ he said before I [in the dream] started to drive away.” Mains claims that this experience has taken place “six or eight times a year for the last four or five years.”[7] and has had a “positively profound effect” on her, compelling her to seek psychospiritual counsel. A later session with her “spiritual director” at Cenacle, a Catholic contemplative retreat center, Mains tells of a drastic change in the entity which has been appearing in her mind. She describes an “idiot-child sitting at a table with other people. Its head totally bald and lolled to one side. It was drooling and seemed to be six, seven or eight years of age…. It was so emaciated and malnourished…. He turned his sad, huge eyes on me and smiled sweetly…. This is my idiot-child, the idiot-self of my self.”[8] Her “spiritual director” has her close her eyes and see the child again. She does so and begins to communicate with the image who surprises them both by revealing that it is the “Christ child.” Mrs. Mains ponders the thought that the young man and the idiot-child are both Jesus Christ who has “been attempting to woo me because an essential part of my identity in Him has been expelled from my adult development.”[9] We find that this “Christ child,” whom she is instructed to always take with her, is her “spiritual authority” which she is “afraid of having” and has “rejected not only [as] a part of myself, but a part of myself that is Christ.[10] While she admits that the psychological concept of the male-within-the-female (and visa versa) was developed by Carl Jung, she has always seen it as scriptural.[11] In her self-analysis of her visualized experiences Mains writes, “Through my hardships I discover there’s a small part of myself that hasn’t grown whole along with the rest of me. It’s been maimed by neglect during years of married life. I call it my “idiot-self.” I’m discovering that this malnourished orphan needs to be nursed and nurtured. I must find the idiot-self creeping about in the infrastructure of my soul….Self of my self, this abandoned child is very much a part of me….I understand that in some way, I, the intuitive, introverted, feeling-proficient female, have become the substitute for [my husband] David’s own female self, his anima, to use the Jungian terminology. He…functions for me as my animus….I have abdicated to my husband my own maleness.”[12]
The spiritual path that Karen Mains describes in Lonely No More can easily be found in most occult spiritual transformation books.
An uproar ensued following the publication of Lonely No More and it was immediately removed from the bookshelves and taken out of print, but not before irreparable damage was done. The people of God were just not ready for a heavy dose of visualization and occultic practices at the time. Fast forward a dozen years and the spiritual landscape is different today, and apparently more primed for such techniques. David Seamand, a frequent guest on such programs as “Focus on the Family” has written a number of books advocating “Christian” visualization including, Healing for Damaged Emotions and Healing of Memories.
Recently, popular author and theologian Gregory Boyd has written a similar book entitledSeeing Is Believing. Seeing Is Believing is a good example of how occultic visualization practices are creeping into evangelicalism. Boyd’s thesis is that “It’s not what we believe intellectually that impacts us; it’s what we experience as real”.[13] Experience is the key word, used literally hundreds of times in this small volume (57 times in the 8 page introduction alone). How does one go about experiencing Jesus? Using 2 Corinthians 3:17-4:6 as his main text, Boyd tells us that imagination, when guided by the Holy Spirit and submitted to the authority of Scripture, is our main receptor to the spiritual world.[14] The problem is that our Western mindset rejects imagination as make believe (pp. 72, 86, 95, 127-128, 134, 205). So it is necessary to reject this worldview and adopt an Eastern, mystical understanding. When this happens we begin to use our imagination to discover the real Jesus.[15]
The most disturbing part of Boyd’s imaginative prayer methodology is that it evolves into New Age visualization. Boyd does not deny this; his caveat is that his program should not be condemned through guilt by association.[16] By visualization what we mean is that at some point in this process the image imagined (the spirit-guide in New Age mysticism) actually comes alive and begins to act independently of the person (such as happened with Karen Mains). At that point contact has been made with the spirit world in ways clearly condemned by Scripture. For example Boyd gives numerous examples such as this one, “Sometimes as I rest with the Lord he will say something unexpected like, ‘Are you ready for more of my freedom?’” Then Jesus leads him to some memory from his past and reconstructs it. This is not wholesome imagination but the altering of reality and contact with the spirit world (he naively assumes the spirit speaking to him is really Jesus). Boyd maintains that only in this manner can a person grow in his knowledge of Christ and/or have his memories healed.[17]
John Weldon and John Ankerberg tell us, “Visualization is the use of mental concentration and directed imagery in the attempt to secure particular goals, whether physical, psychological, vocational, educational, or spiritual. Visualization attempts to program the mind to discover inner power and guidance. It is often used as a means to, or in conjunction with, altered states of consciousness (e.g., as produced by meditation), and is frequently used to develop psychic abilities or make contact with spirits.”[18]
Visualization is being used today not only in the occult but also in New Age medicine in an attempt to manipulate mystical life energies; education to tap the “higher self” and its powers; psychotherapy and the church, to bring about inner healing.
Visualization must be distinguished from imagination. Healthy imagination is a good and wonderful gift from God, but visualization is something very different. In visualization a person is attempting to either directly alter reality or make contact with the spirit world. Both of these practices are condemned in Scripture. David Hunt distinguishes visualization proper from the nonoccult use of the imagination. He observes:
The visualization we are concerned with is an ancient witchcraft technique that has been at the heart of shamanism for thousands of years, yet is gaining increasing acceptance in today’s secular world and now more and more within the church. It attempts to use vivid images held in the mind as a means of healing diseases, creating wealth, and otherwise manipulating reality. Strangely enough, a number of Christian leaders teach and practice these same techniques in the name of Christ, without recognizing them for what they are.[19]
A practitioner of visualization describes it in this manner:
Programmed visualization…is the deliberate use of the power of your own mind to create your own reality….there is nothing too insignificant or too grand for you to visualize. Our lives are limited by what we see as possible….A basic rule of visualization is: you can use visualization to have whatever you want, but YOU MUST REALLY, REALLY WANT WHAT YOU VISUALIZE (emphases in original).[20]
Visualization has gained popularity in the Western culture as Eastern mystical thought has invaded and been increasingly accepted. This is true because visualization fits best with a pantheistic worldview that sees humans as divine and creators of their own reality. Visualization is an important technique that supposedly taps the higher self and initiates contact with the ultimate cosmic reality.
By contrast, the Scriptures do not teach or encourage visualization for the healing of memories, healing of body or soul, or spiritual growth. Rather we are called to be renewed daily by the Holy Spirit, prayer and the Word of God.
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EXCERPT:
The Mystical Door To the Emergent Penetration Of The SBC
VISUALIZATION: The initial step in Osteen’s program is visualization: “The first step to living at your full potential is to enlarge your vision. To live your best life now, you must start looking at life through eyes of faith, seeing yourself rising to new levels. See your business taking off. See your marriage restored. See your family prospering. See your dreams coming to pass. You must conceive it and believe it is possible if you ever hope to experience it” (p. 4, emphasis his).
The reason why visualization is necessary is because it has the power to bring about what you envision. “You will produce what you’re continually seeing in your mind… If you develop an image of victory, success, health, abundance, joy, peace, and happiness, nothing on earth will be able to hold those things from you… Start anticipating promotions and supernatural increase. You must conceive it in your heart and mind before you can receive it… You must make room for increase in your own thinking, and then God will bring those things to pass” (pp. 5-6).
Apparently even God is at the mercy of that which we visualize; after all, “Thoughts [not God] determine destiny” (p. 101). “If you don’t think your body can be healed, it never will be… When you think positive, excellent thoughts, you will be propelled toward greatness, inevitably bound for increase, promotion, and God’s supernatural blessings” (p. 104).