Dabbling with the Demonic

I am going to take a break from my typical blog to challenge you in a different way.  I recently read, Phenomena by Annie Jocobsen.  This book tells the story of the U.S. Government’s efforts at dabbling in the demonic.  After World War II the U.S. determined to lead the world in every way.  That included participation in cultic practices of ESP, Psychokinetics, remote viewing and other forms of paranormal practices with a view of developing advantages over political adversaries. 

I was aware that there had been an interest in these things by our government, but had no idea how extensive it was.  Our government, which in theory is “one nation under God”, has been seeking the help of the demonic.  Interestingly, almost everyone concerned took one of two positions.  One was that all the paranormal activity was a fraud and a con.  The other was that it was absolutely real and was either the gift of a special few or undeveloped in all but a few people.   No one seems to have actually warned that the powers of the demonic were at work.   Let me retell you one story from the book.  This is edited for the sake of space but is an accurate retelling of Jacobsen’s excellent research.  This involves a remote view experiment.  In this kind of experiment a researcher goes out to a specific location.  The viewer at a specific time attempts to see what the researcher sees and does.  In this case the researcher, a Mr. Green, at the last minute unilaterally changes the location.  He wanted to make sure no one was giving the remote viewer, in this case a psychic named Price, clues about where the researcher would be.  I will pick up from the book:

The driver did as Green asked and pulled into the church parking lot. “I just watched and waited until the prearranged time.   When I got out of the car I crunched across the gravel and into an arbor,” Green recalls.   “I caught my foot on something and nearly tripped.  I walked down to the sacristy the room where the vestments were kept.   I opened a window.  I turned around and walked down the right-hand aisle stopped and stared at a beautiful rose window over the altar.”   From this moment in the church he says it reminded him of his time in seminary school and the strange notion of how different his life might have been as a clergyman instead of joining the CIA.   “Feeling the weight of emotion and deciding to pray I knelt down and said a prayer. I saw this beautiful baptismal font in front of me.   I leaned over and looked into it.  When I was done I crunched across the gravel went back to the car.”  

The experimenters headed back to S.R.I.  “Back at the lab I went into the Faraday cage where the remote viewer, Price, had been in the entire time.   “He was having a cardiac event,” Green recalls.  At minimum he was having an angina attack and possibly he was having an MI, myocardial infarction, also know as a heart attack.

After Price’s heart rate returned to normal he turned to Green and said, “That was the worst experiment I have ever done,” Green recalls Price telling him, “It was just terrible.  It made me so sick.  You walked down an arbor almost tripped and went into the most terrible building I've ever seen in my life.   I saw you walk down an aisle and crumble to your knees.  I began to worry about you.  I saw you lean over and vomit into an octagonal basin. I began to feel nauseated.”

I suppose some would not see the demonic in this event, but to not see it requires eyes that will never see.  So what?  That is the great question that needs to be asked every so often.  I draw three conclusions, some of which may not be popular.

I have come to the conclusion that former President Obama was right.  When Obama said, “America is not a Christian nation,” there was somewhat of an uproar.  I would argue that his description is pretty accurate.  We can certainly say that the founders and most of this nation’s history reflect a Christian world-view.  But I would argue that any government that actively seeks the aid and support of the demonic has a hard time being identified as a Christian nation.

I have come to the conclusion that while running for office, especially in the Bible belt, it is conducive to represent oneself as a Christian, but once elected our leaders are somewhat lackadaisical about that commitment.  It is hard to believe that in the last 70 plus years there has not be a Senator or Congressman or President who was willing to say, “We will not join our national interest to the demonic.”  We have had wars on poverty, drugs, illiteracy, terror and communism not all of which have been effective.  But we have not had one leader who would bring this profound evil to light.  Perhaps the powers of darkness have a stronger hold on Washington than we know.  Indeed I was disappointed to learn that my favorite President, Reagan, would not plan major policies without consulting an astrologer.  Donald Regan wrote “Virtually every major move and decision the Reagans made during my time as White House Chief of Staff was cleared in advance with a woman in San Francisco who drew up horoscopes to make certain that the planets were in a favorable alignment for the enterprise.”

I have come to the conclusion that the allure of political might is so strong that many Christians will wink at the dabbling with the demonic as long as their political affiliations are protected.  With leaders of both parties flirting with the powers of darkness many Christians, of all stripes, seem more concerned with our side winning than any other issue.  The solution is not a political campaign or a press release or a public outcry.  The solution is for us to be about making disciples.  When our faith began Rome was dominated by the occult and the powers of the demonic.  It never stood a chance against the army led by our Lord.  Rome was turned over as the church made disciples who rejected the demonic regardless of where it was found.