The Pagan Invasion is an explosive new 13-part video series providing a thorough behind-the-scenes
examination of today's New Age movement and neo-pagan revival. Each superbly produced
volume features rare footage from around the world along with expert analysis by noted
Christian leaders and authors. For more information contact your local Christian bookstore or call
1-800-828-2290. California residents call 1-800-633-0869.
The Pagan Invasion is an explosive new 13-part video series providing a thorough behind-the-scenes
examination of today's New Age movement and neo-pagan revival. For more information contact your local
Christian bookstore or call 1-800-633-0869.
Music
Hello, I'm Chuck Smith.
And I'm Carol Matriciana.
Welcome to this edition of The Pagan Invasion.
For over a century, an ever-increasing spiritual awakening has attracted millions of Westerners
to an Eastern philosophical and religious worldview.
One vehicle used to spread the message to American Europe has been an endless procession
of India's elite priesthood, who are said to have experienced the secret knowledge of
the universe and become transcended.
They are known as the masters, swamis, gurus, and yogis.
Hinduism, which is the religion of India, is based on the evolutionary premise that
the universe has existed from the beginning in the form of forces, and that over time,
those forces have personified themselves as gods and goddesses.
Hinduism then regards the elite priest, known as the Brahmins, as a part of God, and within
this framework, the priest is seen as the equivalent of God, or in some instances, even
greater than God.
Originally, it was believed that the Hindu could only attain spiritual transcendence
in his old age, but in 1861, through the supposed revelations of a dead incarnation of Girubhavaji,
the idea that anyone in any stage of life could receive this secret knowledge was a
welcome shortcut, a revelation indeed that was to be popularly received in the West through
the teachings of subsequent gurus and god-men.
The first such master, Swami Vivekananda, entered the United States in 1892 and officially
introduced yoga and Hindu philosophy at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago.
His attempt to present Hinduism as science shocked his American audiences, many of whom
considered Hindu occultism an abomination.
But despite the seeming setback, Vivekananda's persuasive disciples ran with the analogy
and have successfully propagated the message of paganism as science to the nations ever
since.
One of the most acclaimed of India's god-men, due to his association with the Beatles during
the 60s, is Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
The Beatles encouraged millions of their fans worldwide to meditate their way to salvation
through transcendental meditation, a user-friendly technique of Hindu mysticism artfully designed
for the Westerner.
However, after a few months, the Beatles became disillusioned with their personal yogi and
publicly admitted that they had been spiritually duped.
Nevertheless, the millions already attracted by the Eastern message had swallowed the tantalizing
alternative to Judeo-Christianity and had begun their pilgrimage to Eastern persuasion.
The use of drugs was another contributing factor to the popularization of the guru,
who interpreted the experience of drugs and the experience of Eastern spiritual awakening
as one and the same.
Today, despite frequent media warnings of the fraudulent ways of the many god-men, the
fanaticism to follow this now-sanitized occultism prevails.
The seducing god-men's promise of relief from stress and worry, with the attainment
of health, wealth, and spiritual liberty now and in the afterlife, does seem almost too
good to be true.
Our report begins in Delhi, India, where we talked with a number of these god-men and
their followers.
Here in Delhi, India, Guru Darshan Singh, only one of hundreds of gurus, has personally
converted or initiated some 15,000 followers.
He explains that it is the job of the guru to groom his disciples into the shortest path
to salvation.
Salvation is the same, but you know, we have various paths leading to it.
You know, some of the paths are long paths, other paths are the short paths.
Why is a master then necessary?
Master is necessary, you know, to groom you into the shortest path.
Ascended from a long line of Hindu spiritual masters, Rabindranath Maharaj is a former
guru and accomplished yogi who is worshipped by thousands.
The Hindu needed to be near his guru, the Hindu needed to consult his guru.
He eventually saw his guru as the only means to salvation.
It is absolutely extraordinary also to look at disciples of some of these gurus that I
saw in India, for example, these adoring, huge, open eyes that just will accept anything
from him and that just love him beyond anything.
I loved Maharishi, I worshipped him, therefore everything he said or did or thought was perfectly
right in my eyes.
I just met Bhagwan and there it was, there is nobody else than him.
Bhagwan is my master and I love him.
I'm in love with him, that's the only thing I can say.
It is a love relationship, master and disciple, something happens in your heart when you see
a master.
Bhagwan is my master.
Here at the Kumbh Mela festival or aquarium fair in Allahabad, India, 20 million Hindus
gather to witness an endless procession of hundreds of these self-proclaimed God-men.
Even the dirt beneath these gurus' feet is an aid to the disciple in his quest for salvation.
This footage was covertly photographed and smuggled out of India.
Naked priests are considered to be the holiest and most dedicated of guru disciples.
Many cover their bodies with cremation ashes and dirt and mat cow dung into their hair.
Some are armed and are dependent upon extremely potent drug concoctions.
They have surrendered everything, families, possessions and even their minds, becoming
literally insane out of devotion to their guru.
Well, guru is our best friend, philosopher and guide and he shows the way to God.
So we in our India acknowledge him as a divine power just equivalent to God.
If anyone could be near the beloved master and witness the love, the compassion, the
humility, the grace, the generosity, no one in his right mind would not know that this
is a walking, talking, living God on earth.
In all scriptures you will find that the master is the God-incarnated power working on earth.
You people that interviewed this gentleman today, I don't think you knew who you interviewed
but you interviewed God.
For the Hindu, the guru is all-important.
The guru is his lord, his master, his savior, even greater than God.
Yes, guru is greater than God.
Carol Matriciana is a journalist and author of the book, Gods of the New Age.
Born and raised in India, she moved to London in 1973 where she became one of England's
leading authorities on new religious movements.
I have personally talked with many, many gurus and the sad fact is that within their belief
system they have to be detached and removed from their emotions and compassion and their
cruelty and inhumaneness is seen as spiritual and excused as holy.
I was really interested in their worship and their veneration and their adoration and the
gifts and offerings they brought to me but I was certainly not interested in their problems
and their difficulties and hardships and pains.
The guru followers believe that he returns this incredible love that they feel towards
him but in reality he feeds off their emotions to maintain his own ego.
So many people come here because they too are in love with Bhagawan.
They too are seeking the wisdom, the love that Bhagawan has to offer.
He has so much love and he gives his love to everybody and he helps us to find our love
in ourselves.
The followers of Jim Jones, leader of the People's Temple, were convinced that their
relationship was built on love and nearly one thousand of his devoted disciples committed
suicide at his command.
It was their final gift of total surrender to the leader they loved, their lives cut
short by a madman claiming to be God, the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.
Guru Sai Baba is one of India's most powerful men with millions of Indian disciples and
a growing Western following.
He says of himself, I am God.
My power is divine and has no limit.
There is no force natural or supernatural that can stop me or my mission.
Tao Brookes spent twenty years exploring the occult.
His quest ultimately took him to India where for two years he was the top Western disciple
of miracle working super guru Sai Baba.
Tao is now an author and president of the Spiritual Counterfeits Project based in Berkeley.
I recently asked Tao to share his thoughts concerning his encounters with Sai Baba.
Sai Baba claims to be God on earth.
His full claim is that he is a messiah.
The word that he uses is avatar which would be on the level as far as he is concerned
of Jesus Christ or Ram or Krishna.
He claims to be a full incarnation of God.
Sai Baba according to the whole concept of avatars claims that he was perfectly in the
ocean of Brahman, of light, that the Eastern view of who God is, the static eternal and
that he willed himself back into birth.
What was some of the things about Sai Baba that attracted you to him?
I believe that Sai Baba was God.
When I was in the core of his inner circle group, I mean I was his top Western disciple
for a while period, I believed that he was the embodiment of God on earth.
The sheer charisma and presence and power of Sai Baba was of an order of magnitude and
I've seen a lot of people, my father was a diplomat, lived in Europe, saw a lot of slices
of life, but here was an order of magnitude beyond any normal human ego structure I'd
ever seen.
I wanted him to be God.
I'd had this massive mystical experience in the States, this huge LSD thing, 3000 micrograms
in which I seemed to merge with the universe and merge with the mind of God and then read
all the Eastern revelations, the Bhagavad Gita, the Ramayana, the works of the gurus.
So you must know that I was primed.
So when I saw Baba and he came out of that limousine in this brilliant red robe, I was
just awestruck and the truth is there is a very tangible presence, a power that he has.
It's the entire God consciousness of the cosmos fuel down into this one body.
Now you mentioned that Sai Baba performed many convincing miracles.
Regarding his miracles, when I first saw him I told you that I was in a state of incredible
readiness and in a sense I'd had this huge experience that now needed to be validated
and I read all the Eastern scriptures from the Upanishads out and now it was time to
see it happen.
Was this man who claimed to be a God on earth, how would he validate it?
Suddenly you had someone who did miracles.
You know, Newsweek magazine a month before I met him had a one page on Sai Baba's being
India's Christ.
Rather than turning water into wine, he turned into gasoline, his car ran out on the desert,
he touched it as it was taken out of a well and poured in the tank and he drove off.
Many miracles were documented.
So when I saw him, not only did he have this thoughtless all knowing perception of people's
thoughts, not only did he tell me about particularities of my childhood and past that were privy
information that he couldn't have known humanly speaking, but over the two years that I was
with him, I saw him heal people.
This dermatologist from Stanford University, Tata Chari, the atheist, heard about Baba,
was going to test him as a case in point.
He flies to India, Baba already knows his name, ah Dr. Tata Chari, you've just come
to get yourself healed.
Turn around and Baba at this point materializes his ash, his famous holy ash out of nowhere,
sleeve rolled up.
I've seen that happen hundreds of times and then rubs Dr. Tata Chari's back and says
Acha, you're done, go home.
This guy's at Stanford University, he's a dermatologist and he's been given batteries
of medical tests and the whole prognosis is that terminal cancer, but the kind that metastasizes
the cells are all over the body.
He gets back and there is not a trace.
I'm sorry, but some of your high order stage magicians would have a problem doing that.
There was a group of Italian scientists there eight years after I left him, it was in one
of the Italian newspapers, with journalists, it was a clear day and they said for instance,
can you do something meteorological with the weather and Baba's head looked up and there
was a rainbow across the sky.
Well, this kind of thing.
He would pick off a tree cherries that can only be found 700 miles away in Kashmir, mangoes,
different fruit from the same tree.
One time I'm with him, he materializes a handful of Ladoo, Indian candy.
This big, bam, baseball size chunk of Ladoo appears and I eat it.
This is really amazing.
So again, the miracles, he claims to be his calling card, but to someone who is a devotee
of that belief in God, it shows that the mind is indeed one with the cosmos, the consciousness
is in every atom, every molecule, exactly what new ages are believing now, exactly what
Shirley MacLaine is saying in Outer Limb, exactly what Jose Arguella was trying to do
in the harmonic convergence and that is to control reality by thought.
And so Baba's miracles are attempts, I mean they're more than attempts to people, they
are the outward evidence that he is one with the universe and that he is controlling all
of reality and therefore he is God.
During the filming of Gods of the New Age, we had no problem getting gurus and their
disciples in India to admit that they believed that they were actually God.
However, we found that in America and in Europe, there was a certain reluctance on the part
of guru followers and new agers to admit on camera that they were God.
Then something happened.
ABC TV broadcast a mini-series called Out on a Limb which depicted Shirley MacLaine
with her arms outstretched toward the ocean, defiantly claiming to be God.
As a result of the telecast, many in the West have now found the courage to admit that they
actually believe they are God.
The idea of people wanting to be God is nothing new.
It's been around since the beginning of recorded history.
In fact, the promise of Godhood is the same lie the devil used to entice Eve into disobeying
her creator.
Gurus use this same lie today, calling themselves God and promising Godhood to those that follow
them.
Prabhu Guptara, born and raised in India, is currently a journalist and media commentator
in London.
Gurus are going to the West because of two reasons.
First, of course, they want to convert people.
They want them to become followers of their own religion, in some cases themselves.
And secondly, because they feel they have something to offer.
What these gurus have to offer is a family, a community to belong to, which they don't
have.
Dr. Oz Guinness, an Oxford scholar and noted world lecturer, is author of the bestseller
Dust of Death.
One of the deepest longings in the modern world is for a sense of meaning and belonging,
sense in their lives and sort of stability in their worlds.
And people having not found that in the West are hungry for it.
And reacting against the West, they're backing into the arms of the East without looking
at it straight.
Ed Senesi is a former member of the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, known as
the Hare Krishna Movement.
For three years, he was editor-in-chief of their magazine, Back to Godhead.
The attitude toward the family in the Hare Krishna Movement is very unfortunate.
The family is seen more or less as a necessary evil.
Eckhart Floater, a successful German journalist, became a devoted disciple of Rajneesh in 1979
and spent several months with him in India.
Rajneesh clearly says that the family, that marriage, that all these traditional family
bonds are rotten.
The only relationship that counts is between his disciples and him.
Kathy, devoted disciple of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi for 15 years, was a teacher and governor
of Transcendental Meditation, known as TM.
I thought TM was strengthening my family, but it was really weakening it because I was
turning all my attention in on myself.
If you have an allegiance to your wife or your children, to the extent that you have
that dedication to those people, you are less dedicated to the organization.
I either had to become a member so I could go with him or he was going to divorce me
because he was not supposed to have any outside attachments.
He said it wasn't that he didn't love me anymore and in fact he still loved me very much.
It's just that I was only human and Bhagwan was superhuman and therefore he was more deserving
of my husband's love than I was.
How many of these people loved their neighbor, their family, in this totally giving way?
Alexandra Schmidt is one of France's leading experts on new religious movements.
How many have been so blind to all the negative aspects of a person they loved as to that
of the guru?
Ellen is a spokeswoman for the Brahma Kumaris Raja Yoga organization, which is completely
administered by women who control 800 centers in 40 countries.
Our organization has the practice amongst all the participants of celibacy, whether
in individuals or married couples.
I found myself being attracted to my wife but I couldn't because as soon as I felt
attracted to her emotionally, physically, then it was difficult for me to maintain my
celibacy.
So the way I resolved that was to turn her into an object of dislike or hate.
We have living proof of thousands of couples who are living in this way and are finding
much greater harmony and pure love as opposed to limited physical love.
Over 90% of the marriages in the Krishna movement end in divorce.
Rather than using our energy in raising a family and being involved in many physical
relationships, we're focusing that energy on spirituality.
See what's so diabolical about all this is that it masquerades as spirituality.
In some schools of thought to be spiritual celibacy is encouraged and yet in others sexual
perversion is practiced not only among the gurus themselves but by their disciples including
young children.
Contradictions are also seen in the attitude towards women who on the spiritual level are
the focus of worship, their femaleness is seen as the created power of God.
For instance to be initiated by a female yogini is considered much holier than initiation
by a male and yet on a day to day level women are considered lower than men and treated
as less than human.
In the religious communities in India which are known as ashrams there is absolutely no
place for children and here in the west the gurus generally don't want the burden and
responsibility of children because it distracts the parents from devotion to him and his cause.
They have a school system whereby they force the children at age five to live in the ashram.
A lot of the kids did think it was like a prison.
They didn't get to go anywhere but the ranch and while we're at school it's really just
a place for the kids to go to get out of the grown ups way.
And they separate them from the mother and father which is very unfortunate and very
destructive.
Well the kids would want to see their mom and dad you know just to be with them as a
family.
The kids wouldn't even know where their parents were and they'd have to go look for them and
when they did parents are usually too busy to talk to them and so the kids were mainly
by themselves and unsupervised.
The most heartbreaking result of the guru invasion to the west is the damage and harm
it brings to the children, those who have no other choice than to live in the ashram
because their parents have chosen to follow the guru.
Separated from parents and cut off from outside relatives they become community property.
They lose their individuality and identity and are alienated from society.
Father Friedrich Hock has written over 30 books on various cults and is Germany's leading
expert on new religious movements.
Children brought up in a cult are only educated to follow the commands of their leaders.
They never experienced freedom, they never experienced a responsible life where they
could have their own choice, where they could follow their will.
I've had these children taken them to parks and they've seen normal people and they'd
recoil in fear from them because they don't look like devotees, the men don't have shaven
heads or robes.
I didn't want to leave the ranch, I'd rather stay there because I was scared of the people
outside of it because, I don't know, you just got a feeling down there so you were worked
in to staying there.
Now why would an organization want to disrupt families like that?
My own understanding in the cult dynamic is that it's a principle of control, divide
and conquer.
Saint Augustine in Defining Man said that there was a God-shaped vacuum in man.
Were you aware of such a vacuum in your life?
No, deeply from the earliest moments I could think.
Unless we're absolutely shallow people there is something in us that wants to know why
in the world are we here, what is ultimate truth, we want to settle this issue.
And I think Augustine's statement is key.
We are, we do have a God-shaped vacuum and we learn later that we are made by God in
the image of God and we have a deeply spiritual impulse to know and to connect.
What is it that we're searching for in the West that we haven't found?
Well I think of myself as a child and as a university student when I went from psychic
stuff to LSD there was a vacuum there and frankly most Christian churches, most of them
seemed empty and irrelevant.
They seemed vacuous and many of the pastors didn't even believe in what they claimed
to believe.
So I think there's been, you know even the Bible talks about a great falling away and
a falling away of belief and a falling away of purpose and I think people pick up on that.
I think that's why Shirley MacLaine has gone out on a limb, she's gone into the new age.
I think the reason they suddenly see this enthralling, colorful, exciting alternative
where they can have their cake and eat it too, they can be God and they can do what
they want to.
There's no such thing as sin and in the Eastern system you can be God, you're an immortal
soul, you can reincarnate, you're a part of the universe, you own the universe.
Let me follow up on something you said.
You said that you were seduced.
Seduced is a negative word and yet you've spoken about Sai Baba with such positive affection.
What is happening here?
I'm speaking about him to tell you how powerful he is and some of these other gurus.
I believe completely that there is something very diabolical happening.
But again I think people having a spiritual need, the Bible warns about counterfeits and
he is one of many.
He is a seducer.
Later in retrospect after having been under some of these people I see that he is an antichrist.
Sai Baba is an antichrist, anti meaning either against or in place of.
And Matthew 24, 24, the verse that brought me to Jesus Christ, and there shall come false
prophets and antichrists working great signs and wonders, working miracles in their antichrist
to deceive if possible the very elect of God.
So the Bible clearly has a category for people like Sai Baba and the new age masters.
So then you say what is an antichrist and what category is that?
And I would tell you that it is someone who is fully possessed, not by a human spirit,
but biblically by a demon, a demonic entity of the kind that you know our modern minds
search for paradigms and you think of the movie The Exorcist and this ancient spirit
from Iraq inhabiting the body of the little girl Reagan.
Well Baba's thing is far bigger than that, but an ancient principality that has been
kicking around the cosmos for a long time that is in this body that hates Jesus Christ,
it hates God, it knows God, and therefore antichrist instead of doing miracles, claiming
to be God, like the devil in the wilderness with Christ saying worship me, usurping God.
And so these gurus are very useful because they manipulate the God shaped vacuum in us
and they draw it to themselves and they are seducers, they are the ultimate spiritual
pied piper.
I came back from having seen the miracles of Sai Baba and I learned now that they were
satanic miracles, they were done by demonic empowerment.
And I don't believe God is dead on the throne and that there are no miracles.
I believe there are legitimate works of God now.
He hasn't dried up on the throne and died.
However, having said that, I think that there is this same thing that was in the early church,
that you had side by side real acts of God and counterfeits.
And I really worry about media manipulators, you know, crying on handkerchiefs and asking
people to send in a lot of money to bless them.
That betrays the dignity and majesty of God and the Holy Spirit.
So you have all these converts, you have this conversion, and if you are as brilliant as
the devil is, you are going to do a direct forked attack on the believers of Christ.
One of the ways you can do it is through signs and wonders, because the devil has been in
the signs and wonders game since time immemorial, and people are simple minded.
And so if I can produce for you a glowing shiny marble, or in this case a blessed handkerchief,
or speak in a language you might know, it may be, or it may not be legitimate.
And I think people are getting deceived, and the only gradient we have for analyzing anything
is the scripture of God.
It's like a chemist in a lab.
He puts it through the supreme filter, if it gets through it's okay.
But if it's a new revelation, or a more advanced revelation, or if it's contradictory to the
scripture, it has nothing to do with it at all.
Growing up in India, I saw first hand how the Hindu belief system greatly contributed
to the poverty and suffering of India.
I remember seeing the very poor giving their last bowl of rice to a sacred cow.
I remember seeing the more well to do offering large amounts of food to wooden idols, while
children starved to death just a few feet away.
All the while gurus were living in their palatial mansions, compelling their followers into
turning over their possessions to them.
According to the Guru Gita, one of Hinduism's most important scriptures, the follower must
not only adore and worship the guru as God, but surrender himself and all his possessions
as well.
Most of the gurus that I know of in the West are super rich.
Gurus are more interested in white disciples than in Indian disciples, largely because
they get more money from the whites.
Rob, former transcendental meditator for 13 years, was a TM governor and in charge of
teacher training at Maharishi International University.
The TM movement is very wealthy, they have land holdings all over the world, they have
beautiful hotels in Switzerland, they have university campuses in the Midwest, they have
academies on the East Coast, the West Coast.
Here he was getting served on silver plates six times a day, sleeping on a very soft bed,
riding around in a Mercedes, but supposedly he was so renounced that he wasn't attached
to these things, so that gave him a right to enjoy them.
Maharishi made a statement that says when the money comes to me, he says it's transcendental.
Money is our last priority, everything else is our first priority.
Millions of gurus have grown incredibly rich in the West through tax-exempt donations and
the manufacture and distribution of every kind of memorabilia honoring these self-proclaimed
godmen.
They have acquired vast land holdings, armed bodyguards, and outrageous luxuries from posh
hotels to their own fleets of planes, helicopters, and as in Rajneesh's case, Rolls-Royces.
Why not Rolls-Royces?
Why have anything less?
This country is a capitalist country and anything that produces or helps capitalism, why not?
Anybody who says why have Rolls-Royces, I say you're a communist.
The guru's hypocrisy is diabolical.
Criticizing the materialism and commercialism in the West and convincing their followers
that non-materialism will get them up a spiritual ladder, these gods of the new age are laughing
all the way to the bank.
I know of groups involved in drug trafficking, smuggling, prostitution, and the buying and
selling of weapons, all done to earn money for the guru.
I know of a variety of female disciples who were prostitutes in Bombay and making money
with it.
I have evidence that the Rajneesh organization is making a lot of their income through illegal
trafficking of drugs into this country.
If you have your head in a right place, you can create money.
It is art.
They were encouraged to smuggle dope from India to Europe and from this money they could
pay their workshops.
If they have to tell you they're with the Christian Children's Fund or they're with
the Salvation Army or they're using the money to find men missing in action in Vietnam,
whatever they have to do to get the money, they'll do that because they believe what
their guru told them that the end justifies the means.
Hinduism teaches you to die to the voice of conscience inside that says it's wrong.
It teaches that there is no sin.
This can be seen in the way that gurus and their disciples justify murder, violence,
robbery, bribery and crooked business transactions, all done in the name of heavenly deception.
People were encouraged not only to spy on each other when they were not properly surrendering
to the master, people were encouraged to lie to each other.
The male is censored.
We know of bribery with local politicians.
People undergo, as I did, a change in their value system and become confused about what
is right and what is wrong.
Another danger that you can see in a lot of the Eastern thinking is the sort of syncretism
and the failure to make distinctions so that you transcend not just right and wrong but
this and that.
And I think it's very important to say there are distinctions, not just between right and
wrong but in all sorts of things, to think critically, to think clearly.
The whole philosophy of Hinduism is very relative.
There are no absolute moral standards upon which to act.
Your feeling of right or wrong would change according to your level of consciousness.
You can become so completely under the power of this particular person that you refuse
to think or, if you like, you're unable to think.
You can lose the power to take decisions of any sort, no matter how trifling, in any area
of your life.
Sally Belfridge, former resident of Rajneesh's religious community in India, wrote of her
disillusionment in her book, Flowers of Emptiness.
I felt more and more kind of drawn into his, this emptiness of his.
It's impossible to describe.
It's more than charisma.
Charisma doesn't do it justice at all.
It's more than an aura.
I really believe that he knew something I didn't, that he was on a plane that I was not.
They ask you for total and also brainless obedience and worship because they are God
and they are more than human and you have to follow these Gods.
You are not asked to deal with your brain and to ask questions.
I discover with amazement and dismay the readiness of people to submit.
So many people in the world feel that they've got to fling themselves headlong and believe
and give up their autonomy.
People love to give up this heavy freedom that we have to carry with all the decisions
and the effort it implies.
Freedom in the East is freedom from individuality.
So it's a detached freedom that has no high place of man.
And a lot of the Eastern way of thinking is like a sort of mist that falls in or it's
been described as an embrace that smothers any differences.
I found that I lost my identity somehow.
He had no identity.
He was a sort of conduit to the infinite.
And I was somehow at the receiving end of something very strange and extraordinary.
There is something within man that drives him to worship.
It's sort of like Bob Dylan said, you've got to serve somebody.
And if you do not serve God, you must then have a substitute.
And this is exactly what is being offered to man today, substitutes for the true God.
And because man is driven to worship, he is drawn many times to these substitutes.
Unfortunately in the church today, there are many churches that do deny the power of God.
And people are looking for reality and power.
And thus they are drawn to these Eastern mystical experiences where there is that promise of
power.
Paul speaks of men who because they did not receive the truth of God, God brought to them
a strong delusion that they would believe a lie rather than the truth.
It's amazing to me what people will believe when they've rejected the truth of God.
And surely we have observed today absurd beliefs of men believing that man is God or can become
God and the denying of the reality of God.
But in the final analysis, the worship of God, the true and the living God will bring
a man into a glorious liberty where the worship of these false gods will only bring you into
bondage.
Within all of us, there is a God-shaped vacuum.
Throughout the ages, man has attempted to fill that void with the things of the world.
But it is only through a relationship with our Creator that we can be truly satisfied.
This Holy Scriptures reveal the way in which we can be reconciled to God, and that is through
the provisions of His Son, Jesus Christ.
I'm Chuck Smith.
And I'm Carol Matriciana.
Join us again for another edition of The Pagan Invasion.
The Pagan Invasion is an explosive new 13-part video series providing a thorough behind-the-scenes
examination of today's New Age movement and neo-pagan revival.
Each superbly produced volume features rare footage from around the world along with expert
analysis by noted Christian leaders and authors.
For more information, contact your local Christian bookstore or call 1-800-828-2290.
California residents call 1-800-633-0869.