I was recently introduced to a publication promoting an ideology called The Green Pill. I felt disturbed in my spirit and immediately began composing a contrasting ideology that I thought to dub The White Pill. Something much bigger than me pulled me up on that and told me: No More Pills! So I wrote about my own experiences with a light infusion. As a follow up, I promised several people to elaborate on how to discern sound spiritual guidance. After all, there are a *lot* of paradigms attempting to speak into us all the time, and this *is* an era of psychological war with the prize being our identity.
Let’s first establish a presupposition of truth, being that humans are complex beings consisting of body, mind and spirit. We have physical bodies that move around in- and interact with- a physical realm. We have non physical ideas, beliefs and emotions that dictate our personality and consciousness. We have another part of us… a divine part. This we can not quite describe, yet we know it observably animates us while we live and no longer does when the physical body stops. We know it’s our connection to all that there is.
A problem arises when one of those three areas that make us human goes unacknowledged, and we attempt to apply physical growth to soul or soul growth to spirit. For example, a good night’s rest is very important to my muscles and organs and a valid argument exists that it’s good for my soul as my mind needs time to archive, assimilate and delete input from the day… yet, there’s no evidence that my spirit needs rest at all.
Religions entered the picture on a false paradigm, equating soul and spirit and, consequently, misapplying guidance. Religion is based on systems created by humans largely with the noble intention of guiding followers into greater knowledge, wisdom and strength. Of course, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, so let’s analyze what religion actually does in light of what God offers.
When I say ‘God’, I speak of the divine source energy that has always existed and through which everything else was created. I can’t explain any further, as God is too big for my comprehension, but you get the gist. According to the scripture we have available, God created humanity to exist in a covenant relationship. Humanity broke that covenant relationship and religion came into the picture as a guardian until the covenant could be reconciled. For elaboration, please read about Salvation Covenant.
Religion was sanctioned by God, and copied by the ungodly, resulting in a horizontal axis, contractual system of hierarchy, sacrifice and behavior. We see this in every religion and religious institution (yes, including Christianity of every stripe). Religion is not concerned with things of spirit. It directs us in the physical and the intellectual. It tells us to take every thought captive, what to eat, with whom to associate, what to wear, how to worship, what to say… every religion is concerned with body and mind. I can’t count the times I have sat in church and been taught about my soul. My soul consists of my thoughts, emotions, personality and consciousness. My soul is temporal. God says much more about my spirit.
Faith is sourced straight from God. Jesus was concerned about faith, and faith is spirit related- it is not an intellectual undertaking. Without Spirit, we do not even know our thoughts or have adequate understanding. Our souls operate under the direct supervision of our spirits. Faith operates on a vertical axis.
But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
John 4: 23-24
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
1 Corinthians 2: 10-13
I could copy most of the New Testament here, but I’ll leave it at those two. Faith involves spirit. Our covenant relationship with God, that Jesus reconciled us back to, is a spiritual relationship. The problem with religions, all of them, is that they simply cannot touch spirit. The modern church has actively culled spirit from the everyday experience of congregants and replaced it with a soul focused doctrine. The Holy Spirit *only* teaches that which is of God, and while religions can approximate physical and psychological manifestations, they are poor counterfeits once one has experienced the Holy Spirit.
Before I proceed, I need to address a personal revelation about a spiritual fraud that has become increasingly popular. There is a spiritual entity that mimics the Holy Spirit called Kundalini. If we engage in physical practices (meditation, chanting, posturing) usually at physically dictated times (moon cycle, birth moon) we *will* feel a physical manifestation. We are spiritual entities anchored in physical bodies. The questions we must ask are;
With that introduction, let’s look at the “spiritual” guidance on offer. For our purposes, I have sorted it into three categories. Although I appear to be going after The Green Pill with vigor, it’s only because the publication does a thorough summary of the smorgasbord of ideologies on offer. I am impressed. Notice that whenever we see something that appears to offer guidance but, in reality, just offers confusion it always says ‘take what resonates’? Shouldn’t *truth* resonate? Why would we ever offer loads of falsehoods in a guide that seeks to speak into someone’s paradigm and tell them to ‘take what resonates’? God is not a God of confusion. But I digress…
As we analyse, the first thing we must dismiss is nonsense. I am all about following my gut feelings. I have firmly held convictions that I can not prove with evidence, yet know in my bones to be truth. What I never do is put these convictions out to the masses as evidence backed, factual options. If you read my light infusion article, you saw that I was relating my own experience backed by some anecdotal confirmation. So, whether we think some things are true, real, or valid for ourselves is not the point. Unless you *are* an Extra Terrestrial or Ascended Master, you really have no evidence that these ideas have any merit at all. Even if they exist, on which axis do they reside? Seems to be body and mind?
There are many religious and secular practices which seek to force spiritual manifestations through physical or psychological manipulation. While we may experience physical sensations, we cannot attribute those to spiritual change, and certainly not the Holy Spirit. Some of these practices actually open us up to spiritual entities that are not of God, causing fatal misunderstandings going forward.
This list seems to have been constructed by someone who doesn’t actually understand the role of our spirit or how it relates to Holy Spirit.
The dangerous labels in the second category may or may not apply. They can certainly open doors to allow unholy entities access to your spirit through your mind. The three options presented in this third category are most definitely dangerous.
– Which ancient texts?
– What do they speak into the reader?
– Does the reader have spiritual strength and discernment to know when they are being influenced by unrighteous entities?
So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.
1 Corinthians 14:12
That leaves the following:
Though there are no issues with these ideas, they are too vague to be of any real use in developing spiritual strength unless rooted in the information attached here.
Since I am coming against poor guidance pretty vehemently, I don’t wish to make the same error. So I will end with some sound guidance for developing Holy Spirit strength.
Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
Biblical themes are fairly obvious here. The Holy Spirit teaches us, esoterically, the hidden mysteries of God. We have no need to seek elsewhere or attempt to achieve understanding through mortal/ physical means. If we make the mistake of pursuing such a course in the quest for a knowledge that puffs up, God offers constant renewal and regeneration through the Holy Spirit. Any other spirit is suspect and, while such a spirit may afford temporary sensation, power and/or manifestation, it will fall short in the end.
To demonstrate the power of the Holy Spirit, we had a sick little boy in our faith family for a couple of weeks. At first, the doctors said it was a cold. After a week, they diagnosed severe pneumonia. Then they diagnosed Strep A pneumonia. They admitted him (age 6) to hospital, took lung x-rays, started iv antibiotics, inserted a chest tube to drain the fluid… nothing was working- he continued to decline. By Sunday, his dad texted saying he was in really bad shape and they were sending him to PICU. I looked around at the church who meet at our house and said: we need to pray. As one of the men began to pray, in the authority of the local church body that the family had submitted to, things immediately changed. We felt the Holy Spirit, we could smell the hospital room. The boy’s pulse immediately slowed, his breathing eased, and his fever dissipated. By that evening, his parents were rejoicing over a miraculous recovery. His mom facetimed me on Tuesday and he was up and running around the room… he was discharged Tuesday night. The doctors don’t understand it. I do.
There is great power in the Spirit of God, power that has been denied and hidden by the modern ‘church’. It is unwise to fall for a spiritual counterfeit.
But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
2 Timothy 3:1-5