His name is Legion because he is many..................
The fusion of psychedelic (mind-manifesting) drugs and Marxist thought in the 60’s brought our society down, and subsequently our country.
Ye, little sons, be of God, and ye have overcome him; for he that is in you is more, than he that is in the world.
1 John 4:4
“...used psychoactive substances like ayahuasca to commune with otherworldly beings, from whom they claim to receive secret knowledge about the universe”
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Secret knowledge. Riiiight. *face palm*
When I was younger I might have experimented with something like this. Personally I don’t think there is anything “supernatural” about it. It’s all neurochemistry and neurology and turning off or stimulating parts of the brain that normally aren’t.
However, I think it’s silly to assign significance to it, or worse, take it as some sort of truth. These people are secular, so I wouldn’t expect them to heed this, but I’m quite sure that if God wanted to communicate with you, God knows how to look you up. So what you are ‘communing’ with is risky, at best.
But even if these were just “otherworldly beings” in a purely secular or scientific sense, why would you assume that they are beneficent, or going to offer you something for nothing?
That is not the approach that Scripture advises to get close to God. Not at all.
In the ‘70s, Carlos Castaneda wrote about studying under a Yaqui sorcerer. He wrote of the use of the kinds of mind-altering plants that were the way into a surreal dimension.
Critics now say he made it all up. But I don’t think so.
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**** but the Christian faith has long recognized these practices as risking contact with demons.***
I remember sixty years ago when liberal seminaries were urging their students to take LSD and then read the Bible to try to get a “different” meaning from it.
I have worked with two different patients who used ayahuasca one time and developed schizophrenia that was permanent for life. Both were female, both were under age twenty.
I have also worked with young men who used synthetic THC which is far stronger than regular weed that resulted in schizophrenia with one time use.
I do not do drugs and never will as I see what it does to the brain.
The transcendental experience with drug use is due to the diminishing of the ego self identity. The healthy ego identity creates a structure in consciousness that limits the feminine emotional consciousness from extending beyond the limits of “self.” People with big ego identities use the drugs, have the transcendental experience, and return to normal if use is minimal.
One man I worked with was an engineer who became addicted to the high from ayahuasca, using it dozens of times in 2022. He was losing his sense of self and devrloping schizophrenia.
The two young women had not developed a self identity and the one time use blocked their ability to do so, thus locking them in schizophrenia.
The ego self identity is logical consciousness that does not have the ability to hear voices. Thus in normal teenage development, a child transitions away from emotional consciousness as the prefrontal cortex and analytical logical thought processes develop.
As it relates to demonic influences, yes, the voices a schizophrenic hears are often, but not always demonic. They create an unhealthy dependency or codependency with the schizophrenic that blocks them from developing.
The drugs do open people to demonic influence. I’ve removed them many times over the years.
The hard part is breaking the dependency the schizophrenic has upon the demonic. They do not usually want to be healed.
The success I have had with schizophrenia has been by creating a shift in dependency to religion and a relationship with Jesus. That protects the person so the demons cannot come near them.
If I were to just remove the demons, the wound is not healed and they do not stay clean.
Sounds like it. I’ve heard experiences from some prominent people and it sounds just like they’ve been contacting demons.