“Sometimes with the people I work
with especially those trained in theology I ask them to take the
interpretations which they were taught and put it on a shelf and let
God teach them the way the scriptures read. And so when they hear
God's voice and their doing, you know, doing a sermon or homily or
just doing a talk on theology then they are able to use what God told
them... And then they take their books back and the message then has
great depth their able to put the two together.”
Mind Conditioning in the New Age
In this blog post I wish to convey to
you the importance of biblical interpretation and the subtitles that
are often involved in discerning differences between interpretations
presented by the New Age movement and those of historic orthodox
Christianity.
The most problematic aspect of
Frannie's entire body of teaching is that she speaks to us in a
manner that assumes at the offset that what we think in the matters
of God are erroneous. This method is very effective with those who
may feel uncertain about what they think about God, be dissatisfied
with inadequate answers they have received so far concerning
difficult aspects to the Christian faith, or have labored under false
understandings due to poor catechesis that opens them to want a
better alternative.
Marcia Montenegro, an expert in the New
Age and how they attempt to influence Christians, explains it this
way: “To keep dismissing our previous beliefs or knowledge is a way
to undermine any Christian teaching or concepts we've had previously.
This is really a form of mind conditioning and is common in the New
Age.”
In other words, the concepts and
rhetoric that she uses is specifically designed to lead us away from
what we have known to be revealed by God in order that we will be
much more receptive to her teachings about how we relate to Him. In
all the language that she uses about the egoic mind and the complete
dismissal of what we know about God is meant to prepare our mind for
a new set of teachings. We are to put aside what we have known to be
true through the Church as revealed through Scripture and Tradition
so that we will more readily accept an alternative view, presumably
based upon a higher authority, which surprisingly will be consistent
with what she will teach us.
This method is employed to condition
our minds for better receptivity to accepting a New Age paradigm. A
more direct route would be to reason with us concerning the details
of her teaching. However, this would most likely be ineffective
because we know better, which is why she does not engage in public
responses to our concerns within the diocese, or publicly admit
certain aspects of her teaching such as when she declined to respond
to whether she maintained reincarnation on one of the Rocky Mountain
Views interviews. However, if she can get us to set our
presuppositions aside in order to accept a “voice within” with
little to no discernment, then she can undercut the entire Christian
revelation, and increase the possibility that a spirit which teaches
differently than what we have already received through the Church
will begin to influence us.
The Task of Exegesis
The academic process of being mindful
of one's presuppositions and being honest about one's certainty
concerning the meaning of a passage is an extremely important aspect
of allowing Scripture and the teachings of the Church to assist us in
growing in our understanding. We most certainly are to have an
openness to learning more about Scripture and the theology of the
Catholic Church otherwise we will not be able to discern New Age
deceptions, nor know the difference between the way that New Age
gurus quote Scripture and the meaning of them which is retained
within the Church, the difference between this meaning and one
proposed by “the wisdom from within”.
The task of exegesis is to draw out the
original intent of the passage within its own historic context and
literary genre. A discipline that requires openness to where the
evidence leads over against interpretations we may have picked up at
some point in time, such as when Frannie says “Jesus teaches this
as well”.
If however in doing this a spirit
proposes a meaning that is not consistent with the Christian faith
then to put the two together would lead one into error and end up
accepting a New Age interpretation which is contrary to historic
orthodox Christianity. The more uncertain a person is about the
meaning of a particular passage the more impressionable they will be
towards proposed interpretations.
A friend of mine who had been involved
in the New Age movement while attending an evangelical denomination
said that he would receive biblical inspiration from a spirit that
made the Scriptures come alive. Excited concerning his insights he
wanted to share these wonderful interpretations with everyone. When
he was delivered from demonic possession and began to learn Scripture
through the Church he found that the sense in which he once
understood certain passages from a New Age perspective were found to
mean the complete opposite now that he understood the text according
to the Church.
The New Age has more of an esoteric
approach to biblical interpretation which would be more driven by a
spirit speaking to us and we come to know that it is true in more of
an intuitive manner.
Scripture is to be read within its
broader apostolic, communal, and ecclesiastical contexts; that is,
within the heart of the Church. Concerning our reading of Scripture
Vincent of Lerins, in his A Commonitory, gives us a clear and
succinct explanation of the necessity of this approach:
“With great zeal and closest
attention, therefore, I frequently inquired of many men, eminent for
their holiness and doctrine, how I might, in a concise and, so to
speak, general and ordinary way, distinguish the truth of the
Catholic faith from the falsehood of heretical depravity. I received
almost always the same answer from all of them—that if I or anyone
else wanted to expose the frauds and escape the snares of the
heretics who rise up, and to remain intact and in sound faith, it
would be necessary, with the help of the Lord, to fortify that faith
in a twofold manner: first, of course, by the authority of divine law
[Scripture] and then by the tradition of the Catholic Church.
“Here, perhaps, someone may ask: ‘If
the canon of the scriptures be perfect and in itself more than
suffices for everything, why is it necessary that the authority of
ecclesiastical interpretation be joined to it?’ Because, quite
plainly, sacred Scripture, by reason of its own depth, is not
accepted by everyone as having one and the same meaning… Thus,
because of so many distortions of such various errors, it is highly
necessary that the line of prophetic and apostolic interpretation be
directed in accord with the norm of the ecclesiastical and Catholic
meaning.”
A New Age Interpretation
Here is a case in point: In John
8:56-59 it states “Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of
seeing my day; he saw it and was glad” “You are no yet fifty
years old,” the Jews said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”
“I tell you the truth.” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was
born, I am!” At this, they picked up stone to stone him...”
New Agers Mark and Elizabeth Clare
Prophet interpret this passage in a way different than historic
orthodox Christianity:
“...Jesus knows his True Self to be
the Light-emanation of this Christ that always was, is, and ever
shall be. And he wants you to know that your Real Self is also that
selfsame Light.”i
“Jesus' I AM Presence looks just like
yours. This is the common denominator. This is the co-equality of the
sons and daughters of God. He created you equal in the sense that he
gave you an I AM Presence – he gave you a Divine Self”ii
Likewise, Jesus states that “I and
the Father are One” (John 10:30). New Agers will take this to mean
that just as Jesus came to identify himself as one with God then we
too need to come to this same realization that our heart and God are
together as One. Through this enlightenment, this God-consciousness,
we come to realize that we are not sinful creatures but are unlimited
and perfect in our True Self. We're not going to be saved from our
sins by the blood of Jesus, the only God-man, but we're going to be
God, unlimited mind.
And why not? Doesn't Jesus tell us that
“I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one
as we are one...” (John 17:22).
New Agers often quote Jesus more than
any other spiritual teacher and by doing so add credence to their own
teachings. Ideas which would otherwise seem absurd to us can become
much more acceptable if couched in the words of Jesus. Perhaps
Frannie would tell us that the Jews picked up stones because they
were following a religion which was the product of the egoic mind,
and as a result the Jews were prone to violence for this reason. And
that they rejected the enlightenment that we can have
God-consciousness, an awareness that our heart and God are together
as One. Franne tells us that “God-consciousness is infinite, it’s
eternal, unlimited by thought and perception – ‘I AM,’
unrefined by the ego.”
Therefore, once we set aside our
understanding of this passage that 1) Jesus claims the divine name “I
AM” exclusively for himself, and 2) the Jews picked up stones to
stone Jesus because they saw this as blasphemy, then we are open to
accepting other interpretations, especially those proposed by the New
Age.
Worldview Confusion
Everyone has a worldview built upon a
set of presuppositions. We do this as an attempt to create coherence
out of everything that we come to know. When someone with a New Age
worldview approaches Scripture they tend to take the words from text
and bring them into the context of their New Age teachings. They see
the words used by Jesus and endow them with a meaning which is
foreign to the original context.
One of the best examples of worldview
confusion was brought to my attention by James Sire in his book
Scripture Twisting: 20 Ways the Cults Misread the Bible. If
you have not read this book, then you owe it to yourself to
familiarize yourself with all the different ways that one can use
Scripture to come to alternative interpretations which are not
consistent with historic orthodox Christianity.
After Paul healed a man who had been
lame from birth we shall see the crowd witnessing the miracle
exemplify worldview confusion.
“When the crowd saw what Paul had
done, they shouted in the Lycaonian language, 'The gods have come
down to us in human form!' Barnabas they called Zeus, and Paul they
called Hermes because he was the chief speaker. The priest of Zeus,
whose temple was just outside the city, brought bulls and wreaths to
the city gates because he and the crowd wanted to offer sacrifices to
them” (Acts 14:11-13).
The crowd continued to misunderstand
what they were seeing and continued to offer sacrifices to the
apostles even after Paul and Barnabas spoke further about who they
were and who God was. This is what happens when a New Age guru
misinterprets the words of Jesus. They come to the text of Scripture
with their presuppositions and come away understanding them in a
manner different than their original intent in the same manner as the
crowd misunderstood Paul and Barnabas by bringing their own religious
perspective into the situation which was foreign to the actual
context. If a spirit gives us an interpretation of Scripture which is
contrary to the results of exegesis and to the teachings of the
Church then it is to be rejected, and never put together with what we
have already known.
The False Dilemma and the Voice of
God
The method Frannie presents of setting
aside interpretations which we have been taught opens us up to the
possibility of being influenced by New Age interpretations of
Scripture such as the entire God-consciousness paradigm. We know that
Frannie has stated that Deepak Chopra has been her greatest influence
and we know that he maintains this New Age perspective as seen in his
book, The Third Jesus. And Frannie attempts to support this
method by using an axiom: “God can't teach you what you think you
already know”.
Why can't God teach me something if I
think I already know it? If I already know God's revelation through
Jesus Christ, then there is nothing different that God will need to
teach me about it. People who may not know the rational content of
revelation or how God has revealed himself to us may not feel very
certain that they understand it in all its aspects. The idea that God
can't teach them unless they let go of what they think they know is
what opens people up to New Age teachings and makes them more
vulnerable to suggestion. We want to take what we know and bring it
with us so that we can do a comparative analysis between what we
think and the objective evidence that we find through the exegetical
method, and the teachings of the Catholic Church. While doing this
there certainly has been times when an idea or two that we have
thought has been inconsistent with the teachings of the Catholic
Church, but this does not require the method that Frannie is
proposing. There is a difference between being actively aware of our
ideas, maintaining some of them in a more tentative manner than
others, and being honest with oneself concerning our presuppositions,
and completely allowing ourselves to be brainwashed through New Age
conditioning techniques!
- Saul on the Road to Damascus
Frannie states: “Be as empty as you
can be, because God requires the space, if we don't give space to God
He has no way for us to have an awareness of Him...”
God does not require the space at all.
God can and will speak to us when he determines to do so. Consider
the way that God approached Saul while he was on the road to
Damascus. “As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light
from heave flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a
voice say to him, 'Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?'” (Acts
9:3-4).
With Frannie it is usually the inverse
of what she is trying to teach you. To be sure, sometimes God uses a
still, small voice while we are reflecting upon nature, engaged in
prayer, or through our reading of Scripture, and sometimes he will
knock you off your horse. God does have a way for us to have an
awareness of Him which does not involve us being empty.
- Deny Ourselves
Matthew 16:24-25 “If anyone would
come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow
me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever
loses his life for me will find it.” Matthew 10:39: “Whoever
finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake
will find it.”
Frannie uses this latter verse in her
presentation to convey that we must be empty, and that we must let go
of our way. Certainly our sinful hearts could keep us from confessing
our sins and pridefully rejecting the blood of Christ for the
cleansing of our sins but this is not the manner in which Frannie
uses this verse. We are not to deny our nature as distinct creatures
of God in order to find the True Self, which is One with God. We are
not to deny the Christian revelation which has been preserved within
the Church in order to listen to another “voice of wisdom”. The
denial which Christ is talking about is a call to live a life of
holiness and to be set apart for God's exclusive use for works of
service and sharing the gospel that Christ died for our sins. It
would be far better for a Christian to give his life to the mouths of
lions than to live a life dedicated to the pursuit of lustful
pleasures, or worst, abandon our minds by dragging them through the
empty space of New Age spirituality.
- The Gentle Voice of God
Frannie states: “It will be God that
answers... And how do you know if it is God or not? As I said before
if what is said to you is different than the critical messages we
give to ourselves...”
“ if you are really hearing the voice
of God, God speaks in gentle, kind, and loving ways”
Jesus tells us that when he sends us
the Holy Spirit, “he will expose the guilt of the world...” (John
16:5). However, Frannie thinks that guilt is useless and is the mere
product of the egoic mind lying to us about who we are. However, it
is the opposite of what Frannie teaches. The prideful person says
that they have not sinned and therefore guilt has no place, while it
is the humble person with the contrite heart who seeks forgiveness
from the Father who truly knows how corrupt their heart has been.
Hearing from God will not always be
pleasant, in fact, if you spend any amount of time reading through
Scripture you will find plenty of moments when God disciplines his
children, rebukes them, and punishes them for their sins (Hebrews
12:5-11). Jesus in a fit of righteous indignation flipped tables in
the temple courts and often called the pharisees white-washed tombs,
among other things, and he was God incarnate. How are we supposed to
be convicted of our sins if we just categorize those thoughts as the
egoic mind lying to us in order to keep us living in the past,
keeping us from our perfect True Self? It is a dangerous teaching
that leads one to interpret the acts of the Holy Spirit as if it were
the acts of the egoic mind. This is blasphemy against the Holy
Spirit!
- The Extent of Frannie's Discernment
Frannie states: “Even when people
begin to hear God's voice the first thing they do is they question
whether or not its God, because they allow their mind to analyze what
their hearing, if they let go of the analyzing of what their hearing
and allow their hearts to come into the situation, they know its
God.”
As I demonstrated in a previous blog
post, the mind and the heart are both unified as core aspects of our
inner person. Why shouldn't we bring all of ourselves in order to
relate with God? Did God not design us in such a manner? Does he not
now restore us to the image and likeness of God?
Besides, why shouldn't we question a
voice that comes to us? Do you deny the existence of deceiving
spirits? Analyzing the message we are receiving is exactly how we
test the spirits! We have to have a way in order to determine whether
they are from God or not. And this test can not be subject to
feelings or mere personal experience. It must be consistent with
Scripture as it is understood by the Catholic Church.
“Dear friends, do not believe
every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God,
because many false prophets have gone out in to the world” (1 John
4:1).
"The Spirit clearly says that
in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving
spirits and things taught by demons" (1 Timothy 4:1).
Frannie states: “When we hear the
voice of God we know it because there is this peace that envelopes
you... its not a question of what you are thinking about it, it is a
question of what you are feeling when you hear it.”
A friend of mine who was once in the
New Age movement recounts a time when he was lying in his bed and a
voice called out his name. At the time he thought that it was the
Lord speaking to him and so he responded with openness. In the next
moment the spirit swirled over him and then landed on top of him. At
this point he experienced a state of peace envelope him which was
beyond words to describe. Despite all that seemed right with the
experience it turned out to be a deceptive spirit that led him
further into the New Age.
On one of the Rocky Mountain Views
interviews Martha Thompson asked Frannie: "How do you know you
are talking to God, how do you know you are not talking to the
devil?” After an ambiguous answer she says that "somehow in
your heart you know it is right". To the contrary, this is not
sufficient.
In the Book of Mormon it states: “And
when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would
ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things
are not true, and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real
intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto
you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy
Ghost ye may know the truth of all things” (Moroni 10:4-5).
No matter the content that is involved
in this subjective method of seeking a 'burning in the bosom'
experience it can not safely be used to determine the truthfulness of
a teaching. Certainly the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth
(John 16:13a) and the two men on the road to Emmaus certainly felt
their hearts burning within them (Luke 24:32). But in the first
instance it was to the apostles that these words were spoken, the
foundation of the Church. It is to the Church that we look for that
truth to be preserved and expressed in its fullness. In the second
instance Jesus himself was interpreting the Old Testament in a manner
which revealed who He was to them, which was consistent with what the
apostles taught. This story would not have been included in the text
if it were not an authentic case, consistent with the teaching of the
Church.
Conclusion
Be wise in your discernment. Do not be
carried away by all kinds of strange teachings. There are
deceiving spirits who wish to teach you things which are contrary to
the Church, and use Scripture in order to do it. We must be on guard
and defend that faith which was once and for all given unto the
saints. Do not be afraid to stand up for the truth or be ashamed of
the gospel of Christ. “If anybody is preaching to you a gospel
other than what you accepted, let him be eternally anathema”
(Galatians 1:9). Pray that the false teachings within the Diocese of
Colorado Springs will no longer been seen as compatible with
Christianity, and especially for those who have been involved with
One Simple Voice, such as Richard Hanifen, Frannie Rose, and all
those who refer to themselves as her students. May God enlighten the
eyes of their hearts.
i Prophet/Prophet,
The Lost Teachings of Jesus 1: Missing Texts, Karma and
Reincarnation, pp. 115-16.
ii Prophet/Prophet,
The Lost Teachings of Jesus 2: Mysteries of the Higher Self,
p.62.
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