FAITH AND FACT IN THE ERA OF OPRAH CHURCH

An article by me with the above title will be published in the Christmas edition of Investigate Magazine, out next Monday, Nov 17th.

Investigate is a New Zealand glossy mag better known for reporting political scandals than religious ones. The editor who last year took on my Lennon related article was a long time wondering if he could accept the various controversies of this latest offering which beyond the Oprah theme includes re suppression and distortion of facts related to my researches on the nativity of Christ. For the Christmas season the magazine's cover draws attention more to that side of the feature than the Oprah theme as such.

Investigate is available in NZ and Australia but not in the US. So I may sooner or later issue the complete original text of the article on this Blog. Especially so if some misunderstandings ensued on the lead theme or re my specialized researches due to some late cuts to the article that I haven't seen to judge the impression.

RECESSION, DEPRESSION AND TAKING A BREAK

IT'S A MOMENT IN HISTORY BUT EVEN SO..

There's going to be not just a recession but a depression with a capital D as surely as night follows day. The various efforts to salvage the US economy are not going to work - we see the bailout already faltering - nor will future efforts do much unless very temporarily. To sound, on top of all this, like a real doomster I have to say I believe there will be quite a few more problems for America than America, always optimistic, currently imagines. And if the loquacious, substanceless Barack Obama gets into the White House he won’t be a good manager of the problems that will arise. The more socially than audience minded Hillary would have done a better job.

From the celestial point of view at least, the economic and other bad news for America is involved with the near approach of Pluto into Capricorn (it enters later next month) and onto a world point. Pluto and any major planet into a cardinal sign (Capricorn is one of the four and it’s if anything the most economic and political of them) can be trigger to recession/depression. And it’s not as though other factors weren’t involved and the US chart simply waits to be hit in various negative ways. In fact, though the message hasn’t sunk in, or the matter isn't fully clear yet, what we are witnessing is the beginning of the end, (and it could be a fairly rapid decline now), of the American empire, about which none of us are laughing because we shall all be affected in the West.

TO TAKE A BREAK

Gloomy stuff and with the presidential election looming it might seem like a good time to be commenting and blogging. And if events impel me so much that I just can’t not comment then I will. However, though I won’t fiddle while Rome burns, I shall be taking a break for perhaps the rest of the year. Quite simply I am too creatively busy with writing a book.

A few weeks ago I suddenly realized that perhaps after all my diary based Thunder Perfect Minds was not a book I should strive to get published after all but that various of its ideas and experiences should be transferred into a rather different work of more general application and not linked to just Australia. I have worked at quite a bit of this already but in the wake of the particularly virulent flu strain that has hit here, it has been all rather draining so I shall not give other articles priority for the moment.

If however an article of mine on Oprah Winfrey that a certain editor tells me he is agonizing over because of some points I have included, doesn’t finally get taken up, I shall put it up instead of any regular Blog article. I hope everyone finds this last part of '08 a good experience amidst its distracting problems.

FALSE PROPHETS: POWERS OF ADDICTION AND DELUSION

NEW MYSTIC ADDICTIONS

Continuing last article’s quest the following are some of the ways to spot today's “new mystic” false prophets whose delusions and deceptions are often just continuations of American Branhamism camouflaged and re-packaged.

FALSE PROPHETS ARE ADDICTED TO “DECREES”

Arguably in special situations some people, especially prophets, should and do make them, but decrees can’t be parroted, rendered commonplace or made into an industry. Patricia King and others have written, recorded CDs and given conferences on a theme which risks finishing little better than witchcraft because, as in magic where one binds the powers to do something, one is virtually telling God what to do. The principle was appropriated by new mystics from another set of questionable guides holding to a prosperity gospel in the Word of Faith movement growing since the greedy eighties. Its main spokesperson is perhaps Kenneth Copeland (who has been under government examination for possible fraud). Copeland makes claims like: "As a believer, you have a right to make commands in the name of Jesus. Each time you stand on the Word, you are commanding God to a certain extent because it is His Word." Our Covenant with God [Fort Worth, TX: KCP Publications, 1987], 32
Todd Bentley followers are all for decreeing to God for angels, especially financial angels, to get collecting and delivering for them - which they are convinced they do.

FALSE PROPHETS ARE ADDICTED TO VISITING THE THIRD HEAVEN

The Third Heaven is where God dwells and St Paul records visiting it at any rate once - like the author of Revelation. In the charismatic worldview the third heaven is God’s. The second heaven is fallen and inhabited by the fallen angels who are a barrier between the third heaven and the first which is our own, also fallen, world which originally reflected the higher heavens.

Historically and biblically no prophets and apostles are on record as visiting heaven repeatedly, still less at will like the Merkabah mystics of Jewish Kabbalistic mysticism in the first and second centuries. That new mystics claim or expect frequent visit owes something to an extension of the empowerment doctrines embraced by Latter Rain and Manifest Sons of God (see below) which anticipate intimacy and frequency relative to God in our times. They have especially done this since 1982 when former Catholic, Mike Bickle of the heretical Kansas Street Prophets and chief promoter of the ultra-controversial Bob Jones (see previous article)famously alleged that Jesus told him 'I will change the understanding and expression of Christianity in the earth in one generation. Celestial travel in our times as encouraged by Bentley’s The Reality of the Supernatural World (2008) or Shawn Bolz’s The Throne Room Company (2004) is also helped along (as for Merkabah mystics) with recourse to certain practices like guided visualizations employed at conferences by the likes of Patricia King and Bob Jones. These emphasize seeing and imaging the Throne Room.

A charismatic best-seller is Choo Thomas’s Heaven is So Real (2003). Choo has been to heaven at least 17 times in the course of which Jesus fished a fish out of the river of life and cooked her the best fish she’d ever tasted. As if! As in much else that Choo claims, one sees the heretical imagination at work in the idea that anything could die in heaven – a vision of Seven Columbians I tried to assess here last year (a version of my Seeing John Lennon in Hell, April/May 07, got into N.Zealand’s Investigate Magazine) has it that when one of their number takes a fish from the waters of heaven they discover it cannot die because nothing dies in heaven. Though I have questioned elements of the Colombian vision also, which of the visions is more likely to be true? A lot of charismatic heavenly experiences are akin to the visions of Swedenborg that John Wesley found interesting but false. As we should too – at any rate in most instances and without careful testing.

FALSE PROPHETS ARE ADDICTED TO LIVING IN AND BRINGING YOU “THE GLORY”.

Perhaps any real prophet, healer or mystic should do something of the sort - in biblical terms it could simply mean waiting upon and being imbued with the “weight” (kevod/glory) of divine presence. But the often hidden meaning of this talk betrays questionable links to various Latter Rain theories and its more extreme offshoot in Manifest Sons of God.

Latter Rain began as a praise based movement linked to William Branham’s famous healing mission of the fifties and claimed a degree of power over events, especially in relation to a kind of prophecied Christian future (dispensationlist) that envisages only a decline from faith, an apostasy leading to the times and deceptions of the Antichrist. Instead, even if the Antichrist comes, there can be power prepared against it, even another and last Pentecost. But there are so many minor variations to Latter Rain and Manifest Sons that given charismatic subjectivism and avoidance of “theology” that any summary risks getting lost amid a welter of shifting terminology like “New Breed”, “Joel’s Army”, “Elijah Generation” etc which stand in for Manifest Sons. Some of this name swapping deliberately camouflages the resurgent trends of groups responding to the fact that the Assembies of God church and others have declared against LR and MS as heresies since the 1950s. The resulting confusion recalls Gnosticism in the early church and as with Gnosticism has meant that ideas enter church groups some of them subversive but others, if taken singly and understood a certain way by unsuspecting people, seem regular enough and empowering as for many the LR idea originally was and understandably - after all, why not a bit more intimacy or some healing miracles, everyone knows churches can lose "vision" and become merely formalistic?. So runs a common feeling among those on the fringes of the heretical/radical trends. Whatever…

In some versions of LR, especially as developed into MS doctrines that draw upon statements of Branham, glory bearers are those who instead of undergoing any apocalypse as traditionally understood are a "Signs and Wonders" empowered theocratic elite which is becoming Christ, or the Company of the Man Child of Rev 12 (understood to be Christ). They are destined to leave denominations behind (denominations being the real apocalyptic “mark of the beast” according to Branham) to rule the world, even to have immortality here and now. Manifest Sons accordingly prepare the way for Christ by either becoming him or so changing the world as to hasten a return he no longer initiates or else so becoming Christ there is no need for any Second Advent. There nonetheless usually seems to be a need for Manifest Sons to restore the “Five-Fold ministry” which includes "prophets" and "apostles" (the latter have traditionally been understood to be church founders who personally knew Christ) to rule over the developing “Body” of Christ. Whatever, radical MS are becoming a sort of completely equal Son of God able to perform just anything by saying it. Bill Hamon and Kenneth Hagin have propounded much nonsense in this line like "The believer is as much an incarnation of God as Jesus Christ" (Hagin, "The Incarnation," The Word of Faith, 12/80, cited in Christianity in Crisis, p. 175,397).

Such beliefs may not be apparent to all from popular statements like David Herzog’s Glory Invasion (2007) where they blend with more mainstream Christian and Pentecostal beliefs about the power engendered by praise, or the need to realize the miraculous powers of Christ, or to bring in an “end-time” harvest of souls by tearing down spiritual “strongholds”. But the ideological links are evident from Herzog’s friends in faith from A.A. Allen and the wildly eccentric gold dust lady, Ruth Ward Heflin, to tattoed Todd Bentley and the kind of extravagant (unsubstantiated) claims Herzog makes for his own work which also has a lot to do with Old Covenant attitudes to money he represents…..One of Herzog’s most sublimely silly tales of the glory (Glory Invasion pp 32,33) is how a woman at a church panicked she didn’t have enough sandwiches and water for a birthday party for him but of course with faith high and Herzog around the elements multiplied as people celebrated. But couldn’t his Arizona hostess have turned on a tap? And who is so teetotal they celebrate birthdays with water? A pity the water didn’t turn to wine or at least green tea “in the glory”!

FALSE PROPHETS ARE ADDICTED TO DREAMS and “MANTLES” - STEVEN BROOKS CAN EVEN SNATCH THEM.

The addiction to dreams allows imposters to claim almost anything as they often interpret what no one should usually even bother to consider (Ecc 5:3). Real prophetic dreams and visions are necessarily vivid and highly memorable and if a person is gifted like a Joseph or Daniel to receive them they likely wouldn’t need extensive manuals to interpret them! One of the worst books I’ve read in years is Jim Goll’s The Seer: The Prophetic Power of Visions, Dreams and Open Heavens. It has almost nothing to teach that couldn’t fit into 4 pages of its 175 pages but Patricia King promotes it as unusually insightful and “anointed”. Some pages show only two or three lines of biblical verses. Others are filled out with check list questions like: “Have you ever heard God speak to you something before it happened, or do you know someone who has experienced this?”. Goll, who claims God mostly speaks to him through dreams (surely the most unreliable means to be hearing from God?) passes as a “seer” (one who sees images) rather than a prophet who only hears and declares. You can see him on the Net smoking the Holy Ghost between Crowder and Dunn enjoying what looks like a second adolescence, or perhaps light relief from what’s the horribly tragic situation of he and his wife both suffering from the cancer that prayers have not so far cured nor contacts with strangely named angels like Breakthrough and Awake Israel that Goll reports.

False prophets are also addicted to “mantles”, every healer and prophet and preacher’s mantles from Elijah’s to Branham’s to give you and them power for this and that. They seem to dream, and desire “mantles” - everywhere. Steven Brooks (see www.stevenbrooks.org) who, new age style, seems to think Christians can "work with angels" has had visions of taking "mantles" from a pile of colourful clothes in the second heaven (in effect a hell zone!) when the demons are off-guard because good angels intervene. His "mantle" has the form of a blue tee-shirt. He's so excited because a saint of 1400 years ago had this same mantle. He won't tell you his name but if you want a mantle yourself remember to live pure and don't forget your tithes! PLEASE! One wonders who believes this rubbish? Well he does sound slightly more sane and less fantastic interviewed by Sid Roth. Bentley’s friend, David Herzog, who goes on about living or flying or teleporting and curing “in the glory zone” (supposedly as great and strong or stronger than that of prophets of old) suggests on his website “a love donation” will bring you into the glory and mantle bearing. As if! …..And it seems Herzog can take as much as an hour of a Bentley meeting just going on about “giving”. However all this mantle seeking links to the fact…..

FALSE PROPHETS MAKE BIG PROFITS AND ARE ADDICTED TO HAVING AND GIVING “IMPARTATIONS”.

Like dream interpretation, “impartations”, a kind of hand given blessing or “anointing” or healing, could be considered integral to Christianity if to an ignored aspect of it. But since the so-called Toronto Blessing of the nineties impartations are becoming more widespread. They can be passed on like the shaktipat of Hindu gurus at their darshans and often at financially profitable seminars and conferences, held at luxury hotels or even on cruise liners. Some enthusiasts queue up for several impartations in an evening, a far cry from the idea the Holy Spirit descends once and forever although as said this is understood to be more like a blessing or booster injection. But at worst it can become like the “fix” of the addict in less happy circles and it should be noted that some false prophets like Bentley, Rob DeLuca (who misleadingly forecast re Bentley's influence) and Kim Clement have been former drug addicts.

Bentley could never get enough impartation from charismatic leaders for his self empowerment nor pass enough on to people. Toronto, and other revival effects are regularly controversial as when individuals (like Joshua Mills of the oils, jewels and gold dust) couldn’t stop laughing for 4 hours. Others can’t move from the ground for hours. Others keep screaming or shaking helplessly. It has become customary for almost all involved first to fall backwards, “slain in the spirit”. This in itself is a condition not reported before the time of the healer, Kathryn Kuhlmann, and not specifically described in the Bible whose much cited, but almost sole example of falling back rather than on the face forwards comes when the arrested Jesus tells the guards in Gethsemane “I am he” (Jn 18:6). Because this is not just an affirmation he is Jesus of Nazareth but deity (the sacred “I am who I am”) it cannot help but engender a response when uttered. But still this is a response to Christ rather than to the Spirit and it is from those of unprepared unbelief.

While in turn one can equally question narrow traditionalist critics who maintain there’s nothing in the Bible like impartations and response to them and there’s nothing because the Spirit is interested only in your mind and conveying Truth, not your body (but what about David’s manic dancing or the charge the apostles were “drunk” at Pentecost?) some simple common sense, not high theology, probably needs to be applied here. It’s true that impartation causing extreme reactions could be releasing joy and curing problems (much like an abreaction in psychoanalysis) but undeniably St Paul counsels experiencing the Spirit, at least in public and normally, in order and quiet (1 Cor. 12). What use would (excessive, prolonged) laughter, roaring, screaming, shaking, serve? “Holy” laughter has often been found to disrupt things as when it has started when communion is about to be served, scriptures read or some serious religious issue raised. It was precisely such behaviour that historically leaders of “revival” (Welsh, Wesleyan, Edwards etc) saw as its enemy and its chief advocates today, like Howard Rodney Brown sound suspicious – Brown calls himself the “Holy Ghost Bartender” and says he’d rather be in a church where the devil was active than nothing happening. So, while laughter may have uses – it’s medically acknowledged to have some healing power - clearly Brown is a sensationalist and the question for many since Brown’s Toronto Blessing has been supposing the devil was appearing for him after all?

But once again it’s less Brown than Bob Jones who is behind the current impartation trend because Jones’ hero, Branham was forever “imparting” to people. Instead of teaching, mainstream charismatic style, that the healer is a simple instrument of the Holy Spirit, Jones, who talks more about a “spirit of holiness” than Holy Spirit, teaches that one can bodily pass on the inner goodness the Spirit has already engendered. In practice this could mean (as some maintain who have felt Bentley style healing effects which give them only uncomfortable burning sensations in arms or back), the healer can pass on something more like their own raised serpent fire kundalini earth energies than anything celestial. (In Christianity one is anyway not supposed to lay hands on people in a hurry (1 Tim 5:22); but new mystics seem to have opted for a democratic, ecstatic, free-for-all passing on of body energies). The power passed on isn’t necessarily the Holy Spirit and one can read how in the rather wonder seeking South African churches there have had to be “rebukes” or exorcisms of counterfeit “Holy Spirit” energies.

FALSE PROPHETS DO HAVE POWERS OF A SORT

The last point is a reminder it’s too easy and probably unwise to dismiss false prophets and their followers as wholly lost in imagination and hysteria. There can be as much genuine power as trickery. And there's no need either to heighten tensions insisting it can only ever be from God or devil. Even as respected a traditional Christian thinker as the Chinese, Watchman Nee spoke of the latent powers of “soul” to effect changes. Also, as the gifts of God are said to be “irrevocable” (Rom 11.29) they can be retained and misused if and when someone goes off the rails. This is perhaps how there can be mixed reports of the effects of Bentley healings. Some report complete cure of certain conditions, others are seeking healing from the effects of the so called healings. There have been reports of persons “healed” at Lakeland beginning to hear demonic voices, of suffering irrational fears or feeling burning sensations throughout the body. This situation could depend upon whether Bentley was more God minded one evening or had been drunk at the bar on another – over indulgence around the Lakeland bars had been noted in the tally of growing complaints against him.

What ought to be a rather alarming warning for especially those of the impartation and Joshua Mills gold dust school comes from accounts like Joanna Michaelsen’s The Beautiful Side of Evil (1982) where New Age involvements bring her to ecstatic visions of what proves a false Jesus or Tricia Tilma who alleges there is a type of demonic deception reserved for only quite genuine believers. She claims from experience of Toronto Blessing it can be so subtle there was a time she would have staked her life all she was feeling was love of God and bliss that had been implanted in her by the Spirit.
http://www.intotruth.org/tb/laughsp.html

I can’t comment on such experiences never having received impartations good or bad, experiences which I’m not inclined always to judge from the wholly biblical perspective, (as opposed to psychological) that Tilma offers. But her words should be considered all the same especially by those who take too easily to impartations as automatically gifts from God or automatically protected against by some formularistic use of Jesus name.

FALSE PROPHETS LIKE BAD FAIRIES ARE GIVEN TO PERSONAL THREATS

False prophets are less given to generalized evangelical threats about the possible consequences of refusing a message than pointing, or letting their devotees point, to the possible consequences of refusing “their” message. Paul Crouch embarrassed his followers back in November ’97 when he declared death upon anyone who should put a hand against the Trinity Broadcasting Network, a stronghold of Word of Faith theory. Mike Bickle who helped (re)launch Bob Jones wouldn’t allow a word against him. One mustn’t touch “God’s anointed” or come to the same church if one had contrary views. The ill tempered Benny Hinn, another wealthy “prophet” (certifiably repeatedly in error with his forecasts) is too good at virtually cursing critics and opponents and Bob Jones is said to have a line in this. I have mentioned how Wendy Alec (herself clearly another false prophet –she actually forecast Jesus would appear at Bentley’s revival in June) has warned people against presuming to criticize Todd Bentley. All this belongs to the elitism of the Manifest Sons heresy.

FALSE PROPHETS ARE ADDICTED TO ANGELS - OFTEN WILLIAM BRANHAM’S

If the false prophets actually contact, rather than imagine, angels they are more likely to be fallen ones than God’s. Some of Jones’s angels have surprised even him by oddly calling themselves “beings” rather than angels round God’s throne. There has been a lot of controversy around Bob Jones and Todd Bentley’s angel, Emma, who spread gold dust and promised healing miracles. Though critics seem unaware how even for the Bible female angels do exist (Zech 5:9) there are reasons to suspect from Bentley’s tatts and various associations that his Emma could be linked more to the demonic Japanese Emma-O especially as she does sometimes get referred to by him as Emma-O. But Branham justifies all. A prominent charismatic figure, another deluded false prophet, Che Ahn, absurdly declared back on April 24th at Lakeland "there is a Branham anointing on you and a double portion of it! The Lord is raising you up! And I feel I must say that I must decrease and You must increase!". In the event Bentley has been more wiped out for his failings than increased!"

It is the reputation of Branham as healer attended by an angel and ministering angels rather than real biographical knowledge about the rather tormented, self doubting person Branham was that has allowed so much into diverse charismatic circles that wouldn’t and shouldn’t otherwise be there. As you can see on You Tube, people who should know better like Roland Baker, husband of the saintly Heidi Baker, have actually declared Branhan to be "one of the most anointed men that has ever lived". Such nonsense can only be attributed to either charismatic ignorance of church history or a sensed need to find examples within a very recent movement.

Even one of Branham’s closest associates, another charismatic, Alfred Pohl (see interview at http://www.wayoflife.org/fbns/branham.htm
notes that his healings were often brief and illusory. Time and again people died weeks after apparent healings for which Branham was receiving huge thank gifts, helped by the fact he didn’t even have to demonstrate healing often only promise it (“you will feel better in three days”) at which the sick person or their relatives rejoiced and paid up even if healing didn’t occur and then death eventuated a few weeks later. Not noted amid the encomiums is that if the Spirit was really involved in Branham’s life (when asked he regularly declared an angel rather than the Holy Spirit was healing people) it’s unlikely some modern John the Baptist would be born to parents who weren’t religious. They had nonetheless engaged some occult dabbling and the birth was suitably accompanied by a brilliant light and a halo around mother and child, the only reason the parents took a rare visit to church to have the child dedicated. Similarly odd, occult style phenomena like lights and floating orbs was something Branham reported on numbers of occasions in his life.

Another excuse to accept Branham as inspiration today is to maintain he merely declined from his Christian calling and fell into error. Yet arguably his vision was a cultish heresy from the outset. In youth he was tormented by a disembodied voice he either physically ran from or prayed would go away but which eventually manifested as his main angel sometimes called the angel of the Lord but in appearance like a spiritualist healer Branham knew. The angel was rather bullying. Branham was totally governed by him and could do no miracle without his presence and prompting. Branham never especially believed the Bible and maintained he was a mouthpiece of God to give the truth even if this denied the Bible or invented new stories like the seed of Cain produced by Eve’s intercourse with the snake. It’s amazing that those who question elements of the Bible on a scholarly or historical or humane basis will be dismissed as heretics by new mystics while if Branham denied anything from the Trinity to the stated nature of hell, that is kindly ignored. But then….

FALSE PROPHETS ARE EITHER WAY EXCESSIVELY ATTACHED TO, OR DETACHED FROM, THE BIBLE

Pat King represents the fundamentalistically attached kind (though she’s still selective or she wouldn’t be dressed and coiffured in ways St Paul wouldn’t approve!). For King, everything in the Bible must be literally true - apparently even the metaphors and symbols. King proposes that when Isaiah says that those who wait on the Lord will rise up like eagles (Is 40.31) that means we all possess wings to astrally travel! Also almost anything can be true if it doesn’t literally contradict the Bible. This allows King to approve Bob Jones and Bentley on the angel Emma because it doesn’t overtly contradict anything. However such Biblicism hides a refusal to “test the spirits” under the power of the Spirit as one is supposed to do if entities actually start appearing and you have the kinds of gifts King claims. In line with his mentor, Ms King, Bentley, in a conservative moment, proposes no prophet should prophecy outside what the Bible says.

Yet doesn’t prophecy at least occasionally have to do just that as in the case of Jeremiah’s New Covenant claims which run against the Torah; or the vision of Peter who told God he must be mis-hearing and seeing about unclean animals being clean? Would the existing Bible ever have got written if a few variations on a theme weren’t allowed and some prophets have opposed some plausible false prophets? Believers are supposed to hear “what the Spirit says to the churches” (Rev 3:6) now and a slavish Biblicism won’t do this. It only compromises the declaratory, teaching function of prophecy intended to assist changes.

Obviously however, what the Spirit teaches will need to be within the general feeling and parameters of existing scripture even if and when the message is novel. Deluded Drunken Glory prophet, John Crowder, represents the other and biblically detached kind of prophet. In fact he seems to consider himself in the line of the mystics (including St John of the Cross!) and the Bible hardly comes into the picture except to justify the occasional point. There is no real attempt to keep within the style and spirit of the biblical; one does what one likes or follows gut feeling under the supposed influence of Spirit or angels of whom one scarcely inquiries as regards their nature and origin. Paul Cain, Mike Bickle and others without denying the Bible imply understanding will so enlarge our generation insipiration and vision can take over, as for them it often does.

As against all this true faith should establish balance between scriptural tradition and contemporary inspiration (indeed it's time people stopped the idolatry of talking about the Bible as "The Word of God" when it is Jesus who is supposed to be the Logos, the Word, the embodied "Living Word", not a Bible which clearly has a few errors in it). The existing situation betrays charismatics, in contrast to most other branches of the church, lack any real theology to function as yardstick. So far there’s mostly an all-or-nothing subjectivism even on the part of its more educated members. Some say a “charismatic theologian” is an oxymoron.

FALSE PROPHETS DO SOME WONDERFUL WORKS

I don’t like to put down good works and if people establish orphanages in India or save street kids from drugs in Thailand (as apparently Patricia King wants to do this September) that’s good. But it’s not good enough if you’re trailing around lies or bad angels otherwise. And even if you can exorcise devils from Satanists (as people have alleged John Crowder has done), that’s good too. But again s not good enough if you’re only misleading trains of other people. Such wonderful deeds may have regrettably to be dismissed as Jesus dismisses those who claim they prophecied, cast out demons and did “great works” in his name (Mt.7:22). One hopes such words wouldn’t apply to the saintly Heidi Baker with her astonishing work for thousands of orphans in Africa but her utter lack of discernment in being associated with the likes of Bob Jones and Kathie Walters at conferences (and the money spinning Elijah List) makes one think she must be a bit stupid amid her good intentions. But Christ does also talk about the Children of Light not being wise in their generation.

The good works of false prophets also have be rejected as tied to Dominionist heresy about Christianizing the world by effort and laws so that Jesus can return safely to earth or simple "emerge". It’s one of the reasons we find those of Manifest Sons and Latter Rain bias like Rick Joyner can be controversially tied to the Knights of Malta or you can see a photo of Paul Cain visiting Saddam Hussein or hear Jason Westerfield describe how he turned up in the Philippines with advice for national leaders how to improve their economy and be rid of hereditary curses - helped of course by angelic inspiration (Jason also claims to have sat in on Bush/Greenspan talks in the White House - teleported there in the Spirit!). These people in fact or imagination are out to change the world en route to becoming equal to, or new manifestations of, Christ. However, one notices these same prophets don’t tend to be interested in subjects like current plans to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem or forecasts regarding the fate of Israel or the Vatican and various issues of at least potentially apocalyptic significance. These could be end-of-era events some argue should develop soon or else in another millennium or not at all but whatever they are not developments dismissable via some Bob Jones type time line which has Dominionists harvesting souls and changing the world over the next half century as though little will happen except an increase of power and “glory” among a theocratic elite who will command the elements if and when quake and climate get out of control.

FALSE PROPHETS HAVE A NAGGING THING ABOUT ABORTION AND HOMOSEXUALITY

Their vocal and committed hostility in these areas helps link false prophets to the more conservative elements in churches who might otherwise dismiss them. And it helps make them feel good. Interestingly the initial Christ visions of Bob Jones had to do with “homosexuals” (Jones claims today to have foreseen AIDS back in the seventies though I can’t see that it’s on record he did) and the rising tide of the evil of abortion in America. Perverted in their minds false prophets like to be able to condemn others for perversion, and as destroyers of the beliefs of many they want to point the finger at whoever could seem destroyers at the physical level - interestingly these pro-lifers never seem to bother to speculate or declare when the soul/spirit might enter the foetus. It’s a point on which Jewish and Christian traditions have sometimes varied from the modern view which with suitably fundamentalistic literalism simply takes conception as the beginning of life, regardless of theories of “quickening” etc.

As regards homosexuality (and for the likes of Pat Robertson almost every hurricane hitting Florida is divine judgement for tolerating Sodom!) their attitudes may additionally help hide just how linked they and/or certain prophetic tendencies generally are to the gay orientation. They’ve had enough trouble around the most reportedly gifted of the Kansas City prophets, Paul Cain. They could well yet have trouble around a few others. They don’t want to take into account what is arguably the natural psychism of many gays because they’re committed to their “cure” rather than to (any arguably biblical) acknowledgement that some are “eunuchs” (which can just mean not opposite sex attracted) from birth, still less that others could be bisexually inclined which is what I believe quite a few of the current false prophets mafia are.

The trouble with this noisy, very political intransigence is that it merely helps alienate gays from the church entirely, even to becoming its avowed enemy, while people who believe there are reasonable rights re abortion for especially such as rape and incest are seriously offended, confused in their conscience by the questionable level of imposition involved upon the democratic right of secular members of society to be secular or Christians and some churches to hold any alternative opinions in this area.

JESUS AND JUDY BAUMAN CHOOSE TO DIFFER

The same week that God TV’s self declared (and verifiably false) prophet, Wendy Alec galvanized many with her The Bay the Bay the Bay forecast about the destruction of San Francisco portrayed as a seat of idolatry but also, inevitably, Sodom, another self declared prophet posted a revelation. Judy Bauman, a prophet I know nothing about and so can vouch nothing for, nevertheless offered a message which included the following words, allegedly from Jesus. I fancy they would constitute a rather bold statement for any evangelical in America if the message was less directly from Jesus than she believes:

…..Beloved, I Am not asking the lost sinner to repent, I Am asking My church to repent! For too long My church has told homosexuals and abortionists that they need to repent when it is My church that needs to repent. I Am there to bind up the wounds of the hurting and lost, but My church goes around Me and uses the very Sword I placed in their hands [the Word of God] to cause harm. They further wound the very ones I seek to save by misusing My words as a weapon instead of a scalpel. They have not rightly divided the Word of Truth and have used My words to bring death instead of healing…..

Whether Jesus or Judy Bauman is more behind these words, prophets and new mystics “bringing death” instead of healing is plainly a major problem of our times we had better all find more discernment to deal with.

THE NEW MYSTICS FRAUD AND SPOTTING FALSE PROPHETS

WHEN FANATICISM LOOKS LIKE FUN

Although there have always been false prophets of all kinds my theme is especially a new species sometimes calling themselves The New Mystics, title of a recent book from one of their number. They are currently enjoying such a field day in America and across Europe it’s troubling. A good deal more troubling and subversive than anything that occasionally comes to your front door with tracts and that you dismiss with hardly a thought.

And curiously, despite the flamboyance of these “mystics”, it isn’t always so easy to spot them at the ideas level because they manage to insinuate via trends and expectations more mainstream within minds and churches, and perhaps because we’ve all become a bit “post-modern” and relativized where truth is concerned. Recent controversies around the phenomenon of healer/evangelist Todd Bentley who has been so improbably kicking and hissing the Holy Spirit’s power into the sick before audiences of thousands per night for months, is an interesting example of just how far many have gone beyond normal discernment in the area of beliefs. Before the Bentley bubble burst in mid August known names in religious circles like Wendy Alec of GodTV were so inappropriately enthusiastic they discouraged criticism of someone supposedly “anointed” by God with threats of divine retribution for the presumption.

NEW MYSTICS OOZING OIL AND ASTRAL TRAVELLING ARE MORE THAN A MORAL PROBLEM

Typically the scandal round Todd Bentley’s Lakeland crusade has been subject to a lot of silly in-church waffle about purely moral failings like a broken marriage and calls to pray for and not judge a “poor” stressed preacher. A failed marriage seems almost minor against the scandal of a healer over-indulging in the bars of Lakeland and the cruelty of booting a fourth degree cancer patient in the stomach, supposedly kicking the Spirit’s healing into him. (The man didn’t report healing, only pain! – you can see it on You Tube).

It’s doubtful there’s been anything quite like what’s going on since the medieval St Vitus dance and there’s a touch to it of “signs and wonders to deceive the elect if it were possible” (Mk 13:22). People are now actually following the likes of John Crowder and Benjamin Dunn whose “tokin the Ghost” (pretending to smoke the Holy Spirit like grass) and rolling in “the drunken glory” of God, making holy chaos and sacred mess, looks like a Billy Connolly comedy or (when they’re dressed in religious habits), a Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence act from Frisco. But, no, these are actually ministries, movements engaging healings and exorcisms actively promoted and eagerly sought after. Devotees are brought to heightened belief by “impartations” so that some claim they see (or commune and dance with!) Jesus and the angels in glory love fests and “Holy Ghost rave parties”. It’s all too good, or bad, to be true and some of it can seem little short of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Heresy was rarely so clownish and/or perverse as what some call the “post-modern” brand of “emergent” Christianity being peddled. Crowder claims to have been converted to Jesus in the course of an acid trip.

Even those apparently more reverent and normal in style - relatively normal if you know my opinions re the Patricia King look! - can be distinctly extravagant and strange. Religious media figures in King’s eXtremeProphetic, a US TV programme you can watch streamed on the Net, report on the likes of Joshua Mills who oozes oil from his hands and (in something like an extension of America’s prosperity gospel!) keeps receiving gold dust on his face or jewels from angelic realms and who, when his own ring was stolen, supposedly astral travelled to the thief’s bedroom to regain it. The Spirit has allegedly taught Josh how to play electric piano – it’s remarkable how bland his gift sounds when demonstrated!

Ms King, founder of EP, said to be a former witch but whatever her past, now “crazy in love with Jesus”, has travelled with angels in fiery chariots and reports making up lost hours in driving time getting teleported to conferences and so on. She wants to raise the dead and her mentoring of Bentley may be responsible for his unsubstantiated claims to have resurrected 27 souls. Despite her extremes Pat King, like others in her line, has done apparently admirable down-to-earth work with street people.

GAY’S THE WORD (OR IT’S THE SACRED DANCE)

Ms. King favours ecstatic trance dance worship which the likes of Crowder have developed big time and which at XP is in the hands of Caleb Brundidge an “ex gay” and if anything the least gay looking of some of Ms King’s new mystic friends some of whom might be felt to give a rather gay/bi vibe though smilingly locked into their de rigueur marriages. Caleb’s style in dance events look like…well… much like any Saturday night at gay disco or perhaps we might think bisexual disco…. and “holy chaos” if done in the more drunk and druggy looking style of the buddies in "holy" ecstasy, Crowder and Dunn.

[Comment added Jan 2010 - Caleb seems guilty of much and, a proof how little seemingly righteous and far seeing prophetic people really "see", he has been named as one of the three "evangelicals" whose travels and opinions have influenced the unacceptable views and recent plans of the Ugandan Church that have become an international scandal seeking to push a whole variety of draconian, unprecedented anti-gay laws through the national parliament. These laws include death for gay relations and requirement on pain of imprisonment or fine that schools, churches etc report anyone they think might be gay to the authorities. The scandal is now so widespread those concerned now say they never intended to cause what has happened but the fact is it has happened. Christ's saying about a bad tree not bringings forth good fruit (no puns here!)seems relevant. These people are simply outside the divine will and cause trouble accordingly.]

Only when the desire for change that’s sweeping Obama’s America is also sweeping religion could there be the kind of openness that lends some credence to the healers, “New Mystics”, the “Joel’s Army”, the “Elijah Generation”, “The Joshua generation” etc geared up to reform the world and set churches on a more last times or new age course. It’s undeniable there is a new age like and shamanistic style dimension to Christianity and conservatives and liberals with respectively their cessationist theologies (miracles for Jesus’ time only) or outright skepticism, aren’t necessarily correct to deny the faith this side. It’s more a question of how far should one go with it and what spiritual forces or just silliness one might be opening oneself up to, if, say, you start trawling people’s dreams for revelations, something which has become almost an obsession leading to an interpretation industry in some quarters. Yet even this can be (sort of) justified by the claim of Pentecost that “your young men shall see visions”…. etc.

Theoretically, Christians are supposed to believe in visions and miracles and there’s been a widespread shift among all churches during the last decade towards the charismatic (in South America it has been said nearly half the Catholic churches have gone charismatic). Among specifically Pentecostals there’s memory of a forecast of 1908 by one of their founders that in roughly a century a greater, more global movement would hit. So, if a colourful figure like Todd Bentley sets himself up as visionary healer and the likes of Benny Hinn and Bob Jones (see below) endorse him and declare the new wave has begun people wonder is prophecy fulfilled? And if things seem a bit different might that be the great change desired? It follows that if people won’t exercise caution (“discernment”) there’s a vulnerable, expectant audience waiting to be exploited.

Also facilitating things to the extent America is centre of these trends, is the operation of a national values system which allows some individuals (inside the churches and out) to get away with murder provided they don’t upset buddy feelings of the group and have sufficient good causes to promote and scapegoat figures to condemn to deflect criticism from the failings and subversions they themselves represent.

A PERVERSE WILLIAM BRAHAM LEGACY AND A BOB JONES INFECTION

It’s clear where the New Mystics descend from and it’s a certain breakaway (heretic) Pentecostal, a noted healer and mind reader, William Branham (1909-1965). Towards the end of his life he taught he was the reincarnated Elijah and the seventh angel of the Revelation as per Rev 10:7 and that the Trinity is a “demonic” doctrine. Branham was by any standards excessively in touch with angels, his own healer angel plus a variety of “ministering angels” who have subsequently been in touch with Todd Bentley and John Crowder. Declining from mainstream beliefs about apocalypse (which are admittedly somewhat varied and disputed!) Branham taught a Latter Rain and Manifest Sons of God doctrine which meant that a last times generation would produce unprecedented miracles that would hasten Jesus’ return to the world and cause an elite to come forth and be realized as semi-divine figures on earth. In practice this means that new mystics tend to be Dominionists, seeking to intervene in secular laws and ready if need be to rant, rail and get weepy like Lou Engel at special rallies, assemblies, fasts, against the evils of modern society in order to make the world Christian, not least by law, in ways that will help institute the Millennium for Jesus. They are thus in some ways heavily political and close to the Christian Right.

Branham followers (none are exact) are effectively a loose cult group which have nonetheless sufficiently ignored or modified Branham’s extremes to stay within the churches under the influence of especially the controversial Bob Jones, who was in touch with Branham’s main disciple, Paul Cain, and the Kansas City Prophets. Depending upon your view Bob Jones is either someone who has prophetic gifts … "of true biblical stature…..when Bob comes to a church or city almost every person he encounters is left functioning on a higher spiritual level.” (Rick Joyner) - or he’s the perfect fraud. What’s undisputed is that Jones was rejected by the Anaheim Vineyard church in the early nineties for “improprieties”, most notably encouraging women to kit off in his office to receive prophecies from God in the nude - one gathers women have since been asking for protection against Bob’s apparent tendency still to make unwanted appearances when they undress. (Letter of Rev Jesse Star of Texas reproduced at:
http://eternalpath.com/lakeland.html)

The unwanted visitations could represent gossip or hysteria but then one also reads his own associates have sometimes asked blessed Bob after he has appeared in their dreams is he really doing that and Bob has admitted he does sometimes appear. Whatever the truth it’s clear both that Bob is one of the more heterosexual mystics (it was his Emma angel supposedly launched the Kansas Prophets’ movement) and that he will go almost anywhere in the universe at the drop of a hat, even taking friends to the third heaven including Bentley. All they need to do is sit in a restaurant or wherever with him and he will take their hands so they will rise there – a procedure which recalls “rising on the planes” in occult circles. (New Age visualization exercises have a lot to do with Ms Todd and Ms King’s heavenly trips otherwise).

When Jones was young he was an alcoholic bar room brawler and womanizer. Following a breakdown during which, he relates, Jesus improbably told him he would need to kill or forgive twelve people, Jesus also showed him heaven and hell and people dissolving into him. When Jones converted the devils that he said talked to him so often amid drink were exchanged for angels - some of them Branham’s. But were the devils still speaking under different guise? It’s certainly peculiar that Jones claims to visit heaven, see Jesus daily and have prophecies galore yet has remained unhealed of kidney problems for which he’s on dialysis. God apparently told Jones (contrary to the rather strict biblical standards in the area) it didn’t matter if prophets got things wrong, prophets needed to be about 65 per cent right. It’s a fact Jones is himself quite often right for which it seems people will forgive him almost anything. His forecast God had chosen a “burning Bush” to rule America was a gift to the religious right.

THE FALSE PROPHETS CLUB

What is becoming a bit of a new and exclusive prophetic club-cum-mafia all seems to connect somewhere to the dubious granddaddy of so many things, Bob Jones, who has been spiritual mentor to such as Todd Bentley and a guide, justification and “father” to many others – Pat King considers sitting at his feet next to doing the same before Jesus! All the following names who enjoy a certain respectability in charismatic circles they shouldn’t have, show connections with Bob Jones and/or the Kansas City prophets or with Patricia King and Todd Bentley. They include such iffy writers, preachers or campaigners (many promoted on Steve Scultz's Elijah list on the Net)as:

Rick Joyner, Mike Bickle (first and chief defender of Bob Jones in Kansas City), John Crowder, David Herzog, Ryan Wyatt, Francis Frangipane, Bill Johnson, Chuck Pierce, James Goll, Stacey Campell, Bobby Connor, Jill Austin, Lou Engel, Randy Clark, Shawn Bolz (in touch with God’s angelic minister and angels of finance), Peter Wagner. Also Kathie Walters (angels have let her ride a golden motorbike round the skies because God wants believers to have more fun), Barbie Breathitt of Breath of the Spirit Ministries (is there a name connection here?) who will sell you Tarot like cards to interpret your dreams and know why you have an illness, John Paul Jackson (chosen by an angel before birth) and the wayward, Paul Cain, (periodically condemned and restored for a mixture of alcoholism and gay sex. He absurdly considers Branham “the greatest prophet who ever lived”). Cain originally helped promote the ever smiling and filmstarrish Matt Sorger who takes two healing angels with him wherever he goes and invokes revival angels almost anywhere.

Personally I don’t believe any of these people can be trusted, and certainly not as long as they are in any way identified and friendly with especially Jones and/or the memory of Branham and also so hot on the money. More innocently, perhaps ignorantly, occasionally connected with either Jones or King are Bonnie and Mahesh Chavda and sweet smiling Jason Westerfield. But Jason is another of the many-angels-to-help-him boys.

How to spot traits and ideas of false prophets inside or out of the mentioned club I'll list in Part Two.

CHECKING OUT TODD BENTLEY : SAINT OR CHARLATAN?

TODD BENTLEY:CAN THE TRUTH BE KNOWN?

(Since posting the following comments, still meaningful on their own terms, it is clear to me from such as YouTube videos Bentley is quite simply an imposter who has caused a lot of harm to people).

“Handle with care” is sensible advice where anything to do with popular religion in America is concerned but one has to try not to be automatically cynical either. The following checks out a person/phenomenon as fairly as possible and I must say the picture is unusually complex. At the extremes - and many stand at them on this issue - there are those who see a saint, trigger of a global movement of exceptional spiritual power and healing, one that even raises the dead; and there are those who perceive a fraud, a false prophet, even a devil possessed individual deceiving multitudes. So far this is a controversy almost more among believers than one of believers versus skeptics.

At the time of writing devotees are nonetheless being disturbed by the sudden unexpected announcement on Aug 11 of a marital separation (not apparently caused by any third party involvements) but a breakdown, such as one would not expect from somebody supposedly healing people’s hurts and broken lives on a daily basis.

I have re-written this article in light of recent controversies and some facts I’ve come across. To my regret (since I don’t like the tone of the nay sayers and people claim to have been much helped the recent spiritual wave Todd Bentley launched) I have to lean towards the negative assessment at the same time as I detect a certain honesty of intention in Bentley which does not willingly deceive. But I think too few have sufficiently considered their hero’s background and I find serious irresponsibility among those who have “discovered” and promoted Bentley, people like Patricia King (whom I have criticized before as in The Confused and Confusing Michael Glatze Story of July 07) and Bob Jones and that they promoted Bentley possibly betrays they are themselves a false prophetic breed as some have long maintained.

AMAZING GRACE NOT QUITE SUFFICIENT FOR TODD BENTLEY’S DEVILS?

Fans like to ignore or pass over as a tribute to grace Todd Bentley’s background in Canada which was difficult before he converted at around 18 years old. His father who divorced his mother had been an alcoholic and drug addict and his mother, whom Todd apparently beat up when he was twelve, was deaf. Todd himself was early on an addict like his father and was in juvenile court for sex molestations and robberies. Todd also admits to have enjoyed heavy metal rock and if the report mentioned next is correct was involved in some satanic worship . His heavily tattooed appearance betrays the street kid past. True, God can choose anyone and do anything but what else might Todd himself have told us…..?

Unless it’s more total fraud, and there’s no special reason to think so, an almost cheerfully blasé You Tube confession from Todd betrays with the reckless frankness and too casual approach to the religious life (of which there are traces in his The Reality of the Supernatural World published this year) rather disqualifying things for someone in his position. Not long after his conversion he recounts how he frequented various charismatic groups and at a Catholic group suddenly heard “the audible voice of God” who told him he must tell one of the people in the room he was devil possessed. He felt extreme resistance (because didn’t he “love” Jesus and read the Bible etc?) but he did so confess and soon began to exhibit demonic behaviour including that of a snake writhing on the floor.

If this is true then it is a datum which fits with something I'll come to and has greater importance than might at first appear to those ready to leave all to simple grace. As a result of opening himself to this deliverance allegedly a whole slew of devils were expelled from Bentley. Perhaps they were expelled but if so it’s biblical fact (the seven devils from the Magdalene) and the experience of Catholic exorcisms that there can be multitudes of devils and they won’t necessarily all get cast out at one time. It must be doubted they were so in this instance as Todd goes on to describe events in his own home around his mother over following months, events fit for The Exorcist – the spirits kept making strange noises in the home apparently even broke her bones and one would have to hope this bizarre story isn’t covering for some memory loss for violence otherwise caused.

Whatever, it sounds like the satanistic heritage was still clinging to Todd who, I think, did basically want and wants to be good. But just this could be the problem. Scripturally it’s affirmed that the devil, a liar and deceiver, can appear “as an angel or light”. So it’s possible the dark side when still having a grip on a person for whatever reason will then use the very goodness to work deception. This idea corresponds to the skeptical, more conservative position on Todd Bentley even when the background I’ve just mentioned isn't known or cited in support of the claim.

I have made a critical reading of The Reality of the Supernatural World and I take it for what it is, a mainly visionary rather than theological piece and at that level interesting and sometimes persuasive but also sometimes plain silly. Originally I overlooked the silliness of some claims because I could attribute the same trait to more established figures even among the saints. And nobody can expect to get everything right. However now that I feel more obliged to be critical the following troubled me about the book.

• Even granted charismatics are allowed to “come boldly before the throne of grace” in line with St Paul’s advice there seems at important points to be an overly casual address and relation to God which doesn’t quite ring right (And in real life healings don’t have to be delivered with “Bam”s and “Boom”s in the style of the wrestling matches Bentley likes watching).
• There is an insistence about the need for tithing and offerings which reeks of a legalism Christianity tries to avoid unless in its American version which has become notorious for extravagance and greed.
• The notion that angels are playing football and shouting “go church go” is too absurd for words and I could indulgently dismiss it as daydream mistaken for more serious trance states Bentley evidently has except that this particular revelation is portrayed as somehow major which it oughn’t to be against others obviously more important if true such as about the Seven Spirits of God etc.

The following however is not an assessment of Bentley’s ideas which would merit a separate article. And in a sense his ideas are perhaps less important than a single belief that emanates from the charismatic, almost shamanistic expression of Christianity he represents and that is that we stand at a point in history at which believers can and must ask and expect far more from God in visions, healings and miracles than has ever occurred. And in so far as Bentley assumes we are in “the end times” (and whatever times we’re in it’s the end of the age of Pisces according to astrologers and Jungians), it’s a sort of Last Pentecost claim.

So …...the following is more a sketch of Bentley’s character and factors around him and with it proof against the purblind opposition towards astrology of especially many of those who are Bentley fans but refuse to perceive astrology as any meaningful commentary on religion or anything. The data shows just how relevant the skies are to what some Christians would prefer to consider wholly mysterious areas of life and faith into which they can beat safe retreat from the assumed heresies of doctrines of fate and the so called occult.

TODD BENTLEY: PROFILE OF A SEA GOAT

Bentley was born, 10.1 1976 at Schelt, Canada, under the sign of Capricorn, the best sign if you want to become a saint (if you're a Catholic which Bentley isn't) and perhaps also the easiest sign under which to assume the role of hypocrite like tele-evangelist, Jim Bakker (or like the Tarfuffe so memorably portrayed by Capricorn playwright, Moliere). If Capricorn, which is an energetic rather ruthless sun sign ruled by the often Satanic Saturn, turns its hands to religion like St Ignatius Loyola or St Therese de Lisieux (who knew from childhood she must become a saint), St Bernadette of Lourdes or Joan of Arc, the ambitious efficient dedication of the sign is boundless.

It’s been like that with Todd Bentley. He will think nothing (again rather Catholic style a la Brother Lawrence or Mme Guyon, the Quietist who practiced the presence) of spending if need be 12 hours a day just “soaking” in Jesus’ presence. (Such practices may have helped cause the marital separation which cites no third party!) Bentley will also tirelessly lay hands on hundreds at meetings after sometimes 4 hrs at the pulpit as at the current Lakeland Florida revival rallies. And the fact that the CHRIST asteroid is on a world point for Bentley insures the world will not be ignorant of one of the stated chief belief factors in Bentley’s life though of course for a charismatic, Uranus, symbol of the Spirit in religious contexts is vital. For Bentley it’s in powerful, secretive Scorpio in tense difficulty square to communicating Mercury a signature for the mixture of controversy and mystery that surrounds him and perhaps the mixed signals he gives out.

Bentley, like before him the Washington Seeress, Jeane Dixon, and Nostradamus is less the saint of Capricorn than a classic case of what astrologers traditionally portray as a Sea Goat. The curious medieval image of the Goat of Capricorn with the fish tail betokens the person of vision and prophecy who has affinities with the dream and visionary qualities of Pisces and its ruler Neptune rather than the limiting earthy realism of Capricorn. And actually, Neptune is hugely important for Bentley’s birth pattern no matter what time he was born (though there’s a good chance he was born when Neptune along with other planets was in his health sector reflecting his association with healing ministries). It is however the Saturn factor which for a Capricorn must have the last word in this analysis and I will be giving it that. All else is illuminating and interesting but with Saturn and its neighbours we reach nearest to truth.

ASKING AND SEEING A LOT TODD BENTLEY STYLE

The late Catholic seeress, Jeane Dixon, maintained those born like Todd Bentley on 10th Jan are in danger of problems with drink and drugs. As already indicated, Bentley had those problems big time before his conversion at which juncture a signature for potential addiction problems, a potent Venus/Neptune conjunction, instead turned visionary – especially as it’s in Sagittarius, sign of faith and organized religion. This potent conjunction sets up certain aspects including to asteroid THEOTES (Godhead) and Bentley has repeatedly claimed visions of the Trinity. Maybe a few too many for credibility but as said, part of his mission is to declare how this kind of visionary experience is now meant to become more commonplace.

It’s a message, shocking to many but quite in line with Bentley’s Mercury (message, communication, mind) natally in shocking, futuristic, revolutionary Aquarius. It’s also a message of potential empowerment for believers which could be correct, but not as much as Bentley assumes under the influence of American egalitarianism.
While arguably there’s no such thing as a completely bad aspect of the luck/grace/truth and preaching planet Jupiter Bentley’s Jupiter stands in tension square to his sun. Apart from reflecting a weight problem he has been obliged to tackle the aspect suggests either he could expect almost too much of people, or people could expect too much from him. It’s one thing to suggest it’s time to ask God for more, another to deny the possibility that some, like possibly Bentley himself, are genuinely more gifted in some areas than others. With asteroid APOSTEL directly aspecting his Uranus and perhaps also his moon Bentley should maybe just accept he has a special talent or role. He certainly has an apostolic potential which people will project upon him. Whether he has been and can realize it is another matter. Jupiter is traditionally ultimate register of truth in a chart. In the case of a person for whom truth and preaching is supposedly of supreme importance an afflicted Jupiter could diminish the capacity for truth to be seen by or about the self.

WHY TODD BENTLEY IS SO HOT AT THIS TIME

This year with the faith, religion and preaching planet, Jupiter, back and forth across his natal Capricorn sun (at 19 degrees) obviously Bentley has been highlighted. Less positive happenings like the marital split have something to do with his ruler Saturn approaching his Venus but keeping to the visionary side there’s more than the faith supporting Jupiter.

In this year that Todd Bentley is widely seen as helping to launch a global superwave of the Spirit, by transit the mystical, visionary planet Neptune (often Christ identified by astrologers) has been moving on and off closely conjunct Bentley’s natal asteroid SPIRIT. And his SPIRIT asteroid is in the sign of Aquarius, sign of shocks, surprises, excitement and revolution. Suitably one of the most original chapters of The Reality of the Supernatural World published this year concerns the Holy Spirit seen as the seven spirits of God in line with the Book of Revelation.

As to surprise more generally, Bentley has been invoking plenty since around especially April when the now famous Lakeland Revival in Florida began. April is the month of Aries and natally Bentley has Jupiter natally in that sign known as a particularly “evangelical” position for the preacherish Jupiter to be placed in. When in Florida on April 3rd the Lakeland Revival (seen less as any conventional “revival” than trigger to an unprecedented global Open Heaven season) began, Jupiter was conjuncting Bentley’s sun while Mercury (message, communication) was on a world point, THE main world point, viz 0 Aries, and thus challengingly opposite Bentley’s CHRIST asteroid. Things could happen and did.

Like the prophets and shamans of many traditions Todd Bentley emphasizes travel to the Beyond. However it’s this year that Uranus, planet in religious contexts of the Spirit, of surprises etc, is transiting back and forth over his natal PARADISE which for him is in the dreams and visions sign of Pisces. Whether he’s been there in reality or more helped by new age visualization techniques favoured by his mentor Patricia King at expensive conferences for the elect is open to question.

TODD BENTLEY AS REPRESENTATIVE OF A HEALING MOVEMENT

Despite all his paradise visions Bentley passes first and foremost today as a healer rather than a prophet, theologian or evangelist even though he can preach at length. The healing and healer’s asteroid is HYGEIA. In Todd Bentley’s chart HYGEIA closely conjuncts CHURCH. And the church is being challenged (opposition aspect) by Bentley’s healing deeds and claims because it’s in 2008 in which he launched the revival wave, PLUTO, (the planetary God symbol if any), has been back and forth opposing Bentley’s HYGEIA/CHURCH conjunction. This conjunction is also joined by HIERA (mysterious things) which is what Bentley is challenging the church with as perhaps never before. Critics would perhaps say HIERA reflecting less divine power than the occult or new age additions they don’t favour. I don’t know sufficiently how HIERA works to comment.

Of course it matters a lot whether Bentley really is healing, especially if, as some imagine, it’s virtually at the level reported in the book of Acts (where even Peter’s passing shadow could produce miracle) rather than merely affecting suggestive minds. I haven’t been to Lakeland (the healing aura of which some maintain can now be felt for miles around this area long associated with Satanism and drug dealing) and I hardly know what to make of the testimonies for and against the healings but I would imagine the sheer extreme volume of testimonies to healing attests to rather more than just the suggestibility which obviously could apply in some, even many, cases.

Noticeably what’s happening seems contagious. People who visit Lakeland take and impart the force elsewhere. Recently there have been reports of notable healings in Melbourne and Sydney, one Sydney doctor said she lost 90 people off her list to the healings. Again there can be exaggerated claims and pious tales around healers and there doubtless are some for Bentley, but we should also probably consider the principle “no smoke without fire”. Something of the kind probably applies to the vexed question of “resurrections” claimed. Some persons may have been revived rather than outright resurrected – there seem to be no hospital records to support the by now extensive and extreme claims of what prayers during the meetings have achieved but then not everyone conveniently for the record dies, or just goes into deep faint, in hospitals!

I leave astrologers to sort out the fascinating following signatures. Asteroid ANASTASIA (Resurrection) loosely conjuncts Bentley’s ruling Saturn, and recall that materialistic Saturn materializes, in dramatic Leo. At the same time, Asteroid ANGEL conjunct ALETHEIA (Truth) in shocking Aquarius opposes the Saturn. A shocking challenge/or opposition to truth in the claims made here? Certainly if there’s any truth here better record should be kept. This would apply to healing more generally. For American TV's Nightline Bentley was unable to present any meaningful proof of any healings. Bentley had promised to supply them at least three well documented cases but didn’t. The husband of one of the three alleged healed persons indicated to Nightline she was still seriously sick. Another person was still receiving regular treatment. There was no proper record from doctor or hospital at all!

Not all faith healing can anyway automatically merit the label “divine healing” and a certain rigour of report should surround major claims – if Bentley were a Catholic it would have to do so. Witches, spiritualists etc can produce miracles though it is often said that the mark of a divine healing is that it lasts whereas by more alternative religious methods one can have major relapses or worse diseases, even death may suddenly overtaking the cured person – the sort of pattern critical examination of Benny Hinn has too often turned up. The fact that Bentley speaks well of the princely living, imperiously tempered Benny Hinn is perhaps no recommendation of Bentley and certain others who do the same.

So the worst case scenario would be (as some charismatic critics have been claiming), there sometimes is a power and there are “angels” (spirits) at work at Bentley’s meetings but Bentley has them less from the Spirit than from “impartations” from the Kansas City prophets who look back to the gifted but controversial figure of William Branham (d.1965) who finished life questioning the Trinity and entertaining various heresies. Certainly I would have some reservations regarding both Bob Jones (who surely sees too many angels and more frequently than any biblical figure and who was also an alcoholic like Bentley before conversion) and Patricia King who have been prophetic mentors of sorts to Bentley and themselves have Kansas connections. I note that asteroid KING fortunately trines Bentley’s Uranus (the Spirit) so the King influence seems anticipated here, and the Jones influence by asteroid JONES fortunately trine Bentley’s Mars.

TODD BENTLEY AND POINTS OF CONTENTION: PAUL AND EMMA

Bentley has received much criticism for maintaining he has met St Paul in heaven and that at one time a female angel called Emma scattered gold dust and assisted healing at his meetings. This is interesting because these two flashpoints of controversy appear indicated on his chart.

The asteroid, PAUL (and I’m persuaded from familiarity with the astrology of Christ and Pentecost that this will signify St Paul in religious contexts) makes exact fortunate aspect to Bentley’s crucial visionary Neptune. While this can’t prove he’s met St Paul it’s clear why he would think he’d done so and the aspect is undeniably a favourable one whereas negative aspects to Neptune frequently bespeak lies and deception.

Emma is an Old German name meaning completeness or wholeness, something healers like Bentley try to bestow. Asteroid EMMA conjuncts Bentley’s crucial Neptune/Venus conjunction. A lot of the objection to Emma is to the idea that any angel could be female. This is nonsense and if anything betrays ignorance including of scriptures by those who set most store by them. Two winged women, plainly angels, are flying about doing God’s business in the book of Zechariah (Zech 5:9) and that angels have sex/gender can be supported by the Genesis story of the angels mating with the women of earth – unless one cares to imagine that genitals are an effect of the Fall so that fallen angels somehow managed to evolve sexually! So maybe Bentley has seen an angel called Emma. Given his pattern he would be disposed to think so even if he hadn’t. All I can say is I believe he’s not been merely inventing for the sake of it. I always feel Bentley has a kind of honest intention though he lacks rigour in pursuing truth. However...

Perhaps Bentley in the way of Neptunian dreamers bends truth and doesn't consider particular facts too important where people are offended or confused. The Emma business is disturbing on two counts. He has recently been speaking and writing of an angel, plainly his Emma, who has turned male evidently to pacify critics. Worse, some critics have been pointing out that Emma could be a satanic figure Emma-Dai-0, the Japanese Yama, Lord of the Dead or Satan. If this sounds far fetched consider that it seems his various tatoos do show Chinese and Japanese signs and symbols including it's said of the Emma entity. Maybe so, maybe not, but what's certain is Bentley can't get the matter of his tatts straight. He has said they are pre conversion but photographic evidence would suggest they were not. He has said Jesus gave them to him (by miracle, by suggestion?) which could hardly be the case and absolutely not if they were including Asian religious symbols and deities. So where is truth in all this?

TODD BENTLEY AND FILTHY LUCRE

Although to his credit Bentley hasn't been living the high life of some tele-evangelists but retains a modest dwelling, owns no private jet, and is said to have taken nothing for the Lakeland revival (beyond his regular salary), in some respects he is still money obsessed. Capricorns frequently are and measure their success in material terms. Years ago I met someone whose friends had worked for the late Jeane Dixon and dismissed her (excessively I felt) as “all about money” despite the vision and spirituality otherwise. It may be for “good” causes that Bentley’s mission serves in India and elsewhere but some have been understandably off-put by Bentley’s money obsession which may involve several collections all within a single meeting. Not (apparently) greedy for himself Bentley can be voracious for his work and organization and recently questions have been raised about expensive property deals for the organization in Florida. As said his teaching is somewhat tithes and offerings obsessed. Whatever, I feel Todd’s Capricornian money obsession however impersonal in its way is reflected in asteroid MONY (asteroids always appear to work by sound vibe not spelling) within conjunction his sun.

TODD BENTLEY: THE THUG LOOK AND AGGRESSIVE ACTS OF HEALING

To his critics it doesn’t help that with his shaved head and plentiful tattoos Bentley looks a bit like a street thug, a sociopath, or even Satanist, though to fans it helps make him more irresistible. No need to comment on this one except to speculate on what it might mean as regards his birth time and hence ascendant.
There’s no substitute for a properly timed chart or a speculative chart carefully rectified against the life, things I am unable to provide. However for the curious and specialists I’ll have an educated guess at the birth time.

Whatever the birth time it probably has to be after 4am. It’s possible, but Bentley being famous it’s unlikely that he would have a late Aries moon weakened by being void of course. Luna is almost certainly in Taurus. Bentley’s visions are anyway full of luscious fruits, strong scents, gold dust, exquisite scenes, Eden, Heaven, you name it. This is the sensuous stuff of Taurus, its luxury and its eternities. This moon is moreover quite likely to be opposite Bentley’s Uranus where it would help reflect his strange early home life and necessarily strange relation to his mother who was deaf. Moon in the twelfth would fit such a wide range of visions and pronounced introspection in someone otherwise relatively extravert.

My guess, then, is that Bentley, who talks like a machine gun with incredible gusto once he gets going, has Gemini rising with aggressive Mars in Gemini within conjunction of the ascendant and so was born around 1.50 pm. This would then place 3 planets and the fated nodes within the house of health, healing or claims to it being his forte. Mars rising belongs with aggressive healing, (in one instance, by faith booting supposedly someone into cure!). However more testing and biographical information for tests would be useful to establishing a birth time.

TODD BENTLEY AND THE SATURN/SATAN FACTOR

If Gemini rises at birth for Todd Bentley (as it did for another sea-goat, Jeane Dixon), then an afflicted Mercury rules Todd’s birth pattern but it is still Saturn which is Capricorn’s ruler. And Saturn as Satan has a disturbing attraction, interest and affinity for especially Capricorns as almost a father figure. Capricorn Marianne Faithful admits to find Satan the most entertaining figure, has acted his part on stage and influenced Mick Jaggers Sympathy for the Devil song. Capricorn Marilyn Manson records trembling with excitement in the hope of meeting the Devil. Dennis Wheatley became a best selling author writing fiction and research on Satan. And so Todd had his adolescent fling with Satan. But where might he stand with him now and otherwise?

Todd’s Saturn is strong if little aspected at 0 degrees of dramatic Leo. He thrives on an audience and may feel he can never quite have enough of one. It is important to consider planets before the supplementary asteroids and my original article placed too much stress on interesting asteroids. I felt I’d not found enough of them which seemed relevant to what I really wanted to know or felt I ought to be finding. Among other things I wanted to see a challenging Lucifer or Malin to indicate that the devil and hell that Todd’s “deliverance” ministry was supposed to be releasing people from, was somehow genuinely opposed to him. What I found was merely factors like a Lucifer at 27 Cancer, a bit too wide to call it a significant conjunction with the Satan of Saturn. In fact it seemed to be saying nothing at all….But obviously it would and could be saying something if it were conjuncting another asteroid that was within clear conjunction of a “ruling” Saturn.

Conservative criticism of Bentley is this. He is allegedly running a fake super revival ahead of the real thing and in such a way as to deceive people and muddy the waters. He is less in touch with God than the devil as light (Lucifer) and has powers from him but the whole phenomenon is incredibly and dangerously deceptive. With so many people claiming to feel blessed and healed I don’t like to admit this might be the truth and is what I would be inclined to read the heavens as saying…

I felt I had made a real discovery for asteroid research when amid my researches for the astrology of Christ and the Church I came across a truly deadly and malign influence in asteroid VIPERA i.e. VIPER because originally asteroids were named in feminine form. It became clear to me this could almost be called the asteroid symbol of something like original sin and/or the subtle, hidden wisdom of the serpent. And at 29 Cancer for Bentley this horrible influence is half a degree conjunct his Saturn on one side while on the other side it conjuncts LUCIFER. Here is a deadly potion if ever which suggests how strongly this Saturn ruled person may be, even against his will, linked to the dark side and conveying improper "impartations". We have already seen he was/is possessed by some kind of snake spirit. Even if this were the case this wouldn’t of course mean Bentley could never get out of any satanic clutches but he should have had vastly more preparation for the work he got into and he should have heeded distinct warnings someone in the prophetic field gave him to avoid his overblown teaching on angels which can be a gate to let alien spirits enter. (Perhaps he enjoyed the power trip of working with “angels” more?). Whatever, the crisis Todd represents it is far greater, deeper and older than some passing marital woes which Todd fans like Wendy Alec of GOd TV (who is sending out urgent messages for worldwide prayer for Todd) imagine it to be.

AN ALTERNATIVE TO TODD BENTLEY

If I am right in the analysis and if there is also yet some super wave of the Spirit due of which Bentley has offered the counterfeit, then it seems you might begin to hear something of this other movement as early as around mid September. One group of prophets in Colorado Springs is forecasting as much only this day that I write this. They are in a 90 days 24/7 vigil of praise in the style (they hope) of the followers of David around the ark according to the book of Chronicles. They say the force of God is becoming overwhelming and will pour out onto the world.

The very fact that people think such things and that the emphasis is so strong upon “living in the presence” tells us something about the times and as far as stellar patterns are concerned it has something to do with Pluto near the Galactic Centre (events in religion) which goes direct in mid September and Uranus (the Spirit) in mystical Pisces. But if something happens I can assess that in due time and I hope a bit more positively than as regards Todd Bentley.

ANWAR IBRAHIM AND SODOMY

SEXUAL POLITICS MALAYSIAN STYLE

Malaysia won’t win any prizes for its treatment of opposition leader and former deputy prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim (b.10.8.1947). Whether he’s innocent or guilty of sodomy as charged - and my main point here is I believe he’s innocent - what’s been happening and getting said isn’t the way to conduct politics or life, to be democratic or to respect privacy. Malaysia needs to know the world is looking on.

Greater men than the poor beleagured Anwar Ibrahim have been “guilty” of sodomy including with chauffeurs and guys in cars, like of course one of the twentieth century’s leading novelists, Marcel Proust, whose chauffeur, Alberto, had his gender discreetly changed for purposes of fiction to become the adored and missed Albertine of A la Recherché du Temps Perdu.

When last year I wrote in assessment of various rumours and theories about the Pope being gay my analysis was able to include a number of wonderfully accurate but little used gay relevant asteroids. I regret that despite all their wonderful variety pointing to everything from effeminate types to leathermen, there’s no asteroid will give us sodomy as such – unfortunately no one has named a celestial rock after the Renaissance artist, Sodoma (whose name derives from his rather exceptional desire to be "out" about his interests) which might have helped. I can’t employ the Part of Homosexuality in assessment either as Anwar’s birth time is unknown and anyway I find the Part is more involved with an individual’s image and beliefs as a gay person than specific sexual proclivities.

WHY ANWAR IBRAHIM ISN’T GAY AND PROBABLY NOT BISEXUAL EITHER

In standard (planetary and traditional) astrology there has been some association of sodomy with (in its negative expression) the rather rape prone, down and dirty Pluto if and when Pluto conjoins other factors like notably Mars (the sex drive) which it doesn’t do in Anwar Ibrahim’s case. The Pluto-sodomy link is however suggestive of historical associations of sodomy with the kind of violence and humiliation which historically, and sometimes still today, could be vented upon prisoners. Associations of love and/or pleasure seem excluded from the symbolism but it is possible that Anwar's enemies would like to make precisely plutonic style associations and imply that among other things Anwar is a man of violence.

Undeniably Uranus (the most gay associated planet) does conjunct Mars in Anwar’s case and this can be a gay signature. However, the conjunction is in Gemini (speech and talking and people talk about Anwar as gay) and there’s no connection to Neptune. And this matters because really I think Anwar Ibrahim, who’s a married man with a daughter, to be behaving as alleged with risk to his career and reputation would need to be rather strongly bisexually inclined (like Obama according to some reports and a good few Muslim poets who didn’t live in societies as censorious as Malaysia’s) but for that we need something connecting to especially an afflicted Neptune which again Anwar doesn’t have ( but Obama does).

What Anwar shows is a devastatingly exact conjunction (exact to the minute) of Saturn (his politics, his career, any authority figures in his life) to asteroid Lie, (13 Leo 0 to 13 Leo 0). It is virtually certain that THE AUTHORITIES IN ANWAR’S LIFE ARE SENDING OUT LIES and he is involved in a (plutonic style) life-and-death type power struggle with them. More loosely than with LIE Anwar Ibrahim’s imperial Leo sun at 16 degrees is conjunct PLUTO, a set-up notorious for extreme power struggles and perhaps a sort of “rape” of one’s being by that power if one can’t win over it all - as Anwar may yet do. In fact there’s a horrible and rare struggling line-up of Sun at 16 Leo, Pluto and Saturn both at 13 and Lie at 13.

I repeat. I think Anwar Ibrahim is innocent of the charges, or, I am as convinced as I can be, so call that 95% convinced. If there has been some carrying-on of a kind politically and socially unhelpful to Anwar's career (but not that most of us could consider criminal or meriting an absurd 20 years in jail) then to be frank about it it’s more likely to be things you’d do with your hands (Mars/Uranus in Gemini sign of words and hands) than things more intense. And does Malaysia reckon to be down like a ton of bricks on that too?!

TALKING SODOMY OUT OF THE CLOSET

You’re entitled to believe certain behaviours are “wrong” but not to pursue people in the way Malaysia apparently reckons to do and almost certainly for reasons of power. Some cultures and some of the more conservative Christians seriously dislike, object to and would wish to see banned the kind of “out” displays of sexual issues and preferences that gay pride parades bring out of the closet onto the street. But this distaste to which anyone is entitled (and I don’t belong to those PC gays who want to jail everyone who criticizes them) must be put against the too common alternative: a will to hide and disguise the facts of life to make it easier to punish, blackmail and intrigue.

Christianity has done this kind of thing all too often siding with mere corruption and oppression to keep uncritiqued, unrevised elements of its ethical systems going. I don’t care as a Christian to be associated with that kind of dishonesty and I can’t approve it in the Muslim version either.

When it isn’t rape (as in the Sodom story) or exploitation sodomy has to be considered by law and society as an aspect of natural life (even of the animal kingdom that Aristotle didn’t know or realize it was but helped persuade Christians and Muslims as regards “unnatural acts”). We maybe need to find a better balance between the closeted and the blatant where gay sex is concerned but it’s better to talk about sodomy frankly than intrigue about it. I hope the embattled Anwar will go free to do whatever he wants or needs to do as a politician and that Malaysia will become more tolerant and sophisticated in its attitudes.

[I promised to make Todd Bentley the next subject but events in Malaysia have irritated and outraged me enough to cause the postponement]

THE OBAMA IDOL: MESSIANIC SMILES AND AMERICAN CRISES

NOT THE ANTICHRIST BUT IT’S SERIOUS

Barack Obama is not the Antichrist but those people determined to imagine he is are not so totally off the wall they aren’t picking up on some rather disturbing trends and attitudes. The sheer idolatry of Obama’s followers raises serious questions – even the now disillusioned (or just jealous) Jessie Jackson originally spoke of triumphs so wonderful they deserved a chapter added to the Bible. New Agers are referring to a Light Worker, an Enlightened Sage. Clearly America and perhaps the world is looking for Messiahs as never before.

It’s not just that Obama mania, Obama euphoria, Obama ecstasy is redolent of the cult of rock and film stars and - in the political sphere where it shouldn’t belong – of Hitler and the Roman emperors. It’s not simply that the cult seems largely undeserved in that it indiscriminately surrounds a person without notable experience or qualification beyond the ability to utter stirring phrases, flash a broad smile and perform the part of leader in line with the thespian potential of his native sign of Leo.

What’s serious – and I don’t say it as a secret Republican sympathizer bent on scoring points because like perhaps most non Americans I’d prefer a Democrat sea change - is that the archetypal Pied Piper themes of the Antichrist, the elements of lie, of seduction, of false spiritual value are well to the fore. And as it happens something of this is objectively certified in no uncertain terms in the heavens in ways Obama dispraisers like myself couldn’t have invented better if we’d tried.

But before pitching in let me be fair to Obama (and all of us). I’ve often had occasion to refer to the strange accuracy of the new dimension of stargazing, the asteroids, about which we’re still researching and learning. We all have their most negative indications like Lucifer and Malin (Devil) and Lie somewhere in our charts because we’re all imperfect and if we don’t side with evil it attacks us in a vulnerable place. So that’s what could be shown in a pattern.

Accordingly we mustn’t rush to conclusions about where and how the negatives are placed for people. However it’s undeniably healthier if most can be placed inconspicuously and avoid contact with magnifying planetary or angular factors - which they often can since they’re normally only allowed a small orb of connection (like 2 degrees) with any planet(more with sun or moon).

ALIENATING OBAMA INDICATORS

Here then are the kind of troubling indicators for Obama one would prefer not to be confronted with in light of what appears to be the case and another consideration I have yet to mention. I should incidentally before proceeding point out that finally we do now know Obama’s place and time of birth to read any asteroids against. There was not the same certainty last December when I wrote about Hillary’s seemingly good chances this year. Place and time have had to be certified to insure Obama was seen as even an American citizen following recent claims he was born abroad and, according to a Kenyan relative that Obama had in fact been the Muslim he denies having ever been.

So now we know that Obama’s birth time on 4th Aug 61 was 7.24pm in Honolulu with 18 degrees of Aquarius rising over the horizon. And actually this does make a difference to how we see the presidential race though it’s still exceptionally hard to pick a winner because Obama (who might yet have setbacks and has recently offended many Americans with his prematurely “presidential” world tour which ignored wounded soldiers) and Hillary (who might yet return despite the setbacks) and the wooden McCain all presently have the kind of features to their charts that could make for winners.

But given Obama’s populist Aquarius rising at birth this means Uranus rules his natus and this Uranus, powerfully angular for him (and helpfully conjunct America’s natal moon), is eclipsed, (thus indicating some prominence) by the mid August lunar eclipse. That’s a positive sign towards winning though given what the two August eclipses possibly bode for America generally it might not prove so wonderful an experience for Obama or anyone to be assuming power in these times. More than rock star abilities would be needed to manage the kind of crises considered below. But whatever the future holds, the following details don’t inspire confidence in the immediate.

Asteroid LUCIFER conjuncts Obama’s sun. This doesn’t mean he’s wickedness incarnate but it could mean he would be too easily proud or more vulnerable than some to the channeling of negative spiritual influence. Also conjuncting Obama’s sun is asteroid, LIE which doesn’t exactly help if what I’ve just said is relevant. (By comparison with a figure like Dixon ’s false prophet we find LIE conjuncting a Neptune that squares Mercury - an aspect itself often a signature for lies – and asteroid ACHRISTOU conjunct his natural ruler Uranus and LUCIFER probably conjunct the IC angle if the birth place were certain).

Trying to avoid unduly emphasizing these possibly only coincidental negatives we are still confronted by the fact that asteroid, MALIN (Fr for Devil) conjuncts Barack Obama’s Mercury (his message, what he says). In fact, since his Mercury thus conjuncted opposes his Jupiter (chief register of truth in any pattern) the whole mendacious (or just self deceptive) personal picture seems emphasized.

Suitably for someone who has gone along with ideas of Black Liberationist Fr Pfleger that Jesus was black and Israel lacks any claim to Israel (a theory itself linked to a demotion of Jesus’ messianic role) the Jesus asteroid, ISA, is directly opposed by limiting, sometimes Satanic, Saturn.

With Pluto (itself ruler of Obama’s career/reputation Scorpio Midheaven) directly opposed to asteroid JERUSALEM if Obama gains power one could expect plenty of the zigzagging about as regards dividing Jerusalem and any promises about Israel. These are problems an Israeli journal like Arutz Sheva, is already anticipating - reasonably enough given Obama’s past easy acceptance of the anti Semitic doctrines of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Obama’s faith/church problems are exquisitely reflected  by his afflicted Neptune in his sector of religion and beliefs.

Obama is not so much a leader as a gifted actor and orator who knows how to pick up audience vibes and run with them. If anything, Obama’s sun squaring Neptune, the sort of framework against which the above supplementary asteroid evidence must be read, warns of limited and weak leadership ability (and hence his own vulnerability to weak leaders like his whacky pastor). However Obama’s main contact to the chart of America is this glamorizing (and wonderful for photo ops) but also potentially deceptive and disillusioning conjunction of his Neptune to America’s ascendant (the people and national mythos) almost to the minute. (I’ll not attempt to justify my attachment to the US Scorpio rising chart except to say it has the advantage of being timed to when White House record shows America was sworn into being, a point many ignore if they know it).

The absence, apart from Neptune, of factors for Obama in any really “elevated” positions in his pattern adds to the impression that leadership is less natural to him than might appear while his emphasized relationship sector is descriptive of plenty of audience sensitivity. If he does come to power he will probably rely, and need to rely, on skilled advisors (seventh house agency) rather heavily.

OBAMA AND OPRAH WINFREY.

However, let’s leave the asteroids for the (sort of) Antichrist factor that some have been sensing amid the excesses of Obama idolatry. Long ago when the late Washington seeress, Jeane Dixon, claimed to have seen the birth of the Antichrist she maintained it would be American media that would chiefly foist this person upon the world. If there is/was any truth to that vision and the person of Dixon’s visions actually exists then two highly influential Americans are better placed than some to welcome the Aquarian messiah and set him on a global path because certain of their beliefs and their stellar patterns connect to his pattern leaving them more open than some to this phenomenon. The first person is the internationally influential Aquarian, Oprah Winfrey, plus the person her own promotion has now put in the forefront of America, namely Barack Obama. With Oprah’s Saturn (ambitions, any political issues) directly conjunct Obama’s Neptune Oprah found Obama’s species of politics irresistible, irresistible enough to drop former friend, the more experienced Hillary Clinton.

Obama’s 18 degree Aquarian ascendant conjuncts Dixon’s prophet’s Venus/Jupiter conjunction on this degree signifying, if ever they met, Obama could easily be overwhelmed, charmed, flattered and maybe willing to promote like crazy. (Obama’s own Venus is loosely conjunct the Achristou asteroid which I insist works among the likes of Satanists as the Antichrist sign).

Obama’s Jupiter (his religion, his beliefs) conjunct the prophet’s Mars while his (Obama’s) moon favourably, and very verbally in Gemini!, aspects it. Dixon’s prophet could thus easily use Obama to promote his aims and Obama could go along with this because his beliefs range from the uncertain to the bizarre but favour whatever makes some show of unifying everyone – since it’s pretty clear he has an “I want to rule the world” syndrome he needs the broadest of ideologies. Oprah who chose Obama over Hillary cannot be called Christian in any normal sense - no one with his odd religious mentors and almost total agnostic indifference concerning the afterlife could be thought so.

If I think or know more I shan’t say more here and shall just hope I’m wrong but it does look like the Obama road show is a sham with a peculiarly negative spiritual potential at this time. But, then, what is this time that Obama and Obama mania might dominate?

CALIFORNIA WARNINGS IN THE OBAMA ERA

If there’s one thing likely to wither Obama’s messianic smiles and popular appeal it could be the kind of mega disasters in America that require extreme statesmanlike abilities. Like many people I’ve become almost bored, insensitive and ready to yawn as regards forecasts of American, especially Californian, disasters and the fabled “Big One”. Today I read most prophecies rather as others read newspaper sun sign astrology, namely as light entertainment because I can’t take most of it seriously. However…. we have just had a quake of moderate proportion across LA and it’s just possible that finally the time for the Big One approaches. You could have thoughts especially if you use the American chart I use and have read a few of the recent prophecies which, even while some derive from people I question (and who would question me in turn) carry a bit more weight than usual.

Let’s be simple as regards the astrology....

August sets the scene for coming months with 2 tricky eclipses that do more than hit the pattern of presidential hopefuls. The Solar eclipse is in close enough conjunction with America’s fated nodal axis and near its destiny Midheaven (hence opposite its IC, the part of its pattern involved with the land and weather conditions) to leave one wondering and speculating uneasily. The lunar eclipse is conjunct America’s moon (homes, domestic security) in the sector of its land and territory. One has to note too that at the time of these eclipses Saturn makes harsh aspect to America’s Uranus which, as at the Katrina disaster, seems truly sensitive for shocking occurrences in America. Finally let’s note the volcanic and devastating Pluto transiting the O Capricorn world point earlier this year gave us death and horrors as in Burma and China. Will it omit to do so later this year and in America when it returns to this zone?

PROPHETS GETTING MORE SERIOUS

As to the prophets, that’s a bit more complicated….of course! Even so, an interesting case is report regarding a certain Sean Malone and his group of 3 friends called the CRI (Crisis Response International). These guys unlike some prophets actually appear to know what they’re doing and saying. The simple fact is that Malone took up residence in New York to intercede and preach warnings ahead of 9/11 and give help when the disaster occurred (another plus as against some doom sayers!). He likewise went ahead of the Katrina disaster and gave assistance in New Orleans. He has always said there would be 3 major disasters to hit America and the third would be the real wake up call for America and its churches alike and it would occur in California. He and others seem to anticipate less a Big One than a Big One plus tsunami with major destruction in much of NW America. Ominously, Malone and the 4 are now training and organizing 44 prophets and preachers for California in anticipation of something very major.

Who else has been saying things? I would note the elderly charismatic, Bob Jones - not my favourite person or prophet for various reasons - suddenly warned in April that disaster in California will now be coming sooner than people imagine and especially in San Francisco. That city, says Jones, will have had it when the prophets (Malone’s?) will have abandoned the streets. More recently Jones has said the Californian disaster would be preceded by two major quakes in Japan and California. Whether or not we have just had those these last few days of July or not (they were moderate sized not exactly big) is hard to tell.

Prophet Bob Hartley declared earlier this year that before he would leave office Bush would have the chance be merciful towards California (perhaps he means will do more and sooner than he did at the Katrina disaster!). The British prophet, and co-founder of God TV, Wendy Alec, has recently said she felt obliged to release a vision she had held to herself for some weeks (since June). She had a terrifying vision about the destruction before too long of northern Californian and especially San Francisco. (LA would also be hurt but less so than Frisco). She had been woken to the words of “The Bay, the Bay, the Bay” which, though she grasped the vision was about California, being British she said didn’t mean to her what it would to Californians. Only later she made the specific connection with Frisco as main flashpoint for the coming disaster.

Alec claims vision of almost unbelievable levels of destruction in town and country, the sky turned completely black, people long trapped and lost and many cursing rather than calling upon God in what she considers a city of idolatry that has turned to self indulgence and other gods – the sort of reason it seems Malone’s people feel necessity to preach in the Bay Area so that if nothing else many will be repent and die well. All pretty dark and stuff if valid and I won’t cite others in the same line at this time.

FATE AND “JUDGEMENT” IN CALIFORNIA

Whatever the truth I’m disposed to pause on the idea of judgement as against fate (the more astrological idea) that the slew of recent visions raises. Even if you believe you have it on revelation there’s ome some serious indulgence and idolatry prevalent in California, does God really have to judge it by wiping out thousands, many of them ordinary innocent people or babies?

One could wish for the prophets, especially if they actually are seeing true, a more enlightening and nuanced approach in this area. One simple point almost never really made by them is that the NT of their bibles repeatedly indicates that the (at least temporary) ruler of this world is not God but the Satan who offers Jesus the kingdoms of this world. It follows…arguably….that even the Creator scarcely has the right in a free will universe to intervene to defend people if they have gone beyond a certain level of idolatry and ethical abandon. Accordingly what is often portrayed as God’s judgement wrath is something more like God’s abandonment of a certain level of protection.

A person I came to realize had truly exceptional prophetic ability and who used to write to me in their last years in response to a website I once had, insisted he’d been shown protection being bit by bit withdrawn from America. Natural disasters (which are mostly natural and belong with the fate patterns of astrology) can, it seems, be at least mitigated if a population is “right with God”. If they’re not right then this world is free to become the devil’s destructive playground.

If third time round Malone and friends genuinely are onto something one would hope the residents, especially the gay residents of Frisco who have things to blame the churches for but who in turn have too easily tolerated events the likes of the profane hunky Jesus competitions for Good Friday, won’t totally dismiss the prophets. Also that in turn the prophets would emphasize the negatives of “idolatry” and greedy indulgence rather than the evil of being gay as such. That kind of unnecessary emphasis which seems to want to make out that every major US city is “Sodom” and the ethical measure how much one people tolerate gays (a line which has caused the tiresomely narrow Repent America group in Philadelphia such legal troubles) could make the work of the 44 ineffective before it even began. (Date setters for disaster may wonder how long the CRI prophet preaching “training” reckons to last!)

LIGHT AND DARK IN OBAMA TIMES

But to return to the fray regarding prophecy as prophecy conventionally understood (i.e. right forecasting rather than the moral pronouncement which it can also be) all the prophets have a bit of trouble with the fact that the ultra revival going global that emanates from Lakeland Florida, is happening now. This super Pentecost, or Last Pentecost was years ago forecast by some as something that would accompany a time of disasters in especially America. So in effect if heaven is beginning to open, the disasters (hell?) will need to come forth fairly soon too. We shall have to see. But perhaps I need to turn next to consideration of the person and stellar signs of the improbable Capricorn facilitator of the mega “revival”, Todd Bentley. In fact I had been going to do this but between recent quaking and what I have been asked to write on Obama I haven’t done this, but it can follow next.