SATURDAY, MAY 12, 2012 http://herescope.blogspot.com/2012/05/quantum-mysticism-in-church.html
QUANTUM MYSTICISM IN THE CHURCH
COSMS, CODES, AND CRYPTOLOGIES
PART 1: Crossing the Boundaries of Reality and Scripture
"For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ..."
(2 Peter 1:16)
By Gaylene Goodroad
“We are stumbling within this interval between the miracle of our origin and the mystery of our destiny. And we are now beginning to realize that the most critical aspects that impact our destiny lie just outside the ostensible boundaries of the veil surrounding only a ‘virtual’ reality.”
“This field of study is called ‘Quantum Physics’ and its philosophical implications can be shattering to our presuppositions about our ‘reality.’ We now discover that the physical reality that surrounds us is only a virtual simulated reality—made up of indivisible, electrically charged particles: in fact, we exist within a digital electrical simulation!”
“Does the ‘Paranormal’ lie within the margins between the ‘Metacosm’ [a larger reality beyond the macro/microcosms consisting of 10 dimensions or more] and the virtual reality established by the digital simulation?”
-- Chuck Missler, Systems Engineer, Author, & Bible Teacher (Introduction to God’s Ghostbusters [italics in original, bold added])[i]
When I began reading successful evangelical author, publisher, and former pastor Tom Horn’s recent book, God’s Ghostbusters, dealing with classic horror film themes (vampires, ghosts, aliens and werewolves), I didn’t expect to encounter these Chuck Missler quotations above dealing with the new science/new math of quantum physics or quantum mechanics.
Initially, terms such as Chaos Theory, Metacosm, and Hyperdimensional or Holographic Universe seemed starkly out of place. Familiar with the bizarre teachings and science fictionesque concepts of Tom Horn (the subject of two previous Herescope articles),[ii] the more I read, the more I began to see other ominous connections between Horn, his collaborators, and New Age physics.[iii] These men are not only taking their readers beyond physical realities, but beyond what is written in Scripture.[iv]
THE QUANTUM WORLDVIEW
In my previous Herescope article, “Doomsday Datesetters 2012,” I documented evangelical leader and noted Bible teacher Chuck Missler’s connections to Tom Horn, as well as to the anti-biblical ideas found in New Age physics:
Chuck Missler also promotes other unbiblical ideas more akin to Eastern mysticism than to orthodox Christianity. Consider this material excerpted from a book Missler wrote entitled, Cosmic Codes – Hidden Messages From the Edge of Eternity, Chapter 23:
Quantum Teleporting, Part 2: Our Holographic Universe
There seems to be evidence to suggest that our world and everything in it are only ghostly images, projections from a level of reality so beyond our own that the real reality is literally beyond both space and time. The main architect of this astonishing idea includes one of the world’s most eminent thinkers: University of London physicist David Bohm, a protégé of Einstein’s and one of the world’s most respected quantum physicists…. One of Bohm’s most startling suggestions is that the tangible reality of our everyday lives is really kind of an illusion, like a holographic image…. Bohm calls this deeper level of reality the implicate (“enfolded”) order and he refers to our level of existence the explicate (unfolded) order. [emphasis/italics mine][49]
Compare Missler’s teaching with a passage found in Marilyn Ferguson’s The Aquarian Conspiracy, a book called the “New Age bible” by some:
…[Karl] Pribram mused that the answer might lie in the realm of gestalt psychology, a theory that maintains that what we perceive “out there” is the same as—isomorphic with—brain processes. Suddenly he blurted out, “maybethe world is a hologram!” …Were the members of the audience holograms? ...Soon afterward, he spent a week with his son, a physicist, discussing his idea and searching for possible answers in physics. His son mentioned that David Bohm, a protégé of Einstein’s, had been thinking along the same lines…, Pribram read copies of Bohm’s key papers urging a new order in physics. Bohm was describing a holographic universe. What appears to be a stable, tangible, visible, audible world, said Bohm, is an illusion…. What we normally see is the explicate, or unfolded order of things, rather like watching a movie. But there is an underlying order that is father to this second-generation reality. He called the other order implicate, or enfolded. [italics in original, bold mine][50]
In discussing occult author Lola Davis, Christian researcher Constance Cumbey, author of A Planned Deception, connected the “Holography Theory of the Universe” to the New World Religion. Cumbey states:
In 1980 she [Davis] wrote her first book to date called Toward a World Religion for the New Age. The book was successful in New Age circles. Lucis Trust [formerly Lucifer Publishing, ed.] itself undersaw its distribution. One can count on one hand the number of authors other than Alice and Foster Bailey that Lucis Trust has so honored. Lola Davis believes and evidently Lucis Trust concurs that holographic phenomena will be a very important part of the ‘New World Religion.’ Her book gives that topic nearly half a chapter. [bold, italics mine][51]
In a technical article written by Noel Huntley, PhD, “A Holographic Universe?,” he connects holographic theory to fractal (quantum) theory:
…by taking a small part of our universe that it (the small part) in itself is holographic… this small part reflects the same characteristics as other parts of the universe, ranging up to the whole…. This is what holographic means: the whole is reflected in any part or subpart…. In holistic systems, all parts are in resonance or coherence, which quantum regenerates the whole.... We are familiar with the philosophical statement, 'As above, so below'which is based on the axiom of Hermeticism, 'What is here is everywhere; What is not here is nowhere'. This again is the holographic property.... Leading physicist David Bohm stresses quantum interconnectedness and unbroken wholeness…. Science writer Fritjof Capra speaks of the universe as a hologram, in which each part determines the whole…. The fractal nature of the world is well established. We know that fractals are self-similar patterns on different dimensional scales. This is clearly a property of the holograph… consciousness could be analysed in terms of fractals, tying in with our other approach of relating consciousness to the learning pattern and in turn with its holographic character. Thus consciousness and freewill are inherently holographic…. The universe is holographic fractally (as opposed to infinitely holographic), for example, the levels, planet, solar system, galaxy, are fractal levels similar to the relationship of wrist, elbow, and shoulder…. What is this holographic background? It would be the true nature of unity. Unity, beyond spacetime, must be intrinsically holographic…. [emphasis mine][52]
The connections here should be obvious. Quantum spirituality is the very deception that Warren B. Smith warns about in A Wonderful Deception:
It seems clear to me that quantum physics, the “new” biology, and the “new” math of fractal geometry are being used to provide a seemingly scientific basis for “proving” the “as above, so below” contention that God is “in” everything. We are being asked to believe that all of creation is an interconnected quantum field of energy and “oneness” that is “God.”[53]
Marilyn Ferguson, quoting physicist Nick Herbert, explained the New Age view: “Rather it is a ‘simple consequence of the oneness of apparently separate objects… a quantum loophole through which physics admits not merely the possibility but the necessity of the mystic’s unitary vision: ‘We are all one.’”[emphasis added] [54]
In Unshackled: Breaking Away from Seductive Spirituality, Pastor Larry DeBruyn also warns about these occultic teachings. In the chapter “From Cosmos, To Chaos, To Consciousness: Quantum Physics and the New Spirituality,” Pastor DeBruyn succinctly sums up the issue, “New Spirituality is taking the quantum leap from physics to metaphysics, from what is below to what is above.”[v]
Expounding upon Colossians 2:8, “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ,” Pastor DeBruyn explains the dangers of New Age physics:
Though occurring in the New Testament only in this instance, the word “spoil” is a picturesque word meaning to carry of as booty or captives of war. As in the Babylonian invasion of Israel (586 B.C.), one can picture the captors, having plundered Jerusalem and seized its citizens, leading Jews bound in chains off to Babylon where they would be exiled and imprisoned for the remainder of their lives (See Jeremiah 31:15). Likewise, Paul warns that if seduced by the tradition of men and the rudiments of the world, believers too can become spiritual captives…At the point of this warning, it ought to be noted that the word “rudiments” (Greek, stoicheia) possesses a physics-like meaning.
First, “the world” (i.e., the cosmos) is composed of “rudiments.”As in modern physics, and as in the philosophical scheme of the ancients, cosmos or reality denotes “the sum total of everything here and now, the (orderly) universe.”83 In part, the “rudiments of the world” comprise the essence of the universe.84
...Second, outside the New Testament, “rudiments” is a physics-like term denoting “the four elements or the basic materials of the world…of which the whole word “rudiments” carried a cosmological meaning about it. Thus, as opposed to “rudiments” (KJV), “elementary principles” (NLT), or “elemental spirits” (NRSV), many scholars prefer the translation “elements of the world.”87
…Third, from the context we note Paul warned the Colossians that fixating upon “the elements of the world” would lead them away from spiritual freedom and into spiritual bondage. In the quantum world, the ancient sense of “rudiments-elements” might be paraphrased to refer to something like “quarks,” the smallest particles that some physicists believe are the quintessence of everything that comprises the material universe.
However “rudiments” may to be understood—whether referring to particles, principles, or powers—the context demands an understanding that reverencing the physical essence of the universe can turn one away from worshipping Christ (i.e., “and not after Christ”)…Christian spirituality should be based upon the Word, not upon the world; upon Christ, not quarks.[vi] [bold mine, italics in original]
Noted author and New Age expert Warren B. Smith carefully documents the connections between the New Spirituality, the New Age, and quantum physics in his book A Wonderful Deception: The Further New Age Implications of the Emerging Purpose Driven Movement. He explains that these deceptions are entering the church through popular best-selling authors Leonard Sweet and William P. Young:
…I had remembered Fritjof Capra’s 1975 book The Tao of Physics: an Exploration of the Parallels between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism. It had been a cult classic when I was in the New Age movement many years ago. We had all been ready to take that big “quantum leap” into a peaceful New Age future when all the world would be as “One.” Were books like Leonard Sweet’s Quantum Spirituality and William Young’s The Shack preparing the church to take that same quantum leap? All signs and fractals seemed to be pointing that way.[vii] [bold, mine]
Smith could very well add Chuck Missler to this list of quantum spirituality change agents. Missler seems fascinated with the paranormal. For example, although later saying that he hadn’t read it, Missler recently endorsed Pastor Steve and Sarah Berger’s book, Have Heart, which “normalizes necromancy”—a book that was also endorsed by the author of The Shack (Young).[viii]
THE QUANTUM MECHANIC
In his introductory remarks that begin God’s Ghostbusters (a Tom Horn book by by 14 collaborative authors), Chuck Missler conditions skeptical readers with the following remarks:
Before we attempt to explore the fringes—and beyond—of our understanding of the physical universe (ghosts, aliens, vampires, etc.), it is of paramount importance to dispose of the baggage of our misconceptions and the mythology of what we have been erroneously taught in this age of deceit. The puncturing of our delusions…is absolutely vital for well-being, and a prerequisite for maturity. Much of what we have been taught is error… [GG, pg. 1, bold mine]
…As we peruse the subsequent chapters of this book, let’s blindfold our prejudices from the myths of the past, and let’s approach these areas with a humility borne of a broader perspective. Let’s indeed, take a peak outside and look beyond the comfort of the four-dimensional playpen we’ve been confined to…but let’s also appreciate the risks. [GG, pg. 16, bold, italics mine]
Taking Missler’s “quantum leap” from the safety of Scripture to beyond the boundaries of reality is indeed risky business. Missler urges readers to “dispose of the baggage of misconceptions,” and to “blindfold prejudices” regarding the New Age physics and other strange teachings contained in the book. This sounds remarkably similar to the “Humility Theology” of the late New Age sympathizer and author, John Marks Templeton, that Smith warned about in A Wonderful Deception:
Templeton’s book The Humble Approach: Scientists Discover God is a direct challenge pressuring Christians to disbelieve the absolute authority of Scripture. It subtly cajoles them to be “humble” enough to open themselves up to the new findings in science—new findings, as in quantum physics, that might provide them with a new approach to God and life—a new worldview.[ix]
Later in this report I will discuss how other strange themes within God’s Ghostbusters fits into the quantum worldview, but for now, here is a sampling of chapter titles (three of which were written by Tom Horn): “The Spirit of Nosferatu and the Children of the Damned,” “Do Alien-Hybrids Walk Among Us?,” “Shamans, PSI Spies, and Military Mediums (Part 2),” “Abode of the Dead,” and “Demons Unlimited.” It seems hardly imaginable that noted evangelical authors would be sanctioning occult paranormal topics such as these. But stay tuned, there's more.
By his initial statements in God’s Ghostbusters, “Exploring the fringes—and beyond—of our understanding of the physical universe,” Missler goes beyond quantum physics (as science) to articulating and promoting quantum spirituality. He continues:
We are stumbling within this interval between the miracle of our origin and the mystery of our destiny. And we are now beginning to realize that the most critical aspects that impact our destiny lie just outside the ostensible boundaries of the veil surrounding only a ‘virtual’ reality. [GG, pg. 4; bold mine]
This field of study is called ‘Quantum Physics’ and its philosophical implications can be shattering to our presuppositions about our ‘reality.’ We now discover that the physical reality that surrounds us is only a virtual simulated reality—made up of indivisible, electrically charged particles: in fact, we exist within a digital electrical simulation! [GG, pp. 11-12; bold mine]
Does the ‘Paranormal’ lie within the margins between the ‘Metacosm’ [a larger reality beyond the macro/microcosms consisting of 10 dimensions or more] and the virtual reality establishedby the digital simulation? [GG, pg. 15; bold mine]
As we explore further the nature of the tiny particles that create the illusion of our reality, it gets worse…If we take any length [and divide it]…we would discover that when we reach a defining minimum—known as the “Planck length” 10-33 cm.—we would encounter any attempts to divide that remainder would result in a property known as “non-locality”: being connected to everywhere at once! … all “non-local” particles throughout our apparent universe are somehow intimately, directly, connected simultaneously… [GG, pg. 11; bold, italics mine]
Note: This “non-local” property is also the essence of the monistic, occultic maxim: “as above, so below”; all is One (divine).
Indeed, Missler’s model of a “holographic universe,” and the theory of the “implicate/explicate” order is derived directly from quantum physicist David Bohm already mentioned above (and who is also named in God’s Ghostbusters). Bohm, who was greatly influenced through extensive dialogues with Indian (Hindu) mystic, J. Krishnamurti, was quoted as saying, “Our future depends on whether we feel like part of this one whole or whether we feel we’re separate.” [x]As above, so below.
SCIENCE OR SORCERY?
On page 14 of God’s Ghostbusters, Missler includes a photo of the famous Salvador Dali painting, Crucifixion, as a “practical example” of a “hyperdimensional excursion” outside the conceptual regions of advanced mathematics.” According to Missler, Dali’s artwork is a “tesseract,” a four-dimensional cube unraveled into three dimensions.” The same picture and explanation is found in Chapter 4 of Missler and Eastman’s Alien Encounters, “Reality’s Twilight Zone.”[xi]
Amazingly, almost 27 years ago, Dave Hunt and T.A. McMahon warned of this very quantum deception in The Seduction of Christianity, naming Dali by name:
…science and sorcery will become more difficult to distinguish from each other. In our opinion, the confusion between science, scientism, and sorcery will be an important factor in the growing seduction [of Christianity]. The major premise behind occult methodologies, that mind creates reality, is now considered by a number of top scientists to be implied by quantum mechanics.
Such theories are even affecting the arts. “Commenting on the religious mysticism so evident in his paintings, Salvador Dali told an interviewer that he was influenced by the spirituality of the new physics [quantum mechanics]. ‘I realized that science is moving toward a spiritual state,’ said Dali.”3
After interviews with leading scientists in Europe and America, philosopher John Gliedman reported that “several leading theorists have arrived at the same startling conclusion: their work suggests a hidden spiritual world.” The indirect effect upon the church of this swing by science to mysticism promises to be staggering.[xii] [bold mine]
Note Hunt and McMahon’s astonishing insight in examining “hologram” theory:
Far from being as absurd as it seems at first, this idea appears to have an intriguing scientific basis. We may soon be seeing holograms in theaters: three-dimensional images spreading the action from the big screen out into the auditorium among the spectators.
The amazing thing about a hologram is that no matter how many or how small the pieces it is cut into, although the resolution becomes distorted, each one retains the entire image of the whole. The same is true of single cells in the body: Each one has the entire DNA formula for replicating the whole…
The next logical step is to suggest that each of us is a little holographic image of the entire universe—a “God” that contains within itself everything that is.Christians will need to get back to the Word of God and know what they believe and why they believe it in order to deal with such ideas in the days ahead.[xiii]
Over a quarter of a century ago, before it became a quantum buzz word, Hunt and McMahon aptly described “a fractal,” a fraction of the divine Whole:[xiv]As above, so below.
Hunt and McMahon were correct in admonishing Christians to “get back to the Word of God... in order to deal with such ideas in the days ahead.” Unfortunately for those who follow Chuck Missler’s Bible courses, he has imbedded not only the quantum spirituality they warned of, but also purported “new revelations” hidden in the arrangement of the Bible’s Hebrew alphabet—apart from the plain meaning of the text—through various codes and ciphers.
Stay tuned for Part 2 in this multi-part series . . . .
THE TRUTH:
"O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called:" (1 Timothy 6:20)
ENDNOTES:
[i] Chuck Missler, Introduction Chapter, God’s Ghostbusters: Vampires? Ghosts? Aliens? Werewolves? Creatures of the Night Beware!, Thomas Horn, Defender Publishing, Crane, MO, 2011, pp. 4, 11-12, 15.
[ii] Gaylene Goodroad, Herecope, “Doomsday Datesetters 2012,” June 10, 2011; http://herescope.blogspot.com/2011/06/doomsday-datesetters-2012.html; Herescope, “Militant Prayer,” Sept. 23, 2011; http://herescope.blogspot.com/2011/09/militant-prayer.html.
[iii] The term, “New Age Physics” is taken from John Ankerberg and John Weldon’s, Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs, Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, OR, 1996, pp. 509-522. They define it as “Quantum physics adopted in support of New Age Beliefs or Eastern Mysticism.” It is when “science is being misused to support Eastern and occult metaphysics, mysticism,” etc. Its tenets are aligned with the teachings of Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics (1975).
[iv] Pastor Anton Bosch has written an article series on Herescope warning believers not to go beyond what God has written, called “Only Scripture”; http://herescope.blogspot.com/2011/08/only-scripture.html. Other unbiblical teachings: Missler was disinvited/disfellowshiped by the organizers of the 2009 Great Lakes Prophecy Conference in Appleton, WI, because of a troublesome book that he wrote with his wife, Nancy. TA McMahon (The Berean Call) publicly read a statement regarding this matter which stated that several notable Christian brothers spent months counseling Missler to repent and remove his heretical teaching manual from his teaching/ministry—to no avail. See also: (The 2009 Great Lakes Prophecy Conference, Appleton, WI, “The Writing is on the Wall,” DVD package; www.ccappleton.org. [Ed. Note: the author was an attendee]. The book in question, The Kingdom, Power, and Glory: The Overcomers Handbook, advocates what McMahon called “a Protestant Purgatory,” a form of Kingdom Exclusion (this book is still carried on the Koinonia House website http://store.khouse.org/store/catalog/BK150.html?mv_pc=KHAR-981); For an examination of the Misslers’ book, See: http://www.middletownbiblechurch.org/doctrine/missler.htm.
[v] Pastor Lawrence A. DeBruyn, Unshackled: Breaking Away from Seductive Spirituality, Moeller Printing, Indianapolis, IN, 2009, pg. 44.
[vi] Ibid, DeBruyn, pp. 65-67.
[vii] Warren Smith, A Wonderful Deception: The Further New Age Implications of the Emerging Purpose Driven Movement, Lighthouse Trails Publishing, LLC, Silverton, OR, 2009, pg. 160.
[viii] “Happy New (Age) New Year 2012!”,Herescope, Jan. 2, 2012;http://herescope.blogspot.com/2012/01/happy-new-age-new-year-2012.html; See also: Larry DeBruyn, “Do the Dead Communicate with the Living?: Normalizing Necromancy Part 1,” Herescope, Jan. 3, 2012; http://herescope.blogspot.com/2012/01/do-dead-communicate-with-living.html. NOTE:Chuck Missler posted a comment on his Facebook page following the publication of Pastor Larry’s article, saying that he had not read Berger’s book before endorsing it, and then directed readers to Pastor Berger’s website page on “Have Heart,” which clearly articulates Have Heart’s unbiblical themes, underscoring and validating Pastor Larry’s research; https://www.facebook.com/KoinoniaHouse/posts/360210257326751. Also troubling, is that the Koinonia Institute offers an 8-week course called “BTE 509 – Heaven,” noted on pg. 55 of the KI Handbook; Berger is listed as the instructor; http://www.studycenter.com/downloads/ki_info_kit.pdf. Missler was also in attendance at the 2010 Strategic Perspectives Conference in Berger’s church when Berger gave a presentation on “Have Heart,” http://www.khouse.org/articles/2010/922/print/; and http://www.khouse.org/6640/KIDVD23-2/. See Chris Lawton’s additional research: http://www.spiritual-research-network.com/have_heart_bridging_the_gulf_steve_berger.html.
[ix] Smith, A Wonderful Deception, pg. 174.
[x] David Bohm, Mystic Fire Online; http://www.lexicon.net/drpao/shaman/articles/Bohm.html; and Will Keepin, “Lifework of David Bohm—River of Truth”; http://www.vision.net.au/~apaterson/science/david_bohm.htm.
[xi] Chuck Missler and Mark Eastman, Alien Encounters: The Secret Behind the UFO Phenomenon, Koinonia House, Coeur d’Alene, ID, 1997, sixth printing, June 2009, pp. 83-96.
[xii]Dave Hunt and T.A. McMahon, The Seduction of Christianity: Spiritual Discernment in the Last Days, Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, OR, 1985, pg. 108.
[xiii] Ibid, Hunt & McMahon, pp. 110-111.
[xiv] Warren Smith, Chapter 12, “Fractals, Chaos Theory, Quantum Spirituality, and the Shack,” pp. 139-162; and Pastor Larry Debruyn, pp. 139-141; Note: the Thrive Movement (New Age) incorporates aspects of quantum physics, including various geometric patterns, like fractals; http://www.thrivemovement.com/the_code-fundamental_pattern.
posted by Discernment Research Group @ 5/12/2012 11:25:00 AM