But Not in a Vacuum

But now it’s time for me to address the other issue.

“Don’t synchronicities and communications also happen to people who do not know Christ and have no relationship with the true God?” Yes they do. And some of these occurrences are of the “the things that go bump in the night” variety.

Do you recall the incident of the synchronicity and communication George Muller had with his baker that God mediated? Well here is a negative image version of that which God did not mediate. This case is from Kurt Koch’s Christian Counseling and Occultism:

“Ex 17 A twenty-year old girl was engaged to a sailor. Every evening she was
with her young friend in her thoughts, for she was very strongly attached to
him. One night she awoke in terrible anxiety about her fiancee. She besought God
graciously to protect him in the perils of the sea. Some time later she received
a letter in which her fiancee’ told how they had weathered a dreadful storm in
the North Sea, which they had not expected to ride out. At the very height of
the storm, he had grasped her photograph, and had her vividly in mind.

“This was the beginning of an animated telepathic exchange for these
young people. They were in the course of time able to communicate their thoughts
to each other by telepathy. There arose, notwithstanding the great distance
between them, a powerful emotional tie as a result of which the girl felt, to a
pathological degree, everything that happened to the young man. If he became
ill, so did she by remote communication. If he experienced pain, so did she.
When he took medicines, she had the same experiences of taste and smell.
Although at first this transference of the emotional experiences of her fiancee’
was a pleasure to the young girl, the telepathic union gradually became a
burden, causing her great distress. Out of the originally amusing game there
developed a psychic enslavement, in fact a kind of possession, from which the
girl could no longer protect herself.”

A similar episode from Koch’s book is this:

“Ex 47 during an evangelistic campaign, a woman came for an interview. She
confessed that she and her friend had come under the influence of a man whose
will they were compelled to obey in various respects. This man had such a power
over them that, against their wills, or with their wills paralyzed, they were
compelled to do things which otherwise they abhorred. Sexually they were
helpless against him, and they committed acts of theft which they themselves did
not understand.

“For example, her friend was one day standing in the
garden. Suddenly a peculiar urge came over her, and she stepped into another
person’s garden next door and stole some vegetables, though she had a great
quantity of the same kind in her own garden. This woman was in good
circumstances and had no need whatever to steal; indeed, she detested such
deeds. ... “

“After several interviews with this woman, an increasingly
clear picture of the situation began to form. The man whose will these two women
were forced in slavish subjection to fulfill was the possessor of a notorious
magic book, the so-called 6th and 7th Book of Moses. In connection with this
book he practiced suggestion and cast spells. When I visited him, the man
admitted his occult practices, and after some reluctance he proved willing to
surrender the magic book, which was thereupon immediately burned.

“With
the unveiling of these connections, and the breaking of every association with
the conjurer, the woman felt much relieved. However, a hard struggle now ensued,
before she was free of the pernicious suggestive influence. True, from the time
of her confession she no longer lapsed with regard to the seventh and eighth
commandments, but for weeks and months she felt a resistance to God’s word, and
great difficulties in her life of faith. Moreover she was repeatedly afflicted
with bouts of depression.

“Because of a small group of faithful
Christians committed themselves to earnest prayer for the afflicted woman, she
made good progress. She herself made repeated use of pastoral guidance, and
faithfully attended services and bible studies, and in spite of a certain
unwillingness at first, she faithfully read God’s word. After a year there was
no trace of her original occult, hypnotic subjection.”

These two incidents point out that the operations that go on between God and His own in the spiritual world (or “Chicagoland” as I’ve metaphorically renamed it elsewhere) do not go on in a vacuum. There is another center, though an infinitely less powerful one, that also operates. As another title by Kurt Koch makes clear, we are, all of us, Between Christ and Satan.

“Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do” said Christ to His earthly enemies (John 8:43-45). “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet 5:8) said the apostle Peter to the early Christians.

In the world that men do not see, there are lines of opposing force that strive against each other, as was made clear to Daniel the prophet by an angel sent to him:

Dan 10:12-14
12 Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words.
13 But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia.
14 Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days: for yet the vision is for many days.
(KJV)

[I cover more of this other world in “Interlude in the Darker Valley “ http://twentysevenmetaphors-graspofhappiness.blogspot.com/2005/01/interlude-in-darker-valley-cg-jung.html in my book, Twenty Seven Metaphors to a Grasp of Happiness. ]

There are two opposed powers in the spiritual realm. But I reckon that between these two conflicting centers of mighty and meaningful synchronicities and spiritual communications, there are also minor eddies of force that result from their oppositions. These, as we have seen, can manifest themselves as synchronicities and communications that are less then meaningful. But all of them, the big eddies and the little ones, all go towards hinting to us who have eyes to see them that the universe we live in is not all Newtonian.

In fact a consideration of the above two incidents from Kurt Koch’s files will give us a possible reason why God may have allowed the Newtonian view of the universe to gain near-universal acceptance in the current era.

If one dwells too much on the idea that one human mind can intrude on and even oppress another at a distance, one will start feel an incipient paranoia and fear begin to creep into one’s soul. The thought will occur, “If someone else’s mind can be brought under the control of another working at a distance, how do I know my own mind hasn’t been similarly subverted - or simply awaits being subverted?”

In all the long history of man, even from pre-history, that has been the fear and dread of the average ordinary man and woman for the shaman, the idol’s priest, the practitioner of magick, the “wise” man or woman, the witch doctor and the witch. These “professionals” profess to step into the gap between human beings and the sensible but unseen powers to provide “protection” and “services.” But as with our present day “wiseguys” of organized crime, there have always been “consequences” for such “protection” and “services.”

Parents gave their children “inner names” or “secret names” to go with their given names to protect their children from the spiritual operations of “the wise.” The weaker members of communities were often “sacrificed” to the lusts of an idol’s priests. Uncountable taxes of black magic blackmail were paid over to “knowing ones” to prevent calamities. And thus were men and women made slaves to fear all the days of their lives.

Then the light of Christ came down from heaven. “For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.” ( I John 3:8) It was for the liberation of those enslaved by occult darkness that the apostle Paul wrote:

ROM 8:37-39
37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(KJV)

This is the spiritual Magna Charta for all men and women everywhere enslaved to darkness.

Acts 4:12
12 Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
(KJV)