Roots Behind Visualization
What Does the Bible Say About Visualization?
Learn what the bible says about Visualization and the dangers of visualization. In Occult practices, intangible images are brought into (physical reality) the material world, our 3rd dimension, in many ways. The attainment of this experiential knowledge (gnosis) leads to self-realization. It has been said by occultists it leads one to the mastery of spiritual technology and the achievement of psycho-spiritual powers.
The belief is that energy follows our thoughts. Our mind and thoughts produce energy, which begins to be born in the spiritual realm first and then is reproduced naturally. As the image we hold is incubated in thought, it becomes birthed in the physical material world. Everything is more spiritual than physical. They claim this is how God created; he first had the image and then spoke it. This is clearly Christian Science and mind science also found in Eastern ways of philosophy and metaphysical thought.
The visualization that is Christianized
This is the incubating process. One holds the image in their mind's eye and uses faith as a force to make it come about. The concept is to have it birthed in the spiritual realm first and then come about naturally. Then, one is to speak what they see into existence. With this law of manifestation," thoughts held steadfastly in mind are spoken aloud, or visualized will "manifest' in the physical world. Napoleon Hill was taught this law by spirits who called themselves Ascended Masters from a School of Wisdom located on the astral plane. Hill visualized 16 nine famous men from the past sitting around a table as his advisers, and guess what? It worked. Leaders in the Faith movement also use this same law to speak things into existence. The occult technique of visualization is also the key to inner healing. One visualizes a situation in the past that needs to be reconciled. They visualize Jesus coming to them and solving the problem.
The New Age teaches that the world would be very different if everyone practiced this to change their reality. We would have several billion godlike creatures around the globe, all exercising their will and competing for their own piece of reality. The force is in the hands of its wielder. Whoever wields the most power wins. God loves us enough not to put this kind of power or ability in the hands of sinful man.
THESE OCCULT CONCEPTS ARE NOW PRACTICED IN THE CHURCH, Sanctified as Christian. We can now visualize, decree, and get direct communication of new knowledge from the Lord just as the Gnostics and newagers! Some go further and speak the image they want to become a reality. It doesn't bother some people that this is an ancient practice in the occult and other religions and is commonly used by the New Age movement today.
Words and pictures are the containers of the force of faith. Even God used this ...
"What you are saying is precisely what you are getting now. If you live in poverty and lack and want, change what you are saying.... The powerful force of the spiritual world that creates the circumstances around us is controlled by the words of the mouth. (The Laws of Prosperity Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Copeland Publications).
Mental imaging is a common practice in the occult. One holds an image in their mind and puts in the details like coloring in an outline. As they envision it each day, meditating on it becomes clearer and will come to pass. This technique is now used for healing emotional traumas, cancer, and other diseases. One sees cancer or illness being fought and conquered and essentially leaving.
While mentally rehearsing Scripture and using pictures in our mind for Biblical accounts can be helpful, it is not the same as attempting to create spiritual reality or to cause through any mind technique such as positive thinking. You enter the sorcery realm to change, alter, or create reality.
There are ways to use our imagination in practical and standard forms; artists and architects must first have a visual image. Johanna Michaelsen, now a Christian, who was deeply involved in the occult and a personal assistant to a psychic surgeon, states in her' look, Like Lambs to the Slaughter, "There are perfectly valid and legitimate uses of the imagination.... An artist 'sees' the finished painting or sculpture in his mind, or an architect 'visualizes' the building he is working on.... When we recall past events, we do so with mental images. Storytellers and books use mental images to get the point across. I'm talking about a technique of creating a picture in your mind and using that (image as) an effort to create or control reality through mind powers.
The new age teaches that one holds an image in their mind and goes in to experience it or uses it to change their reality. This is spiritual manipulation for power and healing. The Bible calls this sorcery, divination, and vain imagination.
Many who promote inner healing teach or imply that the past is reconciled through visualizing Jesus in the "memories." MacNutt explains that "Jesus, as Lord of time, can do what we cannot . . . [we] ask Jesus to walk back with us into the past . . . it is the inner child of the past who is being healed .. " Macnutt healing Ava Maria press 1974 p.186)
Ruth Carter Stapleton, who, like most of the other leaders in the movement, learned her inner healing from Agnes Sanford, tells of a young woman who became involved in drugs and crime because of the "self-loathing" she felt at being "an illegitimate child." Ruth's solution was to take the young woman back in "a guided meditation" in which Christ was visualized as "present" during the act of fornication that caused her conception and making it "holy and pure, an act of God . . . ordained by her heavenly Father. "(Stapleton Experience pp.22-23 cited in Seduction of Christianity)
If we are told by some to visualize Jesus as we pray. When those into imagery and visualization believe that the "Jesus" being imaged in their mind is not just an image but the real Jesus, even going so far as to dialogue and touch Him, they have opened the door to counterfeit "spirit guides.' You might be focusing on Jesus. You might have a genuine spiritual experience. But, when you create Jesus in your mind, He is not the historical Jesus of the Bible. He is The Jesus of your imagination, and the Bible warns about "another Jesus.' And many, through these techniques, have testified that the Jesus they encountered was not the resurrected Christ, but another Jesus, a counterfeit, "an angel of light" impersonating the Jesus of the Bible. How can Jesus, who is at the Father's right hand in heaven, come down and make a personal appearance to each of us materially. If each of us visualizes Jesus, we would all have a different picture of his arrival. Which one has the right Jesus, the real one? None of us! We could make him into an image of the pictures we saw.
We are recommended by some, even Christians, that the human mind thinks in pictures, so when you pray, believe in the image in your mind. While we do use pictures it is different. What pictures come to your mind when you hear the words like truth, holiness, righteousness, faith, or love? None; they describe qualities.
LSD and meditation are ways visualization can be experienced. This technique has come into the Christian church through prayer. We are told to show God a picture of our prayer. Since God can communicate in visions, we can communicate by image instead of words. "Through visualization and dreaming, you can incubate your future and hatch the results."
"We've got to learn how... to visualize and dream the answer as being completed as we go to the Lord in prayer. We should always try to visualize the end result as we pray." "In that way, with the power of the Holy Spirit, we can incubate what we want God to do for us...." "God used this process of visualizing the situation to help Abraham.... By that visualization through the associated thought Abraham... could incubate his [future] children.... The main thing is that we should know the importance of visualization." "We have taught our people how to... visualize success.... Through visualizing and dreaming, you can incubate your future and hatch the results."
"So men [Christians or occultists], by exploring their spiritual sphere of the fourth dimension through the development of concentrated visions and dreams in their imagination, can brood over and incubate the third dimension, influencing and changing it." "This is what the Holy Spirit taught me."
The Holy Spirit taught him something that the Christian church never had in scripture or taught in the early church. But occultists have for thousands of years. It is one thing to receive a vision from God. It is another to conjure it up oneself.
Show me the word visualization, imaging, or the practice of other such techniques. You need help finding them. But, you will find these words and techniques used in occultism.
Show me in Scripture where Jesus, Paul, or anyone else used such techniques as imaging or visualization for prayer or healing. Show me in God's Word where they achieved God's presence or had spiritual experiences through mental pictures.
Learning a technique to contact or see Jesus is not biblical. We pray, and God hears. He may speak in the time of prayer. He may not; he may speak at a completely different time. As Christians, we operate by faith, not by sight.
Before this became widespread in Christian circles, Napoleon Hill wrote about imagery and visualization in his book, Think and Grow Rich. He writes, "The THIRTEENTH principle is the sixth sense, through which Infinite Intelligence may and will communicate voluntarily, without any effort from, or demands by, the individual... Step by step, through the preceding chapters, you have been led to this, the last principle. If you have mastered each of the preceding principles, you are now prepared to accept, without skepticism, the stupendous claims made here...."Just before going to sleep at night. In my imagination, I would shut my eyes and see this group of men seated with me around my council table.... After months of this nightly procedure, I was astounded by discovering that these imaginary figures became apparently real." "Each of these nine men developed individual characteristics, which surprised me.... "These meetings became so realistic that I became fearful of their consequences and discontinued them for several months. The experiences were so uncanny, I was afraid if I continued them, I would lose sight of the fact that the meetings were purely experiences of my imagination. .... Whatever you believe that the adviser is a spirit, a guardian angel, a messenger from God, a hallucination, a communication from your right brain to your left, or a symbolic representation of inner wisdom is all right. The fact is, it has yet to be discovered. We can each decide for ourselves....
"Sometimes people encounter religious figures like Jesus, Moses, or Buddha, while others find an angel, fairy, or leprechaun. People sometimes encounter the adviser as a light or a translucent spirit... The best way to work with this and any other imagery experience is to let the figures be whatever they are. Welcome the adviser that comes and get to know it as it is."
The Bible was written in words. Jeremiah said the people refuse to hear my words and follow the imagination of their own hearts.
I Jn. 5:15 "And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him." The Lord says to ask, never to envision or see it! The Lord can give us a vision, but it is something other than what we work up on our own it comes when we don't expect it.
Visions of "encounters with God" recorded in Scripture were not achieved through any self-induced methods but through the divine intervention of a sovereign God (Genesis 15;1; Genesis 20:3; Genesis 31:24; I Kings 3:5; Daniel 10:1)
In Jeremiah's time, many people were roaming around as prophets and having visions saying God had spoken to them. There is a difference between someone receiving a vision of revelation from the Lord and conjuring up one from his imagination.
Jer. 14:14 "And the LORD said to me, "The prophets prophesy lies in My name. I have not sent, commanded, or spoken to them; they prophesy to you a false vision, divination, a worthless thing, and the deceit of their heart."Jer. 23:16-18 "Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you worthless; they speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the LORD.
Ezek. 13:7 "Have you not seen a futile vision, and have you, not spoken false divination? You say, `The LORD says,' but I have not spoken."
Heb. 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. If we are seeing, then this is the opposite of faith. Nowhere does the Bible encourage anyone to visualize to see the future or to receive an answer in prayer. It has always been found in the occult.
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