31 Jul 2023

Witchcraft and the Occult Gets a New Facelift and a New Outlet

Witchcraft, also known as Wicca or Paganism, is difficult to quantify in terms of popularity because it is a decentralized and diverse spiritual practice with a wide range of beliefs and practices. However, it is generally accepted that the popularity of Witchcraft has been growing steadily in recent years.

According to a 2014 Pew Research Center survey, approximately 0.4% of the U.S. adult population, or about 1 to 1.5 million people, identify as Wiccans or Pagans. However, this number may be an underestimate, as many people who practice Witchcraft do not necessarily identify as Wiccan or Pagan.

The popularity of Witchcraft can be seen in the increasing number of books, websites, and social media platforms related to the subject. Additionally, Witchcraft has become more mainstream and accepted in popular culture, with TV shows, movies, and books featuring witches and witchcraft becoming increasingly popular.

At one time, it was very difficult to purchase books on the occult because most bookstores and publishers refused to deal with material that had a demonic label. Jimmy Page has been a devoted follower of the occultist Aleister Crowley. To get his hands on books by Crowley and other devilish works, Page opened in London an occult bookshop and publishing house called The Equinox Booksellers and Publishers. Some of Crowley’s books were so rare, Page had to go to auctions and outbid everyone with his Led Zeppelin money.

The Equinox was never designed to be a profitable venture but just to exist so it could distribute these books. Page wrote in an autobiography that there was not one bookshop in London with a good collection of occult books, and he was frustrated at not being able to get the books he wanted.

Today, books on Witchcraft and the Occult are a mouse click away. Amazon has become a massive powerhouse in book sales. The company is responsible for over 50% of sales from the Big Five publishers and controls between 50% and 80% of the book distribution in the United States. Amazon sells at least 300 million print books every year.

It’s clear that Amazon sells numerous books on the dark arts because subjects like Wicca, Witchcraft, Paganism, and Satanism have their own categories. Many of the books rank very high on the overall sales list. One book that has been out for 8 years is still ranked at #1,134.

Many of the books use clever new ploys to get around “Stigmation, misunderstanding, discrimination” by what I would assume are Christians. Books are often labeled as workbooks, so you can purchase a “Guided Astrology Workbook” and a witchcraft workbook. It’s the same old subject but with a more classroom approach. Some books offer people the ability to cast spells with green plants, herbs, and crystals.

I was most amazed by the book Spirits Beside Us: Gain Healing and Comfort from Loved Ones in the Afterlife. It teaches people how to communicate with the dead, which is something the Bible strictly forbids. Someone may think they have contacted their dead grandmother, but the being in the other realm may have horns growing out of its head.

I found one type of book that only had a slight connection to the occult, but it’s very popular. It’s called shadow work, and it was #1 in the category of Spirituality.

Shadow work is a term used to describe the process of exploring and integrating the unconscious or hidden parts of oneself. These hidden parts, also known as the “shadow,” contain aspects of our personality and emotions that we may have repressed or denied due to societal or personal conditioning.

Shadow work involves delving into these aspects of ourselves through self-reflection, introspection, and other therapeutic techniques. It can involve identifying and confronting negative patterns of behavior, thought, and emotions, and working to understand and integrate them into our conscious awareness.

The mixture of psychology and spiritual self-help is dangerous because it can identify a problem, but it cannot provide a solution that will ultimately work.

I used to think that all occult practices were a bunch of harmless nonsense. Spells don’t work, people don’t get insights into secret knowledge, and I doubt anyone has ever turned their enemy into a black cat.

Then I learned of the tragedy that often comes to people who dabble in the occult. If you invite demonic forces into your life, they will cause problems because of their evil nature. The Bible warns that our main struggle in this world is with fallen angels that seek our destruction.

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12).

–Todd

The Lucifer Syndrome :: By Terry James

It is that thing termed iniquity that bends the finite mind beyond understanding – that infinite mystery which makes one frame the question: how can a God Who’s every Facet is framed by perfection have allowed such a thing as iniquity to exist?

That mystery brought sin into the world, thus death and all subsequent evil involved in separation of man from his Creator. Iniquity is what is on the rise in this world now, as powerfully as was its engendering rebellion in the Garden of Eden and during antediluvian times.

The introduction of its appearance is found in the following.

“Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire” (Ezekiel 28:14-16).

God’s Word further chronicles the effects of this thing called iniquity upon the once magnificent created being called Lucifer.

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High” (Isa 14:12-14).

Throughout the eons, this once glorious creature –perhaps the most glorious of all before God’s creation of a creature in His own Image He called man— has infected all of the created order of which we are aware. This thing called iniquity runs rampant amongst the globalist would-be gods –the human minions within the powers and principalities of Ephesians 6:12.

These, under Lucifer’s (Satan’s) guidance, are striving with all within their wealth and power to, like that old serpent himself, usurp God’s authority. They are attempting to change God’s Order of things at every turn.

They are at the center of the rebellion found within the entities that want to change the biological order. i.e., they say a person can be the gender of their choice rather than the one they were born. These declare man can relate to man, and woman to woman, sexually, just as was going on during the pre-catastrophic moment in the days of Lot in Sodom. Such anti-God thinking promotes more and more the sexual exploitation of children in ways too egregious to detail here.

This is what I term the Lucifer Syndrome. They are of their father the devil, as Jesus put it. They believe and practice the lies Lucifer the fallen still foists upon mankind just as he has done since he, as serpent, entered the pristine Garden of Eden and told Eve and then Adam that they could be as God Himself.

The Lucifer Syndrome is infecting and affecting all who want to assume authority over this judgment-bound planet.

They have invented the term climate change in pursuit of establishing their control. We have witnessed their nefarious doings, especially over recent months and years.

Their Agenda 30 and their Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) are currently scheduled to be brought to a fast-track implementation this September. Climate Change is, of course, at the heart of their plans to create crises sufficient to cause global panic. Thus they intend to force all to come within their Great Reset blueprint, thereby bringing about changes of their own making rather than keeping things as God has determined.

There are reports of their doing things like putting a screen of sorts between the Sun and Planet Earth. They must do this to cut down on global warming and other harmful effects, as they perceive such.

In reading all the reports of weather-induced disasters, it seems that God is allowing the geophysical elements to feed their frenzy. The SDG sorts, in their Lucifer Syndrome reprobate thinking, believe all of the increased, volatile weather to be caused by such things as increased carbon footprint wrought by man’s abuse of the planet.

However, I’m convinced it is the Words of Jesus we are witnessing being played out with all the truly ramped-up weather-related events we are seeing. (A quick review of Rapture Ready News and the reports from around the world bears this out to be sure.)

Jesus, we remember, said the following to the Judaizers who tried to get Him to silence those who were praising Him as He entered Jerusalem on the donkey.

“And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out” (Luke 19:40).

We are witnessing, I’m convinced, much of mankind turning their backs on God. The very elements –the created order– therefore are speaking out in Witness to His Glory.

The anti-God forces –those infected by the Lucifer Syndrome—want to usurp God’s Throne. They, whether wittingly or unwittingly, are, like their father the devil, spreading and perpetuating the lie that there is man-made climate change that will destroy the planet. They want all people of earth to follow their lies down the broad way that leads away from the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

This all means, I believe, that the Lord is hastening the shaping of stage-setting for the man of sin and his regime of control. –Thus to, through God’s Judgment and Wrath, bring about the end of the rebellion that began long ago when iniquity first entered the thoughts of Lucifer. It means, more importantly for believers of this Age of Grace, that the Lord Jesus is about to call His Church into the clouds of Glory in the twinkling of an eye.

Here is how to go to Jesus when He makes that Call.

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

–Terry

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