Worshipping the serpent "within" in our age of apostasy

By Linda Kimball

In the classic work, "Earth's Earliest Ages" English theologian G.H. Pember (1837-1910) examines the role of satanic forces in the first destruction of earth under God's judgment and compares them to the explosion of spiritism (open intercourse with evil spirits), ancient Egyptian Hermetic magic, Theosophy, Buddhism, reincarnation, karma, the Mysteries, astrology and mesmeric healings sweeping across Christendom.

It was during the Renaissance that many influential Christians at the highest levels of Church and society had returned to the occult Wisdom Teachings that originated in ancient Egypt with Hermes Trismegistus. In his own time, Pember observes that ancient occult traditions are no longer veiled in mystery but boldly presented by the powerful occult brotherhood as the fruit of modern science, especially evolutionary philosophy, which the brotherhood assert was included in the instructions given,

"...to the initiates of the Hermetic, Orphic, Eleusinian, and Cabbalistic mysteries, and were familiar to Chaldean Magi, Egyptian Priests, Hindu Occultists, Essenes, Therapeutae Gnostics, and Theurgic Neo-Platonists." (Pember, pp.243-244)

In the impeccably researched "Scientific Analysis of the Writings of Alice A. Bailey and their Applications," Robert A. Hermann Ph.D. affirms Pembers claim with respect to the occult origins of the evolutionary science so widespread in our time. Herrmann traces modern evolutionary thinking – which has infiltrated the whole body of the Church – back to 1750 and the Spanish-French occultist the Martine's de Pasqually (1715?-1779) whose biological conception predates Darwin's theory and held that an adept spiritually evolves into higher and higher forms on various evolutionary levels. (raherrmann.com)

Pember knows that occult teachings are grounded in knowledge received from evil spirits, thus he particularly connects evolutionary philosophy to spiritism. This teaching said Pember, made the world ready for the deeper teachings of the Brotherhood (fallen angels):

".....the Brotherhood decided that the time had come to communicate with it, and openly influence its religion and philosophy. They have, however, become so etherealized by their practices that they are unable to endure contact with coarse human nature; it was, therefore, necessary to employ intermediaries. The first person known to have been chosen for this purpose was a Madame Blavatsky." (pp. 243-246)

In affirmation, Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson, the politically influential co-authors of "Spiritual Politics: Changing the World from the Inside Out," admit that their book is based on the Ageless Wisdom teachings preserved by occultists since the Egyptian pantheon (27th-30th centuries B.C) and handed down over the ages to modern occultists in the time of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and on into our own time:

"For centuries, the Ageless Wisdom in the West was shielded from an unprepared public.... The unveiled truths were handed down only orally by individual teachers to tested disciples or by certain religious groups and secret societies, such as the Cabbalists, Druids, Essenes, Sufis, Knights Templar, Rosicrucian's, Freemasons, and others who carefully guarded the teachings down through the centuries. A study of these secret societies would reveal powerful influences on the history of nations...." (Spiritual Politics, McLaughlin, Davidson from "Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel," Warren Smith, crossroad.to)

Beginning with the work of the Brotherhood and/or Masters acting through Blavatsky, Ageless Wisdom has succeeded in over-spreading W. Europe and America and made deep inroads into the whole body of the Church over the last one hundred years. Blavatsky's important book, 'The Secret Doctrine' (1888) paved the way by synthesizing,

".....Christian, Jewish, and Islamic mysticism with the Eastern teachings of Hinduism, Taoism, and Buddhism, showing their common roots and comparing their sacred texts...."

The next development came through the teachings of Alice Bailey, an apostate Evangelical:

".... In 1919 Bailey was contacted by a Tibetan master, Djwhal Khul, who asked her to write a series of books with him telepathically that would continue Blavatsky's work. Over a period of thirty years, Bailey received eighteen books from him on the nature of the cosmos and the human being, outlining principles for individual spiritual growth and humanity's next evolutionary steps. In 1923 Bailey founded Lucis Trust [originally called Lucifer Publishing, ed.] to bring the teachings in her books to the public. A year later she began the Arcane School. The books were written to apply to several levels of consciousness at once and thus can be read by both beginners and advanced students. Her works have been especially helpful to the two of us in our own spiritual growth and have provided much of the inspiration for Spiritual Politics."

Central to ancient Egyptian and modern Hermetic orders such as the Order of the Golden Dawn, Theosophy and New Age is ophiolatry (worship of serpents/Lucifer) and the theme of a pantheon of nine Sun Gods or with modern orders, an occult Hierarchy of nine evolved Brothers or Masters: god-men who have finished their cycles of reincarnation and material evolution but have chosen to remain here on the earth (Gaia) to serve people in their own conscious evolution as well as guide Gaia's spiritual evolution:

"(The solar deity Kneph was pictured as a serpent in a fiery circle and Osiris) was essentially identical with Kneph...The worship of Isis, the moon-goddess, was equally entwined with ophiolatry. Her emblem was the horned viper...The Egyptians often represented Isis and Osiris together, as two serpents." (The Cult of the All-Seeing Eye, Robert Keith Spenser, p. 35)

Depending on who they are speaking to, the nine Masters variously call themselves the Brotherhood, Space Brothers, Ascended Masters, the ancient Ennead of Egypt (the nine Sun Gods), Nine Principles of God, the Deep Space Nine, the Group, Sirians and Council of Nine. Today there is a vast and growing network of channelers purporting to receive messages from the Nine and still others calling themselves Light Workers who claim to have presented briefings from the Group five times at the United Nations.

Another important theme connecting all ancient and modern Hermetic Orders and Mystery religions is the Sirius star system. From the time of the Egyptians, Sumerians and Babylonians occult teachings have invariably attributed to Sirius a special status in connection with Isis (Sirius A), Osiris (Sirius B), astrology, Hermeticism, the Mysteries, secret initiations, conceptions of transmigration, reincarnation, astral plane travels and other forms of occult evolutionary philosophy.

Hermetic Mystery schools and orders teach that Sirius is the divine "sun behind the sun" that is both the true source of the sun's energy which keeps the physical world alive, as well as the divine substance that keeps the spiritual world alive. Whereas the sun illuminates the physical world, which is considered to be an illusion, Sirius is the "real light," the Great Dragon, Cosmic Serpent, Chaos, Abraxas, Star Maker, Ground of Being, or Essence of material phenomena, meaning that the material universe exists only as a grand illusion or mental construction as it does for example in the mind of Brahman:

"Brahman is real, the world is unreal." (swamij.com/mahavakyas)

The two most important figures associated with Hermetic Theosophy, Madame Blavatsky and Alice Bailey, considered Sirius to be the source of mystical serpent power: the seething energies of Lucifer that exert a spiritual influence over the entire Sephiroth or cosmic tree of life and therefore directly link with every great religion of antiquity because these energies extend into the psyche of mankind.

Bailey taught that Sirius is the "Great White Lodge" and believed it to be the spiritual home of the "Spiritual Hierarchy." For this reason she considered Sirius as the star of initiation:

"This is the great star of initiation because our Hierarchy (an expression of the second aspect of divinity) is under the supervision or spiritual magnetic control of the Hierarchy of Sirius. These are the major controlling influences whereby the cosmic Christ works upon the Christ principle in the solar system, in the planet, in man and in the lower forms of life expression. It is esoterically called the "brilliant star of sensitivity." (The Mysterious Connection Between Sirius and Human History, vigilantcitizen.com, Dec. 12, 2012)

Baily also taught that Luciferian energy emanating from Sirius is the energy of thought: a mind force that reaches the solar system from a distant cosmic center via Sirius. Sirius acts as the transmitter,

"...or the focalising centre, whence emanate those influences which produce self-consciousness in man." (ibid)

The Hermetic Way of the Dragon

The Hermetic way of psychic power and self-salvation is the antithesis of the Way of Jesus Christ God Incarnate (Romans 3:24; 6:23; 10:9-10; Eph. 1:7; 2:8-9) and began with a mysterious man known as Hermes Trismegistus.

The ancients identified Hermes with Mercury and Anubis (brother to Osiris). His emblem, the caduceus, was a talismanic serpent representing the power of Mercury as a Sun-god. Speculations abound on exactly when and where Hermes lived. Some modern New Age occultists believe he was a contemporary of Noah in the pre-flood world which they call Atlantis. Others believe he lived in ancient Egypt during the time of Moses.

In "Biographa Antiqua" the English occultist Frances Barret writes that Hermes "communicated the sum of the Abyss, and divine knowledge to all posterity." The word "Abyss" refers to ancient and modern pantheist and/or panentheist conceptions such as the Watery Abyss, Divine One Substance, Primordial Matter, or with Hermes, the Universal Life personified by the Great Serpent or Dragon from whose body and wings stream illuminating serpent power, or with Bailey, 'those influences which produce self-consciousness in man.'

Bailey is expressing the Hermetic principle which speaks of the correlation between the substance of the Great Serpent and the mind of man expressed in the world famous magic formula: "As above, so below."

The substance (body) and seething powers of the Great Dragon or Serpent are symbolized by the Oroboros, a powerful occult symbol also known as the Sephiroth, great chain of being, cosmic tree of life, and with Darwin the tree of life. The Oroboros 'above' corresponds to a number of different evolutionary levels and realms comprising the habitation of all supernatural entities and various heavens and hells such as the Black Lodge. Thus the substance of the Great Dragon's body with its supposed multiple dimensions and life and thought-giving serpent energies not only powers the Divine Substance above but reaches down into the psyche, capturing the imagination, stunting and befouling the conscience, causing evolutionary change, and conferring psychic powers and divinity (you can be as God).

The Luciferian Manly P. Hall (1901-1990) concurs. According to Manly, Hermetic Freemasonry is an occult science of the soul,

"...a divine symbolic language perpetuating (by) certain concrete symbols the sacred mysteries of the ancients." When a Masonry adept has learned the "mystery of his Craft (then the) seething energies of Lucifer are in his hands and before he may step onward and upward, he must prove his ability to properly apply energy." (New World Order: The Ancient Plan of Secret Societies, William T. Still, p. 30)

The foundation of Hermes occult way is forbidden knowledge revealed to him during self-induced trance and/or meditation states resulting in altered states of consciousness that opened his mind to contact with the Great Dragon:

"Meditation is the doorway between worlds....the pathway between dimensions." (The Layman's Guide to Enlightenment, Celeste G. Graham, 1980, p. 13)

The Dragon revealed to Hermes that his own nature is divine, meaning that God and psychic power is "within." The Divine Pymander of Hermes Trismegistus relates Hermes mystical encounter with the Great Dragon who called itself Poimandres, the Mind of the Universe that is within Hermes. (themystica.com)

Upon transforming itself into a glorious being of Light the Dragon proceeded to enlighten Hermes with the forbidden knowledge that over time found its' way into Christendom during the Renaissance giving birth to an array of Secret Societies as well as to pantheist theological liberalism and its' primary doctrine evolution, William James theory of the subconscious, the demon-haunted Carl Jung's transpersonal and depth psychology, occult New Age, Phillip Pullman's dark Gnosticism, Mind Science, New Thought, the Alpha Course, Silva Method, Word of Faith, Positive Imaging, Visualization/Dreaming, and the multi-million dollar best-sellers "A Course in Miracles" and "The Secret." The common denominator of these societies, theories, books and techniques is "God and psychic power is within:"

"People go through their whole lives chasing everything in the material world, and they fail to discover the greatest treasure of all, which is within them. Shut your eyes to the outside world. Direct your thoughts and words inside of you. The Master within you is the key to all the treasures in the world." (Rhonda Byrne, "The Secret Daily Teachings")

"Since the unconscious is God all along, we may further define the goal of spiritual growth to be the attainment of godhood by the conscious self." (A Different Drum, M. Scott Peck)

"....all is mind and...everything is governed by law (thus man) can create, or have created for him from his own thinking. He can create such a strong mental atmosphere of success that its power of attraction will be irresistible. He can send his thoughts throughout the world and have it bring back to him whatever he wants." (Creative Mind and Success, Ernest Holmes, New Thought practitioner)

"Your unconscious mind (has a) power that turns wishes into realities when the wishes are strong enough." ("Positive Imaging," Norman Vincent Peale, 1982, p. 77)

Word Faith teacher Kenneth Copeland tells people to visualize any image,

"...that you get down inside you that is so vivid when you close your eyes you see it, it'll come to pass. When God came at the Tower of Babel, He said, 'Anything they can imagine, they can do." (Inner Image of the Covenant, side 2, Copeland)

Yonggi Cho similarly teaches that through visualizing and dreaming you will,

"....incubate that which we want God to do for us....If you have not visualized clearly in your heart exactly what you hope for, it cannot become a reality to you..." (The Fourth Dimension, Vol. 1, Yonggi Cho, 1979, 9-35, vol. 2, 18-33)

Believing the Lie

"And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie." (2 Thessalonians 2:11)

In "The Spiritist Fallacy," a penetrating analysis of the Hermetic Theosophy, Buddhism and Spiritism that emerged out of the Renaissance taking hold of the minds of modernist priests and intellectuals, the highly respected French traditionalist metaphysician Rene Guenon (1886-1951) describes deluded "enlightened" theologians and intellectuals as those who cannot speak of the devil,

"....without a smile of disdain, or an even more contemptuous shrug of the shoulders." (p. 252)

Their smug contempt is due to the fact that they believed the spiritist lie that Lucifer is not the devil but rather the "light-bearer." After all, if evolution is true, as enlightened sophisticates believe, then there was no fall, hence man is not fallen and Lucifer is not the devil but the first free-thinker, the emancipator of man and the angel of evolution. Modern sophisticates even go so far as to call him 'the Great Creative Intelligence.' Thus they invoke Lucifer and perform his cult, but in fact these people,

"...though in fact Satanists, are only unconsciously so, for they are mistaken as to the nature of the entity to whom they address their worship....It goes without saying that these 'enlightened' priests are all plainly modernists and that the spirit animating them is strangely similar to that affirmed in these lines." (p. 254)

With respect to "modern" spiritist doctrine Guenon notes its' peculiar agreement with the esoteric religion of the Brahmins:

"Now this....has been taught to lower grade initiates in Himalayan temples for perhaps more than a thousand years! This similarity is curious at the very least, and one can say without paradox that spiritism is only esoteric Brahmanism in broad daylight." (p. 41)

Guenon also argues that every "modern" conception that notably disfigures the living God as evolution does is Satanic, and in this sense, all theories of a limited God and of an immanent (pantheist) God who evolves must be placed in the front rank.

Turning to the theories of William James (1842-1910), the father of American psychology, Guenon describes them as examples of unconscious Satanism for two reasons. First, James theory of "religious experience" as a manifestation of the "subconscious" by which man communicates with the pantheist Divine "within" is only one step away from "condoning the practices of spiritism" with the further consequences of conferring on evil spirits an eminently religious character and being initiated into experiences of the psychic and spirit realm. Initiation involves one in something far beyond the conscious control of the human will, thus once a person has been initiated their spirit/soul is open to bondage, harassment and madness.

Second, the notion that the subconscious puts man in contact with the Divine "within" puts God,

"...in the inferior states of being, in feris in the literal sense of this expression. This then is a properly 'infernal' doctrine, a reversal of universal order, which is precisely what we call 'Satanism.' Guenon adds, "The devil is not only terrible, he is often grotesque..." (pp. 258-262)

Building off of James serpent-animated theories, the demon-haunted psychiatrist Carl Jung (1875-1961) taught that the psyche (spirit/soul) consists of two main systems: a personal unconscious and a deeper more significant layer which he called the collective unconscious with archetypes.

Jung's system incorporates Hermetic magic, biological and spiritual theories of evolution, reincarnation, pantheist conceptions of a Gnostic pleroma (divine substance) and various other occult doctrines and psycho-spiritual technologies from around the world.

Jung delved deeply into the occult, practiced necromancy and had daily contact with familiar spirits which he called archetypes because he believed they were manifestations of powers innate in the collective unconscious (substance of the Great Dragon).

Much of Jung's psychological insight was acquired from his familiar spirits, particularly Philemon and Basilides. Philemon appeared to Jung in a grotesque humanoid body with wings and the head of a horned bull. At first Jung thought his spirit familiars were manifestations of his own psyche, but toward the end of his life he realized with horror that Philemon, Basilides, and the many other spirit entities that were a common feature of his life were in fact highly intelligent hostile beings independent of human consciousness. Speaking of Philemon, Jung said:

"Philemon represented a force which was not myself.....I held conversations with him, and he said things which I had not consciously thought. For I observed clearly that it was he who spoke, not I....Psychologically, Philemon represented superior insight. He was a mysterious figure to me. At times he seemed to me quite real, as if he were a living personality. I went walking up and down the garden with him, and to me he was what the Indians call a guru." (Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Carl Jung, p. 183, cited from PsychoHeresy: C.G. Jung's Legacy to the Church, PsychoHeresy Awareness Ministries)

Jung uses the name Abraxas to describe the impersonal Gnostic pleroma (substance of the Great Dragon) out of which mind and then other mental powers emerged. The word Abraxas is found in esoteric Gnostic texts such as the "Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit" and also in the Greek "Magical Papyri."

In 1916 Jung received further revelations from his demon familiars, this time by way of automatic writing as he recorded a Gnostic treatise called "The Seven Sermons to the Dead." Labeled a core text in depth psychology the treatise describes Abraxas as a "God" higher than the living, personal Holy God in Three Persons that combines all opposites into a single androgynous Being.

As with all Ageless Wisdom teachings, underlying Jung's demon-derived "transpersonal and depth psychology" is the Hermetic correlation of the substance of Abraxas (collective unconscious and archetypes) with the personal unconscious of man, hence, "As above, so below."

According to the Apostle Paul fallen angels cast down from heaven together with demons are dispersed in a multitude throughout the whole expanse of sky (Eph. 2:2; 6:12). This means that William James 'subconscious' and Jung's 'collective unconscious' with its archetypes are actually the expanse of sky under the heavens which supposedly connects the substance of the Great Dragon to the psyche of man. Thus to "go within" the "subconscious" (James) or "personal unconscious" (Jung) so as to channel the Divine "within," is to perform the cult of Satan which opens the spirit/soul to contact with powers and principalities and their chief, the devil.

Though there are increasing numbers of psychologists and psychiatrists who now affirm their belief in evil spirits and their ability to harass, influence and possess human beings, the majority are still heavily influenced by Jung's demon-derived theories, thus they insist that what they call "paranormal experiences"are perhaps hallucinations caused by the innate powers of human imagination or representations of interplay between the left and right hemispheres of the brain and/or the therapeutic release of unconscious repressions.

Unlike most modern psychiatrists and psychologists, Nanci Des Gerlaise, a Cree Native American woman raised on a Metis settlement, needs no convincing. Almost from birth her life consisted of occult bondage and terrifying demonic harassment until she found deliverance through Jesus Christ.

Nanci knows without the least bit of doubt that demons exist and can even take the shape of animals, birds and other more frightening creatures. She knows that medicine men still engage in symbolic baby sacrifices to Satan in return for more spiritual power. She knows because her own father offered her to Satan. Her life then belonged to the devil and became filled night and day with all kinds of evil:

"This is what happened to me and one reason why I had such a struggle when I became a Christian. Satan still claimed ownership of me. The tug of war first started when I accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior....He set me free from occult bondages and demonic harassment....Christianity (is) God's way of salvation. Colossians 1:12-14 made perfect sense to me..." (Muddy Waters, Gerlaise, pp. 51, 79-80)

Nanci's book, "Muddy Waters" is far more than a biography. It is a clear and compelling warning to all Christians living in sin, apostatizing churches, practitioners of occult psycho-spiritual technologies, advocates for interfaith/interspirituality and spiritual formation (occult techniques dressed in Christian motifs) that forces of darkness really do exist and will make your life a living nightmare of disembodied voices, terrifying encounters with demonic entities, thoughts of suicide and murder, and even possession.

"Now the Spirit manifestly saith, that in the last times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to spirits of error, and doctrines of devils." 1 Tim. 4:1

From the time of Hermes, ancient and modern occult pagan adepts have been employing a variety of occult psycho-spiritual techniques to "go within" in search of psychic powers and immortality:

".....I can be saved only by becoming one with the universe. Thereby, too, my deepest 'pantheist' aspirations. It was especially the image of God which Teilhard saw in need of urgent redefinition. Modern man has not yet found the God he can adore, A God commensurate to the newly discovered dimensions of the universe." (Towards a New Mysticism, Teilhard de Chardin and Eastern Religions, Ursula King, p. 172)

The corollary to our age of lawless Christians and spreading apostasy is an explosive revival of ancient Hermetic spiritism. A major reason is that modern psychology allegedly provides us with a "scientific" explanation that ascribes whatever frightening entities encountered while on brain-altering substances or through centering, yogic trance, visualizing and dreaming or other occult techniques to archetypal images from the collective unconscious.

The common thread running through all of this is the diabolical mind of the serpent, the same fallen angel who tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden with the words, "Ye shall be as Gods" (Gen. 3:5) but now seduces with the words, "go within."

© Linda Kimball