Look who´s back...

 

I still follow Doreen Virtue on YouTube, but she seems to have been busy elsewhere for some time. Not anymore. Look who´s back...with the same negativity as usual. This time, she attacks Christians who think that heart-shaped rocks are messages from God. Not because they aren´t (I mean, really) but because Gideon didn´t have the full canon, and so on. You get the drift. 

Proximity

 

 

Judging by the recap, this is an extremely bad film. Which is probably a pity, since it contains one interesting idea: the aliens (yes, Greys) are looking for Jesus! It´s even implied that Jesus was the Son of God and ascended to heaven?! The rest of the flick seems to be the usual Transformer/ugly computer geek gets girlfriend/BAU conspiracy stuff. Since the aliens are the good guyz despite looking demonic, plz don´t tell Doreen Virtue! 

The marvel of comics

 

Doreen Virtue strikes again, this time interviewing a fundamentalist Christian who believes that Marvel Comics have a demonic and downright Satanic agenda. Well, maybe. 

I admit that his analysis of Stan Lee´s poetry and the characters "Galactus" and "the Silver Surfers" is at least vaguely interesting. The idea seems to be that the comic "Fantastic Four" has a Gnostic subtext, with Galactus being Yahweh (who is cast as an evil devil-like character) while the Silver Surfer is Lucifer. Naturally, the latter turns out to be good and even goes through a Christ-like passion! 

Sure, this may even be true. And therefore...what?  

When did the Church become Amway?

 

Sometimes even Doreen Virtue makes interesting content. This time about MLM, including its connection to charismatic Christianity. It seems all MLMs operate in pretty much the same way, make up pretty much the same claims, and have the same detrimental results for most of the participants. I didn´t know about the (presumably informal) connections to New Thought and the prosperity gospel, but it doesn´t surprise me either. After all, the underlying ideas seem to be the same: a kind of "magical thinking" about success and how to reach it, the cultic mentality, and so on. Obviously, the entire basis for these things is American capitalism and/or culture. 

In the one-hour video, Virtue speaks with two former merchandizers of "Amway", an old MLM business in the United States (and accused of being a cult for decades by critics). The couple were also involved in the Word of Faith movement. They discuss how Amway really operates backstage, and how certain Christian groups try to recruit people through the MLM milieu. 

As I said, could be of some interest. 

Don´t tell Doreen Virtue

 

HA HA HA. I missed this little controversy in San Antonio, Texas. Both Catholics and Protestants were protesting a Krampus Night parade in the city, apparently the first one ever. In a weird statement, they extoll the virtues of Saint Nicholas and attack Krampus!

Eh, come again?

In Central Europe, including Catholic nations, Krampus (alias Black Peter) is the *helper* of Saint Nicholas on December 6. Yes, really. Should I or you tell the archbishop of San Antonio? 

But OK, maybe the Krampus Night parade was anything but children-friendly, but surely there are worse problems in the Lone Star State...?   

Krampus parade debuts in San Antonio amidts controversy

Disturbing agenda

 

Doreen Virtue´s most recent YouTube video has the absurd title "Oprah´s Demonic Agenda - Insider Tells All", the insider in question being Virtue herself. I have essentially zero interest in Oprah Winfrey and her show, so it came as something of a surprise to learn that she was *so* into New Age spirituality, including channeling and similar stuff. But yes, that would explain a thing or two. Indeed, Doreen Virtue herself (during her New Age period) was one of the people propelled into mega-fame by Oprah. Another was none other than Marianne Williamson, today mostly known for her two quixotic attempts to run for US president. 

I can´t say I like this clip. Virtue´s born again Christian fundamentalism makes her condemn essentially everything else as "demonic". Oprah is apparently an abuse survivor and it seems many female survivors are drawn to New Age and New Thought, perhaps because of its magical positive thinking message, which these people may found empowering. Or at least more empowering than, say, Christian fundamentalism? 

Virtue spends a good portion of her video to argue that abuse victims should embrace her form of fundamentalism rather than the "demonic" New Age messaging, which in her estimation is simply "disassociation". The New Age believers live in a fantasy world of love, but its somehow created by the Devil himself who acts as their "sugar daddy". So survivors of sexual and physical abuse should turn to Christ instead. 

Virtue´s version of Christ, that is. Since he tortures billions of sinners in an eternal hell, somebody might argue that he is the ultimate serial abuser. And hardly a good alternative to the metaphysical sugar daddy.

Frankly, I found this video to be pretty disturbing. Maybe we should pray for...Doreen Virtue.  

Everything is demonic

 

Kind of fits the Halloween season, but perhaps for the wrong reasons? Christian fundamentalist podcaster Doreen Virtue strikes again, arguing that essentially everything is demonic. Numerology, astrology, the book "Jesus Calling", you get the drift.

This includes "the angel numbers", which were invented by Virtue herself (or by her demons?) during the former´s New Age period. The mystery numbers are still used by many people, including pop star Katy Perry, something that worries the born again podcaster. 

Personally, I just consider this kind of content deeply frustrating, but for some reason, I can´t help consuming it now and then anyway...

I also remember Dolores Cannon

 

From a previous life, obviously. Jokes aside, I actually dissed two of her books on Amazon years ago (you can still read the former customer reviews here on my blog). So I´m not exactly a Dolores Cannon fanboy, fanflower, or whatever I´m supposed to be around here. 

But...

After listening to Doreen Virtue´s almost one hour long Christian fundamentalist denunciation of poor Dolores (pun intended), I *almost* got some kind of sympathy for the old mama. Strictly speaking, only the first half of the video is about Cannon (apparently, she was a friend of Virtue during the latter´s New Age period). The second half is an extended sectarian pitch for the particular brand of Christianity Virtue believes in now. Her sidekick is even more strident and sounds borderline crazy.

I agree that Cannon preached a "false Christ", but if Virtue & Co channels the real one, I probably don´t want to get involved!   

When Doreen met the Nephilim

 

This is actually a quite interesting video, featuring Doreen Virtue, Jordan B Cooper and some others, critically discussing and/or attacking the ideas of the late Michael S Heiser (whom I kind of liked). I didn´t know that Virtue was associated with Heiser during a period. Nor did I know that Heiser and his writings are *that* popular in evangelical and charismatic circles. Apparently, he was also a "gateway drug" to Eastern Orthodoxy.

I watched about half of the video, and unsurprisingly it´s very "theological" and "orthodox" (with a lower-case o). The evangelicals or Lutherans are imprisoned by their respective theologies, and simply can´t think outside the box. It´s a bit ironic that one of them pronounces "prisms" almost as "prison"! 

The New Testament literally quotes the Book of Enoch *and calls Enoch a prophet*, suggesting that Jude (supposedly a brother of Jesus) considered the accursed book to be...well, prophetic (i.e. inspired by God, the one with the capital G). As for esoteric knowledge, the early Church probably kept the Gospels hidden from the multitude and the catechumens, so already there you have a "hierarchy". And why does Paul talk about "milk" and "meat" in his epistles?

That being said, it´s probably true that many people drawn to Heiser are interested in fringe stuff. I smiled when Virtue mentioned that he had pictures of Bigfoot, a statue of an alien and a model of the Ark of the Covenant in his office (or perhaps home). There is also a connection to charismatic Christians who believe in literally casting out demons.   

That being said, while Heiser probably wasn´t right about everything, in some paradoxical way he probably stood close to historical-critical scholarship, since he acknowledged that ancient Israelite religion wasn´t strictly monotheist in *our* sense of the term, that the "canon of Scripture" was more flexible than evangelicals usually believe, and so on. My main criticism of Heiser was that he "took an idea and run with it", in effect constructing his own theology around the Book of Enoch and then interpreting the rest of the Bible through that prism. 

But then, actual "Biblical" religion was probably pretty wild, so who knows, maybe he was closer to the real thing than the people featured in this conversation...

Angels and demons

 

Two New Age YouTube clips about Doreen Virtue. I didn´t know that Virtue grew up in a Christian Science or New Thought home. Apparently, as a New Age teacher, she took the Love & Light of this particular brand of spirituality to new heights. Guardian angels, unicorns, mermaids, no 2012 apocalypse...positive thinking, guys! One of her angel card decks is apparently a sanitized version of the Tarot, with all the scary stuff excised (no Death, no Devil, no Tower).

At the height of her popularity, Virtue appeared on Oprah Winfrey Show and made millions of dollars. Indeed, her classes were extremely expensive (the content-creator mentions a class that cost 2000 dollars). Why she later became a Christian fundamentalist seems to be anybody´s guess, and I don´t think this content-creator gets her theology right. But then, Virtue has probably changed it a couple of times anyway. 

It´s a weird story, tbh, more so since Doreen Virtue´s new beliefs are the polar opposites of the fluffy positive "metaphysical" stuff she was promoting for years. It´s like she now believes that only the scary and negative things about New Age are real, with no redeeming qualities whatever. Virtue has even tried to stop further distribution of her old books and card decks.

Did she have a paranoid epiphany, I wonder?   

When Doreen met the Nephilim

 

Mermaids, Atlantis and Stonehenge are demonic. Glad to have that sorted out, then.  

Ex-Hindu tells it all

Doreen Virtue strikes again…

Here, she interviews an ex-Hindu named Sandeep who converted to (evangelical?) Christianity about five years ago. While the interview is interesting, I nevertheless gasped at somewhat irregular intervals. As when Sandeep attacks Hindu worship for its blood sacrifice to Kali and some other deities. Sandeep has converted to a religion which is *literally* based on a human sacrifice to a wrathful god! Christianity, remember? And in the Jewish Temple, they sacrificed animals to God. Jesus and the apostles worshipped in the Temple, indeed, the apostles “praised God” in the Temple even after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus!

And speaking of the Temple…

Virtue mentions that the Old Testament prohibits idol worship, God declaring that He is the only object of worship. She forgets to mention that the Israelites themselves broke these commandments by having two graven images in the Holy of Holies of the Jewish Temple! And while the Bible never says so, there are suspicions that the two cherubim are really Yahweh and his heavenly consort Asera – how is this relevantly different from a Hindu god and his shakti, or even Krishna and Radha and in their eternal love play?  

Going back to Sandeep, he attacks the Hindu gods and the Buddha for having a bad family life, but what about Jesus condemning his family, or indeed everyone´s family? Sure, the Hindu or Buddhist scriptures are frequently peculiar or even somewhat bizarre, but what about all the strange stuff in the Old Testament, or even in the New Testament? (Fill in your favorite examples here.) Sandeep also attacks Hindu polytheism, but if he had wanted a consistently monotheist religion, he should have become a Jew, Muslim or Sikh! How is the Trinity and worship of Jesus (a kind of Christian “avatara”) really different from polytheism, indeed from a polytheism claiming that all gods are really one and the same?

It´s not entirely clear to me what attracted Sandeep to Christianity, but he does mention a couple of points on which he believes (perhaps rightly) that the teachings associated with Jesus were unique. For instance, Jesus told his followers to love their enemies. He contrasts this with Krishna´s admonition to Arjuna to fight at the battle of Kurukshetra. Leaving aside for the moment that the NT never prohibits Christians from fighting in wars (but sure, those are secular duties in the NT, not religious ones like in the Bhagavad Gita), how is the advice to love your enemy and don´t resist evil practical at all? 

I also get the impression that Sandeep didn´t see any escape from samsara and its never-ending cycles when he was a Hindu, and that he found Hindu ritualism absurd. Salvation by faith and grace is presumably “easier”, but how is the idea of everlasting hell for the unrepentant “better” than never-ending cycles for everyone? Sandeep also believes that there is historical evidence for Jesus, but hardly any for Krishna and absolute zero for other Hindu deities. But even if we accept this (some don´t), what is the historical evidence for Abraham, Moses, Joshua or even king David?

Once again, Sandeep´s conversation with Doreen Virtue (who is a former New Age believer) is interesting (I had no idea that certain yoga postures were associated with the Hindu deities), but I can´t help feeling that both of them have a blind spot for the problems of their own chosen religion… 

Discerning charisma

 

Conservative Lutheran theologian Jordan B Cooper criticizes charismatic Christianity (including the prosperity gospel) and "discernment ministries". I couldn´t help thinking about Doreen Virtue when I saw the last clip, but it´s possible that Cooper is attacking much worse groups...

I have no particular horse in this race, so I link to this out of purely personal interest. My blog, my rules, yes?  

Fear and trembling

 

I´m not a big fanboy of Doreen Virtue - certainly not in her most recent incarnation as a Protestant fundamentalist - but the clip above from her YouTube channel is quite interesting. It features a Christian ufologist named Joseph Jordan (who is actually a long-time member of MUFON) who discusses alien abductions from a Biblical perspective. 

Jordan claims that Christians are never abducted and/or can stop abductions in progress by calling on the name of Jesus. The reason is that the "aliens" are actually demons and the entire UFO phenomenon is therefore a Satanic deception. 

My main problem with Jordan´s speculations is that they seem true "by definition", since he claims that only Christians who "walk the walk" (i.e. have very strong faith) can stop alien abductions. In other words: if a Christian can´t, then Jordan can save the day by simply saying that they aren´t really "walking the walk". QED? At least one prominent abduction case features a Christian: the Andreasson affair. Other possession cases, not discussed here, also come to mind. What about Christian converts among the Hmong, who are apparently attacked and killed by "pagan" demons? Aren´t they walking the walk, either?

Another topic covered in the interview is alien implants. If I understand him right, Jordan believes that the implants are mundane earthly objects, but that they can be manipulated by demons, who makes their human victims believe that the implant is really "alien". 

Sometimes Jordan comes across as a mainstream skeptic, for instance when he criticizes too wild claims about Roswell ("show me the body"). For the record, I don´t think Jordan is disingenuous or lying. Quite the contrary, he comes across as very polite and honest. He may have uncovered an interesting phenomenology surrounding the "abduction cases". Perhaps people with an extremely strong belief in the Biblical God can "stop" such experiences if and when they are generated by a hallucinatory mind. We could go even further and propose (perhaps tongue somewhat in cheek) that the fairies fear and loath Yahweh, the jealous god of the Jews. 

However, it could equally well be argued that other alien entities don´t give a damn or actually are angelic...

Make of this content what you wish. 

Therapy?

“Earth Angel Realms” is a revised and expanded edition of “Earth Angels” and “Realms of the Earth Angels”, two previous book by the same author (apparently, the two earlier books contain almost the same contents). Doreen Virtue is a 100% New Age therapist who works with angels and other otherworldly beings. She also claims that many of her human clients *are* angels, fairies, aliens or even animals reincarnated as humans. The book contains lengthy descriptions of these “earth angels”. Apart from the categories mentioned, some humans are apparently mermaids, leprechauns, wizards, unicorns or former denizens of Atlantis…

I admit that I didn't resonate with this material. My impression is that most of the “earth angels” are socially awkward people with psychological problems, and that the author is offering them angelic status as a kind of coping mechanism. Thus, Incarnated Angels are described as obese and food-addicted women pathologically obsessed with helping others to the point of self-effacement. They often endure abusive relationships with addicts, or come from broken homes. From Ms Virtue, these women learn that they are really angels from another dimension of reality, sent here on an important mission!

Other “earth angels” are downright anti-social. They are often promiscuous, prone to bizarre behavior, or addicts. The Starpeople seem to be autistic, although Virtue claims that is a misdiagnosis. Her analysis of the situation occasionally feels like New Age at its worst: evil is an illusion, everything is fine. Thus, abused children are really incarnated angels sent here to send love and healing to their parents, while one abused woman prayed to the Divine that she would be able to endure her husband for a little while longer in order to “help” him!

At other times, the author is unintentionally humorous. Or is it intentional? Difficult to say, but here is an excerpt on mermaids: “Merpeople tend to be very choosy about which brand of bottled water they drink. Merpeople often crave seaweed salad, sea vegetables, and nori (flattened seaweed wrapped around sushi rolls), probably because their bodies need the special sea-based nutrients.” (Kindle Locations 1607-1609). I'll remember looking for the merpeople next time I enter a sushi restaurant, LOL. The only earth angels who come across as normal, balanced and perfectly spiritually enlightened are the Atlanteans, who are said to have inspired the high cultures of Greece, Egypt, the Maya and the Inca.

I originally heard of this book, or rather the earlier version, when reading Lupa's “A Field Guide to Otherkin”. Otherkin is a peculiar subculture the members of which claim to be animals trapped in human bodies, usually wolves or big cats. Some Otherkin claim to be elves, fairies or angels. The overall atmosphere of Virtue's book is very different from Lupa's, however, something Lupa also acknowledges. Virtue's earth angels are usually here to help, either humanity or Nature, while Otherkin seem more individualistic and solely interested in their own journeys of self-discovery. Ironically, Otherkin seem more down to earth (!) than the earth angels, perhaps because the kin don't indulge in the utopian love-and-healing-conquers-all rhetoric of the Age of Aquarius. Indeed, some Otherkin aren't even particularly nice, claiming to be demons or vampires.

I'm not sure how to rate “Earth Angel Realms”. I didn't like it, but I admit that it's well written and systematic, so if New Age angel beliefs (or New Age transformations of folklore) is one of your special interests, I suppose it could be of some use. Personally, however, I just see a huge workshop of people completely in denial. Get real, merfolks, you are human, all too human!