I brought 2 books with me on a recent R&R trip to Hawaii, and I read one. The first was called ‘2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl’ by Daniel Pinchbeck, the second was ‘Piercing the Darkness’ by Frank Peretti. I only finished the first one, and it was so intriguing. To give you some background, it is based on ancient Mayan prophecies that date a cataclysmic end of time on December 21, 2012. It is actually more of a memoir of the author on things like shamanism, the use of hallucinogens, the occult, psychic ability, dreams, visions, visitations, the question of reality (matter, spirit), crop circles, alien abductions, and planetary movement. All of these things I have never thought twice about previously, dismissing them without question. I didn’t even know that this book had any of this content when I bought it; I was just interested in the Mayan calendar (ha!).
Through the author’s encounters with shamanic bush tribes in Africa and South America, through meetings with Priestesses, and through his use of certain barks and mushrooms (and other chemical synthetics), he described interaction with beings that we, as Christians, would call demons. It was so intriguing! I got so much insight into what “powers and principalities” really means, and it is nothing like I had previously thought.
Once I had finished this one, I looked at my next book, Piercing the Darkness, and was struck by the title. As Christians, even as a society in general, we tend to qualify anything evil as darkness. Light good, evil dark. However, because of the things I read in 2012, and based on certain truths about “the darkness”, this is probably a little misleading, and potentially harmful.
One of the best things I’ve learned is that the truth is one thing, and everything that isn’t the truth, no matter how close to the truth, is simply not truth (or un-truth). We call these lies – probably because this implies there’s someone to blame. In fact the best lies, the most difficult to catch, are those that are closest to the truth. Take a look at the very first lie; it’s rank with truth. We often associate truth with light, but we should not forget that the direct translation of the name of the Great Deciever Lucifer is ‘Light-Bearing One’. He was the son of the morning, the bright and morning star, the bearer of light. Nothing says he still isn’t a light-bearing one.
Through the descriptions of chats with the ‘powers and principalities’ and demons in 2012, I think it is hard to say that these beings are of darkness (not that they aren’t). In fact, you’d be hard pressed to imagine them being evil. This is because they are simply off-truth; they are of a culture a little to the left or to the right of God’s culture. Some might even call them good. We know that there is only One who is good though.
When you think about it, because there is only One who is good, just like there is only One possible Truth, off-good or off-truth or "evil" is just like us. We are the same as them, and we rarely consider ourselves evil. In fact, we consider ourselves to be generally good. How dangerous to presume the "powers of darkness" represent the other end of the spectrum of good and evil!
Theology, movies, books, stories all paint a picture of evil using fangs dripping blood and hairy heaving beasts. Maybe this is so we miss what evil really is – and fall right into it.
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2 comments:
Huh, that's a good point. It's really hard not to make assumptions isn't it? Whether it be about light, dark, saints, sinners. I have in general assumed that 'evil' came in the form of darkness.....thanks for making me re-think that.
Satan is the master of deceit, remember. Most of his darkest stuff is veiled in a cloak of decency. He knows we're watching out for the blatantly dark things and wandering naively about those things we deem decent.
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