BEWARE OF ESOTERICISM



Know thou that Knowledge is of two kinds: Divine and Satanic.

- Baha'u'llah -


Dear Angels,

Taken from a lecture given by the Master, Abdu'l-Baha, in London in 1911, the following statement will be explained here as best we can, for it has spiritual implications which, if not properly understood, can easily lead one astray in view of its secretive but alluring aspect:

For six thousand years we have been walking on the left-hand path; let us walk on the right-hand path now. We have passed many centuries in darkness, let us advance towards the light.

For your information, "the left-hand path" refers in large part to the permanent state of "war, strife, murder, and bloodthirstiness" in which the world finds itself because of "either religious, racial, political, or patriotic prejudices", often time fostered or created by those who practice the archaic Babylonian rites of the left-hand path to gain esoteric knowledge by methods that are commonplace today, despite the stern warnings of Scripture, including Deuteronomy 18:10-12:
Let no one be found among you who sacrifices their son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord...
As noted in LIGHTS OF GUIDANCE, the Guardian of the Baha'i Faith, Shoghi Effendi, warned the Baha'i followers against certain occult practices, although he did not specify them:
The friends also should be warned not to indulge in such activities that draw their inspiration from Hindu occultist sources, as these do not only lead them away from the Cause, but can cause them considerable mental harm, and thus permanently injure their mind as well as their body.
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...indeed, such occult practices as certain Hindus have introduced in the States, and which some superficial and superstitious individuals have adopted and are trying, by all sorts of devices, to popularize are absolutely foreign, nay positively opposed to the very spirit and letter of the Teachings, and the believers, therefore, should strictly and at all times avoid the company of such people, lest they may unconsciously and inevitably fall under their baneful influence and become gradually alienated from the Cause.
But what exactly does that mean, you may be asking?

For me, as evoked below by a source lost over the years, it is undoubtedly the raising of the Kundalini and its possible consequences.

You can learn telepathy, see auras and move things mentally but be a hateful person simultaneously, what certain criminals and psychics with inflated egos precisely do in order to gain power over others. It is certainly possible to become clairaudiant or clairvoyant through certain technics aimed at raising the Kundalini, that electric center in the vertebral column, the 'serpent force'. However, once the channels of communication between the worlds opened without real spiritual preparedness, what awaits is a living hell. The sounds and sights of both the physical and psychic worlds are received without the capacity to recede from the often scary, unpleasant material that flows within. Torn in two directions, the person is helpless to control or avoid this undesirable phenomenon.
We certainly don't want that for ourselves if we submit to such practices while ignoring their effects, do we? The fact that they have been touted since the 1960s as the royal road to calming the mind, getting rid of stress or conditioning, finding healing, or attaining cosmic consciousness is no guarantee of their safety.

Listen to more of the Guardian's warnings:

To tamper with psychic forces while in this world interferes with the condition of the soul in the world to come. These forces are real, but are not to be active on this plane.

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There is no ambiguity about the Master's attitude towards psychic forces. He very strongly warned the believers against using them.

The fact is that certain esoteric practices can indeed lead to trances and euphoria, mistaken for true mystical experiences, in which opaque entities from the lower astral can infiltrate the personality and suggest "vain and obscure thoughts" or transmit misleading messages, of which there are too many examples in today's "channeling" world.

By appealing in this way to spiritual pride or naivety, the mystical, gullible, ignorant, or infatuated mind is sometimes placed under the influence of alienating forces that suggest a nonjudgmental attitude, which in reality means moral relativity and passivity, a common subterfuge to control the minds and bodies of those who then claim to be spiritual without being "rel
igious".

If we do our own due research in this supermarket of neo-Gnosticism, we soon discover that it proceeds, electively, through a gradual initiation that slowly suffocates the consciousness of God, suggesting instead an implicit pantheism (everything is God, and consequently I am God); that is, idolatry, the personal and transcendent God of the Divine Revelations insidiously substituted in people's minds by the "bearer of light", the rebellious angel of the
NEW AGE.

One should also be aware that the tentacles and manipulations of such pseudo-spirituality are as numerous as they are dangerous. The following from Baha'u'llah seem to apply well:
The tree of such teachings can yield no result except iniquity and rebellion, and beareth no fruit but hatred and envy.  Its fruit is deadly poison; its shadow is consuming fire.
Wherefore, better let the heedless "lie in the graves of waywardness and error," and the blind "lie in the cradle of idle fancies," while we take refuge in the RIGHT HAND of God, where the footsteps are always sure, following the Covenant, opening the gate of true understanding naturally through prayer and meditation on the divine Word, especially the Exalted Names of God found in the Baha'i calendar :
Splendour, Glory, Beauty, Grandeur, Light, Mercy, Words, Perfection, Names, Might, Will, Knowledge, Power, Speech, Questions, Honour, Sovereignty, Dominion, and Loftiness. Meditating upon these sublime attributes, man is enabled to gaze beyond the curve of time, wherein the swing and change of planetary movements exists, to the eternal qualities that stabilize the soul.

- Shoghi Effendi
In closing, the TESTIMONIAL of this born-again Christian, long involved in the occult and New Age practices, will certainly be helpful in gaining a more complete understanding of what we have just tried to convey.



Be wonderfully blessed!

Loesha

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