A Modern Woman's Perspective On The Kingdom of God on Earth


January 5, 2020

" A Fool Flaunts His Folly"

     I chose the title of this blog [from a phrase in Proverbs 13:16] after watching CBS's 60 Minutes presentation on a research study into the use of psychedelic drugs to help people who suffer from anxiety, depression, and addiction. This episode caught my eye because we are familiar with these spirits of anxiety, depression and addiction in our Inner Healing sessions. I wanted to see how the research corresponded with our findings of healing through Jesus Christ. I was actually pretty astounded at the similarities in the language used and the experiences that were shared. The difference lies in the fact that in the case of the researchers and study participants, the healing is credited to a large dose of psilocybin, the psychedelic agent in magic mushrooms, while participants in our Inner Healing sessions receive their healing from their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
     So, I 'd like to share parts of the transcript from the episode and contrast it with testimony of what I've seen the Lord do (which is in bold). The interviewer was Anderson Cooper, and I will introduce each of the people he spoke to and the connection they had with the study. Cooper states that these powerful, mind-altering substances are now being studied seriously by scientists inside some of the country's foremost medical research centers, and the results are impressive as participants go on a six-hour life-changing journey into their own minds. My response to that is that the Beloveds that come to the table to meet with Jesus spend two-three hours on a life-changing journey with Him into their spirits.

     The first study participant that Cooper interviews is a woman named Carine who suffered from an addiction to cigarettes for 46 years. Her experience under the influence of psilocybin was, in her own words, "terrifying".
ANDERSON COOPER: Do you remember specifically what you were seeing?
CARINE: Yes. The ceiling of this room was clouds, like, heavy rain clouds. And gradually they were lowering. And I thought I was gonna suffocate from the clouds.
    At this point, the episode shifts to Cooper interviewing Scientist Roland Griffiths who is involved with similar studies at John Hopkins Behavioral Biology Research Center.
DR. GRIFFITHS: We tell people that their experiences may vary from very positive to transcendent and lovely, to literally "hell realm" experiences... They come to a profound shift of world view; they are less identified with that self-narrative. People might use the term "ego." And that creates this sense of freedom.

     I will tell you that the Beloved who experiences Jesus's inner healing is not exposed to "the hell realm"; only the love, gentleness and kindness of Jesus. In the couple of hundred [and more] people we have ministered to, no one has encountered a terrifying experience. And, yes, their world view does change -- away from the false identity that the Enemy whispers, to an identity of self in the spiritual realm that is founded on who they are in Christ. And their freedom is unmistakable!  It comes from Him and not a drug. 

     The second participant interviewed was a young man named Jon, who suffered from an addiction to alcohol, drinking a staggering 20 cocktails a night, until his doctors told him he would die if he didn't stop.
JON: During one psilocybin session, [I] was flooded with powerful feelings and images from [my] past. Stuff would come up that I  haven't thought of since they happened.
ANDERSON COOPER: So old memories that you hadn't even remembered came back to you?
JON: Yes, and I felt a lot of shame and embarrassment throughout one of the sessions about my drinking and how bad I felt for my parents to put up with all this.
     Jon took psilocybin in 2016. He says he hasn't had a drink since.

     In our Inner Healing sessions, people are able to visit their past in the spirit, seeing images that always include the presence of Jesus. They see Him; they hear what He has to say about them, correcting the lies of the Enemy that have resulted in feelings of guilt and shame, similar to Jon's. The difference is that, through the Holy Spirit, they are able to hand over those condemning spirits to Jesus and walk in the freedom of their new identity.
     Here's what I discern in both Carine's and Jon's experiences with addiction. We have learned through our experiences and study -- people with addictions are trying to distract themselves from the feelings of being unloved. They have empty holes in their hearts, and when they have not received true, unconditional love as a foundation in their life, they are always in search of getting a need fulfilled. 
     As Dr. Henry Wright says in his profound book, A More Excellent Way, "The need to know God's love can open us up to look for love in all the wrong places. This need leaves us vulnerable to the deception of Satan, who seduces us into believing the world offers us a better substitute". Hence, we see people like Carine and Jon using psilocybin as a better substitute than God.  Jon was listening to the seductive lies of Satan and the spirits of shame and guilt, and was able to get rid of them through a manufactured mind-altering drug.  Those who come to us for Inner Healing defeat those spirits with the love of Jesus, who then fills those empty holes in their heart with the Holy Spirit.
   
     The third interview was with a woman named Kerry, who was diagnosed with stage III lung cancer in 2013. During her psilocybin session, she found herself trapped in a nightmare her mind created.
KERRY: [I was in an] ancient, prehistoric, barren land. And there's these men with pickaxes, just slamming on the rocks. So…
ANDERSON COOPER: And this felt absolutely real to you?
KERRY: Absolutely real. I was being shown the truth of reality. Life is meaningless, we have no purpose. And then I look and I'm [lying there] still, like a witness to a beautiful, shimmering, bright jewel [emphasis is mine]. And then  it was sound, and it was booming, booming, booming. "Right here, right now".
ANDERSON COOPER: That was being said?
KERRY: Yes. "You are alive. Right here, right now, because that's all you have." And that is my mantra to this day.

     How sad! As a Christian, and a daughter of King Jesus, I know she heard a lie from the pit of hell! Did anyone else identify what she was witnessing as a "beautiful, shimmering, bright jewel"? If not, let me quote Ezekiel 28:13 -- "You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, sardius, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, emerald, and carbuncle; and crafted in gold were your settings and your engravings. On the day that you were created they were prepared." This is a picture of Lucifer! And I am here to renounce the lies she heard!
     Life is NOT meaningless! We DO have a purpose! And "right here, right now" is NOT all we have.  And that's the beauty of our ministry -- people leave the table knowing that they are valuable to Jesus and the Father; that they were created to represent the Kingdom of God down here on earth. And they learn that they are so valuable to God that the Enemy has done everything he can to stop them from fulfilling their purpose; from knowing who they were created to be. Then they leave with renewed purpose for their life; they are not just waiting to die and go to heaven. 

     And that made me even more sad for Kerry. At the end of 60 Minutes, Anderson Cooper finishes up his interview with her. She maintained that her session with psilocybin was freeing. Though her cancer has now spread to her brain, her crippling anxiety about death is gone.
KERRY: Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, I feel like death doesn't frighten me. Living doesn't frighten me. I don't frighten me.
     Cooper reported that most of the 51 cancer patients in the Johns Hopkins study experienced "significant decreases in depressed mood and anxiety" after trying psilocybin. Two-thirds of them rated their psilocybin sessions as among the most meaningful experiences of their lives.
KERRY: To this day, it [the expereience on psilocybin] evolves in me.
ANDERSON COOPER: It's still alive in you--
KERRY: It's still absolutely alive in me.
ANDERSON COOPER: Does it make you happier?
KERRY: Yeah. And-- and I don't necessarily use the word happy. Comfortable. Like, comfortable. I mean, I've suffered from anxiety my whole life. I'm comfortable. That, to me, okay. I can die. I'm comfortable. (LAUGH) I mean, it's huge. It's huge.

     How I wish I could visit with Kerry before her impending death from cancer. I would tell her that anxiety is closely associated with the spirit of fear. And there is so much more than just feeling "comfortable" about her death. Jesus wants her to know the joy that those who leave our ministry session experience. He wants her to know that there is a life to be had beyond this one; that more than her psilocybin experience is alive in her -- He wants to be alive in her and wants a relationship with her! 

     But perhaps the most intriguing part of this episode was the interview Cooper did with author Michael Pollan, who wrote about the psilocybin studies in a bestselling book called "How to Change Your Mind." As part of his research, he tried psilocybin himself with the help of an underground guide.
ANDERSON COOPER: The kind of things that cancer patients were saying, like, "I touched the face of God." You were skeptical about when you hear phrases like that?
POLLAN: Yeah. Or, "Love is the most important thing in the universe." When someone tells me that I'm just like, "yeah, okay." It gives me the willies as a writer. And I really struggled with that cause during one of my experiences I came to the earth-shattering conclusion that love is the most important thing in the universe... And one of the things psychedelics do is they peel away all those essentially protective levels of irony and cynicism that we acquire as we get older and you're back to those kind of "Oh, my God. I forgot all about lo
ve." (Laugh)
     Pollan said he also experienced what the researchers describe as ego loss, or identity loss - the quieting of the constant voice we all have in our heads.

     I hope you are able to see that the research into the use of psilocybin and psychedelic drugs to heal the pain in people's lives comes quite close to mirroring the sessions in our Inner Healing ministry. But as Satan has so convincingly done throughout the ages, he whispers just enough truth that people [who don't want anything to do with God] can convince themselves they are free and living their best life.  Perhaps each of these people did receive some freedom from their addictions, anxiety, and doubt. But it was a temporary freedom from this world. And I believe that the use of psychedelic drugs tears open the veil between this world and the second heaven, where all the spirits reside and spiritual war is conducted against us humans. 
    Rather than "expanding their minds", these people need to be renewed in the spirit and receive the Truth of Jesus Christ, which will set them free, indeed! But as long as the secular and Godless world is willing to take the easy route offered by the devil, there will be those who seek an inferior substitute for the reality and blessing of Christ. I thank the Lord for His persistence in pursuing me. And I will be forever grateful for my freedom in Christ! 

Proverbs 15: 21    Folly is a joy to him who lacks sense, but a man of understanding walks straight ahead.  

2 comments:

  1. How completely sad. It causes almost an anger in me when I meet or hear of people who say things like there is no purpose in life or that have to turn to drugs to get their "freedom". What happens when you are off those drugs, that so-called freedom is gone too. Thank the Lord I have everlasting freedom that doesn't rely on any substance!

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    1. There is no testimony better than one spoken from experience, right? When you become a new creation, there is no identification with the old life. Thank the Lord that we can renew our minds and receive the mind of Christ! I know for me, my old lifestyle is unrecognizable, but that only comes from having Christ in me -- and that's what these people lack.

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