Dead Men Walking Podcast: Steven Bancarz churches & the New Age, Yoga, and do aliens or UFO's exist

New Age, Extraterrestrials, and the Road into Occult Spirituality

Exploring theology, doctrine, and all of the fascinating subjects in between, broadcasting from an undisclosed location, Dead Men Walking starts now. Well hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Dead Men Walking Podcast.

I am your host Greg Moore and next to my left is Jason Hamlin. And possibly if you're watching this from the other camera view, maybe my right. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, right. Something like that. Potato, potato.

Yeah, right. My wife told me yesterday, she said, potato, tomato. I said, I don't think that's the saying. You can't tell her she's wrong though. So how you doing brother? Doing great man. I can't ever tell in that intro if I just want to sway or if I want to headbang.

Yeah, I do a little bit of both. It changes up. So usually we do a little bit more banter, sometimes we do news up top, but we have someone on the line that we want to get to. Oh yeah. This is a fun get for us because we're both fans.

This youngster, anyone still in their 20s, I'm just going to start calling him youngster. I think he's in his 20s. We'll see. We'll ask him when he comes out. Yeah. You know, I'm 39 man. I'm not going to 40.

I'm going to have to go buy like a red sports car next year, go through my midlife crisis. So this young guy, all right, energetic. He was, I mean, he was into the new age stuff, the occult stuff. I mean, he had a webpage that was producing 40, $50 ,000 in ad revenue.

Cause he had a couple million visitors a month coming there. He was, uh, I think he was going to school for philosophy. I mean, he was in it and he had a radical kind of, uh, just encounter with Jesus.

Like we all do. Right. When you meet the one true living God, it's radical. Yeah. Uh, from Moses down to Paul down to you and I, and, uh, you know, you, you go on YouTube. It's a thousands of followers on his YouTube channel.

He goes in there, he's in ministry now, and he is really just kind of bringing light to this whole new age, spiritualism, occult movement. And, uh, today on the podcast, we have, uh, Steven bank cards.

Steven, how are you, sir? How are you, sir? Oh no internet. Right away to be with you guys. Thanks for having me. Yeah. It's good to be with you too. So before we get into it, uh, can you just tell our listeners a little bit about who you are?

I gave a brief bio there. Maybe I just said too much, but just give us a little bit of your background, uh, and kind of how you got into new age and how you came out of it and take as long.

Or as little as you want. Yeah, no, I am in my twenties, so I am a youngster by your standard.

There we go. There we go. I knew it was long, luscious locks. I knew he was young, right?

Man. Um, so I was, uh, born and raised Christian, homeschooled Christian, went to Christian private school, didn't hit the public school system until the seventh grade. Um, when high school rolled around, I started studying the topic of extraterrestrial and that's honestly what created doubt in my mind regarding Christian fundamentalism.

I didn't see, I didn't know that there was a way to reconcile alien abduction phenomenon, UFO sightings, experiences from a biblical lens. I didn't know that there was one. Um, there's multiple ways we can go in the Christian worldview.

I didn't know any of them. I just thought, well, if the universe is teaming with extraterrestrial life, which I don't think it is, but I thought that if it was, that must negate Christianity. And yeah, I couldn't imagine Jesus having to die on a million planets or 2 million planets for the sins of every extraterrestrial race.

Um, I didn't see anything in scripture indicative of ETs, but here's all this apparent evidence on ancient aliens. And by some of these quote unquote whistleblowers through, um, I don't know, people who used to work with different government agencies saying that they've seen classified files saying that the US government has awareness of extraterrestrial visitation and their presence on earth now.

And I was thinking, Oh my gosh, you know, this blows everything I was raised with out of the water. And oftentimes it's the case that those who teach about extraterrestrials, they happen to be new age teachers, new agers and new age teachers are obsessed with the topic of aliens.

They just are. So I started falling into their hands by virtue of the fact that it was a rabbit trail, starting with extraterrestrials going to new age teachers. And now I'm learning about a whole bunch of different things, like how to contact ETS through ESP ability, different theories of consciousness, um, psychedelics, meditation, astral projection.

And I started practicing these things. I was having tons of what are called lucid dreams. Um, I left my body twice. I had to, to out of body experiences where I was studying and trying to practice astral projection, which is when you're, you're, um, mental substance or your soul, we'll call it for now disconnects from your physical body.

Um, Paul says in second Corinthians 12, he had an experience where he was caught up to the third heaven, whether he was in or out of the body, he doesn't know. He says that twice. So can you have a disconnection between soul and body prior to the actual death of the physical body?

I think scripture at least leaves that as a possibility on the table, but I didn't know I was getting played into the hands of demons. I was teaching this stuff online because my little brother's friends kept asking me questions about new age topics.

They wouldn't stop. What about the chakras? How do I open my third eye? Um, how should I learn how to start practicing lucid dreaming? What about Atlantis? And so I created a Facebook page for them sharing my resources, my studies, there's alternative peer reviewed scientific articles, quote unquote, that are really pseudoscientific where, um, there's some really spotty anomalous studies that seem to indicate some pretty, um, paranormal phenomenon when it comes to the relationship between consciousness and matter.

Um, and so I was posting all my research on this page and within a year, it grew to over 500 ,000 followers on this Facebook page. Um, around that time I launched my website and because I was friends with so many people in that sector, that new age sector, we would share each other's posts on each other's pages to cross pollinate audiences.

And so when I launched my website, I had such a large reach jointly that, um, I started making a thousand plus dollars a day and add revenue from the articles I was writing. Um, the ones that got the most views were ones on experiences or the evidence quote unquote for reincarnation and, um, millions of shares.

Not just millions of you. Some of these articles were getting millions of shares. Like sometimes you'll see articles get shared around and you can see how many social media or Facebook shares the article has.

We're talking like 4 .5 million shares on Facebook alone. Um, for some of these articles, just crazy amount of views because people they're hungry and thirsty and they crave a spiritual understanding of the world in which we live.

And thankfully the Bible offers it to them. But, um, the point is I was making, I made $57 ,000 in my first three weeks. This averaged out to, I know this averaged out to about $40 ,000 a month in ad revenue that my website would bring in.

Um, mine Joe is paying 3 ,500 a month for web hosting and I had other business expenses and this and that. But, um, it was a lot of money, a lot of money for, for someone who's 22. And, um, you know, I was living at home at the time and I was still in school at the time and I dropped out because I was like, I'm making so much money.

There's no point in me being in school to learn about the very thing I'm doing now. Um, I need to focus on this full time. A year and a half passed by and, um, I believe God started drawing me. Um, my conscience started to be revived and the double life, double lives, I should say, I was living in different areas of my life.

Um, I was starting to feel convicted that that was wrong. Whereas before I just, my conscience was seared. I was just a pathological liar. I would manipulate people, lie to people. Um, and it reached a point where all of these things came to the surface where they were at the forefront of my mind.

I had to confess these things because they were so, they were harassing me. My sin started harassing me when before I didn't even pay attention to them and it reached a point where I had to confess. And so I confessed to people in my life.

I was living a double life with the girl I was in a relationship with, um, told her, told my parents, um, wrecked me, wrecked her. And that was when, like, I had, I had sickness underneath all that, like actual psychoemotional, not like an actual illness, but just really depraved, really twisted, really broken, a lot of pain, a lot of like messages in that pain that pushed me toward sinful activity to try to mitigate those, that pain and those messages.

And I was just wicked at heart. And, um, so after we confessed to my parents who we were in our parents' house right now, um, we were upstairs and my mom was like, are you ready to give your lives to the Lord yet?

I didn't even, I don't remember anything else from that conversation, except that question. And we talked for like 30 minutes. That's awesome.

Oh, I think we lost him there for a minute. Oh, Stephen, Stephen, we lost you there. Can you hear.

Us? And I said, yeah, sure. Okay. So with the real you, the version of you that actually exists, not some new age version that I'm making up in my mind. Um, cause I would try and fit Jesus into this new age paradigm, right?

So I set up the boundaries in which I wanted to seek for Jesus and said, Jesus, I'm going to search for you within these boundaries. That's what every new age teacher does. But this prayer of salvation was the first time I was like, I'm going to be intellectually honest with you and spiritually honest with you.

And I'm not going to be putting boundaries on who I think you need to be. I'm not going to fit you into my box. And two weeks later passed by. Um, and I was listening to the Bible a bit. I was developing a bit of a prayer life.

Um, and it reached a point where I had to confess a second round of sin that was worse than the first that should have led me in prison. And I was like, God, do I confess this? I like, what do I, what do I do with this?

Like, this will ruin my life. And, um, I felt like I was supposed to. So I did. And, um, that was when I like actually bottomed out emotionally and, um, uh, fully came to terms with the fact that I need divine intervention.

Um, not just to help, not just to help me live this life, but I really, really need forgiveness. Like I really need mercy and grace. And that's when I fell at his feet. I was, um, on the back balcony of my house that I was living in at the time.

And I just fell at his feet one night, just weeping, hoping he would forgive me, hoping he would hear me. And, uh, he showed up, um, his manifest presence. He was there with me. Um, the presence of the Holy spirit flooded my environment flooded me.

I was being, I could feel him enter in and I was being filled. I could feel him filming. And I was completely overwhelmed because of how simple everything was in his presence. Yeah. Jesus is Lord was the sentence I was repeating in my mind over because I couldn't, there's nothing else to say except your Lord.

Um, he is who he says he is. Bible says, no one says Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy spirit. And it took that encounter with him where, um, I was put into a position where I knew I was in the presence of the living God beyond the shadow, beyond a shadow of a doubt, it was self-authenticating.

It was self-verifying. And I knew it was the Jesus of the new Testament, the Jesus my parents had told me about as a kid. Okay. And I'm thinking about these things in my head. It's like, I've been running from you this whole time.

I've been suppressing you this whole time. It's so simple. Jesus is Lord. You're the son of God, the sacrifice for sin got filled. You just got completely wrecked born again. Um, I don't want to, I don't know if that was the moment I got born again, but that was definitely the moment God got ahold of me and woke me up.

Maybe the prayer of salvation was when I was technically justified. And that was when I really got delivered spiritually and emotionally or something. But however we want to parse that, that's when I got really, um, sold out for Jesus.

That's when I was just completely obsessed with pursuing him and pursuing the truth in him. And, um, I repented to everyone online a couple of days later saying I was wrong about new age. I'm sorry for leading you down this path.

These are demonic practices and demonic worldviews, leading people away from the cross to keep you from the saving born again experience. I just had with him. And I was like, I'm going to tell you guys about Jesus now.

And nobody was like, I didn't know. I didn't, I didn't know Christians online. I didn't have any Christian. I had a joint following of about a million people online and I had an email list of 90 ,000 people.

And I just, I just came out the gate swinging saying Jesus is Lord. New age is demonic. And you know, some new age stuff, it's just wrong. Um, some of it is demonic, but I was like, yeah, I apologize.

And you know, I want to share with you guys the truth that's found in Christ. He loves you. He died for you and so forth. Some people lost their minds and said, what's wrong with you? Um, literally thinking I was going crazy.

Some people told me to kill myself. Um, some like people just swearing at me. Some people though were like, Hey, you know, we've trusted you for a while. Um, you know, I want to stick around and hear what you have to say.

Most people though were just, they just shut off. Um, but I ended up getting the attention of Christians eventually. So it's nice to have some support online now. Um, but that was crazy. It was, it was cool because honestly, looking back, it's like what Jesus did in those first few months.

And I was, I was led to like a really solid, um, really solid church. It's an AOG church. I'm not Pentecostal, but it's, it was an AOG under the Canadian branch of PAOC. And I just, I got, I was just obsessed with being in church.

It's like, there'd be some nights I would have zero hours sleep because I'd be wrestling all night with emotions or with whatever I was dealing with from all the brokenness I had from my life in the new age.

And then I would, I would go to church on one hour sleep or zero hours sleep. And just, I was like, God, I need you. I was so desperate in that church. He was so present in that church. I just kept encountering God over and over and over and over again.

And I just, I was so full of faith and confidence and assurance that not only is Jesus Christ real, but he's with me and I'm in the truth. I didn't really care that it was me against tens of thousands of people.

It was, I didn't know anybody, but I was just like, I was really confident because Jesus had made himself so real to me. And I had studied Christian apologetics quite a bit when I was in the new age too, because I loved the philosophical arguments for God's existence.

I was into philosophy, right? And I was always a theist. I was more of a panentheist then, but I still nonetheless did not like atheism at all. So by studying all these philosophical arguments for the existence of God, I was inadvertently being exposed to all the argument for the resurrection of Jesus as well, because I was obsessed with William Lane Craig.

I loved his stuff. So when I came to Christ, I had like literally 200 hours, 150 hours of Christian apologetics material under my belt. And then I was able to translate that into the ministry I was doing.

So God redeemed that. And yeah, man, it's been a wild ride, but it's been good.

Why New Age Practices and Inner Healing Drift into the Church

So how long have you been doing, how long has it been since you were saved since, since the Lord encountered you and you've been doing your Christian ministry?

Just over five years. So I got saved September of 2015. And my first video I put out on YouTube.

Was I think April of 2016. Okay. And I think what you're doing is so important because I think this generation of Christians, and when I say this generation, I would even say 25 and under. Okay. Right around there.

You know, even younger than your elder millennials. I don't, I think they have an idea of what a new age and a cult and kind of is, and it's kind of an old archaic kind of Disney version. I mean, it is so seeped into the Christian church in the way of rituals and programs and words.

We just had the guys from the cultish podcast on last week. I don't know if you're familiar with those guys, Jerry and Andrew. I was on a phone call with Jerry last night. He's one of my best friends.

Nice. There you go. Small world. Yeah. Great guy. We had met him down in, where were we? Nashville, I think. Right. Yeah. At the Fight Left Feast conference. And, you know, he's been talking Enneagram and, you know, there's some new age stuff with that.

I know I came from a church that was really wanting to get into kind of that Bethel thing of sozo's and inner healing. And I saw a lot of new age parallelism there. So I think what you're doing is important.

I'm going to take the first question if you don't mind, Jason, because I'll get it out of the way. And I know you got a bunch lined up for him, but we're going to have him back on about five more times.

Okay. It's going to be a five part series. Yeah. We were going to try to keep, I will try to keep it for the listeners to 45 minutes, but if we go longer, that's fine. So, so like inner healing sozo's, grave soaking, I mean, how does that get into the church?

And what's, what's kind of the foundation of that in kind of the new age? You know, how, how, how do those two connect? You know, from someone standing outside, he's not an expert. You go, something doesn't pass the smell test here.

I mean, I I'm soaking on a grave. I'm doing inner healing at points to myself. And when the Bible tells me to look to Christ you know, how does that kind of stuff trickle in and where does it come from?

How did we ever link up with kind of new age mysticism in the church over the last 10, 20, 30 years?

I think it starts with a I guess two things come to mind a departure from, I think it's first Corinthians four, six, where Paul tells Corinth to not go above and beyond what is written. So it's a departure from the word of God and the sufficiency of the word of God to instruct us and lead us in the Christian life and to contain everything we need for training and righteousness.

Which I don't think is opposed to certain aspects of the Holy spirit's ministry. Um, but I think that when you start building healing modalities off of something you can't link in the word of God, like entire systems based on something that's not in scripture and you can't link there.

Um, so it's a departure from the Bible as our only rule of faith and practice. It really is. That's what it starts with. And then it also, um, it starts with a, uh, um, really, uh, an error in epistemology.

So adopting a theory of knowledge that something is true. If it's pragmatic, if it has pragmatic benefit, if it has utility in my life, it must be true. It doesn't have usefulness. Then yeah, let's pursue it.

This, I don't, I don't know everything that goes on. It's so, so inner healing. I have seen some video snippets. My friends have sent me and from what I've seen from the video snippets, it's another spirit involved and it was not God.

Um, and it was weird. Um, it was very weird, very disturbing. Um, I believe God wants us well in our emotions. He wants us well in our heart. Um, he wants us well in our mind. Um, every single reference to suffering in the new Testament is not about self-inflicted psychoemotional suffering.

It's about being persecuted for the name of Christ. And I don't think living a half defeated life or getting beat up by the devil every day is our, is supposed to be the normative Christian life. It happened and it happens in my life still, but God has, but God has freedom for that.

But there's a way to go about it where it's actually biblical, where you're seeking Jesus and you're allowing Jesus to give you life and life more abundantly versus modalities that aren't from scripture, um, that really have nothing to do with Jesus other than he's just one ingredient out of like 10 or 15 ingredients.

Um, so I've pursued biblical based Bible counseling and biblical based psychotherapy, and it centers around the love of God, the gospel, the love of God expressed in the cross. My psychotherapist, he won't let me get away from the love of God expressed in the atonement and the sufficiency of the atonement and what its implications are on my life, on my identity, on my self-worth and self-value, which is meant to be rooted in God.

And that's meant to have, you know, healing, uh, implications in our soul. But I think if we start saying, well, it doesn't matter if it's biblical or not, or if it's rooted in the word of God, it's useful for me and it helps me, that's a very slippery slope.

There are psychotherapists who will use, um, past life healing modalities where they will bring someone back through a hypnotic state of consciousness into memories they apparently had in their previous life or, or in the spirit world in between lives.

And they will start leading them through these healing, um, basically guided visualization to, uh, help them walk through certain things they experienced in their past life. And they're telling these people, the reason you're experiencing this trauma and you're stuck now is because of something you experienced in your past life.

Let's go back there with hypnosis and heal it. And they will say it works. The psychotherapist will say there's a reduction of symptoms, but they'll say, do we believe that reincarnation is true or not?

Doesn't matter if it's, if it's helpful, it's true enough. And so those two philosophies where we're not using the Bible as our standard anymore. And if something is useful and pragmatic and it seems to be helpful for me, it must be God's will for me.

There are things which seem helpful in the moment. You can't see the full consequences of till later, right? Smoking a cigarette might be helpful for me in the moment to alleviate stress. I don't know.

I might not be able to see the consequences of that 30, 40 years later. So there's some errors in the way in which we approach these issues as a church where we've departed from sola scriptura essentially.

And now usefulness is our rule of faith and practice as well. Pragmatism. Um, so I would say those are the ways it's primarily leaking into the church. I would say another way it's leaking into the church is through an obsession with experience just for the sake of having an experience.

Um, I think that experiences are afforded to us in the Christian life. And thankfully, so the Christian walk is experiential. Um, I was just listening to Paul Washer today. He said, we should be praying for the manifestations of the spirit, the outpourings of the spirit, and the Christian life should be a supernatural life.

I agree with him wholeheartedly, but the problem is when you start using the name of Jesus as a springboard to get to something that's not him. Right. Right. So what you're really after is a feeling on your skin.

What you're really after is an altered state of consciousness or a spiritual high or a spiritual buzz. And so you're not seeking the son of God anymore. And you're not content with the Trinity. You're using the name of God and you're using the Trinity as a stepping stone to get to something you want more than him, namely an altered state of consciousness or a spiritual high.

And so the name of Jesus goes from being a, yeah, it goes from being a proclamation of his Lordship and his deity to being a mantra. We chant to induce altered states of consciousness or to induce some extraordinary spiritual state, which is dangerous territory to be in.

Now, when we come to Jesus, I expect him to move in my heart, to move as he sees fit. And I want to push into him and seek him and pursue him for all that he is. Right. And yeah, he'll show up in power.

But I want him at the end of the day. And I know that because the way we can know that is our lives around that experience measured by obedience and a desire to submit to his Lordship. That's hard. That's difficult when he starts coming after things, emotional crutches that you're using to keep yourself afloat.

He starts ripping them out from under you. Sure. No, that's an idol. No, that's vanity. No, that's useless. And then now you're left weak. And he's asking for more and more territory in your life and living a life submitted and devoted to Jesus.

It's hard. But what's easy is chasing after angels. What's easy is praying these prayers of angelic activation, where it's not contingent upon your level of surrender or devotion to Jesus. So we want experience outside of surrender and devotion to Jesus.

And we want experience for its own sake, rather than for the sake of being closer to Jesus or being able to serve him and fulfill the great mission better.

Positive Confession, the Law of Attraction, and Biblical Prayer

Wow. What do you got, Jason? That's some great stuff. Yeah, man. I mean, I think I start to think about the double-mindedness that you were talking about within the church. I can be transparent here.

I mean, I had moments of—can you hear me, Stephen? My little low? I don't talk very loud. I can't hear you very well. Can't hear? He can't hear me. Can you turn me on? I'll try to talk a little bit louder.

Can you hear me? Hey, hey, hey. There we go. I can hear you a little bit. So the double-mindedness of the church, and I walked through that a little bit back in the day, probably about 10, 15 years ago.

Myself, I was into astrology for a moment, the secret, the power of positive thinking. I was doing P90X, which had yoga. And then I had a friend tell me about the Enneagram personality test. I mean, here I was saying that I was a Christian, but I was working through all these things that were obviously not Christian whatsoever.

You can't find any of these practices within the Bible. Can you just expound on some of that stuff? I know that's a lot. Those are like five shows in and of themselves, for sure. But yeah, just working through some of that stuff.

I mean, especially the power of attraction, positive thinking, hey, the secret, Oprah Winfrey, I'm going to get this thing if I say it enough or if I talk about it enough, just some of that stuff. Yeah, we might have some listeners going, well, hey, what's wrong with positive thinking?

Why can't I have nice thoughts? Maybe expound.

On that a little bit, how that can be dangerous. Sure. I think positive thinking is great as long as it's true and realistic thinking, as long as it's accurate thinking. So Paul says, whatever is wonderful, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, think on these things.

He also says in Colossians 3, set your mind on things above, not on things beneath, for Christ is seated at the right hand of God. So I only have a right to confess and to declare that which I'm guaranteed, that which is promised to me in the word of God.

Those are the things I should be confessing and declaring over my life and the things I should be dwelling on and meditating on. And in terms of not new age meditation, which is emptying your mind of content, but instead being in a state of ponderance regarding the promises of God and his works and his deeds.

So for example, who will be in charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. If God is for me, who can be against me? Is that something I should be thinking over my life? Yeah. Should I be setting my mind on the hope that is going to be revealed?

And the fact that I'm a joint heir with Christ and a holy nation and a royal priesthood, and I'm seated with Christ in heavenly places and that he'll never leave me nor forsake me. He'll never turn his back on me.

You know, he's going to, he's able to keep me from falling and everything that is happening in my life right now, all the suffering and trials that's meant to result in his praise and his glory at his coming, because he's working it all together for his good and my good.

This is biblical truth, but there's a distortion of confessing biblical truths over yourself. And this other idea, which is that faith is a force and God used the force of faith to create the universe.

So faith is a metaphysical force. So when I speak words of faith out into the universe, it interacts with this set of metaphysical laws in the universe that ensure that whatever I'm speaking will come to pass because my words are being spoken with a force of faith and the force of faith is creative in nature.

So that's the worldview in which positive confessionalism rests, which is this idea that words can train intrinsic effectual power to bring things into being out of nothing. So there's a difference between me confessing biblical truths over myself.

There's a difference between me even using my word to, you know, in the name of Jesus, command things to get out of my way or leave my, if you're doing warfare or something, like if there's a demon in a room or something, commanding the demon to flee in the name of Jesus, there's a difference between speaking the word of God into a situation and speaking the word of God over my life.

And the idea that my words carry intrinsic creative power to bring about new effects out of nothing. So the analogy they use, that positive confessionalist will use is when God spoke the universe into being out of nothing.

And he did so with the force of faith and we're made in his image. Our words have the force of faith. And so we can speak things into being out of nothing as well. Here's a few quotes on this. Here's E .W. Kenyon known as really the grandfather of the modern word of faith movement.

He says in the book called the hidden man, what I confess, I possess. It took me a long time to see this truth after I saw it. And I thought I understood it. I still could not act upon it. Christianity is called quote, the great confession.

It's talking about Jesus being the high priest over the confession of our faith. It's talking about confessing Jesus as Lord and savior, but he means confessing things I want. He says, you notice that confession of the lips comes before God acts upon our spirits and recreates them.

I have learned this law that when I boldly confess then and only then do I possess. Here's Robert Tilton. Whatever comes out of your mouth shall be produced in your life. Here's Joel Osteen. Whatever follows the I am will eventually find you.

So I am successful. I am wealthy, right? Because your words have intrinsic creative power. Now the Bible says in Proverbs, the power of life and death is in the tongue. But all that means is that my words have great power and influence over the thoughts and minds of other people.

The context is a few chapters earlier where it says a gentle tongue is a tree of life. I'm going to produce emotional and psychological wellbeing in somebody else's soul. It's like healing balm to the soul, you know, a loving kind word and season.

That's all it's talking about. It's not talking about me being able to manifest a car through speech. Here's Kenneth Hagin. You can have what you say. The children of Israel got exactly what they said.

You can always have in your life what you believe for and say. Those who have a quick confession of faith almost receive it instantly. The woman with the issue of blood got exactly what she said. Those Israelites who accepted the majority got exactly what they said.

They wandered in the wilderness until every one of them died. Now you mentioned Jason about the secret. Let's compare some of those quotes with what the secret says on page 168. When you say I am, the words that follow are summoning creation with a mighty force because you are declaring it to be a fact.

You are stating it with certainty. And so immediately after you say I am tired or I am broke, I am sick, I am late, I am overweight, the genie says your wish is my command. Knowing this, the genie being like an analogy for the metaphysical laws in the universe.

Your wish is my command. Knowing this, why not use your I am to your advantage? I am healthy. I am receiving every good thing. I am happy. You're going to run yourself into exhaustion if you start doing that.

If you start saying I am happy when you're not, you're lying. Lying is not good. You're creating double-mindedness in yourself and cognitive dissonance in yourself. If you're unhappy, say you're unhappy and work toward a biblical pursuit of well-being that's rooted in truth, the truth of God's word.

Be honest with yourself about where you're at. Deceiving yourself will only produce a temporary relief of the symptoms as long as that thought keeps cycling through your head. As soon as you stop repeating that thought in your head, where are you?

That's where you actually are and that's where you need to start working from. Here's a quote, new age proponent Charles Hanel defines the law of attraction in the master key system, which is really what we're talking about here.

He says the law of attraction will certainly and unerringly bring to you the conditions, environment, and experiences in life that correspond with your habitual, characteristic, and predominant mental attitude.

This teaching, this is an ancient teaching, ancient as in like the late 1800s, where it was coined by an occultist named Helena Blavatsky, who was a theosophist. She started teaching this idea called the law of attraction.

The universe will bring to me that which is aligned with my dominant thought and my dominant emotion. If I want to attract a raise into my life, I need to create the internal state that match the reality of already having that raise or already having that house or already having that partner.