Psychic phenomena and the Bible

[Dave-regenerated]

A lot of people experience psychic events in their lives that don't seem to have any reference to the Bible.  If anything unusual happens to them they learn to keep it to themselves because the "world" calls it crazy and the "Christian" does too.  This would be a separate event to being born again.  And in that wonder world of unusual events, there is some truth and plenty of error.  There is even fraudulent errors.

 

Are you going to forever ignore strange events by pretending you know they are demonic instead of human?  Why not deal with NORMAL life events without the filter of theological systems of demons that are everywhere?

[missmuffet]

6 minutes ago, Dave-regenerated said:

A lot of people experience psychic events in their lives that don't seem to have any reference to the Bible.  If anything unusual happens to them they learn to keep it to themselves because the "world" calls it crazy and the "Christian" does too.  This would be a separate event to being born again.  And in that wonder world of unusual events, there is some truth and plenty of error.  There is even fraudulent errors.

 

Are you going to forever ignore strange events by pretending you know they are demonic instead of human?  Why not deal with NORMAL life events without the filter of theological systems of demons that are everywhere?

Please give me an example of a psychic event that you are talking about. 

[Starise]

17 minutes ago, Dave-regenerated said:

A lot of people experience psychic events in their lives that don't seem to have any reference to the Bible.  If anything unusual happens to them they learn to keep it to themselves because the "world" calls it crazy and the "Christian" does too.  This would be a separate event to being born again.  And in that wonder world of unusual events, there is some truth and plenty of error.  There is even fraudulent errors.

 

Are you going to forever ignore strange events by pretending you know they are demonic instead of human?  Why not deal with NORMAL life events without the filter of theological systems of demons that are everywhere?

Maybe I'm wrong but I believe the term psychic has largely been replaced with the term paranormal. I remember quite some time ago ESP or extra sensory perception was a big deal, like back in the 70's. It was also called psychic phenomena. 

Now when someone is referred to as having some ability beyond the ability of present science to fully grasp they call it paranormal. Often they call people said to have these abilities sensitives.

I believe most of the premise coming from Christian circles that rely on biblical texts to make some of these determinations as to the origin or cause of these things goes something like this:

Men here on earth in their present state are spiritually handicapped as compared to our pre Adam selves, as such, we are mostly blinded to the spirit world unless we are allowed glimpses into it purposely by powers outside of ourselves. Our fellowship with Yahweh in the spirit realm was broken at the fall. For believers we have been restored partially in concept to that pre sin state. On a practical level though, a gulf still exists essentially blinding us to that invisible world until we are fully restored in our new risen bodies.

This means that these "psychic events" as you call them do not come to us of our own power, so anyone who may seem to be gaining some kind of access to that world must be getting it from someone or something else and since God plays by the rules He made, He expects us to as well, anything that colors outside of those lines then is the other side and WHY demons and evil spirits are often attributed to doing some of these "paranormal" or "psychic" things. 

God sometimes sends paranormal events to us in various ways. Often in dreams. In fact, the bible is full of paranormal activity if we look for it, both good and bad.

You didn't provide any specifics, but I'm pretty sure if you did, we might be able to further dissect what it is you might be more specifically referring to?

[Dave-regenerated]

Please read this book and others about religious experiences: Encountering Mystery: Religious Experience in a Secular Age: Amazon.co.uk: Allison, Dale C: 9780802881885: Books

 

I cannot possibly do justice to the innumerable experiences people have that fall into the supernatural category, there are so many and often even basic, dreaming of the future, knowing about thing distant to you of people close to you through a mental event, just too many to sum up succinctly now.  Any book about the religious experiences from a psychological and scientific viewpoint should do.

[other one]

29 minutes ago, Dave-regenerated said:

Please read this book and others about religious experiences: Encountering Mystery: Religious Experience in a Secular Age: Amazon.co.uk: Allison, Dale C: 9780802881885: Books

 

I cannot possibly do justice to the innumerable experiences people have that fall into the supernatural category, there are so many and often even basic, dreaming of the future, knowing about thing distant to you of people close to you through a mental event, just too many to sum up succinctly now.  Any book about the religious experiences from a psychological and scientific viewpoint should do.

Dave, from reading "Chariots of the Gods" in mid-summer of 1970, I spent a good ten years researching the Occult and living among the dark side spirits from mid 1975 to the mid 1980s.    The things that I experienced and witnessed would fall into what you are speaking of in these kinds of books.    Yes, they are real, and no you really don't want to have anything to do with them as a Christian. The more you learn about it, the more it opens up to you.   Secular to begin with and open demonic/Satanic spiritualism as it unfolds to you.

While I wouldn't say you shouldn't learn anything about it, I would warn you that is comes from the spiritual dark side of the spiritual war going on around us.

[Riverwalker]

The bible speaks in many places of the Holy Spirit revealing this to us, about ourselves and others

The gifts of the Holy Spirit  contain "word of knowledge"  which to my understanding is a revelation  of knowledge by the Holy Spirit for others. Also discerning of spirits can reveal the condition of a person

None of this is an innate human ability but rather a gift of God, for the purpose of God. Not psychic

[missmuffet]

2 hours ago, Dave-regenerated said:

Please read this book and others about religious experiences: Encountering Mystery: Religious Experience in a Secular Age: Amazon.co.uk: Allison, Dale C: 9780802881885: Books

 

I cannot possibly do justice to the innumerable experiences people have that fall into the supernatural category, there are so many and often even basic, dreaming of the future, knowing about thing distant to you of people close to you through a mental event, just too many to sum up succinctly now.  Any book about the religious experiences from a psychological and scientific viewpoint should do.

No thanks. 

[Starise]

2 hours ago, Dave-regenerated said:

Please read this book and others about religious experiences: Encountering Mystery: Religious Experience in a Secular Age: Amazon.co.uk: Allison, Dale C: 9780802881885: Books

 

I cannot possibly do justice to the innumerable experiences people have that fall into the supernatural category, there are so many and often even basic, dreaming of the future, knowing about thing distant to you of people close to you through a mental event, just too many to sum up succinctly now.  Any book about the religious experiences from a psychological and scientific viewpoint should do.

Looking into this book and Dale C. Allison.

The author has written a handful of books and is a theologian/professor. That's about all I know so far.

I don't really know anything about the author. His track record is on Wikipedia, but I have no idea what he believes or teaches as of yet. He is an ordained elder of Presbyterian USA which is tending to feed some of my inherent skepticism. I'll give him my most unbiased look over, even though I know about that connection.

[JohnR7]

4 hours ago, Dave-regenerated said:

demons that are everywhere?

I do not give them much consideration, we have the blood of Jesus to chase them off. If people give us problems we pray for them and if there is a devil that is the last thing he wants to do is stir us up to pray for people.  I like the LOA people that tells us positive energy gives us positive returns and negative energy gives us negative returns. So we know to be positive and avoid negative thinking. 

[ayin jade]

In one of his other books, he wants to reconstruct Jesus and question our understanding of Him. That sounds like emergent church stuff, which at its worst, denies who Jesus is and what His mission on earth was. 

That said, what is called psychic or paranormal should be carefully examined. I have experienced both Godly and demonic encounters. And I have a tendency to "know" when bad things happen. I still dont know what to make of that knowing. 

The demonic one I will not discuss, but I will share the Godly encounter. I was driving along a rural road on the navajo reservation, where there is open range and cattle and horses are known to stand in the roads at night. It was a long drive and I was straining to watch for animals in the road. I was on a section of road that could either be cliff face, cliff edge, or flat shoulder. But I was not sure which it was. Suddenly backlit by oncoming headlights, I saw a cow in the road in front of me. There was no way I could stop in time and I did not know what was off the road. A voice, an authorative voice, spoke in my left ear and told me to drive off the road. I did. I was on soft shoulder and the cow was still in the road, behind me. Angel sent by God? The Lord Himself? I dont know. But that voice saved my life that night. The Lord saved me.