Nothing is quite so appealing to a child as tales of magic powers. Yet as one leaves childhood behind, one does not entirely outgrow one’s childish dreams. Their pursuit has provided much of the motivation behind science and technology, from alchemy to nuclear physics and everything in between.

Human ambition and desire have no limit. Those who believe in God try to usurp His power as their own (as Satan did) or to persuade Him to dispense it to their own ends (the avaricious goal of most prayer). In Science of Mind and Religious Science, faith is not trust in and submission to the God who created us, but "the key to the God-Power within ... the active instrument which takes my every thought and manifests it in the world of form and experience."1 The business world follows the Pied Pipers of success whose seminars promise the same mind techniques for personal power.

Harold Bloom, author of The American Religion, suggests that "for the American, god is none other than himself."2 The serpent’s lie from the Garden (the very heart of the occult invasion), that man can become a god in his own right, still rules the human soul. And how better to prove that man is God than by demonstrating godlike, psychic powers?

The belief that some gifted individuals have already mastered such powers keeps palm readers, psychics, and gurus in business. The hope for magic remedies fuels the alternative health craze and causes thousands diagnosed with terminal illnesses to seek the "miracle cures" promised through mysterious products, foreign clinics, and psychic surgeons. No one trumpets the delusion of infinite potential more persuasively than Deepak Chopra. His monthly newsletter is tided Infinite Possibilities for Body, Mind & Soul. Infinite? Only God is infinite. So man is God.

Nor does the fervent longing ever die that these unlimited powers will become commonplace within one’s lifetime. Norman Vincent Peale claimed that man’s empowerment could be realized by visualizing God as energy ("God is energy," said Peale) and by breathing this "energy" in.3 If God is the energy behind the universe, then man can be his own God by learning to control that energy—precisely what the serpent told Eve. David Spangler, cofounder of Findhorn, declares with no sense of irony or shame: "The being that helps man to reach this point [of godhood] is Lucifer... the angel of man’s evolution.…"4

The delusionary hope persists that somewhere within each of us infinite powers lie hidden. That fantasy created the New Age movement with its insistence that human potential is limitless—if only we can escape the bondage of negative, fundamentalist thinking that prevents us from reaching that fabled state of "higher consciousness" for fully utilizing all of our innate powers. According to the Dalai Lama: "From the Buddhist point of view, our consciousness has the potential to know every object. Because of obstructions we are, at present, unable to know everything. However, by removing these obstructions gradually, it is ultimately possible to know everything."5

This is pure nonsense, which the Dalai Lama himself has never been able to demonstrate —even though he claims to be God. Yet millions continue to believe him.

From its very beginning in alchemy and sorcery, science has pursued unlimited power. Magic gradually gave way to materialism in the West, and science tried unsuccessfully to deliver mankind from its superstitions. Seventy years of forced atheism and materialism in the Soviet Union failed to remove the innate belief in something beyond matter. No sooner had the Iron Curtain come down than the liberated citizens in the Communist countries of Eastern Europe went on a spiritual binge and opened themselves to every cult and religion.6

Science has now returned to the belief that an immaterial universe exists, a universe inhabited by spirit beings and containing powers beyond our finite imagination. Exploration of this new frontier is carried on in earnest through psychic research (parapsychology) at top universities (University of Nevada’s Consciousness Research Laboratory, Princeton’s Engineering Anomalies Research Lab, etc.) and independent laboratories such as SRI and the Institute of Noetic Sciences.

Altering consciousness is believed to open the doorway to that "other universe" and to be the key to developing psychic powers. To assault that door with consciousness research, the government has authorized experimentation once again with psychedelic drugs such as LSD, MDMA (ecstasy), DMT (a drug occurring naturally in the human brain), peyote (from the cactus bud) and psilocybin (from the sacred mushroom).7 Physician Larry Dossey, author of Prayer Is Good Medicine, is convinced that "when the history of consciousness in the twentieth century is written, the current laboratory studies on mind over matter will mark the most important turning point."8

"Mind over matter" and "mind control" over other minds have been the dream of occultists for thousands of years. Science is now giving apparent support to that possibility. Psychology Today admits that it now "seems that human intention alone can influence machines—even at a distance, when no influence seems possible." Dean Radin, director of University of Nevada’s consciousness research, contends: "The movement of mind does affect matter. It influences everything you can imagine, including mind itself."9

Is a human mind actually influencing matter and other minds? Or could it be a nonhuman mind, perhaps a demonic manifestation under the guise of human potential? Could it all be a ploy in order to convince man that Satan’s promise of godhood is the truth—in order to enslave him?

(to be continued)