I have often told everyone here how I recently left an abusive psychiatrist who tried to deprogram my beliefs. As an atheopath, he tried to tell me experiences with the holy spirit are a mind trick. I told him he didn't understand it and he attempted to influence me by pretending to simulate a Christian conversion experience by saying, "I love you and want you to give up your religious beliefs so you can be better." He tried to make it sound like a Christian showing compassion to someone else to get them to convert. I suddenly felt like I was having a swoon like in the emotional pentecostal experiences, and as much as I tried to fight it off, I felt myself crying and influenced much like I did during some religious services. I begged him to stop and said it was from Satan, and he said, "If that's true, then all the other ones are from Satan, too. This is a mind trick and I can make it happen any time, so it is not Satan or the Holy Spirit. And now I know you are vulnerable to suggestion." Then he continued to use this new found secret in trying to disprove or destroy my religious convictions and abuse me emotionally until I left him. Thing is, this was a very humiliating experience and I am still recovering from the damage he did, and trying very hard to uproot the lies, and at times felt I believed them. Now I want to know, what should I make of this experience? I know not all emotionalism is a good basis for determining the presence or work of the holy spirit, but I do believe people may sometimes be influenced by a real power, but this made me doubt and he delighted in damaging me with this mind trick. Please give me some advice or encouragement in how to understand what he did and whether or not I should still believe the holy spirit ever really works in this way, or if it really is a mind trick.
The power of God is real. Trouble is, Satan counterfeits it. Consider how Moses showed many signs and wonders to the Egyptians, and Pharaoh's sorcerers then duplicated many of the signs to cast doubt upon Moses' message from God. Demons can work through humans to do many things not normally considered possible. I think a demon was working through this psychiatrist. At the very minimum he was acting evilly, taking advantage of your impressionable nature and betraying & abusing his authoritative role as your doctor. As a Christian, you may want to ask our Lord to increase your ability to discern evil spirits, 1 Cor. 12:10. Also pray for wisdom. You will want to know God's Word, especially the N.T., so as to judge whether anything you see or hear agrees with the Word or is contrary to it. The Holy Spirit does not depend on or play upon emotions. But if you have a sense of inner peace (as opposed to turmoil) about a certain course of action, an action which you adjudge to be consistent with, or at least not in any way contrary to, the Scriptures, this is more likely to be the correct course because God is a God of peace and He leads us gently "beside still waters" along "paths of righteousness." God will not make you want to cry or swoon, nor will he try to make you excited enough to act a certain way. I hope that is of some comfort and assistance to you. Also, I hope you have a home church with a good pastor in whom you feel comfortable confiding to. He can help you with this, I bet. By the way, having been in pentecostal churches for a number of years in my (fairly distant) past, I can look back now and see those "experiences" for what they were: mostly people getting themselves worked up and acting as they wanted and expected to act. People falling over onto the floor when hands were laid on their heads, because they really wanted a "spiritual experience." I have been in some of the ministry lines and have been pushed in the forehead by the ministers; it wasn't the power of God, just the power of bicep. I think now and realize that no gospel or epistle talks of people falling ont he ground when Jesus or the apostles laid hands on them, except if the people were demon-possessed and the demon was being commanded to leave. How could I have missed that fact previously? Now it seems obvious. This is not to say that God cannot and never will move in unusual ways.... but if He does, it won't have any relation to your emotions and you won't have been expecting it or working yourself up for it in the least; it will just happen!
Thank you. I too considered Moses' plight when dealing with it. They cannot always use this trick effectively on everyone, and even some who are affected by it at a certain time may not be at another. There could be a demonic influence present in the instances where people are susceptible to it even if they try to make it seem like it is done through natural, 'scientific' means. The miracles that Moses did which couldn't be faked by a modern illusionist were the ones that the sorcerers could not mimic. I am also battling indoctrination from him on sexual sin. I have been numbed by pornography of all sorts and am very susceptible to people who claim Christian views of sexuality and marriage are outdated and oppressive. I would hear some really debauched kind of pornography and think to myself, "Big deal", but then I realize what it has done to me spirituality. The doctor tried to say incest and pedophilia were healthy and good and the public was lying to make them look bad because of religious propaganda. He said he has people come to his office who are involved in it with relatives and their children and had it done to them as a child before they passed it on, and they consented to it and liked it, he also said marriage was a lie that makes things more complicated than they should be and does nothing, and that incest should be allowed because incest babies are another prevalent myth and more good babies than defective ones are born. He said he did not have to follow the law if he didn't believe something was wrong, and says he keeps this secret between him and his patients to endorse their right to practice it. He tried to humiliate me when I struggled to defend myself and my beliefs and said if the bible lies about those things being wrong then God is a monster and oppressor and that atheists do all the good things Christians do except condemn these 'innocent' practices, and that the Christians who demonize people for them are actually the ones that either need to be forgiven or killed, and Christians do nothing good for society. I am severely damaged from my interaction with him and am battling these demons he implanted in me as well as giving every ounce of my strength to defend my faith and remain close to God. I have had breakdowns and panic attacks from anger and trauma from the experience, but haven't reported him because psychiatry is a very atheistic fundamentalist institution and I have met too many people in the field, doctors and staff, who defend these things and talk about them in a sweet way like they are cute. They will probably take his side as 'religiousity' is considered a mental illness by many of these secular practitioners.
It is interesting, that you've been suffering from this evil atheistic psychologist, and still haven't shaken off his doctrines:
I hope this wasn't meant as an insult. Please continue praying for me, friends. I am struggling to find my peace and fighting the good fight to uproot these lies from the devil.
Not at all!! My deepest thoughts and prayers with you dear friend... I was just commenting on the deep hooks that can be had on our very souls, from those who are evil I too am enduring similar issues (though nowhere near as serious as you)... People who have dethroned God and thought our culture could just continue as before have really messed everything up for everyone...
It's obvious to me that the psychiatrist has seared his conscience and feels no guilt about many forms of wrongdoing. But my conscience tells me that pedophilia is wrong, and the Bible backs that up, so that is how I know it's wrong. If that were not enough, the laws of most civilized nations condemn the practice, too. There was a story recently about a man who walked into a room and caught a 17 year old performing fellatio on a 5 year old boy. In that situation, could any of us look at the event and say, "Oh, how nice, they're having fun together"?? I certainly hope that each of us would instead recognize the evil within this act and say, "Stop that! It's wrong! I'm calling the police!"
My embarrassment is the theoretical possibility of condemning something that might be good for some, even if a minority, but not for others. Can we say all people who've had premarital sex or done pedophilia or incest have done any serious damage, even if the consequences we assume to stem from them are not immediate or never show up? I guess we can't say for sure the impact of all that in the long-term sense. Most conservative arguments against premarital sex are sappy and vague, and seem embarrassing to the rational mind. If birth control, STD prevention, and emotional consequences could be eliminated and controlled adequately with scientific advancements such as drugs or technology, would we still have any arguments left to be against it? I know we are encouraged by some to just accept it as wrong if God says it, but when you're told it's for your own good and there are more negatives than positives then you feel embarrassed when arguing against it with skeptics.
The best argument against committing any act which God considers a sin is simply this: God's Word says it, I believe it, and that settles it. Here's why I say this. God knows everything, and we don't. It is always going to be possible for someone somewhere to come up with a plausible-sounding rationale why nearly anything is ok. But we can't always see all the possible consequences or ramifications down the road of doing it. God has good reasons for laying down markers for us of what's right and what's wrong, and we do not need to know all of the mind of God to trust Him. In fact, that is what our faith walk is all about: trusting God more than we trust our own abilities to reason or rationalize things. Proverbs 3:5-7 says, Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil. Listening to a slick rationale and trusting one's own reasoning ability, instead of trusting and obeying God, is exactly what got us all in this mess in the first place... when Adam and Eve partook of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If those two could tell us anything right now, I'm sure it would be: "Quit listening to those forked-tongued lies, and do what you've been told!"
My understanding is helped by what I've learned from Anglicanism about sacramental theology. Not all bread will poison or kill you but the specific bread entrusted with grace offers the fullness that the others do not have. If someone who is practicing premarital sex or is into pornography has any godly fruit or understanding, they will eventually continue to be nagged and at some point give it up to continue reaching for holiness and sanctification, or the holy spirit will withdraw from them, if they even had it at all (depending on your view of predestination). None of the greatest examples of saints in Christendom practiced any of these things.