Attention, desire and character

Here is my article for October:

 Image by kp yamu Jayanath from Pixabay

There are many sayings that connect our choices with the consequences of those choices: how many of us were told as children when pulling a funny face, “if the wind changes your face will stay like that!”; or the slightly more logical “you are what you eat”?  I heard another recently that is much more profound: “what you give attention to, your heart will desire.” It is both a warning and encouragement: the things we fill our minds with will become the things we crave.

There are many benefits to modern media but one of the draw-backs is the constant stream of 'content.' No sooner have you finished one show or video or reel or article than the next one pops up. This means that sometimes we are exposed to a wide variety of materials (although the algorithms eventually narrow that down!) but it also means that we skip past 'uninteresting' content (i.e. normal life!!) trying to find something that gives us a dopamine hit. Thus the ordinary becomes boring and real life becomes drab.

The truth that what we focus on eventually shapes our character is one of the reasons that I maintain that Halloween is never 'harmless fun' but is always dangerous. To surround ourselves with decorations that celebrate and trivialise the forces of evil is to allow them to become influences on our lives. The mixed message of wicked, nasty or violent things being praised and rewarded with sweets is particularly dangerous for the impressionable young minds of children – ordinary life becomes boring compared with the exciting thrill of the darker side of the supernatural. But even for adults giving attention to the sinister forces will lead to an openness to further interaction with them and then a desire for continuing interaction. Hence the interest in witchcraft, Wicca, mediums, psychics, spiritism, ouija boards, tarot cards, horoscopes and other occult practices. All these expose us to forces that want to control our lives, but not for our benefit.

Knowing that what we give attention to our heart will desire, the Apostle Paul encourages us, saying “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things” (Philippians 4:8). However, before we can do that we need “to be made new in the attitude of [y]our minds” (Ephesians 4:23), so we cry out with the Psalmist “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). Jesus, who defeated the power of the forces of evil on the cross (Colossians 2:15) and who promises life in all its fullness to those who follow him (John 10:10), offers each of us that fresh start, and as we pay more attention to him and his word, we'll find that he is the one we were desiring all along.

A Peaky look at the afterlife

Here's and extended version of my magazine article this month:

It's taken a while but I've finally jumped on the bandwagon and started watching 'Peaky Blinders'. In one episode the matriarch of the gangster family, Polly, goes to see a medium because she has a feeling that her daughter, who was taken from her at an early age, is now dead. The medium says that her daughter is dead, and despite Polly's daughter-in-law, Esme, warning that the medium is a charlatan, we later find out that Polly's daughter is indeed dead.

The Druid and Celtic feast of Samhain held around this time of year celebrated the end of harvest and the beginning of the dark period of winter. The boundary between this world and the world of the dead was thought to dissolve and the dead returned to earth and created havoc by playing tricks on people and damaging crops. Such ideas seem laughable today, but the thinking behind 'psychic' mediums, spiritualists and clairvoyants is similar – they claim to transcend the boundary between this world and the 'world of the dead' so that the dead can communicate with the living. And their continuing popularity is proof that they are offering something that many people want despite their disbelief.

Despite the seemingly accurate reading, Esme's warnings that the medium is a charlatan are very plausible. Indeed Polly gives the medium all the information: what happened in the past, how she feels now and that she wants to know if her daughter is alive or not. The medium has a fifty-fifty change of being right (although with mortality rates it is more likely she is dead), and clearly Polly is expecting to hear that her daughter is dead. Even if the medium is wrong it is better for her to have given bad news than false hope.

Derren Brown in his book 'Tricks of the Mind' exposes some of the tricks and tactics used by charlatan mediums, such as 'cold reading' (starting with vague, general statements and through educated guesses and questions getting more specific) and 'hot reading' (gathering information beforehand). Other techniques are to explain incorrect guesses by saying that they are only passing on what they hear, or blaming the client for not remembering or understanding. They also rely on the suggestibility of vulnerable, grieving people and the human capacity to put meaning onto ambiguous statements, as well as ignore the many inaccurate guesses.

Brown would probably say that all mediums use these techniques. Some will do it knowingly; justifying their fraudulent actions by claiming they are bringing comfort to their clients, or that's it's just for fun, or that they do it for charity. Others will be doing it unconsciously; genuinely believing they have a psychic gift, a belief that's reinforced every time they get a guess right. But can they actually make contact with the spiritual realms?

Brown doesn't believe in anything supernatural or paranormal and so his analysis fails to take into account something very important. There are very real spiritual beings and forces and any attempt to contact them, whether serious or not, can have very damaging consequences. As God has forbidden these practices (e.g. Leviticus 19:31, Deuteronomy 18:9-12), no force for good would use them, despite them seeming to be harmless or even caring. St Paul warns us the “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness.” (2 Corinthians 11:14-15).

The reality of malevolent forces also explains a common 'proof' that mediums are really in contact with the dead; i.e. the client saying that “the medium told me things only I and the dead person know”. It may be true that no human could know those things but as these forces are supernatural, they have knowledge that humans don't. A medium, whether 'honest' or not, opens themself up to these forces which can then exploit this opportunity to trick people into believing that contact is being made with the dead. However the question may be asked; why would evil forces want to trick people in this way? The answer is that it is mainly to stop people believing in the the true God who reveals himself in the Bible and to stop them responding to the good news of Jesus.

The 'trick' of mediumship and other occult practices is to claim that the spiritual realm (and by implication God as well) are able to be controlled by humans: spirits can be summoned and also, via spells, be utilised. The Bible reminds us that not only is God is greater than we are (Isaiah 40:13; Job 38-41) but he is also far superior to any other spiritual being (Psalm 97:9). It also warns us that evil spirits are prowling around “like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).

But mediums also purvey a false view of life after death. We do not become spirits after we die and we will not spend the afterlife waiting for a loved one to summon us via a medium. Jesus' physical resurrection proves that we too can be raised with a physical (but improved!) body. And worse than that they offer a false hope. Unlike Polly, most people don't go to mediums wanting to know if their loved one has died. Most go because a loved one has died and they want to know that their loved one is happy or 'OK'. Jesus taught clearly that on the Day of Judgement humanity will be split into two groups (Matthew 25:31-46). Jesus said that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16), and John the Baptist said “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them” (John 3:36). This tells us that belief in Jesus does not mean simply believing that he existed but that it has something to do with God's wrath, his righteous anger and judgement of sin. Paul explains the link: “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Romans 5:8-10).

Belief in Jesus means to repent of our sins and to accept his call to follow him as our Lord. This is the good news: that we can have eternal life because Jesus died for us. But this happy state is only for those who repent and believe. I've yet to here about someone who has been to a medium and heard from a 'loved one' who is not in that happy state, but who instead warns their relative to repent and believe in Jesus! Nor have I heard talk of a 'loved one' in that happy state who encourages their relative to repent and believe in Jesus in order to share in that eternal life. The message that mediums give is that everyone, regardless of whether or not they believe in Jesus, attains a happy state after death. If this is true then Jesus is a liar.

Both charlatan and 'honest' mediumship are always unethical because they exploit people's vulnerabilities and expose them to dangerous spiritual forces, who seek to prevent them responding to Jesus' offer of eternal life. There is only one person who has spoken from 'beyond the grave': Jesus Christ who died and was raised to life again, and now reigns far above all powers. And he invites you to repent and believe now, before it's too late, so that you may join him for all eternity.

Almighty God,

give us grace to cast away the works of darkness

and to put on the armour of light,

now in the time of this mortal life,

in which your Son Jesus Christ came to us in great humility

so that on the last day,

when he will come again in his glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead,

we may rise to the life immortal,

through him who lives and reigns with you

and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Halloween: Harmless fun? Trick or treat?

Here's my magazine article from October 2013.

“It's just harmless fun” is a phrase that we'll be hearing a lot over the next few weeks as people defend the activities around Halloween, but is it true?

The origins of Halloween are in the Druid and Celtic feast of Samhain which celebrated the end of harvest and the beginning of the dark period of winter. The boundary between this world and the world of the dead was thought to dissolve and the dead returned to earth and created havoc by playing tricks on people and damaging crops. When Christianity arrived in Britain, it attempted to 'Christianise' these and other similar celebrations around the world by talking instead of the 'hallowed' saints who have died. 1^st November became All Hallows (Saints) Day, and the day before, 31^st October became All Hallows Eve or Hallowe'en. However, despite this the pagan and occult origins of the celebrations never went away.

Today the celebrations of Halloween have little to do with Samhain, for many it's just a laugh, an opportunity to dress up and perhaps to get some free sweets. We might possibly object to Halloween because of its celebration of fear, and of causing fear; the anti-social problems and potential risks for children through 'trick-or-treats'; or the overcommercialisation of it. But there is something a lot more dangerous about Halloween than these.

Christianity teaches that the supernatural exists and that there are evil and malevolent spiritual forces in the world. Halloween celebrations both underestimate and overestimate the power of those forces. By trivialising their power and making it the stuff of funny costumes it may encourage people, especially children, to 'play' with ouija boards, tarot cards, horoscopes and other occult practices. This connects people with sinister forces beyond their control, forces whose only aim is destruction.

On the other hand, Halloween is the celebration of evil over good, of darkness over light. Christianity teaches that through his death on the cross Jesus defeated all evil powers, although they won't be finally destroyed until Jesus comes again. In the meantime, they are active in the world and although they are more powerful than we are, they are nowhere near as powerful as God is. In Jesus, good has triumphed over evil and light has defeated darkness. As we say in the baptism service as we give the person their baptism candle: “God has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and has given us a place with the saints in light. You have received the light of Christ; walk in this light all the days of your life.”

The 'treat' of Halloween is really a 'trick' to make us both forget the power of evil and also to think it more powerful than it is. Fun it may be, but harmless it most definitely is not.