THE SNOWBALL ROLLS FURTHER DOWN THE HILL
AND GETS DIRTIER – INTO THE OCCULT PT.4.
Some of you will not have heard of Franciscan priest Richard Rohr and the Enneagram. Others of you are only too aware of one of the fastest growing “enlightening tools” in
the church today. My heart aches as I realize what the enemy has stolen from those who have become involved in this. They have been deprived of God’s infinite love and peace and joy. They have been tricked into believing the same technique that was used in the Garden of Eden when the serpent came along and tempted them to become as God. Adam and Eve believed a lie and had to leave a place where they walked with God. They have traded the peaceful, simple, holy fellowship with their Heavenly Father and chosen to look within for their own little god (little g). You need to know some facts about Richard Rohr’s world and his associates. You’ll notice that we need to define a number of phrases that you are not acquainted with in your Biblical world because the world of Richard Rohr and those in the Enneagram are that of the occult and the foundation of this world is a lie.
Occult Origins
Not only is the Enneagram strongly associated with New Age philosophy, but it has its origins in the occult. In an interview from 2010, Claudio Naranjo describes how he arrived at the nine personality types that form the Enneagram. Naranjo and his teacher, Oscar Ichazo, publicly claimed for many years that the Enneagram was an ancient Babylonian teaching. But in the 10 minute video linked below, Claudio confesses that they both knew this to be a lie. Instead, Naranjo claims to have received the Enneagram personalities from a process called “Automatic Writing”. [ Ed. To save you some time, simply fast forward to 3.30 minutes and after the automatic writing is discussed for about one minute you can turn it off if you’d care to. However, the entire ten minute video is jam packed with information so it’s worth the full ten minute listen.]
The origin of the Enneagram – Claudio Naranjo speaks – June 2010browser.</div></div>
Claudio Naranjo Describes How He Came Up With The 9 Enneagram Personalities
Automatic Writing
What is Automatic Writing? It’s a process in which someone begins writing without consciously thinking about what it is they are writing. The idea is to simply turn off your mind and let your hand do the writing. In Naranjo’s case, he claimed that the Enneagram’s personality types were given to him by a spirit called “Metatron.” Other famous people that have attributed their works to automatic writing are Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism) and Aleister Crowley (noted psychic).
As you can tell, this gets into some pretty creepy territory. Speaking with the dead and inviting spirits to take control of our bodies are things we should not be engaging in. And the idea of following advice from people that partake in these enterprises should give serious Christians great pause.
This technique is part of the occult. The word occult means “secret knowledge” and the Lord wants us to have nothing to do with it.
What is even of greater concern are God’s thoughts as found in the Bible when we discuss the occult:
Deuteronomy 18:10-12 New King James Version
10 There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, 11 or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. 12 For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you.
Isaiah 8:1 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition
19 And when the people [instead of putting their trust in God] shall say to you, Consult for direction mediums [familiar* spirits] and wizards who chirp and mutter, should not a people seek and consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living?
The word ‘familiar,’ applied to a spirit, is supposed to have been used by our translators to imply that they were attended by an invisible spirit that was subject to their call, or that would inspire them when they sought his direction. The Hebrew word is used to denote one who was supposed to have power to call up the dead, to learn of them respecting future events; see 1 Samuel 28:7-19;
https://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Bible.show/sVerseID/17827/eVerseID/17827/RTD/barnes
A JUNGLE OF UNFAMILIAR WORDS IN RICHARD ROHR’S VOCABULARY
In 2016, Richard Rohr participated in an event called SAND16 US (standing for Science and Nonduality). Nonduality is a New Age term basically meaning there is no good and no evil, no right and no wrong; thus, all is one, all is God (which is why New Ager Neale Donald Walsch said that even Hitler will go to heaven).
Richard Rohr is a prominent champion for the idea of a global religion that will unify the world. In a 2014 interview, he said that “religion needs a new language.” And that language to bring about this one-world religion is mysticism (i.e., contemplative prayer or Progressive Christianity). As we proceed you will understand how conveniently mysticism weaved itself into both Eastern and Western religions.
RICHARD ROHR’S ROLE
At the very epicenter of today’s Enneagram movement is Franciscan priest Father Richard Rohr, founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC). The
Enneagram gained popularity as a tool within spiritual direction.* Today it is widely taught as a way of understanding personality, addiction, relationships, and vocation.
*Spiritual direction or spiritual directors are terms used in the contemplative prayer movement (i.e., Spiritual Formation movement). Contemplative spirituality is an ancient mystical prayer practice in which the participant goes into what is called “the silence” by repeating a word or phrase so that the mind is no longer distracted with thoughts. In this altered silent state, one can supposedly hear the voice of God and be spiritually transformed. Spiritual directors are utilized to help the contemplative meditator “discern” the voice and messages received during meditation. Rohr’s statement above reveals to us that the Enneagram and contemplative prayer (both based on mysticism) are very compatible with each other.
In Rohr’s book he explains that the underlying premise behind the Enneagram is that each person has a “true self and a “false self,” and with the help of the Enneagram, we can identify our true selves, and thus having identified it, we can now be spiritually transformed to live in that true self. Rohr explains:
[Co-author] Andreas Ebert and I again offer the Enneagram as a very ancient Christian tool for the discernment of spirits, the struggle with our capital sin, our “false self,” and the encounter with our True Self in God.
When Rohr, who is an outspoken panentheist* says “True Self in God,” he is referring to his belief that the true self is the God within every human being. In echoing the Catholic mystics Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen, Rohr also advocates the concept of dharmakaya*
*panentheism: God is in all things. At the mystical level, we experience this God-force
that seems to flow through everything and everybody (“Contemplative Spirituality” by David Cloud). Panentheism is most definitely not biblical. In fact, it is extreme heresy that impugns the character of God and makes Him more like a man. (Got questions.org)
* dharmakaya is the Buddhist principle of enlightenment. Rohr is a follower of Father Thomas Merton, a Catholic clergyman, who has stated that he wanted to be the best Buddhist he could be.
To further understand what Rohr means when he says, “the divine [God] dwelling place is all of creation,” we need to understand his views about Jesus Christ. In an article on Rohr’s website titled, “The Cosmic Christ,” he says that “Christ” is more of an energy than a personal being:
Christ is not Jesus’ last name, but the title of his historical and cosmic purpose. Jesus presents himself as the “Anointed” or Christened One who was human and divine united in one human body—as our model and exemplar. . . . This Christ is much bigger and older than either Jesus of Nazareth or the Christian religion, because the Christ is whenever the material and the divine co-exist—which is always and everywhere. . . . The coming of the Cosmic Christ is not the same as the growth of the Christian religion. It is the unification of all things.
For Rohr, Christ and humanity are not separate because Christ is not a person (or God come in the flesh to save man from his sins) but is an energy that exists in everyone and everything (emphasis editor). “Man’s only problem isn’t that he is sinful; rather, it is that he doesn’t realize he already has divinity within him.” This is where the Enneagram comes in, for according to Rohr the Enneagram is a “key to self-knowledge,”and the goal for using the Enneagram is “an awakening of true self-love [i.e., the divinity within].”
Nonduality. True self. False self. Panentheist. Dharmakaya. Cosmic Christ. All words that had to be explained for one simple reason. They are not in the Word of God, the book whereby our Holy Lord communicates with us. It deeply concerns me that Jesus and I would speak different languages. Please don’t let that happen to you.
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Holding His Word Higher 