The Friday Special episode five examines the modern revival of neo-paganism, a decentralized movement blending Wicca, Druidry, and nature worship that rejects Christian "twoism" for pagan "oneism." Hosts critique reliance on secondary sources like Bede as historical "fan fiction," highlighting syncretism from West Virginia folklore to TikTok's #witchtok. They argue this rise stems from declining Christianity and influences like transhumanism and UFO conspiracies, warning that self-deification leads to false worship while asserting true spirituality resides solely in Christ. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Ancient Roots and Modern Revival00:12:19
Neopaganism is on the rise.
There has been a modern revival of various pre-Christian spiritual traditions, often drawing inspiration from ancient pagan religions.
The resurgence encompasses a diverse array of beliefs and practices, including Wicca, Druidry, Heathenry, and various forms of nature spirituality.
This growing movement is intentionally decentralized, with practitioners often forming small groups or covens.
But virtually every expression of this phenomenon is marked By the worship of nature, a fascination with astrology, the belief in multiple deities, or a pantheon of gods and goddesses, rituals involving magic or spell work, all within the supreme focus on the actualization of the self.
Join us as we unveil the dark and sinister roots of Neopaganism.
All right, here we are.
Neopaganism, this is episode five for the viewer.
And we've kind of been talking about Neopaganism for the last four episodes.
So.
It's not like we haven't discussed it at all.
A lot of the different episodes that we're doing in this 10 part series all have their root in each other, and neo paganism being one of those roots.
Burning Man has roots in neo paganism, and well, a lot of stuff.
The Grays, we'll talk about that.
It all kind of, the occult, all these kinds of things kind of play into one another.
But maybe from the outset, Andrew, could you just, what is neo paganism?
Paganism, you know, just these old pagan gods, but neo paganism.
What's that?
Yeah, new paganism, or trying to resurrect what people would call pagan spirituality from the ancient days, right?
Like even like Babylonian magic, in a sense, a form of paganism.
So when we're thinking about new paganism, we're thinking about people who are trying to start doing practices again that had once died out because of Christendom and resurrect those practices.
So they're looking at What they would call history in order to try to resurrect these practices.
So, for example, we have many people saying that Easter has its roots in a pagan holiday, right?
They'll go to Ishtar or Isatre.
But in reality, what we know about those Celtic practices in general, not Ishtar, but Isatre, for example, we know from a monk named Bede.
And he's like the one source that we have from around AD. 800, right?
He's not a contemporary source for when these practices were taking place in the Celtic world.
So we really don't even know what the Celtic pagan rituals actually looked like.
Now, there's some archaeological evidence that can cite to like bonfires and things of that nature that they find, but we don't know what the actual worship looked like.
So when we're thinking of neo paganism, we're looking at people trying to go back in time through the history that we have today to resurrect pagan practices and worship.
So we're really looking through the lens darkly in neo paganism.
Is trying to do worship when they really didn't even necessarily know what the worship looked like to begin with.
Does that make sense?
So, yeah, so a lot of ways the modern is the resurgence of paganism, but in contrast to what it previously was, this would be fan fiction to the best of their ability because there's no primary sources.
And that's where you kind of get into, and this is kind of a part and partial to this, is that when we did our episode looking at the origins of Halloween, a lot of times there are arguments that would say that the origins would be in this pagan Celtic holiday known as Salmon.
But in reality, that we really don't know what was actually even celebrated.
It's vaguely mentioned in a couple of loose manuscripts.
And even what has been carried down is by tradition.
What usually is projected onto Christians falsely about the telephone game, which is not the case because you're looking at transmission.
We actually have physical copies of the original manuscripts within the lifetime of the apostles.
No other ancient work has that, let alone within paganism.
That's not how they articulated stories.
It was word of mouth, that's how they told stories around the fire.
Then one person told them to another, and more sensationalism, more lore came out of that.
And the literary tradition.
It's not as though no culture ever wrote other than Christian culture, but it is a fair statement to say that Christians, I mean, were the, I mean, in terms of literary emphases, the dominant, that came through Christians.
They were people of the book.
Everything else, you know, it was oral tradition, but also practices and things that, you know, and mysticism.
But Christians were, they were known as people of the text, people of the book.
Like, so very early on, This massive emphasis that was placed on write it down.
And so we have, you know, which even I remember with, you know, all the woke controversy and stuff, it's like, you know, picking on, well, Europe used to do this and England did that and America did this.
And it's like, uh huh, yeah.
And some of those things were wrong and some of them weren't.
Some of them, you're just, our culture is godless.
And so we call evil good and good evil.
But then some of those really truly, according to God's standard, We're wrong.
That's why we want Christendom 2.0 and not 1.0.
We do think that improvement by the grace of God could be made.
However, another thing that I would say is part of the reason it's hard to pick on some country in South Africa or South America is because they didn't write anything down.
It's easy to criticize the history of the West because the West kept good records.
And the West kept good records because it was steeped in Christendom and Christianity has always been.
The dominant religion of writing.
Yeah.
No, that would make sense.
And when we talk about neo paganism, the one area that we've described, maybe just giving a recap very briefly, is one or two.
When you look at a worldview of two, and you're talking even about the Christian oral tradition, that's a prominent worldview that encompasses a distinction between the creator and the creation.
So, in the same way, how God has communicated to his people, revelatory.
Through his word throughout all time.
In the same way, we've emulated that, being image bearers of God, writing down historical records in the same way how God has preserved his word.
So, you see that sort of emulation, trying to reciprocate that, being in the image of God.
I think that's one very interesting aspect.
But in regards to oneism, which is a blending of the material and the immaterial, there's no distinction between what all is divine, all is one, all is self.
The creation is worshiped rather than the creator.
The one thing that's very unique about every part of the world is so unique and distinct from each other.
There's a very distinct culture in India in contrast to a lot of the Nordic European areas of the world that were where you saw a lot of like the Vikings and that area of like Nordic spirituality and the worshiping of the different you know gods of that time that and trying to achieve Valhalla.
You know, there's a movie that came out a couple of years ago, The Northman, and that movie is basically, I'd call it, like the Saving Private Ryan of Vikings movies, it just showed.
That world in its very brutal form before those areas were christianized, and what you really see is the same thing.
You see this sort of worship of the creation and sort of giving all this adherence to the different gods, and it was such a brutal world and a brutal time.
But again, you see occultism as its whole and and paganism.
It is same in principle but it gets carried out differently depending on the culture.
So you would see that articulated like in the Northmen.
You would see that articulated in a place like feudal Japan, where they were in contact with entities, and you would see a lot of areas in which they would have many different cultures that had temples in the high places and trying to get in contact with the gods.
And now I think you are seeing that on an unscaled level because we are inherently spiritual.
And now because we've abandoned God and how he gives a directive for how to run society, now we're trying to grasp at that and we're returning to oneism.
Like one example, one of our friends, Josh Robinson, who's been on the podcast before, just in his area within West Virginia, there's been this large resurgence, even amongst men, to try and get back into sort of that Ragnar Lothbrook Vikings spirituality.
It seems like a very manly aesthetic to it, and they're extremely drawn to it, and they're deterred against it.
They're going towards that and being deterred by Christianity because, generally speaking, the evangelical message of the West is a very.
Feminine thing.
How many men?
There's just a post that came out with Stephen Furtick wearing this pink, oversized Easter sweater that cost two grand at his Easter service.
Like, what is the man?
I think men are drawn more towards a Ragnar Lothbrook than Stephen Furtick and a giant pink, oversized two grand sweater.
I think that's just like one small aspect of it.
But ultimately, you're looking at multiple different cultures in ancient times that would practice oneism, would practice that, and it got carried out differently depending on their environment.
And their culture.
So, the same way that, while the practice, again the same principle, you see a practice differently, as articulated in the movie The Northmen Versus Feudal Japan.
Um you, you had a lot of like, even like the, the ninjas that were known as that.
They didn't just use their practices being stealth-like, they actually use a lot of like the dark arts.
In fact uh Jeff Pastor Jeff, uh from if you guys follow, Apologies Studios, when he was, he was heavily in martial arts, he went around, he spent time in Japan uh, being given that his Dao is in the AIR Force, he's an AIR Force brat and he got introduced Into occultism by way of getting into ninjutsu, because there are processes where you can actually utilize, within ninjutsu, astral projection to try and, when you're trying to infiltrate a castle, they would utilize that as a way to spy to see what was in the next room.
Um, and so there are areas in which, even something like martial arts, you have to be careful because there are parts, uh, there are ones that are just inherently physical, like a psychic is a psychic.
There's a part of taekwondo where you pivot the foot back and you pivot your foot in a certain way.
It creates a lot more torque and power where it can easily dispatch someone with your legs versus if you don't use that.
But there's also aspects of different martial arts like Tai Chi that will incorporate a view of oneness.
So you see that there.
And then it's different in India.
And you'll see that even now in the resurgence of that.
One thing, also, as well, too, and I'll let you jump in here, Andrew, is that paganism is always syncretized, it's constantly syncretizing, it's constantly blending and re blending.
So, in the same way, how it's not linear, it's always circular, it's always taking new things.
And so, while, for example, in West Virginia, Let's say there's a resurgence into the old Nordic spirituality, trying to find some sort of masculine identity in that.
It wouldn't just be the Nordic traditions as articulated in the movie The North Men.
You also would be incorporating a lot of culture and folklore from West Virginia as well.
And there's even like a lot of mysticism that comes up just from like the 1800s.
So they would take that, they have blended it in all together.
Questioning God in New Movements00:03:49
That's what Joseph Smith was a syncretist as well.
So that's the one thing too.
Within paganism, you see the general one versus two, but you will always see.
Constant and continual cultural syncretism.
One way you saw this articulated was in the film Wild, Wild Country, where you had this Hindu cult, the Rasnish.
They went up into Oregon and they started this commune and they syncretized.
They took a lot of what they learned from the East and they blended it in with the West.
You had the strange hypocrisy too, where you had somebody who was saying, Get rid of all your possessions, but I'm going to drive around and own a bunch of Rolls Royces.
So you had somewhat of an inconsistency there.
But I don't know.
What are your thoughts on that, Andrew?
Real quick.
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Yeah, when I think about neo paganism, I tend to think, well, how did it get here?
What started the rise of neo paganism?
Today, I see it really as the bastard children of atheism are really now pushing themselves full fledged into a form of spirituality, going away from the materialistic parents who had failed them in every aspect or regard, whether it be intellectually or in the schools, emotionally.
They were abandoning them in a So many different aspects.
But before that, even thinking within America and the folk magic that was being practiced in the 19th century by many different people within the Americas, it's coming from the Enlightenment period, right?
Like, post Enlightenment period, we have the denying of God's word, the veracity of God's word, the truth of God's word.
Coming from that, we then have the Second Great Awakening.
We have so many different things going on in America with like Spiritism, stating that there needs to be a restoration of the true gospel.
People weren't, you know, Intellectuals were questioning God's word at this time.
Like, this is a reality.
Like, we get movements like Mormonism.
We have movements also like the Church of Christ, right?
The Campbellites.
We have movements like the Jehovah's Witnesses.
All of these came about just because of the questioning of God's word around that time period, which can create atheists even after that.
Eastern Orthodoxy vs Pagan Syncretism00:15:32
They're like, God's word, if it can't be trusted, you know what I mean?
Whatever presupposition they're trying to stand on by stating that there needs to be proof in general, we know as presuppositionalists, they're contradicting themselves.
But in terms of a society, we go to full fledged materialism, right?
And not only that, since there's a questioning of God's word, besides the materialism, what's also developing is another form of spirituality that's going on where people are doing seances, right?
And they're trying to find an older religion than Christianity.
So what we see today on many TikTok videos is older means more true, right?
Buddhism's older than Christianity, therefore, Buddhism must be true.
Hinduism's older than Buddhism.
And then even within the larger Christian banner, there's a push right now to Eastern Orthodoxy.
Right.
Some to Roman Catholicism, big on Eastern Orthodoxy because Eastern Orthodoxy, I mean, they're just right place, right time in the West right now because you've got the optic, the allure of masculinity.
And I say optic, it's a veneer, it's not real.
But it looks like it.
It's like, here's a priest, he's a dude, he has a big beard.
You know, and like, and then there's Stephen Furtick.
He's got a pink sweater and he's super duper gay, you know?
And so, like, so it looks masculine.
Then also, you have the robes, the tassels, the candles, the incense, the, you know, the icons, you know, all these things to venerate and to, and so it feels not only old, which gives it a sense of credibility, you know, tried and true, but it also feels mystical, like Eastern Orthodoxy.
And part of it being, you know, it differs both from Protestant and Roman Catholicism in the sense that it's, Like they, you know, the rationale is not nearly as important for them.
Like rational, consistent, you know, logic, those things are not as important of virtues as they are for the West.
For them, it's more about being one with God than it is actually knowing God.
It's to be one with God.
And so, Eastern Orthodoxy is really interesting because it has some kind of, to me, in my opinion, has some kind of pagan elements to it.
But then it also has the old kind of thing to it.
And it's got the Christian veneer to it.
And so, man, I mean, I personally know lots of men, young men especially, who are flocking to Eastern Orthodoxy because Protestant men right now, pastors are so effeminate.
But, anyways, back to you, Andrew.
But just saying that I'm just agreeing with you the idea of if it's old, it must be true.
Because you were saying TikTok, Buddhism, Back to you.
Exactly, exactly.
But what I find the most interesting about that is the fact that the reason why we know about these ancient religions, let's say, Ossetru, which would be the Viking religion, or even the old Celtic religions, is because of the recorded history of Christians, which we talked about.
And they're not from contemporary sources.
So we have people like Wiccans who are saying that this has been a practice that's been going on for eons.
Well, yes, there's nothing new under the sun, but in terms of the worship that's being, Done through their rites and rituals, it doesn't necessarily mean that those are the exact same rituals that were being done hundreds or centuries ago.
Of course, a lot of them can be extremely similar, but what I'm saying is a witch today doesn't necessarily look like a witch from 1500, 1600 years ago.
Does that make sense?
They're assuming the credibility of their religion because of the age of it, but the reality is it's neo paganism.
This is a new form.
Again, there's nothing new under the sun, it's paganism.
It's the idea that you can, through rites and rituals, Have a connection with the divine in a sort of sense, but it doesn't mean that what they're doing is actually ancient in the form that was practiced.
So then, is there such a thing as paganism?
Or, like, I mean, there was such a thing, but today, are there any pagan traditions being practiced today that aren't neo?
Is there any pagan tradition that was preserved through time?
Its records, its practices that had actually even had records or.
Or is it pretty much all from Greek gods and Roman gods, from Zeus and Thor all the way to whatever?
Is it all Neo?
Is it all kind of people are guessing?
Right.
So, in terms, I'd say of like, I think like Roman worship or Greek worship and Heno theism, that's recorded in terms of their worship.
But when I'm talking about specifically like rites and rituals, like magic circles, Things that the witches are practicing is not necessarily the same practices, but in terms of the form of the basic underlying premise that there's certain things that need to be done in order to connect yourself with the divine, that's been going on forever, right?
Like we can talk about paganism and child sacrifice to Moloch, like that's still going on today.
I'd say that's a form of paganism.
It's a changed form, right?
Now we're killing them in the womb, but before they were having an altar of brass with its hands out and they're putting their babies on top of it and watching them burn alive and beat drums, you know?
So it changes.
But in terms of the actual, what Wiccan's practice comes from something called the Corpus Hermeticum, which is a book which we'll talk about in another one of our episodes on the occult.
But there was, it was a Latin translation of the Corpus Hermeticum, which I believe it's Clement.
I'd have to look at my notes, but it's Clement who actually mentions this even in early church history, the 42 books of Hermes, that has rites and rituals that were supposedly being practiced by the Egyptians that was then amalgamated by the Greeks.
And In these rituals, it's essentially like ancient Egyptian and Babylonian magic.
So they take that, translate it into Latin, and then they get books like the Magus.
And there's even mentions of this in the discovery of witchcraft, which is another book that was written to show that a lot of witchcraft was mainly fake.
But also, it shows rituals that were being produced during the times of the medieval period.
But the point being is that it has many different forms throughout the ages.
But to say that what the Wiccan believes today is Than what Christians have been practicing is not necessarily historically true.
Does that make sense?
And when you say not necessarily, you mean definitely not true.
Yeah.
I mean, like, we don't have any like primary contemporary sources.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The ultimate reliable primary source for paganism would just be Genesis.
And you look at just the fall, and just when it says, like, in the day they should, you know, one question hath God really said?
And for the day that you eat of it, you should be as gods, knowing good and evil.
So, what you really have, you know, the original seeking of ascension is right there in Genesis.
And what you see is the first attempt for secret, esoteric, hidden knowledge and power outside of God to be like God.
Uh, knowing good and evil, and it's and we've been reciprocating that ever since.
You know, there's a saying that God made man in his own image, we've been returning the favor ever since, right?
And so, and even then, like, and there are you know, there are sources out there that do sort of show and like ancient astrological charts and things that people were into, but even though that documentation that we have, they were syncretizing on their time, and we don't know every single aspect of what they were syncretizing.
And in the same way, with even modern paganism, you know, you look at witch talk, for example, you're looking at Witch talk.
Yeah, witch talk.
And people.
What's that?
So, witch talk, I mentioned before, that's those who are witches who articulate their spells and incantations and tarot readings on TikTok under the hashtag witch tax, which there's around.
He says like billions or billions.
40 billion or something.
Yeah, it's even larger than that.
I think the last time I checked, it's around 70 billion.
I just, I just, I make a habit of not having Chinese spyware on my phone.
Yeah.
So, fair enough.
But that's what you end up seeing.
So, yeah.
So, like when it comes to witch talk, syncretism would take place.
Where you're incorporating even old ancient traditions, you'd call that.
But now, in the same way how transhumanism is trying to take the ascent to Godhead and seek ascension through technology and seeing us as a collective mind hive, now you are looking through the lens of TikTok and people who are witches are now incorporating technology.
So, in the same way how we can use this for good, this podcast is going to be seen by thousands of people.
There's going to be people engaging, sharing it.
There are people that we'll never Meet on this side of attorney all over the world who are going to hear this conversation that's being done for good.
They're incorporating and syncretizing in the same technology to say, Hey, here's my wick, here's what I'm dealing with, here's my incantation, here's the incense, and everything that would have been done, you know, in some time during the dark ages.
You know, you think about some sort of medieval movie where there's that one obscure person, you know, trying to do incantations or to give a hex on one or the other.
Like now that's being syncretized, but now with technology.
So that would be an example of neo paganism.
You would see the same thing with Burning Man now incorporating policies like climate change.
So, one of the areas that's connected to the Green New Deal and the idea of doing these now carbon taxes.
So, we're going to take a certain percentage out of what you're paying to put gas in your car because that's going to, quote unquote, harm the environment or to keep.
Everything syncretized with that worldview comes out of Gaia and planetary worship and attributing to the worship of the gods.
In fact, Carl Taker, who I mentioned the other episode, he's from Canada, they already have that incorporated.
So, what he's actually doing when he's filling up the punt, he's having through the will of the state, through the mandate of the state, he's now having to pay a mandatory tithe to the weather gods to appease them.
So, if I have to now follow these new policies that are just dictated by the mass, by whoever deems.
What is necessary to protect the planet?
Because if you don't want to do it, you're a denier and you're going to be demonized and all that sort of fun stuff.
But the worldview that comes behind it is planetary worship.
It's a view of oneism.
And so you see a lot of areas, again, they're affecting our lives that is a direct result of paganism and resurgence of the one.
Yeah, I think that's absolutely accurate.
In terms of paganism, what we get a good idea of it is from the word of God, right?
I mean, like Moses specifically, through direct revelation from God, constructed Genesis in such a way it destroys paganism, right?
In the beginning.
God, right?
Paganism denies this fundamental reality that God is number one, tri personal, he's a trinity, one God, three persons who exists outside of time and space and then creates everything.
Paganism doesn't have that.
And in Genesis, we have it all over where Moses is using, like, I think it's Baal is like the God of lightning in a sense, but Moses corrects this understanding by saying it's God who, Yahweh who created lightning in general, is like a correction to the paganism that was around during that.
Time.
So, what we understand from the Bible, regardless of the claims of a Wiccan pagan or ancient Babylonian religion and ancient magic, we have in the beginning God, right?
Through the book of Genesis that predates through special revelation any claim that anyone can make in being the oldest religion.
Right, right.
Okay.
So, neo paganism, you would say, I mean, it sounds like it's growing, not just a fringe small group.
It sounds like there are multiple expressions.
Wicca, Druidy, or how do you say it?
Yeah, Druidism.
Druidism.
I mean, have you guys heard anything about like young people in the West, in America, practicing that kind of stuff?
Or I hear about Wicca, I hear about witches, I hear about those kinds of things.
Are there any other, I guess my question, any other specific expressions of neo paganism that you feel like are on the rise?
I think it's in general.
I mean, I think I gave a couple pinnacle examples.
I think as a whole, what you're seeing, Within just all of the fruits of just even the conversations that are rising within the whole conversation, like feminism and even the divine feminist we talked about, and like those roles, but also more specifically, even like the use of psychedelic use.
And as we'll get into, even like the conversation behind UFOs and the grays, like they're all those things are in it, those things are a byproduct of embracing a worldview of oneism.
I think as a whole, again, I wouldn't be the foremost expert as far as the exact numbers of Druidism, but because again, paganism is always in its form.
So even a modern day druid will be syncretizing.
They may be taking Druidism.
They may take parts of Nordic spirituality.
They may take parts.
They may encompass parts of a burning man.
They may take parts of just a lot of different things.
Let's just throw it in the soup and make it mine.
And that's the appeal.
That's the appeal of.
Neo-paganism versus, you know, the new Atheism which is pretty much has died out.
Um again, that's why Richard Dawkins is now, you know, the Cultural Christian.
But you, what you're seeing is that people get you get to still be autonomous, you get to be your own god, but you can acknowledge the reality of the spiritual and the supernatural right.
Um, I think those and again from coming from a presuppositional standpoint, knowing what scripture says atheists, they know that there's god.
Like how do you know which god is?
Real well, the one that you hate the most?
You don't.
You don't see atheists giving putting the gods of Hinduism out at thor, Yeah.
Or even like the, if you look, even like they are all the anger that they have against the decisions that God made in the Old Testament.
You look at the, you look at what is in the Bhagavad Gita and the craziness of the stuff that the Hindu gods did.
It's nuts.
It's peanuts in comparison to what their accusations against God and the Bible are, but they give them a pass.
But it's a made up thing of fairy tales.
Why are you totally ignoring all the craziness in the Bhagavad Gita and the fruits that have taken place and the poverty that's in India as a direct result of oneism?
The amount of people who have starved because of you believing that cowl are divine and therefore you have people in the street because they're going to starve to death at the expense of animism.
Yeah, it's true.
But they're not bothered by that.
They're bothered by the Christian God because.
Right.
They instinctively know he exists.
Romans 1, they're lying and suppressing the truth and unrighteousness, but they know the triune God exists and they hate him.
The Relativistic Trap of Oneism00:04:13
Yeah, the Bible says, I am God, there is no other.
Echoed so many times throughout scripture.
And this idea of oneism is like, well, I get to pick and choose what I want for spirituality, right?
None of it really matters altogether as long as I'm searching for something higher than myself.
That's the oneism.
So I can be Ossetru and search through my Viking origin.
Trying to worship the Viking gods, or I can go ahead and believe that I'm worshiping some ancient Egyptian gods in order to be closer with some weird form of Kemetic spirituality, or I can go and celebrate the Celtic festival of Beltrain and worship and do weird Druid rites and rituals because that's what fits me and my personality.
It's the whole relativistic world that we are coming out of, really, that leads to this idea of oneism or even perennialism in a sense where all these different paths lead to God as long as it feels good for you.
Right.
I mean, even androgynous gender ideology is the same thing.
As long as it feels okay for you, you might as well do it.
Even Mormonism, in a sense, I prayed about it and I have a burning in the bosom.
I feel that this is true for me.
It's just one piece of glass on a table that was broken.
This truth all equals and creates the one true religion.
So, but the reality of it is God says, I am God and there is no other.
I've revealed myself in the word.
This is truth.
Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life.
And that's why it's true, and you know it's true.
Exactly.
And that's why there's animosity against the Christian religion, because if we are acting as Christians ought to act according to God's word, we say, no, there is no perennialism.
Not all paths lead to God.
Neopaganism is false worship.
It's not going to save your life.
And the only way to truly be spiritual, right, is in Christ.
Like, what does it say?
I believe it's, is it Romans 7?
Where it says, you cannot be spiritual.
The natural man is at enmity with God.
There's no such thing as spirituality apart from God.
It's false.
It's fake.
It's not true.
Verse 7 and 8.
Like the mind of the sinful man is hostile towards God.
It does not submit to his law, nor can it.
And then, you know, also like I think it's 2 Corinthians.
It might be 1st, but where Paul says, you know, the spiritual man makes spiritual judgments about all things, but he himself is subject to no man's judgment.
You're not, yeah, all that just to articulate your point.
There's this idea of being, I'm not religious, but I'm spiritual.
No, you're not.
That's not, I mean, you do have a soul.
You are spiritual, you know, both.
Both in body, you're an embodied soul, like you have a body and a soul.
But, um, but no, there is no true spiritual enlightenment or wisdom or maturity or spirituality in any true sense apart from the Christian religion, apart from Christ.
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Building a Pagan God Yourself00:05:28
Yeah, it's just the religion of the world, right?
The wisdom of the world.
And none of it can save them, whether it be some practice that was practiced 2,000 years ago.
Guess what?
It's not actually worshiping the true and living God.
It's not benefiting you, regardless.
Go make one up 2,000 years from then, still paganism, right?
And it's not going to save you from the wrath of God because you're going to die one day and you're going to actually meet your creator.
So we want the neo pagan to understand that Jesus Christ.
And only through him, you can actually have peace with God.
He's the one who's going to solve your problems, right?
He's going to heal you from being a bastard child of atheism from the emotional trauma that you've suffered, physical, maybe even sexual trauma in your life.
Jesus Christ, in finding hope and peace in him, is the only way where you can make sense of your life to begin with.
Yeah.
Yep.
And one of the things that I'll wrap up here with saying this is that one of the areas that ultimately the distinction between one and two is how do you view creation?
If creation is not worshiped, then what is the role of creation?
And I'll just paraphrase my friend Stephen Bankars and his testimony when he came to know the Lord.
I mean, he was someone who was raised in a Christian household and he went wayward and he ended up becoming one of the biggest New Age bloggers in the world.
He had a big website called Spirit Science and Metaphysics.
And he was making like 30, 40 grand a month in ad spend.
And his conversion, like his pinnacle point, is when he realized that creation wasn't divine.
But he realized that creation was transcendent, but it was in a world of two because all of a sudden he realized what creation was.
And he understood that all of a sudden, in just a pivotal moment, that is Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
And he saw that all the creation around him wasn't part of some divine and personal conscious that we can connect with, but that it was transcendent, that it was giving glory.
And everything from the critters on the ground to the leaves and all that is groaning out and is longing.
For that redemption and is declaring the glory of god and him realizing that was a point, to realize that no god is the creator.
And this is me, By Christ and for Christ, and that's ultimately like that, this where we have to, when we wanted to ultimately have like the, so what?
Well, this is going to be the spiritual zeitgeist of our age, I believe.
I don't think that you're not going to really deal with people being sucked into cults as a general purpose, as a general like you.
Look, I saw Jehovah's Witnesses in the airport, You know, there are ladies who are in there.
The typical Jehovah's Witness, you see them in their 40s and 50s.
They're elderly folk.
You don't really see too many young people that are there.
The only reason I've interacted with young Jehovah's Witnesses recently, like on the street, they were gone for a little while in 2020, but they're back.
And it's because they grew up.
That was their peach root dish.
But what you do see is not people getting sucked into cults like in the 70s and the 80s, specifically in California, which is why Walter Martin planted the Christian Research Institute back then when he was a Bible answer man.
But really, you're going to have people who are just going to be going into neo paganism by the droves.
So I think.
Understanding that they're going there, there's the appeal there that they get to be God, they get to sort of write the world in their own themselves and the world in their own image.
But just it's a matter of talking to them, explaining the gospel to them, and redirecting them.
They were created to have a relationship and fellowship with God, not to go inward, not to define this, not to go inward and try and find yourself because there's no one in sight.
The worldview of oneness is circular, there's no way to ascend when all is one, but it's to experience that.
Glory and to share with the glory of the Father is articulated in the high priestly prayer in John 17.
And that's what we need to pray for ultimately is that let's pray to be salt and light.
Let's pray that God breaks a heart for those people who are going to it in droves.
And let's bring the gospel of peace, the gospel of hope, and empower them to do what they were created for, which is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
Amen.
It's good.
Thanks for tuning into this episode.
A lot of our episodes, this is a part of a 10 part series, and a lot of it deals with.
More specific, particular expressions of neo paganism.
Some of the latter episodes that we've yet to even get to will deal with precisely that Scientology, talking about Mormonism, Jehovah's Witness.
And then we've done some of the more, and I think you're right.
I think some of those kind of classic cults are going to decline.
I think they might work their way out.
Like Scientology might end in our lifetime.
I think the general individuality of the appeal of a neo paganism, where it's like, remember the stores in the mall where you could go?
It was called Build a Bear.
Yeah.
You got to make your own.
Oh, yeah.
I think build a pagan God, build a pagan spiritual.
That, I think, will probably be on the rise as Christendom, as we're continuing in the West to apostatize against Christ.
And so there's this waning of Christendom.
A lot of those major cults were like parasites that attached themselves to Christendom.
They were Christian heresies.
Spiritual Warfare Against Neo-Paganism00:02:27
You know what I mean?
Little Christian spinoffs.
So if Christianity is not faring very well, then Jehovah's Witness and Mormonism are, they're kind of screwed.
But give me 20% little personal religion.
Give me 20% Thor and 30% Jupiter with a sprinkle of the divine feminine and then some Taylor Swift.
And now we're talking that much.
So I could see that being one of the big, Things that we deal with.
So, this whole idea of oneism versus twoism, right?
Is there actually a distinction, you know, two, not one, but two, a distinction between the creator and the creature?
Or is it just all is one and one is all?
And, you know, this pantheistic paganism kind of, you know, that is going to be a big focus in the talk of the town for quite some time.
So, buckle up.
If you're a Christian, you need to be prepared.
You need to listen to this series and other things like this.
Follow Cultish with their podcast.
Read Walter Martin, Kingdom of the Cults, and get ready because I do think that there's going to be a lot of spiritual warfare and a lot, by God's grace, of incredible evangelistic opportunities in the near future.
So, thanks for tuning in.
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