“Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18
In “Against the Heathen,” early Church Father Athanasius reveals that pride and haughtiness preceded man’s fall into idolatry and paganism. A haughty spirit led them to make light of higher things, and deliberately disregarding what they knew to be true they began to seek in preference things in the lower or natural dimension. Thus they fell into worship of self, sexual pleasures and acquisition of status and things to the living God and higher things.
The truth as to evil said Athanasius,
“….is that it originates, and resides, in the perverted choice of the darkened soul” which, “materialized by forgetting God” and engrossed in lower things, “makes them into gods,” and thereby “descends into a hopeless depth of delusion and superstition,” whereby ”they ceased to think that anything existed beyond what is seen, or that anything was good save things temporal and bodily; so turning away and forgetting that she was in the image of the good God, she no longer… sees God the Word after whose likeness she is made; but having departed from herself, imagines and feigns what is not (and then) advancing further in evil, they came to celebrate as gods the elements and the principles of which bodies are composed….” (Against the Heathen, New Advent)
Having descended into delusion and superstition they imagined they had no free will and further that “all that exists” is the natural dimension--- a divine One Substance, watery abyss, chaos, or void, primordial matter, animated natural powers, forces, and deterministic laws, all of which they celebrated and attributed miraculous powers to. So for example, with the Egyptians’ self-created Sun-God Ra, the divine abyss or One Substance out of which he evolved is Nu--primordial matter:
“I came into being from primordial matter…I made all the forms under which I appeared by means of (or out of) the god-soul which I raised up out of Nu (i.e., the primeval abyss of water.) (The Long War Against God, Dr. Henry Morris, p. 243)
This is naturalism, or materialism, which is the belief that there is neither living God nor heavenly realm. There is only the natural dimension, thus evolutionary materialist Dr. Scott Todd wrote in the science journal ‘Nature:’
“Even if all the data point to an intelligent designer, such a hypothesis is excluded from science because it is not naturalistic.” (Naturalism in the Light of Reality, Robert Gurney, creation.com, June 14, 2012)
Materialism is of the worldview of monism which is held in common by pantheism and spiritualism and dates back to pagan antiquity and was or is taught by all non-biblical thought systems.
Greek Stoics and Epicureans, for example, were materialistic monists and these two schools of natural science and evolution held the ancient world of thought in allegiance well into the Roman Empire. Epicureanism reigns supreme in our own age through modern evolutionary materialism, which is merely revamped and revised Epicureanism.
The pagan philosopher Epicurus (342-270 B.C.) believed in an infinite number of worlds, or parallel universes in the words of contemporary ‘new’ pagan materialists. Like his modern counterparts, Epicurus taught that there was no god or gods, first principles, moral law, souls and afterlife as all things on earth had evolved from the earth material.
Epicurus preferred lower things to higher things, as do his contemporary followers, thus he taught that “all that exists” is an eternally existing void and animated matter. This made human beings, their intelligence and volition, an evolved accident of chance. Reason is left, but reason is active only because sensations (i.e., firing of neurons, chemical interactions) stimulate it.
In modern “scientific” terms, the idea that brute matter spontaneously generated itself from nothing (void) in much the same way as Ra spontaneously generated himself from Nu is called abiogenesis. On the basis of this ancient mythological superstition, new-pagan evolutionary materialists assert that the living supernatural God, souls, spirits, angels, demons, heaven, hell and metaphysics do not exist.
As for ‘modern’ evolutionary theory, anthropologist Henry Fairfield Osborn, longtime director of the American Museum of Natural History reveals that Darwin is not its’ originator but rather ancient pagans are. In the introduction to his history of evolutionism Osborn wrote:
“When I began the search for anticipations of the evolutionary theory….I was led back to the Greek natural philosophers and I was astonished to find how many of the pronounced and basic features of the Darwinian theory were anticipated even as far back as the seventh century B.C.” (Osborn, From the Greeks to Darwin, p. xi)
Abiogenesis is such an obvious embarrassment that today some naturalists such as SETI researcher Paul Davies and Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA molecule, have abandoned it in favor of panspermia.
Panspermia is the idea that life on earth was accidentally seeded by meteorites containing the essential building blocks of life or perhaps by highly evolved extraterrestrials who for billions of years have been guiding the evolution of man. The extraterrestrial idea was favored by Arthur C. Clarke in his book, “Childhood’s End” and a variation on this theme has recently been advanced by Davies, Crick, and Ralph Pudritz of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
Davies has written seriously about the possibility of “alien bioengineering” that could be detected in the DNA of life on earth and suggests that citizen scientists and school students be enlisted to help search for evidence. (An Alien Code Close to Home: Seeking ET Beyond the Radio Silence, Astrobiology Magazine, Jeremy Hsu, 10/27/2011)
Pudritz theorizes that humans and aliens may share the same DNA which itself could be part of a universal structure “of the first genetic codes anywhere….” (Why Aliens Might Look Like You, Eddie Wren, dailymail.co.uk/ June 11, 2012)
Crick proposes a theory called “directed panspermia,” the idea that,
“…life on earth may have begun when aliens from another planet sent a rocket ship containing spores to seed the earth.”
He admits however that his theory only pushes the unresolvable problem of the origin of life out into deep space:
“This scenario still leaves open the question of who designed the designer [aliens] — how did life originally originate?” (Crick, Life Itself: Its Origin and Nature, 1981)
The Myth of Extraterrestrials
In his book, “Scientific Mythologies,” James A. Herrick traces the ‘aliens from outer-space’ idea back to certain Renaissance astrologers, occultists, and mystics such as Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) who claimed to not only receive telepathic secrets from spirits but to have visited populated planets during out-of-body experiences.
Swedenborg’s influence is far-reaching. From Kant to the occult theosophist Madame Blavatsky and points in between and on into our own time to psychologist J.B. Rhine, a vast array of science fiction writers (i.e., Clarke, H.G. Wells, Ray Bradbury, Steven Spielberg) and numerous evolutionary scientists.
Over time, Swedenborg’s astral plane ‘space travels’ gave birth to what Herrick dubs “The Myth of the Extraterrestrial.” As far back as the seventeenth century science fiction writers were imagining “the intelligent extraterrestrial visitor” and preparing the public to accept their existence. And accept them they have, for the twentieth century has witnessed a veritable population explosion in the alien domain, said Herrick. (p. 43)
In general, science fiction, like new-pagan evolutionary materialism, is neither particularly scientific nor futuristic. It is rather a regression to the mystical pagan origins of modern science that reappeared in the heart of Christendom during the Renaissance. In “The Abolition of Man” (1974) C.S. Lewis points out that the Renaissance reawakened a magical view of the world closely connected with pagan Gnostic sectarianism, Hermetic magic, astrology, Eastern pantheism and alchemical scientism . Accompanying all of this was evolution, occultism, Epicureanism, reincarnation and karma.
Evolution is both the antithesis of creation ex nihilo and the primary doctrine of both Eastern pantheism and Western scientific materialism, and so early on Lewis understood that both movements were merely two sides of the same pagan revival. Thus he argued that pantheism and materialism are not enemies in principle but rather cooperating philosophies united against the supernatural Creator, His Revelation, creation ex nihilo, all higher things, the linear view of history and Christian-based civilization.
What this means is that naturalism, abiogenesis, chance, natural selection, multiple universe and panspermia theories are but six contemporary adaptations of ancient pagan “idolatry, magic, occult mysticism and mythology.” These six are of a whole host of fallacies derived from modern evolutionary thinking that have permeated the post-Christian West and American society giving birth to a “new” pagan religion of evolutionary science.
Fall of Western Civilization
Christendom and Protestant America arose on the wings of the Genesis account of creation ex nihilo, the Biblical view of man’s sinful condition and God’s Moral Law. Their subsequent fall was traced by Richard Weaver in his book, “Ideas Have Consequences,” (1945). In many ways Weaver’s analysis parallels Athanasius’ account of the fall of man.
Weaver writes that 14th century Western man had made an "evil decision” to abandon his belief in the transcendent God and universals and thus the position that "there is a source of truth higher than, and independent of, man..." The consequences of the rejection of “higher things” were catastrophic:
"The denial of everything transcending experience means inevitably...the denial of truth. With the denial of objective truth there is no escape from the relativism of 'man is the measure of all things." (The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America, George H. Nash, pp. 32-33)
“Now the soul of mankind, not satisfied with the devising of evil, began by degrees to venture upon what is worse still.” Athanasius
Fueled by a corrupted motive of dominating and bull-dozing the real world so as to coerce other wills, Western apostates conceptually murdered the living God, sealed off the supernatural dimension and elevated Nature to the supreme reality. The doctrine of original sin was abandoned and replaced by the “goodness of man.” With only the material realm of the senses held to be real, supernatural Christianity declined, the omniscient mind of human-gods arose, and pagan materialistic science became the most prestigious way to study man. With knowledge limited to the sensory realm, man’s spiritual attributes----soul, mind, conscience and volition---were soon lost in an endless cycle of reductionism and determinism. Man, created in the spiritual likeness of his supernatural Creator was lost. In his place stood the soulless human ape, an accidental emergent product of evolution and “earth material.”
Fall of Western Man
From the Renaissance to our own time, a stunning spiritual transformation of consciousness has shifted Western and American thinking away from the supernatural God and biblical religion and toward the lower thing, the new pagan religion of evolution. In his book, “The Making of the New Spirituality: The Eclipse of the Western Tradition,” James Herrick calls it the “New Religious Synthesis” and briefly outlines seven of its components:
1. History (as well as unchanging truth and moral absolutes) has no spiritual significance. This is because the idea of continuous evolutionary change makes them absurd.
2. The supremacy of omniscient reason, mystical mind-powers, intuition, and collective consciousness.
3. The spiritualization of science. Since the empirical study of the material universe employs reason to acquire knowledge, and reason is not physical but rather spiritual, today it is acknowledged that reason is in fact acquiring spiritual knowledge.
4. Animated nature (animism). The natural dimension is alive with energies, divine spirit, Zoe, god-soul, and consciousness.
5. Gnosis, or esoteric knowledge, the provenance of spiritual elites and extraordinarily gifted individuals, including some scientists.
6. Spiritual evolution. Through control and direction of their own spiritual evolution certain naturally selected humans are destined to realize unimaginable spiritual advances. Spiritual or conscious evolution leap frogs off of Darwin’s’ biological theory and will supposedly lead to actual human divinity.
7. Religious syncretism rooted in common mystical experiences and telepathic revelations from disembodied intelligences. (Herrick, pp. 33-35)
“But in his estate shall (Antichrist) honour the God of forces.” Dan. 11:38
Under the New Religious Synthesis, the animated god-force called evolution is the principle miracle-producing power of the cosmos. Whether by way of abiogenesis or by accidental or directed panspermia, human beings are evolution’s conscious products and can now achieve ever-higher levels of consciousness by directing their own evolution.
In the book, “The Aquarian Conspiracy,” Marilyn Ferguson pointed out that the efficient direction of evolution requires “a mechanism for biological change more powerful than chance mutation” which will open “the possibility of rapid evolution in our time.” (p. 148)
Some evolutionists now claim that this powerful mechanism is presently available to man from aliens who will solve mankind’s problems and conduct man to a new “cosmic” age. Aliens are busily transforming the consciousness of abductees and other Westerners and through them teaching evolution, naturalism and occult New Age philosophy as well as warning of a coming planetary apocalypse and denying the living God, the supernatural dimension and Christian theism.
All of this has led French physicist and UFO researcher Dr. Jacques Vallee to conclude that something is happening to human consciousness that is causing a major shift in man’s belief systems and his relationship to the concept of the invisible. Vallee believes that the same “powerful force’ that influenced the human race in the past is influencing it again:
“…..human belief…is being controlled and conditioned, man’s concepts are being rearranged, and we may be headed toward a massive change of human attitudes toward paranormal abilities and extraterrestrial life.” (Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, Fr. Seraphim Rose, p. 109)
In light of this, Vallee proposes the hypothesis that there is a control system,
“… for human consciousness…I am suggesting that what takes place through close encounters with UFOs is control of human beliefs, control of the relationship between our consciousness and physical reality, and that this control has been in force throughout history….” (Alien Intrusion: UFOs and the Evolution Connection, Gary Bates, p. 158)
Frank Baumer concurs and observes that evolution has,
“….persuaded people to think of everything in nature as the fruit of a gradual growth rather than an original creation.” The sweeping acceptance of evolutionary thinking means that it is “now difficult if not impossible for an educated man to conceive of a primitive revelation such as traditional Christianity taught, or even of an original natural religion from which men had declined.” This difficulty arises because “in an evolving world, perfection obviously lay, not in the past, but in the future.” (Religion and Rise of Skepticism, p. 147)
In occult terminology, transformation of consciousness is egregore, a concept representing a “thought form” (i.e., Richard Dawkins’ memes) or “collective group mind,” resulting from a psychic entity influencing the thoughts of a group of people. However, egregore derives from the Greek word for “watchers,” leading the French occult magician Eliphas Levi (1810-1875) to identify egregore with the fallen angel ‘fathers’ of the nephilim. In Christian language, transformation of consciousness means “demonic outpouring.’ Vallee’s “powerful force” is a new demonic outpouring being loosed upon mankind.
So complete has the transformation been that the God of forces has successfully inverted the order of creation and reversed the direction of Biblical theism. With creation ex nihilo virtually replaced by evolution, it is now believed that men have not fallen from perfection but instead are gradually evolving upward from their ape beginnings toward greater and greater spiritual perfection. Self-perfecting man no longer needs the living, supernatural God as the idea of “conscious evolution” means he can save himself, and perhaps even attain god-hood.
“The gradual abasement of the Soul from Truth to Falsehood (is) by the abuse of her freedom of Choice.” Athanasius
Two brilliant visionaries foresaw the stunning events we are witnessing today—the wholesale rejection of Truth tied to the fall of Westerners into idolatry and paganism influenced and directed by a demonic outpouring effecting a transformation of consciousness in tandem with the rise of the New Religious Synthesis. Each man in his own way predicted these events would usher in the end of the world and the appearance of the Antichrist. The two visionaries, Vladimir Soloviev (1850-1900), a brilliant Russian philosopher and theologian, and Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914), an English Catholic priest, recorded their predictions in gripping novels---Soloviev in the “A Short Tale of the Antichrist” and Benson in “Lord of the World.”
Benson saw through the scientific pretenses of new-pagan materialism and its’ primary doctrine, evolutionary theory, leading him to describe it and its’ ideological movement Communism as “quiet pantheism.”
Benson predicted that evolutionary thinking would prepare Westerners and Americans not only to embrace the ‘new’ pagan religion but to worship and adore Antichrist, for this human-god (Mr. Felsenburgh) is the first perfected product of nature and evolutionary forces. Mr. Felsenburgh has arisen in America and he is,
“….the first perfect product of that new cosmopolitan creation to which the world has labored throughout its history…” (p 85)
He transfixes men, and they excitedly declare they have seen,
“…the Son of Man,’ the ‘Savior of the world,’ we knew Him in our hearts as soon as we saw Him, as soon as He stood there. It was like a glory around his head (and now we) understand it all… It was He for whom we have waited so long; and He has come, bringing Peace and Goodwill in His hands.” (pp. 85, 89)
Christianity failed, it divided people. But now Jehovah is gone. He never existed at all except as a hideous nightmare. Now at long last man’s natural Savior has arisen:
”The reign of God has really begun (and) we are all partakers of God” because God is in everything, including all men….”Jehovah has fallen. He is in His grave.” In His place is the evolved Son of Man, a god indeed and a man as well…”a god because human and a man because so divine.” (ibid, pp. 93, 95)
Soloviev’s predictions regarding events in our age are astonishing in their prescience, primarily because they not only offer an amazingly accurate glimpse into the mind of the super-man who will become the Antichrist but they also illustrate the real obstacle to salvation, the refusal by proud, willful men to recognize and admit to their sinful condition.
Prior to his transformation, Soloviev describes the proud super- man as outwardly just, but within he is full of pride and is morally reprehensible:
“…. He believes in God but loves nobody but himself. His relationship with Christ was quickly defined as one of superiority (for he will never) bow before Him like the most stupid of Christians (nor) mutter senselessly….’Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me’….’I, the bright genius, the superman! No, never!” (The Wrath of God: The Days of Antichrist, Livio Fanzaga, pp. 39-40)
As the super-mans’ spiritual fall progresses, instead of the former cold rational respect for the living God and Christ:
“…..there was born and grew in his heart, first, a kind of terror, and then a burning, choking and corroding envy and furious breath-taking hatred.” Devoured with envy of Jesus Christ he cries out “He rotted in the tomb, rotted like the lowest…” (ibid, pp. 40-41)
This is the moment the Evil One has been waiting for. He openly approaches the proud super-man and possesses him:
“He saw those piercing eyes and heard...a strange voice, toneless…stifled, and yet clear, metallic and absolutely soulless as though coming from a phonograph.” Satan pours out his spirit, saying, “I ask nothing of you, and I will help you for your own sake…Receive my spirit…it gives birth to you in power. At these words…the superman’s lips opened of themselves, two piercing eyes came quite close to his face, and he felt a sharp, frozen stream enter into him and fill his whole being. And at the same time he was conscious of a wonderful strength, energy, lightness and rapture.” (p. 43)
Soloviev masterfully portrays a striking contrast between the apostles of Christ and the Antichrist. The former receive the power of the living God and are full of wisdom, truth, and courage while the latter receives the power of the devil and is full of nihilistic pride, lies, burning envy, murderous hate, blasphemy, cursing, resentment, deception, covetousness, and perversion.
The Antichrist, as described by Soloviev, suffers the same massively inflated pride and envy that transformed Lucifer into the devil. This same pride and envy animated the pantheist sorcerer Hegel, the neo-pagan Masonic Illuminati who planned and instigated the bloody French Revolution, as well as Karl Marx, Nietzsche, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, the West’s “God is dead” theologians, America’s Ruling Class, and many contemporary New World Order globalists.
The “New” Pagan Religion of Darkened Souls
“….human history can now be hesitantly traced back as an unbroken narrative to 4000 B.C. The facts must not, however, be twisted to suit the fallacy of necessary human progress. For the picture emerging….is one of the Fall of Man in historic terms as well as his rise; it is a picture …more of degradation than of success; it is a picture of monotheism breaking down into polytheism and of the struggle to return to monotheism. The establishment view of the history of religion gradually progressing from animism to polytheism, from polytheism to monotheism is the reverse of facts.” (The God-Kings and the Titans: The New World Ascendancy in Ancient Times, James Baily, 1973, p. 296)
Evolution is a religion, said Michael Ruse. From the beginning it was a religion and this is true of evolution today. (Michael Ruse, former professor of philosophy and zoology at the University of Guelph, Canada, “How evolution became a religion: creationists correct?” National Post, pp. B1, B3, B7, May 13, 2000)
Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. From the beginning this was true, and in these last days it is still true. Pride, haughtiness and envy are the common bonds linking Satan, the Antichrist, idolatry, paganism, the Religion of Evolution and all who have been and are being spiritually transformed by it. Thus when the Antichrist arrives, perhaps as a highly evolved extraterrestrial or as the Transcended Master Maitreya, all darkened souls will perversely celebrate him as the highly evolved god and man they foolishly believe they too will become.
Copy Right 2012 Linda Kimball
Linda writes on worldview and related subjects.
