Weeks before Matthew Murray armed himself with enough weaponry and ammunition to kill hundreds, attacking both a Christian missions training center and a Colorado Springs church, he apparently boasted in an e-mail that he had discovered and practiced the teachings of controversial British occultist Aleister Crowley, called during his lifetime “the wickedest man in the world.”

Murray, 24, of suburban Denver, is believed to have been the gunman who shot and killed Tiffany Johnson, 26, and Philip Crouse, 24, at the Youth With A Mission campus in Arvada, Colo., early last Sunday morning. Then, about 12 hours later, Murray died when confronted by an armed security officer at New Life Church after he shot and killed sisters Stephanie Works, 18, and Rachael Works, 16, in the church parking lot. Half a dozen others were wounded in his attacks.

Philip Crouse, 24, from Alaska, was killed by an armed attacker while responding to a request for help by a lone individual at the Arvada, Colo., base of Youth With A Mission

WND reported at the time on the disturbing rantings Murray apparently left on several websites before – and even between – the attacks, including those reported by National Terror Alert, which documented a series of postings by “nghtmrchld26,” which said, “You Christians brought this on yourselves … All I want to do is kill and injure as many of you … as I can especially Christians who are to blame for most of the problems in the world.”

Now the minister behind the Good Fight website, which has documented reports from rock stars themselves of their encounters with the occult and satanic influences through their experiences with rock music, is releasing an e-mail he received, which he strongly believes was from Murray.

Pastor Joe Schimmel told WND he recalled the October e-mail when he read the postings, included in WND stories, attributed to Murray. He said he thinks it’s important for people to know what the attacker himself was feeling and thinking prior to his homicidal attack, especially since he’s been described in the media as a homeschooled student from a religious family.

Tiffany Johnson, 26, of Minnesota, was one of two Youth With A Mission staff members shot and killed by an attacker in Arvada, Colo.

The e-mail, although it came from a man who identified himself as “Brian,” most probably was from Murray, Schimmel says, because of the remarkable number of similarities.

Brian described himself as 24, as was Murray. Brian said he was raised in a “strict charismatic/Pentecostal/Bill Gothard home,” as Murray’s home has been described. Brian said he was homeschooled for 12 years, as was Murray.

And some of the writings in the Oct. 26, 2007, e-mail were identical, or nearly identical, to other postings attributed to Murray.

“I have since joined freemasonry and found, studied and practiced the teachings of Aleister Crowley/Thelema/The Golden Dawn, Qabbalah, H.P. Blavatsky/Theosophy, Manly P. Hall, Alice Bailey, and others,” the writer told Schimmel.

The first name immediately raised his eyebrows, but since the e-mail did not ask any questions of the ministry, there was no immediate response. A WND e-mail to the return address listed went unanswered.

Crowley, who lived during the late 1800s and first half of the 1900s, was a bisexual, drug-addicted occultist practitioner and author who almost reveled in the media description of him as “the wickedest man in the world.”

During a court case in the 1930s, Crowley was described by a judge as dreadful. “I thought that everything which was vicious and bad had been produced at one time or another before me,” the judge concluded. “I have learned in this case that we can always learn something more … I have never heard such dreadful, horrible, blasphemous and abominable stuff as that which has been produced by [Crowley.]”

Crowley also founded Thelema, a religious belief that was drawn from his book, “Liber Al Vel Legis,” or Book of the Law, which gives only two commands: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law” and “Love is the law, love under will.”

Crowley espoused a wide range of occultist activities and practices, and one of his compatriots reportedly died from drinking the blood of a cat during one ceremonial episode, according to documents on Crowley’s life. Many believe Crowley was a forerunner to Anton LeVay, who formalized his beliefs in “The Satanic Bible” and established the Church of Satan.

While Crowley dabbled in the occult, magic, trances, drugs, sex and blood rituals, Schimmel told WND the writer apparently had sold his soul to another devil: rock music.

The e-mail noted that “music is a very powerful thing,” and then continued with writings that appeared to have been assembled in the form of an article titled, “My Secret Drug Addiction”:

I have a powerful addiction to a powerful drug that most people in my life don’t know about. Really, it is somewhat my fault. It started in part due to pressures in my life, with family, Christians abusing me, church and religion, loneliness and pain. I was hurting and angry and wanted an escape. This fun and enjoyable activity, this powerful substance grew into an addiction and a powerful force in my life that now controls every part of myself. I have found this drug to truly be a force to be reckoned with. This drug can completely alter blood pressure, heart rate, brainwave patterns and other bodily functions.
This drugs influence, however, goes much deeper than physiological function, for it’s (sic) effects penetrate into the deepest parts of one’s soul. This drug will completely control a person’s mind, what thought’s (sic) they think and their emotions and how they feel. I found that this drug has the power to completely alter a person’s religious beliefs, their morality, and their values and their entire lifestyle.

I didn’t realize I was addicted until about 2 years after starting. I have to admit, I am addicted. I’m an addict and completely powerless over this drug. I had fun with it at first, but now it controls me. It used to be a small thing in my life, but now takes up on average at least 5 hours each day getting high. Most of my friends and family don’t have any real clue though, because I’m able to get high on this stuff without them realizing what I’m doing. My usage doesn’t conflict with, but rather controls all the plans in my life. I’ve found that I am completely dominated and controlled by this addiction. This drug is the most powerful drug that I know of. I have found the high and it’s (sic) ability to control a person and that’s (sic) person’s belief’s (sic) and lifestyle is unparalleled. This drug has the same effects as meth, in that it’s a powerful stimulant, the addictive properties of heroin, and it has the ability of hallucinogens to cause one to trip and trance out into other ‘realities.’ This drug is far more dangerous and addicting than marijuana and even harder drugs.

I have found myself in deep trances and other worlds through the usage of this drug and have found my life radically altered and changed and (sic) by it. I found this drug to be a powerful driving force and easy gateway into a world of sex, other drugs, rebellion, homosexuality, alcoholism and many other dark things. I have found such an incredible power in this drug that will completely carry one’s mind away into a very real spiritual realm. My mind is completely controlled by this drug and there is no way at all for me to break free.

What is this mind altering life changing drug that has such an incredible power? … The drug that I use and am addicted to is commonly known in our culture as … Rock Music.

Schimmel said his organization specifically documents and warns about the occult influences in rock music and modern society, and this rang an alarm when he first received it.

When he saw reports from National Terror Alert about postings thought to have been done by Murray, the alarm got louder.

The postings, on an online forum for former Pentecostals, have been removed. But other users said the writer had described himself as a former member of YWAM who had been asked not to join a mission trip and now wanted to “blow up and shoot everything I can.”

The quotes included:

“I have found myself in deep trances and other worlds through the usage of this drug and have found my life radically altered and changed and (sic) by it. I found this drug to be a powerful driving force and easy gateway into a world of sex, other drugs, rebellion, homosexuality, alcoholism and many other dark things. … What is this mind altering life changing drug that has such an incredible power? Well, one of the main persons who has helped make this drug a powerful force in my life has been Marilyn Manson. … The drug that I use and am addicted to is commonly known in our culture as … Rock Music.”
Schimmel said the writings line up with what he knows about Crowley, and his influence, which sparked multiple references during the rock era of the 1960s, when some songs even included a tribute to “Mr. Crowley,” he said.

He said his ministry has worked to show how Satanism can influence youth through music, and this was a factor not included in many media reports about the Colorado shootings.

But he said if the author had “practiced” Crowley’s teachings, “he’s opened himself up to a spiritual drug addiction.”

“What he really is, is a Satanist, subscribing to the teachings of Aleister Crowley,” said Schimmel, who told WND other leaders in the Crowley image have included Timothy O’Leary and Alfred Kinsey.

He said it was significant that there were reports that Murray “heard voices,” because many rock stars who have, in his opinion, opened themselves to the occult, have reported similar events.

CNN reported a man who was Murray’s roommate while he was at the YWAM training camp said Murray heard voices and sometimes talked to them.

The CNN report said Richard Lerner confirmed the decision for Murray to leave the program came from YWAM officials, along with Murray’s parents, after Murray performed songs by rock stars Linkin Park and Marilyn Manson at a Christmas event for the Christian program.

Jeremy Reynalds, a correspondent for ASSIST News Service, also reported on Werner’s comments. He said Werner described Murray’s performance of rock songs as “pretty scary.”

CNN said Werner, now of Brazil, recalled Murray would roll around in bed and make noises.

“He would say, ‘Don’t worry, I’m just talking to the voices,’” Werner said, according to CNN. “He’d say, ‘Don’t worry, Richard. You’re a nice guy. The voices like you.’”

Police confirm shell casings at both shooting locations tie Murray to the deaths, and he was stopped when he was confronted by a security volunteer at New Life Church in Colorado Springs, who ordered him to surrender and fired when he didn’t.

Authorities later confirmed Murray actually died of a self-inflicted gunshot.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59203
 

“Mom and Dad” as well as “husband and wife” have been banned from California schools under a bill signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who with his signature also ordered public schools to allow boys to use girls restrooms and locker rooms, and vice versa, if they choose.

“We are shocked and appalled that the governor has blatantly attacked traditional family values in California,” said Karen England, executive director of Capitol Resource Institute.

“With this decision, Gov. Schwarzenegger has told parents that their values are irrelevant. Many parents will have no choice but to pull their children out of the public schools that have now become sexualized indoctrination centers.”

“Arnold Schwarzenegger has delivered young children into the hands of those who will introduce them to alternative sexual lifestyles,” said Randy Thomasson, president of Campaign for Children and Families, which worked to defeat the plans. “This means children as young as five years old will be mentally molested in school classrooms.

“Shame on Schwarzenegger and the Democrat politicians for ensuring that every California school becomes a homosexual-bisexual-transsexual indoctrination center,” he said.

(Story continues below)

Analysts have warned that schools across the nation will be impacted by the decision, since textbook publishers must cater to their largest purchaser, which often is California, and they will be unlikely to go to the expense of having a separate edition for other states.

The bills signed by Schwarzenegger include SB777, which bans anything in public schools that could be interpreted as negative toward homosexuality, bisexuality and other alternative lifestyle choices.

There are no similar protections for students with traditional or conservative lifestyles and beliefs, however.

“SB 777 will result in reverse discrimination against students with religious and traditional family values,” said Meredith Turney, legislative liaison for Capitol Resource Institute. “These students have lost their voice as the direct result of Gov. Schwarzenegger’s unbelievable decision. The terms ‘mom and dad’ or ‘husband and wife’ could promote discrimination against homosexuals if a same-sex couple is not also featured.

“Parents want the assurance that when their children go to school they will learn the fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic – not social indoctrination regarding alternative sexual lifestyles. Now that SB777 is law, schools will in fact become indoctrination centers for sexual experimentation,” she said.

Also signed was AB394, which targets parents and teachers for such indoctrination through “anti-harassment” training, CCF said.

Schwarzenegger had vetoed almost identical provisions a year ago, saying existing state law already provided for penalties for discrimination.

“We had hoped that the governor would once again veto this outrageous legislation but he obviously decided to side with the out-of-touch extremists that control the legislature. This law does not reflect the true values of the average Californian,” said England. “True leadership means standing up for what is true and right.”

Thomasson said SB777 prohibits any “instruction” or school-sponsored “activity” that “promotes a discriminatory bias” against “gender” – the bill’s definition includes cross-dressing and sex changes – as well as “sexual orientation.”

“Because no textbook or instruction in California public schools currently disparages transsexuality, bisexuality, or homosexuality, the practical effect of SB777 will be to require positive portrayals of these sexual lifestyles at every government-operated school,” CCF noted.

Offenders will face the wrath of the state Department of Education, up to and including lawsuits.

CCF noted that now on a banned list will be any text, reference or teaching aid that portrays marriage as only between a man and woman, materials that say people are born male or female (and not in between), sources that fail to include a variety of transsexual, bisexual and homosexual historical figures, and sex education materials that fail to offer the option of sex changes.

Further, homecoming kings now can be either male or female – as can homecoming queens, and students, whether male or female, must be allowed to use the restroom and locker room corresponding to the sex with which they choose to identify.

AB394 promotes the same issues through state-funded publications, postings, curricula and handouts to students, parents and teachers.

It also creates the circumstances where a parent who says marriage is only for a man and a woman in the presence of a lesbian teacher could be convicted of “harassment,” and a student who believes people are born either male or female could be reported as a “harasser” by a male teacher who wears women’s clothes, CCF said.

Thomasson said Schwarzenegger also signed AB14, which prohibits state funding for any program that does not support a range of alternative sexual practices, including state-funded social services run by churches.

Affected will be day cares, preschool or after-school programs, food and housing programs, senior services, anti-gang efforts, jobs programs and others.

Thomasson said it also forces every hospital in California – even private, religious hospitals – to adopt policies in support of transsexuality, bisexuality, and homosexuality and opens up nonprofit organizations to lawsuits if they exclude members that engage in homosexual, bisexual, or transsexual conduct.

“It’s the height of intolerance to punish individuals, organizations, businesses, and churches that have moral standards on sexual conduct and sexual lifestyles,” said Thomasson, in response to the signing of AB14. “This is another insensitive law that violates people’s moral boundaries.”

The vitriol over the issue rose to new levels in its latest campaign.

As WND reported, a board member for the homosexual advocacy group Equality California verbally attacked and threatened CRI for its opposition to the bill earlier.

The board member sent an e-mail and video to CRI threatening the group would be buried if it continued efforts opposing the homosexual advocacy.

“The shocking hate mail we received shows that those behind this legislation do not promote true tolerance,” said England. “Only politically correct speech will be tolerated. Those with religious or traditional moral beliefs will not be allowed to express their opinions in public schools.”

She also cited an informational document published by the Gay-Straight Alliance Network and the Transgender Law Center that already is lobbying for special treatment in the school system.

“If you want to use a restroom that matches your gender identity … you should be allowed to do so,” it advises. “Whenever students are divided up into boys and girls, you should be allowed to join the group or participate in the program that matches your gender identity as much as possible.”

Further, the groups advise, “If you change your name to one that better matches your gender identity, a school needs to use that name to refer to you.” The advocacy group also warns schools against bringing parents into any such discussion with students.

WND has documented a number of earlier cases in which educators, including leaders in California, have taken it upon themselves to promote a homosexual lifestyle to children under their charge.

WND reported California Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, under whose supervision hundreds of thousands of children are being educated, has used his state position and taxpayer-funded stationery to praise a “gay” pride event used in the past to expose children to sexually explicit activities.

That drew vehement objections from several educators, including Priscilla Schreiber, the president of the Grossmont Unified High School District governing board.

“I am outraged that a person in this high-ranking elected position would advocate an event where diversity is not just being celebrated but where pornography and indecent exposure is being perpetrated on the young and innocent children of our communities,” she said.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=58130

In 2004 when the FDA approved implanting microchips in humans, the manufacturer said it would save lives, letting doctors scan the tiny transponders to access patients’ medical records almost instantly. The FDA found “reasonable assurance” the device was safe, and a sub-agency even called it one of 2005’s top “innovative technologies.”

But neither the company nor the regulators publicly mentioned this: A series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating back to the mid-1990s, strongly suggested that chip implants had “induced” malignant tumors in some laboratory mice and rats.

“Potential investors should be told how a hacker can simply walk by a chipped person and clone his or her VeriChip signal, a threat demonstrated by security researcher Jonathan Westhues months ago,” says McIntyre, who is a former federal bank examiner.

Political strategist Mike Baker believes the national ID cards will eventually lead to the micro chipped society, since the ID cards can be lost, forged or stolen. The National ID cards are being touted as a security measure against terrorism and organized crime. It will eventually become necessary to have the implant if one wishes to open a bank account, enter a federal building, buy an airline ticket or travel on Amtrack, just to name a few. Will Christians who refuse to take their RFID microchip be the new terrorist in this Brave New World?

http://www.newswithviews.com/NWVexclusive/exclusive120.htm

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPrint.asp?Page=/Commentary/archive/200708/COM20070829c.html

(Editor’s note: This commentary contains passages from children’s books that may offend some people.)

Illinois School District 126, covering Alsip, Hazelgreen and Oak Lawn, has defended its choice to assign summer reading to 12- and 13-year-olds that is replete with harsh profanity and references to teen sex (even teen sex with adults).

Prairie Junior High School’s required reading list for rising 8th graders gave children six books to choose from over the summer. Parents have complained that three of the six books contain adult content which is highly age-inappropriate.

Those complaints, however, have fallen on deaf ears. At a recent school board meeting, school board members said they intend to continue assigning the books. The following are excerpts from just a handful of the many salacious passages found in one of the books, Fat Kid Rules the World, by K. L. Going:

(Warning: adult content not suitable for children):

– God, I want to touch her. Her legs are full. … If I could just reach under that skirt. … (p. 6)
– No one beats me or f-s me without my permission. (p. 11)
– F-k off, morons. (p. 47)
– I swear I’ll tear your g-d*mn, f-ing b*lls off…(p. 57)
–”She’d f-k you if you stay in the band,” he says (p. 141)
– …and now he has promised me that a forty-something woman will sleep with me if I’m the drummer (p. 142)

(Classy stuff, Prairie Junior High. Is that how you talk in front of your kids, Principal Gwaltney?)

To add insult to injury, the school didn’t even have the courtesy to warn these kids — or their parents — about the adult content within the assigned reading. And parents are understandably furious. If one of my daughters came to me at twelve having been assigned this smut, I’d be ticked-off too.

Whatever happened to classics like Ivanhoe or Up From Slavery? Sure, some of them may even contain limited profanity and adult content, but there’s a big difference. The profane content in Fat Kid isn’t sporadic. It’s pervasive and gratuitous. The book has 110 pages containing the f-word and other profanities, and there are multiple crude sexual references.

With all the objectionable material children are subjected to on the internet, on television and in theatres, it’s outrageous that educators, who are charged with helping to mold the minds of these 12- and 13-year-olds, would willingly — if not eagerly — contribute to their moral degradation by pushing this kind of vulgarity on them. It amounts to educational malpractice, and School District 126 should have its mouth washed out with soap.

I telephoned Robert Berger, superintendent of schools for District 126, fully expecting him to assure me that this foolishness would be remedied. But instead, his response was defiant, defensive and arrogant.

Berger refused to answer me when I asked him several times if District 126 believed that such mature content was appropriate for children. (I wonder; if it’s so appropriate, then why wouldn’t he defend it?)

I asked Berger if one could infer that the district found the material appropriate since it was assigned to children. He quipped, “Infer whatever you want to.”

No one’s calling for a book burning here, but c’mon, these are just kids. Does District 126 have any standards of decency at all?

Unfortunately the actions of District 126 are symptomatic of a metastasizing moral malady within our larger system of public education. Kids in public schools across the country are constantly inundated with material which promotes profanity, homosexuality, promiscuity and abortion.

The Agenda is pushed and the curriculum set by leftist groups like the National Education Association (NEA), the ACLU and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). Even the American Library Association (ALA) gave Fat Kids its “Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature.” The book also received a rave review from America’s largest homosexual activist literary organization, Lambda Literary Foundation.

By constantly lowering the bar on decency, educators are intentionally playing a game of ideological limbo with our children’s moral well-being as they seek to create little moral relativists in their own iconoclastic self-image. And they’re robbing kids of great reading like Oliver Twist, Treasure Island and many others in the process.

How low will they go?

By the looks of things in Alsip, Illinois, they’re not going to bottom out anytime soon.

(Matt Barber, an attorney concentrating in constitutional law, is policy director for cultural issues at Concerned Women for America.)

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPrint.asp?Page=/Commentary/archive/200708/COM20070829c.html
 

© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
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“When I was lying in my bed that night, I couldn’t sleep because my voice in my head kept echoing through my mind telling me to kill them.”

You’re reading the words of 12-year-old Christopher Pittman, struggling to explain why he murdered his grandparents, who had provided the only love and stability in his turbulent life. He was angry with his grandfather, who had disciplined him earlier that day for hurting another student during a fight on the school bus. So later that night, he shot both of his grandparents in the head with a .410 shotgun as they slept and then burned down their South Carolina home, where he had lived with them.

“I got up, got the gun, and I went upstairs and I pulled the trigger,” he recalled. “Through the whole thing, it was like watching your favorite TV show. You know what is going to happen, but you can’t do anything to stop it.”

His lawyers would later argue the boy had been a victim of “involuntary intoxication,” since Pittman’s doctors had him taking the antidepressants Paxil and Zoloft just prior to the murders.

Paxil’s known “adverse drug reactions” – according to the drug’s 2001 FDA-approved label – include “mania,” “insomnia,” “anxiety,” “agitation,” “confusion,” “amnesia,” “depression,” “paranoid reaction,” “psychosis,” “hostility,” “delirium,” “hallucinations,” “abnormal thinking,” “depersonalization” and “lack of emotion,” among others.

Andrea Yates, in one of the most horrifying and heartbreaking crimes in modern history, drowned all five of her children – aged 7 years down to 6 months – in a bathtub. Insisting inner voices commanded her to kill her kids, she had become increasingly psychotic over the course of several years. At her 2006 murder re-trial, Yates’ longtime friend Debbie Holmes testified: “She asked me if I thought Satan could read her mind and if I believed in demon possession.” And Dr. George Ringholz, after evaluating Yates for two days, recounted an experience she had after the birth of her first child:

“What she described was feeling a presence … Satan … telling her to take a knife and stab her son Noah,” Ringholz said, adding that Yates’ delusion at the time of the bathtub murders was not only that she had to kill her children to save them, but that Satan had entered her and that she had to be executed in order to kill Satan.

Yates had been taking the antidepressant Effexor. In November 2005, more than four years after Yates drowned her children, Effexor manufacturer Wyeth Pharmaceuticals quietly added “homicidal ideation” to the drug’s list of “rare adverse events.” The Medical Accountability Network, a private nonprofit focused on medical ethics issues, publicly criticized Wyeth, saying Effexor’s “homicidal ideation” risk wasn’t well-publicized and that Wyeth failed to send letters to doctors or issue warning labels announcing the change.

And what exactly does “rare” mean in the phrase “rare adverse events”? The FDA defines it as occurring in less than one in 1,000 people. But since, according to an Associated Press report, about 19.2 million prescriptions for Effexor were filled in the U.S. alone in 2005, statistically that means thousands of Americans could experience “homicidal ideation” – murderous thoughts – as a result of taking just this one brand of antidepressant drug.

Effexor is Wyeth’s best-selling drug, by the way, bringing in $3.46 billion – with a “b” – in sales worldwide in 2005, almost one-fifth of the company’s total revenues.

Columbine mass-killer Eric Harris was taking Luvox – like Paxil and Zoloft (and trendsetter Prozac), a modern and widely prescribed type of antidepressant called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs. Harris and fellow student Dylan Klebold went on a hellish school shooting rampage in 1999 during which they killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded 24 others before turning their guns on themselves.

Luvox manufacturer Solvay Pharmaceuticals concedes that during short-term controlled clinical trials 4 percent of children and youth taking Luvox – that’s 1 in 25 – developed mania, a dangerous and violence-prone mental derangement characterized by extreme excitement and delusion.

The inescapable truth is, perpetrators of many of the nation’s most horrendous murder rampages in recent years were taking, or just coming off of, prescribed psychiatric drugs.

Most recently, authorities investigating Cho Seung-Hui, who murdered 32 at Virginia Tech in April, reportedly found “prescription drugs” for the treatment of psychological problems among his possessions. While the coroner reported no drugs were found in Cho’s bloodstream on the day of the crime, April 16, the killer’s roommate Joseph Aust told the Richmond Times-Dispatch Cho’s routine each morning had included taking prescription drugs.

So what kind of meds might Cho have been taking? Strangely, his medical records have yet to be released to the public – authorities claiming it’s because an investigation is still ongoing, although critics suggest the purpose may be to protect the drug companies from liability claims.

Indeed, pharmaceutical manufacturers are nervous about lawsuits over the “rare adverse effects” of their mood-altering medications. To avoid costly settlements and public relations catastrophes – such as when GlaxoSmithKline was ordered to pay $6.4 million to the family of 60-year-old Donald Schnell who murdered his wife, daughter and granddaughter in a fit of rage shortly after starting on Paxil – drug companies’ legal teams have quietly and skillfully settled hundreds of cases out-of-court, shelling out hundreds of millions of dollars to plaintiffs. Pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly fought scores of legal claims against Prozac in this way, settling for cash before the complaint could go to court while stipulating that the settlement remain secret – and then claiming it had never lost a Prozac lawsuit.

Meanwhile, the list of killers who happened to be taking psychiatric medications is long and chilling. Remember these headline names?

Patrick Purdy’s 1989 schoolyard shooting rampage in Stockton, Calif., was the catalyst for the legislative frenzy to ban “semiautomatic assault weapons” in California and the nation. The 25-year-old Purdy, who murdered five children and wounded 30, had been on Amitriptyline, an antidepressant, as well as the antipsychotic drug Thorazine.

Kip Kinkel, 15, murdered his parents in 1998 and the next day went to his school, Thurston High in Springfield, Ore., and opened fire on his classmates, killing two and wounding 22 others. He had been prescribed both Prozac and Ritalin.

In 1988, 31-year-old Laurie Dann went on a shooting rampage in a second-grade classroom in Winnetka, Ill., killing one child and wounding six. She had been taking the antidepressant Anafranil as well as Lithium, long used to treat mania.

In Paducah, Ky., in late 1997, 14-year-old Michael Carneal, son of a prominent attorney, traveled to Heath High School and started shooting students in a prayer meeting taking place in the school’s lobby, killing three and leaving another paralyzed. Carneal reportedly was on Ritalin.

In 2005, 16-year-old Native American Jeff Weise, living on Minnesota’s Red Lake Indian Reservation, shot and killed nine people and wounded five others before killing himself. Weise had been taking Prozac.

In another famous case, 47-year-old Joseph T. Wesbecker, just a month after he began taking Prozac, shot 20 workers at Standard Gravure Corp. in Louisville, Ky., killing nine. Prozac-maker Eli Lilly later settled a lawsuit brought by survivors.

Kurt Danysh, 18, shot his own father to death in 1996, a little more than two weeks after starting on Prozac. Danysh’s description of own his mental-emotional state at the time of the murder sounded strikingly similar to that of 12-year-old Christopher Pittman, who had shot his grandparents while on psychiatric meds. “I didn’t realize I did it until after it was done,” Danysh said. “This might sound weird, but it felt like I had no control of what I was doing, like I was left there just holding a gun.”
These are only a few of the best-known offenders who had been taking prescribed psychiatric drugs before committing their violent crimes – there are many others.

Substituting pills for couches

When the subject of violent crimes and linkage to psychiatric drugs comes up, two distinct views emerge.

The mental-health establishment’s view is that these drugs have no “proven” role in enabling such horrific deeds, or at least that their benefits far outweigh whatever negative reactions may rarely occur. According to this view, of the millions of people taking these medications the vast majority are helped and the few who end up committing violent acts probably would have snapped anyway – with or without the drugs.

The other, contrarian view is that the drugs are dangerous and harmful, turning previously nonviolent people into homicidal maniacs. At a very minimum, critics contend, the meds push some individuals, already living on the edge of sanity, over the edge into violence. In addition to a growing corps of health professionals and a sizeable pile of peer-reviewed studies corroborating this view, the drug companies themselves – compelled by FDA labeling requirements – bolster it with their “black box” label warnings of increased “suicidal ideation” risk and other negative effects.

But let’s pause, putting aside for a moment the dogma of all the “experts,” and consider carefully and deeply what we’re really looking at.

We are talking about human beings who have somehow developed a secret inner life dominated by exceedingly dark thoughts and compulsions. Wild mood swings. Horrible, consuming resentment teetering on the edge of violent frenzy. Paranoid delusions fueled by intense emotion. Satanic visitations and inner voices that torment people mercilessly, sometimes for years, commanding them to commit murder or suicide – or both.

Does this really sound to you like a physiological problem in need of drugs? Sound like a disease? A biochemical imbalance in the brain? Neurotransmitter activity that’s too sluggish?

Or does it possibly sound like something much more mental-emotional, even spiritual, in origin?

The truth is, if we think we can solve problems like these with pills, we might be just as delusional as the people we’re trying to help.

Before we go on, let’s state the obvious: There are genuine, organic brain diseases that may benefit from drug therapy – but these are relatively rare. And there are also instances where an individual is so psychotic as to pose a direct danger to him/herself and others, where sedation might be appropriate. But what I’m writing about here is the overwhelming majority of cases where psychiatric drugs are unwisely relied on to fix Americans’ mental-emotional-spiritual problems.

In search of a quick, painless fix for the problems we develop when we fail to deal with the stresses of life properly, we’ve become a nation of drug-takers. Millions of us “medicate” the pain of life away by taking illegal drugs. And millions more take prescription drugs to accomplish much the same thing. As Fortune magazine reported in November 2005:

Nearly 150 million U.S. prescriptions were dispensed in 2004 for SSRIs and similar antidepressants called SNRIs, according to IMS Health, a Fairfield, Conn., drug data and consulting company – more than for any other drug except codeine. Perhaps one out of 20 adult Americans are on them now, making brands like Zoloft, GlaxoSmithKline’s Paxil, Forest Laboratories’ Celexa, and Solvay Pharmaceuticals’ Luvox household names. Though they don’t work for everybody – many people have gone off the medicines because of side effects such as dampening of sexual response – they’ve done more than any other class of drugs to spur psychiatry’s substitution of pills for couches. In fact, we’re popping so many SSRIs that their breakdown products in urine, gushing into waterways, have accumulated in fish tissues, raising concerns that aquatic animals may be getting toxic doses, according to recent research at Baylor University.

When we’ve gotten to the point of poisoning fish, you know we’re talking about a lot of drugs. And that’s counting only antidepressants. What about all the other types of psychiatric meds we consume, including the tens of millions of prescriptions for Ritalin and other controversial stimulants taken by children and adults diagnosed with ADD (or ADHD) – a condition that didn’t even exist until the 1980s?

Not too long ago, the counseling arts recognized that people suffering from mental-emotional, developmental problems needed self-understanding first and foremost. This was a noble and vital goal. But today, as Fortune points out, psychiatry has substituted “pills for couches.” Like mad scientists, our “experts” fool around with the intricacies of people’s brains, monkeying with the levels of neurotransmitters like serotonin and norepinephrine to artificially “elevate mood.”

Thus we have the spectacle of troubled people coming to mental-health experts with serious personal problems – emotional conflicts, fears, obsessions, compulsions and perhaps delusions rooted in early trauma, or in seriously flawed family relationships, or in buried resentments toward cruelty and injustice that were never resolved but just festered and grew. Yet, instead of being helped to understand where they’ve gone wrong, or where their negative programming, unhealthy relationships and destructive attitudes came from so they can correct them and find genuine healing, they’re given clever drugs designed to chemically trick the body and mind into “feeling better.”

And then, when they discontinue taking the drugs, they risk serious deterioration of their condition. But isn’t that exactly what happens when we just mask symptoms and ignore root causes?

Moreover, why do even the smartest and most educated of our experts today tend reflexively to ignore root causes?

Because root causes have to do with God and our relationship, or lack thereof, with Him.

I guarantee that many people who read that last sentence either glazed over it or were somehow put off by it.

I’ll say it again using different words: We need to wake up to the spiritual dimension of life or we will never be able to understand what goes wrong with us, or to genuinely resolve our problems.

Unfortunately, right now many of us are in love with the idea that there is no God. Books currently riding high atop national best-seller lists include “God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” by Christopher Hitchens, “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins and “The End of Faith” by Sam Harris – all of them unapologetically rabid atheist manifestos.

For an atheist, the problem here is that although you can still be a good engineer or a skillful surgeon, if you’re trying to help people who are full of rage and conflict and plagued by dark thoughts and malevolent inner voices urging them to kill people, you’re worse than clueless. Worse because your lethal combination of prideful arrogance and utter lack of comprehension of what you’re actually dealing with will inevitably lead you to “fix” such problems in ways that not only don’t help people, but vastly multiply their woes – and those of their victims.

Don’t worry, it’s not your fault

Until the last 50 years or so, Western man believed the Creator put us here on this magnificent globe we call earth, and that we, alone among all creatures, were given the ability – and destiny – to choose between good and evil.

Today’s cultural elite, including those in the healing arts, basically don’t recognize the existence of God, morality, good and evil, righteousness and sin. In other words, they don’t understand what life is all about – that each and every one of us on this earth is appealed to, from just beyond the visible world, by a dimension of good and a dimension of evil, which we call Heaven and Hell. And that by heeding the wrong impulses we get into serious trouble.

Instead, they look at man and see a soulless human animal whose behavior problems are mostly genetic or organic in origin and, in any event, manageable with drugs.

The truth is, most mental-health pill-dispensing practitioners don’t really understand why people become “clinically depressed” or why some women experience “postpartum depression” and the like. Go search WebMD and five or 10 other websites on postpartum depression (or most any other psychiatric condition for that matter). You’ll be stunned at the lack of real substance and insight with regard to what causes it. Instead, you’ll read something like, “The causes haven’t been pinpointed yet,” along with reams of authoritative-sounding data on symptoms and predisposing factors and what drugs to take and how valuable it is to have a support group and what vitamins help in recovery and so on. But no one will tell you what on earth would make a woman want to kill herself after she gives birth to her child. They don’t know.

Yet, can there be any doubt that somewhere there are real, understandable reasons for this and other syndromes – reasons a normal person with common sense could comprehend and act upon, and find real healing, if only the “expert” counseling them knew what they were talking about?

While understanding is in short supply today, the mental-health establishment is great at naming syndromes and conditions – probably to give the rest of us the impression they know more than they really do.

Are you a normal boy who doesn’t really like shutting up and sitting at a desk for six hours a day listening to some boring teacher? You may have “attention deficit disorder.” Are you an angry volcano inside? Then you suffer from “intermittent explosive disorder.” Do you get drunk to deal with your problems? That used to be considered a moral failing, a character weakness, a failure to face your problems with courage and honesty. Now, of course, it’s a disease called “alcoholism.”

Today, everything is physiological and genetic and treated with drugs. Nothing is your fault. You’re an innocent victim.

Furthermore, many of us like it that way. We like the idea that whatever is wrong with us is an organic disorder, that there’s no sin, no weakness, no deficit of character on our part. Our egos love that, it comforts us.

In July 2005, actress Brooke Shields told the New York Times about her postpartum depression: “In a strange way, it was comforting to me when my obstetrician told me that my feelings of extreme despair and my suicidal thoughts were directly tied to a biochemical shift in my body. Once we admit that postpartum is a serious medical condition, then the treatment becomes more available and socially acceptable. With a doctor’s care, I have since tapered off the medication, but without it, I wouldn’t have become the loving parent I am today.”

Brooke Shields is a lovely and principled lady, but I assure you that God did not design us to be depressed and suicidal after childbirth. We would do better to stop blaming all our psychological-spiritual problems on chemical imbalances.

Drugging our conscience

I began to suspect psychiatric meds were problematic three decades ago after a conversation with a friend who, to relieve her anxiety, had been taking the sedative Valium – then the nation’s top-selling pharmaceutical. A spiritually perceptive lady, she summarized her experience this way: “David, do you know what the Valium did for me? It deactivated my conscience.”

And just recently, another Christian lady anonymously wrote a highly thought-provoking essay – primarily for the benefit of other female members in her church – on the effect antidepressants had on her.

Stressed-out and depressed, she had sought her pastor’s spiritual counsel – and he told her to go on antidepressants.

“Not a word was said about my sinful attitudes regarding my responsibilities, and there were no offers of practical help,” she wrote. “Just go to the doctor. He proceeded to tell me about many other women in our church who had taken his advice and were doing great. In retrospect, this makes sense – ours was a ‘happy church.’ No one seemed to struggle with any serious life issues. Only smiling, happy greetings and small talk. Imagine the ‘Stepford Wives’ at church and you’ll get the picture.”

Within weeks, she wrote, she was feeling better. “By two months into treatment I was doing swimmingly, smiling and small-talking with the best of them. … I was handling the stress better and sleeping well. Most of my physical complaints were gone, and I felt very capable. Life went on.”

Five years later, unhappy with their “happy” church, she and her husband sought out and joined a more traditional and biblical church “where sin is called sin, and people are held accountable.”

At the new church, she said, “I met people who grieve over their sin. … This was foreign to me. I have never cried over my sin. I have felt bad for my sin, but I have never truly grieved over it. … I began to think that perhaps that little pill that was meant to ‘take the edge off’ was preventing me from grieving over sin. One thing I had noticed since being on it was that I could not cry. Nothing could bring me to tears, and I mean nothing. I didn’t even cry when my dad died, not even as I watched him take his last breath, uncertain where he would spend eternity. No tears. … ”

After much thought and prayer, she finally decided to get off her medication. As a result, she wrote:

Last week, after I sinned in anger at my son, I was grieved! I had asked for forgiveness from him and from the Lord, but I could not deny a deep sense of grief in my soul as I realized this had been a pattern of sinful anger for years. I had committed this same sin many times before, but felt justified, either by stressful circumstances in my life or by my son’s bad behavior. I had never before felt such grief over my own sin, and I knew I could not indulge one more outburst like this.

The antidepressants, she concluded, had “blurred the ends of the emotional spectrum, so that I experienced neither deep sadness nor great joy. I have now come to appreciate that both are vital to the Christian life. Oh, I was somewhat happy, and able to cope with life quite well, but the edge was off, not only from my sadness, but from my joy as well.”

She added: “In the beginning, the drug was good, because it enabled me to think rationally and come out of my basement. If I had used that rational thinking to get a grip on the sin that was pulling me down into depression, I could have dealt with it biblically, and been off the drug in short order. But I did not. I became dependent on those pills and was gradually numbed to the seriousness of my sin. By God’s grace, I came to the recognition that this drug could be stunting my spiritual growth, and that turned out to be exactly the case.”

The possibility that psychiatric drugs could impair our conscience should not come as a shock. We know people do bad things under the influence of alcohol, crack and meth that they wouldn’t do otherwise. Is it so hard, then, to comprehend that some legal drugs can also obscure or eliminate our awareness of conscience? After all, what does “feeling better” often involve but the elimination of conflict? And what is conflict but the evidence inside us that we’ve done something wrong – something contrary to our conscience? Getting rid of conflict, then, often involves blotting out our conscience!

But the problem with that is, conscience is literally the presence of God in us, the friction between the way we are and the way He wants us to be. We experience this correcting and illuminating presence – which is actually our greatest friend (like Jiminy Cricket in Disney’s “Pinocchio”) – as a psychic pain when we deviate from its urgings. Thus, many of us foolishly come to regard conscience as a problem, even an enemy.

Healing through forgiveness

God is not far away or elusive, He’s ever-present. But we block His help and His life in us when we escape from our conscience in various ways – especially when we lose sight of our own faults through being angry at those of others.

I wonder, is it just possible that the Lord’s Prayer – the blueprint Jesus Christ gave us for how to relate to God – could provide insight on how to heal what we call “mental illness”? Let’s take a fresh look:

After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen. (Matthew 6:9-13 KJV)

Think about this for a minute. Jesus starts out by telling us to honor God and humble our will before His and seek His continued sustenance. (No problem, we think.)

Later He advises us to ask God’s protection as we acknowledge His supremacy in all things. (Great, makes perfect sense, we think.)

But in between comes one line that delivers the essential, life-changing commandment – it’s the nuclear core of His message, the fulcrum of change in our lives, the place where miraculous things happen to us – or don’t, if we don’t heed it:

“And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.”

This is where we live or die spiritually, it’s where we find true happiness and innocence, or conflict and separation from God.

In fact, immediately following the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus re-emphasizes the forgiveness requirement in the starkest terms imaginable, to make sure nobody misses His most crucial point:

“For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:14-15)

Wow. That gets my attention.

Forgiveness – that is, finding the grace to give up anger and resentment at injustice – is healing. The problem is, anger and rage (unforgiveness) feed our pride, a part of our makeup that cannot live without constant meals of impatience, resentment and emotional upset. So until we’re ready to let the life of pride and sin inside us wither and die, we find it pretty much impossible to truly forgive. Anger is like a drug – even worse, like a nutrient – for our wrong self.

Ever wonder why we use the word “mad” to mean both angry and insane? Very simply, if someone does something wrong to you and you get angry, you’ve just become a little bit insane. Now multiply that single event by 1,000 or 10,000 and let the pile of angry reactions and upsets build and smolder for years, and you’ll see that every conceivable manner of strange behavior, programming, compulsion and delusion can easily take root in us.

Example: In the Islamic world, millions of children are nourished on hatred from the day they’re born – hatred of Jews, Christians, Americans, women, pigs, you name it – and they reliably grow up into crazy, death-loving jihadists. It’s like an assembly line with good quality control; you can count on the outcome. Infect them with hatred from birth, and you’re guaranteed a good recruit in the Mahdi army a few years later. Do you get it? It’s the hatred that allows the conditioning – the insane, ungodly, alien programming – to take hold of their minds.

As a child, people bigger and meaner than you make you upset, and when you’re upset you’re suggestible or programmable – and that’s when you pick up your conditioning. Then, no matter how crazy or illogical or self-destructive your programming, you’ll defend it – because it feels like the real you.

So, nourished by this nutrient-base of suppressed rage and resentment, and reinforced each passing day by new angers and irritations, we grow up tangled and conflicted. We all suffer in varying degrees from this madness – covered up, of course, by smiles and self-deception. It’s why we need salvation.

Who’s talking in my head?

Some of us, unfortunately, become so lost in our inner, angry, delusional world, so identified with the dark thoughts and impulses that occur to us, that we allow an evil entity of some sort to take up residence within us.

Some years back, a 24-year-old Mexican male traumatized the small community in which I live by kidnapping, torturing, raping and murdering two 11-year-old girls. (I was acquainted with one of the victim’s families.) The perpetrator later confessed to authorities that he heard inner voices and gave himself over to their commands, acting out their demonic suggestions. Same with David Berkowitz, the notorious “Son of Sam” serial killer who terrorized New York City during the 1970s. Berkowitz claimed his neighbor’s dog, Harvey, was possessed by an ancient demon and that it commanded Berkowitz to kill. Andrea Yates heard voices in her head for years. The examples are legion.

This “voices” phenomenon is very common – drugs or no drugs – and not just among crazies and criminals. In fact, it’s more common than we’d like to think. Remember all those Bible passages in which Jesus exorcises “unclean spirits” or “devils”? Let’s revisit one of them:

And there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit; and he cried out,
Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? Art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God.

And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out of him.

And when the unclean spirit had torn him, and cried with a loud voice, he came out of him.

And they were all amazed, insomuch that they questioned among themselves, saying, What thing is this? What new doctrine is this? For with authority commandeth he even the unclean spirits, and they do obey him. (Mar 1:23-27 KJV)

Although Jesus “cast out” demons left and right, today most of us scoff at the very idea. Even if we cautiously acknowledge it – it is obviously biblical, after all – we’re still uncomfortable with it. For us, demonic possession conjures up images of “The Exorcist” and child-actress Linda Blair’s head spinning and spewing green projectile vomit.

Yet, a quarter century ago, the chief psychologist at a major California mental hospital conducted an extraordinary study of the inner voices patients heard. Wilson Van Dusen worked among the mentally ill for 17 years at the Mendocino State Hospital – originally Mendocino State Asylum for the Insane – established in 1889.

In his treatise, titled “The Presence of Spirits in Madness,” Van Dusen provided a window into the inner experience of his patients’ “hallucinations.” Note that these were not criminally insane people who had perpetrated violent acts, but rather were simply “mentally ill” individuals who had been committed to the institution. So their condition was not as serious or dangerous as that of the criminal perpetrators referenced earlier.

“Out of my professional role as a clinical psychologist in a state mental hospital and my own personal interest, I set out to describe as faithfully as possible mental patients’ experiences of hallucinations,” he wrote:

The average layman’s picture of the mentally ill as raving lunatics is far from reality. Most of these people have become entangled in inner processes and simply fail to manage their lives well.

After dealing with hundreds of such patients, I discovered about four years ago that it was possible to speak to their hallucinations. To do so I looked for patients who could distinguish between their own thoughts and the things they heard and saw in the world of hallucinations. The patient was told that I simply wanted to get as accurate a description of their experiences as possible. I held out no hope for recovery or special reward. It soon became apparent that many were embarrassed by what they saw and heard and hence they concealed it from others.

Also they knew their experiences were not shared by others, and some were even concerned that their reputations would suffer if they revealed the obscene nature of their voices. It took some care to make the patients comfortable enough to reveal their experience honestly. A further complication was that the voices were sometimes frightened of me and themselves needed reassurance. I struck up a relationship with both the patient and the persons he saw and heard. I would question these other persons directly, and instructed the patient to give a word-for-word account of what the voices answered or what was seen. In this way I could hold long dialogues with a patient’s hallucinations and record both my questions and their answers.

One consistent finding was that patients felt they had contact with another world or order of beings. Most thought these other persons were living persons. All objected to the term hallucination. Each coined his own term such as The Other Order, the Eavesdroppers, etc.

For most individuals the hallucinations came on suddenly. One woman was working in a garden when an unseen man addressed her. Another man described sudden loud noises and voices he heard while riding in a bus. Most were frightened, and adjusted with difficulty to this new experience. All patients describe voices as having the quality of a real voice, sometimes louder, sometimes softer, than normal voices. The experience they describe is quite unlike thoughts or fantasies. When things are seen they appear fully real. … Most patients soon realize that they are having experiences that others do not share, and for this reason learn to keep quiet about them. Many suffer insults, threats and attacks for years from voices with no one around them aware of it. Women have reported hearing such vile things they felt it would reflect on them should they even be mentioned.

Lower order voices are as though one is dealing with drunken bums at a bar who like to tease and torment just for the fun of it. They will suggest lewd acts and then scold the patient for considering them. They find a weak point of conscience and work on it interminably. For instance, one man heard voices teasing him for three years over a ten-cent debt he had already paid. They call the patient every conceivable name, suggest every lewd act, steal memories or ideas right out of consciousness, threaten death, and work on the patient’s credibility in every way. For instance they will brag that they will produce some disaster on the morrow and then claim honor for one in the daily paper. They suggest foolish acts (such as: Raise your right hand in the air and stay that way) and tease if he does it and threaten him if he doesn’t. The lower order can work for a long time to possess some part of the patient’s body. Several worked on the ear and the patient seemed to grow deafer. One voice worked two years to capture a patient’s eye which visibly went out of alignment. Many patients have heard loud and clear voices plotting their death for weeks on end, an apparently nerve-wracking experience. One patient saw a noose around his neck which tied to “I don’t know what” while voices plotted his death by hanging. They threaten pain and can cause felt pain as a way of enforcing their power. The most devastating experience of all is to be shouted at constantly by dozens of voices. When this occurred the patient had to be sedated.

All of the lower order are irreligious or anti-religious. Some actively interfered with the patients’ religious practices. Most considered them to be ordinary living people, though once they appeared as conventional devils and referred to themselves as demons. In a few instances they referred to themselves as from hell. Occasionally they would speak through the patient so that the patient’s voice and speech would be directly those of the voices. Sometimes they acted through the patient.

In his treatise, Van Dusen revealed that he later discovered striking parallels between his own clinical observations of the “hallucinations” of “mentally ill” patients and the writings of 18th century Swedish scientist, Christian mystic and theologian Emanuel Swedenborg. As Van Dusen explained it:

Swedenborg describes all of life as a hierarchy of beings representing essentially different orders and yet acting in correspondence with each other. The Lord acts through celestial angels, who in turn correspond on a lower level to spiritual angels, who in turn correspond to a third lower heaven – all of which corresponds to and acts into man. On the opposite side there are three levels of hell acting out of direct contact into man. Man is the free space and meeting ground of these great hierarchies. In effect, good and its opposite evil rule through this hierarchy of beings down to man who stands in the free space between them. Out of his experiences and choices he identifies with either or both sides.
These influences coming from both sides are the very life of man. The man who takes pride in his own powers tends toward the evil side. The man who acknowledges that he is the receptacle of all that is good, even the power to think and to feel, tends toward the good side.

Scary stuff. But the obvious question is, how do we avoid falling into this nightmarish mental world that entraps so many whom we label “mentally ill”?

Advice from an angel

An excellent and insightful description of this “tug of war” between Heaven and Hell for the body, mind and soul of each of us is found in the ancient Christian book “The Shepherd of Hermas.” Though not part of the canon of the Holy Bible, “Hermas” was widely revered by the early Christians, praised by church leaders like Tertullian, St. Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria and Origen, and was frequently read publicly in early churches to edify the faithful.

A passage describing a conversation between Hermas, a shepherd, and an angel who has been instructing him on how to live a life pleasing to God, is titled “That every man has two angels and of the suggestions of both.” The angel says to Hermas:
7 … There are two angels with man; one of righteousness, the other of iniquity.

8 And I said unto him, Sir, how shall I know that there are two such angels with man? Hear, says he, and understand.

9 The angel of righteousness, is mild and modest, and gentle, and quiet. When, therefore, he gets into thy heart, immediately he talks with thee of righteousness, of modesty, of chastity, of bountifulness, of forgiveness, of charity, and piety.

10 When all these things come into thy heart, know then that the angel of righteousness is with thee. Wherefore hearken to this angel and to his works.

11 Learn also the works of the angel of iniquity. He is first of all bitter, and angry, and foolish; and his works are pernicious, and overthrow the servants of God. When therefore these things come into thine heart; thou shalt know by his works, that this is the angel of iniquity.

12 And I said unto him, Sir, how shall I understand these things? Hear, says he, and understand; When anger overtakes thee, or bitterness, know that he is in thee:

13 As also, when the desire of many things, and of the best meats, and of drunkenness; when the love of what belongs to others, pride, and much speaking, and ambition; and the like things, come upon thee.

14 When therefore these things arise in thine heart, know that the angel of iniquity is with thee. Seeing therefore thou knowest his works, depart from them all, and give no credit to him: because his works are evil, and become not the servants of God.

15 Here therefore thou hast the works of both these angels. Understand now and believe the angel of righteousness, because his instruction is good.

16 For let a man be never so happy; yet if the thoughts of the other angel arise in his heart, that man or woman must needs sin.

17 But let man or woman be never so wicked, if the works of the angel of righteousness come into their hearts, that man or woman must needs do some good.

18 Thou seest therefore how it is good to follow the angel of righteousness. If therefore thou shall follow him, and submit to his works, thou shalt live unto God. And as many as shall submit to his work shall live also unto God.

Reading insight like this makes one wonder how many people who’ve been diagnosed with bipolar, depression, anxiety disorders, schizophrenia and other serious conditions have mysteriously gotten better. Oh, we don’t hear about such things in the news – but it happens. They simply get better. Somehow, privately, they discover how to listen to the right side, and to shrink from the wrong side. And they allow the light of God to come into them and shine on their conflicts and untangle their mess – mostly, I believe, by discovering forgiveness. Having truly given up their resentments and rage, no longer getting upset all the time, their “incurable” mental illnesses are healed.

We need to revisit the practice of drugging troubled souls. Psychiatry has totally bought into it and will consider me a Neanderthal or worse. Too bad. Because they’re taking the crown of God’s creation, the human mind, and acting like Dr. Frankenstein engaged in some mad, grandiose experiment, playing God, pulling people’s mood-strings chemically. There’s another way.

No doubt there are appropriate times and places to use these medications – rarely. But our increasing reliance on them is creating untold suffering of a kind and magnitude we can barely imagine. All because of a blindness that dominates our age – a blindness that obscures that which every child knows naturally:

We are born with a good side and we have a bad side. And we need to be careful which side we listen to. If we listen to the wrong side, terrible consequences follow.

Epilogue

Toward the end of my son’s Boy Scout troop meeting not too long ago, the scoutmaster stood up and used his customary “Scoutmaster Minute” to retell the famous story an old Cherokee chief supposedly told his grandson. The chief said:

“A fight is going on inside me. It is a terrible battle – between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, pride, envy, lust, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, lies and cruelty.

“The other wolf stands for honesty, kindness, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, friendship, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.

“This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too,” he added.

The grandson reflected on these words for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?”

The old chief simply replied, “The one you feed.”
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THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MIAMI — As a child, Lazaro Galindo cut open the family puppies “to see all the pretty colors inside.” As a teenager, he kept a black cauldron filled with hatchets and knives, all tools he used to sacrifice animals for his religion. He once told a detective he had an insatiable desire to eat human flesh.

He used his cherished weapons to butcher a romantic rival. He said he cut off the victim’s leg and fingers because an evil spirit he called Candelo told him to.

He described the grisly murder in a nearly 40-page confession, which was detailed at his just completed murder trial.

Galindo was tired of Argelio Gonzalez driving by his girlfriend’s trailer home, blasting romantic music and leaving fruit for her children in an effort to win her back.

It is not that Galindo, then 19, was in love with Yosalyn Gonzalez — they had met only a few months ago at the Miami-Dade County trailer park where they both lived. But she was his girlfriend now. It was about respect.

Galindo suspected she was still in love with Gonzalez, but he tried not to let it bother him.

He had warned 42-year-old Argelio Gonzalez a few times to stop coming around, so when he saw Gonzalez’s gray Cadillac cruising around the trailer park in June 2000, he was ready for an argument.

“Don’t come around my house. Please leave,” Galindo said.

“Why should I leave if the street’s not yours?” Gonzalez retorted.

Galindo asked him again to leave. And then he started crying.

“I already knew what was going to happen,” Galindo would later tell police.

He felt a sensation in his pocket, forcing him to whip out his switchblade and repeatedly stab Gonzalez. He thrust the eight-inch blade into Gonzalez’s chest, face and back — so many times the prosecutor said it was hard to count. He said his dead uncle was controlling him, telling him what to do. He called the spirit “Candelo.”

“He was manifesting himself inside of me,”I was losing and coming back into conscious, blacking out.”

Gonzalez stumbled to the pavement and vomited.

Galindo grabbed him by the arms and dragged him into his trailer, leaving behind a trail of blood. Gonzalez lay on the living room floor gasping for air, so Galindo stabbed him in the right lung, then grabbed a hatchet from a cauldron and smashed his head open.

Galindo blacked out. When he woke up he was in the bathroom, crying and trying to cut Gonzalez’s knee off.

He put Gonzalez in the bathtub and ran hot water on him for several hours.

“I was told by Candelo to do so,” he said. “I was told this would cause the meat to cook and the blood to stop pouring.”

Galindo brought his practice of Santeria to the trailer park when he moved there in 2000.

A blend of traditional African religions and Roman Catholicism, followers of Santeria believe in spiritual forces whose survival depends on blood sacrifices. Galindo believed it brought good fortune.

When police came to his trailer days after the murder, they found a cauldron filled with knives and metal weapons. Chicken blood, a coconut, cigars and pennies littered the altar; skulls were scattered about.

Galindo also followed a dark religion that involved “enslaving spirits to work for you. Some people call it Satanism,” he later told police.

He drew eerie pictures on the trailer’s walls. A pentagram. An inverted bleeding cross and ancient names for Satan.

Lucifer. Beelzebub.

“May Satan cover you with his hate. Lazaro, Yosalyn forever,” it said.

A sinister setting to carry out a gruesome murder.

Before police arrived, Galindo had been holed up in the trailer for two days, hacking at the victim and blacking out for as long as 30 minutes at times.

He wrapped the body in a pink sheet and garbage bags and tied it with a phone cord. He scribbled a note and stuck it in the victim’s hand along with a white rose he picked from outside.

“Italian mafia. Sorry, Metro-Dade,” it read.

For good measure, he slit Gonzalez’s mouth open to “make it look like he snitched out the mob.”

He put the body in two trash cans, loaded it in the trunk of his girlfriend’s car and dumped them near a middle school he had once attended.

Galindo returned to the trailer, pouring water and bleach throughout the house to clean up the blood. Detectives came looking for Galindo after some boys playing in the neighborhood found the leg. Authorities later found the dismembered body.

Gonzalez’s fingers were never found.

At his August trial, Galindo, now 26, represented himself and asked the judge’s permission to wear his Satanic garb, including a robe and pins. He brought his Satanic bible to the courtroom, but on the day of jury selection told the judge he had found God and wore a long-sleeve, button-down shirt and dark pants instead.

He told jurors he never killed Gonzalez and that deputies had beat him and coerced the confession from him, but offered no evidence to support the claim.

“The confession is simply a bizarre twisted transcribed channeled statement given as a way for (authorities) to clear the case,” he said during opening statements.

It took the jury just over two hours to convict him of second-degree murder.
 

Hire somebody with such views to teach physics? At a Baptist junior college deep in the Bible Belt, maybe, but the faculty would erupt if you tried it just about anywhere else. Many of them would echo Oxford’s Richard Dawkins, the prominent evolutionary biologist, who writes in “The G-d Delusion” that he is “hostile to fundamentalist religion because it actively debauches the scientific enterprise. . . . It subverts science and saps the intellect.”

Equally blunt is Sam Harris, a PhD candidate in neuroscience and another unsparing foe of religion. “The conflict between religion and science is inherent and (very nearly) zero-sum,” he has written. “The success of science often comes at the expense of religious dogma; the maintenance of religious dogma always comes at the expense of science.” Less elegant but more influential, the National Science Education Standards issued by the National Academy of Sciences in 1995 classified religion with “myths,” “mystical inspiration,” and “superstition” — all of them quite incompatible with scientific study. Michael Dini, a biologist at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, made headlines in 2003 over his policy of denying letters of recommendation for any graduate student who could not “truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer” to the question of mankind’s origin. Science and religion, he said in an interview at the time, “shouldn’t overlap.”

But such considerations didn’t keep Cambridge from hiring the theology- and Bible-drenched individual described above. Indeed, it named him to the prestigious Lucasian Chair of Mathematics — in 1668. A good thing too, since Isaac Newton — notwithstanding his religious fervor and intense interest in Biblical interpretation — went on to become the most renowned scientist of his age, and arguably the most influential in history.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/jeff/jacoby072507.php3

According to reports carried in the Arab media Friday, the Assad government has already ordered, and carried out, the removal of the Government Archives and State Archives from Damascus to other locations.

Reports have circulated during the past two months that Syria is preparing its SCUD missile arsenal for war, including the VX gas warheads it has been working on producing for several years.

It is widely believed that any attempt by Syria to introduce non-conventional warheads into a conflict with Israel will be met by an Israeli response that will destroy Damascus.

http://www.jnewswire.com/article/1969

Source URL:
http://www.thebereancall.org/node/5520

HAVING large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanour in the same way as frequent long-haul flights, driving a big car and failing to reuse plastic bags, says a report to be published today by a green think tank.

The paper by the Optimum Population Trust will say that if couples had two children instead of three they could cut their family’s carbon dioxide output by the equivalent of 620 return flights a year between London and New York.

John Guillebaud, co-chairman of OPT and emeritus professor of family planning at University College London, said: “The effect on the planet of having one child less is an order of magnitude greater than all these other things we might do, such as switching off lights.

“The greatest thing anyone in Britain could do to help the future of the planet would be to have one less child.”

In his latest comments, the academic says that when couples are planning a family they should be encouraged to think about the environmental consequences.

“The decision to have children should be seen as a very big one and one that should take the environment into account,” he added.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21684156-5009760,00.html [1]

[TBC: Several countries have already implemented these suggestions. Muslim extremists delight in pointing out that to take over much of Europe all that is needed is to let the Europeans simply die off. Numerous reports have shown that countries such as France have passed the point of no return. They simply do not have enough children to even keep their population stable and despite financial inducements, potential parents have no desire to perpetuate their nation. Gen 1:28 [2]; 9:1; Ps 127:3-5 [3]).]

Source URL:
http://www.thebereancall.org/node/5517

According to media reports, the chimpanzee known as Hiasl was barely one year old in 1982 when he was illegally smuggled out of Sierra Leone and into Austria to be used, along with several other chimps, for AIDS and hepatitis research at a laboratory near Vienna. Customs officials discovered Hiasl and rerouted him to an animal sanctuary where he resided until this year.

The sanctuary now faces bankruptcy and Hiasl’s future is once again uncertain with the possibility that he may be shipped to the original lab that he was destined for.

Animal rights activists have been campaigning to protect Hiasl from possibly being sent back to the lab by working to have a legal guardian appointed over him. However, since only humans have the right to a legal guardian, they must first convince the court that the chimpanzee, is in fact, “human.”

Some of the arguments that they intend to use include the argument that a chimpanzee’s DNA is approximately 97% akin to human DNA.

The hearing has been stalled while the judge, Barbara Bartl, an animal rights supporter herself, determines if the claims of “asylum status” for the ape have been legitimately established.

LifeSiteNews.com