“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1, NKJV)
We are currently discussing the phenomenom of the manifestation of the familiar spirit, and in the previous teaching linked aspects of the ministry of the Nigerian faith healer T.B. Joshua to this spirit. Believers should consistently ask the Holy Spirit for guidance in his/her discerning of spiritual manifestations and strange practices, as the Scripture from 1 John 4:1 makes clear.
In this teaching we will examine the kundalini spirit, known especially in the Eastern world. In most religions there is a creative life force which is theoretically likened to the Holy Spirit. Dr Larry Jensen writes about this matter: “What Jeshua called Holy Spirit, is known as Kundalini in India. Kundalini has been universally recognized as the conveyer of Divine Activation. Other traditions, by other names, have also acknowledged its power. The Greeks referred to this energy as ‘Pneuma,’ Islam speaks of ‘Rh,’ and in Jewish mysticism it was known as ‘Shekkina.’ Long before that, the Sumerians worshipped the Mother Goddess Inanna, who gives spiritual birth and the sacred breath. Several thousand years ago, ‘Chaitanya’ and ‘The Self,’ literally translated as ‘divine vibrations’ according to Sahaja Yoga. Knowledge of these divine vibrations is very ancient; it has merely been distorted or lost over the ages.” Here one could also include the Buddha’s ‘middle path’ to reaching nirvana, through the central canal (sushunna, through which the so-called Essence descends).
What Dr Jensen states here is, from a Biblical perspective, not at all true. The Holy Spirit is not a general, depersonalised spirit. The godly saviours of all other religions are dead illusionary figures who demonstrate spirit through a demonic energy that grant them the semblance of life. Hab. 2:18-19 makes it clear: “What profit is the image, that its maker should carve it, the molded image, a teacher of. Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Awake!’
To silent stone, ‘Arise! It shall teach!’ Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver,
Yet in it there is no breath at all. lies, that the maker of its mold should trust in it, to make mute idols?” The spirit within him is a demonic spirit that pretends to be the Holy Spirit.
The Gnostic tradition (which includes the contemporary New Reformation movement) is aligning itself with the kundalini spirit, especially in their integration of certain apocryphal books, like the Gospel of Thomas. This ‘gospel’ is widely used by New Agers and mystics to link Jesus to this central energy and the kundalini individualising, or Divine Consciousness, within us. Luke 17:21 is often used to justify this from a Christian perspective: “nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.” This is obviously a very misguided understanding.
- Selah: How does this spirit gain access to believers?
- Read: Rev. 10-12.
- Examine the OT-typology: Rev. 12:3 (Tip: Dan. 7:7-8 & 20).
