La crítica de Boorse y la teoría centrada en el objetivo

Meditation / Ecstasy

God commands Christians to pray with intelligence. The pagan type of prayer requires using a mantra (vain repetitions) to empty the mind. Jesus forbade eastern form of prayer known as contemplative prayer.

“But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.” Matthew 6:7

This eastern type of meditation is found in many places today. Among them are some martial art schools, practitioners of yoga, and T.M. When the cults of the first few centuries began to use meditation in place of prayer, it produced false prophecies and a false gift of tongues, jerking, and uncontrollable muscle movements. The ancient church fathers called this new kind of meditative prayer,

“ecstasy.” They taught no Jew or Christian ever prayed in this way and it was not part of any of the real gifts of the Sprit. Only the cults used meditative ecstasy. Christians avoided pagan temples and practices, and did not agree with pagans that the dead were evolving into gods.

Irenaeus, AD 178

Against Heresies 3.23 – Adam was saved, contrary to Tatian. There was no way possible for Adam to become a god.

Against Heresies 2.32 – The Church does not perform anything by means of angelic invocations, or incantations, or by any other wicked curious art; but, directing her prayers to the Lord.

Clement of Alexandria, AD

Stromata book 7.7 – Mature Christians pray only to God, without thought for bodily position or set time and their prayers are not selfish.

Tertullian AD 190

Apology 15 – Christians do not enter pagan temples, even in the daytime.

Apology 28 – Therefore, when we are ordered to sacrifice, we resolutely refuse.

Prescription Against Heretics 42 – [Heretics] hear alike, and pray alike – even with pagans, if any such happen to come among them... They make it their business not to convert the pagan, but to subvert our people!

Origen AD 248

Against Celsus 7.42 – They [Christians] cannot tolerate temples, altars, or images.

Against Celsus 7:3 – A true prophet under the control of the Holy Spirit does not fall into ecstasy or madness like the pagans do.

Montanus

According to the testimony of the early church fathers Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, and Eusebius, Montanus wrote the book The New Prophecy, in which he taught the following false ideas:

Montanus, said he, himself, was the “other” comforter that Jesus said would come. He brought with him a new form of prophecy. In this new kind of prophecy, a “vain babbling” was used to alter a person’s consciousness so that he could channel the “Holy Spirit.” We see here again the use of meaningless words, or mantras, to get into this state of consciousness.

The ancient church fathers said no Old Testament or New Testament prophet or teacher ever practiced

“vain babbling.” Eusebius describes the “ecstasy” as a false system that does away with the real spiritual gifts, since it circumvents the Holy Spirit to reach another spirit.

Irenaeus, AD 178

Against Heresies 3.11 – Montanists set at nought the gift of the Spirit, which in the latter times has been, by the good pleasure of the Father, poured out upon the human race. They do not admit that aspect of the evangelical dispensation presented by John's Gospel, in which the Lord promised that He would send the Paraclete (John 16); but set aside at once both the Gospel and the prophetic Spirit. Wretched men indeed! Who wish to be pseudo-prophets, forsooth, but who set aside the gift of prophecy from the Church. We must conclude, moreover, that the Montanists can’t admit the Apostle Paul, either. For, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, he speaks expressly of prophetical gifts, and recognizes men and women prophesying in the Church, sinning, therefore, in all these particulars, against the Spirit of God.

Here Tertullian is quoted as saying the “ecstasy” is not being in one’s right mind and sometimes being completely unconscious.

Tertullian, AD 195

Against Marcion 4.22 – The Montanist book, The New Prophecy, teaches when God speaks through man a “grace ecstasy” or “rapture” is imparted whereby he necessarily loses his sensation, of those who heard his spurious utterances at that time were indignant, and they rebuked him as one that was possessed, and that was under the control of a demon, and was led by a deceitful spirit, and was distracting the multitude; and they forbade him to talk, remembering the distinction drawn by the Lord and his warning to guard watchfully against the coming of false prophets. But others imagining themselves possessed of the Holy Spirit and of a prophetic gift, were elated and not a little puffed up; and forgetting the distinction of the Lord, they challenged the mad and insidious and seducing spirit, and were cheated and deceived by him. In consequence of this, he could no longer be held in check, so as to keep silence. Thus by artifice, or rather by such a system of wicked craft, the devil, devising destruction for the disobedient, and being unworthily honored by them, secretly excited and inflamed their understandings which had already become estranged from the true faith.

Ancient church father Eusebius went on to report that the leaders of the church, after studying the

“babbling spirit” and the prophecies that did not come to pass, judged it to be the work of a “false and seducing spirit” and they separated themselves from the heretics and withheld communion from them.

To prove that a true prophet does not “speak in ecstasy” Eusebius says, in chapter 17:

Eusebius, AD 325

Ecclesiastical History 5.17 – The false prophet falls into an ecstasy which is “purposed ignorance”

or “involuntary madness of soul” But they cannot show that one of the old or one of the new prophets was thus carried away in spirit, not Agabus, or Judas, or Silas, or the daughters of Philip, or Ammia in Philadelphia, or Quadratus, or any others.

Eusebius also reported that the predictions of real prophets would always be 100% accurate, because

“the apostle thought it necessary that the prophetic gift should continue in all the Church until the final coming. But they (Monanists) cannot show it.”

So the real gifts of the Spirit (prophecy, healing, miracles, etc.) will continue until the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus; but those who try to force these experiences end up touching the demonic. One ancient church father reported that’s how Montanus and Maximilla died, at the hands of a demon.

Asterius Urbanus,

3.2 – The “maddening spirit” caused Montanus to hang himself. A few years later it caused Maximillia to commit suicide in the same way.

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Paganism

Reincarnation

Reincarnation

There are four theories about what happens to a person after death. Atheists believe people simply cease to exist after death. Cults and false religions teach that the spirit either goes on to a higher plane of existence or comes back to earth and is reborn as a newborn baby. (This is called reincarnation.) Christians believe in the resurrection of the physical body. The Bible and the ancient church fathers taught no one can be a Christian unless they believe in the Resurrection and reject the other three as false teachings.

Justin Martyr, AD 165

Dialogue 5 – The soul is created, but does not die; but a physical death goes either to a better place or a worse place.

Tatian, AD 166

Greeks 6 – We did not exist before we were born and we do not reincarnate. There will be a physical resurrection of the body.

Athenagoras, AD 177

36 – Christians do not believe the soul dissolves or in reincarnation. [In chapter 36 this author starts a long discussion on the physical resurrection of the body.]

Irenaeus, AD 178

Against Heresies 2.29 – Christians believe in the resurrection of the physical body.

Against Heresies 2.33 – Reincarnation is absurd.

Against Heresies 2.34 – Souls are only created once, are immortal, and can be recognized, like Abraham and Lazarus.

Against Heresies 2.34.2 – The Lord has taught with very great fullness that souls continue to exist.

They do not pass from body to body; rather, they preserve the same form as that of the body to which they were adapted.

Clement of Alexandria, AD 192-202

Stromata 3.14 – Souls do not pre-exist.

Commodianus, AD 240

Against the Gods of the Heathens 26 – There is an eternal hell.

Tertullian, AD 190-210

Against Marcion 5.9&10 – Christians will physically resurrect.

Treatise of the Soul 1.27 – Soul and body are conceived at the same time.

Treatise of the Soul 1.28-32 – The Pythagorean doctrine of the transmigration of souls is false.

Treatise of the Soul 1.58 – Souls do not sleep after death, but go to Hades.

Treatise of the Soul 1.56 – Souls who die prematurely do not have to wait on earth. Souls go on whether the body is buried or not.

Minucius Felix,

35 – Unrighteous men have eternal punishment.

Origen, AD 230

8:25 and 30 – Christians do not believe in reincarnation.

Commentary on John 6.7 – Reincarnation (transcorporation) is a false doctrine.

Commentary on Matthew 10.20 – “Transmigration of souls into bodies” is a false dogma.

Commentary on Matthew 13.1 – John the Baptist was not the reincarnation of Elijah the prophet.

There is no such thing as reincarnation.

Lactantius, AD 285

Divine Institutes 3.18 – There is no reincarnation.

Justin Martyr, AD 160

Dialogue with Trypho 30 – They [Gnostic cults] say there is no resurrection of the dead. Rather, they say when they die, their souls are taken to heaven, never again to return physically. Do not imagine that they are Christians.

Athenagoras, AD 177

Chapter 36 – Christians do not believe the soul dissolves at death or in reincarnation.

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Paganism

Yoga

Yoga

The word philosopher means “lover of wisdom.” The ancient church fathers referred to Hindu yogis (practitioners of yoga) as gymnosophists. The word “gymnosophist” is made up of two Greek words,

“gym” meaning a workout or exercise and “sophist” meaning wisdom or a wise person. The word

“gymnosophist” then means physical wisdom or dynamic meditation. Most people today see nothing wrong with yoga because they see it as just a stretching exercise. But in reality, it is an occultic form of dynamic meditation coupled with stretching. The ancient church had nothing bad to say about physical exercise.

Tertullian AD 197

Apology 42 – We are not like Indian Brahman, who practice the dark art of the gymnosophists, who dwell in the woods and exile themselves from ordinary human life.

Clement of Alexandria AD 195

Stromata 1.15 – The Indian gymnosophists are as the other barbarian philosophers. They are either Brahmins, Sarmanae, or Buddhists.

In ancient times the eastern form of meditation where practitioners empty their minds was called sorcery. For more information on meditation, see the section on Paganism. For full details and complete descriptions of the Canaanite forms of sorcery, see the book Ancient Paganism.

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