The “Obama as Messiah” Complex

We are now the Obamanation……I had no idea until recently that so many people viewed Obama as a Messiah figure!   Now I have to say that either Obama has some great marketing people working for him, or else there is a real spiritual force working here!   OR, he actually is doing NLP on the masses!  It’s easy to see from the following pictures, videos and quotes.  For more go to:

http://obamamessiah.blogspot.com/
 

 Just doing a little search on the internet came up with these very eerie pictures:

 

“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.  We are the change that we seek”

 

Then there’s this video:

Here is Louis farrakhan Calling  OBAMA the messiah!

 

 

Here are some quotes taken from www.obamamessiah.blogspot.com

“Many even see in Obama a messiah-like figure, a great soul, and some affectionately call him Mahatma Obama.”

– Dinesh Sharma

“We just like to say his name. We are considering taking it as a mantra.”

– Chicago] Sun-Times

“A Lightworker — An Attuned Being with Powerful Luminosity and High-Vibration Integrity who will actually help usher in a New Way of Being”

– Mark Morford

“What Barack Obama has accomplished is the single most extraordinary event that has occurred in the 232 years of the nation’s political history”

– Jesse Jackson, Jr.

“This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”

– Barack Obama

“Does it not feel as if some special hand is guiding Obama on his journey, I mean, as he has said, the utter improbability of it all?”

– Daily Kos

“He communicates God-like energy…”

– Steve Davis (Charleston, SC)

“Not just an ordinary human being but indeed an Advanced Soul”

– Commentator @ Chicago Sun Times

“I’ll do whatever he says to do. I’ll collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear.”

– Halle Berry

“A quantum leap in American consciousness”

– Deepak Chopra

“He is not operating on the same plane as ordinary politicians. . . . the agent of transformation in an age of revolution, as a figure uniquely qualified to open the door to the 21st century.” – Gary Hart

“Barack Obama is our collective representation of our purest hopes, our highest visions and our deepest knowings . . . He’s our product out of the all-knowing quantum field of intelligence.”

– Eve Konstantine

“This is bigger than Kennedy. . . . This is the New Testament.” | “I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often. No, seriously. It’s a dramatic event.”

– Chris Matthews

“[Obama is ] creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom . . . [He is] the man for this time.”

– Toni Morrison

“Obama’s finest speeches do not excite. They do not inform. They don’t even really inspire. They elevate. . . . He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh . . . Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves.”

– Ezra Klein

“Obama has the capacity to summon heroic forces from the spiritual depths of ordinary citizens and to unleash therefrom a symphonic chorus of unique creative acts whose common purpose is to tame the soul and alleviate the great challenges facing mankind.”

– Gerald Campbell

“We’re here to evolve to a higher plane . . . he is an evolved leader . . . [he] has an ear for eloquence and a Tongue dipped in the Unvarnished Truth.”

– Oprah Winfrey

“I would characterize the Senate race as being a race where Obama was, let’s say, blessed and highly favored. That’s not routine. There’s something else going on. I think that Obama, his election to the Senate, was divinely ordered. . . . I know that that was God’s plan.”

– Bill Rush

 

Messiah In Our Midst
The One, the Anointed. 

By Jonah Goldberg

 Is Barack Obama the Messiah?

Before we answer that question, let me vent for a moment. In 2000 I was cruelly denied the Pulitzer despite being the only columnist in America to ask the pressing question: Is Al Gore an alien? The evidence was there for all to see. He was born nine months after the mysterious alien sighting at Roswell, N.M. His weird syntax and verbal rhythms are otherworldly. He often refers to “earth” or “this planet” as if he’s just passing through, and he once angrily complained to the Washington Post that it had printed a picture of the earth from outer space “upside down.”

There is no “upside down” in space — unless Gore had his childhood view in mind.

At least I’m not in the wilderness this time. Lots of people have pondered the possibility that Barack is our Divine Redeemer. There are websites dedicated to the question “Is Barack Obama the Messiah?” Google that question and you’ll get more than 35,000 hits. (Enter just the words “Messiah” and “Obama” and you’ll get nearly 10 times that.)

But there’s more concrete evidence. Since Obama declared his candidacy, there have been remarkably few biblical plagues. And lions and lambs seem open to bilateral negotiations.

Obama’s apostles are hard to dismiss. Oprah simply calls him “The One,” because “we need politicians who know how to be the truth.” (Jesus says in John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth …”) Oprah goes on to say Obama will help us “evolve to a higher plane,” which would put Obama in the role of our Intelligent Designer.

According to the New York Times, Obama’s volunteers are taught to eschew discussions of the issues and instead “testify” about how they “came to Obama.”

For many, he’s no retro-redeemer, but a 21st-century savior, a Matrix-messiah and Neo for our modern-day Nineveh. Self-help guru Deepak Chopra dubs Obama “a quantum leap in American consciousness,” while prominent “leadership coach” Eve Konstantine assures us that, “He’s our product out of the all-knowing quantum field of intelligence.”

Obama willing, I will never be stuck next to these people on a plane.

Michelle Obama is arguably Obamanity’s greatest evangelist, even though she has a streak of Old Testament smiting and wrath to her. She insists her husband has redeemed the entire nation (hence her newfound pride in America). She proclaims her husband is the sort of leader who will fix our broken souls. But don’t hope for grace on the cheap. “The change Barack is talking about is hard,” she insists, “so don’t get too excited, because Barack is going to demand that you, too, be different.”

Those of you who thought we had a Second Amendment to keep government from fixing your soul are so 20th century. Evolve already.

And then there’s the Gospel according to Obama himself. In January, he told Dartmouth students that they will know to vote for him because “… a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany, and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Barack.”

When asked in an interview what sin is, Obama defined it as “Being out of alignment with my values.” Apparently, the editor failed to capitalize the “M” in “My.”

But such mistakes can be forgiven, for Hillary has been cast out and the nomination is nigh. So we can get cracking on fixing America — and ourselves.

“I am absolutely certain,” Obama proclaimed in his victory speech, “that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs for the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal. This was the moment — this was the time — when we came together to remake this great nation …”

Now, if you’re under the mistaken impression that sick people had some care, or that a few jobs were to be found prior to June 2008, or that maybe — just maybe — the oceans don’t rise and fall with the election returns, or that America itself doesn’t need “remaking,” you’re not one of the “ones we’ve been waiting for.”

But you might be one of the ones Al Gore has been waiting for. You’d understand if you realized “Earth in the Balance” is a cookbook.

— Jonah Goldberg is the author of Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning.

© 2008 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

— Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online.

 

Obama, Oprah, and the Guru: Malignant Narcissism

Interesting article on Oprah’s influence on Barack and Michelle Obama.

 
By Robert Bowie Johnson, Jr.
Grandiosity, more than anything else, is what characterizes Obama’s
character and campaign. Grandiosity is also, more than anything else,
what characterizes narcissism, and Obama’s narcissism has become
obvious to many.

Tony Blankley refers to Obama’s posturing as the “height of hubris.”
Jeffrey Kuhner writes that Obama “is a self-absorbed narcissist who
portrays himself as a political messiah — the anointed one.” David
Limbaugh writes of the “unspeakably presumptuous extravaganzas as
those [that] feted Mr. Obama at Berlin and Invesco Field.”

In reference to Obama’s narcissism, Charles Krauthammer asks, “[H]as
there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his
estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?”
Sam Vaknin, Ph.D., author of Malignant Self Love: Narcissism
Revisited, writes that “Barack Obama appears to be a narcissist,” and
offers a detailed explanation.

Obama’s entire campaign is nothing more than a demand to be recognized
as superior without commensurate accomplishments. For individual
instances of the undistinguished senator’s grandiosity, please see
Barack Obama Audacity Watch.

Two other very reliable witnesses to Obama’s narcissism are Oprah
Winfrey and her guru, Eckhart Tolle, both themselves pathological
narcissists. Delusions of grandeur interpersonally connect Obama,
Oprah, and her guru. All three believe they can, even that that they
must, change the world for the better, and that means garnering for
themselves more and more adulation, what the psychologists call
“narcissistic supply.”

The public record shows this: First, within the minds of Barack and
Michelle Obama resides the grandiose, even megalomaniacal notion that
they have the power to make the world as-it-is into the world-as-it-
should be. Second, the Obamas look to talk-show host, Oprah Winfrey,
as their “global role model” to effect this change. Third, as the
Obamas’ model for change, Oprah relentlessly promotes the grandiose
New Age religion of her guru, Eckhart Tolle.

A closer look at these three narcissists and their widely-ignored
interconnections is in order

The Malignant Narcissism of Oprah’s Guru

Oprah’s guru Eckhart Tolle is a troubled and troubling individual. He
claims to have experienced “a reincarnation as a spiritual teacher”
through a self-admitted psychotic episode. He is a case study in the
development of the mental illness of malignant narcissism. Like the
original Narcissus, Tolle is obsessed with the two-dimensional
reflection of himself. In his The Power of Now, Tolle writes about
what he learns from viewing his own image in a mirror:

“If you accept the image, no matter what it is, if you become friendly
toward it, it cannot not become friendly toward you. This is how you
change the world.”

Here, in a nutshell, Tolle expresses the fundamental delusion and
extreme grandiosity of his own malignant narcissism. Tolle actually
believes that he has become the greatest living spiritual teacher by
overcoming “egoic delusion.” But a mirror image is not true, but
backwards. Tolle is not the greatest spiritual teacher in the world as
he imagines, but one of the least competent. Such an enormous gap
between presumption and reality is characteristic of malignant
narcissism.

After Tolle made friends with his backwards image, his New Age
doctrine began to jell, and as we might expect, it stands in stark
contrast to the Judeo-Christian tradition. The God of the Old
Testament is a mere projection of the human mind. Jesus is not the Son
of God, but rather a “rare” human being. “The unconscious majority of
the population” must “awaken” (to Tolle’s teaching and greatness) and
either “evolve or die.” The Scriptures are only valid when interpreted
by Tolle himself. That belief of his approaches the very ultimate in
grandiose imaginings.

Beyond his backwards reflected image, Oprah’s guru relies on something
even more disturbing to change the world. It is a spirit or a force
Tolle calls the “Source” which he claims resides within himself and
Oprah, and within all those others who have learned through his
teachings to “dissolve” their egos. That “Source” has told Tolle that
the word of the God of the Bible is not reliable, that there is no
death, and that he and Oprah both are as God, able to say of
themselves “I Am That I Am.” These things that the “Source” has told
Oprah and Tolle are the exact same things the serpent told Eve in the
ancient garden (Genesis 3:1-4, New International Version).

“I Am that I Am” is the Self-authenticating affirmation from God to
Moses out of the burning bush (Exodus 3:13-15). In Hebrew, this is
YHVH, or Yahweh, the sacred name of God that is “to be remembered
throughout all generations” (Exodus 3:15). Tolle’s appropriation of
this Name to himself is the very ultimate in grandiose imaginings.

Oprah’s Malignant Narcissism

Oprah welcomes Tolle’s preposterous claims with uncritical glee
because they justify the adoration of her own backwards and exalted
mirror image on her altar of self-worship. That Oprah is self-obsessed
should be obvious. Her image has appeared on every cover of her
monthly magazine since it was founded eight years ago. She prays to
herself, asking how she can be used “to serve the greater calling that
is my life?” She gives thanks for “the life that I have created now.”
Her giving is always a public production, ultimately about herself and
the “good” she is doing. Even when she says she doesn’t want to make
it about her, it’s about her.

Like her guru, Oprah mocks the Judeo-Christian tradition, insisting
that “God is a feeling experience, not a believing experience. If God
for you is still about a belief, then it’s not truly God.”
Spirituality to Oprah is not God-centered, but self-centered. She says
that spirituality “is about paying attention to your life — always
asking, in every moment, ‘What can I learn from this?’” Oprah is as
delusional as her guru, believing that by spreading Tolle’s doctrine
and creating a global “new kind of tribe” which looks to her and her
guru as saviors, she is “putting [her] ego in check.” In reality,
Oprah is doing nothing more than promoting a how-to book for latent
narcissists.

In March of this year, Oprah intensified her efforts to make the world
as it is the world as it should be by kicking off her ten-week global
Internet online class touting Tolle’s book, A New Earth, and its
importance in raising everyone’s “awareness.” The interactive Web cast
reached 500,000 people in more than 139 countries. Since that time,
according to Oprah’s Web site, millions more have downloaded Oprah’s
and Tolle’s teachings, helping “human beings, all over the world,
bring about a shift in consciousness.”

Barack Obama’s Malignant Narcissism

On May 20, two months after Oprah’s global Internet kickoff, Time
magazine published Michelle Obama’s tribute to Oprah as part of its
100 most influential people of 2008. It read in part: “Oprah is a
wonderful friend and an incredible force. Her friendship and support
have meant so much to Barack and me . . . Using her platform to serve
as a global role model, she challenges us [Barack and me] to make the
world as it is the world as it should be. And she is always the first
to show us how it can be done.” What else could Michelle be referring
to here but Oprah’s most focused project, her global Internet campaign
promoting the anti-Christian teachings of her pathologically
narcissistic guru?

Three months later, in August, the overlooked imperious theme of
Michelle Obama’s convention speech looped right back to her Oprah
tribute. That theme, entwined with much family fluff, was “the world
as it should be.” Mrs. Obama used that phrase four times, emphasizing
that she and Barack are “committed” to “building the world as it
should be.” Michelle Obama’s own carefully considered words, written
in Time magazine, tell us that she and her husband imagine that they
are going to effect this change by using Oprah Winfrey as their guide,
inspiration, and “global role model.”

When Barack speaks of himself as “a fellow citizen of the world,” is
he visualizing world peace becoming a reality through Oprah’s
expanding tribe? Don’t doubt it. Michelle introduced Oprah in Iowa
prior to Oprah’s introducing Obama, gushing that the talk-show queen
“touches the souls of so many of us” and “empowers us all.” Michelle’s
“us” included Barack. In his Berlin speech, pretentiously entitled, “A
World that Stands as One,” the Oprah-empowered Barack said that the
“walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and
Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear
down.” That is exactly what Oprah is all about: promoting the lunacy
that Tolle’s teaching transcends and unites all religions. Once the
Christians, Muslims, and Jews join Oprah’s tribe and accept Oprah’s
guru as their chief prophet, then Presto: world peace!

Like Oprah and her guru, Barack Obama also mocks the Judeo-Christian
tradition, claiming to be a “committed Christian” all the while
welcoming Oprah’s global anti-Christian crusade as a model to follow.
(For more on Obama’s fake Christianity, see “Obama’s Faith, Family and
Variable Values Tour” by Jan LaRue”).

Let’s review the connection between the narcissists: Barack Obama
looks to Oprah Winfrey as his “global role model” for change. To
effect this worldwide change, Oprah, in turn, relies on the
“infallible” teachings of her guru, Eckhart Tolle. Tolle, in turn,
looks in the mirror and makes friends with the backwards image of
himself, thus enabling him, and others who see themselves in the same
backwards way (Obama and Oprah), to “change the world.” All three mock
the Judeo-Christian tradition. All three are determined to remake the
world “as it should be.”

This is downright insanity, a malignantly narcissistic folie à trois.
Counting Michelle Obama, it is a folie à quatre.

Best-selling author Dr. M. Scott Peck referred to malignant
narcissists in his book title as The People of the Lie. Lying is what
makes Tolle’s, Oprah’s, and Obama’s narcissism malignant, or evil.
True and false, right and wrong, do not have the same meaning to
malignant narcissists as they do to sane people. What is true and
right to the narcissist is whatever brings adoration and respect to
his or her backwards, glorious, and depthless image. What is false and
wrong is whatever harms that image.

Narcissus was an actor, as are all who succumb to his malady of self-
obsession. Obama, Oprah, and even Tolle, are now star players on the
world stage. The more grandiose the narcissist’s image, the bigger the
lies required to protect it. Oprah, her guru, and Obama all tell the
same huge, egregiously reprehensible lie in different words. In a
Christian nation, they cannot allow themselves to be seen as anti-
Christian. That is why Oprah’s website introduces her guru’s
virulently anti-Christian doctrine by asserting that it “is not for or
against any religion.” Not against Christianity? If the Scriptures
appeared in front of Oprah and Tolle on baked clay tablets, they’d be
taking sledgehammers to them. Obama would join right in. Referring to
himself as a “committed Christian” is essentially the same huge lie
Oprah and Tolle tell.

It is significant that Obama, Oprah, and Tolle all mock the Judeo-
Christian tradition, because that tradition carries with it a standard
of truth and conduct. According to the Ten Commandments, for example,
idol worship and lying are wrong. Tolle, Oprah, and Obama, violate
those commandments by worshiping their own images and lying to protect
the imagined integrity of those images. Malignant narcissists cannot
tolerate a spiritual or religious system of absolute standards. All
morality must be self-referential. Thus, it wasn’t the truth that led
Oprah to endorse Obama but rather what she called “my own truth.”
Eckhart Tolle is Oprah’s guru only because his mentally deranged
worldview validates Oprah’s “own truth.”

In their efforts to remake our planet, Obama, Oprah, and Tolle are not
looking toward a world that glorifies God or Christ. They look to be
part of the reign of a different savior. According to Oprah, not only
does Obama always tell the truth, he also knows how “to be the truth,”
a straightforward messianic reference. Obama’s, Oprah’s, and Tolle’s
“world as it should be” will be one that glorifies the two-
dimensional, backwards, grandiose, greedy idol-images of themselves.

Within that morally upside-down world, the walls protecting our
republican government and our Judeo-Christian values will crumble –
just as Obama said in Berlin that they must — and our people will be
sacrificed to the false god of malignant narcissism.

May the True God, our Creator, forbid such a dreadful future!

Is New Ager Oprah Winfrey the Obama’s Spiritual Advisor?

One thing that I feel we must question is what is the influence that New Age witchcraft practicioner Oprah Winfrey has over Barack and Michelle Obama?   As the Obama’s look to Oprah as their “global role model to effect change”  Oprah looks to her new age guru Eckhert Tolle.  Is there anyone else questioning these connections?  Oprah’s  New Age Religion:   Article from:  http://www.ccministries.net/ophra.cfm

by Warren Smith:  Oprah  Winfrey will be letting out all the stops on her XM Satellite Radio program this coming year. Beginning January 1, 2008, “Oprah & Friends” will offer a year-long course on the New Age teachings of A Course in Miracles.1   A lesson a day throughout the year will completely cover the 365 lessons from the Course in Miracles “Workbook.” For example, Lesson #29 asks you to go through your day affirming that “God is in everything I see.”  Lesson #61 tells each person to repeat the affirmation “I am the light of the world.” Lesson #70 teaches the student to say and believe “My salvation comes from me.” By the end of the year, “Oprah & Friends” listeners will have completed all of the lessons laid out in the Course in Miracles Workbook.those who finish the Course will have a wholly redefined spiritual mindset — a New Age worldview that includes the belief that there is no sin, no evil, no devil, and that God is “in” everyone and everything.   A Course in Miracles teaches its students to rethink everything they believe about God and life. The Course Workbook bluntly states: “This is a course in mind training” and is dedicated to “thought reversal.” Teaching A Course in Miracles will be Oprah’s longtime friend and special XM Satellite Radio reporter Marianne Williamson, who also happens to be one of today’s premier New Age leaders.  She and Conversations with God author Neale Donald Walsch co-founded the American Renaissance Alliance in 1997, that later became the Global Renaissance Alliance of New Age leaders, that changed its name again in 2005 to the Peace Alliance. This Peace Alliance seeks to usher in an era of global peace founded on the principles of a New Age/New Spirituality that they are now referring to as a “civil rights movement for the soul.”   They all agree that the principles of this New Age/New Spirituality are clearly articulated in A Course in Miracles, which is fast becoming the New Age Bible.   So what is A Course in Miracles and what does it teach? A Course in Miracles is allegedly “new revelation” from “Jesus” to help humanity work through these troubled times. This “Jesus” — who bears no doctrinal resemblance to the Bible’s Jesus Christ — began delivering his channeled teachings in 1965 to a Columbia University Professor of Medical Psychology by the name of Helen Schucman.  One day Schucman heard an “inner voice” stating, “This is a course in miracles. Please take notes For seven years she diligently took spiritual dictation from this inner voice that described himself as “Jesus.” A Course in Miracles was quietly published in 1975 by the Foundation for Inner Peace. For many years “the Course” was an underground cult classic for New Age seekers who studied “the Course” individually, with friends, or in small study groups. As a former New Age follower and devoted student of A Course in Miracles,  I eventually discovered that the Course in Miracles was, in reality, the truth of the Bible turned upside down.  Not having a true understanding of the Bible at the time of my involvement, I was led to believe that A Course in Miracles was “a gift form God” to help everyone understand the “real” meaning of the Bible and to help bring peace to the world. Little did I know that the New Age “Christ” and the New Age teachings of A Course in Miracles were everything the real Jesus Christ warned us to watch out for. In Matthew 24 Jesus warned about false teachers, false teachings and the false “Christs” who would pretend to be Him. Here are some quotes from the “Jesus” of A Course in Miracles:         “There is no sin. . . ” A “slain Christ has no meaning”                              “The journey to the cross should be the last ‘useless journey.’”  “Do not make the pathetic error of ‘clinging to the old rugged cross.’”  “The Name of Jesus Christ as such is but a symbol. . . . It is a symbol that is safely used as a replacement for the many names                                   of all the gods to which you pray.”  “God is in everything I see.” “The recognition of God is the recognition of yourself.” “The oneness of the Creator and the creation is your wholeness, your sanity and your limitless power.” “The Atonement is the final lesson he [man] need learn, for it teaches him that, never having sinned, he has no need of salvation.”   Most Christians recognize that these teachings are the opposite of what the Bible teaches. In the Bible, Jesus Christ’s atoning death on the cross of Calvary was hardly a “useless journey.” His triumph on the cross provides salvation to all those who confess their sin, accept Him and follow Him as their Lord and Saviour. His victory on the cross rings throughout the New Testament. It has been gloriously sung about in beloved hymns through the ages and is at the h eart of our Christian testimony. I found the Jesus of the Bible to be wholly believable as He taught God’s truth and warned about the spiritual deception that would come in His name. The “Jesus” of A Course in Miracles reveals himself to be an imposter when he blasphemes the true Jesus Christ by saying that a “slain Christ has no meaning” and that we are all “God” and that we are all “Christ.” It was by reading the Bible’s true teachings of Jesus Christ that I came to understand how deceived I had been by A Course in Miracles and my other New Age teachings.  I was introduced to A Course in Miracles by Dr. Gerald Jampolsky’s book Love is Letting Go of Fear. Jampolsky declared in his easy-to-read book how the teachings of A Course in Miracles had changed his life. As an ambassador for A Course in Miracles over the years, Jampolsky has been featured not only in New Age circles but at least twice on Robert Schuller’s Hour of Power. While Schuller introduced Jampolsky and his “fabulous” Course in Miracles-based books to his worldwide television audience, it was Marianne Williamson’s appearance on a 1992 Oprah Winfrey Show that really shook the rafters. On that program, Oprah enthusiastically endorsed Williamson’s book, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles. Oprah told her television audience that Williamson’s book about A Course in Miracles was one of her favorite books, and that she had already bought a thousand copies and would be handing them out to everyone in her studio audience. Oprah’s endorsement skyrocketed Williamson’s book about A Course in Miracles to the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Ironically, all of this was happening after I had left the Course and the New Age. In fact, I was doing the final editing on my book The Light That Was Dark that warned about the dangers of the New Age, and in particular A Course in Miracles. After being introduced to the world on Oprah, Marianne Williamson has continued to grow in popularity and, as previously mentioned, has become one of today’s foremost New Age leaders. Williamson credits Winfrey for bringing her book about A Course in Miracles before the world: “For that, my deepest than ks to Oprah Winfrey. Her enthusiasm and generosity have given the book, and me, an audience we would never otherwise have had.”   In her 2004 book, The Gift of Change, Williamson wrote: “Twenty years ago, I saw the guidance of the Course as key to changing one’s personal life; today, I see its guidance as key to changing the world. More than anything else, I see how deeply the two are connected.” Thus the New Age teachings of A Course in Miracles are  about to be taught by Marianne Williamson to millions of listeners on Oprah’s XM Satellite Radio program. Listeners are encouraged to buy A Course in Miracles for the year-long course. An audio version of A Course in Miracles recited by Richard (John Boy Walton) Thomas is also available on compact disc. Popular author Wayne Dyer told his PBS television audience that the “brillia nt writing” of A Course in Miracles would produce more peace in the world. Williamson’s New Age colleague, Neale Donald Walsch, said his “God” stated that “the era of the Single Saviour is over” and that he (“God”) was responsible for authoring the teachings of A Course in Miracles.23 Meanwhile, Gerald Jampolsky’s Course in Miracles-based book, Forgiveness, continues to be sold in Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral bookstore as Schuller prepares to host a January 17-19, 2008 Rethink Conference” at his Crystal Cathedral. At this critical time in the history of the world, the New Gospel/New Spirituality is coming right at the world and the church with its New Age teachings and its New Age Peace Plan. But this New Age Peace Plan has at its deceptive core the bottom-line teaching from A Course in Miracles that “we are all one” because God is “in” everyone and everything. But the Bible is clear that we are not God (Ezekiel 28:2; Hosea 11:9). And per Galatians 3:26-28, our only oneness is in Jesus Christ, not in ourselves as “God” and “Christ.” What Oprah and Marianne Williamson and the world will learn one day is that humanity’s only real and lasting peace is with the true Jesus Christ who is described and quoted in the Holy Bible (Romans 5:1). Oprah Winfrey’s misplaced faith in Marianne Williamson and the New Age teachings of A Course in Miracles is a sure sign of the times. But an even surer sign of the times is that most Christians are not taking heed to what is happening in the world and in the church. We are not contending for the faith as the Bible admonishes us to do (Jude 3). It is time for all of our Purpose-Driven and Emerging church pastors to address the real issue of the day. Our true Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is being reinvented, redefined, and blasphemed right in front of our eyes and hardly anyone seems to notice or care. If we want the world to know who Jesus Christ is, we need to also warn them about who He is not. There is a false New Age “Christ” making huge inroads into the world and into the church. The Apostle Paul said that “it is a shame” we have to even talk about these things, but talk about them we must (Ephesians 5:12-16). If people want to follow Oprah Winfrey and the New Age “Christ” of A Course in Miracles they certainly have that right. But let them be warned that the New Age “Christ” they are following is not the same Jesus Christ who is so clearly and authoritatively presented in the pages of the Bible.

Many gather to ponder end of Maya days

An interesting story from the L A Times…..

The calendar of the ancient civilization ends Dec. 21, 2012.

By Louis Sahagun
November 3, 2008

Reporting from San Francisco — Hundreds of people gathered near the Golden Gate Bridge over the weekend to ponder the enigmatic date of Dec. 21, 2012, the last day of the ancient Maya calendar and the focus of many end-of-the-world predictions.

In these times of economic distress, participants shelled out $300 each to attend the sold-out 2012 Conference, where astrologers, UFO fans, shamans and New Age entrepreneurs of every stripe presented their dreams and dreads in two days of lectures, group meditations, documentaries and, of course, self-promotion.

Normally, New Age platforms attract the interest of only the narrowest group of enthusiasts. But this one has been generating wider audiences because it so forcefully underscores the turmoil of the times, as indicated by the stock market plunge, Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the Sept. 11 attacks, global warming and the possibility of a magnetic pole shift and stronger sunspot cycles.

To some, the end of the Maya Long Calendar’s roughly 5,000-year cycle portends calamity, or the birth of a new age, or both.

The conference’s slogan: “Shift happens.”

The gathering of about 300 people from as far away as Holland was launched with the blessings of a Guatemalan shaman and the scary predictions of Jay Weidner, whose firm, Sacred Mysteries, has sponsored four 2012 events in the last six months.

“The greatest crisis in human history is unfolding all around us. It’s not the end of this world, but it’s the end of this age,” he likes to say. “To survive the 21st century, we’re going to have to become a sustainable world — people should want to know how to pound a nail, milk a cow and grow their own food.”

Now, a gold rush of “2012ology” is underway. A similar conference in Hollywood this year drew an audience of more than 1,000. At least two gatherings are planned for the Los Angeles area in the spring. “A Complete Idiot’s Guide to 2012″ was published last month, adding to a burgeoning market of books, CDs and History Channel specials suggesting that the ancient Maya predicted the impending end of the world as we know it.

Director Michael Bay is set to make a movie titled “2012,” based on a novel about multiple earths in parallel universes slated for destruction.

Stewart Guthrie, professor emeritus of anthropology at Fordham University, was not surprised by the growing interest in newfangled notions about what those Maya time keepers might have had in mind as far back as AD 200.

“When events leave us feeling powerless and confused, we are more open to new claims about the disorders of the world,” he said. “If people persuade enough others to accept their answers to this crazy world, it can become a movement, for better or worse.”

For example, the Gulf War and the Oklahoma City bombing boosted the popularity of doomsday predictions of famine, earthquakes and social tumult. Some were cobbled from the spooky riddles and images in the Bible’s book of Revelation, which scholars believe was actually written to help early Christians cope with their Roman oppressors.

In 1973, when the appearance of Comet Kohoutek coincided with a decision by members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to announce an oil embargo, the big question was whether the chunk of dirty ice hurtling through space would be the most spectacular celestial sight of the century, or wreak social unrest, tidal waves and earthquakes as claimed by some members of the New Age crowd. As it turned out, Kohoutek fizzled and shot past Earth without incident.

Then there was the worldwide turn-of-the-century panic in the late 1990s that had corporations spending millions on computer fixes, and people around the world stocking up on Spam, water, batteries and energy bars.

The scene at the 2012 Conference here had the same giddy sense of urgency. Conference co-organizer Sharron Rose said the Maya timeline foretold “the most profound event in human history. Everything we know, everything we are, is about to undergo a substantial and radical alteration.”

Exactly which direction to take, however, was unclear. The group is strikingly splintered, each focused on his or her own New Age theories: Spiritual teacher Jose Arguelles, for instance, contends that the Maya were prescient space aliens. And author Daniel Pinchbeck describes 2012 as a time for “the return of the Quetzalcoatl,” the mythical feathered serpent of Mesoamerica.

Maya researcher John Major Jenkins drew enthusiastic applause from the crowd with a lecture in which he said that Maya hieroglyphics are rife with images of trees and animals that represent the center of the Milky Way galaxy and what he called “the Black Hole of Maya Creation mythology.”

That kind of talk irritates Boston University’s William Saturno, a leading authority on the Maya, who did not attend the conference. Saturno dismissed the 2012 movement as “this year’s Nostradamus.”

The ancient Maya civilization flourished in southern Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, and lasted nearly 2,000 years from before the time of Jesus until the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. The culture’s achievements included soaring pyramids, a highly accurate calendar and intricately carved stone monuments.

“I had a guy come into my office once to ask me a question about a specific Maya mural with a depiction of a hanging nest in it,” he recalled. “He claimed it was the exact form of a Maya Black Hole. I said, ‘Nah, I’m thinking it’s a bird nest.’ “

“These guys are loony and are making a buck in a market that has to be short-lived,” he added. “And they will continue to do so right up until Dec. 21, 2012, when the Maya calendar simply switches over like an odometer and everything is fine.”

David Stuart, an art historian and Maya glyph expert at the University of Texas at Austin, agreed. He didn’t attend the San Francisco event.

“Looking back to the ancient Maya for answers to modern problems,” he said, “is not the best use of our time or brain cells.”

But astrological consultant Rick Levine, president and chief wizard of StarIQ.com, said such critics missed the point.

“People come to an event like this because they are hungry for information,” he said. “You don’t need to be a New Ager to know there’s a lot of weird things going on in the world.”

Sahagun is a Times staff writer

For more information go to: 
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2007-03-27-maya-2012_n.htm