There’s an adage which says: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Ephesians 2:8-9 puts it this way: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Acts 4:12 also states, in reference to Christ: “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Jesus himself said in John 14:6, “No one comes to the Father except through me.” These are hard truths for our accommodating culture to swallow. But when it comes to eternity, good intentions aren’t enough. We must also be careful about being guided by intentionality in everyday decisions. I recently did a Personal Spiritual Encounter with an individual who confessed to being a life-long Christian. This person had also spent the last 20 years teaching yoga. When I stated that following Christ and doing yoga were incompatible, my position was received with skepticism. Many Christians who do yoga also dabble in qui gong, tai chi, reflexology, iridology, acupuncture, mindful meditation, enneagrams, and other New Age/Eastern practices. (“Larson’s Book of World Religions” thoroughly covers all this and more. To order click here.) When confronted with the incompatibility of Christianity and such indulgences, the common response is, “Even if these things are evil, I’m a Christian. I’m not seeking Satan. I can’t be negatively affected by something if my motives are good.”
Let’s use yoga as an example of what I call “well-intentioned witchcraft.” The origination and ownership of any spiritual practice must be considered. Yoga has been a religious belief in India for 5,000 years and it’s about more than physical well-being. It is a synergistic process between human posturing positions and demonic forces. It’s a negatively consecrated discipline fomented by evil spirits. The spiritual proprietary rights of yoga rest not with Christian-come-lately adaptations such as Holy Yoga but with the original demonic authorship. You may try to Christianize yoga, or any other occult modality, but a change in branding doesn’t make it harmless. Intentions aren’t all that matters. Conception and source is crucial. The wildly popular (especially among Christians) enneagram movement was founded by shamans, spiritualists, and apostate Christians. When a well is poisoned at the source you can’t purify it by good intentions. If the origins are evil, especially if they are rooted in the fundamentals of occultism, the end-user, you, can’t impose a template of good on that which is intrinsically evil. Beware well-intentioned witchcraft.
Used with permission of Bob Larson