Most people think of witches over a cauldron casting spells on their victims as how sorcery works, but this is not how modern-day practitioners – the “real deals” – work in the black arts.
“American Gods”, the book and the show, depict the gods of yesteryear in a battle against the “new gods” of today. I used to watch this show until I got bored with the storyline. One of the more interesting aspects was the things we tend to think of, with regard to how things worked back then with worship, sacrifice, and other forms of paganism, have been modernized. Gathering at the temple to worship a deity is replaced by gathering on your mobile device to worship a particular pantheon on social media. In the series, most people are unaware that they are, in some way, paying homage to a god or two, which helps in masking the tributes, so it will go unnoticed.
After all, if Odin appeared as his true self, people would take notice, but if he were just an eccentric old man, no one would be the wiser.
Another one of my favs is a show called “Evil”. To be sure, this TV
series takes a decidedly Catholic stent, but I can “eat the meat and spit out the bones” — the bones being the whole Priests, Nuns, praying to the saints, etc. The overall theme – evil exists – is something that needs to be heard in this world.
The interesting thing about the series is the two different perspectives when evil is confronted. The perspective of the “spirit” (the character of the Priest), and the perspective of the “clinical” (the character of the doctor & skeptic).
It is in these two examples – “American Gods” & “Evil” that I would like to discuss how the proverbial wool is being pulled over the eyes of the church and how a modern-day spell has split the body of Christ into two groups — the ones who accept the use of sorcery, and the others that don’t.
The witches cauldron…of sorts.
Most people think of witches over a cauldron casting spells on their victims as how sorcery works, but this is not how modern-day practitioners – the “real deals” – work in the black arts. We tend to get our examples from childhood shows like “Snow White” and other entertainment as to how the dark arts work. We envision costumed individuals wearing hoods, having long fingernails, with green lighting, adding ingredients in the midst of sulfuric smoke, but miss the real danger that’s right next to us, mockingly giving us the middle finger right in front of our eyes. It is because of this purposeful naivety that we have let evil advance as far as it has.
Sorcery is one of the evils that God detests (Deuteronomy 18:9-12, Revelation 22:15) and it is in wide use today in the form of “potions”…or, for a more modernized ideology, pharmaceuticals.
I submit to you that the church (and America) – with its split between people that accept the COVID-19 vaccine and those that don’t – is the result of this “modernized” spell casting. The “sorcerers” (Pharmacists, media, politicians, and drug companies) have successfully created a clear divide within the body of Christ, even to the point of shutting many of our worship services down last year, and quite possibly in the near future.
Most Christians will take the “doctors” approach from the show “Evil” — seeing a more clinical perspective in matters of our true struggle (Ephesians 6:12). Others see the spiritual side (character of the Priest), but segway off on tangents of “trampling our rights”, and other such matters of freedom, ignoring the greater threat – all according to plan.
This…this is what modern-day dark arts look like.
