Do you find your psychic or paranormal experiences unsettling or do they cause you to question your faith? Some Christians mistakenly believe that psychic or paranormal experiences are incompatible with Christianity and pose a threat to those who have them.
Based on a few Biblical passages, many people incorrectly assume that the Bible cautions against such experiences and against associating with those who share their psychic gifts. This misunderstanding has persisted for centuries. False information has led many Christians to deny their authentic spiritual experiences and reject the healing and insight that people with spiritual gifts offer them.
Understanding the Biblical Perspective
In "How to Be a Christian Psychic," author Adrian Lee begins by helping Christians understand the unique historical settings in which these Bible "warnings" were meant to apply. Once you understand how experiences of the spirit world are actually the work of the Lord, you can use your gifts without fear or guilt. Exploring this realm will not make you a heathen or stop you from feeling God's Embrace.
Many Christians have gifts they are afraid of sharing. Do you have psychic insights about others or their loved ones? Do you have a healing touch or instincts? Even if you aren't aware of spiritual, psychic or healing abilities, you may possess gifts that could help others. Isn't it time to explore your spiritual side and develop your gifts?
Many Christians have been warned to stay away from people with psychic abilities, or to restrain their own gifts, because of erroneous interpretations of certain Bible verses. But once you learn the true meaning of these texts, you will understand how healing and psychic powers are spiritual in nature and can be used for the good of others.
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The Reality of the Spirit World
Ghosts or apparitions are a common phenomenon affirmed in the Bible. After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to many people. In Luke 24:39, He is quoted as saying: "Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."
Angels are also part of the spirit world and occasionally appear to humankind to do God's bidding. You may remember the Bible's Christmas story about the shepherds who were attending their sheep at night. Luke 2:9-10 says, "An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid." What better words can there be to lose our fear of the spirit world.
In How to Be a Christian Psychic, author Adrian Lee describes a personal angel experience that changed his life.
A Practical Guide to Nurturing Your Gifts
Now, in one readable volume, author Adrian Lee whisks away fear and presents a practical how-to guide for using your psychic and healing gifts. This book opened my eyes to what I always knew deep within my soul. That you can be psychic and Christian! The author writes in a way that helps you understand in layman terms how the Bible lays it all out.
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For the Christian psychic, healer, medium, ghost hunter and more, this book will be a much needed resource on one’s shelf. It is full of discussions of relevant Bible verses as well as Lee’s extensive personal experiences in these areas.
A lifelong Christian, Adrian Lee is also a working historian, the founder of the International Paranormal Society, and a member of the Luton Paranormal Society in England. He has comprehensively investigated ghosts and paranormal activity all over the globe as well as studied the history and theology of Christianity.
In numerous cases, Adrian has interviewed long-dead individuals and turned up previously unknown information that was later verified by further research.
The author's devout faith, blended with his extraordinary paranormal experiences, led him to research and draft a book that documents clearly how the Bible has often been misinterpreted when it comes to psychic and paranormal activity. This book is How to Be a Christian Psychic.
Scriptural Evidence and Real-World Experience
Everything in this book is based on scriptural evidence, scrupulous historical research, and Mr. Lee's practical experience in healing and investigating paranormal activity.
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There is perhaps no other book available today that merges all of these elements into one readable text that presents the largely untold story of how God often communicates with humankind through paranormal means... Adrian Lee has been an author I've enjoyed reading because his information is so solidly based on fact. He has taken some of the biggest criticisms and questions frequently posed to those working in the paranormal field and supplied irrefutable Biblical scriptures that support their work.
This book not only brings readers closer to their faith, but also reassures them that the efforts they are making are not frowned upon by religion - in fact, they are encouraged and embraced by the Lord.
P.S.: This book is for you if you've had psychic experiences you don't like to talk about. Or if you have the gift of healing but don't know how to use it. Or if you have fears about unexplained paranormal "events" in your life. Don't be afraid. Learn how to lose your fears and use your gifts.
The Controversy: Reconciling Faith and Psychic Abilities
Can you be a true Christian and have psychic or healing abilities? The Bible strongly condemns spiritism, mediums, the occult, and psychics (Leviticus 20:27; Deuteronomy 18:10-13). Horoscopes, tarot cards, astrology, fortune tellers, palm readings, and séances fall into this category as well. These practices are based on the concept that there are gods, spirits, or deceased loved ones that can give advice and guidance.
These “gods” or “spirits” are demons (2 Corinthians 11:14-15). The Bible gives us no reason to believe that deceased loved ones can contact us. If they were believers, they are in heaven enjoying the most wonderful place imaginable in fellowship with a loving God.
So, if our loved ones cannot contact us, how do mediums, spiritists, and psychics get such accurate information? There have been many exposures of psychics as frauds. It has been proven that psychics can gain immense amounts of information on someone through ordinary means. Sometimes by just using a telephone number through caller ID and an internet search, a psychic can get names, addresses, dates of birth, dates of marriage, family members, etc.
However, it is undeniable that psychics sometimes know things that should be impossible for them to know. Where do they get this information? The answer is from Satan and his demons. “And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve” (2 Corinthians 11:14-15).
Satan pretends to be kind and helpful. He tries to appear as something good. Satan and his demons will give a psychic information about a person in order to get that person hooked into spiritism, something that God forbids.
It appears innocent at first, but soon people can find themselves addicted to psychics and unwittingly allow Satan to control and destroy their lives. Peter proclaimed, “Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
In some cases, the psychics themselves are deceived, not knowing the true source of the information they receive. Whatever the case and wherever the source of the information, nothing connected to spiritism, witchcraft, or astrology is a godly means of discovering information.
Psychic Mediumship vs. Prophecy
What’s the difference between psychic mediumship and prophecy? That’s a question former medium Jenn Nizza explored on a recent episode of her “Ex-Psychic Saved Podcast,” sitting down with Pastor Jim Osman to break it all down.
Osman, author of the book God Doesn’t Whisper, began the discussion by differentiating between those who simply pretend to be able to engage in clairvoyance and those who authentically receive such information through evil means.
While some self-proclaimed psychics are charlatans and frauds, Osman said not everyone falls under that category, as some, he believes, authentically engage in divination, the process of seeking information about the future through supernatural means.
He believes these people receive such knowledge from diabolical sources.
“The Bible does warn against mediums and spiritists and divination, and all kinds of connections with the occult and the spiritual realm in the Old Testament as well as in the New Testament,” Osman said. “And the Bible warns about it because the connection that people who are psychics have is a very real connection to a very real thing. There is a real spiritual realm.”
As the pastor noted, this is a realm Christians are told to evade at all costs, with Scripture labeling these forces as “deceptive” and “demonic.”
Osman said these forces have the ability to influence and bring information into the human realm, using mediums and spirits for that purpose. Psychics and others might truly believe they are connecting with God or even “gods” but have “no idea what they’re playing with.”
As for prophets, Osman said the Bible is clear these individuals have existed, differentiating them from psychics based on the source of the information they have received.
“There are genuine prophets in the Old Testament and in the New Testament times,” he said. “I don't believe that there are genuine prophets today in the biblical sense, but those people who did speak for God in the Old Testament and the New Testament had prophetic abilities because they were vehicles or instruments of revelation that God gave regarding the future, sometimes just simply applying truth in the lives of the people.”
Osman also offered another simple explanatory line to try and explain the difference between psychics and prophets: “A prophet is one who speaks from God. A psychic would be one who speaks for the devil, or is giving you information that comes from the spiritual realm that is not from God.”
He and Nizza addressed modern-day claims of prophecy, explaining potential theories on what they believe could be unfolding. Osman repeatedly made his view clear there’s no need for new prophetic information to be uttered in the modern era.
“Everything that you need is given to you in Scripture,” he said.
Nizza pondered whether some Christians who believe they’re getting prophecy could be receiving psychic information without their knowledge or full understanding.
It should be noted that the gift of prophecy continues to be a point of controversy among Evangelicals, with the main disagreement centering on “whether this gift is limited to the founding era of the Christian church or whether it is currently operative in the church now,” as Richard Blaylock has noted.
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The gift of prophecy remains a controversial one among evangelical churches, concerning both the nature and duration of the gift. The Old Testament regards prophecy as an act of intelligible communication that bears divine authority, although it also allows for the possibility of false prophets. The New Testament bears remarkable continuity with the Old Testament concerning prophecy, and the NT authors regard the messages of the prophets to be the very Words of God. As such, the NT seems to assume that genuine prophecies always warranted complete trust and obedience.
However, the NT clearly expects the gift of prophecy to be done away with at some point in time. On the one hand, continuationists believe that the gift will continue functioning until the second coming of Christ. On the other hand, cessationists believe that the gift was tied to the authority of the founding leaders of the early church and has therefore ceased to function in the church today.
There are many today who believe the gift of prophecy is alive and well.
It’s a subject John Piper and others have addressed in detail and one that is very much active and celebrated in certain facets of the church.
Understanding Mediumship
In both modern and ancient times, a medium is a person who communicates with spirits, usually apart from the use of witchcraft. A medium is, literally, an “intermediary” between the spirit world and ours. Sometimes mediums are called “channelers,” as they allegedly “channel” communication from the dead to the living.
A medium might only communicate with one or more specific spirits (called “familiars” or “familiar spirits”), or the communication may be spread across many different spirits. The messages may come audibly, visually, or through physical sensations.
Modern mediums distinguish themselves from psychics, who only read the “energies” of a person or place and do not communicate with actual spirits. (The term “psychic medium” can confuse the issue.) Also, a medium is not necessarily a witch, wizard, sorcerer, or necromancer, since mediums believe that their communication with the spirit world is an inherent ability.
Biblical References to Mediums
Mediums are referenced in several passages of the Old Testament. In Leviticus 20:27 mediums are condemned along with “spiritists.” Deuteronomy 18:10-11 echoes Leviticus and expands it, including diviners, sorcerers, witches/wizards, anyone who casts spells, and anyone who practices child sacrifice.
King Saul’s sinful use of a medium is recorded in 1 Samuel 28. The prophet Samuel was dead, and King Saul was frustrated that God had ceased telling him what to do through prophets or dreams. So the king, in direct violation of God’s Law and his own previous command, told his men to find a medium who could communicate with Samuel (1 Samuel 28:3). This medium conjured Samuel, and Saul communicated with the dead prophet.
Theologians discuss whether this conjuring was a physical reappearance of Samuel or merely an image of him. There is also some question whether or not the medium actually meant to conjure Samuel, as she seems to have been the most surprised at his appearance-“When the woman saw Samuel, she cried out at the top of her voice” (verse 12). Perhaps she was a fraud who did not expect to actually see a spirit, or perhaps she was expecting to communicate with her “familiar” and not with Samuel directly. Either way, God seems to have allowed Samuel’s conjuring in order to drive home His point to Saul. The prophet’s message to Saul was one of doom (verses 17-19), and he died the next day.
The Nature of Spirits
In the New Testament, sorcery and other associated practices are considered inappropriate, sinful activities for any Christian (Acts 8:9ff and 19:19). It should be noted that the spirit a medium conjures is not the spirit of a deceased person (the case of Samuel speaking to Saul was a rare exception).