What Killed Rebecca Riley? Katie Couric Reports On The Diagnosis Of Bipolar Disorder In Kids
Sept. 30, 2007 ---------------------------------------------------------- (CBS) On Dec. 13, 2006, police responded to a 911 call and found a little girl lying dead on the floor next to her parents' bed. The autopsy revealed that she had died from an overdose of psychiatric drugs. Rebecca Riley was being treated for bipolar disorder, or manic depression, even though she was just four years old.
If that sounds unusual to you, it's not. As Katie Couric reports, until recently the disorder was believed to emerge only in adults. Now, it is estimated that there are nearly one million children diagnosed as bipolar, making it more common than autism and diabetes combined. And to treat it, doctors are administering some medications that have yet to be approved for children. In the case of Rebecca Riley, that cocktail of medications proved fatal and now her parents have been charged with her murder.
Carolyn Riley is now in jail in Boston awaiting trial and is being medicated for depression. She told 60 Minutes her daughter's problems began when Rebecca was only two years old. Carolyn took her to a psychiatrist because she had difficulty sleeping and seemed hyperactive.
"Constantly getting into things, running around, not being able to settle down," Riley remembers.
"Did you ever think, 'Well, she's two and a half years old.' There's this thing called the terrible 2's. Did you think this could, in fact, be normal?" Couric asks.
"Yes," Riley tells Couric. "The psychiatrist said that she thought that it was more than just normal."
The toddler who could barely speak in full sentences was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after several sessions over eight months. She had just turned 3. And she wasn't the only one in the family: her ten-year-old brother and four-year-old sister were already being treated for the same illness by the same doctor at Tufts-New England Medical Center. Rebecca was eventually prescribed three medications to stabilize her mood: Seroquel, an anti psychotic; Depakote, an anti seizure drug; and Clonidine, a blood pressure medication -- medications that would ultimately prove fatal on Dec. 13th.
Riley says she thought Rebecca had just a little bit of a cold and gave her daughter "Children's Tylenol Plus Cough & Runny Nose."
In the middle of the night, Riley remembers her daughter didn't want to go to sleep. "So I brought her in the room. She was right beside me on the floor. And I laid down and went to sleep," she recalls.
Before she put her to bed that night, next to her on the floor, Riley says she gave her daughter half a Clonidine.
Asked why, Riley tells Couric, "Because she hadn't been able to get to sleep since six o'clock."
"Then what happened?" Couric asks.
"Then I woke up to the alarm in the morning. And knelt down to wake her up. And there was no waking her up," Riley replies.
Riley says she knew at that point that her daughter had died. Carolyn Riley and her husband Michael were charged with first-degree murder.
The prosecutor alleged at their arraignment in February that they were overdosing Rebecca by repeatedly giving her more medication than she was prescribed. "It was used on Rebecca, her sister and her brother for one simple purpose by these defendants: to knock them out and make them sleep," the prosecutor claimed.
But the Rileys claim that they were following doctor's orders. 60 Minutes wanted to talk to the psychiatrist, Dr. Kayoko Kifuji, but she declined. Instead 60 Minutes got a statement from her hospital: "The care we provided was appropriate and within responsible professional standards."
60 Minutes did obtain a copy of Rebecca's medical records. In them, Dr. Kifuji notes Rebecca's increased risk of mental illness because of her family history. She diagnosed Rebecca after Carolyn said her daughter was - quote - "driving me crazy" and her mood switches within a minute. She would eventually prescribe the preschooler more than ten pills a day.
Riley says she did feel that that was a lot of pills for a little girl, but she says she went ahead and gave Rebecca the prescriptions. "I trusted the doctor," she says.
Dr. Kifuji has stopped practicing, pending a ruling by the state medical board. But her lawyer has said she was just practicing mainstream psychiatry. It's now estimated that nearly one million children like Rebecca Riley have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, or manic depression. And while some psychiatrists told 60 Minutes that early diagnosis is saving lives, a growing number of doctors say it is being over-diagnosed.
60 Minutes went to talk to one of the leading proponents of the diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children and whose research Dr. Kifuji has said influenced her. He is Dr. Joseph Biederman, professor at Harvard and head of child psychopharmacology at Mass General Hospital.
"Previous studies that were conducted in the '70s and '80s determined it was very, very rare for a child to have bipolar disorder. And now you're saying up to a million children are running around with this," Couric remarks. "Why such a sea change?"
"The idea is rare if you define it in very strict ways," Dr. Biederman explains. "Our contribution has been to describe the many ways that this condition may emerge in children that may make it a little bit more diagnosable and less rare than people have thought about it."
The classic adult definition for manic depression or bipolar disorder is dramatic mood swings from severe highs to severe lows, which can last for weeks or months. Dr. Biederman's definition for children, though, is much broader. It emphasizes extreme irritability and at least four other symptoms such as recklessness, sleeplessness and hyperactivity. And while most doctors now believe that a child can be bipolar, there is no definitive medical test.
Now there's a cottage industry of bestselling books, magazine covers and Internet sites where you can test your child online. But even the top researchers can not agree on exactly what bipolar disorder looks like in children or at what age it can be diagnosed.
"The average age of onset is about four," Biederman says. "It's solidly in the preschool years."
"What about those who say, 'Oh, come on Dr. Biederman, a preschooler displaying these characteristics is often acting like a preschooler,'" Couric asks.
"Absolutely not," Biederman says. "The bar to consider a diagnosis in a very young child is very high."
Asked if he worries that his work is being used or applied too broadly and that too many children are being diagnosed as a result, Biederman tells Couric, "I am not so concerned if a practitioner recognizes that the symptoms have to be severe, debilitating, devastating, to consider the diagnosis."
Rhys Hampton was three years old when he began to have violent and explosive outbursts. After a year of treatment, his mother, Diana, says a psychiatrist told her he thought Rhys was bipolar.
"Would you describe his behavior as behavior that is extraordinary, severe, dangerous, and effects every, single aspect of his life?" Couric asks.
"Yeah. Every single aspect of his life," Hampton says.
"Bipolar disorder is also described as manic depression. Did he ever get depressed? Did he ever get sad?" Couric asks.
"He would tell us, you know, 'You don't love me.' 'You don't like me.' 'I don't like myself.' 'I hate myself.' 'I'm stupid.' 'Nobody likes me.' 'I wanna die.' Four-year-olds don't talk like that," Hampton says.
After Rhys' psychiatrist suggested a fourth medication, the Hamptons said "Enough."
They took their son to Seattle Children's Hospital, where they were told Rhys wasn't bipolar. He now takes medication for hyperactivity and a sleep disorder. And he's learning to deal with his explosive moods through a behavioral program.
"I mean, there's no comparison to the child that we're parenting today, as opposed to the one that we had last year," Hampton says.
Dr. John McClellan, who's familiar with Rhys' case, says the children's psychiatric hospital he runs in Washington state is filled with kids who have been misdiagnosed as bipolar. He says it has become a catchall for aggressive and troubled children.
"I think it's a problem to label kids with a major adult psychiatric disorder when they're five years old or when they're three years old," Dr. McClellan says. "Little kids are not adults. And little kids do things that if an adult did them, it would be evidence of a mental health problem."
"Having said that, if someone is bipolar and it presents later in life, doesn't it make sense that these issues exist really from birth?" Couric asks.
"No, that does make sense," McClellan says. "The problem is symptoms like irritability or recklessness or high energy when you're an eight-year-old don't necessarily predict in the long run developing bipolar disorder. Some might. Do you expose all those kids to medications to prevent the one kid that's going to get it?"
"Not that I don't use medicines, I do but the average kid comes into my hospital now on four different medicines. We had one kid that was recently admitted to our in-patient program that was on 12 psychotropic agents. At some level, there needs to be something else that's used besides just continuing to add medication after medication," McClellan says.
Dr. McClellan says we don't really know how these drugs interact or effect developing brains because most are being used off-label, which means they haven't been approved by the FDA for use in children.
"Does it disturb you or worry you that many of these medications, most of these medications are being used off-label, and have not been tested in children?" Couric asks Biederman.
"Yes. I recognize the fact that we have a gap in knowledge," Biederman says. "But the patients that come to me, and the families in tears and despair with these type of problems, I in good faith cannot tell them, 'Come back in ten years until we have all the data in hand.' I still need to use medicines that I am assuming that if they work in adults, with appropriate care and supervision, may also work in children."
Many parents told 60 Minutes their children are so out of control and disruptive, medication is the only option. A parent who took her children to Biederman's Mass General clinic, Maria Lamb says she depends on medication for eight-year-old Annie and nine-year-old Casey, who his mother says would rage for hours when he was just two years old. Casey was recently admitted to a psychiatric hospital when he was taken off one of his medications.
"I don't think they would be able to function. I wish they could. It was a last resort, seeing the kind of rages they would have, destroying their room, kicking the door off the hinges," Lamb says.
But during one recent visit, Maria's worried that Annie is eating incessantly. Dr. Biederman's partner Dr. Janet Wozniak says it could be a side effect from one of Annie's three medications and suggests another medicine may help.
"Actually its most common usage has been to help people with alcohol addictions resist alcohol. But it seems to also have an effect on food cravings," Dr. Wozniak remarked.
One of the biggest problems with these medications is side effects, including major weight gain, hand tremors, shakes, drooling and muscle spasms. And side effects are at the heart of the Rebecca Riley case.
Carolyn Riley tells Couric she never observed any sluggish or lethargic behavior in her daughter.
"This is what her preschool teacher said. She was like a floppy doll. So tired, she had to be helped off the bus. She had a tremor and had to go to the bathroom almost constantly. So how could she have these side effects at school, and yet, you never observed them at home?" Couric asks.
"I don't know," Riley replies. "She never acted like that at home at all."
But the prosecutor is charging the Rileys with murder because, he says, they ignored the warning signs and instead just kept giving Rebecca more pills than she was prescribed, even in the last few days of her life. And key to the case: 200 additional pills Carolyn Riley got from the pharmacy. She insists she was only replacing pills that were lost or damaged.
"For those who see you as somebody, who just wanted her kids to be less annoying and bothersome, who gave them too many pills because she couldn't deal with it, you would say?" Couric asks.
"I don't know. They weren't annoying. They were my life," she says.
"According to the medical examiner, her heart and lungs were damaged, and this was due to prolonged abuse of these prescription drugs, rather than one incident. Prolonged abuse of these prescription drugs," Couric remarks.
"Yes. And the doctor had Rebecca on .35 milligrams, daily, for months. And I didn't know anything about dosages. How much was fatal," Riley says.
The medical examiner ruled that Rebecca died of a drug overdose from a mix of medications. And that the amount of Clonidine alone would have been fatal.
Today, awaiting trial, Carolyn Riley says she now knows more about bipolar disorder than she ever did when her daughter was alive.
Asked if she thinks Rebecca was really bipolar, Riley says, "Probably not."
"What do you think was wrong with her, now?" Couric asks.
"I don't know," she says. "Maybe she was just hyper for her age."
There’s no such thing as a free lunch. As a young man, I heard that cliché uttered countless times by the pragmatic adult regime. It seemed almost a taunt to a teenager who was growing fast and would have appreciated some free lunches. With that phrase, we “youngsters” learned that we have to work for what we want in life. We also learned that the firewood had better be chopped and stacked by lunchtime.
In the divine plan that God has authored, this maxim still applies. There is a dire consequence to be paid for sin. Romans 6:23 starts out, “For the wages of sin is death…” This spiritual law is a constant. It does not change. It is eternal, and immutable. However, in God’s plan, a new element comes into play – grace. My dictionary defines grace as “divine love and protection freely given.” FREE?! Well, yes and no. Sin still requires the penalty of death, but God’s plan is completed in the rest of Romans 6:23, “…but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.” The price for the lunch still had to be paid. Sin still required a death penalty. God loves us so much that Jesus offered himself up as the death sacrifice. He paid for our lunch.
Never have I heard such an affront to the power and grace of God as in the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory. What God has freely given, man has spent thousands of years trying to earn. Why? Does he not trust God to deliver? In this article, we’ll study the doctrine of purgatory, how the Catholic Church supports this doctrine, and we’ll find out what the Bible has to say about it.
Purgatory comes from the Latin word “purgare,” which means to make clean, to purify. The Catholic Encyclopedia defines purgatory as, “a place or condition of temporal punishment for those who, departing this life in God’s grace, are, not entirely free from venial faults, or have not fully paid the satisfaction due to their transgressions.”1 In other words, Catholics believe that purgatory is a place where we go after death to be cleansed and purified of our venial (minor) sins before we can be allowed into heaven. In some traditions regarding purgatory, it is a place of purifying fire. Other traditions hold that there will be a process of purification, but the fire will be metaphorical as opposed to literal. In either case, this purifying fire is different from the fires of hell. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.”2
The doctrine of purgatory is based largely on Catholic tradition (post-biblical writings and oral history), and was formulated into a cohesive doctrine of the church at the Councils of Florence and Trent.3 According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, “the Council of Trent (Sess. XIV, can. xi) reminds the faithful that God does not always remit the whole punishment due to sin together with the guilt. God requires satisfaction, and will punish sin…”4 This portrayal of a vengeful God seems to say that the grace of God was not sufficient to forgive all of our sins. Let us examine the supports given by the Catholic Church to buttress this doctrine.
Returning to the Catholic Encyclopedia, we read, “For unrepented venial faults for the payment of temporal punishment due to sin at time of death, the Church has always taught the doctrine of purgatory. So deep was this belief ingrained in our common humanity that it was accepted by the Jews, and in at least a shadowy way by the pagans, long before the coming of Christianity.”5
It seems incomprehensible to me to cite a pagan belief in the doctrine of purgatory as one of its defenses. Furthermore, the author paints an overly broad stroke over the Jews by implying that all Jews accepted this belief. Throughout history, Jews and Christians have proven over and over again that man is inherently sinful.
Disobedience to God by Jews and Gentiles alike is well documented in scripture. The test of a doctrine should not rest on how accepted it is or was among other religious groups. Rather, we should look towards the Bible. With that, let’s move on to the scriptural “supports” that Catholics cite for the doctrine of purgatory.
“The tradition of the Jews is put forth with precision and clearness in II Maccabees.”6 The most clear scriptural reference in support of purgatory is from II Maccabees. If this book does not sound familiar to you, perhaps it is because II Maccabees is one of the books of the apocrypha (known to Catholics as the “Deuterocanonical Books”).
The apocryphal books were not part of Jewish scripture, and are not part of the Protestant Bible. The Jewish scribes discarded the apocrypha as scripture largely because of the sundry historical and chronological errors within. As God is not the author of error, He is obviously not the author of the apocrypha. The same issues that prevented the induction of the apocrypha into Jewish scripture almost resulted in St. Jerome’s refusal to translate them into the Vulgate.
He objected to their inclusion in scripture, but was overruled by the Council at Nicea. These same issues are the reason that these books were excluded from Protestant Bibles during the Reformation. While Catholics rely on tradition in addition to the Bible, the Protestant reliance on the Bible alone (a belief the Catholic Church refers to as sola scriptura) resulted in tighter constraints on what could be considered divinely-inspired. That has not stopped Rome from attempting to find non-apocryphal biblical supports, though.
“God forgave the incredulity of Moses and Aaron, but in punishment kept them from the ‘land of promise’ (Num., xx, 12). The Lord took away the sin of David, but the life of the child was forfeited because David had made God's enemies blaspheme His Holy Name (II Kings, xii, 13, 14).”7
The above statement is correct, but makes a poor support for purgatory. The punishments listed here were meted out during Moses’, Aaron’s, and David’s earthly lives – not in some afterlife limbo. Additionally, the instances above occurred during the dispensation (age) of the law – prior to the dispensation of grace that commenced with the death and resurrection of Jesus.
A very common Bible verse cited by Catholics as a support for purgatory is Matthew 12:32, in which Jesus said, “And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come.”
The Catholic explanation of this passage holds that “the world to come” is purgatory. They contend that there is a purgatorial “world to come” in which sins not forgiven in “this world” may be forgiven (with the exception of blasphemy against the Holy Spirit).
The Greek word aion is used here for “world.” Of the 128 times aion is used in the Bible, most of its uses refer to an age, or period of time. In fact, our current word “eon” comes from this word. Most scholars agree that when Jesus mentioned “this world,” He was referring to the Age of the Law into which He was born. The “world to come” to which He referred, is the Church Age, or Age of Grace that began with his resurrection and continues today. To say that this verse alludes to purgatory is to make a huge stretch that simply does not match the facts.
“Modern Protestants, while they avoid the name purgatory, frequently teach the doctrine of "the middle state," and Martensen ("Christian Dogmatics," Edinburgh, 1890, p. 457).”8 Here, they reference the work of Danish Episcopal Bishop Hans Martensen.
It is well known that Bishop Martensen also had a proclivity for mysticism and theosophy, and therefore might not make the best witness to orthodoxy. Regardless of Martensen’s personal theological beliefs, we have already stated that support of a doctrine by other groups or individuals is not an acceptable support.
Furthermore, the broad stroke of the author’s brush if far too broad in painting Protestant beliefs on this issue. He would have been more accurate to say that SOME modern Protestants believe in a middle state.
Now that we have examined the Catholic supports for purgatory, let us turn to the Bible to examine what the Word of God says on the matter. For the sake of space, I will list several portions of scripture consecutively before making any additional comment.
1 Corinthians 6:10-11 ”…nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” [emphasis added]
Romans 8:1-4“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.”
Ephesians 2:4-10 “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” [emphasis added]
Colossians 1:21-23 “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation--if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel.” [emphasis added]
Romans 3:21-28 “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished--he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.” [emphasis added]
We have seen a common theme here. We’ve read words like “justified,” “sanctified,” and “made holy.” In Catholic practice, justification is achieved through adherence to the seven sacraments. Yet we’ve just read that we are all justified by grace through our faith in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We’ve also read that due to Christ’s atoning sacrifice, God seeks no further punishment for those who have accepted that free gift. Perhaps nowhere else in the Bible is the doctrine of purgatory more heavily refuted than in the following passage:
Hebrews 10:8-18 “First he [Jesus] said, ‘Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them’ (although the law required them to be made). Then he said, ‘Here I am, I have come to do your will.’ He sets aside the first to establish the second. And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: ‘This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.’ Then he adds: ‘Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.’ And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.” [emphasis added]
What a wonderful assurance! Because of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, we have been forgiven. There is no longer any sacrifice required. That is what purgatory is all about – an additional sacrifice for venial sins. To say that purgatory is a necessary purification is to deny that the grace of God is sufficient. What a tremendous blessing to us that God has shown His unbounded love for us through His grace! 1 John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." In 2 Corinthians 12:9, Paul said that Christ’s grace was sufficient for him. Indeed, Christ’s grace is sufficient for us all. Praise God!
Americans have come to tolerate, embrace and even champion many things that would have horrified their parents' generation – from easy divorce and unrestricted abortion-on-demand to extreme body piercing and teaching homosexuality to grade-schoolers. Does that mean today's Americans are inherently more morally confused and depraved than previous generations? Of course not, says veteran journalist David Kupelian. But they have fallen victim to some of the most stunningly brilliant and compelling marketing campaigns in modern history.
"The Marketing of Evil" reveals how much of what Americans once almost universally abhorred has been packaged, perfumed, gift-wrapped and sold to them as though it had great value. Highly skilled marketers, playing on our deeply felt national values of fairness, generosity and tolerance, have persuaded us to embrace as enlightened and noble that which all previous generations since America’s founding regarded as grossly self-destructive – in a word, evil.
In this groundbreaking and meticulously researched book, Kupelian peels back the veil of marketing-induced deception to reveal exactly when, where, how, and especially why Americans bought into the lies that now threaten the future of the country.
For example, few of us realize that the widely revered father of the "sexual revolution" has been irrefutably exposed as a full-fledged sexual psychopath who encouraged pedophilia. Or that giant corporations voraciously competing for America's $150 billion teen market routinely infiltrate young people's social groups to find out how better to lead children into ever more debauched forms of "authentic self-expression."
Likewise, most of us mistakenly believe the "abortion rights" and "gay rights" movements were spontaneous, grassroots uprisings of neglected or persecuted minorities wanting to breathe free. Few people realize America was actually "sold" on abortion thanks to an audacious public relations campaign that relied on fantastic lies and fabrications. Or that the "gay rights" movement – which transformed America's former view of homosexuals as self-destructive human beings into their current status as victims and cultural heroes – faithfully followed an in-depth, phased plan laid out by professional Harvard-trained marketers.
No quarter is given in this riveting, insightful exploration of how lies, both subtle and outrageous, are packaged as truth. From the federal government to the public school system to the news media to the hidden creators of "youth culture," nothing is exempt from the thousand-watt spotlight of Kupelian's journalistic inquiry.
In the end, "The Marketing of Evil" is an up-close, modern-day look at what is traditionally known as "temptation" – the art and science of making evil look good.
About the author: David Kupelian is the managing editor of WorldNetDaily, the world’s largest independent news Web site. He is also a widely read online columnist and the driving force behind the acclaimed monthly news magazine Whistleblower.
WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT DAVID KUPELIAN'S 'THE MARKETING OF EVIL' ...
"David Kupelian dares to tell the truth about the overwhelming forces in our society which take us far away from our original American concept of freedom with responsibility, happiness with commitments, and traditional values. 'The Marketing of Evil' is a serious wake-up call for all who cherish traditional values, the innocence of children, and the very existence of our great country." – DR. LAURA SCHLESSINGER, talk-show host and author
"It's often said that marketing is warfare, and in 'The Marketing of Evil,' David Kupelian clearly reveals the stunning strategies and tactics of persuasion employed by those engaged in an all-out war against America's Judeo-Christian culture. If you really want to understand the adversary's thinking and help turn the tide of battle, read this book!" – DAVID LIMBAUGH, syndicated columnist and author
"David Kupelian's research brings into sharp focus what many have sensed and suspected for a long time: The effort to change America's mind on issues like abortion, homosexuality, church-state separation, and more, is a well-thought-out strategic campaign that uses the methods of Madison Avenue to market rank lies. But the good news is that the truth will eventually win out, and Kupelian's important and groundbreaking book makes enormous progress toward that end." – D. JAMES KENNEDY, Coral Ridge Ministries
"Every parent in America needs to read this book. David Kupelian skillfully exposes the secular left's rotten apple peddlers in devastating detail. From pitching promiscuity as 'freedom' to promoting abortion as 'choice,' the marketers of evil are always selling you something destructive – with catastrophic results. Kupelian shines a light on them all. Now watch the cockroaches run for cover." – MICHELLE MALKIN, Fox News Channel
"Over just a few years, life in America has become indescribably more squalid, expensive, and dangerous. Like the dazzling disclosures in the final page of a gripping whodunit or the fascinating revelation of a magician's secrets, 'The Marketing of Evil' irresistibly exposes how it was done. It will elicit an involuntary 'Aha!' from you as you discover who did it and your soul will soar with optimism as you discover the only way we can undo it. In years to come Americans will acknowledge a debt of gratitude to David Kupelian for his honesty, courage, and laser-like insight in this must-read book." – RABBI DANIEL LAPIN, Toward Tradition
"Marketers are out to get America's youth, and they'll stop at nothing to do it. In 'The Marketing of Evil,' David Kupelian treats parents to a rare insider look at exactly how our children – and adults too – are being lied to, confused, and seduced by radicals and phony experts. The game's over, folks – the con men have been exposed. I urge every parent to read this eye-opening book." – REBECCA HAGELIN, the Heritage Foundation
"Did you ever want to know – I mean really know – how and why America is being transformed from a unified, Judeo-Christian society into a divided, false, murky, neo-pagan culture? Even if you think you know the answers to those questions, in fact, especially if you think you know the answers, you must read David Kupelian's 'The Marketing of Evil.' So clearly does it expose the incredible con game to which Americans have been subjected that it offers real hope – because when our problems come this sharply into focus, so do the solutions." – JOSEPH FARAH, WorldNetDaily
"Excellent! Simply excellent. If you want to solidify your Christian worldview – or just understand what the culture war is all about – you owe it yourself to read David Kupelian's 'The Marketing of Evil.'" – DONALD E. WILDMON, American Family Association
A few more court decisions like this week's over a display of a Bible in Houston and the United States will be approaching the "China-level" for Christian persecution, according to a leader in the midst of that battle.
The ruling from the Fifth Court of Appeals said the display of a Bible on public ground in Houston to honor the founder of a mission has to go, not because it was unconstitutional itself, but because it became unconstitutional when a Christian group rallied around it.
The pastor's group said that means any monument, building, or even feature of nature is an illegal "establishment of religion" if a church ceremony is held there.
Connecting the dots between the eminent domain case, which says all of your churches are up for grabs if a town wants a mall, secondly you now have been told you do not have constitutional rights in the public square," Dave Welch, executive director of the Houston Area Pastors Conference, told WorldNetDaily.
"Any kind of an event is okay, as long as you didn't express any religious faith. What is that telling you?
"We're not persecuted yet, we know that. But we're on our way there. Add that to the surprising acceptance of militant Islam, the fear of speaking against that from a Christian standpoint and then we're dangerously approaching the point where we have literally given away and yielded our freedoms that were earned," Welch said.
"We have history, law and the founding fathers who adopted the Constitution collectively affirming the truth expressed by revered Justice Joseph Story in 1840 that, 'We are not to attribute this prohibition of a national religious establishment to an indifference to religion in general, and especially to Christianity,'" said a statement issued by the pastor's group.
Welch told WND that the court's conclusion was "ludicrous" and if followed logically, could mean that a religious rally at any public building would therefore make the building unconstitutional so it would have to be removed.
The Bible was installed on county property about five decades ago in honor of William Mosher, the founder of Star of Hope Mission, and was replaced in 1996 with donated funds. However, an atheist challenged the monument, and on an appeal from the District Court decision that the Bible was unconstitutional, the appeals court carried the argument further.
Its ruling said that the monument became an unconstitutional "establishment" after a 2003 rally was held by Christians to defend the display. That rally involved prayers and clergy, the court noted.
"The ramifications of this tortured decision are breath-taking and without any historic or legitimate Constitutional rationale," said the pastors' organization. "For the court to state that if a private citizen exercises his or her First Amendment rights of religious expression and assembly on public property, that any monument, building or fixed item of any kind that contains religious references becomes 'establishment of religion' is simply irrational."
The conclusion, if applied nationwide, would result in the sandblasting of hundreds of monuments and buildings "including the capstone on the Washington Monument, which reads, 'Laus Deo,' or 'Praise be to God,'" the pastors group continued.
"For this panel majority of two justices to claim that words and actions by private citizens or elected officials with religious content, expressed about a building or monument, convert it from 'secular' and constitutional to 'sacred' and unconstitutional amounts to an act of blatant judicial activism against the freedoms and Constitution," the HAPC said.
The group Battle For The Bible also is working on the case, and Welch said there are experts on constitutional law who have been and plan to continue assisting the county in its fight over the representation of the Bible.
"They are of the opinion this needs to be appealed directly to the Supreme Court, and we're working on that right now," Welch told WND.
He called the logic "twisted" that could conclude the monument once was constitutional, but since "some action by a private citizen" it now becomes unconstitutional.
Because the atheist's lawsuit was against the county over the monument on county land, the pastors and their advisors have been assisting County Attorney Michael Stafford in the fight.
In the 4th century, when Constantine the Great appointed himself Pontifex Maximus – supreme head – of the Christian Church, pagans and their pagan beliefs began infiltrating Christendom. Among the most influential of the new “converts” were those from the Mediterranean and Middle East areas where worship of the “Great Mother Goddess” and the “Divine Virgin” had existed since Babylon. According to Britannica, these groups:
“….found within the Christian Church a new possibility of expression in the worship of Mary as the virgin mother of God, in whom was achieved the mysterious union of the divine Logos with human nature.” (Britannica, Christianity: The doctrine of the Virgin Mary and holy Wisdom.)
By the end of the 4th century, Mary the mother of Jesus, known prior to the advent of Constantine as the Christ-bearer, (Greek Christotokos,) was being referred to as the God-bearer, (theotokos.) Thus was born the doctrine of Mary, mother of God, a title foreign to Scripture where she is called only the mother of Jesus. At first, this matter drew little attention, but in AD 428, Anastasius, a presbyter in the church at Constantinople, raised objections to the theotokos appellation, and thereby originated a controversy that continues to exist here in the 21st century.
Anastasius was immediately supported in his position by Nestorius, bishop of the Constantinople church, who believed that the theotokos title adversely affected the fact of our Lord’s full humanity. Cyril, powerful bishop of Alexandria, motivated as much by envy of Constantinople’s standing among the eastern churches as he was by the theological aspects of the controversy, joined battle over the issue with Nestorius, outflanked him at the AD 431 First Council of Ephesus, and succeeded in confirming Mary as the mother of God.
Nestorius, falsely accused of separating Christ’s two natures – human and divine – subsequently was excommunicated, then sacked as bishop of Constantinople by the emperor, Theodosius II, who had appointed him in the first place. He died in exile, but the controversy lives on. Is Mary the mother or Jesus? Or is she, a created being, the mother of eternal God?
The Roman Catholic Church and certain mainline churches that split from Rome during or following the Reformation, declare unequivocally that Mary is, in fact, the mother of God. Those historically and currently who oppose this teaching are accused, as was Nestorius, of “dividing Christ” into an “earthly Jesus” and a “heavenly Jesus,” thereby denying the essential unity of our Lord’s two natures. But that is merely an unproved and unprovable accusation.
Christ, in fact, had two distinct natures fused into a single human body, a mystery quite as hidden to man as three distinct persons comprising a single Godhead. To say that Mary was the mother of Jesus only is no more a division of Christ’s two natures than acknowledging Christ as the only begotten Son of the Father is a division of the Godhead.
Both are mysteries akin to that of a virgin being with child allegedly conceived by that same unborn child because He is a member of the Godhead. Shades, in other words, of the Babylonian “Mystery” religion.
In a document entitled, The Mother of Jesus, published by the Catholic Information Service of the Knights of Columbus, justification for calling Mary the mother of God is capsulized in the following two paragraphs:
In the natural and normal process of human reproduction, when both maternal and paternal functions unite, God simultaneously creates the human soul which enlivens the fecundated ovum in the woman’s womb, and thus a human person is conceived. It is always an individual’s human nature – a person who possesses human nature. (Emphasis added.)
It matters not that the woman has no part in the production of the spiritual element (directly created by God) in the human nature of the person she conceives. It suffices that she has supplied the bodily substance which goes into the constitution of human nature possessed by the person, that she rightly acquires the title of mother. (Emphasis added.)
No one disputes the fact that Mary is the mother of the human Jesus even though she was not the “supplier” of His human soul. Nor is there any question that the man Christ Jesus was created human in body, soul and spirit. What is disputed is the extension of the title “mother” to a divine nature that eternally existed and was not created in the womb of the virgin. A mother is only the mother of what originates within her womb. The second person of the blessed trinity did not originate in Mary’s body. He is without beginning – has always existed – and has no mother.
“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.) (Psalm 90:2) “Thy throne is established of old: thou art from everlasting.” (Psalm 93:2) “But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him,” (Psalm 103:17) “Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting to everlasting: and let all the people say, Amen. Praise ye the LORD.” (Psalm 106:4
That Jesus had two natures – one created and one eternal - united in a single human body is beyond question. That only one of those two natures originated in Mary’s womb also is beyond question. And why she cannot then be called the mother of God finds an exact parallel in Christ’s relationship to King David.
“He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:” (Luke 1:32) “And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David?” (Matt 12:23) “And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.”
(Matt 15:22) “And, behold, two blind men sitting by the way side, when they heard that Jesus passed by, cried out, saying, Have mercy on us, O Lord, thou son of David.” (Matt 20:30) “And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.” (Matt 21:9)
In these Scriptures it is clearly established that the nation of Israel expected their Messiah to derive – as prophesied - from the tribe of Judah and the house of David, thereby attributing fatherhood of the Messiah to David in accordance with their method of reckoning descent. But David cannot be called the father of God because of his relationship to the man Christ Jesus. Our Lord Himself preempted any possibility of that erroneous belief.
“While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The son of David. He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.” (Matt 22:42-46) Parallel accounts of this episode are found in Mark 12: 35-37, and Luke 20:41-44.
In these Scriptures, our Lord has done what Roman Catholic apologists say may not be done. He has clearly drawn a line between the human nature and the eternal nature of Christ. He has clearly established the fact that David is NOT the father of God, because he is NOT the father of the second person of the blessed trinity.
He has clearly shown this distinction of natures to be a mystery – one the Jews of His day could not comprehend any better than the Roman Catholics or Christians of the 21st century. This mystery of the two fused but separate natures manifest in Christ finds another reference in the following excerpt from the Gospel of John.
When confronted by the Jews and constrained to identify himself, John the Baptist’s response included this interesting disclosure: “For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.” (John 3:34) Certainly the Holy Spirit could not have been given to the Second Person of the trinity for He is part of that trinity. So the Holy Spirit that was given without measure was given only to the man Christ Jesus.
It stands to reason, then, that like King David – to whom fatherhood ONLY of the man Christ Jesus is attributed - Mary is the Mother ONLY of the man Christ Jesus. To prove this beyond a shadow of a doubt, let us insert Mary’s name in place of King David’s in the previously cited Scriptures:
“While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The son of MARY. He saith unto them, How then doth MARY call him Lord, saying, My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. (Luke 1:46, 47) If MARY then call him Lord, how is he her son? And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.”
To insist that Mary is Christotokos only and not theotokos is not to separate Jesus into a “heavenly Jesus” and an “earthly Jesus” as Roman Catholicism contends. It is merely recognizing what Jesus Himself made clear, that David was not the father of God, and by parallel reasoning, Mary was His earthly mother only, and not a Goddess or Queen of Heaven worthy of the title mother of God.
Because the Second Person of the blessed trinity is an eternal being having neither a beginning nor an ending, it was the man Christ Jesus who suffered as the second Adam on Calvary and died for the sins of the world. The Second Person of the trinity did not die, cannot die or be put to death. And it’s the man Christ Jesus – not the Second Person of the trinity - who is said Scripturally to be the one mediator between God and man. (1 Tim 2:5) He who is eternal, who could not and cannot die, could not be, and was not, born of the virgin.
Conclusion: Jesus Christ the man is the son of Mary. The Second Person of the Trinity is her God, not her son, for He did not originate in her womb.
John Schroeder is the author of Heresies of Catholicism...The Apostate Church.
John was reared in a devout Catholic family, and educated from elementary school through university in Catholic institutions. At age 52, a gift Bible and the guidance of the Holy Spirit brought about his conversion to Biblical Christianity. Now retired, he resides with wife, Claudia (also delivered from Catholicism into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ), outside Atlanta, Georgia.
Contender Ministries is happy to welcome him as a contributing author. He has a love and a burden for the Catholic people surpassed only by his love for God. Please visit John’s website, "Escaped Catholics Saved by Grace".
Catholics and Protestants alike use many of the same words. However, the Catholic definitions of these words is often different than the Biblical definition understood by evangelical Christians. Therefore, before delving to far into exploring the beliefs of Catholicism, it is important to understand the different definitions. Below are some common terms, and how the Catholic definition differs from the Biblical definition:
Furthermore, it should be pointed out, that in order to justify the Catholic Church's doctrines of prayers for the dead, the Mass, invocation and intercession of the saints, the worship of angels, purgatory, the redemption of souls after death, and other doctrines, the Church added new portions to the Old Testament books of Esther and Daniel, plus seven additional books: Tobit, Judith, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Ben Sirach (or "Ecclesiasticus"), Baruch, and Wisdom.
The Catholic Church refers to these extra books as "deuterocanonical works". This means that they are scriptural for Catholics, but not part of the Jewish Bible.
Protestants call these additions "The Apocrypha," and have never considered them part of inspired scripture due to their historical, geographical, and chronological errors, as well as for their heretical doctrines. In fact, the Catholic Church itself did not add the Apocrypha to the Bible until the Council of Trent (held in the 1500's).
Grace
Bible: God's disposition toward mankind, wherein He expresses His mercy and love, so that the believer is now treated as if he were innocent and righteous.
Catholicism: A power - separate from God - which is placed into a believer. This power enables the believer to perform works that will earn him or her the "right" to heaven.
Bible: The instantaneous reception of an irrevocable right-standing before God. Salvation is secured by faith, through the grace of God. It is not given only to those who have lived in a worthy way. Romans 3:23 tells us that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." No, salvation is given to those the Bible describes as "ungodly," "sinners," "enemies," and "children of wrath."
Catholicism: The lifelong process whereby God and men cooperate in the securing of forgiveness of sin. This is achieved only after death (and/or cleansing from sin in purgatory), and is dependant on man's personal securing of objective righteousness before God; otherwise, there would be no salvation.
Bible: All sins are forgiven at the point of salvation, because Christ's death satisfied all God's wrath against sin. (See Colossians 2:13,14)
Catholicism: Sins are only potentially forgiven, and so must be worked off through a process mediated by the Church and its sacraments over the lifetime of the believer.
I see you stop by. You once argued that Global warming existed and that the ice was melting away. Here is the latest setback news for the religion of Global Warming:
Global Warming? New Data Shows Ice Is Back
Tuesday, February 19, 2008 11:55 AM
By: Phil Brennan Article Font Size
Are the world's ice caps melting because of climate change, or are the reports just a lot of scare mongering by the advocates of the global warming theory?
Scare mongering appears to be the case, according to reports from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) that reveal that almost all the allegedly “lost” ice has come back. A NOAA report shows that ice levels which had shrunk from 5 million square miles in January 2007 to just 1.5 million square miles in October, are almost back to their original levels.
Moreover, a Feb. 18 report in the London Daily Express showed that there is nearly a third more ice in Antarctica than usual, challenging the global warming crusaders and buttressing arguments of skeptics who deny that the world is undergoing global warming.
The Daily express recalls the photograph of polar bears clinging on to a melting iceberg which has been widely hailed as proof of the need to fight climate change and has been used by former Vice President Al Gore during his "Inconvenient Truth" lectures about mankind’s alleged impact on the global climate.
Gore fails to mention that the photograph was taken in the month of August when melting is normal. Or that the polar bear population has soared in recent years.
As winter roars in across the Northern Hemisphere, Mother Nature seems to have joined the ranks of the skeptics.
As the Express notes, scientists are saying the northern Hemisphere has endured its coldest winter in decades, adding that snow cover across the area is at its greatest since 1966. The newspaper cites the one exception — Western Europe, which had, until the weekend when temperatures plunged to as low as -10 C in some places, been basking in unseasonably warm weather.
Around the world, vast areas have been buried under some of the heaviest snowfalls in decades. Central and southern China, the United States, and Canada were hit hard by snowstorms. In China, snowfall was so heavy that over 100,000 houses collapsed under the weight of snow.
Jerusalem, Damascus, Amman, and northern Saudi Arabia report the heaviest falls in years and below-zero temperatures. In Afghanistan, snow and freezing weather killed 120 people. Even Baghdad had a snowstorm, the first in the memory of most residents.
AFP news reports icy temperatures have just swept through south China, stranding 180,000 people and leading to widespread power cuts just as the area was recovering from the worst weather in 50 years, the government said Monday. The latest cold snap has taken a severe toll in usually temperate Yunnan province, which has been struck by heavy snowfalls since Thursday, a government official from the provincial disaster relief office told AFP.
Twelve people have died there, state Xinhua news agency reported, and four remained missing as of Saturday.
An ongoing record-long spell of cold weather in Vietnam's northern region, which started on Jan. 14, has killed nearly 60,000 cattle, mainly bull and buffalo calves, local press reported Monday. By Feb. 17, the spell had killed a total of 59,962 cattle in the region, including 7,349 in the Ha Giang province, 6,400 in Lao Cai, and 5,571 in Bac Can province, said Hoang Kim Giao, director of the Animal Husbandry Department under the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, according to the Pioneer newspaper.
In Britain the temperatures plunged to -10 C in central England, according to the Express, which reports that experts say that February could end up as one of the coldest in Britain in the past 10 years with the freezing night-time conditions expected to stay around a frigid -8 C until at least the middle of the week. And the BBC reports that a bus company's efforts to cut global warming emissions have led to services being disrupted by cold weather.
Meanwhile Athens News reports that a raging snow storm that blanketed most of Greece over the weekend and continued into the early morning hours on Monday, plunging the country into sub-zero temperatures. The agency reported that public transport buses were at a standstill on Monday in the wider Athens area, while ships remained in ports, public services remained closed, and schools and courthouses in the more severely-stricken prefectures were also closed.
Scores of villages, mainly on the island of Crete, and in the prefectures of Evia, Argolida, Arcadia, Lakonia, Viotia, and the Cyclades islands were snowed in.
More than 100 villages were snowed-in on the island of Crete and temperatures in Athens dropped to -6 C before dawn, while the coldest temperatures were recorded in Kozani, Grevena, Kastoria and Florina, where they plunged to -12 C.
Temperatures in Athens dropped to -6 C before dawn, while the coldest temperatures were recorded in Kozani, Grevena, Kastoria and Florina, where they plunged to -12 C.
If global warming gets any worse we'll all freeze to death.
Labyrinth: Upon Walking to the Centre of the circle (1), she immediately sensed a dark spiritual vortex sucking her down.
The Occult has truly gone mainstream.
A-maze-ing Prayer - The labyrinth offers ancient meditation for today's hurried souls.Coming in from the brilliant San Diego sunshine, my wife and I entered a darkened hall lit only by candles and a dimmed chandelier. The room was silent. As our eyes adjusted, we saw several people kneeled in prayer. The setting, spirit, and solemn stillness of the hall told us that we had found something meditative there, something spiritual.
Today's evangelicals are accustomed to well-choreographed worship services with every minute carefully filled with music, video, and preaching. Postmodern generations are hungering for something more-an unhurried, mystery-filled, meditative experience that doesn't have to fit into a preplanned time schedule.
The prayer labyrinth offers a feast to fill that hunger. Meeting God in the middle The labyrinth is a maze-like path similar to those designed into the floors of European cathedrals during the Middle Ages. Christians of that time would walk the labyrinth to aid their contemplative prayer and reflection. The labyrinths fell into disuse, and most were eventually forgotten or destroyed.
At the National Pastors Conference in San Diego, however, we found the labyrinth was back and given an update. The path was formed by black lines on a 35-foot square piece of canvas laid on the floor. We each were given a CD player with headphones to guide our journey through the 11 stations on the path. As we began the inward journey-toward the center of the canvas-a gentle female voice with a British accent read a portion of John 1. She told us not to rush through the labyrinth, but to slow down, breathe deeply, and fully focus on God.
At the first stop, we looked at a television screen covered with complex, moving electronic wave forms. We were instructed to pray about and eliminate the noise within that interferes with God's voice. At another station we dropped small stones into water, each stone representing a worry we were giving over to God. Later we drew on paper symbols of our hurts, prayed about each of them, and put them in a trash can.
After thirty minutes we found ourselves at the labyrinth's center, where, seated on cushions, we were offered the elements of Communion. The narrator read more Scripture and reminded us how near Jesus Christ is to us. There was a Bible if we desired to linger, reading and praying.
The journey outward focused on how we can be used by God in other people's lives. At one station we made impressions of our hands and feet in a box of sand, reminding us that we leave impressions on the people we touch.
My wife and I spent an hour in the labyrinth and found ourselves calmed and refreshed, our perspective uniquely restored. We made our own prayer path After the convention we knew we couldn't keep this experience to ourselves.
A few months later we featured a labyrinth as part of Graceland's annual art event at Santa Cruz Bible Church. Graceland artists recreated the labyrinth with a kit we purchased (The Prayer Path, Group Publishing), transforming one of the church's multipurpose rooms into a medieval prayer sanctuary. The team hung art on the walls, draped fabric, and lit candles all around the room to create a visual sense of sacred space. Over two nights we saw more than 100 people go through the labyrinth. It was a joy to see so many people on their knees communing with God through the experiential prayer elements.
Meditative prayer like that we experienced in the labyrinth resonates with hearts of emerging generations. If we had the room, we would set up a permanent labyrinth to promote deeper prayer. Until then, however, Graceland will continue to incorporate experiential prayer and encourage our people to stop, quiet themselves, and pray.
Labyrinth meditation is a fairly recent phenomena. The foremost proponents of it are Jean Houston and Grace Episcopal Cathedral in Los Angeles. In Chartres Cathedral in France there is an elaborate 40 foot diameter labyrinth of tile imbedded in the floor of the nave. The theory is that by walking the labyrinth one partakes of a spritual journey of self examination and enlightenment. As with all rituals, this only has the meaning to which the participant ascribes to it. Send a New Age Postcard with a Labyrinth on it! Dr Jean Houston & the Labyrinth Fad
-an article for the May 2,000 AFR Canada magazine A ex-new-ager who attends our congregation participated a year ago in the Labyrinth. Upon walking to the centre of the circle (1), she immediately sensed a dark spiritual vortex sucking her down. Fortunately, being a Spirit-filled Christian, she later renounced her involvement in the Labyrinth and through prayer was cut free from the bondage that she was sensing. Being westerners, we often fail to realize that seemingly harmless 'physical' techniques can have significant questionable spiritual impact on our lives.(2) One of the patterns with the dozens of new-age fads sweeping North America and the West Coast in particular is that they all pop up out of the blue but claim to have rediscovered an ancient secret technique that we all need. Many of them, including the fast-growing Labyrinth fad (3), even reconstruct a plausible but misleading Christian history used to persuade well-meaning Christians.
The Labyrinth, as currently practiced, has very little to do with the Chartres Cathedral (4), and very much to do with Dr. Jean Houston's impact on the new-age-friendly Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. Dr. Jean Houston is listed on the Internet as one of the 10 top New Age speakers in North America (5) The inside cover of Jean Houston's 1997 book A Passion for the Possible describes herself as 'considered by many to be one of the world's greatest teachers' Of concern to renewal-oriented Christians is that Houston teaches her students on the 'Mystery School' how to speak in occult glossolalia. She encourages her participants to 'begin describing your impressions in glossolalia' and even to 'write a poem in glossolalia.' (6) This counterfeit phenomenon, of course, does not discredit the genuine Christian gift of tongues/glossolalia that is available after renouncing the occult, receiving Jesus as Lord, and asking for the filling of the Holy Spirit.
As past president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, Jean makes use of her doctorate in 'Philosophy of Religion'(7) to gain access to areas where most new-agers and occultists can't go. For example, as noted widely in media a few years ago (, she became a consultant to Hillary Clinton, helping her to 'channel' the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt. The Labyrinth, also called the Dromenon (9), is the official symbol of Dr. Jean Houston's new-age 'Mystery School' which one pays $3,775 to be initiated into over a series of 9 weekends.(10) Over 5,000 people so far have attended the Mystery School over the past 15 years. Houston describes her Mystery School students as 'the dancers of the Dromenon'.(11) In Houston's 1996 book
The Mythic Life, she credits H.F. Heard's novel Dromenon with its 'psychophysical state of ecstasy and spiritual awakening' as the inspiration to adopting the image of the Dromenon/Labyrinth as the symbol of her work. (12) Canon Lauren Artress from Grace Cathedral (13) brought the Labyrinth back to her Cathedral after experiencing the Labyrinth at Jean Houston's Mystery School.(14) Jean Houston wrote in her 1982 book The Possible Human about 'the growth of Dromenon (Labyrinth) communities. (15) As acknowledged in Labyrinth WEBsites, the Labyrinth is a mandala (16), which is actually a Hindu occult (17) meditation process (1brought to the Western world by the grandfather of the New Age, Dr. Carl Jung. (19) The Labyrinth has since spread to over 200 cities, and is making a measurable impact in Canada. Artress claims that "over a million people have walked the labyrinth at Grace Cathedral alone" (20) Even the infamous Starhawk, the self-declared practicing witch and colleague of Matthew Fox, is walking the labyrinth nowadays (21). One of the stated purposes of the Labyrinth is to connect us to the mother goddess, of which the labyrinth is a symbol.
In her 1995 book 'Walking A Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Spiritual Tool', Canon Artress states that "The labyrinth is a large, complex spiral circle which is an ancient symbol for the divine mother, the God within, the goddess, the holy in all creation." (22) Artress says that "You walk to the center of the labyrinth and there at the center, you meet the Divine." (23) Jean Houston claims that "As we encounter the archetypal world within us, a partnership is formed whereby we grow as do the gods and goddesses within us." (24) To Jean Houston, it seems that all of life is made up of polytheistic labyrinths. In her 1992 book The Hero & the Goddess, she recommended: 'Now, taking a favorite god or goddess by the hand, a Greek one this time, explore the labyrinthian winding of your left hemisphere. Take the deity by the hand and begin to explore the labyrinth winding of your right hemisphere, the place of intuition.' (25)
My prayer, as Jean Houston's new-age Labyrinth fad impacts the Church, is that we may be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. The Rev. Ed Hird+ Rector, St. Simon's Anglican Church, North Vancouver, BC Missioner, Anglican Renewal Ministries of Canada
One Grace Cathedral Labyrinth advocate said that "Labyrinths predate Christianity by over a millennium. The most famous labyrinth from ancient times was the Cretan one, the supposed lair of the mythological Minotaur, which Theseus slew with the aid of Ariadne and her spool of thread. rituals" Peter Corbett, "Pathfinders: Walking medieval labyrinths in a modern world," It was at the centre of the Labyrinth that the Minotaur did his devouring of unsuspecting humans. (2) An example of this might be how many people innocently get hooked into hatha yoga through the guise of a community centre yoga course.
Because hatha yoga appears to westerners to be merely physical in nature, we fail to see the religious syncretism that we are involving ourselves in. Nothing from a Hindu perspective is merely physical, because for Hinduism, the physical is merely an illusion. So-called physical yoga exercises are designed to open the psychic door to the Hindu deities. Community-Centre Yoga is in reality the 'marijuana' entry-level drug of the occult/new age world. (3) Lee Penn, Fall 1999 issue of the Journal of the Spiritual Counterfeits ProjectThe Chartres labyrinth dates from sometime between 1194 and 1220. These dates are determined by the great fire of 1194, which destroyed most of the cathedral and the city of Chartres. By 1220 the section of the nave housing the labyrinth had been rebuilt by Bishop Fulbert.
Lee Penn has done careful research showing that the Labyrinth-based relationship between Chartres Cathedral to Grace Cathedral, San Francisco is a clear example of 'the tail wagging the dog', of 'life imitating art'. Grace Cathedral have been giving strong leadership in Chartres' 'reintroduction' of the Labyrinth, even to the point of making Chartres' Dean Legaux an honorary Grace Cathedral Canon. (5) Voices of a New Age Video (1999), Penny Price Productions, E! Online Fact Sheet, "Ten different New Age luminaries voice their view about the possibilities of the human spirit for healing the body, the mind, and the earth.";
Jean Houston, GodSeed: the Journey of Christ, Quest Books, The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, USA, 1992, p. 50, p. 51. " 1998 Robert Todd Carroll ( Bob Woodward in 'The Choice'; The Providence Journal Bulletin, Tuesday, 6/25/96, P. A3 Ancient Gk: a ritual pattern of dynamic expression, a therapeutic dance rhythm in which participants experience second birth into a higher order of consciousness and community" Jean Houston, The Possible Human, Torcher: Houghton, Mifflin Company, 1982, p. ix (12) Jean Houston, The Mythic Life, Harper San Francisco, 1996, p. 186. (13) /cathedral/nca/spiritualperspectives/sacred.html (National Episcopal Cathedral Website) "Keynote speaker, the Reverend Dr. Lauren Artress, Canon for Special Ministries at San Francisco's Grace Cathedral, first encountered a labyrinth in a workshop at psychologist Jean Houston's Mystery School." (14) Kristen Fairchild, "A Passion for the Possible: An Interview with Jean Houston," The Spire, Textures 11/04/97
"Jean Houston, Ph.D. is the best-selling author of many books. She has been mentor and teacher of Dr. Lauren Artress, Founder of Veriditas, at Grace Cathedral." (15) Jean Houston, The Possible Human, 1982, p. 51 (16) "True meditation occurs when the physical brain has been pacified, kept busy with a mantra or a mandala, so the spiritual mind is then free to wander on its own, and discover new truths. "The walking back and forth seems very pendulous," states Squires. "It's a very slow frequency, a very long wavelength from one turn to the next. You slowly walk along and slowly walk back, then slowly walk on again. It's hard to have your mind in a fretful kind of pace when you're doing such a slow, pendulous, rhythmic walking like that." Peter Corbett, "Pathfinders: Walking medieval labyrinths in a modern world,"
Occult, according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary, means 'kept secret, esotericâ from the Latin culere: hide' It is not a synonym for Satanism. (1 "the labyrinth, a sacred tool that has been used as a mandala in many spiritual traditions for thousands of years" Spiritual Perspectives Program 1996 Sacred Circles Conference
"Jung was also a strong promoter of the occultic mandala, a circular picture with a sun or star usually at the centre. Sun worship, as personified in the mandala, is perhaps the key to fully understanding Jung.(ft.103) Jung taught that the mandala [Sanskrit for 'circle'] was 'the simplest model of a concept of wholeness, and one which spontaneously arises in the mind as a representation of the struggle and reconciliation of opposites.'(ft. 104)"
Starhawk, as a Wiccan/Witch leader of two covens, celebrated New Year 2,000 by walking the Labyrinth on her San Francisco area Ranch. (22) Lauren Artress, Walking a Sacred Path: Rediscovering the Labyrinth as a Sacred Tool, Riverhead Books/G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1995; sentence quoted by Pamela Sullivan, "Book Review," Pacific Church News, June/July 1995, p. 8 (23) Lauren Artress, "Q and A with Lauren," Veriditas, Vol. 1, no. 2, Summer 1996, p. 18 ((25) Jean Houston, The Hero & the Goddess, Aquarian/Thorsons (Harper Collins Publisher), 1992, p. 134
The Labyrinth Building made up of intricate, mazelike chambers or passages so designed that a person entering one would find it difficult to find a way out. Among the many labyrinths in the ancient world, perhaps the most celebrated was a funeral temple built by Amenemhet III in Egypt, near Lake Moeris, which contained 3000 chambers. Equally famous was the labyrinth on Crete, which may have existed only in myth. Its conception was possibly derived from the elaborate floor plan of the palace at Knossos.
In Greek mythology, the Cretan labyrinth was constructed by the Athenian craftsman Daedalus as a prison for the Minotaur, a part-bull, part-man monster. Other ancient labyrinths were on the island of Lemnos (Lemnian) and at Clusium (now Chiusi), Italy. The term labyrinth is also applied to mazelike patterns on the floors of some medieval churches, intended perhaps to symbolize the tortuous journey of Christian pilgrims toward salvation. Garden mazes walled by clipped hedges are also called labyrinths, as, for example, that at Hampton Court, London, planted in the 17th century and still existent. Another British turf maze deserving note is the one at Alkborough in Lincolnshire.
When I first heard about the back ground of the Killer, it was obvious to me what was going on. His background was in the studies of social treatments.
But he also had been institutionalized and been placed on mind prescribed altering drugs. Do you realize that 99% of the shootings that happen have people that have been on anti-depressants? This is a big issue as many people have actually committed suicide because of irrational behavior because of them?
This is just another tragic case where a person has done something they probably would not have done, had they not been on these horrible drugs.
The kid at columbine was on them. His acquaintances noticed differences in his actions. The Va Tech Killer was too. His friends noted a huge change in his countenance and actions following being medicated on them.
Think what you want. These drugs when taken over extended periods of time cause permanent brain damage. Thats a scientific fact. I personally have witnessed a friends daughter die from them.
Wake up world. Seriously. They have lied about brain scans being able to diagnose depression. They say now that it is impossible to diagnose through a brain scan.
Same way with serotonin levels and the myth of chemical imbalances. These drugs do not balance the brain. They medicate a person with a drug that causes permanent brain damage and also irrational thinking.
On Tuesday, we got a double-winner. First, the Senate voted to approve an overhaul of intelligence law which, though flawed, provides authority for American intelligence agencies to continue monitoring the savages trying to kill us. Second, we got inescapable confirmation that Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, the two contenders to be the Democrats’ nominee, are not fit to be president of the United States.
Understand: this was the most important vote on national security in years.
In 2007, a ruling of the court created by the ill-conceived 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) required the intelligence community to seek court permission before monitoring terrorists operating outside our country -- that is, outside the jurisdiction of United States courts.Let’s say al Qaeda operatives in Iraq captured a U.S. marine. In effect, our military and intelligence services, while desperately trying to rescue one of their own, would now have to seek court permission in order to eavesdrop on the foreign terrorists who carried out the capture -- alien enemies who have no conceivable privacy rights under the Fourth Amendment. Such was the conclusion of an unidentified federal judge, in a ruling that radically altered three decades of FISA theory and practice, a ruling the American people have not been permitted to read. (Just imagine the hue and cry if George W. Bush had secretly reversed the foundations of surveillance law. Here, where the sea-change benefits al Qaeda rather than the American people, the silence is deafening.)
Democrats, of course, have fought every sensible national-security improvement since 9/11. Yet, so preposterous was the notion that the NSA should need a warrant from a judge in Washington in order to listen as, say, a terrorist in Pakistan gives directions to a terrorist in Afghanistan that even Democrats relented -- or at least enough of them to enact last August’s “Protect Act.” This stopgap measure (the Left would not agree to more than six months of common sense) enabled our spies to continue spying outside the U.S. without court interference, just as FISA intended.
Nevertheless, conspicuously absent from the lopsided 60-28 majority were Senators Clinton and Obama. So deep were they in the thrall of the anti-war, anti-security Left that they dared not vote in favor of preserving the intelligence-gathering powers necessary to protect -- even for just six months -- the nation they are vying to lead.
It is worth pausing to recall why we have FISA. Very simply, its point was to provide a modicum of due process before Americans inside the United States could be subjected to national-security monitoring. It was a reaction (in truth, an overreaction) to Watergate era domestic-spying on the Nixon administration’s political opponents. But even the reckless Congress of the 1970s did not seek to protect foreign spies and terrorists operating beyond our borders. FISA was never intended to bring tens of thousands of foreign communications under judicial supervision. Such a process would compel the Justice Department to file applications for all such surveillance, a burden that could not be met. The consequence would be a breakdown of our capacity to acquire the information most essential to safeguarding Americans against attack -- to say nothing of the 200,000 American men and women putting their lives on the line in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The reprieve granted by the Protect Act expires at midnight tonight.. Hence, the intense pressure this week to get a FISA overhaul enacted. In the Senate, the Intelligence Committee proposed a bill which accomplishes three major improvements. It streamlines the arduous FISA application requirements (though not as much as it should). It provides immunity from suit for telecommunications providers which cooperated in the NSA’s warrantless surveillance following the 9/11 attacks. (Though I am a longtime FISA critic, I note in the interest of full disclosure that my wife works for Verizon.) And most importantly, it solidifies the Protect Act’s reaffirmation that the American intelligence community’s foreign operations are beyond court supervision -- that is, Osama bin Laden is not protected by FISA or the Fourth Amendment.
It’s difficult to imagine more vital legislation. To be sure, the proposal has many flaws -- as any bipartisan legislation is apt to have given a Senate in the grip of the same Democrats who’ve fought intelligence reform for years and tried just as long to derail the Patriot Act. The Intelligence Committee would, for example, expand the role of the FISA court; create a new warrant requirement for overseas monitoring of American citizens working with the enemy; effectively nullify the president’s power, long-recognized by the federal courts, to order national-security surveillance without warrants; and sunset the intelligence overhaul after six years despite the patent need for a permanent fix. Still, with jihadists striving toward more 9/11-style attacks and our forces in urgent need of battlefield intelligence, these tradeoffs are unavoidable. It would be the height of irresponsibility to halt the intelligence flow.
Well, welcome to the height of irresponsibility.
By a quirk of fate, this week’s action in the Senate happened to occur on the same day as the so-called “Potomac Primary” -- the presidential nomination contests in Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Which is to say: right in the shadow of Capitol Hill. The geographical demands of campaigning would be no excuse: Our three principal contenders for the Oval Office, Republican John McCain and Democrats Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, all happen to be United States Senators and all happened, on Tuesday, to have business right in the neighborhood. There was no reason they couldn’t do their day jobs.
Senators McCain and Obama did theirs, and in starkly different ways. For McCain, it was an opportunity to show national security conservatives that his preening on coercive interrogation methods does not mean he fails to grasp the primacy of intelligence collection in our current threat environment. He strongly supported the bill.
By contrast, Senator Obama opposed the provision across the board, backing each (unsuccessful) amendment to weaken or scrap it. Exhibiting a Carteresque insouciance about national-security, he would not only vest our enemies with privacy protection while exposing our citizens to heightened peril; he would deny protection to the very telecoms whose cooperation he would sorely need if elected president.
Understand how limited is the immunity we are talking about here: the telecoms would be protected from suit only if they either did not help the government’s warrantless surveillance program at all or helped it only in good faith reliance written assurance from the government of its legality. Denying immunity would not just be counterproductive -- creating disincentives for cooperation from the industry whose expertise provides us with a technology edge over the people trying to kill us. It would be grossly unfair and eventually prompt the industry to question all government directives -- even court orders -- for fear that compliance would lead to ruinous litigation costs. In essence, Obama was laying the groundwork for a catastrophic breakdown in intelligence and law-enforcement that would wound his own presidency.
You have to hand it to Obama, though. Dangerous as his convictions are, he was willing to be accountable for them. The same cannot be said for the junior senator from New York, who proved herself a profile in no courage.
Less than a month ago, at their slugfest of a debate in South Carolina, Senator Clinton pointedly rebuked her rival, snarking, “Senator Obama, it’s hard to have a straight up debate with you because you never take responsibility for any vote.” Homing in on Obama’s record as a state lawmaker in Illinois, Clinton singed him for failing to stand up and be counted on core Democrat issues, such as abortion rights. “On issue after issue,” she inveighed, “you voted ‘present’” -- refusing to take an accountable position.
Well, at least he was present. On Tuesday, for the most important national-security vote of her eight-year senate career, Clinton was a no-show. With the eyes of the country watching to see whether she would opt to continue pandering to the hard Left or protect the lives of the American voters at whose presidency she is clawing, Hillary made a calculated decision to sit it out.
So what are we to make of Mrs. Clinton? She is running on the strength of her purported vast experience. In essence, she relies on two things: her eight years as a very active First Lady in her husband’s administration, the supporting records for which Clinton officials refuse to release so we can study them; and her eight years as a U.S. senator, during which, when not repudiating her old positions, she now avoids taking new ones.
Tuesday was a good day. The Senate voted to give the next commander-in-chief the tools necessary to protect our nation, and our nation learned who is fit, and who is not, to be the next commander-in-chief.
Today is a bad day: the House is scheduled to recess without passing the Senate bill. If the Protect Act is allowed to expire, and our intelligence gathering is reduced or stopped, every Democrat responsible should be called to account. It would be an unfathomable dereliction, a lesson we'd inevitably learn with the next attack against Americans.
Mr.Anrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor, directs the Center for Law & Counterterrorism at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
