The Mother of All Knowledge

RANDOM THOUGHTS ON SIN AND BRAINS

     I’m your kid sister.

     Well, okay, there’s a slight chance you’re younger than me, so that would make me your older sister.  Either way, we’re family, you and I.

     We have the same mom.

     Well … the same grandmom.

     Okay … the same [great-great + 150-or-so greats] grandmom.

     Whatever the numbers, I’m your kid sister.
     I'm reborn.  But the idea of “rebirth” doesn’t make a great deal of sense to us until first we consider what we need to be reborn from.

     And what we need to be reborn from has everything to do with our [great-great + 150-or-so greats] grandmother.

     Allow me to explain in the form of a story.

PART 1 of 4

     Once upon a time, there was only one Her.

     She was called Ishshah, and she was the woman who was born of no woman.  Her name simply means “the female,” because she was one of a kind, fashioned out of the side of another unique human ... the He, the only He, the DirtMan.
     DirtMan had the breath of The God in him, and no other animal on the face of the Earth had that.  This made DirtMan special, but it also made him alone among the living beings.  That’s why The God made Ishshah … because DirtMan had no companion worthy to stand by his side.

     Ishshah was worthy.  She was made from The God’s breath and from DirtMan’s flesh.  She was perfect.
     And she stayed worthy.  For a time.

* * *

     I interrupt this story for a message about knowledge.

     Me, Cosmic Parx, I love knowledge.  I crave it.  I seek it out, I hunt it down, I practically lust after it.  Put a Chocolate Cake in front of me, sitting next to a stack of Really Cool Knowledge, and I’d go for the knowledge first.

     And then I’d eat the cake, too, because, hey, who am I kidding?

     But first, I want the knowledge.

     Just like grandmom.

PART 2 of 4

     So Ishshah and her DirtMan lived in the most beautiful of areas on the face of the Earth.  There was one rule for living there – no eating from the Tree at the center of that massive, beautiful garden area.  It was a tree with specific knowledge in it, the knowledge of good and of evil and of the difference between the two.  Every animal lived in the garden land with Ishshah and Dirtman, and even the most ferocious was tamer than Lassie, because DirtMan had been put in charge of them all by The God.
     And the animals knew their place.
     Except for one.
     His name was Nachash.  You pronounced that CH in the middle like a rough H, like you’re clearing your throat, you know?  DirtMan probably gave Nachash that name because it imitated the hissing sound Nachash made when he spoke.  Yes, I said spoke.  A talking animal.  Why not?  DirtMan and Ishshah were talking animals, too, so don’t get so worked up about it.  Stay in the story, would you?
     One day Nachash decided to chat up the human female.  Test out her brains.  Check up on her wits.  I don’t know if he had tested her before.  I don’t know if he had tried to trip up DirtMan prior to this.  All I know about is this one day, the day Nachash held out a little something that the woman couldn’t resist.
     He offered her a taste of knowledge, a peek into the hidden things.

* * *

     Another interruption, if you’ll oblige me.

     It is a long-held tradition of men that the Nachash, the serpent, was Satan himself.  This is not a Biblical assertion.  Instead, it’s an interpretation based on many, many years of really cool artwork and loads of words from outside the Bible.  Yes, it’s true that the Book of Revelation, written thousands of years after Genesis, has a single line in it that shows the devil in a dragon form and calls him “the old serpent.”  But that’s far from convincing exegesis, considering that: 

1. the Nachash of our story is soon to be cursed to slither on the ground and eat dirt forever, but Satan has no such punishment; we later see Satan freely walking about the Court of the Heavenly Host in the Book of Job, legs intact;
   
2. many things and people are called “serpents” throughout the Hebrew scriptures, including Leviathan, violent men, wine, King Ahaz, invading armies of the north, and (most often) actual serpents.  The New Testament has its share of serpent comparisons, too – a bad gift for a child when he asks for a fish, the wisdom of disciples when they stay harmless as doves, the Pharisees at their worst, and (interestingly) Christ himself in the third chapter of John;
   
3. ergo, picking a single reference to a serpent out of hundreds in Scripture to match up the devil to the creature in Eden is, at best, an act of “eisegesis,” imposing one’s preexisting ideas onto a text … bad hermeneutics, very bad.

     As I mentioned, I really love knowledge.

PART 3 of 4

     The story of our [great-great + 150-or-so greats] grandmom does not end well.  Ishshah had options.  She could have eaten anything else.  Only one tree was forbidden, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Even the one beside it, the Tree of Life, had not been explicitly forbidden.  She could have checked in with DirtMan to get his advice.  She could have checked in with The God, who walked daily in their midst.

     But in that instant, she didn’t want Life.
     In that moment, she didn’t turn to man.
     In that hour, she ignored the God option.
     She chose to forget Who made her, for whom she was made, and all good things she already had.  She bought into the deceit of a lower animal, one over whom she and DirtMan had been given dominion.  She ignored the rule, and she chose her path.

     She really lusted after knowledge.

     DirtMan must have, too, because she had no trouble getting him to join in.

     And when The God walked back among them, they came to know more than they had expected.  They all knew punishment.  To the Nachash came the fruits of deceit: eternal enmity with mankind, the eating of dust, the loss of all reason.  To Ishshah came the fruits of untimely lust for knowledge: the sorrow of bearing sons, emptiness and longing after the man she’d been one with, and subjugation to the rule of a husband she had once been equal to.  And DirtMan, to him came the fruits of abandoning his dominion over all creatures, his entrapment to the wiles of those who should have answered to him: toil, thorns, thistles, sweat, and a return to the dirt from which he’d been made.

     The privileged life they’d lived – that all creation had lived – was gone.  Living on this world became … a different sort of living, not the life The God had offered.  And that living would be hard, with scant hope, and few moments of joy.

     That was our grandmother’s legacy.

     She was supposed to be the mother of the most privileged race in the universe.

     Now, those born from her would simply be The Lost.  DirtMan changed her name.  He called her Hawwa, “Mother of the Living.”

     Before their fall, it would have been a title of honor.

     Now, it was a bittersweet reminder of the fullness of living they’d lost.

* * *

     A final interruption:

     The word Hawwa (or Chavvah in more modernly pronounced Hebrew) mutated over time into the name “Eve.”  Words change, you see.  For example, the recent English slur-words ginna gohtada used to be pronounced, “going to go to the” – as in “I’m ginna gohtada store now.”  The word Hawwa did that, too, becoming ‘Eua in the ancient Greek, then becoming Eva in the Latin, then becoming Eve in your English Bible.

     Her name is mentioned only 4 times in all of Scripture.

     Despite that, she appears in more artwork than any other woman in history, except for the Virgin Mary.

PART 4 of 4

     Now we enter the story.
     I am your kid sister.

     Or maybe your older sister, I dunno.

     But I do know this: You and I, we are of the flesh of Hawwa, the Ishshah.  That was our first birth.

     This is the month of Christmas, commemorating a very different first birth ... the one that opened the door to our second birth, that amazing moment when the flesh of DirtMan again is filled with the breath of The God.  An internal resurrection.  An infilling by the Spirit Himself (who is, and not incidentally, the Spirit of all knowledge).

     If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you should ask yourself this question: Why was Christ born, if He'd only wind up dying?

     We need to consider that carefully.

     We need to ponder it prayerfully.

     I just told you a story about the day we died.  But the Gospels tell a fuller story.  They give you the biographical details of Christ's life, yes, but they reveal a secret as well.  They tell you the secret of that other Tree in the garden we lost, the Tree of Life, the one we didn’t eat from.

     That’s a bit of information … a bit of Knowledge … that you need to get before this season ends.

     And let’s face it: You really love knowledge, don’t you?

Marana Tha,

Cosmic Parx

A Woman's Role in the Church

A discussion of what the “role” of women is in Christian churches often immediately degenerates into a discussion of what women can’t do in churches.  Discussions affirming what we can do are immediately left behind for much more (apparently) interesting and (certainly) contentious issues.

To give myself a fresh perspective, I thought I’d take a look at the question in the affirmative – what role can a woman play in the church?

Not, “What are women banned from doing?”

Not, “What is a woman’s role in marriage?”

I want simply to provide a survey of what Jesus, Paul, and others in the New Testament accepted as proper and praiseworthy behaviors for a woman aiding the spread of the Gospel – a positive approach in a world of compelling negativity.

***

20 ROLES FOR WOMEN

Brought to you by Scripture

1) THE DAUGHTER

First and foremost, women can be among the followers of Jesus, as evidenced during his life and documented throughout the New Testament.  We might take that for granted.  But God grant that no daughter of Eve ever forget the eternal honor we have been gifted.  Being His child is Role One, and in comparison, no other role comes close.

2) THE WITNESS

Women can witness about Christ and his role as Messiah, sometimes bringing whole towns to belief in Him through their words (John 4:39).

3) THE PRAY-ER

Women can join together with men in prayer (Acts 1:14), and they may host such prayer gatherings in their own homes (Acts 12:12)

4) THE PURSE

Woman can be financial supports to ministry, as evidenced in Luke 8:3, where women are lauded for providing the monetary backing that Jesus’ ministry required.

5) THE MODEL

Older women can train younger ones in areas of womenly expertise (Titus 2:3-5)

6) THE DEACON

Women can be part of the diakonia, benefactors/deacons serving churches (Rom 16:1).

7) THE RISK-TAKER

Women can be co-workers who risk their lives for church leadership (Rom. 16:3).

8) THE PRISONER

Women can bear the honor of being imprisoned for the faith (Rom. 16:7).

9) THE TEAMMATE

Women can pair up in teams to work hard for the Gospel (Rom. 16:12).

10) THE SURROGATE

Women can be dear friends and surrogate mothers to church leaders (Rom 16:12-13).

11) THE GUARD

Women can be guards, along with men, against false teachers and false pastors [I like this one, as it’s currently one of my ministries in the Lord] (Rom. 16:17-19)

12) THE CORRECTOR

Women can be part of male-female “doctrinal correction & teaching teams” (for want of a better term) (Acts 18:24).

13) THE MERCHANT

Women can host traveling preachers in their own households (which they can afford because apparently they can also be well-off merchants) (Acts 16:13-15)

14) THE CONTENDER

Women can stand beside church leadership contending for the cause of the Gospel (Phil 4:2-3 … note, as well, that we see another two-woman evangelism team here).

15) THE CHURCH PROPHET

Women may pray and prophesy aloud (1 Cor. 11:5) under the influence of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:17-18).

16) THE HOME PROPHET

Women may prophesy even in the presence of church leadership, should they stop by for a missionary journey or two (Acts 21:9)

17) THE OWNER

They can own the building where the church meets (Colossians 4:15).

18) THE SUMMONER

They can send out delegations from their home churches to summon apostles to bring discipline from afar (1 Cor. 1:11).

19) THE AMBASSADOR

They can head up missionary journeys to established churches and deliver original manuscripts of the Scriptures to people there (okay, so this won’t happen a lot, but it’s pretty cool that Phoebe was used in that way to get the Book of Romans to the church … Rom 16:1-2).

20) THE ELECT

Women can be the “elect ladies” over children of God, and receive epistles directly from apostles -- addressed to the woman, meant for them to share (2 John)

SUMMARY

I compiled that list in my morning Bible time, and it is certainly not a complete collection of the roles a woman of God can play in the church.

As God's adopted daughter, I can do many, many things – host churches in my home, prophesy in services, pray aloud in an orderly manner, deliver Scripture, pair up with men or other women to work for the Gospel, correct brothers doctrinally,  defend against false teachers, support ministries financially from my own funds, serve in the diakonia, summon church leaders to deliver discipline, be imprisoned for my faith.

          With Scripture empowering me to do all that, I have little to say to those who want to go on and on about what women can’t do in a church.  I’ll simply smile at those obsessed with such a topic.

          And then I’ll be sure not to invite them to preach at the church that meets in my house.

Marana tha,

Cosmic

Dear Lord: Thanks for Nothing

We are a world of whiners.

Please note: I didn’t say we just recently became a world of whiners.  In fact, I’m pretty sure we’ve inhabited Whiney World ever since Cain turned all mortally mopey after his second-rate offering was rejected by the Lord.

But I pay special heed to this age’s Poor-Pity-Me factor because (a) I live in this age, and (b) I’m in the U.S., where mega-church Health & Wealthism is seeping its way into the Body of Christ.  Health & Wealthism leads to a sense of entitlement, which in turn leads to an odd, whiney relationship with other human beings, as well as with our Father in Heaven.  Christians begin to reflect a culture of victimhood that smacks of the flesh and the world.

In the U.S., November is the month we set aside to celebrate Thanksgiving.  It commemorates, ironically, the first major harvest meal shared among the Plymouth Puritans and the heathen Wampanoag Indians.  Why do I say “ironically”?  Because these days, Thanksgiving marks the start of High Whining Season among some American Christians – complaints about stores that dare to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry Christmas; frothing accusations that schools are giving “winter break” instead of “time off for Jesus’ birthday”;  claims of “persecution” when secular government refuses to use taxpayer money to set up Christmas trees, those eternal symbols of Christ’s birth, as clearly mentioned absolutely nowhere in the Bible.

“What if,” I ask myself this year, “I really give thanks in a Biblical way?  What if I thank God for things that would stun the whiners and arch the eyebrows of Health & Wealthers?  What if I overcome my own selfishness, my own self-centeredness, even my own self-esteem, to thank the Lord for all things, good and bad?”

***

I thank You, Lord, for nothing …

   For refusing to act when I begged You to heal me,

   Since now I see the gift my handicap really is.

I thank You, Lord, for nothing …

   For allowing me to stay in poverty after I graduated college,

   Since that time made me grow, not in a job, but in You.

I thank you, Lord, for nothing …

    For not responding to my lists of wants,

    Instead, refining my understanding of my needs.

I thank You, Lord, for nothing …

    For allowing times of suffering to continue,

    And thus teaching me perseverance I had never known.

I thank You, Lord, for nothing …

    For allowing hardships I caused to remain in my life,

    so that I might learn to thank You in all situations.

I thank You, Lord.  For everything.

***

Some may ask, How is a prayer like that in any way Biblical?

I answer:

• because it gives thanks to God in all things, in all circumstances, which is God’s will for me (Thess. 5:18)
• because it is an act of rejoicing in the midst of my suffering, not despite my suffering, which is what Paul commands (Rom. 5:3)
• because I rejoice that I suffer like Christ and even participate, in some way, in His suffering on the cross (Col. 1:24)
• because I give thanks when reaping the punishment for my own behaviors, glorifying God even from the belly of the fish I deserved to be swallowed by (Jonah 2:10)
• because riches aren’t good for me; daily bread is all I need (Prov. 30:8)
• because I give thanks even if I am unjustly thrown into chains and beaten and starved and harmed by enemies (Acts 16:25) … real persecution, not the pathetic protests of those who writhe oppressed under the weight of the words “Happy Holidays.”

Even in the midst of real, life-threatening persecution, thanks and praise are the only valid responses from a heart born in, grown by, and sustained through the Lord.

All right, all right, I admit that thanking God for good things isn’t a bad idea either.  Thank You for my new car, thank You for my good friends, thank You that I’m in a righteous church that clings to Your Word, thank You that I have been saved by Your Son.  Each and every one of those is a laudable act of gratitude.

But I leave you with this thought.

No one in Scripture is ever warned of the dangers of giving thanks to God during suffering and trials.

The only warning about giving thanks that I’ve found in Scripture targets those with lots of health and plenty of wealth.  Thanksgiving for good things.

 “Thank you, God,” a man once said, “that I don’t blackmail other people.  That I don’t break rules.  That I don’t sleep around.  That I’ve got money to tithe and enough food to turn down during times of fasting.  Thanks that I don’t have it as materially or as spiritually bad as that other guy, right over there, the poor, sorry loser.  Maybe he should learn to name it and claim it, you know, Lord?”

See Luke 18 for a better telling of that tale.

And remember to praise and thank Him, especially in the storms.

Marana tha,

Cosmic

A Wife Who Knows Her Place

I’ve been thinking lately about conservative values and conservative roles for godly women who want to live a married life aligned with the Scriptures.  I know you’ve heard the same complaints that I have about women’s changing roles in modern culture.  Who is this “woman” of the 21^st century?  Can you still call her a woman?  What happened to ideals she aspired toward in the golden days of the 1950s?

I wasn’t born in the 1950s.  Neither was my mother, who escaped that decade by a couple years.  Still, Planet Earth Noobie that I am, I would like to paint a portrait for you.  A portrait of a woman, one who might intimidate you.  One you might not like much.  She’s one hundred percent 21^st century:

You know the type.  She’s unflinching, she’s pretty tough.  Dresses great.  You check her out, guys, but you can tell right away, she’s not accessible at the level of paycheck you’re pulling in.

But that doesn’t matter, because she’s taken.

She’s one of those high-powered working mothers, the sort who claims she can balance a life at the office and a full life as a mother at home.  She brings in as much money as her husband, maybe even more.  She’s equally comfortable talking about high-level business transactions as she is about get-your-hands-dirty mothering practices.  One second she’s discussing vendor management skills and international procurement strategies; the next she’s knitting sweaters for the baby.  She’s out of town all day performing a site assessment for expansion efforts of the manufacturing business she oversees ... but she’s up late at night, finishing the bills, since she handles much of the family finances.

She treats her family like royalty, and she treats her office staff like a second family.  She’s a manager, but she’s hands-on, willing to do all the daily tasks her staff does.  She runs that office.  She runs that house.  Check out her husband … Doesn’t he even care that she’s making herself look like the breadwinner?  He even brags about it at some of those Boards of Trustees he sits on.  He tells them all about the 501(c)(3) not-for-profit entity she spun off to handle corporate charitable outreach and community payback.  He’s proud of her extra money and how she doles it out to grubbing strangers!

It grates you just to see her.  You can tell she works out, she’s pretty buff – when on Earth does she find time for that?  And she just won't stop … those sweaters she knits the children, and those fashionable bed clothes, quilts, throws, and covers she does as her mommy hobby … she’s talking about starting an online business to sell some of those and earn money straight from the household, too!

Above all, she just won’t shut up about how much she loves God.

Confused?  Did you think I was going to be writing about some uber-feminist atheist?  Or did you know that I was going to tell you that this lady, described above, is the true conservative woman, the real product of the golden age?

No, she's not a 1950’s conservative.  We're talking way more conservative than that, back as far as the 900s B.C.  Because the woman I described above is the Proverbs 31 wife, simply recast in modern language, but with all the same roles, essentially.  And this 21st century woman – this focused, nonstop, business-running, household-organizing lady – is far more Scriptural than our modern fantasies of the stay-at-home dinner party hostess of black & white television days gone by.

Instead of saying that she was way out of your paycheck league, I probably should have said that her price was far beyond rubies (Prov. 31:10).  And instead of telling you she manages overseas procurement operations, I might have simply compared her to “merchant ships, bringing food from afar” (v. 14).  But before I go any further, I think I’ll have you pause and take a read through the section of Proverbs 31 I’m referencing.  Keep my 21^st century woman in mind as you read this selection, and see if you can uncover where her attributes match those of the Proverbs 31 wife:

 ¹⁰ A wife of noble character who can find?

   She is worth far more than rubies.

¹¹ Her husband has full confidence in her

   and lacks nothing of value.

¹² She brings him good, not harm,

   all the days of her life.

¹³ She selects wool and flax

   and works with eager hands.

¹⁴ She is like the merchant ships,

   bringing her food from afar.

¹⁵ She gets up while it is still night;

   she provides food for her family

   and portions for her female servants.

¹⁶ She considers a field and buys it;

   out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.

¹⁷ She sets about her work vigorously;

   her arms are strong for her tasks.

¹⁸ She sees that her trading is profitable,

   and her lamp does not go out at night.

¹⁹ In her hand she holds the distaff

   and grasps the spindle with her fingers.

²⁰ She opens her arms to the poor

   and extends her hands to the needy.

²¹ When it snows, she has no fear for her household;

   for all of them are clothed in scarlet.

²² She makes coverings for her bed;

   she is clothed in fine linen and purple.

²³ Her husband is respected at the city gate,

   where he takes his seat among the elders of the land.

²⁴ She makes linen garments and sells them,

   and supplies the merchants with sashes.

²⁵ She is clothed with strength and dignity;

   she can laugh at the days to come.

²⁶ She speaks with wisdom,

   and faithful instruction is on her tongue.

²⁷ She watches over the affairs of her household

   and does not eat the bread of idleness.

²⁸ Her children arise and call her blessed;

   her husband also, and he praises her:

²⁹ “Many women do noble things,

   but you surpass them all.”

³⁰ Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;

   but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.

³¹ Honor her for all that her hands have done,

   and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.

Now that you’ve reread the passage with my 21^st century woman in mind, I ask you … is this June Cleaver or Mrs. Brady Bunch?  No.  This Proverbs 31 woman is nowhere near as diminutive or demure as the mythological 50's woman.  She is, rather, exactly the kind of woman that many so-called “conservative” males rant and rave about in the U.S. Bible Belt these days.  She has her own money that she’s earning (v. 16b), negotiates both with vendors and merchants who sell the goods she produces (v. 21), and she’s a powerful capitalist who’s in it for the profit (v. 18).  She makes major land purchase decisions and oversees the profit-generating operations of the new land (v. 16a), and none of this …. none of it … feels threatening to her husband.  The Proverbs 31 husband is 100% behind her efforts (v. 11); he even brags about them to the other elders he hangs out with at the gates … doing, I dunno, whatever it is elders do at those gates of theirs, while BusinessMom manages the full range of affairs that keep the household and her disparate businesses in operation (v. 27).

Both her home and her business transactions are her passion.  Guiding all of that is her deepest passion of all … her awestruck love and fear of the Lord, who gave her these heart-fulfilling responsibilities and the strength and drive to achieve for her family, the most precious worldly good she’ll ever know.

***

Closing thought: A male acquaintance once told me that he would be “interested” in me, but only if he were sure I would be a “Proverbs 31 kind of wife.”  I was pretty sure he had June Cleaver on his mind, based on my past experience with him.  Rather than answering in my usual quippy style (“What’s your name again?” would have been a good comeback), I instead said: “Ten staff.”

“Huh?” he wittily rejoined.

“Ten staff.  Proverbs 31:15 says I would get to have serving girls living in the household with me.  I was just saying that a staff of ten of them would be a good start.  Can you afford that for your Proverbs 31 wife?”

He chuckled, and shuffled, and wandered away.

Okay, I was pushing, I know.  But why wouldn’t he want to hire me a staff of ten?

For all he knows, my price is well above rubies.

Marana tha,

Cosmic

Make Big $$$ w/ur Psychic Powers!

By the end of this post, you’ll have the basic skills you need to become a novice Psychic.

“But, Cosmic!” you say.  “You usually write about the Lord, or about language, or about language and the Lord!  Have you lost your mind?”

Nah.  Because I don’t really want you to meddle in psychic affairs.  I want this: for you to recognize how some people … so-called psychics, TV charlatans, even “deceitful workmen disguising themselves as apostles of Christ” (2 Cor. 11:13) … can use language to pretend to wield marvelous powers and work wonders.  I want you to see their false “miracles” and "insights" for the very basic word tricks they are.

And not to be controversial, but mostly I’m talking to women today.  Ladies, we are the ones, by which I mean those of our sex, who pump the most money into psychic hotlines and astrology readings and New Age claptrap.  We are the ones who get a special advisory from the Apostle Paul to avoid the godless deceivers who seem to be apostles, but who creep in and prey on the weak among us, promising us special learning that never really helps us arrive at a knowledge of the truth (2 Timothy 3:6-7).

So get your Godly girl on and grasp how we get beguiled.

* * *

I sat in a church three years ago, watching the antics of a visiting preacher who had whipped the congregation to an emotional high.  As the excitement subsided, the preacher said, “The Lord is urging me now, urging, there is a woman, a woman whose name begins with an M … does that mean anything to anyone?  A special blessing for a woman, an M ...”  Two woman came forward, one who said her name was Michelle, another who said she’d been praying for her hospital-bound mother, Marie.  The visiting preacher had a special message from God for both of the women.  The congregation returned to a praise frenzy.  Every warning bell in my head went off.

Point 1: A woman whose name begins with M?  Did God not know the whole name when “He” spoke to the preacher?

Point 2: Two women went up when one was called upon?

Point 3: Did simply saying “there is a woman” mean she was even in attendance?  Any woman known by any of us, then?

I knew in an instant that I was watching a Mentalist performance, not a manifestation of God’s power.  The visiting preacher was using one of the most basic techniques of psychic performances.  He had a willing audience [excited believers], dangled a small bit of general information [the letter M for any female anywhere], and willing women provided the specific details [Marie, oh, and also Michelle], allowing the audience to ignore a clear error [more than one woman] and credit Mentalist Preacher with miraculous powers [return to praise frenzy].

With tricks like that, you don’t even need psychic powers or messages from the Lord.  You just let the willing shills do the work for you.  Their normal senses make up for your lack of a sixth one.  Let the dupes do the work.

“For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.”  (Matt. 24:24)

* * *

And that's all you need to know to be a psychic.

“But Cosmic,” you ask, “can is be as simple as all that?”

Good question, and not one with an easy yes vs. no answer.  It appears simple from the listener’s viewpoint.  Behind the scenes, though, the charlatan is doing things with language that have effects you might not suspect.

Let me show you how it works.  Let’s pretend I’m your neighborhood psychic, and you’ve just plopped down thirty bucks for a half hour session with me.

Indulge me here, it’s a teaching point.

I'm going to give you a general reading, just to build your confidence that I really am a psychic who's in touch with your inner feelings.  Can you smell the sweetness of the incense in my slightly darkened room?  I'm talking to YOU now ... not the person at the other computer, not to the Internet in general.  To you, [INSERT NAME].  Open your heart.  Here's something I know about you, [INSERT NAME], by reading your soul:

Deep down, you truly ARE self-confident. When it comes to your own areas of expertise ... and you have several ... you really KNOW what you know, and you have the insight to recognize the things you don't know.  You have a strong capacity for improving upon anything that catches your interest, although you don't let yourself get bogged down.  Here's my first bit of advice to you, what the spirits are advising you: Be careful not to let your confidence come across to others as arrogance.  The spirit world can see that you did that recently, and you are right to feel concerned about that.

Can you think of a time recently when your confidence came across as arrogance?  Bet you can.  Am I amazing, or what?  Is there anything I said above that you could disagree with?  Isn't that really what you're like?

Of course it’s what you’re like.  Consider the alternative:

Deep down, you're a sniveling coward.  You don't know diddly-squat, and you couldn't improve a darned thing, even if you had a real desire to.  Face it, whenever you open your mouth, people know you for the arrogant boob you are. The spirits don’t want to talk to you, they only hang with cool people.

Showing you the exact opposite of your “psychic reading” makes it clear how nearly anyone – especially those who voluntarily went to the psychic for a personal revelation – would accept a bunch of general words as a collection of probing insights.  We want the psychic to know us and to reveal things.  We want healer Peter Popoff to scam away our arthritis.  We want John Edward to cross over to the other side and find our relative whose name starts with an M or a J or an L.

* * *

Let’s take a closer look at what I said in my “reading” of you.  Here are five language secrets a “psychic” or charlatan will use to give you a sense that you’re hearing specialized messages.  If you try these tricks yourself, remember that you must only use your powers for good. 

Power 1: General v. Specific

As your first act of psychic seeing, state a general principle that sounds like a personality insight.  Identify a basic human trait you find loathsome, and tell your client -- the "psychee" -- that he or she embodies the opposite of that trait.  For example, everyone hates an insensitive lout, so tell the psychee she has compassion for those she sees struggling.  No one likes wishy-washy attitudes, so tell her she has a strong grasp of her personal convictions.  You won't be contradicted.  No one will say, "Actually, I'm a mental midget and a wimp."

Power 2: Generic Butter

Deliver a general compliment, a generic butter-up.  The key here is general.  Don't take the risk of saying, "You treat your children well," only to discover you're talking to an unmarried Benedictine nun.  Better would be, "Your friends stick with you because they know they can always rely on you for support."  Not everyone has children; everyone has friends, or at least believes they do.

Power 3: Get Deeeeeep

Your next language trick is to build the appearance that you're probing deeper.  Build on the general compliment by making a personality claim that sounds more specific.  Did you use the "friends" line in Power 2?  Then go with it.  "In fact," tell the psychee, "many of your friends rely on your advice to help them with the problems they're facing."  You've won them now.  Why does this work?  Assuming they came to you, they've already given you the benefit of the doubt.  You were psychic enough to see their good traits; now you've proved you know about their friends, and you detect that they've given advice to some of those friends, and you perceive that the advice was good.  How could you not be psychic, considering that level of accuracy?

Power 4: Flip the Script

Time for a quick twist.  Just when you've got them feeling good, you deliver the coup de grace -- you reveal your first bit of advice by focusing on the dark side of the virtue.  Make no mistake, every good trait has its negative extreme.  Sensitive people run the risk of being emotionally burdened by others; helpful people need to be careful of doing TOO much; industrious people should beware of overextending themselves.  By giving advice on the dark side of their virtue, you (1) show that you're no fluffy psychic fake who's afraid to give the bad news, and (2) further reinforce the GOOD trait you've been affirming all along.

Power 5: Put Them to Work

Ask your shill if something in their recent experience confirms the negative in #4.  If you've played the language rules right, almost anyone who came to you for psychic counseling will now reveal a real-life negative situation related to your general directions.  Take it from there ... if the negative relates to co-workers, make predictions about the psychee's future career path; if family, make predictions about future home events.  The trick is now to listen and build ... and you'll find your client doing most of the work for you, while you get the credit for deep insight.

* * *

No, no, no, I don’t want you to really do that stuff.  I want you to see it because it can be done to you.  Our walk in Christ calls us to be gentle as doves, yes, but we’re also to be wily as serpents (Matt. 10:16), and knowing the tricks of enemies is one step in the wily direction.  As a lover of words, it pains me that language is Satan’s forte.  And as a lover of the Word made flesh, I resent that the enemy employs words made dirty.

* * *

It’s hard for psychics and false prophets to get much out of me, simply because I don’t answer them back and therefore give them little to play with.  Here’s a recent example of a false prophet trying to give me a “word from the Lord”:

The Lord says -- your passion matches your calling. Your passion seems odd, out of place.  But He has given it to you.  It is beyond your understanding.  But His ways are beyond our ways.  Be obedient, and he will magnify you.  [The guy pauses here, then says:] Don’t know if that makes sense or not.  But I prayed and asked.

See the tricks at work in there?  The general vs. the specific … my passion!  The prophet sees my passion!  And the Lord can see I have a specific passion to do [FILL IN THE BLANK] for Him!  The generic butter … my passion matches my calling … way to go, Cosmic, you got it right!  It gets deeeeeeeep, beyond my understanding even.  And the script gets flipped with how odd and out of place the passion seems … but, generic butter again, I need to get obedient with pursuing that passion, so that the Lord will magnify me.

I have no idea what “passion” was being referred to.  Neither did the false prophet.  He was counting on my moving to fill in the blanks and grant him Power 5 (“I don’t know if that made sense or not”).  He wanted to put me to work for him, get me to say, “Do you suppose the Lord is referring to my awesome cooking skills or maybe my sparkly writing abilities?” Had I taken the bait, the prophesy would have continued, filling me with conceit and leading me down the liar’s path.

Alas, my only feedback was to nod in acknowledgement that I heard the words.

False prophets’ biggest vulnerability is just how darned false they are.

* * *

“They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth ….  They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because … their folly will be clear to everyone.” (2 Tim. 3:6-9)

* * *

Ew, downer.  Let’s end on a lighter note, okay?

Fans of the old Buffy the Vampire Slayer series might recognize this quippy exchange between hero-librarian Rupert Giles and the ever-suspicious Principal Snyder:

     Snyder:       There are some things I can just smell. It's like a sixth sense.

     Giles:          No, actually that would be one of the five.

The point: Let’s rule out natural causes and motives of the flesh before turning our sensibilities over to claims of the supernatural.

Maran Atha,

Cosmic