channeling

Walsch, Young, and Beth Moore: ungodly channelers producing ungodly books. Part 3: Beth Moore’s “When Godly People do Ungodly Things”

Posted on November 6, 2024November 6, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

A post on Instagram by the ever-solid Doreen Virtue about channeling (it’s here) reminded me that in 2011 I had written a series of essay examining what channeling (or ‘automatic writing’) is, and had examined three highly popular books that these seemingly Christian authors had published. I’ve revived and updated those essays here, I also shortened them, and split them up to examine each author in turn.

Neale Donald Walsch wrote “Conversations with God” (1995), William P. Young wrote “The Shack” (2007), and Beth Moore wrote “When Godly People Do Ungodly Things” (2002). All three were Christian bestsellers. All three are unholy.

Automatic writing is when a writer clears his mind, gives his will over to another entity from the supernatural realms, and allows his hand to be used as a transcriber, thereby allowing the entity to produce the work, and not himself through his own mind or consciousness. Not even the scriptures were generated in this manner. The Bible’s authors received inspiration but were mentally and emotionally present and the Holy Spirit used their mind and personality to write. The authors didn’t zone out and become robots as another entity produced the works.

One thing these automatic writers I’m looking at who channel these supernatural entities have in common is they all had a Christian-ish background. The second thing they all had in common was abuse, parents who were distant either physically or emotionally, and/or trauma of severe kinds that usually resulted in a deep depression throughout adulthood. It was in the depths of their depressions at the bottom of their turmoil that they began to experience the “call” from the other side. Here are their stories. Today, we look at Beth Moore.

Beth Moore was raised a Christian in Arkansas, attending church and Sunday School regularly. She earned a political science degree from college and after a few years “took a Bible doctrine class” taught at her church. Moore has been very open about the sexual abuse she suffered as a child. In her recent memoir she finally revealed that it was her father who abused her. In her speeches she often mentioned the abuse (though not who the perp was).

She is also well known for having shared her personal thoughts on her low self-esteem, feeling of worthlessness, insecurity, etc. and in fact has memorialized those feelings in most of her books. For all that, she is closely guarded about her personal life but it is my opinion that the frequency with which she raises her personal traumas is an indicator that they are not slain and are in fact indicative of a deep depression, despite all her perkiness.

Beth Moore wrote in her book Believing God: “What God began to say to me about five years ago, and I’m telling you it sent me on such a trek with Him, that my head is still whirling over it. He began to say to me, ‘I’m gonna tell you something right now, Beth, and boy you write this one down, and you say it as often as I give you utterance to say it: My Bride is paralyzed by unbelief. My Bride is paralyzed by unbelief.’ And He said, ‘Startin’ with you.’” God says, “and boy you write this one down”.

She states in the Believing God DVD: “You know what He told me not too long ago? I told you when I first began this whole concept, He first started teaching it to me about five years ago, and He said these words to me: ‘Baby, you have not even begun to believe Me. You haven’t even begun!’ You know what He said just a few days ago? ‘Honey, I just want you to know we’re just beginning.’ Oh, glory! That meant I had begun. Hallelujah! But He was telling me, ‘When this ends, we ain’t done with this. Honey, this is what we do for the rest of your life.’ And He said those words to me over and over again: ‘Believe Me. Believe Me. And I hope it’s starting to ring in your ears, over and over again, Believe Me.’”

Beth actually believes God speaks to her, speaks in such familiar language, and uses endearments such as babe and honey.

No.

In Moore’s “When Godly People Do Ungodly Things, in the preface she states,

Transcription from the screen shot reads: “This book represents one of the most unique writing experiences I’ve ever had with God. Unbeknownst to me, He’s been writing each chapter on my heart for several years. When the message for this book was complete (in His estimation—not mine!), God compelled me to ink it on paper with a force of the Holy Spirit unparalleled in my experience. He whisked me to the mountains of Wyoming where I entered solitary confinement with Him, and in only a few short weeks, I wrote the last line.

Now here is the question. Beth Moore says that she holed up in a cabin by herself, and a written work poured out, emerging complete and not by her own hand. Moore said, “When the message of the book was complete, in His estimation, not my own”? So, a disembodied spirit via a force or a voice was telling her what to write and when to stop! Moore was not in control of the editing process, a force was. Her physical body was used by a disembodied spirit to write things down and she felt like she could not resist the force (‘compelled’). This is channeling, sisters.

Transcription of screen shot: “I am being as honest as I know how to be when I say that I did not write these pages by simple preference. I wrote them because had I not, the rocks in my yard would have cried out. What God does with what He’s required is His business. I entrust this message entirely to the One who delivered it while I sat bug-eyed.” (Source When Godly People Do Ungodly Things).

Moore is saying that she sat passively like a robot or an automaton while God delivered a message. No. Moore is saying that her book is so important that all of creation would cry out if she didn’t write it. No.

Furthermore, she is putting herself as an equal to the Apostles who were praising JESUS at that time. Moore’s pride in elevating her book to the level of importance akin to joy expressed at the arrival of the Messiah illustrates a prideful heart.

Sisters, one may wonder how these authors dare to write these blasphemous words, AND believe them. But pride is incremental. it speaks to the lust we have for ourselves in our hearts, and slowly insinuated its tentacles around that prideful heart to darken its view of Jesus and brighten our view of ourselves. Watch out for pride, or someday you may find yourself (or myself) saying that we are so important the rocks would cry out if we didn’t do such and such!

Further Resources

Grace to You: Hearing from Heaven

Doreen Virtue: Say NO to Jesus Calling New Age Channeled Books

The End Time: How do Christian authors end up channeling spirits and producing books from them? Pride

theology

Walsch, Young, and Beth Moore: ungodly channelers producing ungodly books. Part 2: William P. Young’s “The Shack”

Posted on November 5, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

One thing these automatic writers who channel these supernatural entities people all have in common is they all had a Christian-ish background. The second thing they all had in common was abuse, parents who were distant either physically or emotionally, and/or trauma of severe kinds that usually resulted in a deep depression throughout adulthood. It was in the depths of their depressions at the bottom of their turmoil that they began to experience the “call” from the other side. Here are their stories. Today, we look at William P. Young of “The Shack” fame.

William P. Young was born to missionary parents and within a stone age cannibalistic tribe that his parents were evangelizing in New Guinea. At age six he returned to Canada and attended 13 different schools before graduating and then attending Bible College. He earned his religion undergraduate degree and then went on to seminary.

In his case, Young says “sexual abuse was probably the most fundamental building block of my shack.” When he was a young child, he said, tribal people near his parents’ missionary station abused him, and he experienced more abuse by older students at the boarding school he was sent to at age 6.

At age 38 he had an affair with his wife’s best friend that nearly cost him his marriage. He became homeless after trying to keep up and working three jobs. Financially insolvent due to bad decisions, Young says the book “The Shack” was born from the pain he was feeling inside while at the same time recognizing he was a religious performer. During that time (in 2004) Young became a Universalist.

Universalists believe everyone will be saved whether they have repented or not.

In this essay titled Paul Young and Universal Reconciliation, the author states, “Paul Young told me he is a “hopeful universalist.” He believes that our loving God sent His Son to die for every single sinner without exception. One day God will effectually reconcile every sinner to Himself. Paul uses the term “hopeful” universalism because he understands that the Scriptures speak of judgment, but Paul is “hopeful” that even in judgment, the love of God will eventually bring the sinner being judged to love for Jesus Christ.”

No.

Young’s early trauma informed his personality, decisions, and eventually, his religion. He said he became a perfectionist performer in order to survive. “Young says he became ‘a perfectionist performer with a persona that you present to the world covering up an ocean of shame. I’m the oldest. “I took the brunt of some of the negative dynamics in our family at the time. A lot of those things fed into becoming a perfectionist performer. I held it together until I was thirty-eight years old, and then it all blew apart thanks to the grace of God, and I started an eleven year process of dismantling everything and putting it all back together.“

So, he deconstructed. Or apostatized.

Even though Young had earned an undergraduate degree in religion (or because of it) and had started seminary, Young emerged from his education and his introspection with a false view of God.

Like Walsch in the previous essay, with no born-again faith underpinning his worldview, Young sought relief for his messy life of trauma and heartbreak in all the wrong places.

For the 11 years Young worked through his understanding of “the nature and character of God.” By the end of 2004 he had come to “peace with myself and peace with my sense of who I believe God to be”—a process he condensed to a weekend in the book. His writing process is l described in his own words here:

“I had this interaction with Divine Love, however you wanna do it. I have a very conversational relationship with God, and on, on my dad’s 80th birthday, he stepped on one of my [emotional] mines, you know, that I didn’t know were my mines – he just didn’t live up to one of my expectations and blew stuff up. And so I’m pissed off and I go for a walk, and I can sense the presence of God next to me.” (Source)

“And I, I feel an arm around my shoulder, you know, and it’s, we have this little conversation and, and I hear Love say, “you know, you know Paul, your dad hasn’t known how to be a father for 60 years. He’s not suddenly gonna figure it out. And I went, “yeah, I know that. I know that.” And then I hear in the inside voice, I hear, “if it’s okay with you, would you let me be all that and more?” (Source).

On his creative process-

“I had this experience — and this was early when The Shack had just begun to take off — and I woke up in the middle of the night — and it’s never happened to me before and it’s never happened since — and I was literally caught in a waterfall. It’s like I was sitting up in bed in a waterfall of creative ideas. And about an hour into this I thought to myself, ‘I need to get up and write this down,’ and it all stopped. And I really felt “the voice.” You know, to me it’s the Holy Spirit, who just said, ‘Isn’t that what you always do? You don’t trust that creativity is a river,’ and I said you’re right, I don’t trust, and I said I’m not going to live like that anymore. And immediately the waterfall started again for an hour until I fell asleep. (Source)

Did the Holy Spirit speak directly to Young? No.

The people I’m looking at here, Young, Walsch, and Moore, all had severe and long-term trauma in their lives. They were horrifically abused, and/or were abandoned, fell into depressions, were attempting to claw their way out of some kind of traumatizing pain and a broken-down life.

In the cases I read about, and they are anecdotal to be sure, none of the people said, “I was having a tremendously satisfying career, a strong marriage, and I felt joyful and grateful to God, when I suddenly felt the call from the other side…” Nope. In all the cases, the automatic writers were at their most vulnerable, and at their lowest point of life, had wavering faith.

When we are at our most vulnerable is when we are at our most vulnerable. It sounds redundant but it is a truism that when we are wrestling with why bad things happen to us we mix our sorrow with anger against God, that is when the spirits come. And of course by that I mean if one is not a born-again believer, it’s the demons, satan’s crew who comes.

Picture the wounded young gazelle on the African savannah, and lions approaching.

In the cases of our writers, many of them felt a sense of restoration after being contacted from the other side. When we’re down, we all want comfort. Young and Walsch have said that they felt restored through the process of writing these things about God. I believe Moore uses her writings and her talks on tv and at conferences as a therapy session, as I have stated before. What person suffering from trauma, pain, and depression wouldn’t want to respond to a whisper in their ear that ‘god’ can and will take the pain away? That they are a special person and the ‘voice’ will give personal, secret, new thoughts and ideas to you, you special person?

But we must guard our heart.

Pride is the root of these automatic writings, with the person willingly participating in the notion that they are special enough to have been contacted by ‘the other side’ directly. Like Apostle Paul was, or Elijah.

We live in a world that is actually satan’s. (2 Cor 4:4). We need strength to deal with the crafty cunning schemes of the satanic system that is all around us. God gave us armor but the armor does not do any good if it is in the closet. (Eph 6:10-19).

Here is an example of the craftiness of the devil’s schemes. William Young is talking about his writing process. He said “In the first draft there was more religious language. God was actually quoting Scripture, which kinda didn’t work. In the re-write I was actually able to embed Scripture in the conversation almost in a way that people don’t pick it up.” So Young actually watered down the scripture, which we know is the only language that penetrates hearts and reveals God. But for Young, ‘It didn’t work.’

Do you think that God would send words to a person about Himself and then inspire the author to hide them so they are ‘not picked up’? Once you divorce the scripture from its source you can then change the wording subtly.

Guard your heart, stay close to God, and if you hear a ‘voice’ reject it as satan’s and seek God’s through His word.

Further Resources

Tim Challies’ review of The Shack or here

How do Christian authors end up channeling spirits and producing books from them? Pride

What does the Bible say about channeling?

automatic writing, beth moore, bible jesus, channeling, prophecy, satan

Walsch, Young, and Beth Moore: ungodly channelers producing ungodly books. Part 1- Neale Donald Walsch and his alleged ‘conversations with God’

Posted on November 4, 2024 by elizabethprata

By Elizabeth Prata

A post on Instagram by the ever-solid Doreen Virtue (it’s here) about channeling reminded me that in 2011 I had written a series of essays examining what channeling is (AKA ‘automatic writing’), and had examined three highly popular books that these allegedly Christian authors had published. I revived and updated those essays, I also shortened them splitting them up to examine each author in turn.

Automatic writing is when a writer clears his mind, gives his will over to another entity from the supernatural realms, and allows his hand to be used as a transcriber, thereby allowing the entity to produce the work, and not the human writer through his own mind or consciousness. Not even the scriptures were generated in this manner. The Bible’s authors received inspiration but were mentally and emotionally present. The Holy Spirit inspired their own minds and personalities to write. The authors didn’t zone out and become robots as another entity produced the works.

The point of the 2011 essays was not so much to examine the content of what these writers wrote about. Though discernment lacks in many a Christian heart these days, the ungodly moments in those books eventually become apparent to the readers who call upon the Spirit for light and illumination.

Turning to the point of this essay, I noticed similarities in the emotional lives of today’s ‘Christian’ automatic writers used by spirit or a ‘force’ from the other side. Hopefully I will provide an understanding of how satan works in the emotionally vulnerable.

One thing these automatic writers who channel these supernatural entities people all have in common is they all had a Christian-ish background. The second thing they all had in common was sexual abuse, parents who were distant either physically or emotionally, and/or trauma of severe kinds that usually resulted in a deep depression through to adulthood. It was in the depths of their depressions at the bottom of their turmoil that they began to experience the “call” from the other side. Here are their stories. Today, we look at Neale Donald Walsch.

Neale Donald Walsch, 81 years old. Photo Source- Facebook

Neale Donald Walsch was brought up as a Roman Catholic, he was an altar boy, actually. Born Again Christians know that Roman Catholicism is not Christianity. It is a false religion. However, in a conference on ‘God and Love’ at the Fort Collins Lincoln Center, Colorado in what looks to be about twenty years ago, Walsch described his growing disillusionment with the rigidity and minutiae of Catholic traditions as a youth and mocked it cynically in a ‘humorous’ speech at the conference.

His family encouraged his quest for spiritual truth and eventually he wound up informally studying comparative theology for many years. In that quest, Walsch sadly did not turn to the Bible but to himself.

He was at an incredible low point in his life. A fire had destroyed everything he owned, his marriage had broken up, he was in a car crash and suffered a broken neck, then became unemployed and homeless. Living in a tent, Walsch picked up cans in order to eat.

He had no faith to cling to, and no way to resolve his anger. In 1995 Neale Donald Walsch realized his life was a mess. He said, “I woke up one night just angry, really frustrated, and wrote down what was on my mind” in an angry letter to God. God ‘answered’.

As described here, Walsch has said, “After writing down all of his questions, he heard a voice over his right shoulder say: “Do you really want an answer to all these questions or are you just venting?” When Walsch turned around, he saw no one there, yet Walsch felt answers to his questions filling his mind and decided to write them down. The ensuing automatic writing became the Conversations with God books.

Walsch’s own words, “To my surprise, as I scribbled out the last of my bitter, unanswerable questions and prepared to toss my pen aside, my hand remained poised over the paper, as if held there by some invisible force. Abruptly, the pen began moving on its own. I had no idea what I was about to write….Out came….Do you really want an answer to all these questions, or are you just venting? … Before I knew it, I had begun a conversation.” (New York Times article).

Walsch’s spiritual stance is that we are all one with God and that helping people is the satisfaction to life.

No. Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy HIM forever.

What resulted from Walsch is a cottage industry of false religion permeating the world. Wikipedia states that “Conversations with God, was published in 1995 and became an international bestseller. It remained on the New York Times Bestseller List for 135 weeks. Six of his other books have made the Times list in the years since. He has published 28 books and his works have been translated into 37 languages.” His books are not a small problem.

“In the spring of 1992 an extraordinary phenomenon occurred in my life. God began talking with you. Through me.” ~Neale Donald Walsch No, God doesn’t talk to me thru Walsch. God talks to me thru His Son! (Hebrews 1:1-2)

God is not speaking today. True, in the past He has spoken directly to several people in the Bible (not as many as you’d think) and in various ways, too. But He has spoken in His word, which is complete and sufficient for all training. (Hebrews 1:1-2; 2 Timothy 3:16).

Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations with God contributed to the New Age religion and its growth. The counterculture hippie movement of the 1960s had by the 1970s morphed into the New Age movement containing elements of the early twentieth century Victorian Theosophy spiritism, 1050s UFO mania, and Helen Schucman’s 1975 A Course in Miracles. Shirley MacLaine’s 1983 book Out on a Limb added much fuel to the fire of fervency for a holistic spiritualism devoid of God. I remember that book, it caused a huge stir.

What has been, it is what will be, And what has been done, it is what will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9).

Satan from before the beginning of human history through to now and beyond, will try to poison God’s Gospel. In some people, man’s inherent pride will click with this notion that God selected them specially to speak directly to them and they will be used in this way to pervert the Gospel. Some who seek a man-made religion will pick up these wrong theories and philosophies and connect through these unfortunate authors and their books. Millions.

When I was on the path toward the cross but not there yet, I was curious about religion. But my pagan mind didn’t know which religion to choose. I did not know at the time the God chooses us, we do not choose God. I bought the trilogy Conversations with God and I read book 1. The book did not make sense to me. It meandered, it was internally contradictory, and it was boring. I didn’t even bother to read Walsch’s book 2 and 3, they stayed on my shelf, unread, until I was born again and I then threw them all out. I thank God for preserving me until the time He appointed the moment of justification.

Sisters, when an author says that God spoke the book to him or her, run. The only book God spoke in is the Bible, and the only authors who had a conversation with God are the 66 authors who were inspired by the Spirit, not possessed by a spirit.