I’ve been thinking about what Paul calls alternately the “pneumatikoi” or the “charismata” this morning, frequently translated as “spiritual gifts, and the paranormal abilities of Near Death Experiencers, remote viewers, and the ability which we, and my wife in particular, rely on almost daily now called simply “muscle testing” or “energy testing.” But I want to start with this last thing first. I’ve written about it before, and instead of reinventing the wheel, I’ll just quote myself here noting that the original research and studies done on its efficacy, reliability, and limitations were performed by Dr. David R. Hawkins (deceased) and written about in his books,
The idea behind muscle testing is based on the body having its own energy field, sometimes referred to as "chi" or "qi" which reacts with the energy fields of other things either positively or negatively. In addition, the body's energy field will react to a truth or untruth positively or negatively either being strengthened or literally pulled towards the truth, or being weakened and literally repulsed by the untruth. In this way, it is possible to ask and receive answers to yes or no questions with a high degree of reliability.
There are however some caveats we've learned about this technique, sometimes the hard way, which are well worth reflecting on and pondering. The major caveat to it is that you cannot get a reliable answer to a question where you have an attachment to the answer you get. Your own subconscious will interfere and skew the results to whatever you either think it should be, or whatever you're afraid it might be.
If you are in a state of fear, conscious or unconscious, or aggression your answers become unreliable and the muscle testing will start delivering gibberish responses where "yes" can be "no" and vice versa. In other words, if you are engaged with or in submission to your own malfunctioning survival responses, the muscle testing doesn't work right and itself malfunctions. Any emotional state which is ultimately rooted in fear or aggression such as despair, anger, or pride results in unreliable answers. In order to receive reliable answers, fear has to be let go of and the practitioner has to shift in the direction of courage, reason, joy, compassion, and ultimately love (not of the romantic variety but of the agape variety). The closer one is to agape (and the farther one is from fear), the more accurate and reliable the answers become.
Initially we were very skeptical about it at first when Heidi began experimenting with it, but then we experimented with electrically conductive and insulating materials to see if they had any effect, and yes, they did. The insulating rubber in particular seemed to block the effect completely. This lent it a good deal of credibility in my mind which would be further reinforced when it accurately predicted what Heidi could and could not eat safely which, if you understand my wife’s past history, a wrong answer could result in a seizure. This was part of the beginning of her road to beating her multiple sclerosis really.
But the part of this I really want to point out is the requirements of disposition which are laid on an accurate response. In general, negative emotional states such as fear, despair, anger, pride and so on will produce wrong answers, whereas positive states beginning with courage, then joy, peace, all the way to love (and specifically agape) will produce correct and accurate answers. Another guardrail if you will is that one cannot have an attachment to the result, you just have to let it happen without any emotional investment in it or else it will skew the result one way or the other either from fear it’s not what you want or strong desire for a particular result. One might go so far as to infer from this that, simply put, it will not work correctly if you’re operating from your own malfunctioning survival responses of fear, anger, and bodily cravings such as food or sex. Finally, and as a kind of summary of all of this, there must be a certain amount of setting aside of the ego in order to allow things to “flow” properly.
As I have become familiar with these “rules” of muscle or energy testing over the last few years, I have been struck by how similar the same guidelines appear to be with remote viewing. Remote viewing is the ability to mentally visualize a “target” from great distances and accurately describe the target. At one point, the U.S. Department of Defense had a very successful remote viewing program, of whom former Chief Warrant Officer Joseph McMoneagle was the primary agent. From the memoirs I’ve been reading from both McMoneagle and Luis Elizondo, there has to be a setting aside of the ego, you can’t have a negative or malicious intent towards the target of the remote viewing, and you have to maintain a certain mindset or headspace in order for it to work. From the descriptions in particular which former CWO McMoneagle gives of his experiences, one’s intentions and mindset are also key to the outcomes. The most detailed outcomes for McMoneagle seemed to come when he was focused on locating and rescuing hostages. He himself had no personal stake in the outcome, but he was focused solely, and more importantly selflessly, on the welfare of others.
I have also written before about the after effects of Near Death Experiences. Because of the length of those blog posts, I would refer the reader to those, “More Thoughts About NDEs, Consciousness, Baptism, and Paul's Writings” and “Baptism, Dying and Rising with Christ, and the Aftereffects of NDEs” here on this blog within the past couple of months. What’s important to note here is that the paranormal abilities which are observed coincide with the reported ego death, increased love and compassion for others, and both the desire and appearance of being more “connected” with the spiritual realm. That is, the NDE appears to induce the conditions within the person which are necessary for both muscle or energy testing and remote viewing to work properly and accurately.
I have one more example to add. It is my understanding as well, being informed by someone who knows the practice better than I, that the practice of “energy healing” as is seen in some New Age or eastern philosophies or religious systems also maintains the same requirements in order for it to have any effect. Although where “energy healing” is concerned, one must maintain a much greater degree of positive disposition and selfless love in order for it to even begin to work as compared with muscle testing and remote viewing.
The pneumatikoi, or the “spiritual gifts,” are probably one of the most controversial, misunderstood, and misapplied part of the Christian tradition and experience. In some denominational traditions, their existence is all but denied (and they’re certainly not active today, in their opinion), in others, certain expressions of them are seen as proof of one’s salvation and guarantee of entry into heaven in the afterlife. Most denominations and systems of theology hold a line somewhere in between these two extremes.
The pneumatikoi, put simply, are supernatural or paranormal abilities which were displayed by all or nearly all of the disciples of Jesus Christ actively and visibly for at least the first two hundred years, though they seemed to become less and less frequent approaching the fourth century. After that, church writings only record them being performed by certain people of what was then and now considered extreme compassion, love, mercy and selflessness. As recorded in the book of Acts and the letters of the New Testament, these abilities included healing, exorcism by single command, the ability to speak a language the person doesn’t actually know or understand a language the person doesn’t know, perform impossible things, raising the dead, foretelling the future, knowing things that one can’t possibly know, and more. It’s clear from the New Testament that they are products of the Pneuma or Spirit and are abilities which are otherwise unnatural to the person displaying them. A person who is otherwise unable to speak publicly or teach others suddenly has the ability to do both effectively, for example.
According to Paul in his letter to the Galatians, what a person can expect to see or experience from someone operating by means of the Pneuma or “Spirit” is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, trust, courtesy, and self-control,” and there is a great emphasis throughout the New Testament by both Jesus and Paul of dying to oneself or one’s “old human being,” as a part of the requirements for actually being a disciple. I can’t help but see the parallels between these and the guidelines or requirements for effectively and accurately performing the paranormal abilities I have described.
There appears to be a genuine correlation between the paranormal abilities I’ve described and the pneumatikoi described in the New Testament. Both require a setting aside of one’s ego or the death of one’s ego and a certain selflessness in order to operate effectively if at all. Both require a connection to the immaterial part of the human being, and require that this part be in control at the time without interference from the survival responses of the human brain of fear, anger, feeding, or the sexual drive. Both require a total lack of negative intent, judgment, or attachment to the target or recipient of the ability. It goes without saying that both require a certain trust or realization that the ability exists at all.
If all of this is true, then there is a great deal of explanatory power in this as to why some Christians appear to be able to display them and some are not, and in particular, who depending on the mindset and disposition of the individual in question. It may also explain why, the further from the first century one gets, the more rare they become among professing Christians as the shift in emphasis from practice to the correctness of one’s theology takes place. It may also explain why some people, professing Christian or not, are able to perform them, but many can only do so sporadically and with a questionable rate of effectiveness and accuracy as they succumb to the ego and negative dispositions or mindsets. If one becomes proud or ego driven because of them, then they lose their connection to what produces them.
