A SHORT DICTIONARY OF THE OCCULT

ASTROLOGY
The doctrine that our lives are mapped out by the heavenly bodies, eg, moon, sun and stars etc. Accordingly, it is thought that it is possible to tell our future using charts and working things out from the position of the heavenly bodies. To protect themselves from being exposed as charlatans, astrologers say that their prognostications show what tends to happen in the future not what will happen. There are actually thirteen signs scientifically speaking but astrology always assumed twelve which shows that it is an irrational superstition.
 
Astrology with its stress on what zodiac sign you are born under is akin to racism. It would advocate discrimination against a person just because of what bad traits their birth chart should have. It is totally unfair to judge people according to their birth charts. It is no better than judging people according to their skin colour. It argues that any one sign has a good match romantically with some of the other signs. But not all. Teachings like that can cause trouble and indeed do.
 
And why birth charts? The time of conception or when the embryos became those persons would make more sense. After all, your birth does not create you. It is only you emerging from your mother.
 
DEVIL
The Devil is the head of all the evil spirits. Since God does not make evil beings, the Devil was once good but became bad of his own fault. Or so the Church would have us believe.
 
We always do what we feel we like to do even when we feel we hate our action. Choosing means prefer. It means you like doing the hated action more than you hate the action. So if God had given Satan better likes he wouldn’t have sinned. It’s all God’s fault that Satan sinned. The Church will answer that Satan didn’t have to go along with the sinful attractions. But still God tempted him to sin by giving him those feelings and then punished him for doing what he inspired him to do. Yet for God to be really good he has to incapable of asking anybody to sin (James 1:13) so temptation is the chief proof that God can’t exist. It is so obviously right that all believers are blinding themselves to the truth. God gives Satan the psychic power to tempt us and this is unnecessary for we don’t have such telepathic powers. A God who won’t tempt but gets a lesser being to do it for him is worse than one that does it himself. Better one evil being than two. He is like a man that won’t shoot his wife but hands the gun to his friend to do it.
 
The Church says that God permitted Satan to be tempted because those who resist temptation are more good than those who don’t because they choose to be good after being attracted by evil. What else can they say? This not solving the problem of how an all-good God could allow temptation to happen. If temptation makes those who resist it more good then why can’t God tempt? If he can’t then temptation is always bad no matter how much good it results in. Their teaching suggests that the person who gets rid of all temptations is not as good as the good person who still has them. Yet they look forward to a Heaven where temptation is no more! They hypocritically worship a God who cannot be attracted by evil because he cannot be tempted and they contend that God is perfect good! It is all incoherent nonsense.
 
EXORCISM
Casting out demons that have taken over people so that the people will be free.
 
Jesus performed many exorcisms in the Bible which is odd for you hardly ever hear of possessions these days.
 
When demons take over they treat the victim very cruelly to the horror of the spectators. It would be better to take over and use the person to do evil things but in secret while hiding the malevolence. Demons being scary and tormenting their host would only be scaring people into the arms of God. They would be putting people off evil. No story of demonic possession then makes sense.
 
If demons don't want to be expelled from their victim they have a strange way of showing it. The exorcist comes to cast them out. They go or seem to. When the exorcism works for a while and the demon returns people reason that the person let the demon back in. They blame the person not the fact that the exorcism is a load of hocus pocus. Exorcisms look more like displays to get followers for the exorcist who is really on their side so they pretend he could and indeed has cast them out. The Jews suggested that to Jesus. He then tried to scare them into thinking that they were insulting the Spirit of God when in fact he could give no proof but speculation that they were wrong. He argued that Satan cannot put Satan out as if Satan needed to possess people. Jesus even said that whoever says Satan is doing the exorcisms that the Holy Spirit is doing would never be forgiven for their sin. Obviously what they said had got to him. He wanted to scare them into silence. He was the one insulting the Spirit.
 
HYPNOSIS
A trance state that enables you to be controlled by another person. One thing is for sure, human beings are in this state all the time. We know this for there are things people who know us can get us to do without us even realising that we are being manipulated. We can make ourselves ill if we mistakenly believe that we are ill. The human mind is so fragile and steered by emotions and forces we are unaware of that it is certain that things like religion are dangerous and irresponsible and exploitive. That is why Humanism forbids anything that is against free-thinking and self-determination.
 
It has been scientifically proven that hysteria can be easily spread in a crowd for we are conditioned by society to believe that we should do what everybody else does which is why good and bad example are so influential. Also, if people see a crime happen and are questioned separately after their accounts will be different in many ways for their memory and perception is tampered with by suggestion, a power in the subconscious that takes over.
 
IDOLATRY
Giving a created thing the honour that is due to God. For example, worshipping the moon like many pagans do. To be real worship, the worship has to be well-meant and sincere. Otherwise it is not idolatry but play-acting. You cannot really worship a thing unless it claims it is worthy of your trust and loves you.
 
The condemnations of idolatry as a sin in the Bible clearly imply that God will condemn you for worshipping anything good that is not him even if you did not mean to. Furthermore, God will probably condemn you for disobeying him by mistake as well. The condemnation of idolatry implies you will go to Hell forever for not believing the right things. Christians say that you will be punished not for your unbelief as long as your unbelief is caused by invincible ignorance that you cannot help but for your sins. This is nonsense for unbelief could only justify God leaving you to suffer for your sins if it was a sin itself. Despite all the watering down these days, Christianity is a very bigoted religion.
 
You can worship even the one true God in an idolatrous way. For example, if you care about what you are going to get out of God and not about God that is idolatry. Thus only the person who looks in her or his own heart knows if she really connects with God or God's mirror image. There is no reason to believe that many of those who claim to love God really do so even if they seem to be very good people.

KARMA
The doctrine that the evil that you send out of you comes back on you. This is totally insulting. It implies that a murdered baby deserved its fate. Some say that karma just means that whatever you do will be done to you - and it isn't about deserving. They say it is just a reaction. But nevertheless the murdered baby is being accused of being a baby murderer in a past life. You need the baby to be the defendant in a court trial to be able to say such a horrible thing and then only if its guilt is established beyond all doubt. Karma is only acceptable to people who are not as nice as they pretend to be. Buddha and co could not possibly be saints when they propounded such a concept. They did the evil they said that prevents salvation.  

REINCARNATION
The view that this life will not be the only one for me and when I die I will come back in another body. This doctrine is very dangerous. Committing suicide then does not exist - all you are doing is getting a fresh start. And it is bad when coupled with the doctrine of karma. Then it could infer that a baby that is murdered must have murdered somebody in a past life. One would need perfect evidence to justify making an accusation like that. Many women who commit late abortion or infanticide reason that if they have the baby killed it will be conceived again in the future when the time is right. They see the killing as postponing the baby!