DAY 27: WHAT ARE THE PARALLELS BETWEEN HINDUISM AND CHARISMATICS IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH? Hinduism has a core practice called Upanishads, which involves “mystical interpretations.” But a world where everyone supplies their own unique interpretations allows anyone to claim anything, like: “Well, I think that message means we must focus energy around the thing-a-ma-deal of humanity’s thing-a-ma-jig, as it relates to post-existential thought.” Though that made no sense, as a card-carrying member of the higher priestly class, this speaker recites his or her lofty oratory while wearing a fancy robe, acting deeply ethereal, and looking down on the audience of worshipers who are lucky to hear from this enlightened individual who can supply hidden meanings to the “lowly dumb dumbs.” That’s the whole system of religiosity that gets convoluted to the point where, supposedly, only certain people can let us-; know what our beliefs and practices need to be. Unfortunately, we have some Church leaders today who do the same thing. As detailed extensively in our Charismatic Chaos study, a sect of Christianity called the hyper-charismatics claim that we don't have the ability to read the Bible for ourselves; instead, we must attend certain schools across America to learn how to be true prophets of God. That way we can use spiritual techniques to have a “spiritual encounter” with “God.” But this is actually the same as Hindu teaching that puts people into an altered state of consciousness, so they can get in contact with spirits—that are not God. Still, hyper-charismatics tell us it’s the way to learn the “deeper meaning” behind the Bible. Unfortunately, that is rampant all over the Church today, but it’s just a trick to dupe people into getting away from the truth God already supplied in the Bible. God made Scripture so that anyone can simply read it for themselves.