Fasting and our occult times

Michael Brown's website: www.spiritdaily.com is running this important article:


SOMETHING IS IN WIND AS FASTING IS URGED AND THE OCCULT RISES DARKLY AROUND US
Something is in the wind. For weeks now, there has been a special push for fasting, a push that seems to have been spawned almost urgently by the Holy Spirit. After years in which this practice has been urged, suddenly it seems to be taking hold, or at least finding potential new adherents. We have been getting constant feedback and just this week received the proposal for a fasting novena.
We are informed that the French renewed the consecration of their country by a "Novena of Fasting and Prayer" several years ago. So too did the Belgians and Mali (Africa). Germans held their novena before Pentecost. At last report, and probably now done, Italians and Canadians were working out plans for theirs.
Very interesting, especially in that a Medjugorje newsletter recently carried such a novena!
Just Monday, we carried a story about fasting and deliverance.
The Novena in France and the other countries consisted [see here] of uninterrupted prayer for nine days, 24 hours a day, with people being signed up to offer one hour of prayer each and also to fast either from one meal or for up to one day. Medjugorje prayer groups are playing a major role in organizing the novena in some countries.
In the final ceremony, a prayer of consecration, inspired by the 1984 prayer of consecration of the world by Pope John Paul, is offered.
Now comes the latest alleged message from Medjugorje.
"Make good use of this time of grace and devote it to God more than ever up to now," was part of the July 25 message. "Do novenas of fasting and renunciation so that Satan be far from you and grace be around you."
"That grace be around us":
This means protection. This means that for some reason we need special protection. There was no denying the urgent tone. Fasting is potent against the evil one and when we look around us we can see why it is so necessary!
Evil has been institutionalized. As if by magic (a wizard's wand), the occult is now part of the mainstream.
Public libraries have sponsored events to promote Harry Potter this month as kids and librarians and public officials dressed up as witches in some misguided cities. There were parties around the world. Libraries. Bookstores. On the front pages of newspapers was the celebration of wicca.
The problem is that witchcraft is an evil religion. The Bible and Catechism are both clear on the topic. Pope Benedict has seen Potter as having the potential to "seduce" young minds and undermine Christianity.
Yet even Catholics promote it, or think that opposition to it belongs to extremists.
How far we have come! If librarians dressed up as saints, of course, they'd be fired.
But witchery is okay, and what would have been a scandal a few short years ago is now a part of our landscape. Music is filled with direct occult significance (we'll be tackling this shortly), and movies with occult themes are released by the droves. Bewitched!
"Mainstream" Catholics go for books and movies with clear pagan mythology -- as priests defend them.
Meanwhile, a website that was once a major religious stop on the internet, has sections for astrology, witchcraft, kabbalah, earth-based religions, and other dark religions -- all under the guise of openness -- while elsewhere you can now do santeria by e-mail.
"It used to be that young people rarely thought about the supernatural," notes one ministry. "In today’s Western world, they are swamped by it on a regular—even daily—basis."
Look around. The occult -- not just psychic phenomena, not just New Age, but deeper levels of the occult -- have sprung up around you.
No wonder the need for fasting. Even satanists are defended in our modern culture (allowed to perform their rituals in the military and in our prisons)."Teenagers and pre-adolescents watch cartoons, videotapes, and prime time TV shows which contain powerful paranormal and black magic themes," noted the Christian website. "Many listen to raucous music emphasizing occult subject matter. They play video games such as Diablo ii, a Dungeons and Dragons-like computer game, where players battle a demon to save the world and in which elements of magic and witchcraft are an integral part of the action."
Nor is occult the only way that we have seen evil institutionalized. It is okay now for major politicians to be interviewed by shock jocks and it is okay for major supermarket chains to have lust on the cover at the counter and it is not only okay but required that commercials be vulgar. TV comedians prevail with what were once taboo jokes and an x-rated star is allowed at a major Republican fund-raiser.
Then there are the tattoos. Talk about our landscape! They are everywhere, and while most who have them are simply following a trend, there can be occult implications.
Skulls? Devils?
"Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the Lord," says Leviticus 19:28 -- if the Bible is any longer relevant.
The offensive practice of body piercing (rings through the lip, through the nostrils, through the tongue) is direct mutilation, and mutilation too has its roots in the occult. To pierce the body was thought by ancients to invite in spirits.
Tongue piercing was practiced in a ritual form by the ancient Aztecs, Mayas of Central America, and the Haida, Kwakiutul, and Tlinglit tribes of the American Northwest. The tongue was pierced to draw blood to propitiate the gods and to create an altered state of consciousness so that the priest or shaman could communicate with the gods.
Writes a former Hindu about a visit to a chat room: "One of the believers there was telling them it was wrong for Christians to have tattoos. Since I was formerly a Hindu, I know tattoo is from Hinduism and also witchcraft. Also, Hindus pierce their tongue with small spears and prick the entire body with little hooks and go in trances. I have witnessed this personally."
So this too is part of the occult scene. It is no coincidence that we find tattoo and body-piercing shops in red-light districts or next to the shops where they do psychic "readings" (often in drug-drenched neighborhoods). As for psychics, they advertise on television. Whether or not the "mainstream" believes it, these are all things that can cause the proliferation and attachment of evil spirits.
So it is a time for fasting! We certainly urge it. Christ told us that some demons respond only to this manner of sacrifice. With it we can protect our families and come against the present growing darkness.
[resources: Freed and Healed Through Fasting, Spiritual Warfare Prayer, Novena of Fasting, and Special exorcism prayer]
[see also: Medjugorje message urges fasting and renunciation to ward off Satan]
[As for other forms of protection: "I'm a theoretical physicist (never went to church) until Mary got her hands on me through Medjugorje in 1996," writes viewer Armond Nirdlinger. "I like to say the rosary at night on a quiet dead end street about two blocks long near down town Sebastopol, California. We are on a well for our water. Since it is hard we use those forty-pound bags of coarse salt. I got the idea of having a bag of it blessed and I sprinkled a loop down one side of the street and up the other. Now I say my prayers enclosed in a fence of demon-repelling prayers. On dark nights it helps eliminate nervous distracting thoughts. I thought some of your readers might find it useful. The bags only cost around $4. You can put a wall around your house." In special times we need special action.]
Novena of Fasting and Prayers
Prayer of Consecration
In union with all mankind, in communion with the entire Church, and with our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, we address to you O Father, this supplication especially for our country, through the heart and the hands of the Virgin Mary.
Father, send your Holy Spirit, so that each one of us might become an instrument of your peace,From hunger and war, deliver us! From nuclear war, from incalculable self destruction, from every kind of war, deliver us!From the sins against the life of man from its very beginning, deliver us! From discouragement, from hatred and from the degradation of the dignity of the children of God, deliver us! From every kind of injustice in the life of society, both national and international, deliver us! From the readiness to trample on the Commandments of God, deliver us! From the attempt to extinguish the very truth of God in human hearts, deliver us! From the loss of consciousness of good and evil, deliver us! From the sins against the Holy Spirit, deliver us!
Mother of Christ and Mother of all peoples, we ask for your protection and your intercession. Pray to your Son for us, to send the Holy Spirit in abundance, the Spirit of Truth who is the source of Life. Welcome the Spirit for us and with us as you did on the feast of Pentecost with the first disciples. Mother you know and share our sufferings and hopes.
Today we entrust the whole world to you. We pray for you to accompany us on our path. Like John the apostle, we wish to accept you into our homes, to learn from you how to resemble Jesus. We entrust all our people to you, starting with those who are the weakest and who suffer the most: the unborn children, those whose life is menaced, those born in poverty, the young people searching for a sense to their life, the refugees, the unemployed, those tried by sickness, the families who are divided, elderly persons deprived of assistance and all those who are alone and without hope.
May the infinite saving power of Redemption rise up once more in the history of the world, the power of the Merciful Love of the Father! May the Holy Spirit transform consciences! May He heal our memories and purify our hearts. May the Lord always reign among us, He who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
AMEN.


I couldn't agree more with what Michael Brown is saying. Fasting is absolutely critical to overcome the Evil One in this present hour. Now is also the time for Christians to work together and to refrain from bitter rivalries and jealousies and other forms of infighting.

John Ansley
frappe19751975@yahoo.com