Thursday, June 9, 2022

Prayer and Fasting

Mark 9: 28 And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him out? 29 And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.

Many manuscripts to not include the “and fasting” part.  But given the subject of this post and our current situation, I think it is better to be safe than sorry.  You will get my meaning shortly.

The Status of the Globalist Agenda Has Been Escalated from "Confused" to "Chaotic", by Andrew Anglin

Everyone wants to talk about how the World Economic Forum is running a conspiracy to make everyone poor, and how inflation fits into this. This is all obvious. They are clearly doing this on purpose in order to make everyone poor.

I agree.  Everyone will be poor except the handful of those who are making the rest of us poor.

However – this simply does not make any sense within the context of remaining international competition. Why would you want to completely destroy your country’s economic power while you are still trying to fight wars against Russia and China?

And in this, you get a sense of the rest of his piece: why are those who want to make everyone poor destroying the one country that a) has shown complete willingness to be for this agenda, and b) is the country most capable in executing a global vision via global power?  On a rational basis, it really is unexplainable.

Is there anyone reading this who believes that the United States isn’t purposely being destroyed?  I really don’t want to spend words writing out a list.

Now, one can argue that both China and Russia are in on this game as well.  I don’t think so.  Regarding Russia, any moves post-Soviet Russia made toward the West were rebuffed.  Any possibility of rapprochement is clearly gone at this point.

As for China…people who believe that they are the oldest and most sophisticated culture on earth are going to submit themselves to [fill in your favorite global leader, ethnic group, whatever] voluntarily?  No chance.  A much better chance is that China is pulling a Sun-Tzu move on the West, knowing that the West is in more trouble than China is.

The Great War has been labeled the suicide of the West by Jacques Barzun.  That strikes me as right – and given the breadth and depth of Barzun’s knowledge, I really wouldn’t want to argue with him anyway.

But a culture as deep and strong as Western culture doesn’t die quickly – even if the wounds are all self-inflicted.  But…but…but…this doesn’t explain why western leaders are acting in every way conceivable to accelerate the process.

Sure, they have seen over the last several years (Brexit, Trump, various conservative-right movements in Europe) that many of the citizens are waking up, deciding that they don’t want to go along on this accelerated ride to death.  So, perhaps those who are driving the car off of the cliff believe they must get to the ledge quicker.

But…what is motivating them.  Why such…what’s the word?  Evil.  Demonic, Satanic, evil?  I have been writing in such terms for some time.  I am certain I am not the first (certainly someone will post quotes from Chesterton, Belloc, and Lewis in the comments below, demonstrating their awareness many decades ago of where this train was headed). 

But many are now catching on regarding the only way to describe our current situation:

Dear Friends, Sorry to Announce a Genocide, by Dr. Naomi Wolf

·         I must conclude that we are looking into an abyss of evil not seen since 1945. 

·         It is a time of ha-SatanSatan — “going to and fro in the earth…”

·         It is a time of demons sauntering around in human spaces, though they look human enough themselves, smug in their Italian suits on panels at the World Economic Forum. 

·         …and that to this day Pfizer, the FDA and other demonic “public health” entities…

Why Is Everything Broken?, by Edward Curtin

·         Many can feel it rumbling beneath the surface of world events. It’s a rumbling in the bowels. It’s unspoken. It’s something very dark, sinister, and satanic. 

·         It seems to be a form of systemic evil almost with a will of its own that is sweeping the world.

·         …we are in the grip of evil forces so depraved that fiction writers couldn’t imagine such reality.

·         These documents reveal evil so depraved that words would fail her if not for her moral conscience and her growing awareness – that I share – that we are dealing with a phenomenon that demands an analysis that is theological, not sociological. 

·         This, while they assume the mantle of the evil one. 

·         …the grasp the demonic has on our world today. 

·         I think it would be a serious mistake to dismiss the demonic nature of the forces at work in our world today. 

·         …our world is in satanic hands… 

Whose Footsteps Are We Following?, by Dr. Igor Shepherd

·         …are part of the evil plan to depopulate and mass murder the Western populations.

In the last couple of weeks, I have seen a dozen or more such pieces.  Read the essays and you will find that the authors are clearly speaking of evil in the very real, Christian sense.

Ephesians 6: 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

I think I should just include this verse in every post I write….

Do we think these principalities and powers are merely floating in the aether?  Or are they working through real human beings, here on earth, walking among us?  I am quite certain it is the latter.

The Apostle Paul offers as defense against these principalities and powers the full armor of God.  Among many other weapons of war, this armor does include prayer.

But it doesn’t include fasting.  And given the battle we are in, perhaps we should take the words of Jesus – that some demons are so powerful, that only prayer and fasting will suffice.  This is what I mean, when I said it is better to be safe than sorry and include the “fasting” part, even though it isn’t in all manuscripts.

Conclusion

I was raised in a tradition that offered prayer – as every Christian tradition / denomination does (although I don’t pray enough).  But I didn’t grow up with the concept of fasting, or of giving anything up for Lent, etc.  I have never even done a juice cleanse….

But, perhaps, it is time to heed Jesus’s words.

21 comments:

  1. Got the Abolition of man. Never heard the terms Trowserd Ape or Urban Blockhead. at first thought it seemed arrogant to me. but after getting over the initial shock saw, he is talking about me ! dang,

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    1. The term trousered ape is from Nietzsche.... I'm convinced Lewis knew about his demonic philosophy, as he mentions Nietzsche in Abolition. For the record, I've read almost all of Nietzsche. I'm using the term demonic literally.

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    2. Would you include Jung in the category?

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  2. There's no other way to say it. You're right!

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  3. Bionic, you can fast from other things besides food. Just an fyi. The key if you look at Biblical fasting is that you remove one thing from your life for a time and replace it with prayer and meditation on Biblical truth.

    We do this at least yearly at my super low liturgy non-denominational church. I don't always do it well. But I never regret doing it.

    On Natural Law:
    https://thecrosssectionrmb.blogspot.com/

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    1. I did a half-fast (better to type these words than say them out loud) yesterday. My hunger was a constant reminder of the situation of our world and the need to pray.

      I agree, other things may be substituted. But a few steps into hunger make for an acute reminder!

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    2. Ha ha. Yeah. Hunger can get you real fast.

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  4. It struck me that, if some of the more dire predictions come to pass, fasting may become a way of life for many of us. If so, best to thank God for it and use it as the spiritual weapon He intended.

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  5. Hello Bionic, we think alike. I think you would appreciate my work. I was on lew rockwell a couple times: https://thaddeuskozinski.substack.com/p/the-will-to-truth?s=w

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    1. Very good post. I have read you at LRC as well.

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  6. I believe that I have come to a brick wall in trying to understand the behavior of our leaders in purely philosophical or praxeological terms . My wife and I agree that something inhuman is playing its hand: for her, the extraterrestrials, for me, as Lewis's Screwtape puts it, "Our Father Below." Not that I discount the ET explanation entirely, but reports about the alleged behavior of these "visitors" suggests that CS Lewis and Seraphim Rose are correct in viewing them as demonic. As Yeats put it, "The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity......And what rough beast, its hour come around at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"

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    1. "I believe that I have come to a brick wall in trying to understand the behavior of our leaders in purely philosophical or praxeological terms."

      I agree. In the famous words of Spock: When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

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  7. You mention Lewis and Chesterton and I agree. Chesterton's Ball and the Cross is, in my opinion, his best novel and deals with the demonic at work in the modern world. Lewis's Space Trilogy is, of course, on the same subject. I believe it was Aristotle who first said there is more truth in 'poetry', i.e., literature, than in history. These works show just how much he was correct.

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  8. The sociopaths are always with us. The problems really begin when the masses become trousered apes and believe the lies of the demonic conditioners. At that point, the proles become capable of any evil without even realizing that it is evil.

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  9. Brother, you must suffer.

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  10. I've offered some thoughts on these exortions to individual piety here.

    https://orthosphere.wordpress.com/2022/04/22/please-sir-i-want-some-more-acedia-and-short-rations-under-an-iron-dome/

    We have been told for millenia that the cure for what ails us is individual Christian praxis. But the Empire which shaped this praxis and without which modern Christianity would not exist was a ruthless, world-gobbling military and political force. Christians did not shirk from the State; they became the State, driving the pagans out before them.

    Now, Christians must realize how those devout pagans must have felt, watching the One God and His fanatical adherents drive out their Many Gods.

    Now, the No-God drives out the One God. I don't think retreating into the catacombs to pore over Scripture and fast and pray is going to do anything for us, though it certainly has its place.

    The Left is not going to be won over by individual piety; everybody knows where to find us and they can just go online and find all the Christian orthodoxy they want. The Left won't stop until someone punches them in the mouth.

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  11. P.S. I am AntiGnostic. I think Google is trying to unperson me and I'm unable to comment under my profile.

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  12. If you really want to learn how to fast in a manner acceptable to The Lord I would suggest starting at Isaiah 58......

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  13. I highly recommend this book: “God’s Chosen Fast” by Arthur Wallis

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    1. Thank you for the book recommendation. I found a pdf online https://storage.snappages.site/Z8JFWQ/assets/files/Gods-Chosen-Fast-Arthur-Wallis.pdf .

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