John MacArthur Broadcast Favorably Quotes Dallas Willard – Why This is a Bad Move

John MacArthur Broadcast Favorably Quotes Dallas Willard – Why This is a Bad Move

I bumped into the classic spiritual disciplines while taking a course called “Dynamics of Christian Life” in my second year of Bible school. One of our textbooks was The Spirit of the Disciplines by Dallas Willard. The course and textbook only touched on the actual disciplines, but the concept captivated me. The following spring, I found a copy of Richard Foster’s spiritual classicCelebration of Discipline in a used bookstore. Opening it and discovering each discipline [including the contemplative] detailed chapter by chapter, I felt a profound sense of joy and excitement. I’d found a real treasure.

Later, this young man became a free lance writer for the emergent organization, Youth Specialties. Listen to where the spirituality of Dallas Willard and Richard Foster led him:

I built myself a prayer room – a tiny sanctuary in a basement closet filled with books on spiritual disciplines, contemplative prayer, and Christian mysticism. In that space I lit candles, burned incense, hung rosaries, and listened to tapes of Benedictine monks. I meditated for hours on words, images, and sounds. I reached the point of being able to achieve alpha brain patterns, the state in which dreams occur, while still awake and meditating. – “Disciplines, Mystics and the Contemplative Life” by Mike Perschon

 For those not familiar with what the “alpha brain patterns” are, here are two descriptions:

“Mystical states of consciousness happen in the alpha state … The Alpha State also occurs voluntarily during light hypnosis, meditation, biofeedback, day dreaming, hypnogogic and hypnapompic states.” Dr. Lee Warren, B.A., D.D. (source)

“Alpha is the springboard for all psychic and magical workings. It is the heart of witchcraft.”  Laurie Cabot, Power Of The Witch (p. 183)

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