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Sermons Series 3:52, 26 August 2006
The Third Wave
Part 6: Psychiatry and a Right View of Reality
Main Themes:
Minor Themes:
Click here for Part 5
One of the biggest surprises I ever had when preaching, took place about 15 years ago when I visited the Ukraine. I was preaching in the Town Hall of L'viv in Western Ukraine and delivered a sermon on my life story and coming to the Messiah. I tried to approach my task from a scientific angle, much as Paul used a philosophical approach when he preached in Athens (Ac.17), in order to meet my audience where I supposed they were. As it happens, the sermon was correctly structured. However, nothing could have prepared me for the questions that were asked after I had finished preaching because they were totally unlike the questions one might expect from a Western audience. Without going into details or giving you examples - because that would be a sermon in itself - what I discovered was that these former citizens of the Soviet Union who had lived under communism for nearly 70 years had a totally different world view and concept of reality to those in the West. They had no concept of spirituality at all because this had been totally erased from the public mind. The nearest encounter with the non-physical they had had was parapsychology. They were interested in psychokinesis - or 'mind over matter' - because the Soviets had considered a possible military application for it.
Those were the days when Uri Geller was supposedly bending spoons by the power of the mind. This was also the time when in my own home city of Oxford, Celia Green and Charles McCreery were examining psychic phenomena such as out-of-body experiences, lucid dreams, extrasensory perception and psychokinesis, but from a purely scientific perspective. Their Institute of Psychophysical Research was just a few blocks away from where I lived. I bought all their books back in 1976. Their research was one of the many stepping stones in my own voyage of spiritual discovery and awareness of the non-material world beyond our normal perception.
The questions asked by my Ukrainian audience made me realise just how deeply human philosophy shapes our perception of reality. These people wanted me to explain Christianity on an atomic level! They wanted to understand God as a function of atomic forces and molecular bonds. For them the greatest reality was the physical world because this is all they had been taught. And though churches existed in communist Russia, unless they were controlled by the communist apparatus (whilst underground churches like the Baptists kept spirituality alive). Today Orthodox Christianity has resurged in Russia and Ukraine and sought to reimpose the old perception of 'reality' that existed before the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 on the public consciousness. And even though Western ideas and morality has come pouring into the East to corrupt it even more, as I warned my audience back in 1992 that it would, the East still perceived reality very differently from the West. And then if you go south to the Middle East and into the Islamic world, you find a totally different world view. The West's inability or unwillingness to understand Islamic 'reality' has already cost it dearly as it tries, in bafflement, to make sense of an alien culture whilst staring through its own philosophical lenses, a culture hell-bent on a war of extermination.
I consider myself blessed to have been born and raised in the Far East in a multicultural, multiethnic and multi-religious environment. It made me curious about the way people think and perceive the world around them. Like everybody alive, I was shaped by my environment and education. I was taught to 'see' through Western lenses. But my conversion to Christianity brought me into conflict with this Western world view the more I tried to understand the classical Hebrew mind-frame through which the oracles of Yahweh were revealed. It made me realise two things, I think. Firstly, if Yahweh chose to reveal Himself through a cultural mindset which He Himself formed, then it became critical for me to understand that mindframe and start operating out of it to some extent. Secondly, it soon became apparent in looking at the history of the Patriarchs, and then of Israel itself, that Yahweh's revelation is not static: whilst the truths He revealed remain unalterable, this does not mean that He intended the original Hebrew culture to remain static too. He has constantly been revealing Himself to mankind and is not finished yet: indeed, we see that He has revealed Himself progressively. Sometimes His followers have stepped backwards and what was lost has needed recovering, but this has never meant that all we should do is recover what was lost and stop. There is yet a fuller revelation which is to be given as we are willing to adjust ourselves to His reality. And as I have pointing out to you, since the time of the Sinai Covenant, there have been three major progressions with accompanying anointings: the Passover reality (under Moses), the Pentecostal reality (at the time of the apostles) and now in our time, the emerging Tabernacles reality. As viewed in temple symbolism, this has meant spiritually a progressive movement in three stages from the outer court, to the Holy Place, and finally to the Holy of Holies.
As we read through the Old Testament each year we immerse ourselves in a mindset and world view that to all intents and purposes is extinct. Messianics are attempting to revive it, for good and evil. We need to look back and build on a foundation of Passover but we cannot remain there. Yahweh does not want us to recreate 'Israel' of old any more than He wants us to recreate the New Testament 'Church', neither of which are possible even though for a good many years this is exactly what we were trying to do. In our early days we called ourselves 'Restorationists' because we believed we were 'restoring' New Testament Christianity like so many groups have done in the past and are still trying to do today. But you can't do that. Spirituality and religion are a complex interaction of geography, environment, politics, world view, knowledge, personal encounters with Yahweh, and so on. To recreate the 'New Testament Church' you would need to recreate the Roman Empire, the surrounding paganism of the times, the lack of technology - everything that constituted that environment. And you can never do that. Movies may help us recreate that in part, but it's still speculation and the actors are Westerners like us and carry the 'spirit' of the times in them. It would be hard enough recreating the 1960's today in the year 2006 - things have changed so much. People's world view has changed. People 'see' reality differently.
As human beings we seek comfort and familiarity. Talk to people my age and you will find most of them are yearning for the 1960's or 1970's because that is when they were young and most alive. My mother, who is in her 90's, only the other day received an invitation to take part in an event in which, according to the brochure, they would recreate the atmosphere of the 1920's and 1930's, which was the time she felt most alive. Back when she was a young woman, the middle-aged people were hankering back to the 'good old days' of the 1890's. Just go and meet with people from all age groups today and try to figure out what it is they are trying to 'connect' to and you will find it is usually to the time when they were young. To those in their teens and twenties, the 1960's seem like ancient history and quite incomprehensible. They cannot understand the nostalgia the middle-aged feel for these times. And so you find that society 'connects' differently depending how old its individual members are.
Do you see what I am trying to get at here? We are what we connect to. We're like travellers uneasily moving forward into an ever increasingly uncertain and unfamiliar world wondering what the 'new reality' is going to be like, wondering what is happening to our morals, our values and our ethics. The people who are the 'most comfortable' are the youth, and so it is that society is shaped around them and by them. In 30 years time, if we're still here, today's youth will look back to the comparative 'safety' of this, the first decade of the 21st century as they look around at what will then be legalised pedophilia, compulsory euthanasia for old people and voluntary (and not voluntary) human sacrifice, and will wonder what on earth is going on. And they will probably protest as little as people do today because they have been trained, just like we have, to be good lapdogs of that fictitious entity called the 'state', run as it by a small religious cabal. Does that sound far-fetched? It's going to happen. We're heading for a global Satanist 'reality' and we've been heading that way for a long time now. But by then it will be too late to say: "Oh no! We went too far! We should have stopped at 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010 or 2020 before things got this bad!" Each old generation looks at horror at what has happened since they were young. Today's lawless youth will do the same in 30 years' time. They will offer excuses just as the old generation today does, as though their world was paradise. The responsibility for failure belongs to all age groups.
We can't go back 2,000 years to the Middle East and Europe of the Apostles. We can't go back to the days of the Patriarchs. We can pretend that we can, we can try to recreate the impossible, but the truth is we are stuck here in 2006. We have to deal both with the reality around us as well as the illusions that people believe in. We have to understand how the human mind got shaped the way it did and why, even with Bible in hand, we still often get it all wrong. You can't put new wine into an old wineskins (Mt.9:17; Mk.2:22; Lk.5:37-38). You can't add the Gospel to 21st century culture, whatever form it may come in - Western, Eastern or Middle Eastern - you can't mix it and then hope to get a delicious cocktail. You can't do it! It's like mixing ice-cream with hot curry. All you end up with is syncretism with false ways and modes.
Our whole way of thinking today has been shaped by a religious minority who have captured the institutes of learning, the government, the psychiatric profession, and the media, and are forcing their minority views through systematic brainwashing. This religious minority schools our children and trains our professionals at university. They teach us how to think, feel and behave. Sometimes they do it violently, sometimes by persuasion and usually by deception or ignorance. They use a system of logic which rests on certain religious assumptions which are rarely, if ever, challenged, because if they were, the whole of society would be forced to undergo a radical paradigm-shift in thinking. If you're wondering who the religious minority are I am speaking of secular humanists.
My task today is a difficult one. I need to explain to you a mode of thinking that is a complex array of different philosophical systems all united in one common belief - namely, that there is no God, and that we as people, along with our morals, ethics and perceptions have no ultimate purpose and are in a constant state of evolution. Because we are deliverance ministers dealing with phenomena that both humanists and their liberal Christian allies deny exist, we have to contrast two separate world views and show which is reality and which is fantasy. This is, moreover, something one could write a book on, so I face the difficult task of condensing this out into one short sermon. As such, then, I will have to do a great deal of summarising. Since reality is perceived by humans and therefore interpreted by us, we of necessity must understand how humans work and how it is we can often get off the beaten track and into the abstract instead of dealing with what we know. Since nearly all of my sermons deal with Yahweh's view of us - and we know that principally through the Bible - what I want to do today is look at people through the eyes of the psychiatrists and see how this view of people sharply contrasts with human experience. To do that, we will look at Sigmund Freud whose views created modern psychiatry and then compare these with a more Bible-honouring consistent view of the human psyche known as 'Reality Therapy'. I think you will see, as we look at the two, how in the process of a century people have become progressively dehumanised by an artificial mental construction.
In a letter to Wilhelm Fließ in 1895, Sigmund Freud wrote this: "A man like me cannot live without a hobbyhorse, a consuming passion - in Schiller's words, a tyrant. I have found my tyrant, and in his service I know no limits. My tyrant is psychology." Freud was the man who invented the 'talking-out-your-problems' form of therapy. While the patient talked, the psychiatrist listened. He began life as an ordinary physician and neurologist and this evolved into an interest in psychological investigation. As Calvin S. Hall, a biographer of Freud, put it, "the room in which he treated his patients became his laboratory, the couch his only piece of equipment, and the ramblings of his patients his scientific data" (A Primer of Freudian Psychology, Mentor, 1954, p.15). Needing a point of reference, what did Freud do? He made an intensive self-analysis of his own mind, and in particular the unconscious forces operating therein, "in order to check on the material supplied by his patients" (Ibid.). In other words, his reference manual and 'control' was himself. "By analysing his dreams and saying to himself whatever came into his mind, he was able to see the workings of his own inner dynamics. On the basis of the knowledge gained from his patients and from himself he began to lay the foundation of the theory of personality" (Ibid.). Freud himself said: "My life has been aimed at one goal only; to infer or to guess how the mental apparatus is constructed and what forces interplay and counteract it" (Ibid.).
Before I became a Christian I was also fascinated by the mind and in particular by dreams. I used to keep a detailed journal of my dreams and daily interpreted them. I borrowed a lot from secular psychologists like Tom Chetwynd who was influenced by Freud, Jung, Adler, Stekel and Gutheil amongst others. The result was a dead-end that involved circular reasoning and resulted in the nature of the dream state itself being changed. It has been noted that Freudian patients ended up having Freudian-type dreams, Jungian patients ended up having Jungian-type dreams, and so on. In other words, the patients started resembling their psychologists by a process of mental osmosis. What happened, was that the psychologists became father-figures to whom the patients 'opened' and became conditioned by. They formed soul-ties with their analysts and ended up being 'raised' by them as their 'children'. The analysts' beliefs became the patients' beliefs, the analysts' world view became the patients' world view.
Freudian psychology is not so much a science of the mind as the science of Freud's mind. Freud analysed himself on the basis of the first thing that came into his head, the assumption being that it was himself because there was no provision in Freud's world view for supernatural entities, whether divine or demonic, let alone telepathic contact with other humans. He also made the assumption that his own mind was 'normal', along with his sexuality. By the time the First World War was over, Freud was known to millions of people around the world, and psychoanalysis had become the rage. It was considered fashionable to be psychoanalysed and to use such words as 'subconscious', 'repressed urges', 'inhibitions', 'complexes' and 'fixations' in ordinary conversation. But really most of the popular interest in psychoanalysis was due to its association with sex and the liberal, anti-religious swing following the butchery of the world war fought between Christian nations in the name of 'God'. As a result, psychiatry became the first modern secular religion and the darling of communists. Coupled with evolution and socialism, psychiatry became the new post-Christian spiritual paradigm.
Psychiatry views human beings as merely animals who can be trained. It consequently uses methods, including hypnosis, that are merely a subtle form of brainwashing. Psychiatry has become little more than a 'respectable cult'. With only himself as ultimate reference, and as he changed himself, so did Freud's views change. By the time he was 70 he completely revised his fundamental views. He revamped his theory of motivation, completely reversed his theory of anxiety, and created a new model of personality around such inventions as the 'id', the 'ego' and the 'superego'. Words like 'ego' have come a part of our common vocabulary, so shaped have we become by his ideas, and we never pause to ask what they may mean or where they come from, or what they might actually mean or to what world view they may belong.
One can only guess how much Freud would have revised his theories if he had lived another 70 years. He regarded himself, like all atheists, as a 'free thinker' and I am sure would have agreed with Karl Marx's protégé, Bukharin, who was not only a Marxist but also a Satanist, who said: "Satan is the first free thinker and saviour of the world. He frees Adam and impresses the seal of humanity and liberty on his forehead, by making him disobedient". What communism was for society as a whole, Freudian psychiatry was for the individual. Neither Marxism nor Freudian psychiatry are based on reality but on human vanity mixed in with the Talmudic world view in which these two men were raised, for both were, as you know, Talmudic Jews by upbringing (Marx came from a long line of Rabbis). By mixing these with subjective observations of the human rambling of neurotic patients (Freud) and fabricated history (Marx), they invented a 'New Eden' based on satanic reasoning and rejected the true Eden created by Yahweh. At some level, both Marx and Freud were almost certainly Illuminists.
So much for the history. Now let's now look at the nitty-gritty of modern psychotherapy and the assumptions on which your modern 'orthodox' psychiatrist bases his world view. All modern secular psychiatry basically embodies six principles:
- 1. It believes that 'mental illness' exists, that people who suffer from it can be meaningfully classified, and that attempts should be made to treat them according to the diagnostic classification.
- 2. It believes that an essential part of treatment is probing into the patient's past life, searching for the psychological roots of his problem because only when the patient clearly understands these roots can he use his understanding to change his attitude toward life. From this change in attitude he can then develop more effective patterns of living which will solve his psychological difficulties.
- 3. It maintains that the patient must transfer to the therapist attitudes he held, or still upholds towards important people in his past life, people around whom his problems started. Using this concept, called transference, the therapist relives with the patient his past difficulties and then explains to him how he is repeating the same inadequate behaviour with the therapist. The patient, through the therapist's interpretations of the transference behaviour, gains insight into his past. His newly attained insight allows him to give up his old attitudes and to learn to relate to people in a better way, solving his problems.
- 4. It emphasises that if the patient is to change, he must gain understanding and insight into his unconscious mind. Unconscious mental conflicts are considered more important than conscious problems; making the patient aware of them through the interpretation of transference, dreams, and free associations, and through educated psychiatric guessing, is necessary if therapy is to succeed.
- 5. It scrupulously avoids the problem of morality, whether the patient's behaviour is right or wrong. Deviant behaviour is considered a product of the 'mental illness', and the patient should not be held morally responsible because he is considered helpless to do anything about it. Once the 'illness' is cured through the procedures describes in #2-4, the patient will then be able to behave according to the rules of society.
- 6. Finally, teaching people to behave better is not considered an important part of therapy in conventional psychiatry, which holds the patients will learn better behaviour themselves once they understand both the historical and unconscious sources of their problems. (Adapted from William Glasser, M.D., Reality Therapy: A New Approach to Psychiatry, Perennial Library, 1975, pp.51-52).
Now I am sure a lot of thoughts have been going through your mind as I have gone through these six principles of conventional psychotherapy. From a Christian point of view, any system that is not based on morality, personal responsibility, and an acknowledgement of a universal reality is already fundamentally flawed and potentially injurious. Let's look at each of these psychiatric premises, which have their roots in Freudianism:
1. 'Mental Illness'. The word 'illness' means 'a disease or indisposition' or 'a state of ill health'. If I have a physical illness like a cold, it starts with an infection by a foreign body which leads to various symptoms such a headache, blocked nose, sore throat, fever, and so on. The patient goes through a process of healing over a period of time in which the symptoms diminish until they are all gone. This is usually marked by the progressive destruction of the bacteria causing the illness by the immune system until they have been eliminated from the body. Even with illness which involve infections, such as a broken bone, there is a process of repair. In the healing process, the whole body system is involved and includes mental attitude, mood, nutrition, adequate warmth, and so on.
But is the same true of the mind? Is it correct to call someone 'mentally ill'? As I have mentioned in a recent sermon, the communists diagnose people who reject communism as 'mentally ill' and put them in psychiatric institutions. And according to the 5th principle of modern psychiatry, the purpose of psychiatric treatment is to cause the patients to behave according to the rules of society. This means that if I disagree with any contemporary rule of society I could be classified as 'mentally ill'. This means that had a person been a Social Democrat in Nazi Germany he would have been deemed 'mentally ill', just as neo-nazis today are regarded as 'mentally ill' in the modern liberal Germany. In other words, any view which violates the rules of society at any one point in time can, by this logic, constitute 'mental illness'. Perhaps that is why in 2003 here in Sweden an 18 year-old young man was put into a mental institute because he converted from atheism to Christianity 1. His mother believed he was 'mentally ill' because of the change in her son's personality to something she was not familiar with (the new birth tends to transform the heart). The state supported her. A court case eventually vindicated the young man. But my question is: how could such a state of affairs exist? It exists, I contend, because of the delusional thinking of atheism with its lack of absolutes. Truth and 'mental illness' then become relative things. Soviet communism certainly regarded religion as 'mental illness' and treated religious people accordingly. If they didn't shoot or imprison them, they institutionalised them.
I do not accept the concept of 'mental illness' as defined by modern secular psychiatry and neither do many psychiatrists like Dr. William Glasser who invented Reality Therapy. When a secular psychiatrist says that a mentally ill person has no responsibility for his behaviour, then I have to say that is nonsense, because I believe absolutely in the power of choice. Do I believe there is such a thing as 'mental illness'? Of course I do. The issue, though, is what 'normality' is and how to define it. To a humanist, being an atheist is 'normal'. To a Muslim suicide bomber, blowing up infidels is 'normal'. Everybody believes that their way of life and philosophical system is 'normal' and secretly thinks everyone else is 'abnormal'. And though they wouldn't dare say it, because it is politically incorrect, they believe those who are 'abnormal' are 'mentally ill'. Society has invented a political language of denial in which we are taught to say one thing and mean another. People speak with 'forked tongues'. Ours has become a society of deceit. To me, that is 'abnormal' and a clear symptom of 'mental illness'. Modern society and its institutions are not well.
I believe that the moment we believe lies, we get infected in our feeling and thinking processes. We get infected not with bacteria, viruses or parasites, but with demons. Now atheists of course think that is ludicrous because they want to see, dissect and classify a demon on the laboratory table before they'll believe in one. And if people say they have seen them, they are accused of being delusional. And yet not so very long ago a doctor called Ignaz Semmelweiss who claimed that washing hands prevents infection, was laughed down the medical profession because they couldn't see his bugs. Like Sigmund Freud, he lived and worked in Vienna. Yet he was right. Washing hands does prevent infection, just like washing our hearts and minds in the blood of Messiah prevents demonisation. Semmelweiss was, of course, subsequently vindicated. I am sure if modern psychiatry had been around in the mid 1800's that Dr. Semmelweiss would have been regarded as 'mentally ill' by its proponents.
What, then, is genuine 'mental illness'? I will answer that in two ways. Firstly, in a society where people have different beliefs, we have to find common ground. We can all of us, no matter what we believe, say that the sun in the sky is not a burning baked potato but a giant ball of hydrogen gas undergoing violent combustion. Anyone who claims it is a baked potato, or that the moon is made of cheese, could logically be labelled as 'mentally ill' because we can prove what these objects are made of. We can all be agreed about such things. If two people come along and say they are Napoleon, who died long ago, we can say they are both mentally ill even if they both believe in reincarnation because logically only one person could be Napoleon (since reincarnation is a logical explanation for one person being Napoleon, even if the doctrine is not actually true). So there are certain realities we can all be agreed on. So no matter who we are, or what we believe, we can all be agreed about certain things because we have the scientific method with which to make such investigative proofs.
There are, however, other things we can't prove using this method in such a way that everyone can believe the same thing. Muslims believe in Jhinns, Scientologists in Thetans, Christians in God, angels and demons, evolutionists in the power of dead matter to organise itself over billions of years into human beings who build computers, communists who think communism is the only sane form of thinking, and so forth. We will never all be agreed about these things, so from a collective point-of-view it is rather obvious that we must agree to disagree about what cannot absolutely be proved one way or another. And certainly it would be hypocritical, politically-speaking, to accuse those who disagree with us of being 'mentally ill'. We can therefore, if we are honest (and that's the catch - not everyone is honest), be agreed about certain things and let other matters alone.
From the Christian point-of-view, there is only one reality, and that is the reality as defined by the Creator, Yahweh-Elohim. Obviously we are forced to believe that everything else is fantasy and delusional. All counter-realities could therefore be labelled as 'mental illness'. So if a Scientologist wants to believe he has Thetans living in his head, then I will unapologetically say he is delusional but I won't put him in a mental hospital. Neither will I put evolutionists in psychiatric institution for believing the fairy tale that everything in the universe built itself and that life was made by rocks. I certainly believe he's delusional and illogical and could be classified as 'mentally ill' but I won't do that because I think the term 'mental illness' is unhelpful. (Besides I was an evolutionist once - evolutionists think I got mentally ill but others think I am now sane. We just have to live and let live).
Now I have spent a lot of time on this first principle of secular psychiatry because I think its important, and I believe the other five flow out from it. It is also popular these days to blame genes because in this way we can absolve ourselves of personal responsibility for the choices we make in our life. I ultimately reject all the humanist labels like 'schizophrenia', 'homosexuality', 'heterosexuality', 'Attention Deficit Disorder' (ADD), and so on, because I don't believe we are victims of the way we are but have choice. I only use these labels because they are a part of our language of communication, and suggest certain conditions or states of being. I believe, because I have seen it so many times, that we behave, think and feel the way we do with all the 'alternative realities' people experience because we choose to believe certain things, particularly as adults. I therefore reject the first principle of secular psychiatry which states that a 'mentally ill' person (whatever that is - and who's to decide?) has no responsibility for his unconscious behaviour. I also think it is psychologically destructive to label people as 'mentally ill' because it creates a stigma and makes them think they are 'mental lepers' and 'inferior' others. They're not. They're all of equal worth. If the truth be known, most people are probably 'mentally ill' to one degree of another ... depending how connected to reality they really are.
2. Probing into Past Life. Like the Freudian therapist, I believe that the past is important but not in the same way, and certainly not to the same extent. I do not believe it is necessary to relive all the traumas of the past in order to be mentally and emotionally well again. I take the view that you can't change the past or what happened to the patient in the past. I also take the view that we do not need to be limited by the past. As a New Covenant Christian minister, the past is only important to me in finding out the original lies that were believed which lead to an alteration of mental and emotional behaviour such as to disconnect it from reality. A rape, for example, however horrible, cannot be 'undone'. What one can do is show the victim that she is not 'dirty', 'worthless' or 'unredeemable' because of this defilement by the rapist. Most rape victims believe these things, and when they believe these things, they start having an unnatural view of themselves which stunts them in their ability to relate normally to people.
As a minister I am neither a counsellor nor a therapist. I do not use psychiatry to help those who come to me for help. I believe in prayer. I ask the victim to ask Yahweh to show him the lies he believes in. The Ruach (Spirit) then brings back a memory which he relates and then I ask him to ask Yahweh what He wants him to do. The Ruach then gives a message and if he acts upon it, healing of the memories takes place, the guilt disappears along with the sense of being dirty, worthless and unlovable. As a minister I do not psychoanalyse. Yah'shua is the Divine Physician and does all the healing. Once the truth is known to the victim, and demons who may have entered because of the original lie, and who altered the victim's sense of reality, can then be painlessly expelled by the victim himself in a simple prayer. Healing takes place only when the victim accepts responsibility for choosing right or wrong. He can choose to believe that Yahweh loves him or not. She can choose to believe that she is as of much worth after she was raped as before. But that choice he must make. If he doesn't, healing can't happen.
I am not saying that there is no value in going back into the past and analysing motives for doing and believing things. I am just saying there is a better and faster way. I am also saying that if you don't accept responsibility for what you believe that you can never fully recover. And finally I am saying that what the secular psychiatrist defines as 'normality', which is the view of the world society supposedly believes in at any one time, and which is what the psychiatrist is trying to 'restore' the patient to, is not necessarily 'normal' or even good. And it is not likely to be Yahweh's reality. Brainwashing people to view the world as the psychiatrist sees it is not, in my view, healing at all. And what you can actually end up doing is healing one set of problems and exchanging them for another set.
The goal of the New Covenant Christian minister is to get people to live in the present, in reality - the outer world as it really is, and the inner world as Yahweh defines it - and to get healed from the past by getting the Ruach haQodesh to zoom into core lies. One doesn't have to go through a long and complicated process of deliverance lasting weeks or months - only those who are the victims of systematic ritual abuse leading to multiple trauma need a long time. By dealing with one core lie it is usually possible to deal with all the lies that flow out from that original lie in one fell swoop. The presence is more important than the past - seeing things as they really are today matter most - or the 'immediacy of the present' as I like to call it.
3. Transference. The third pillar of conventional psychiatry is, I believe, very dangerous indeed, and is little more than a kind of 'human channelling'. We need to relate to those we are helping as ourselves - as warm, caring human beings - and not as abstract 'transference figures'. A New Covenant Christian minister does not relive, and interpret, the client's experience. In fact our interaction is almost zero. What takes place in the client is solely the work of the Ruach. We don't 'suggest' what people should be feeling or thinking but let Yahweh do all the instructing. We simply ask Yahweh to intervene by surfacing events of the past that He deems worthy of treatment. Even then we do not suggest 'solutions' because as minister we acknowledge and recognise that we have 'no solutions'. We do not interfere with the work of the Ruach, we don't want anything transferred to us or from us. When we bless, we bless with Yahweh's Ruach, not our own psyche. When we teach, we simply state what the Bible teaches and invite the client to accept this as truth. Thus if the client believes that Yahweh hates him, we quote a passage of scripture like "Elohim is love" (1 Jn.4:8). We ask that this be accepted as truth. The Bible is our standard. If they don't want to believe the Bible, then that is the client's choice, and we recommend they seek help elsewhere. We minister on the basis that the Bible is Yahweh's Word and is Truth, that we are responsible for our choices, that the Ruach is the Counsellor (Jn.14:16,26; 15:26), and that Yahweh is the therapist, not us. Therefore we won't usually minister to someone who doesn't accept Yah'shua as Saviour and Bible as His Word. Only very rarely do people come without a belief in either but are willing to accept prayer and 'see'. Very often they meet Yah'shua who tells them directly that His Word is trustworthy and who thereafter come to trust the truthfulness of Scripture. When I minister, I never experience what my client is going through, and I don't attempt to. Yahweh occasionally speaks to me and shows me visions so that I know what to pray about, or to ask the client what to pray about, and sometimes I may see in vision an episode from the past which I ask the client to ask Yahweh about, but I do not experience what the client has gone through. What I do experience is sympathy, warmth and care. If a demon manifests, I will ask the client to silence it in Yah'shua's Name. (Of course the secular psychiatrist will get the patient to deny the demon exists so the force behind it will get suppressed, only to re-emerge at a later time). At all stages the client is asked to test every feeling to see whether it is him or a demon. Sometimes I will pray for the client if he is being overwhelmed by a dark force but usually it is the client leading himself. Thus we relate to clients as ourselves, and not as transference figures, and point the clients to Yah'shua.
4. Insight into the Unconscious. We believe that the unconscious is as much a part of the self as the conscious and that we are responsible for the impulses from both. Moreover, we believe that as healing occurs, the two at length merge into a single awareness. The goal is full awareness in Yahweh's reality and the self as a single echad of our different parts or faces. We reject the notion that we are not responsible for our unconscious behaviour. Absolving ourselves of responsibility does not lead to proper solutions. Torah makes no allowance for 'diminished responsibility' as an adult and whilst a child is a minor, the responsibility falls on the father. (The Bible does not give a specific time for 'coming of age' other than to suggest in the censuses that those who reach 20 are considered as adults (Num.1:3). The age of minority varies considerably in modern countries, with 18 the average). Therefore we do not excuse behaviour on the basis of 'unconscious impulses'. Presumably in accepting that patients are not responsible for their unconscious behaviour many psychiatrists think that they can reprogram (brainwash) their clients in whatever way they want to, including using hypnosis. It is for this reason we utterly reject hypnosis as a tool for mental recovery. It lays people open to involuntary suggestion by their therapists.
5. Morality. Secular psychiatry supposedly refuses to use standards of 'right' or 'wrong' in judging behaviour - in other words, it is, it claims, 'morally neutral'. It would not, for instance, judge fornication or adultery as either 'right' or 'wrong'. As Christians, we teach an unapologetically Biblical morality. A client can only really be involved in the 'here and now' by working within a framework of morality. Life is about interaction with people and values. A clinical interaction with a psychiatrist as someone morally neutral only creates psychological ambiguity. In fact, I believe it is totally impossible to be 'neutral'. One can abstain from judgement but one cannot be morally neutral. Mental health requires certitudes about morality. Neutrality leads to stagnation and inertia.
In fact, there is a contradiction here in the secular psychiatric paradigm. On the one hand, they are, they say, 'morally neutral' in treatment but when it comes to their overall goal, it is that patients will be able to behave according to the 'rules of society', which implies a societal morality. One definition of being 'moral' is 'adhering to conventionally accepted standards of conduct'. If the goal of the secular psychiatrists is to make patients behave according to the rules of society, which would include 'political correctness' and its duplicity, then psychiatrists not only have a moral goal but are being driven by some sort of moral force themselves, which will unconsciously influence their patients, even if it is not spoken directly for the sake of 'psychiatric correctness'. There is therefore both an inherent contradiction and hypocrisy in the system.
6. Learning Behaviour. You cannot help a client live a better life unless you offer him an alternative. This brings us back to the concept of 'raising'. If a child has been taught by bad parental example to believe that he is useless or worthless, then a part of that person when he is grown up will remain a stunted child inside. That 'child within' still needs to be raised. To assume, as secular psychiatry does, that the patients will learn better behaviour patterns themselves, is both naïve and irresponsible. Every psychiatrist has a value system - a code of morality and a belief about correct behaviour. To be effective, a psychiatrist should make these values known beforehand and guide their clients according to them.
It is to be noted that the so-called 'cult-deprogrammers' adopt much the same secular attitude. Demonstrating even less responsibility that secular psychiatrists (because they are not regulated or trained professionals, let alone competent), they selectively bombard those they wish to 'deprogram' (brainwash) with selected material, and more often than not emotionally devastate them, and then throw them back into the world without any help or guidelines other than to 'teach themselves'. A person who 'knocks down' also has the responsibility to 'build up'. Not so the 'cult-deprogrammers' who are more like hit squads who rush in to devastate and then leave only rubble behind - the rubble of people's lives. About all they offer is for their 'deprogrammed' (brainwashed) victims to become like themselves - 'deprogrammers' - multiplying psychological (and in some cases, physical) destruction wherever they go.
A minister or a counsellor has the responsibility to teach clients how to fulfil their needs after treatment or deliverance and be led to more satisfactory patterns of behaviour. In Christianity, it's called 'discipleship'. Conventional therapists, like the 'deprogrammers' do not believe that teaching better behaviour is part of the therapy. And no wonder, because if you look at their lives, many of them are themselves are very amoral. They often have nothing to teach because they are in need to therapy themselves.
I said at the beginning that my purpose today was only to give a summary. One could obviously write a whole book on this topic. Because this is controversial, it is bound to be quoted by friends and enemies alike, and almost certainly wrested out of context by the latter. The main difference between the 'conventional' way and ours is involvement. Christians are people of personal involvement, because we believe in community care and mutual support (and without charging for it). If you take the secular view to its logical conclusion by extrapolating it on a social level, the result is inevitably anarchy and social distancing. And ironically, those who do do this - the politicians - speak of nothing else but 'socialisation' and yet their society is one of the most socially dysfunctional ones in the history of the West - an improvement, relatively speaking, on what one sees elsewhere, as for example in the Muslim world, but still dysfunctional. The statistics on divorce rates, crime, drugs, the spread of sexually-transmitted diseases, and suicide speak for themselves. The cause of this downward spiral in human happiness is a result of many factors, but included in them is an abrogation of morality and responsibility (such as the secular psychiatrists teach) and the atheistic war to exterminate the nuclear family.
The truth just happens to be politically incorrect, and because there are laws protecting political correctness, the truth starts becoming illegal, just as the Bible predicted it would. Anarchism, heavily disguised, has become state policy, and few there are who dare to speak out against it, even if the silent majority wishes someone would.
There is no hope for a mentally healthy society outside Yah'shua the Messiah. Every thought must be made captive and obedient to Messiah (2 Cor.10:5) because only He knows how to order them properly. If He doesn't, someone else will, it I guarantee it won't be you, but the enemy of your soul working directly on you and through others. If the alternative is the best, then we should be able to gather together all the conventional psychiatrists and declare: "There you have the perfect model of an integrated, whole and happy human being. Imitate them." Sadly, they won't accept that responsibility and will blame disorders on biochemistry and genes. When they fail or can't be bothered, they turn to drugs.
In my library is the complete works of Freud and Breuer. My interest in Freud was sparked by a good friend who was doing his doctorate in Psychology in Oxford at the time I was reading for Biochemistry. This led to my studying Jung, Janov, Glasser, Puharich, Reich and others. The only psychology manual I use today is the Bible, with a little inspiration from Janov and Glasser occasionally. Yah'shua is my therapist and the therapist I recommend to everyone. He made our mental system and heart and knows it like only the Designer and Creator could. And His healing record is unequalled. Practically then, what is His method, and what should you do?
Cast your cares fully, intimately and personally into His hands on a day to day basis, by voluntarily relinquishing and renouncing sins as you become conscious of them, yielding all to Yah'shua, surrendering to Him a little bit more each day, and trusting in His providential care. Keep reading your Life Manual, the Bible, and let its principles sink into you. Recognise that the battle is not between the conscious and the unconscious, but between the fleshy, carnal Jacob nature and the spiritual, Israel nature, which is the real you. Recognise that our thoughts and feelings can't be ordered independently of supernatural help but need the Creator to get them right. The alternative is an enemy power who subverts and destroys within. We must struggle to overcome Jacob-the-deceiver by wrestling with Yah'shua until we get the desired blessing which brings about a transformation of our spiritual nature. We must keep struggling until dawn breaks in our soul and not give up. You can win in Yah'shua provided you are willing to take responsibility for yourself and not shift the blame to others or onto fate. That's a part of growing up. When Yah'shua returns, there won't be any more psychiatrists, of that you can be sure, nor their poisonous medications and often unhelpful counsel. Whether you use them or not is, of course, your free choice.
"We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise" (2 Cor.10:12-13, NIV).
May Yahweh bless you all. Amen.
Endnotes
1
http://gluefox.com/min/komment/arton.htm or Swedish Psychiatry in the Dock.
Click here for Part 7
Author: Lev-Tsiyon
Glossary of MLT Hebraic, Greek and English Terms For other terms and full details please see the Micropedia
A
Adon(ai) = Master, a pagan fertility god, Adonis; used by many Messianics but not MLT
(a)eon(ian) = 7 dispensation- or age-long time periods, not forever (see le-olam-va-ed)
Alef-Tav = Alpha-Omega, A-Z, first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet = Yah'shua
Amen = truly, let it be so, written Amein by some Messianics
Apocrypha = Hebraic Scriptures not a part of the Protestant canon (e.g. Baruch)
Anti-Messiah = Hebraic term for the end-time Antichrist or anyone opposed to the Messiah
antinomian = lawless Christian who disregards all or part of Torah/commandments
Ashkenazi Jew = East European Jew descended from the Turkic-Japhethite Khazars
Assembly = church, congregation, ekklesia, community, fellowship, koinonia, gathering
Azazel = the Yom Kippur scapegoat
B
Baal, Ba'al = any other master than Yahweh, usually demonic in MLT terminology
Bachor(im) = firstborn son(s)
Bar/Bat Mitzvah = Son/Daughter of Commandment, covenant to obey Torah at age 12
being = soul, the whole person (spirit and body), e.g. "my whole being"
Beit, bet, beth = house, e.g. Beit Yisrael (House of Israel), Beth Lechem (House of Bread)
Beit haMikdash = Yahweh's Temple in Yerushalayim
B'rit Chadashah = the New Covenant; B'rit Chadashah Scriptures = New Testament
B'rit Milah = circumcision - abolished in the B'rit Chadashah, replaced by Mikvah
C
canon = authoritative Scripture (Heb. qaneh, Gk. kanôn = measuring instrument)
Catechumen = a serious, covenanted investigator seeking Mikvah or Baptism in MLT
Chag haMatzah = Feast of Unleavened Bread, second of the annual feasts of Yahweh
Chavurat Bekorot = MLT's Priesthood Order, Holy Order and Assembly of the Firstborn
Cohen = priest; Cohen Gadol = High Priest (also spelled Kohen)
Council of Yah's elohim = the heavenly Assembly of the Firstborn or Chavurat Bekorot
D
demon = fallen malek or angel in rebellion against Yahweh (Heb. shad; see Êl-Shaddai)
derech = the Way, Path or Road - Yah'shua and the Gospel are the Way
Drash = moral or homiletic interpretation of Scripture - see PaRDeS
E
Echad = One, Union of two or more in one (as opposed to Yachid) - see Elohim
Echad Godhead Doctrine = Father Yahweh, Son Yah'shua and Sevenfold Ruach (Mother)
Êl, Eloah, Elah = God the Father, Yahweh
Êl-Elyon = Most High God, Yahweh
Êl-Shaddai = Master/Lord over all shads or demons
Elohim = God, the Godhead (Father, Son & Holy Spirit), lit. 'Mighty One(s)', 'Ruler(s)'
elohim = Israelite judges, rulers, angels or gods (false deities, idols, demons)
emunah = faith, actively trusting, clinging or adhering to (especially Yahweh or Yah'shua)
emet = truth, Yah'shua is the Emet
Ephraimite = descendant of the patriarch Ephraim and head of Messsianic Israel
F
Feasts of Yahweh = the 7 annual Moedim (Pesach, Chag haMatzah, Yom haBikkurim, Shavu'ot, Yom Teruah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot)
G
Gan-Eden = Garden of Eden, Paradise and state of the purified heart in Messiah
goy(im) = nation(s), Israelites or gentiles not born in or converted to the Covenant
H
hallelu-Yah = praise Yah(weh)!
Heylel = proper name of Satan or haSatan = the Adversary, the devil
Sabbath = Yom Shabbat (Friday to Saturday sunset, add 1 day in IDL Zone)
Hochmah = Wisdom, title of the 7-fold Ruach haQodesh
I
IDL = International Date Line, false man-made time division in Pacific Ocean
IDL Zone = Area between the true Divine Date Line (Lake Van/Eden) and the false one
Israeli = citizen of the modern Edomite-Khazar Republic of Israel (not Biblical Israel)
Israelite = citizen of biblical state of Israel or a modern follower of the Messiah
J
Jew = post-biblical term describing descendants of Edomite and Khazar converts to Judaism
Johannine = pertaining to the Apostle Yochanan (e.g. Gospel of John)
Josephite = descendant of the patriarch Joseph, the head of Messianic Israel
Judahite = a person in direct descent from the patriarch Judah, forefather of the Messiah
Judaism = a Talmudic-based religion rejecting Yah'shua the Messiah
Judean = a citizen of the Kingdom or Province of Judah until the 2nd Century diaspora
K
Kadosh la Yahweh = set-apart or dedicated to Yahweh, 'Holiness to the Lord', MLT motto
Karaites = Jews (from 700 AD) who reject the Talmud and accept only the Tanakh
kashrut = keeping kosher, food laws of Yahweh and correspinding lifestyle
Ketuvim = Writings or Hagiographa of the Tanakh
Khazar = a Turkic convert to Judaism ~700 AD forming the Ashkenazi Jewish community
kosher = clean foods authorised by Yahweh for human consumption
L
Lashon Hara = evil-speaking, gossip or slander
legalism = false route to salvation through works (self-salvation)
le-olam-va-ed = dispensation- or age-long, aeonian, not eternal, forever or for eternity
Lev = heart, as in Lev-Tsiyon = heart of Zion
Lev-Tsiyon = Heart of the Fortress [of Yahweh], Hebrew name of MLT's founder
M
Master = Lord, Sir, Adon(ai) - (one in authority, a ruler - a king, husband, prophet, judge)
Malak(im) = Angel(s), heavenly supernatural messenger(s)
manna = wafers of honey, bread from heaven (lit. 'what is this?')
matzah = unleavened bread, see Chag haMatzah
Menorah = 7-armed candlearbra = the 7 annual Moedim and 7-fold Ruach haQodesh
Messiah = Christ; Anti-Messiah = Antichrist
Messianic Community = Body of Christ, sum total of all true believers; all true fellowships
Messianic Israel = all who worship Yahweh, trust in Yah'shua, obey Torah and overcome
Messianic Jew = Messianic convert from Judaism still clinging to Talmudic traditions
Midrash = aggadic interpretation of scripture viâ Drash, a scriptural discussion
Mikvah = baptism by immersion of convert into Yah'shua or of wife into husband
Mishpachah = family: nuclear, congregational, tribal or the whole of Messianic Israel
MLT = Mishpachah Lev-Tsiyon = family of the heart of the fortress [of Yahweh]
Mishpat = right-ruling or judgement
mitzvah/mitzvot = commandment(s)
moed(im) = appointment(s) of Yahweh, 7 Annual Feasts, Sabbath and Rosh Chodesh
N
Nefilim, Nephilim = giant offspring of materialised demons and human women
Nevi'im = prophetic writings of the Old Testament or Tanakh
New Birth = spiritual conversion in the Ruach haRishon, being 'born again' with new heart
Nidah = a woman's menstruation period during which no intercourse is permitted
O
Olive Branch = collection of revelations, prophecies and visions published by MLT
P
Paraclete = Comforter, Advocate (NEB), Counsellor, Ruach haQodesh (Gk. paraklêtos)
PaRDeS = method of textual interpretation (homiletics) - see P'shat, Remez, Drash, Sod
Patriarch = a father who is head of his family, clan or tribe (lit. 'father-ruler')
Pentateuch = first five books of the Tanakh (Genesis-Deuteronomy), also called Torah
peribolaion = headcovering worn by daughters/wives in submission to fathers/husbands
Pesach = Passover, first of the annual feasts of Yahweh
Peshitta = an Aramaic version of the Bible
Prototrinitarianism = early, simplified MLT formulation of the Echad Godhead Doctrine
Prush(im) = Pharisee(s)
Pseudepigrapha = Non-canonical Hebrew writings additional to the Apocrypha
P'shat = literal, contextual, philological, exoteric, outer meaning of Scripture - see PaRDeS
Q
Qadosh Qadoshim = Holy of Holies, most sacred set-apart room of the Beit haMikdash
Qodesh, Kodesh = set-apart, holy (see Ruach haQodesh)
R
Rabbi = Teacher, term used by Messianic Jews and some Messianic Israelites = Pastor
Refuge, the 12 Cities of = divinely protected MLT fortresses during the 7-year Tribulation
Remez = hint or allegorical level of Hebraic understanding of Scripture - see PaRDeS
Rosh Chodesh = monthly New Moon appointment of Yahweh
ruach = spirit of a person (lit.'breath')
Ruach Elohim = Spirit of God (the Spirit of the collective Godhead or Elohim)
Ruach haChamashee = 5th Ruach presides over Yom Teruah and Yom Chamashee
Ruach haQodesh = the Sevenfold Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost (lit. 'Set-Apart Breath')
Ruach haRevee = 4th Ruach presides over Shavu'ot, Yom Revee and Bar Mitzvah
Ruach haRishon = 1st Ruach presides over Pesach, Yom Rishon and the New Birth
Ruach haShanee = 2nd Ruach presides over Chag haMatzah and Yom Shanee
Ruach haSheshi = 6th Ruach presides over Yom Kippur and Yom Sheshi
Ruach haShleshi = 3rd Ruach presides over Yom haBikkurim, Yom Shleshi and Mikvah
S
Sabbath = Yom Shabbat (Friday to Saturday sunset, add 1 day in IDL Zone)
Satan = rebel archangel Heylel, father of lies, devil, chief demon (lit.'Adversary')
Sephardic Jew = West European Jew of mixed blood containing many Judahites
Septuagint = Greek translation of the Tanakh, LXX
Shegal haShabbat = 7th Ruach (Sabbath Queen) presides over Sukkot and Yom Shabbat
Shekinah = Divine Presence and Glory of Yahweh-Elohim
Set-apart = holy, sanctified, consecrated, dedicated, separated (to and by Yahweh)
Shabbat-Shabbaton = High Sabbath (e.g. Yom Kippur)
Shalom = heavenly peace, standard Hebraic greeting invoking Yahweh's peace
Shamash(im) = servant(s), deacon(s), attendant(s)
Shavu'ot = Pentecost or Weeks, fourth of the annual feasts of Yahweh
Sheol = grave or pit, euphamism for Hades or hell - also see Tartarus
shofar = ram's horn, blown during Yahweh's Moedim
simcha = joy, keynote of Sukkot
Sod = mystical, anagogic, inner or esoteric understanding of Scripture - see PaRDeS
Sukkot = Tabernacles or Booths, seventh of the annual feasts of Yahweh
Synagogue = Greek word used by Jews and Messianics (but not MLT) for a meeting house
T
talmid(a) = male/female disciple or student
Talmud = scriptures, teachings and commentaries belonging to non-Messianic Judaism
Tanakh = acronym for Old Testament Scriptures - Torah, Nevi'im & Ketuvim
Tartarus = place of imprisonment under the earth for rebellious angels and Nephilim
teshuvah = repentance, remorse and contrition leading back to Torah obedience
Torah = Yahweh's teachings or Law; New Covenant Torah includes Yah'shua's teachings
Tribulation, the Great = the final 7 years of the present aeon when Anti-Messiah rules
Trinity = Catholic Godhead formula - see Echad Godhead Doctrine and Prototrinitarianism
Tsiyon = Zion, a fortress, a name of Jerusalem and a prominent hill
Tzitzit/Tizitziyot = tassel(s) worn by men in remembrance of Torah
U
Universalism = salvation of all at the cosmic Yovel, with different rewards and punishments
Y
Yachid = one, single person or item, as opposed to Echad (many in one, unity)
Yah'shua the Messiah = Jesus Christ (the Son)
Yahudah = Judah - see Judahite
Yahweh, Yah, YHWH = the true Name of our Heavenly Father, also carried by Yah'shua
Yahweh-Elohim = LORD God (the Father, Yahweh as Head of the Godhead or Elohim)
Yahweh haQatan = the sent Yahweh = Yah(weh)'shua, Malak of Yahweh's Presence
Yam Suf = Sea of Reeds, the true Israelite Exodus water crossing, not the Red Sea
Yarden = Jordan River (lit. 'meanderer')
Yerushalayim = Jerusalem
Yisrael = Israel (lit. 'ruling with Êl') = true believers under the New Covenant
Yom Chamashee = 5th day of the week (Thursday, Friday in IDL Zone)
Yom Din, Yom haDin = (the) Day of Judgement
Yom haBikkurim = Feast of Firstfruits, third of the annual feasts of Yahweh
Yom Revee = 4th day of the week (Wednesday, Thursday in IDL Zone)
Yom Rishon = 1st day of the week (Sunday, Monday in IDL Zone)
Yom Kippur = Day of Atonement, sixth of the annual feasts of Yahweh
Yom Shabbat = 7th day of the week and Sabbath Rest (Saturday, Sunday in IDL Zone)
Yom Shanee = 2nd day of the week (Monday, Tuesday in IDL Zone)
Yom Sheshi = 6th day of the week (Friday, Saturday in IDL Zone)
Yom Shleshi = 3rd day of the week (Tuesday, Wednesday in IDL Zone)
Yom Teruah = Day of Trumpets, fifth of the annual feasts of Yahweh
Yosef = Joseph - see Josephite
Yovel = Jubilee or Year of Jubilee
Z
Zaqen(im) = elder(s) of an assembly or congregation, or senior members of a community
Zoë Life = Greek term for spiritual life in the Messiah
Commonly Used MLT Abbreviations
For additional abbreviations and explanations, please see the Micropedia
A
Amp.V(er). = Amplified Version of the Bible
Aram. = Aramaic
AV = Authorised Version of the Bible - see KJV
B
BCAY = B'rit Chadashah Assembly of Yahweh - see NCCG
BoA = Books of Abraham (e.g. 1Abr., 2Abr., etc.)
C
cp, cf = compare with
CB(Q) = Chavurat Bekorot
CEV = Contemporary English Version of the Bible
ch. = chapter
CJB = Complete Jewish Bible
CLNT = Concordant Literal New Testament
CYe = Council of Yah's elohim
E
Eng. = English
F
ff. = and onwards/forwards
fn = footnote
G
Gk. = Greek
GNB = Good News Bible - see TEV
H
Heb. = Hebrew, Hebraic
HEM = Holy Echad Marriage, eternal marriage
HO = Holy Order - see Chavurat Bekorot
HOC = Holy Order Collection of revelations - see OB
HRV = Hebraic-Roots Version of the Bible
I
ibid. = ibidem (lit. 'in the same place'), referring to a book previously cited
ICJC = Independent Church of Jesus Christ, earlier name of NCCF
ISRV = Institute for Scripture Research Version of the Bible
J
JB = Jerusalem Bible
JBP/Phillips = J.B.Phillips translation of the New Testament
JNT = Jewish New Testament
K
KJV = King James Version of the Bible - see AV
L
LB = Living Bible
lit. = literally or literature
LXX = Septuagint, Greek translation of the OT
M
MLT = Mishpachah Lev-Tsiyon
Moff. = Moffatt translation of the Bible
MRC = Messianic Renewed Covenant Version of the NT
MS(S) = Manuscript(s)
N
NASB, NASV = New American Standard Bible/Version
NC&C = New Covenants & Commandments - see OB
NCCF = New Covenant Christian Fellowship, earlier name of NCCG
NCCG = New Covenant Church of God, earlier name of MLT - see BCAY
NCP = New Covenant Press, publishing arm of MLT
NCW = New Covenant Witness, MLT magazine
NEB = New English Bible
NIV = New International Version of the Bible
NKJV = New King James Version of the Bible
Nor. = Norwegian
NT = New Testament, B'rit Chadashah
NWT = New World Translation of the Bible, unreliable Jehovah's Witness version
O
OB = Olive Branch - see NC&C
op.cit. = opere citato (lit. in the work cited)
OT = Old Testament, Tanakh
P
p(p). = page(s)
pl. = plural - see s.
PWNC = Prophetic Words of the New Covenant, revelation cataloging system - see OB
Q
QED = quod erat demonstrandum (lit. which was shown to be proved)
R
RCF = Restoration Christian Fellowship, earlier name of ICJC
RhQ = Ruach haQodesh, Holy Spirit
RSTNE = Restoration Scriptures True Name Edition of the Bible
RSV = Revised Standard Version of the Bible
RV = Revised Version of the Bible
S
s. = singular - see pl.
S&G = Smith & Goodspeed Version of the Bible
T
TEV = Today's English Version of the Bible - see GNB
V
Vulg. = Biblia Vulgata, Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible
W
WEB = World English Bible
Glossary Copyright ©2007 Mishpachah Lev-Tsiyon (MLT) - All Rights Reserved
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This page was first created on 18 March 2007
Last updated on 18 March 2007
Copyright ©2006 Mishpachah Lev-Tsiyon (MLT) - All Rights Reserved
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