SOAKING IN THE SPIRIT

We have seen them stagger and lay around the floor in spiritual drunkenness; soaking or laughing in the spirit. In reality "soaking in the spirit" is a communion with occult spirits. The experience ranges from the pleasant to the ecstatic. Satan comes as an angel of light. People believing they have opened up their hearts to God’s love, but instead they get a dose of defiling from Satan.

"Sometimes the demons [work miracles] in order to lift into pride the man who believes himself to possess the miraculous gift, and so prepare him for a more miraculous fall. They pretend that they are being burnt up and driven out from the bodies where they were dwelling through the holiness of people whom truly they know to be unholy... In the Gospel we read: There shall arise false Christs and false prophets" (St. John Cassian, Divine Gifts)

God dwells in the broken and contrite heart. But these people are not contrite. They want experience and they want power. It is shocking to see it for the first time, but no matter how uncomfortable you feel, you tell yourself that priests and nuns are involved, so it should be OK. They tell you to become little children and to be fools for Christ so you push down your discomfort and stay. Then you start to crave what others are experiencing and then one day you are hit with some power and you are knocked off your feet --- and hooked.

