by Orrel Steinkamp, 3/20/06
Yogi
Berea, hall of fame, New York Yankee catcher, isn't known for his correct
English. Actually he is known for his witty statements and comments and for
breaking the conventions of the English language, so much so that a few of his
expressions have become commonly known and used in everyday speech. Such is the
case of his most famous expression "Deja Vu All Over Again." The
attraction of this maxim is the redundancy of "all over again" for
that of course is the meaning deja vu in French which Yogi apparently didn't
know or he purposely stated it this way to emphasize his point The bottom line
is that this phrase comically expresses that something is repeated over and
over again and over again.
Such is the case
with yet another ministry called Ellel. Ellel is another version of the inner-healing
phenomena based on Freud's deep unconscious teaching and the need to regress
people into the hidden inner regions of the so-called unconscious mind and heal
current seemingly unexplainable habits and hurts.
Ruth Carter
Stapleton, Ann White and Rita Bennett first publicized and made famous inner
healing in Christian circles. Based on Freudian depth psychotherapy, Stapleton
and White morphed and adapted Freudian and Jungian ideas and practiced these
techniques in the early charismatic movement. Actually Agnes Sanford preceded
these two ministries. Sanford actually can be called the "mother of the
so-called Christian inner healing" In early charismatic days just about every
charismatic bookshelf had copies of her books. But her inner healing was related
to New Thought/New Age thinking current early in the 2O~ century. Her seminal
adaptation of inner healing was passed on the many students and disciples that
she taught at her school of Spiritual Healing. John and Paula Sandford proudly
represent Agnes in the current inner healing scene. John was taught and
discipled by Agnes Sandford. John is not her son but has a similar name.
But beginning with
Stapleton, White and many others, inner healing became more dependent on
Freudian and Jungian concepts. Stapleton and White spawned probably hundreds of
inner healing practitioners. These practitioners wrote and published. Each of
these practitioners were eclectic in that they cherry-picked from each other
and produced a virtual smorgasbord of inner healing methods and thoughts. But
they all spring from a common core of ideas.
They do differ is certain respects but they are all one genus. They are
like dogs. Some are large some are small, some have long hair and some short,
but they are all dogs. They all have four legs and bark.
Inner healing has
some metaphysical roots in New Thought concepts, and it also has roots in
Freudian/Jungian psychology, but it all has a common center from which it
derives its central thesis namely that the traumas of the past, inflicted upon
us in childhood and even within the womb become buried and repressed within the
unconscious mind and cause adverse human behavior. It is affirmed that the mind
never forgets anything but stores it in a memory bank. If an experience is
particularly unpleasant it may be repressed and hidden to the unconscious mind.
This repressed memory though hidden still intrudes itself into the present
hindering ones ability to relate to others and to ourselves.
In Freudian
psychoanalysis the therapist is
trained to regress people into their past and help identify the sources of
trauma. Often they will employ hypnosis to uncover these areas.
Jungian therapists
employ similar methods. Jung described the inner man in more spiritual
terms. Jung himself credits a spirit
guide named Philemon for developing his thought and procedures. In any case
there is a need to travel back into the past via the unconscious mind and to
first locate the hidden trauma of the past and then bring healing to bear.
Some in the ministries
of inner healing attempt to disguise their dependence on the Freudian/Jungian template
of the human psyche. Actually some Freudian promoters realized that Freud's
threefold breakdown of the human psyche into the ego, superego and id was too
difficult to explain. It was W. Hugh Missildine
who developed a new phrase with which to describe basic Freudian understanding.
He chose to refer to the unconscious as the "inner child." Stapleton
adapted the phraseology of the inner child into practice of inner healing.
Christian inner healers
accepted without question the central thesis of Freud regarding the hidden
traumas affecting our conscious life, and the need to regress, and travel back
in time via the human memory and effect healing. Rather than using the techniques of a clinical psychoanalyst,
they chose to introduce the idea of Jesus regressing people and Jesus effecting
the healing in the past time of the person.
Brooks Alexander
comments:
"A new and
interesting thing happens, however, when Freud's view of human behavior is
woven together with humanistic perfectionism
and a cross-less Christianity. The result is a system of therapy with a
built-in tendency to bypass and depreciate rational consciousness. If the “root
cause” of behavior is lodged
in the unconscious, perhaps it
can be purged by the
techniques of psychological
manipulation to reach the unconscious mind directly... Once a "policy
decision" has been made that the rational mind should be bypassed for
effective inner healing, a new problem presents itself. The rational mind after
all, is an active and integral part of the human personality and from a
biblical point of view, a legitimate and necessary one. The tact is that the
rational mind wants to be involved, and it resists being "bypassed"
or otherwise ignored. Techniques for bypassing the rational mind only work
until the rational mind gets wise to what is happening. At that point it
becomes necessary not only to bypass the rational mind' but to Outwit it as
well." (Brooks Alexander. SCP Journal, April 1980, Vol.4/I).
Thus the need to
empty the conscious mind by concentration on Jesus and "centering
down".
This is effected
by guided imagery techniques in which Jesus is purported to actually travel
into the past using the road of the memory. This supposed Jesus is usually
visualized. It is at this point the New Thought ideas introduced by Agnes
Sanford bring a new dimension of concern This kind of visualization technique
is a widespread technique in occult circles to contact the personalities of the
spirit world. Even Jung found that this introduced him to spirit guides who
gave him knowledge he didn't have before.
Consequently many
inner healers also become exorcists. For they appear to encounter demonic
spirits in this internal travel time warp into the human soul. Obviously the
deception of demonic spirits makes the whole industry of inner healing a very
dangerous venture. Most often inner healing gurus re label traumas of the past
are to demonic personalities. The demonic powers behind the trauma must be named
and labeled and then commanded to leave.
Jung especially
taught that in the subconscious people had "archetypes" which he
identified as spirit world personalities of previous lives of peoples and
cultural groups (the collective unconscious). It is not surprising that
Christian inner healing often includes tracing back ones ancestors and finding
some ancestor that practiced certain sins etc and that these ancestors have
some influence in the inner ma~ Consequently the need to "cut the
bloodlines" in order to escape the particular sin or influence that secretly
impinges on our consciousness and thinking.
Ellel, the new
kid on the block
Actually, Ellel
has been in existence since 1985,
but it has in very recent
times expanded its role exponentially. Peter Hoorabin is the founder and
director of this ministry. In searching their website I could not find any
rational for the name of the ministry.
Incidentally I did
find in a web search that Ellel was the name of a deity of the ancient
Canamites. I am however; sure that has no relevance to their name. It can be
assumed that it has to do with one of the OT Hebrew names for God, which is
"El and or Elohim".
Ellel now takes it
place in inner healing history, joining innumerable ministries of inner
healing. Just to name a few: Francis McNutt, Dennis and Matthew Hinn, Betty
Tapcott, Seamans and myriads of others. Most recently and still finding some
acceptance is the ministry called "Theophostics." But they all are a
predictable rehash of the central core teachings of their predecessors. Indeed
they have their differences in approach and even terminology, but they are
simply repeats of the former.
Ellel is based in
England. They have luxurious English manors located on expansive historical
properties. They have country estates in the Grange, Glyndly, Pierropont,
Bairmore Scotland, Gilbulla Australia, South Africa, Singapore, Norway, India
and Tampa Bay in the USA. In every location they have historical country estate
buildings, which seems to be their signature. They have developed elaborate
programs for their ministries. They have weekends, 2-week courses, 4-week
courses, and even long-term courses up to 9 months and an interactive course on
line. They do not reveal their teaching in the articles on the net.
But in the
elaboration of their courses one finds all the telltale clues of their
ministry. There you will find courses in "getting to the root of the
problem." generation sins, God's healing through Drama, demonic footholds
through sin. The basis of demonic intrusions: What is inner healing? In some of
the course descriptions they make statements as "we are made up of three
connecting parts which are body, soul and spirit... the human spirit is fragile
so it can easily be damaged and defiled through occult sin. This sin arises
either through generational iniquity or involvement in occult activities. They
have courses on spiritual warfare and related topics.
Although, it is
not spelled out in great detail enough is said to know full well it is your
stock in trade inner healing paradigm. They have endorsements from the Wagner
Leadership Institute, and from the Elijah House ministry of John and Paula Sanford. What more does one need to know that this is as Yogi
Berea said: "deja vu all over again."
Inner Healing
and the Bible
Although there are
valiant attempts to use biblical texts to justify the inner healing paradigm
and practice, it is common sense that nothing even remotely like inner healing
is found in scripture. Consequently passages and biblical words are cleverly redefined.
Many inner healers take the biblical word "heart" and import into
that word the whole meaning of Freud's deep unconscious. But the source of this
is not the canonical scriptures but is clearly derived from Freud and Jung.
John Sandford transparently refers to his ideas as related to Jungian thought.
Why would we want to learn from an atheist like Freud and an Occultist like
Jung? Can they just say that all truth is God's truth even if an Atheist and
occultist discovered it?
So we need to turn
to the scriptures which have historically been the sole authority of faith and
practice, which is included in the scrimpy reference of the beliefs on the
Ellel website.
How does God deal
with our past sins? Does the Bible suggest that God must send Jesus on a metaphysical
time travel journey into our hidden memories of the past? Isaiah 43:25 states "I am He that blots out transgressions for my own sake and
I will not remember your sins." Now if God not only blots out our past
sins and intentionally will not remember them, then doesn't it follow that we should
forget our sins and not try to regress into the so-called unconscious to
rediscover them? Thus whenever in our conscious mind our past rears its ugly
head is not the way of victory to forget them realizing they have no existence
before our holy God?
Passing lip
service is often given to the cross. But in all of inner healing teaching there
is little or no attention given to what Jesus accomplished on the cross. While
much is made of the unconditional love of Jesus. This love is disconnected from
the atonement. The finished work of the cross is clearly a missing element of
inner healing, teaching and practice. The absence of the atonement also relates
to an unbiblical view of sin. Sin in inner healing is usually seen as produced by
the reaction to the victimization of traumas in our past. The assumption is
that if the trauma can be identified and removed, then healing will
automatically follow. Sin is thus only a violation of my wholeness, and not
God's law. This makes the cross work of Jesus really unnecessary. But when
Jesus cried out "it is finished", God's law was satisfied and all our
sins conscious or unconscious were not only forgiven, but put death (Col. 2:15)
and were nailed to His cross. This being a public disclosure that when Jesus
died for us our sin also died. Ryan Habbena reinforces this:
"The author
of Hebrews notes that, ‘now once at the consummation of the ages He has been
manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself’ (Hebrews 9:26). The point
is established in the Scriptures, ‘He had to be made like His brethren in all
things, that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest pertaining to
God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people’ (Hebrews 2:17). … This act
of propitiation, at the cross, was an event that happened once for all on the
canvas of history. ‘For by a single offering He has perfected for all time
those who are being sanctified’ (Hebrews 10:11- 14). It is through Jesus’
office as High Priest that the cross finds its continued power and
significance. He is continually providing us with His righteousness.
Perpetually, He is interceding for us and protecting us from our angelic enemy." (Ryan
Habbena, Eternal
Scars, Xulon Ress, 2004, p.49)
Whereas Jesus
dealt with our sins once for all, inner healing is a never-ending series of
psychic trips into our unknown past to deal with these sins and their continual
effects.
Inner healing is
not a once for experience. How could it be, for who can know just how many
different and assorted traumas lie covered in the unconscious? Any unpleasant
thoughts or feelings could well be the tip of the ice berg which points to
traumas still hidden in waters of the unseen unconscious. So inner healing is a
life long vocation that is repeated over and over, as were the sacrifices in
the Old Testament. But Jesus work at Calvary was a "once for all"
triumph. Praise be His name.
It was the apostle
Paul who declared that: "because we have concluded this: that one has died
for all, therefore all have died, and he died for all, that those who live might
no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was
raised... Therefore, if anyone is in Christ he is new creation. The old has
passed away; behold, the new has come." (2 Cor. 5:14-15). The Apostle Peter also has words that apply here: "Knowing that
you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not
with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of
Christ." (1 Peter 1:18). The blood of Christ has ransomed us from the ways
of our fathers. Tim Challies says: "When Jesus death was near, He cried
out, "It is finished!" It was a cry of triumph It was a cry that
pierced history and divided humanity. It was the greatest, purist, most meaningful
utterance the world has known In His Death Christ took our sin upon Himself. He
took Satan's accusations on our behalf. As God turned His back on Jesus, while
at the same time poured His wrath upon Him, Jesus atoned for our sins. He
entered a claim for the lives of His children. My sin became His and His
righteousness became mine. The accuser has lost his claim. When Satan accuses
me now all I have to do is believe, trust and affirm that his claim is null and
void. My sin has been removed. My guilt has been taken away.
Finally, The
Apostle Paul obviously knew nothing of inner healing techniques. He was keenly
aware of his historical sins so much so he called himself the chief of sinners.
If he only had access to Freudian deep unconscious psychotherapy and the guided
imagery of Christian inner healing practitioners, maybe he could have been
healed of his traumatic scars. But, rather, we see the apostle living above and
beyond his past. In Phil. 3:13-14 Paul sees no need deeply in his past whether
us or unconscious: "But one do: forgetting what lies behind and straining
forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the
upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
The operative words
here are “forgetting" and "reaching forward." This is intentional forgetting. Paul poises himself
as a runner, who forgets all his past defeats and focuses thoughts on what lies
before him. Paul suggests that he had no regard for his past? No, as we see in this
passage he recalls the past to motivate himself into the future. He reminds himself
that the past is behind him and in the example he cites, the past is worthless. His focus is on “what lies ahead.” Why can
Paul so easily forget his past? Surely it is because of all his sin and hurt of
the past was dealt with once for all at the cross, he is a new creature in
Christ. All of this suggests that Paul
would not have signed up for the relatively costly weekend of inner healing in
the Ellel or anywhere else.
Don't bother
to read anything about Ellel. There is nothing new here. It's just “deja vu all over again."
74425 Co. Rd. 21 Renville, Minnesota 56284
Telephone:
320-329-3874
Email: orrelsteinkamp@hotmail.com