Herbert W Armstrong

   You probably grew up thinking that a witch was an ugly old hag with black clothing and a ragged hat that flew about from chimney to chimney, riding a broomstick and wondering, as we joke about, where to park the thing when she went indoors. I suppose I should be saying about this time, things like witches would, "Double, double, toil and trouble, cauldron bubble, pot and boil," all that stuff. How does it go? I'm not very good at Shakespeare.

   Would you recognize a witch today, though, if you passed one on the street? Because the chances are you are passing lots of them and that you wouldn't recognize any of them. The occult explosion is definitely here. Whether it's here to stay or not will remain to be seen, but it's here.

   All right. Books on mysticism and demoniacal witchcraft and sorcery, astrology, of course, are very commonplace. Practically everybody knows what sign they were born under. People ask me when I was born and then come up with some strange-sounding word that sounds like a combination of Greek and Babylonian. I really don't know what they're talking about.

   A few years before, I don't think one out of 100 Americans had the faintest idea of what was their astrological sign. Now, it seems practically everybody does, and they go around talking about the way they are, especially in a sexual connotation if they have some understanding about the way the stars are. And astrology is a big thing. There are churches and groups that are designed around the astrological thing today, around witchcraft and demonism. There's even one church that calls itself the church of, I think it's the First Church of Satan the Devil. And who knows? Maybe they're right. At least you got to say this: they're honest. Most churches don't come right out and say that about themselves.

   Millions of youth these days are decorating their pads with psychedelic blurbs and nerds, brain spots and brain waves, and that kind of thing. All kinds of funny-looking signs and wheels and cards, these tarot cards we talked about in the last couple of programs. It's the "in" thing. Young people are just playing with it. They don't really feel that there is something so bad about it the way we grew up thinking about it. Witchcraft was something that was medieval. It belonged way back in Middle England and the Middle European era where they used to burn such people at the stake. And I suppose even 15 or 20 years ago, anyone that would have said, "Oh, I'm a witch," would have been sensationalized and made the newspapers immediately.

   But back when the witch fires were smoldering all over Europe and England, the definition of a witch then was usually someone who had sold her soul, usually it was a female, to the devil. And in exchange for this, went around haunting people and doing all sorts of terrible things. Satan needed their help, and so in return for immediate aid, they would give the devil their soul. There were all sorts of bizarre stories about how the devil would get a hold of a person's soul.

   As a matter of fact, did you know that the words "abracadabra" that you learn as a kid, and muttering incantations, even little kids learn all these stories about witches that make houses out of candy, and these two kids in Germany with the world's most voracious appetite in all of history who ate the entire house down and then kicked the witch in her own oven and burned her up and probably ate the witch too for all I know. But did you know that the words "abracadabra" mean from the Latin "open body" or "open corpse"? What it really means has to do, I think, with opening up the body and maybe the mind to let the soul escape or let the power of the devil within, whichever comes first.

   From that time, selling the soul to the devil, the witch was at the devil's immediate mercy, so the devil could do anything that he wanted to do with and through her. She did, however, receive certain powers that lots of kids, I imagine, would think of as fun. She could ride about on the broom, as I said, or other such vehicle. She could receive the ability to transform herself into animal shapes, and she had the power to inflict evil on others.

   During the Middle Ages, the church doctrine of a Satan with a pitchfork and horns, stoking the fires of hell and tormenting people and grabbing their souls, like the one about Daniel Webster you heard about, gradually took shape in the developing theologies of that day. The devil was seen as the arch-fiend with all of his demons competing with God for the world. All these possessed, of course, magical powers and therefore got those powers from the devil.

   The only way you could protect yourself and the devil would be inside a house where, when the devil tried to land on the roof, he would suddenly just zoom back up to heaven because, I guess, the devil had slippery feet. At least in the Orient, they had that idea.

   So, they put these little things on their roofs like barbs to make the devil slide back up where he came from. Or maybe it's just making kind of like a barbed wire fence, making it difficult for him to get down from there.

   In medieval England and Europe, though, the only safe place was in the refuge of the church. Maybe that's why they call it the sanctum, short for sanctuary. And I guess they had an inner one which would be the inner sanctum.

   Church members might be troubled from time to time by the devil back then, as was James I of England. James wanted to marry a Scandinavian princess, you see, but when Anne sailed for England, the witches in England brewed up a storm that prevented her ship from landing. It was only the extreme piety, as the story went, of James—that is, the James after which the King James Bible is named—that saved the day, and the spell of the witches was broken.

   In 1484, Pope Innocent VIII issued his famous bull giving full sanction of the church to the inquisitors to discover and put to death all guilty of magical arts. A notorious book called Hammer for Witches, which I don't have a copy of thankfully, soon followed. It was written by two German inquisitors, and it gives details on how to detect, try, and dispose of witches.

   Six hundred people were killed, and there's nothing funny about that, in the bishopric of Banbury within four years alone. In another area, the toll was 900. Trier lost 7,000 supposed witches, and that's a pretty good-sized segment of the population of that day. In Italy, 1,000 executions occurred in the province of Como within a single year, 400 in Toulouse in one day, and in Geneva 500 in three months. It is said of France that during the year 1520 execution fires were blazing in practically every town. As far as I'm concerned, you can have the good old days.

   For centuries, the occult arts have been kept hidden behind closed doors. But now, in today's society, many have turned to the methods and secrets of the ancients. Decisions are made according to the chance form of a card, the pungent odor of incense, or the shifting position of the planets. Probably people you know dabble in the occult. Maybe you wonder whether there truly is help and guidance in a crystal ball, that the future can actually be known from tea leaves or from the lines in the palms of your hands.

   The booklet, The Occult Explosion - What Does it Mean?, explains what's really behind these organisms and divinations and examines why so many in these enlightened times have turned to mysticism for answers. Write today for your free copy of the booklet, The Occult Explosion - What Does it Mean? Send your request to Ambassador College, Box 345, GPO, Sydney, New South Wales.

   What, Bob? You're a clerk here in the store? And, uh, how long have you been here now?

   I've been here for three years. I am a witch, and a lot of people call that a "pagan religion."

   But what is a person who is a witch? What is he looking for? What's he doing? What's his life all about? What's yours all about?

   Well, mine is to help people and help people find themselves.

   You feel that you've helped people here in your store with what you have here?

   I really do. Yes, I do. I know I have. They've come and told me. They've thanked me.

   I feel it is humanitarian.

   We have all walks of life coming here. We have the housewives. We have the average working man. We have doctors. We have ministers. And we have lawyers. We have many professionals. We also have people on TV, by the way, and we have theaters of people.

   What is your background, actually? Where do you come from, your ancestry and so forth?

   Well, my ancestry is German and French. Quite a combination. They were kabbalists. We have also been called witches, and I understand that none of the witches were hung.

   One of your relatives?

   I understand she was hung. Now, I can't verify that, so I don't know.

   Well, the average person probably has a concept of a witch of someone in a black hat riding a broomstick. And so on and so forth.

   I have around here somewhere, yeah, I know. But you know, it's the funny thing, witches come in all sizes, shapes, colors, forms, sexes, male and female, and they're all witches.

   What about this thing we hear about the differentiation between white witchcraft and black witchcraft?

   Uh, what was that thing the Christians called? Remember when they were in Spain? And what did you call them?

   Inquisition.

   Yeah, that's right. Then there must be white and black Christianity too. I don't think that is so nice. In the name of Christianity, they killed thousands of people. We don't kill anybody. I don't want to kill anybody, really. I don't.

   Are witches, let's say, associated with Satan or what is the concept here?

   A witch cannot possibly worship the devil because they don't believe in the devil. He doesn't exist. If there's a devil, it's in your own heart and mind. But there is no devil. I'm not going to die and burn in hell for eternity. I'm sorry to disappoint all the Catholics, but I refuse to do it. I don't believe it.

   There are many reasons why the young people are turning to the occult and to witchcraft these days, one of which is disillusionment with the world the way it is. First and foremost, perhaps, the materialistic society in which they live, the terrible crises that are, in a global sense, threatening the very existence of humankind, and the very lack of answers to the real questions that bother all of us in life. Who are we? What are we really? Is there a soul inside of our body? Is there some inner you? Do we really have a sixth sense? Are there some latent, undeveloped powers and talents within us that would lead us to a greater mind? Expanding, broadening of our natures, reaching out to encompass greater and bolder sensations? Is there some magical way to find solutions for the environmental problems without bending our minds or our psyche out of shape in relationship to those problems?

   Young people are disgusted with the materialistic values of society, but they haven't found anything to replace those values with in the churches, which they have discovered are inner sanctums, basically, of formalism and ceremony. Hence, I think, to a large extent, the Jesus people revolution of today. But science, in itself, has failed at least to provide young people with anything more than an ever more burgeoning GNP and a grossly overpopulated, over polluted society, a technocracy in which young people don't really want to have a part. I think a lot of young people have said they'd rather see their fortune and their future in the cards than they would in the Pentagon, and maybe they put it this way: So a lack of humanitarianism, a lack of love, a lack of understanding has driven tens of thousands of young people to witches, to stores that deal in the trinkets and the artifacts of the occult in order to try to seek satisfaction, to find some inner you thing that is going to answer the questions they have.

   Then, too, the world looks very insecure in terms of the population explosion, the threat of nuclear war, and pollution. Sociologists talk about a time of terrible turmoil ahead of us in the future. And, of course, our dwindling reserves of non-renewable resources, all of which give young people hang-ups. But despite all of this, many people, not trying to go into the black arts, not trying to do anything dramatic, but just out of normal everyday, sometimes curiosity, turn to the occult.

   What do the people seem to be looking for who come in here?

   They seem to be looking for something to help themselves, to get out of the, to get themselves a lover or a wife, husband, whatever. Uh, they need help, so we help them.

   Well, you say you help them. Could you briefly describe what you mean by help?

   I give them different rituals to do. That's all the way I can describe them without going into full detail of a descript or a ritual.

   Let's take a name on a female candle. Now, lots of times a man and a woman will have a problem, and a woman will be very unhappy. Maybe he's drifting away, and she loves him very much, so she wants him back. So, she takes a male and female candle and she sits it, oh, let's stay approximately this far apart.

   Do you want to sit on the counter here? Ok.

   Now, there's a little ritual that goes with this, which I'm not going to go into. It will take too much time. But they have a little incense here and they light the candles and they burn them for an hour. And they bring them together on the second day, like so, and they light some more incense, they burn them for another hour, and then put them out. On the third day, they bring them together real close, light them, and let them burn down. We believe in God, you know. We really do. But we can't kneel down and pray to infinity. We are finite minds. How can you visualize? A man has a difficulty. He is in the material world. He is in a finite world of which man has to find his way. He has to feel things, he has to see things, he has to visualize things.

   Are they coming, let's say, in here to speak with yourself right now?

   Well, if they could find the answer with the minister, the priest, the rabbi, or whatever, they wouldn't have to come to me, would they? They're not. I mean, if you come to somebody and you say, "I'm having a problem. I can't get a job anywhere. I'm looking and looking and looking." And you go to your minister or whatever you go to, or your priest, they'll say to you, "Pray to God, child. He'll hear your prayers." And you pray for six months. It doesn't pay the rent, does it? It doesn't feed you either.

   Magic, divination, and astrology have been looked to for either good or bad for people down through the ages from ancient Babylon, Egypt, and Greece. And they're still being sought today. You would think we could have learned by the lessons of history. You would think we could have seen the fall of ancient city-states and empires who themselves were rankly pagan. You would think we could learn from the artifacts we've uncovered in the tombs of ancient Egypt and even from what the Bible says, but no, we haven't.

   And even today, in the empty hollow formalism of religion, the missing answers, and the wrong materialistic values of science, in a world that doesn't seem to have any answers for the impending anti-climax of all of society for 6000 years, which could eventually result in nuclear destruction, we still see tens of thousands and even millions of people going head over heels in search of demonism, satanism, witchcraft, astrology, and all the assorted so-called black or white arts.

   Religion and magic were always very closely connected together. When you stop to think about it, people today, even many people who profess a certain kind of religion or another, seem to believe that God is a strange, weird kind of creature. That God can't be talked to or reached in normal ways. You don't simply just start having a conversation with God. You've got to throw your face and your body and your voice all out of joint. That God is sometimes pacified, that he is gradually attracted. And the way you do this is by putting things on a table in a certain way, by lighting a candle and burning something. You might as well light paper by standing on one leg or by raising your hand or maybe by keeping your dirty finger out of the bag while you go through the beads, which one religion has in mind. By shaving your head, by doing strange rituals, turning around several times, waving the hands, gesturing with the hands or the body, or maybe saying strange unpronounceable words, maybe even in a strange language. If it's not intelligible gibberish, maybe strange and formal from a formal language. Maybe strange looks, maybe strange gestures, and maybe strange clothes, all of which seems to imply that God, whichever God it is these people seek, must be strange.

   It's no wonder that people are turning away from some of the ceremonies and to witchcraft these days because it is rampant. It's right, it's everywhere around us. Now, as far as we know, astrology originated with the ancient Babylonians. But you know, there were mystical books, so-called hidden books that came out of Babylon, Greece, Rome, and Egypt. And these gradually down into our society. Do you know that in one major important religion's Bible, there are a set of books called Hidden? That's the meaning of the books. And in one of those books, it even says that you can fight away a demon by the smell of burning fish, all of which seems to smack of witchcraft.

   But I don't believe that anyone who adheres to the religion would remotely call it that. And yet to me, if you're going to set fire to the flesh of a fish and claim that you get rid of a demon this way, it sounds pretty much like some of the stuff we've been trying to show you in this series of programs on witchcraft, sorcery, and demonisms.

   The Babylonians also used several other forms of divination. Matters of state politics, between nations, royal marriages, battle strategy, and economic planning were oftentimes influenced by the shape of a sheep liver, by the pattern of arrows in flight, or by the way guts were strewn over a table and sorted through. So, when you talk about a gut, the conversation in those days, bla, sounds awful, but they had them. Or even the pouring of oil onto water and watching the picture or the pattern it made, observing the patterns formed by flowers on water or something of this nature. And some of that, of course, is still in vogue today.

   The Old Testament records that this is the type of world that surrounded the fledgling little nation of Israel and that, in fact, that's the kind of nation out of which Israel was born. That Ancient Egypt didn't only mummify the bodies of their kings, but they also preserved the bodies of crickets, lizards, and alligators, and snakes. And believe it or not, in the museums that show some of these ancient mummies, and especially in the Cairo Museum, there are even little tiny mummy boxes that are in the shape of a beetle in which they put beetles. I'm not talking about people that, you know, have rock music. I'm talking about the insect of a beetle. And there were mummified dogs and mummified alligators, snakes, and lizards and the like and that kind of thing in Ancient Egypt.

   So, when Israel was coming out of Egypt, they were given laws that directly warned them against the practices of the pagan nations around and the nation which had been their host, as it were, for the very birth of that nation. God's word, which we'll see in just a few more moments, very strenuously warned against becoming remotely involved in any sort of demonism or witchcraft.

   Why were you born? To become a farmer trying to feed the population bomb? To become an entertainer to give people a fleeting moment of laughter? To be a millionaire with big houses and fancy cars and ulcers? To live out your last days at the end of a plastic tube in a hospital? To be the last to die in a war you don't understand? Is that all there is to human existence, just putting in your time on a troubled planet? No, there's a great purpose for your life, a reason you draw breath, and you need to know what it is.

   Read the free booklet "Why Were You BORN?" This knowledge gives reason to life, adds meaning to all you do. For a true added dimension to your life, be sure to read "Why Were You BORN?" Send your request to Ambassador College, Box 345, GPO, Sydney, New South Wales. That's Ambassador College, Box 345, GPO, Sydney, New South Wales.

   The Bible didn't deprive ancient Israel of using divination, and that includes water witching, sorcery, forthtelling, soothsaying, stargazing, crystal ball gazing, looking at sheep livers or intestines, or staring at cards or the palms of hands just because God, the God of Israel, was a harsh old God who wanted to deprive all those Israelite kids of having all that fun. No, actually, He did so for the very same reason we today are warned against such things: simply because it is not just good, clean fun. Simply because there is a very real power there, because it's a living power, and because it is a power that is far superior to human power. Perverted, yes. A power which seeks to warp and twist and fork and destroy, yes. A frustrated, demoniacal power that seeks to destroy individual humans and all of mankind.

   That's a fact, whether we want to accept that or not. But it's been proved time and again that in demonism, sorcery, and witchcraft, there is something beyond medical science. And that's the one aspect to it which is the most frightening of all. If it were just parlor games with a Ouija board, if it were people just throwing cards or sticks into the air and watching them come down and just having fun and playing little parlor games, that would be quite one thing.

   But if they were actually tampering with the spirit world, where there is a very realistic power that can literally take charge, take control over the human mind—the most precious possession you've got—and then direct your life for the rest of your life, then it's something that I believe people ought to really understand and to be aware of.

   Moses told Israel, and I quote, this is in Deuteronomy 18: "There shall not be found among you anyone that makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that uses divination, or is an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits," listed all these categories and said, "For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord. And because of these abominations, the Eternal your God does drive them," that is, foreign nations, neighbors, "out from among or before you."

   Now, today we call these practices occult, which means hidden, mysterious, secret, not revealed, or concealed. And we think of such practices as rather strange, maybe just a new kick, a bizarre thing, a thrill thing for the kids. And actually, back then in Ancient Egypt and Babylon, these were all quite normal and part of the most respected religious ceremonies. I think you've already noticed a little bit of similarity in some religious ceremonies of very respectable churches and some ceremonies of just plain witchcraft. Maybe it's because we ought to look into the origins of ceremony and ritual and wonder to what extent some modern rituals—yes, and even holidays that we observe—how long is it until Halloween? And where do you suppose some of those customs came from?

   Now, here's old Garner Ted with dark suspicions about the pagan origins of Halloween. Well, by the time we get to that season, I'm going to blow your minds with a series of programs, or at least one program, where we get into the actual origin of the whole thing. And you're going to see that these programs I've been doing on the occult, on witchcraft and mysticism, black magic and the like, are directly intertwined with all of the accouterments and the paraphernalia of the day we call Halloween, which is supposed to be a church-sanctioned holy day. That is really the evening of All Hallows, or in other words, the evening of All Saints. But that's for another time.

   People today, more and more, are looking to witchcraft to have the mind-expanding experience of finding the solution to their problems in an otherworldly, ethereal way. It's time you understood the answers to the big questions that drive people to these areas in search of hope, of love, of success, of a mate, or whatever. You want to write for this booklet entitled "Why Were You BORN?" because this dares to go into the real questions of what is mankind, what is human nature, why were we put on this earth in the first place, what are the reasons for our being here, and where are we going?

   And also, we have a brand new one for you called, The Occult Explosion - What Does it Mean? This is a brand new booklet, a brochure that we have. We're going to begin a program now, sending out these brochures directly keyed to the television and the radio programs as they come along. This is newly created, filled with the same kind of material—except where you can document it at your leisure—that we've been showing you in the past three programs on the occult and mysticism, and it's absolutely free of charge. There is no price for it, whatever.

   If you doubt whether or not what you've heard is rife and rampant in our society, I would suggest you take a trip to your corner drug store, supermarket, or grocery store and take a look at the magazine shelves. Also, don't pass up the paperback section. Look at science fiction and look at the artist's conceptions of covers that you see there. Look at the fantastic number of books, yes, and even crossword puzzles and riddles that have to do with astrology, demonism, witchcraft, satanism, and the black arts. You'll be dumbfounded. And I think, too, that some of you people who take a peek into your boys' and girls' bedrooms you might find on the wall some of these same astrology slogans or the like.

   Now, I'm not trying to start people on a witch hunt. Far be it from me to do that. I'm not suggesting that there is any danger in that for someone who is sound-minded any more than I feel there is any danger in me talking amid some of these accouterments and paraphernalia that are used in such a service. Just as I can read in the Bible, it says neither the idol is anything because it doesn't taint the meat that is offered in sacrifice to an idol, nor anything of the kind. It doesn't bother anybody who would eat it.

   But you want to write for this booklet, The Occult Explosion - What Does it Mean? And really inform yourself and your children.

   Invading these days, the comic strips are humorous attempts at kind of watering down and making a part and parcel of our everyday life with breakfast, toast, and coffee—Broom-Hilda and other witchy sorts of characters. One very popular series on daily television involves a witch, except in this case, it's supposed to be a harmless one in the form of a very beautiful young genie.

   But be that as it may, you're witnessing an occult explosion, delving into the supernatural, the mysterious, the hidden, and the secrets that were supposed to be lost. The points that I've been making on these programs about the occult is, that there is something that is very definitely real there. Whether we like to think we're just toying with secret whistles and badges, slogans, countersigns, symbolism—something that is just a passing fad or fancy for kids with their T-shirts and maybe burning incense and candles and the like—it is something that could be far more dangerous than that, and something you need to at least be informed concerning.

   So, write for a brand new booklet which is called The Occult Explosion. It's about the occult, and that's spelled O-C-C-U-L-T, O-C-C-U-L-T, in case you're not quite sure about that. It has to do with the—I don't know whether I should say offbeat cult. Maybe that's not quite right and some people might be offended, but at any rate, it has to do with all of this business of satanism, demonism, witchcraft, and the explosion of this kind of pseudo-knowledge that is available all around you today.

   This booklet is something you desperately need to at least be informed about—this new attempt to capture people's minds by the use of the occult. And all you need to do is to request it by sending your letter to Post Office Box 345, Sydney, New South Wales. Be sure to tell us the call letters of your station. We need that. That's all—there is no cost—but tell us the name of the radio station to which you've been listening, the call letters, and then send your letter to Box 345, Sydney, New South Wales.

   Until next time, this is Garner Ted Armstrong saying goodbye, friends.

   You have been listening to The World Tomorrow. If you would like more information, write to Ambassador College, Box 345, GPO, Sydney, New South Wales. That's Ambassador College, Box 345, GPO, Sydney, New South Wales.