Pennsylvania Dutch Healing Rituals and the Occult (Part Two)

THE SUPERNATURAL POWER SOURCE BEHIND PA DUTCH RITUALS

There are some common ailments that pow wowers claim healing for in the PA Dutch communities. Several of them were said to be able to cure and get rid of warts, colic in babies,(colic was something they believed had something to do with the liver being overgrown in a child, which has never been scientifically proven) thrush, stomach issues, and issues of blood and insomnia. Whether they can cure them is solely based on conjecture, temporary relief, or visible appearance of elimination of symptoms. In defining the word "divination" we will see that there are two different kinds of divination. In the 1828 Websters, it states that the ancient heathen philosophers divided divination into two kinds, the natural and the artificial. Natural divination was supposed to be effected by a kind of inspiration or divine afflatus(the prediction or foretelling of prophecy); while artificial divination was effected by certain rites, experiments or observations such as sacrifices, cakes, flour, wine, flight of birds, omens or positions of the stars, etc.

In order for these rituals to work there has to be a power source, and in the case of pow wowing, divination is that power source. Even though the incantations use scripture (some will use the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as they are reciting their incantations over the person) (they do this 2 or 3x) on those they claim to be trying to heal, it is still coming from divination. It is actually quite blasphemous when the results from divination are being attributed to Christ. I read where some pow wowers worked on Sundays because they believed the Lord was doing the healing. When you are powwowing, you are channeling a spirit of divination, in order to obtain the results that come from its supernatural power source. It doesn’t come from God. He has nothing to do with that stuff, nor does He support any of it. (Deut. 18:9-14, Jer. 14:14, Jer. 27:9, Ezek. 13:6-7) He has made that pretty clear, and for good reason, as it is for our own protection. Does God still heal people supernaturally today? I believe He does, but He never uses divination or anything from the occult to do so. (Psalm 107:20, Proverbs 4:20-23, Isaiah 38:16, Matthew 8:17 1 Peter 2:24)

ARTIFICIAL DIVINATION

An example of artificial divination used to cure warts, was to get a potato, cut it in half, rub the cut side of the potato on the wart and then place the potatoes back together. Then, on an evening when there was a full moon, take it outside and bury the potato in the yard and this was supposed to cure the warts and make them go away. It is not the actual potato that has the power to eliminate the warts, there again, it is the power source of divination that yields and brings the desired results. There are endless forms of artificial divination used in conservative communities, from water dowsing, to fingernail clippers on a string, to determine the sex of their baby, and the list could go on. Artificial divination relies on experiments with artifacts and natural things of matter. It is almost always motivated by a desire to obtain hidden information or for producing healing from some kind of ailment. I encountered a lot of artificial divination as a child while being raised in the Amish culture and then later began to encounter and run into more natural divination in the church, through false prophecies and diviners. There is a lot of artificial divination that is used when you go to alternative health places where they attempt to discover what is going on in your body by looking at your body's response through the use of different mediums (like muscle testing as a form of kinesiology for example) they are looking for a binary response usually a "yes" or a "no" in order to acquire hidden information about your body, and the results are often based on pseudoscience, which is the belief, that things have been scientifically proven when they really haven't. In order to obtain this hidden information they have to tap into a supernatural source of power, and its NOT coming from the Holy Spirit of God, even though it may often be attributed to Him. There are many problems with this power source and it's dark roots, but one in particular is its ability to manipulate symptoms to make things appear to be healed while still obscuring the real problem. (remember the nature of the occult) And even though it will work at times and help you find some temporary relief from ailments, it is uniting you with the devious work of the occult. I can see how people in their vulnerability, and desire for healing would get drawn into this stuff, just like I did, but the consequences that come with it, can be life altering. Remember the history and the fact that it is something that people seek in order to find security and self sufficiency. God is still greater and will come through to meet our needs much better, than all the substitute powers of darkness. He is also capable of helping us find natural alternatives that don't connect us to the occult. In Him we find our true security. I would rather look to God for help as my source, then to ensure my life into the hands of the occult like I used to as a child, because, I suffered greatly for it.

CLOSER LOOK AT NATURAL DIVINATION

Let's look closer at natural divination. The Greek word for divination is python. I was very naïve to this stuff for many years, even after I ran into a diviner at the Bible School I attended in Dallas. It took me a while to figure out what was going on. I thought this diviner was hearing from the Lord, (diviners will feed people information that only God, them and their victims know). The information he was feeding me was accurate which is why I thought it came from the Lord. When I believed that, I let down my guard and began to trust this individual, and it was one of the worst mistakes I ever made. I got a job working for him and was terribly harassed for an entire year, until I could cut all ties. He would share accurate things about my life, I never told him, that no one but God and a few friends would know, and this was how He wooed me, and drew me in. He was extremely controlled by natural divination. I was susceptible and vulnerable to this because of all the witchcraft I was indoctrinated with in my childhood. Not only was this individual a diviner, he considered himself to be a deliverance minister, one that chased and yelled at demons and saw demons in everything. Diviners are extremely good at lying. It is a skill that they have perfected. This individual would apologize when confronted, and pretend to be sorry and in an instant could switch faces and revert to the same harassing behavior all in a matter of minutes. Diviners act like snakes in the way that snakes camouflage themselves in order to fit in with their surroundings. It was a level of manipulation and divination (witchcraft) I had never seen before. If some one is a deliverance minister and all the attention is about them, and all that they know and hear, and all that they can see, you may be looking at the fruit of a diviner. These diviners are addicted to power and casting demons out of people feeds this addiction for feeling powerful. Deliverance for them has more to do with propping and elevating themselves, and getting a high from it than actually helping others. True deliverance is NOT demon focused even though there may be a component of that going on, true deliverance comes from the Lord and brings healing and lasting change. The focus in true deliverance remains on the well being of the individual and helping them learn how to connect with Jesus, so they can bring their own trauma and pain to Him, so He can touch, heal and deliver them.

It is important to be able to detect the work of natural divination, because it operates in churches abroad, all the time, and often goes undetected. It thrives on accuracy, and it can feed you information that has a level of truth in it. If we are walking according to the Spirit of God, He gives us discernment to know where the source of the information is really coming from. Testing the source is more important than solely focusing on accuracy alone. Divination can be accurate, but it’s source is not pure. Source is important, because we don’t want to open our hearts up to any of that stuff, because it will trip you up, leave you in a pit, and seek your destruction, that can be hard to recover from. There is an account in Acts 16, where Paul encounters a certain damsel who was possessed by a spirit of divination that kept following them around, telling people they were men of God, etc. (Which was accurate, but she was saying this to alert all her other cohorts where God was working in order to protect those who were working with her) and it says that Paul became annoyed by it and he turned and commanded it to come out of her, and it instantly left her. It was harassing them. If your feeling harassed after someone speaks anything prophetically, even if there seems to be a level of accuracy with what is being shared, that could be an indication the source doesn’t come from God. Paul was put in prison by those that were benefiting from this woman's divination, (they were receiving $ from her soothsaying) and they became angry with Paul for destroying their source of power to get what they wanted. If you disagree or take a stand against a diviner or someone who unknowingly is caught up with divination, it will often hide, turn and twist, and project its venom on you, and harass you. When I am talking about venom, I am referring to its attributes. It can make you appear to be the one that is deceived, dark and evil, by projecting onto you, who it is, through the power of accusation.

If you truly know who you are, and remain connected to the Lord, you can always come under the umbrella of His protection. He is our true refuge. His hand of protection is much more powerful than any of this stuff. The nature of natural divination witchcraft is to manipulate through psychological projection, gas lighting, and mind control, but for those in Christ, who know who they are, you have no need to fear or be afraid of it. Diviners will prophesy and speak information to their victims in order to seduce, hook, and charm them so they can control them and get them to follow after them, drawing people away from God, or making it APPEAR that if you follow them, YOU ARE following God. Diviners seek to use you to get what they want, like your money, your gifts, and your soul, or anything that will help prop them up. I heard someone say it like this before: “they pimp you, by siphoning money from you, and use your gifts or whatever they can, to make themselves look good.” There are those who teach theology, that are so focused on the accuracy of what they teach with almost no regard for the condition of their own hearts from which they are teaching out of. They thrive on being accurate or right, in order to gain followers that will follow after them. Instead of pointing their followers to the Lord, and discipling them to walk with the Lord themselves, they use people as props to elevate themselves and build their own kingdoms.

Many will seek out these "superior theologians" with the hope of receiving help from them, only to be devoured by them. We can read in Proverbs how the prudent will see danger and take refuge, but the simple keep going and pay the penalty. Allow yourself to grow and become more prudent and discerning. These theologians seek "celebrity status," but fail to feed the sheep and respresent Christ. Diviners are agents who inspire and encourage idolatry, living under the disguise of religion, they weave webs like spiders to catch their prey and wrap them up tightly, until their appointed time of complete destruction, just like spiders prepare their meals to be eaten. True prophecy will always point you to Christ and away from the individual, and will also manifest as the fruit of repentance and change, where the fruit from diviners will offer temporary relief (just like artificial divination) and a form of freedom without transformation, true change or conversion.

MY TESTIMONY

There were strong roots of witchcraft in my generations and it’s seeds germinated and took root in my own heart, at a very early age. I was taken to these Amish “Brauchers” because I had terrible stomach pains and after receiving pow wowing I would have temporary relief, but it never went away. They couldn’t successfully pow wow or heal my stomach issues. When I got older I discovered the real source of my stomach pain was the result of a food allergy. I wouldn’t doubt it if divination inflicted people with sickness on purpose, just so they would become dependent on pow wowing, to control them. As a child, divination would take me into these dream like, and trance like states in order to escape the harsh reality of abuse I faced. It posed as an angel of light and appeared to provide a place of refuge from the evil around me and yet, it was working its own destructive work, behind the facade. It provided a false sense of security so I would unite and keep opening my heart to it. Because of my experience, I have grown to see the value and importance of discerning and testing the source of everything whether it be from God or whether it is fake and pretending to come from God, regardless of how much “Christian terminology” is attached to it. We often think that evil will show up with pitch forks, and devil’s horns, and stomp around and show itself for what it is, and sometimes it may, but the reality is that it more often poses as an angel of light or poses as a “god like figure” to rescue you from things that are harming you, only to capitalize on your vulnerability to bring more harm. This is why it is so important to protect the vulnerable. I can tell you I have seen some of the worst evil disguised as “Christian” in religious Christians. It makes them appear to be such beautiful and righteous people, and when you open your heart and trust them, it hooks you, in order to try and wrap you up in its web.

When I was a teen, and suicidal, I ended up in a depression clinic and they talked about the possibility that I had multiple personality disorder, which today, is called DID

( disassociate identity disorder). They told me if I had it, it was on such a small scale that they couldn’t actually diagnose me with it. I remember being relieved cause I was terrified of being diagnosed with it. People that were diagnosed with it, were gossiped about and labeled as crazy, if they had it, in the community I grew up in, and I was afraid of that label. I received that label anyway, and was considered wild and crazy. A label that has since been redeemed by the Lord. Now, when I am a bit wild and crazy, its usually for a good cause. (inserted smile) Some religious communities lack the ability to offer love in the face of any adversity. Anyone dealing with adversity becomes a target to them. Its usually not safe to share your struggles with anyone, because it almost always lands on the gossip train. As it travels through the community it heaps loads of shame upon people causing people to want to hide their struggles instead of bringing them into the light where they can be healed. As a child I felt like I had to hide and put on a face in order to survive. Religious communities cover up things. A big part of my healing was in learning to be transparent and honest no matter how difficult that was to learn. I have also learned many valuable lessons about not being too quick to trust everyone. I developed a lot of naivety and blind trust in people. I remember someone telling me that people from outside the community were untrustworthy but inside everyone could be trusted. That couldn't be more untrue.

Several years ago the Lord kept telling me he was going to completely heal me from all the aftereffects of the abuse I suffered as a child and that I would be made whole. I didn’t have a clue what that meant or would look like, even though I believed that He would do what He promised. It wasn't until I was healed from DID (disassociate identity disorder) that I began to understand what He meant. Turns out I did have DID even if it was on a smaller scale, and I am glad that the Lord knew and opened up the way for my complete healing. He knows, even when we don’t, and His care and love for those that are His, is priceless, and extends beyond what we can sometimes know or imagine. DID is a trauma response to try and cope with severe trauma. The DID I dealt with was associated with a suppressed traumatic memory. I was in a prayer session with a friend when the Lord brought it up and He ministered healing to that memory and I received wholeness. When Jesus heals you, you know it, and it doesn’t just bring temporary relief, it changes your life, and the changes are visible. In this case it brought about a lot of emotional healing, and increased my faith and trust in Him, even more. The fruit from being healed by the Lord is very different than the fruit from the false healing that divination brings. I have felt so much peace, and joy after coming into more wholeness. Peace is precious to me and something I noticeably am grateful and aware of, because witchcraft brings so much drama, confusion and chaos with it, and when your under it, you have NO peace, and there is a constant struggle. After coming into wholeness, I remember how the beauty (in nature) around me seemed more visible to me, and remember feeling like every part of me felt put back together again. A lot of times through out my life growing up, it would feel like there were missing puzzle pieces to my person and I couldn’t figure out which parts fit together. While trauma can do that to us, Jesus can put us back together, so we are whole again. If this article generated some questions, you're welcome to reach out to me, via email or by sending me a message through my website contact page. Selah.