originally posted by: whereislogic
a reply to: livinglight108
Ancient Babylonian religious concepts and practices are found in religions worldwide
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Practice of astrology, divination, magic, and sorcery: Historian A. H. Sayce writes: “[In] the religion of ancient Babylonia . . . every
object and force of nature was supposed to have its zi or spirit, who could be controlled by the magical exorcisms of the Shaman, or
sorcerer-priest.” (The History of Nations, New York, 1928, Vol. I, p. 96) “The Chaldeans [Babylonians] made great progress in the study of
astronomy through an effort to discover the future in the stars. This art we call ‘astrology.’”—The Dawn of Civilization and Life in the
Ancient East (Chicago, 1938), R. M. Engberg, p. 230.
Source: Babylon the Great (Reasoning From the Scriptures)
“Come, I will show you the judgment on the great prostitute who sits on many waters, with whom the kings of the earth committed sexual immorality,
and earth’s inhabitants were made drunk with the wine of her sexual immorality.” (Rev 17:1)
On her forehead was written a name, a mystery: “Babylon the Great, the mother of the prostitutes and of the disgusting things of the earth.” (Rev
17:5)
...
“The waters that you saw, where the prostitute is sitting, mean peoples and crowds and nations and tongues.” (Rev 17:15)
There's your means of controlling the thinking (the minds) of the masses right there. ...
Regarding Babylon the Great, the last part of Revelation 18:23 says: “for your merchants were the top-ranking men of the earth, and
by your
spiritistic practices all the nations were misled.”
Some persons view dabbling in spiritism as a form of amusement. They consider it fun to receive messages, or answers to their questions, in some
mysterious, supernatural way. But is this merely a harmless form of entertainment? What is spiritism?
Spiritism involves getting in touch with wicked spirit creatures, either directly or through a human or other medium. Spiritism brings a person under
the influence of the demons. Therefore, observe with what detestable practices spiritism is linked in the Bible. It says: “Now the works of the
flesh are manifest, and they are fornication, uncleanness, loose conduct, idolatry,
practice of spiritism, hatreds, strife, jealousy, fits of
anger, contentions, divisions, sects, envies, drunken bouts, revelries, and things like these.”—Gal. 5:19-21; Rev. 21:8.
God condemns every kind of spiritism. The Bible tells us what some of these disapproved things are: divination, magic, looking for omens, sorcery,
binding others with a spell (hypnotism, black magic, and so forth), consulting a spirit medium or a fortune-teller and inquiring of the dead. (Deut.
18:9-12; Isa. 8:19) All of this is demonism, and those who turn to such practices make themselves enemies of God. Thus, talking about "mind control",
is it not apparent that if we want to avoid coming under the
Devil’s control we must keep free from all of such forms of spiritism?—Lev.
19:31; 1 Chron. 10:13, 14. If one is willing to take the Bible seriously for a change (of spiritual food), rather than demonstrating the description
“will not put up with” used at 2 Tim 4:3,4, the first bible quote in my first comment.
Divination is one of the common forms of spiritism. It is the effort to obtain knowledge of the unknown or of the future by means of omens or demon
power. As an example, the Bible tells of a girl who possessed amazing powers of prediction due to demon influence. The disciple Luke writes: “It
happened that as we were going to the place of prayer, a certain servant girl with a spirit, a demon of divination, met us. She used to furnish her
masters with much gain by practicing the art of prediction.”—Acts 16:16.
Many are the ways divination is practiced today, such as by divining rods, pendulums, crystal-ball gazing, query boards, ESP, examining the lines of
one’s hand (palmistry), studying the flight of certain birds, looking for omens in one’s dreams and in other incidents in one’s life and then
trying to relate these to the future. There is also divination by the stars, commonly called astrology. This originated in ancient Babylon, as did
various forms of the magical arts.