In our secular world, more and more people are practicing the occult without knowing its dangers. While Christianity teaches that the only valid source of power is God, the occult invokes other means of power that promise to be manipulated at will.
How many people practice New Age, Eastern and other pagan practices without knowing the risks involved in doing so? While books like Harry Potter continue to entice the young to dwell on magic, health and fitness buffs engage in yoga and meditation, thinking that these are harmless exercises without any spiritual consequences. Now, even psychological concepts like positive thinking are being leveraged to promote New Age ideas like manifesting and using the law of attraction.
While it seems difficult to avoid encountering proponents of these practices in the culture we’re living in, we should be aware of the real dangers and consequences they pose upon those who get involved in them.
Here are some of the risks people should be warned about when it comes to the occult:
1. Creating an opening for evil influences
Have you ever heard about opening your third eye? Some people are enticed into opening their third eye so that they can see spiritual beings that promise them guidance, power or protection.
This is very dangerous because the person will make oneself vulnerable to spiritual attacks. This practice creates an opening for evil spirits to enter the life of the person involved.
Remember that evil spirits can disguise themselves as angels of light.
Once these beings enter your life, they can manipulate you and eventually trap and enslave you to do what they will.
2. Becoming dependent on the occult as regards one’s future
Those who use the tarot, astrology and other similar practices that promise to foretell one’s future can easily become a habit one depends upon.
People who dwell on these things become dependent upon them, unable to move unless they see an assurance from fortune tellers, shamans and the like.
They also make life decisions based on what these fortune tellers say instead of using the wisdom, intelligence and free will that God has endowed upon us.
3. Believing in lies such as the concept of reincarnation
The Catholic Church teaches that we live only one life, and after that comes the judgment.
The occult, however, makes us believe in false concepts like reincarnation. This concept destroys our God-given dignity as human beings created in His image.
We are not souls who take on different bodies and live different lives each time. We are instead, unique people who have an identity that will never be taken away from us.
We are not trapped in an endless cycle of lives. What God has prepared for us is an eternal life where we can forever enjoy the company of the people who love us and who will never forget who we are.
‘When the single course of our earthly life is completed, we shall not return to other earthly lives’ (CCC 1013).
4. Forgetting the importance of salvation
Once people dwell on magic and other sources of power, they soon forget about the importance of God’s salvation. With it comes the forgetfulness of the reality of sin.
No other power can save our souls than that which comes from God. Only Jesus can save us from our sins and give us eternal life.
5. Neglecting our relationship with Jesus
What do you do with power if you become so empty within because you forgot about the most important thing you could ever have?
What’s the use of magic or foretelling the future if you forget about Jesus Christ who loves you so?
Only our intimate relationship with Him can last for eternity. And God alone is our one true joy! It is only in Him where we can find truth, beauty, wisdom, happiness and peace.
6. Negative effects on our physical and psychological health
The occult poses a threat not only to your spiritual life but to your physical and psychological health. That is the price one pays for tapping into a false and deceptive power that enslaves its practitioners.
People who get obsessed with the occult can suffer from ill effects on one’s body and mind. It may not be immediately visible, but it will consequently ruin the person involved.
How many people who practiced mindfulness experienced trauma and psychological consequences?
Avoiding the Allure of the Occult
The only way to avoid the allure of the occult is to stay close to Jesus Christ and the Church. Live a life of prayer. Never neglect the sacraments and the graces God provides to those who follow Him.
The occult attracts many with its false promises of wealth, power and influence. It can even practice health and peace of mind. In the end, however, it is a deception we must avoid.
Only Jesus is the way, the truth and the life!
“All practices of magic or sorcery by which one attempts to tame occult powers, as to place them at one’s service and have supernatural power over others – even if this were for the sake of restoring their health – are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it.” CCC 2117
“No one shall be found among you who makes a son or daughter pass through fire, or who practices divination, or is a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or one who casts spells, or who consults ghosts or spirits, or who seeks oracles from the dead. For whoever does these things is abhorrent to the Lord; it is because of such abhorrent practices that the Lord your God is driving them out before you.” – Deuteronomy 18:10-12 (NRSVCE)
You may also want to read “4 Things That Manifesting Can Never Do”
Jocelyn Soriano writes about the single life and her Catholic faith at Single Catholic Writer. She is the author of To Love an Invisible God and Mend My Broken Heart.
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