Educated American Chooses Witch Doctor Over Pastors

I just got a very strange email.

Back when I thought I was going to be a humorist (i.e. a person who refuses to grow up and uses his shortcomings to amuse others for money), I was part of a group of Internet writers who got books published. If you don’t remember any of that, good for you. It was a silly time. Publishers got the mistaken idea that the ability to generate web traffic correlated strongly with the ability to sell books, and generally, it wasn’t true. They published books by people like Wonkette (Ana Marie Cox), Maddox (no idea what his real name is), Tucker Max, and Glenn Reynolds. A publisher cranked out three of my own books.

As far as I know, the only one of us who made any real money from books was Tucker. He wrote a book about his adventures as a drunken lothario. It was called I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. It made him look like a real jerk, but I communicated with him a little, and it seemed to me that he was not really the character in his book. He was always polite and helpful. Same goes for Maddox.

Hmm…the Wikipedia entry on Tucker Max says Maddox’s real name is George Ouzounian.

Tucker wrote several more books. I didn’t keep up with him, because while he was succeeding at a game I no longer wanted to play, I was trying to reform and get right with God. I was added to his email list, however, so from time to time, I received news of his adventures.

Today I got a mass email from Tucker, and it was about a surprising subject. He is trying to repair himself using MDMA. He provided a link to his website, where I read an account of his experiences taking MDMA under the supervision of a Peruvian who claims to be a shaman.

MDMA, also known as ecstasy and molly, is related to a drug known as MDA. When I was in college, people said MDA was like LSD, only stronger and more dangerous. I wouldn’t know. I used a number of drugs when I was in college, but I never went near LSD or MDA. I knew people who used LSD had bad trips, and they had a tendency to jump out of windows. One of my freshman roommates used it. Music was playing, and he said he wanted to go outside, via an 8th-floor window, and grab the notes and bring them back inside.

MDMA is supposed to be warmer and fuzzier than MDA. Don’t ask me. I have never tried either, and I haven’t touched an illegal drug in over 34 years. The legal ones are bad enough.

What’s the Christian description of Tucker’s new adventure? “Witchcraft.” That’s what we would call it. In the Bible, the Greek word translated “witchcraft” is “pharmakeia,” which is the word from which we get “pharmaceutical.” It refers to the use of drugs.

If you want more proof that what he’s doing is witchcraft, consider the fact that a self-described witch (“shaman”) is overseeing the process.

That pretty much clinches it.

Tucker’s description of one of his MDMA experiences says that while the drug was working, he became love. That has to be a moving experience for a guy who has tried hard to convince the world he’s a jerk.

It makes me think of the times Jesus visited me. I didn’t become love. Wish I had, because I want to be like God, and God is love. I did feel love, however. I felt it physically, as though love were heat and Jesus were a heat lamp. Jesus radiates love, joy, peace, and protection. This is what we thirst for. We were created to crave it. When drugs give us a phony sensation that feels like God’s love, we think we’re really onto something.

We use drugs and alcohol to simulate the presence and help of God. If you’re a drug user, or you’re mentally ill and you find your prescriptions unsatisfying, the presence of God is what you really want. Drugs make empty promises, but God delivers, and there is no charge on the back end.

When you get into God’s presence, there is no crash. When he departs, you don’t crawl around looking at the rug, hoping to find another crumb you can snort.

Tucker is experiencing the presence of a counterfeit god, and he will have problems because of it. Satan is letting him swallow the tasty bait. The hook will come later. There is always a balloon payment.

Demons will give you nearly anything in order to convince you you’re on the right track. They’re like drug pushers. They do nice things to get you addicted and dependent.

One man who claims he visited hell said he saw cubicles which were made up to resemble heaven. According to him, you can go to one of these boxes during a near-death experience and be surrounded by fake peace and love. You won’t realize you’re in a small box. You’ll think you’re outdoors, in a beautiful place full of trees and flowers. Spirits that look like dead relatives will come up and hug you, and then when you return to earth, you’ll tell people Jesus doesn’t matter. You’ll say love is all that counts and that everyone will go to heaven.

The next time you die, you go to hell for good, and you find out what’s really in the box.

Satan gave Tucker a platform, and now he’s using it to promote witchcraft. It’s really something. It started out as a flippant effort to have fun and avoid growing up, and now suddenly, it’s a very serious place where people are supposed to go for supernatural assistance. How weird is that? It’s as if Pee Wee Herman or Andy Dick opened a church.

I think Tucker wants to help humanity; I don’t think he’s rubbing his hands together like the Wicked Witch of the West over her crystal ball. He’s trying to help people escape inner torment. Unfortunately, he looked for help in the wrong place.

God is love, but not everything that seems like love is God.

Here’s an obvious question: how badly have we failed, to cause intelligent people raised in a Christian country to turn to witch doctors instead of Christians when they need help? If we were doing a good job, wouldn’t most people come to us first and receive deliverance? We don’t have a good reputation, and that’s partly because we let people down.

Who has the biggest platform for spreading the word about God? Televangelists. What do you hear when you tune them in? Intelligence-insulting lies about God’s plans to make you rich for sending in money. Here and there, you’ll hear a useful word about salvation or sanctification, but it’s all buried in fetid, watery, moldy feces. It’s as if preachers had hatched a plan to drive intelligent people away from God.

The righteousness of the church has failed, so Satan is offering people his alternative righteousness, which is actually rebellion. Don’t be a Christian; just be really nice. Unfortunately, being nice won’t keep you out of hell. It’s full of nice people. It’s full of charity workers, philanthropists, foster parents, and kidney donors. No matter how nice you are, you can’t get in without the blood of Jesus.

Being nice won’t free you from demons. It may rearrange them. It may bring you different demons that pump up your pride and make you feel you’ve done the right thing. It won’t set you free.

I’m sorry to see this happen. It’s a deflection. A man tried to move toward righteousness and love, and spirits shunted him off to the side, onto a different path that leads to destruction. It’s a very common thing. I’ll use this as an opportunity to pray. I hope no one listens to the preaching and decides to use MDMA. Drugs open the doors to demons, and getting rid of them is harder than letting them in.