[Tax-chick]

later

[randog]

I live fairly close to the Burning Man Festival site and can say with some certainty that the average BMF-goer is motivated by sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll.

[chilepepper]

The answer? Find and read Carroll Quigley's The Evolution of Civilizations .

(Don't be put off just because BJ Clinton was a Quigley fan too...)

In a word, it's just a stage of growth. Unfortunately, one of the terminal stages of growth ;)

[Larry Lucido]

Paganism is just one of may narcisitic, self-absorbed approaches to finding "meaning" or other fulfillment absent a set of well-grounded spiritual principals. Rather than worry about the "rise" of paganism, Churches and their members should focus on evangelizing and being better examples themselves.

Oh, I forgot, some of us are too busy complaining about the practices of the church next door to worry about spreading the Gospel to others.

[biblewonk]

It's easy to paint this in such a way as to make it look like there is a new trend away from Christianity. All it is is a shift from evolution and "the age of reason" to a slightly more headonistic way to not be a Christian.

[Gingersnap]

I think there are two main reasons for current popularity of neo-paganism:

This is a common "end-of-century/beginning-of-century" phenomenon. It's happened for many centuries.

Neo-paganism allows people to embrace some type of "belief" without committing to any kind rules or doctrine. You just shop around until you find a group to your liking or you create your own belief system.

Just because people grow up in agnostic homes doesn't mean they don't want and need a connection with God, it just means that they are less able to distinguish between genuine gospel and feel-good ritual.

[kansas_goat_roper]

It's getting close to the day of the Lord. The end is near.

Luke 17:26
26 And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
(KJV)


Gen 6:5-8
5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.
7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.
8 But Noah found grace in the eyes of the LORD.
(KJV)

[Conservative til I die]

I honestly believe Satan is behind it.

[Little Ray]

The real "Burning Man" was a Celtic sacrifice. They confined other people: criminals, outcasts, prisoners, etc, in a man-shaped wicker cage and burned it. Nice folks the Druids were. Gives me a lot of sympathy for the Romans exterminating them.
Gee, that's a pretty good origin for this celebration, eh?

[franky]

Satan has been let loose for a time. Pray that you can hold off satan from your life.

[dangus]

It's not "occulture." It's spelled "Haut Culture." *snicker*

[marshmallow]

Why is an occult revival sweeping the globe?

Simple. Chesterton said it best.

"When men cease to believe in the one, true God, they don't just believe in nothing. They believe in anything."

We've turned away from God. The spiritual yearning of man must therefore be filled by something else. Pagan and occult gods. Demons masquerading as New Age enlightenment. The spiritual vacuum must be filled.

All falsehood and all false gods, of course, have one source. Satan.

[mtbopfuyn]

From this one article, the mag isn't so "cutting edge". Can't say the occult revival has swept anywhere around here.

Suuure, those freaks only go to the Burning Man for the witchcraft and Playboy is only bought for the articles.

[Cronos]

In the UK, Brighton proudly wears the title these days -Capital of Occulture.
What rot - I live in Brighton, E. Sussex and We're definitely not The capital of occulture -- we're the capital of weird (well, I suppose the two go together) -- in Brighton, the unusual is the norm -- and I never heard of this title for our city by the sea. A more apt name would be the City that burned the pier ;-P

Nah, but seriously, I'm pretty proud of my adoptetd little city by the sea -- you always see something new out here -- and meet tons of folks -- why in the last party I went off to we had at least 50 different nationalities -- and many mixed nationalities: Israelies, Iranis, English, French, Itlaians, Spanish, indians, Germans, Americans, Tahitians, Canadians, Greek, Slovaks, Danish, Comoran, Ecuadorean etc. and everyone gets along pretty fine. The Catholic churchs over here are packed on Sundays and pretty filled up even for the daily masses.

[ikka]

Christianity--and this is its noblest merit--mitigated in a measure that brutal Germanic lust for war; it could not destroy it, however. Should the taming talisman, the cross, shatter some day, there will then burst forth again the ferocity of the old warriors, the insane frenzy of which the Nordic poets sing and speak so much. The talisman is decaying and the day will come when it will woefully break down. The old stone gods will then rise from the long-forgotten ruins, rub the thousand-year-old dust from their eyes, and Thor with his giant sledge-hammer will, in the end, leap forth and smash the Gothic cathedrals. ---Heinrich Heine

Occultists who follow the Norse mythology welcome chaos and strife as a way to usher in Ragnarok, the destruction of this present world, after which the world will be reborn in a sort of second creation. Many of the other occultists have similar beliefs.

The cross is (rightly) seen as the enemy in a way that Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism is not.

[P.O.E.]

Secular humanism cannot eradicate man's basic desires and the eternal questions. Something will fill that void. While some adherents may attempt to inculcate the State as that void-filler, the stuff of occultism may beat them to it.

[Xenalyte]

Why Is An Occult Revival Sweeping the Globe?

Unless you're misguided enough to call a centuries-long existence with ebbing and flowing times of popularity "sweeping the globe," this is a non-story.

[GSWarrior]

Your link doesn't work.

[Quix]

Interestingly . . .

before we went into Iraq this last time, there was a prophetic doc that caught my eye . . . now lost in the maze of my HD . . .

that IF we went into Iraq, a massive host of much more hideous demonic forces would be unleashed from hell.

Iraq has been a center of satanic activity over the centuries. Saddam and sons didn't exactly change that image, now, did they!

My memory of the prophetic doc was that it was a warning from God to not go into Iraq though it didn't explicitly seem to say that. My read on it was that God expected us to go into Iraq but was noting that there would be devastating spiritual consequences for the world if we did.

It was a bit of a puzzling doc. Seemed to be a bit of a catch 22.

In any cases, my 'read on reality' sense is that there certainly has been a massive unleashing of satanic demonic forces dumped on the world from hell since then.