Mental Imaginary and Vision

I have met many Christian these days, some of whom are pastors and missionaries. Some might be able to see visions and have dreams; furthermore, some are much gifted. Some of them came to ask me why the things in the visions didn’t happen as the visions they saw at all. What’s even worse, some did something according to the visions they saw, ending up with a big problem in their lives. Then I began to look for and study some books related to it. One day in last month, when I was praying on the street, the Holy Spirit reminded me to share the difference between mental imagery and vision, so that we won’t fall into the snare of metal imagery, which can make our lives worse and more confusing.

Mental imagery is picture presented in one’s heart in connection with a certain event. If you search on the Internet the vocabulary “mental imagery” or “mental picture”, you will find out that in Japan or North America, mental imagery is used as a branch of psychology. They would teach people how to heal a patient with mental image. There’s a typical example, when you see an apple or you speak out the vocabulary apple, then an apple will come up in your mind. After that, you might be able to work on the image of the apple, for example, when you image you desire to eat the apple, you will see the picture in your mind that there’s a bite on the apple. That’s the way they use the branch of psychology to describe mental imagery.



Today we can see the method of healing with mental imagery in mediums TV shows. For example, if you’ve got a liver tumor, you might imagine what your liver looks like now and locate a place on your liver where the tumor grows, or you’ve already known where the tumor on your liver is, then you can put that picture in your brain and imagine the tumor to get smaller over and over again every day, eventually you can imagine the tumor to be disappeared. That’s what mental imagery works. You project what you want in your brain, and that will become a picture, afterward, you transform that picture again and again which will bring the power to you. The released power will procure what you want exactly. This is what you created which happens in the spirit world. You become to be able to control the organs, in fact, it is you to control the certain part of the organs through spirit so that the organs get the power, finally which will bring the desirable function of healing. It is quite popular in the Asian witchcraft. Since thousands of years ago, it has not been a new thing, which makes changes in the body shape including losing weight through controllable power. Some people call it “Qigong” or “Neigong” which is the part of Qigong. If it is controlled by Christians, then you are able to control your spirit with volition (a kind of spiritual power) and your spirit will be influenced.

The clearest verse of the Bible about the spirit world is in Ezekiel, “I looked, and I saw a figure like that of a man. From what appeared to be his waist down he was like fire, and from there up his appearance was as bright as glowing metal. He stretched out what looked like a hand and took me by the hair of my head. The Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and in visions of God he took me to Jerusalem, to the entrance of the north gate of the inner court, where the idol that provokes to jealousy stood.”(Ezekiel 8:2-3) The verse says that Ezekiel communicated with the spirit world via a spirit. He called that communication the vision because he knew the vision sacredly belongs to God. The verse says “…The Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven and in visions of God…” so Ezekiel didn’t make up the vision on purpose (he didn’t create an image in his mind) instead he got the vision directly from God outside in. And the origin of the vision was from God. “The Spirit lifted me up and brought me to the exiles in Babylonia in the vision given by the Spirit of God.” (Ezekiel 11:24) Here we can see that Ezekiel’s vision was not presented in his mind, contrarily it was from the Spirit of God externally so that he was able to communicate with the spirit world. God is the origin of the vision.

Numbers 12:5-6, “Then the LORD came down in a pillar of cloud; he stood at the entrance to the tent and summoned Aaron and Miriam. When the two of them stepped forward, he said, “Listen to my words: “When there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, reveal myself to them in visions, I speak to them in dreams.” The Chinese characters 異象(yì-xiàng) in English is “Vision.” We just spoke of the example of channeling via controlling the spirit inside ourselves. Either you would receive the vision from God and connect with the Spirit of God, or you might create an image inside you and connect with the evil spirit.

It is said in 2 Corinthians Chapter 10 that “…we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” Thought is the volition that forms in your mind. God wants to completely take captive mankind’s thought and volition back to the Throne of God. (Isaiah 28:7) ”… Priests and prophets stagger from beer and are befuddled with wine; they reel from beer, they stagger when seeing visions, they stumble when rendering decisions.” (Jeremiah 23:16) “This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD.” Mental imagery is pictures from one’s mind, that is to say, it is not received from God. (Jeremiah 23:17) “They keep saying to those who despise me, ‘The LORD says: You will have peace.’ And to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts they say, ‘No harm will come to you.’” People who follow their mental images will suffer from disasters.

(Jeremiah 14:14-15) “Then the LORD said to me, “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I have not sent them or appointed them or spoken to them. They are prophesying to you false visions, divinations, idolatries and the delusions of their own minds. Therefore this is what the LORD says about the prophets who are prophesying in my name: I did not send them, yet they are saying, ‘No sword or famine will touch this land.’ Those same prophets will perish by sword and famine.” Here we see that God deems the mental imagery in people’s mind as divination and witchcraft, which will be destroyed in the future.

We can bring up some circumstances of the interpretation of prophetic visions. One is that the prophet interprets the vision incorrectly; another one is that God didn’t speak to the person at all, however he could create something he wants to know in his mind. This is so simple for those who have practiced mental imagery for long time, because they are quite familiar with that method. I’ve ever met several persons who engaged in witchcraft in the past time. They are pretty skilled with that. After they believe in Jesus, they can still see pictures because they ever communicated with the spirit world before. One of persons I know, the pictures he saw were all about the demons’ work of binding and destruction or anything of demons being with him, at his home and in his church. If the pastors can’t figure out that it is because the church member hasn’t disconnected with the experiences he ever had spiritually before and misunderstands it is from God, then the consequences would be that the pastors could be kept constantly on the run to explain. The pastors would go to places or societies where God didn’t ask them to reach, and they pray from place to place. They would be impeded and put more effort in useless works, with no feedback. They didn’t put effort in spreading the gospel or solving problems of people’s life. That can’t be called the vision, because it includes the work of mental imagery. (They’re even still been bound by evil spirits.)

Why would the people who accept the false visions enjoy listening to them? That’s just because they pursue what they imagine in their minds and the imaginations of their minds. Some people can see from their minds healing, wealth and various successes, which are not all from God; however they are mostly from the people who make use of mental imagery as their personal desires. They will also get entangled in the spirit world and get confused in many relationships. In Jeremiah Chapter 14, God considers mental imagery as abominable as witchcraft, because it will deceive the elect. It is said in Revelation that even the elect will be deceived, because it can perform signs. The above is all about the false prophet. So the structure of pictures in the mind has a chain linked to evil spirits and demons in the spirit world. (2 Corinthians 11:14-15) “…for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising…” Because what people receive contain so many revelations and explanations, you will be able to discern they are from the spirit world, not people themselves. Since they are from the spirit world, if we don’t know how to distinguish, then we will think that they are from the Holy Spirit. In fact, the spiritual things behind are called “Spirit of dirt.” How should we discern? We must have a keen relationship with God and build you foundation of the truth for most of the time. The Spirit of God and the Word of God are able to be testified.

I’ve seen a more terrible situation. Some persons would stand at the platform and invite the congregation to meditate that Jesus is standing in front of you and ask Jesus if He loves you or not, or to meditate that Jesus gives you a roasted fish to eat. I, myself, have ever attended this kind of meeting, but after that, I was blamed by the Lord. I said to the Lord that “I don’t know if that is correct or not. I can’t even understand that. We are just like sheep. If someone makes us pasture, we just follow he or she. After that, so many things happened and I even don’t know why. Finally God spoke to me that it is just mental imagery, not a vision; a vision would not come from your heart, but would be poured down from God.

If somebody sees the “imagery Jesus, he or she would pray to “the Jesus” and talk with “him” about his or her worries. Today Churches enjoy doing the above which is difficult to distinguish. And few people know how to discern and what the truth is. Evil spirits would exploit this situation not to make people know the truth, and hope people to be trapped. If we don’t pray very often and don’t have an intimate relationship with the Lord, we would be likely to fall into the snare easily.

(Amos 9:11) “In that day “I will restore David’s fallen shelter— I will repair its broken walls and restore its ruins— and will rebuild it as it used to be.” (Ezekiel 22:30) “I looked for someone among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found no one.” The reason to rebuild the wall and stand in the gap is that we hope the judgment of God won’t befall and the wrath of God could be avoided. The curse has been casted because of sins in people’s lives. Sins are not originally in people’s heart, instead they are “crouching” outside. It’s like Cain killed Abel. God wasn’t fond of Cain’s offering and Cain’s face was downcast. God said to him, you did so, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, which means to run after you. How could sins enter the gaps of lives? It’s when Cain killed his brother Abel. The act is unveiled and sins enter and the death comes after. The valley of decision is mentioned in the Bible (Joel 3:14). The valley of decision is also called the valley of judgment. When people have sins, they would fall into the judgment of God. When the wall is broken, the valley of decision would be there. So God has to raise up persons to avoid His hands of judgment reaching us. There’re actually gaps in the spirit world. It is not illusive. When there’s the depraved mind, there’re gaps. They’re like discord, jealousy, hatred…etc. If we have such kind of mind, the gap will be there. We have to stand in the gap and start to fight and restore the gap in our minds. When we have already restored it, we won’t fall into the valley of decision. If we haven’t, the sins will enter and we will fall into the curse of the valley of decision, with the judgment of God.

Uttered by EC