Charismatic drunkenness

I love you! I yearn to you! Pale or purple, veiled or voluptuous, I who am all pleasure and purple, and drunkenness of the innermost sense, desire you. Put on the wings, and arouse the coiled splendor within you: come unto me!

Clearly The Great Beast experienced raptures of love, or he could not write like this. Note the description of “drunkenness of the innermost senses.”

These descriptions may be “extreme”—but it is important to realize that even those who experience less extreme symptoms of spiritual intoxication are practicing the same form of spirituality. The difference is one of degree, not of kind. Whether you are a little bit drunk or a whole lot drunk depends only on how much you have taken; it is all poured from the same cup. An accursed cup.

Sufi drunken states

The mystics of Islam are known as Sufis:

Ecstatic Sufis do not claim that they come to see what Muhammad saw…, but they move in his direction…their states become trancelike because of their total abstraction from self…Sufis report that as their consciousness begins to change, it feels as if their wills were placed in abeyance and a superior will takes over. Sufis honor their ecstasies, but in calling them “drunken” they serve notice that they must bring the substance of  their visions back with them when they find themselves “sober” again.

Here again we see trance states, submission to a greater power, spiritual drunkenness and visions while under the power of an intoxicating force.

Egyptian goddess of sacred drunkenness

Egyptian festivals feature a goddess of spiritual drunkenness with a very strange name, Hwt-Hrw:

Just twenty days after the New Year Festival the ceremony known as the “Inebriation of Hwt-Hrw” occurs…What end does this festival serve? In many ancient cultures, intoxication was seen as a means by which communication with, and awareness of, spiritual realities could be achieved…inebriation also was achieved through the use of chanting, fasting, dance and music. In essence these were all seen as a means to create an altered state allowing one to become more open to the spiritual forces around them. The Goddess Hwt-Hrw’s title “Lady of Drunkenness” clearly reveals this aspect of Her nature. This “sacred drunkenness” or “sober drunkenness” can take on many forms…a [profound] intoxicating state of mind occurs when communing with the divine.

See how many religions teach that spiritual drunkenness is how we commune with deity?

The truth about spiritual drunkenness

It is occult

A good test for occult practice is to see how it fits with the definition provided on this Website (Read: What is Occult, What is Biblical? ) -

1) Occult practice includes seeking God or truth beyond nature, reason and the rational mind—that is, in the supernatural realm.

2) Occult practice is based on a belief that communion with God comes through subjective, supernatural experience.

3) Occult practice involves seeking supernatural energy, spirits, power, presence, influence, action or enchantments.

To seek God in spiritual drunkenness clearly fits all aspects of the definition.  It involves communing with God (as it is thought) beyond nature, reason and the mind: occultists do not seek God in His Word, nor in prayer or mindful obedience, but through delving into the spirit realm for experience.  It is thought that feelings of rapture and joy mean one has  found “the father’s heart” and is communing with Him.  And it involves the action of manifest presence upon the mind and spirit—with the extreme results of mental numbness, loss of balance, etc.

It is adulterous

As is generally the case in occultism, the Word of God and the place of the Scriptures as our source of very life are forgotten. Experience reigns supreme. But practitioners are not experiencing God. They are experiencing Satan, for Satan is god of the occult. There they commune with him, and in drunkenness they experience his depths. They seek him out, lie with him and stagger under his influence, all the time worshipping him as God, praising him and rejoicing. I would venture to say that spiritual drunkenness it is an extreme form of spiritual adultery that involves the whole of the person: soul, spirit, emotions, mind and flesh. It is a complete giving over to Satan, the very enemy of the soul. How deceptive and evil it really is. (Read: The Good That is Not) 

It is spiritually blinding

Those who indulge in spiritual drunkenness (or any other form of occultism or apostasy, of course) will, as they continually give themselves over to satanic experience, become increasingly blind—in particular, their hearts will be hardened to the Word and they will be increasingly disabled from understanding it. The Scriptures will become to them as a book shut and sealed. Their understanding will be darkened and darkened. Hear Isaiah describe this:

Pause and wonder! Blind yourselves and be blind! They are drunk, but not with wine; They stagger, but not with intoxicating drink.  For the Lord has poured out on you The spirit of deep sleep, And has closed your eyes, namely, the prophets; And He has covered your heads, namely, the seers. The whole vision [revelation] has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one who is literate, saying, "Read this, please." And he says, "I cannot, for it is sealed."

They cannot. The life-giving Word of God is sealed to them. They simply cannot understand His truth and the meaning of the Scriptures. They have fallen in with the father of lies, and there they have made their bed.

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All quotations are fully cited in the book True to His Ways, but are removed here for simplicity and to avoid links to occult or Charismatic websites.

© R. Davis, Baruch House Publishing. Posted 2008.