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Thorn Street Lessons About "Spiritual Mapping"
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In Bali: I was shocked when a Christian business owner in Bali told me of his experience after going to a "spiritual warfare" conference at YWAM in Hawaii. He came home to Bali; spiritually mapped his house; found the main
source of evil; and chopped off its wings -- it was a wooden model of the eagle representing Indonesian Pancasila (the five principles). He said it worked for him -- his family-life and business improved. He told me he does not believe there is much
value in studying theology.
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At Borobudur: A group of spiritual mappers went to the temple there and marched around it in silent prayer. None of the participants were allowed to speak. When a girl broke the rules, she was not allowed to continue with the group to the next
site. That was two or three years ago and nothing has changed at the Borobudur temple. Click here for a page about my experience at Borobudur.
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In Jakarta
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There is a prayer network in Jakarta that is taking credit for a section of the city having been spared during the riots of 1998. The prayer network took a map and placed dots at all the houses involved in their enterprise, with a big dot for the
headquarters. When the dots were connected, according to them it formed a dove, with the headquarters as the eye.
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I was talking with a person who knew nothing about the spiritual mapping enterprise in the part of Jakarta that was spared during the riots. He, without knowing he was revealing a secret, told me about how the area, because it is full of rich people
who could buy protection, was protected by the military during the 1998 riots. It made sense to me.
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The leader of a Christian organization in Jakarta is into the spirit of all these new revelations coming into the church and has praised and distributed the Transformations 1 film and some of Otis's books. Although I had told him on a couple occasions about
what Otis believes, and how there are some problems with the information on the famous video, he completely ignored what I said. No desire for further information, nothing. Once I was accompanying him to his house as he and one of his employees made an illegal copy of the Transformations video. With excitement he began telling me about the "dove dots." I did not share his excitement and asked him how he knew it was a dove.
I said maybe it was a hawk swooping in to devour the
Christians. He didn't have an answer for that and he continued with his plans to make a copy of the Transformations film and later showed it to an excited gathering of Christians in Central Java. According to the policy of the Sentinel Group, more
money must be sent to them if the film is shown to a gathering of 25 people or more. This Indonesian church leader, however, not only made an illegal copy of the film, he showed it to a large group of people without sending Otis any money.
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Ironically, the organization the transformations promoter is leading, helped the woman whose husband has been imprisoned in Brunei (below) because of the spiritual mapping scandal.
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The same Transformations promoter published an emergency prayer bulletin about Columbia that was internationally distributed. I saw him just before he sent the bulletin out and asked how it could be necessary since
Columbia has been "taken over for God." He was completely silent, but has still not changed his attitude.
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February 2002 update -- the section of Jakarta that was supposedly protected from the 1998 riots because of the "prayer warriors of the new paradigm" has been flooded with approximately 1 meter of water due to the recent rains. Other
parts of Jakarta are not flooded. Has God lifted His hand of protection from the rich who now dwell on flooded land? Did the prayer warriors stop praying? Would you call this flood "an act of God"?
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In Brunei: A very unfortunate Christian family had a friend who was into spiritual mapping. He came to their house with a briefcase containing information he had obtained through spiritual mapping about a government facility. The police came,
found the spiritual mapping papers and arrested the husband of the Christian family and two other people, taking them off to jail. They are accused of serious crimes against the government and suspected of espionage. One man's wife and four children have had to flee the country.
He has been in jail since December 2000.
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In South Africa: There are multitudes of Christians in South Africa who have joined up with a spiritual mapping prayer network. There is a 27 page document (on A4) called Building a House of Prayer ... Cleansing South Africa. Christians are
supposed to go to places where the worst kind of sin is going on and pray, map, and record their experiences and prophetic revelations. Anywhere there has been a murder, a rape, an accident, an idol set-up, a memorial, etc., etc., the Christians are
supposed to go there, pray, see the sights, feel the feelings of the local people, and smell the smells. They must also confess all the sins of South Africa as their own. In other cases there are reports that Christians have climbed mountains to
shoot arrows into different directions. It is believed that somehow, with that act, they are taking authority over the spirits in high places.
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In Europe: Reports of Christians getting into practices that have been described as shamanism. Some have put salt on Bibles and buried them near a corner of their church building. Christians have been going into graveyards to discover what
spirits may be lurking there.
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In Argentina: Argentina has had a continuous revival since the 50s. However, only recently has it been focused on spiritual mapping, spiritual warfare, and demonic possession. The following is a quote from a book which praises the present
goings on at the revival: "Never before has the occult thrived and proliferated in Argentina as it has in recent years. Deeply entrenched in some rituals of the Roman Catholic Church, the occult has multiplied through
sects and new religious movements, especially among the spiritualist Afro-Brazilian cults and Afro-Caribbean cults and within most of the indigenous religion of Latin America." The Rising Revival, C. Peter Wagner and Pablo
Deiros, editors. Renew Books, 1998, p. 81.
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