Todd Bentley's New Age Practice of Creative Visualization
by Joanne Panettieri
Editor, Kingdom Iconoclast
Dr. Dave Hunt writes in his book "Occult Invasion", (Harvest House Publishers, Eugene, OR, 1998) about Visualization:
"The concept is a form of mental activity called imaging. It consists of vividly picturing, in your conscious mind, a desired goal or objective, and holding that image until it sinks into your unconscious mind, where it releases great, untapped energies....
The idea of imaging... has been implicit in all the speaking and writing I have done.... But only recently has it begun to... be recognized by scientists and medical authorities.… 1 (Norman Vincent Peale, Positive Imaging )
This occult technique has invaded the church. Certain leaders have been teaching visualization for years. In his booklet, The Power of the Inner Eye, Robert Schuller (like Yonggi Cho and others) perverts Scripture by claiming that it advocates the occult technique of visualization. He writes:
In the May, 1985, issue of Psychology Today, there was a wonderful article entitled "In the Mind’s Eye." [It] deals with... visualization" (endtimesdeception.com/?p=581)
I have copied below a portion of Todd Bentley's article on an "Open Heaven". (found on his web site and in his own words!) In this article Todd is basically teaching Christians about astral projection.
Bentley states that “heaven is without the sickness, the sin, the disease, the death, the poverty, and the devil, that we have here. And since we [can and do] enjoy what God has created in the earth, then is there any reason why we can’t, as spiritual beings with spiritual senses, go places in the spirit and taste, see, and touch [experience the geographical beauty of] everything that God has created in the heavenly dimension? After all, everything we have in the natural/temporal realm is created out of the heavenly invisible realm in the first place!" ( Todd Bentley, Open Heavens Part 1 of 2.)
Again, proof that Todd is into many non-biblical new age techniques:
"Friends, I believe there comes a “place” where there is an invitation for each and every one of us to pray for spiritual understanding, for the eyes of our hearts to be opened, and for us to be filled with the spirit of wisdom and revelation. It’s an atmosphere where we can make ourselves available to receive solid teaching and guidelines from God’s word to help us exercise our spiritual senses. Also, it’s where we can learn to open and sanctify our imagination, and begin to have the eyes of our understanding enlightened (the mind’s eye) whereby we begin to touch the dimension of seeing—the dimension of visions, trances, dreams, and angelic visitation"
Todd believes that : "Why? One reason is because the “dimension of seeing” goes hand in hand with the seer anointing, and God wants to give us that anointing". And in Part 2 he writes: "Is there really an invitation to come boldly before the throne? Can I really have trances, visions, dreams, and visitations of the Lord? Be aware of angels? What do you mean, it’s my inheritance now?"
And yet again, Todd Bentley takes liberty with the Word of God because there is NO such anointing mentioned in the Holy Bible. Unfortunately for him and those that follow him, I fear that many of their experiences will be from the spiritual realm of the fallen angel kind!
Lastly, he teaches people that they must "scantify their mind's eye":
"Just like an eagle flies way up high, and with his keen eyesight he sees far off into the distance, God wants you to be high “by setting your mind on things above,” and to have eagle-eyes—clear prophetic vision that sees far off. However, the first thing you must do is sanctify your imagination. If you’re going to have eagle-eyes you need to sanctify your mind’s eye by guarding what you do with your natural eyes"
Sorry, but I must have missed that class in Bible college... oh wait... "mind's eye"... that's NOT in the Bible!! The Bible teaches us to "cast down our imaginations" NOT sanctify them!