2 Chronicles 33:6 -

              He (King Manasseh) sacrificed his sons in the fire in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, practiced sorcery, divination and witchcraft, and consulted mediums and spiritists...

      Proverbs 4:l6 -

              For they cannot sleep unless they have first done wrong, and they miss their sleep if they have not brought someone down.

      Isaiah 5:20 -

              Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.

      Isaiah 47:l2 -

              Keep on, then, with your magic spells and with your many sorceries, which you have labored at since childhood. Perhaps you will succeed, perhaps you will cause terror.

      Jeremiah 23:l -

              "Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture," declares the Lord.

      Ezekiel 34:2-4 -

              Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: "This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves. Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally.

      Matthew l3:57 -

              And they were offended in him. But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honor, save in his own country, and in his own house.

      Matthew 23:8 -

              But be not ye called Rabbi (or "the Lord's anointed"): for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.

      Galatians 5:l9-20 -

              ...sexual immorality, impure thoughts, eagerness for lustful pleasure, idolatry, participation in demonic activities...

      Hebrews l0:29 -

              Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God...

      Revelation 3:l7 -

              Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.
 

 
      The American church is, at the beginning of the 2lst century, a disaster. Unfortunately, the church in this country has committed every form of evil: adultery, whoredom, maleficia. This refers to the Pentecostal Movement, however the other denominations have a tendency to back this particular denomination.

      The adultery was committed by Jim Bakker. Jim Bakker was head of the popular PTL. He indulged in about everything that could be indulged in. He lived in a mansion...even his dog lived in an air-conditioned dog house. He timed his appeals for money to coincide as to when people received their social security checks. He had a boisterous affair with Jessica Hahn, it is rumored he had many affairs. The whoredom was committed by Jimmy Swaggart. Jimmy Swaggart, a foremost Pentecostal evangelist, also lived in a mansion. He brought in, at one time, a million dollars per day. He indulged with a whore. Alexander VI was the first pope to reign after the discovery of America in l492, and probably the most similar to these men. "He also lived an openly promiscuous life, fathering several children before and after his election to the papacy (Lives of the Popes, by Richard McBrien)." "Prior to his acquisition of the tiara he had, as a rich and favored cardinal, lived with the splendor of a prince and like most great noblemen his existence was untouched by the rigors of celibacy. He had had mistresses, in particular Vanozza Catanei, who bore him four children (Pageant of the Popes, by John Farrow)." These were the pope's sex escapades, while he lived in luxury.

      The maleficia was committed by Morris Conklin. This last problem occurred in west river (west of the Missouri River), South Dakota. There was an individual living three miles northeast of a small town on a small farm. He was a member of an Assembly of God church. He was accused of everything in the book (he lived alone) by the minister: not taking communion in the church (lie), coming to the church in unwashed clothes (lie), having a murderous heart (lie), and being "slippery" (lie). Certain of the congregation would make up stories while pretending he didn't exist. This person had numerous problems on the farm: roaring winds, depleted fields, no adequate heat. These are all things this individual suffered with starting out in the Farm Crisis of the first half of the l980s. On May l, l983 the pastor called this individual on the phone and asked him to come down the church (a Sunday at 2:00 P.M.). There was a chair placed in the midst of a Sunday school room. Fifteen, or so, members of the congregation were seated in front of this chair with two or three to the left of this chair. Conklin was standing to the back of this chair. The minister asked the individual to sit in the chair, to which he complied. He was accused of heresy and witchcraft for calling former members of the church. Conklin stated: "HE THAT CRITISIZES ME BLASPHEMES GOD." Then Conklin invoked "spiritual forces". As a result the victim had a deprivation of reason, unexplained fires, and a loss/destruction of property occurring at or near satanic feast days. When the victim sued this denomination in Federal Court, he received a Motion for Dismissal on a satanic feast day. When the victim sent to a friend a synopsis of this lawsuit, the rear wheel almost fell off of a tractor the victim was driving (when he worked on a ranch). When the victim called the minister trying to get him to admit to what he had done, the electricity in that part of the house went off. When the victim tried to sue the minister, he received a letter from Conklin's attorney saying he wanted to get together with the victim to "discuss issues" - the date on the letter was a satanic feast day. And lastly, the victim was unduly harassed on a job in South Dakota about the invocation of "spiritual forces" until finally he was fired.

      Alexander VI also did not like being criticized by Savonarola, a Friar:

              "God desires me to reveal His secret counsels and to announce to all the world the dangers to which the barque of Peter is exposed...I assure you, in verbo Domini, that this Alexander is no Pope at all and should not be accounted as such for besides having attained to the Chair of St. Peter by the shameful sin of simony (purchased), and still daily selling Church benefices to the highest bidder...O, prostitute Church, thou hast displayed thy foulness to the whole world, and stinkest up to heaven."...and soon his enemies had him arraigned before the secular authorities. Some alleged confessions were wrung from him by torture and he was sentenced to be hanged on the grounds of heresy (Pageant of the Popes, by John Farrow).

"The ecclesiastical act for which he is also remembered was his excommunication, torture, and execution in l498 of the famous Florentine preacher and reformer Girolamo Savonarola, who had been denouncing papal corruption and calling for a council to reform the Church and depose Alexander VI (Lives of the Popes, by Richard McBrien)." Morris Conklin stated, for calling former members of the church, "He that criticizes me blasphemes God." As a part of his excommunication he used a scripture that, according to the Interpreter's Bible, is purported to be used to bring about someone's death. Like Alexander VI, Conklin would not tolerate criticism.

      The reaction of the American church has been extraordinary. At Sturgis, South Dakota the victim talked to a Pentecostal minister about the act of maleficia. Five minutes after he left the church a police car pulled up and the policeman asked the victim to get in the car. After the normal, routine checks, the policeman told the victim that the minister was "concerned". An evangelical lay minister at Sturgis, South Dakota, when informed about the act of maleficia, yelled and screamed at the victim to "forgive". Mark Hotchkiss, who was there when Conklin invoked "spiritual forces" told the victim when he was trying to deal with the act of maleficia: "Well, what I feel is funny is that you keep trying to push a lot of this stuff and every corner or avenue that you try to take to antagonize or blow it up - you get stopped." A Pentecostal minister in North Dakota who was acquainted with Morris Conklin told the victim: "Touch not the Lord's anointed." Marcus Bakke, an Assembly of God church leader over Morris Conklin asked the victim, "Have you read the book of Job." The problem we see in the American church today is that when people get hurt they are simply out of luck. When they attend a church, they attend at their own risk, and have absolutely no protection if they are being victimized. The South Dakota Assembly of God District Council wrote the victim a letter dated January 26, 2000, after receiving a formal Complaint that was written according to the Assembly of God Bylaws concerning the use of satanic power: "I have read the documents sent to my office and regret the difficulties you have experienced over the past years...No further action from our office is anticipated regarding these matters." Yet a radio ministry such as Marlin Maddox in Texas has no problem with railing continuously on the 42nd President of the United States for inappropriate behavior with women. Even the Church of the Nazarene wrote this President suggesting he resign. But when it comes to sin in its own house, the church tells the victim, "Forgive, or you sins will not be forgiven," or "Nothing should have happened to you," as this victim of an act of maleficia has been told many times. They tell you, "You need to let it go, let God take care of it." That sounds good. There is only one problem. If someone is being disruptive in their services, there is no letting it go, there is no "let God take care of it."  Instead, there is swift punishment. Maleficia is similar to incest. In the Bible the discipline for incest was extreme (New Testament). Pentecostal and many evangelicals are complete hypocrites. Unfortunately, that is the first group Jesus Christ casts into the lake.

      In church history, these things happen. Satanic power has been used in other cases.

              On the evening of July 29, l967, a middle aged man suddenly collapsed on the floor of his San Francisco apartment; and as his wife and son bent over him, a woman's voice came out of his mouth, screaming: "I don't want to die". Both claimed they recognized the voice as that of actress Jayne Mansfield, who happened to be a member of the same congregation. They later learned that Jayne Mansfield had died that evening; she had been in a car with her attorney when a truck hurtled from under a narrow bridge and crashed into their car; Jayne Mansfield was decapitated...At the time of her death, Jayne Mansfield was being groomed by the studio as a successor to Marilyn Monroe, and her lawyer, Sam Brody, had the utmost objection to her involvement in LaVey's satanic cult, which might cause embarrassment to the publicity department. When he threatened to start a newspaper campaign, LaVey retaliated by pronouncing a solemn ritual curse. He told Brody that he would be dead within a year, and warned Jayne Mansfield not to share Brody's car. After her death he commented laconically: "She was the victim of her own frivolity" (Witches, by Colin Wilson).

The "congregation" Jayne Mansfield was a member of was the Church of Satan.

      A classic church "witch-hunt" occurred in the beginning of the l4th century with the Templars, a religious military order of knighthood which was founded in lll9 to protect and guide pilgrims in the Holy Land.

              In the years between l307 and l3l4 the downfall of the Templars shocked Western Christendom profoundly, and it has excited interest and passion among historians and moralists ever since. In the course of centuries more information has come to light than was available at the time to any but the principal actors. One can now make a cool, reasonable assessment of the damage done to various reputations by this dismal affair, thanks to the records of interrogations and confessions found in various quarters, to the appeal of the accused sent to the Curia in l3l0 and preserved in Paris and Rome and, finally, to the Aragonese ambassadorial dispatches discovered and published by Finke. Yet this cannot, if historians are permitted to entertain any generous sentiment, preclude a feeling of compassion for the victims, disgust at the behavior of the chief engineers of their ruin, despair at the mixture of blindness, impotence, and indifference displayed by official leaders of the Church (Medieval Texts and Studies, by C.R. Cheney).
 
We see this in the reaction of the church world to the act of maleficia committed by the Pentecostals: callous indifference, blind impotence, the almost insane desire not to accept the facts.

      Other instances of satanic power:

              This aspect (the place of "spirits" in witchcraft), I am inclined to believe, is more important than anyone has given it credit for. It emerges again clearly in an episode in Laurens Van Der Post's book The Lost World of the Kalahari, in which he describes how a guide offered to take him to a mysterious region called the Slippery Hills - the one condition being that there must be no killing of animals. Van Der Post forgot to tell the advance party, who shot a warthog; from then on, everything went wrong. The camera and tape recorder jammed continually, although they had given no trouble before, and the camera swivel failed. They were attacked by bees. Their guide warned them that the spirits were angry; when he tried to pray, some invisible force pulled him over backwards...And what about witchcraft, the ability to cause paranormal events?...Neal's (James H. Neal, former Chief Investigations Officer for the Government of Ghana) Ju-ju in My Life describes his own gradual conversion to belief in the malevolent power of witch-doctors - in this case, through unpleasant personal experience. After causing the arrest of a man who had been extorting bribes from farmers, Neal was told that he had now become the target for ju-ju...Then Neal became seriously ill - he actually describes an "out of the body" experience - although the European doctors could not diagnose the illness. A black subordinate offered to call in his uncle, an expert on ju-ju attacks. The uncle performed certain rituals, then described in detail the man who was behind the attacks - a man he had never seen...In a chapter called "The Psi Underworld" in The indefinite Boundary, Guy Playfair, tells a story of a psychology graduate named Marcia who picked up a small plaster statue of the sea god Yemanja on the beach at Sao Paolo and, against the advice of a friend, took it home. A run of appalling bad luck began as soon as she had placed it on her mantelshelf: first, food poisoning, then tuberculosis, then burns from an exploding pressure cooker, then an exploding oven. She began to experience suicidal urges, having to struggle to prevent herself flinging herself in front of cars or out of a window...Finally, she decided to visit the local Umbanda center. She took along the statue. The director of the center told her that her sufferings were "revenge" for her unlawful removal of the statue, and advised her to take it back to the place where she had found it. When she did this, her life quickly returned to normal. It was only after the Umbanda director warned her about the statue that she noted something odd: the paint was worn off the face and arms of the statue; patches remained in exactly the same places she had suffered burns; even the "spot" on her lung corresponded to a remaining patch of paint (Witches, Colin Wilson).
 
The Assembly of the God, in a legal document, admits to the "operation of spiritual forces invoked". The Encyclopedia of Witches and Witchcraft gives a definition of witchcraft: "the manipulation...of supernormal forces...through an invocation of spirits".

      The church at the beginning of the 2lst century has other problems.  Luke 8:l4 -

              And that which fell among thorns are they who, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.
 
In the American Christian church, parishioners are all caught up in careers, businesses, jobs, cars, vacations, church activities, sporting events, paying bills, television, additions to the home, air conditioning, lawn care, and on and on - "the cares and riches and pleasures of this life". The clergy are wrapped up in buildings and programs. Other people's eternal welfare is not first on their list. In the 2lst century God will not be as tolerant of this situation.

      In a large part, the church is to blame for society's problems by providing a bad example - instead of dealing with disasters they (the church) create, they say, "You need to let it go." The church covers up corruption, so society does likewise. If the downward spiral continues unabated, it will ultimately lead to a Revelation 8:l3 scenario:

              And I beheld, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhabiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trumpet of the three angels, which are yet to sound.
 
God will become disgusted at the whole thing.

            We will glorify the King of Kings, we will glorify the Lamb.
            We will glorify the Lord of Lords, who is the Great I AM.

            Lord Jehovah reigns in majesty, we will bow before his throne.
           We will worship him in righteousness, we will worship him alone.

            He is Lord above the universe, he is Lord of all who live.
            He is Lord above the heav'n and earth, all praise to him we give.
 
           We Will Glorify, by Twila Paris

But as our Lord saith, "This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me." Meaning, people in the church world will sing the above melody, but, when it's over, it's back to mischief. Because the church chooses not to deal with its problems, i.e. choosing to do nothing, the public's trust in the church is waning. So many in world society have "faith in nothing" and the church instead of helping the situation, makes it worse.
 
 

              Satan, emperor of all realms of hell, king of shadows, duke of the damned, to his most faithful servant John Dominici, archbishop of Ragusa and abettor of all our works, sends good health and eternal pride.

                                                                    The Letter of Lucifer, composed in l35l