How cultists fool pious/needy gulliable Christians

Here's another lesson in discernment.

How do people who claim to have "visions" of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Jesus, or other divine beings do it? How do they get so many people to believe them?

Well, there's always a pool of spiritually poor people who are seeking. These people often lack confidence in themselves in their personal lives, and therefore they are very likely to believe that someone has a "special" ability that they themselves don't have. So people with poor self esteem are more likely to believe that some person claims to see Mary "daily" because they are vulnerable to believing someone else's "specialness," that they themselves don't feel. People who lack strong faith that is grounded on knowing that they are all equal before God tend to think that there are "special" people who have "special" "gifts" and "spiritual access."

The second way people are fooled is that these people are careful to give good safe messages, such as "Mary said to pray," "Mary said to pray," "Mary said to pray." They learned their lesson when they tried to manipulate September 11, 2001 to try to "predict the next attack" or milk some divine message out of it, but none of that panned out or made any sense. So they are back to the tried and true "safe" messages that have nothing to do with doctrine or warnings. So people think, "Oh well, what's the harm in believing these 'visionaries?' They are just telling us to pray!"

The third way people are fooled is the people seem sincere and modest. Trust me, if you really saw Jesus or Mary, you'd be transformed in a way that is indescribable. The gullible think that "Oh, she's the same humble person even though 'Mary speaks to her.' She must be authentic because she's soooooo humble and unchanged." Um, read the Bible. No one is the same after encountering true divine revelation.

The fourth way they fool you is they fool themselves. They really think they are seeing or hearing "Mary" or some other divinity. The innocent explanation is that they cannot distinguish between their own unconscious thoughts and urges and reality. This is quite common as people in this media crazy age are less grounded in reality, and less able to edit their own thoughts that come from a variety of personal issues or neediness.

The not innocent explanation is that they are hooked up with someone they believe is either the divinity reincarnated or someone who is psychic who is hooked up with someone they think is the divinity, either mentally or via stalking a person they think is the reincarnated divinity. So they get a photo of this person and can look you in the eyes and say, sounding like butter would not melt in their mouths, "I saw Mary today." What they mean is: 1) I saw the person I think is Mary reincarnated 2) I saw a psychic who thinks he or she is in touch with Mary and he or she "shared" their "channeling" with me 3) I took out my copy of a photo of someone I think is Mary or who talks to Mary and looked at it, and gosh, is that not "within the spirit of the truth so I can say I 'saw' 'Mary'?"

Oh, and here's another way to "smell a rat" among these "visionaries." Notice they tend to be obsessive about reporting the "times" that they have their "visions." They also tend to post their own birthdays on their web sites. This is because they are practicing occult beliefs, namely astrology and numerology. I mean, if no one else can see the apparitions, then who cares about exacts "times" that Mary or etc. appeared, and doubly "who cares" about the birthdays of these "visionaries?" We don't even know what century some true martyrs died, say nothing about ooooooh loooook she's an Aquarius...... no wonder Mary appears to her......oooooh ooooooh. And she appeared at 9:40! oooooooh that adds up to "Mary's" number of "13"......ohooooohhhhooooo how "holy" and "authenticating."

They think God does not see all of this manipulation and know the truth. Oh boy, are they in trouble, as are all who support them. Hell will be paid, and you can take that to your time stamped bank.