LET MOSES KEEP HIS OLD LAWS!
by Jared Collard
© Nov. 14, 1985

I get more than just a little tired of people who misquote the Bible and cite isolated out-of-context passages to support some fundamentalist viewpoint. A few things need to be said to clarify what to many is a confusing and often erroneous subject.

Many claim the “occult” is evil. I think they’ve been reading too many Stephen King novels! There is nothing inherently “Evil” in the occult. The word occult means "hidden" and often refers to secret knowledge or information. Fraternities, sororities, the Masons and other perfectly acceptable organizations have “hidden” knowledge. Many believe the Catholic Church withholds certain “hidden” knowledge from the common flock because if they knew this their faith would be shaken. The word “occult” is a perfectly acceptable astronomical term when, for example, a star is hidden by a planet that passes in front of it, the star is being occulted.

Are there dangers in the occult? Of course, but there are dangers in all religions; the Inquisition is evidence of that! Anything that can be used for good can be corrupted and used also for evil intent, but that does not automatically qualify the occult as inherently evil. This universal force may be likened to the Element of Fire, which can be used to refine as well as to destroy: to save life as well as to take it.

Whether we like to believe it or not, Jesus was a psychic and an occultist. Several times in the New Testament he cautions his disciples against disclosing to outsiders some of the things he has revealed to them. Therefore, Jesus had access to “occult” (hidden) knowledge or information that was not for public consumption. The Gospel of Mark is replete with instances of this.

Fundamentalists are fond of citing the book of Deuteronomy in support of their opposition to the occult, but what is Christian belief if not supernatural? I wonder how many educated clergymen really follow the strictures outlined in this ancient book. After all, they profess to believe that Jesus came to give mankind a new relationship with God based on love and not on antiquated Hebraic laws.

It should be remembered that the laws of Moses where imposed some 4,000 years ago on a nomadic people who were occupying a land that was not theirs, destroying the cities and slaughtering the inhabitants merely because they followed another deity.

If it remains true today that anyone who consults a soothsayer or medium is an "abomination to the Lord" (Deut. 18:12), then should not all fortune tellers and mediums today be stoned to death as Deuteronomy proscribes? If these laws were strictly followed I fear many of us would end up in the dunking pond! Would the fundamentalists really want to apply all of the same standards of Mosaic Law to everyone, including themselves? To present a picture of what that would mean, her are a few verbatim passages from Deuteronomy:

" If a man is found lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman, and the woman; so shall you purge the evil from Israel." (Deut.21:22);

" No bastard shall enter the assembly of the Lord; even to the tenth generation none of his descendants shall enter the assembly of the Lord." (Deut.23.2)

" Your eye shall not pity; it shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." (Deut.19:21)

" A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman's garment; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God." (Deut.22:5).

Add to these (and the many more I have not quoted) the strictures against men cutting their hair, shaving their beards, being circumcised, etc., and you have a picture of a truly enlightened society ­ not to mention a very depopulated world!

This is not intended to be an affront to those orthodox Jews who believe and faithfully follow the Law in their everyday lives. It is, rather, aimed at those who cite the laws as justification for their own blindness, but fail to live by the Law.

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