You Are A Wicked Sorcerer

How selfishness is demonic and manipulation of people is sorcery.

Manipulation is handling. We say "I don't like to be handled", meaning "I don't like to manipulated".

Manipulation has an overtone of dominance. Of advantage to one's self.

You might handle a situation, and such a handling might be for the good of all, but if you manipulate a situation, it's understood that you did it for your own gain. The word manipulation is usually used to sinister effect.

Manipulation of elements is science or mechanics. Its morality is defined by its end, on who it's for and how it's done.

Manipulation of spirits is witchcraft or sorcery. Its morality is defined by where it comes from, by its personal authority. That is, God can tell a demonic spirit what to do, or talk to the dead, but we may not.

Manipulation of people is enslavement, and it is demonic. L. Ron Hubbard is of his father the Devil. All manipulators of people are. Just as people attempt to make spirits or energies their slaves, so do we attempt to bend people to our will through lies and rituals. The manipulation of people is, at its root, also sorcery.

Witchcraft. Witches. Sorcerers.

Here is where I insert that dreaded Pauline phrase, "and such were some of you". In truth, such are some of us: by nature manipulators of people. Manipulators often aren't even aware of what they're doing; it is truly in their nature, it's how they navigate the world. It could be viewed as a sort of psychopathy, through which we see people as simply part of our environment, to be manipulated for our good as a piece of wood or metal. (I think awareness is probably the fuzzy dividing line between manipulators and abusers, but that is as an aside.)

Such were some of you. Such are some of you. We all manipulate others to our advantage, through lies, through inter-personal rituals, through the leveraging of social structures.

I hardly need to talk about lies, do I? We say or don't say something in order to get something from the person.

We use rituals for control by using them to build intimacy (mutual rituals + time = intimacy) and then threatening to withhold or change them, or perhaps use them as emotional leverage. "After everything we've been through together, you go and say something like that?" "If you don't stop crying, mommy won't get you ice cream."

And of course, we bully by using whatever power we have. I'm the boss, I'm the dad, I'm the smart one.

All of this we do because we put ourselves first, rather than our Risen Savior. And I'm afraid that it's all as wicked as witchcraft. When we interact with other humans, we are interacting with eternal beings, the children of the Living God, co-heirs to the cosmos, and we dare to manipulate them as if we were their little gods. We ask a demon to bring us love, we ask a woman to overlook our adultery.

Manipulation is of the Devil. The truth will set you free.

"Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.¹"

If we are Christians, we are to be like Jesus. Jesus serves. Jesus dies to self. That is how we must interact with people. Anything else is as wicked as sorcery.

1. John 8:43-47