The Michael Knowles Show - "Yoga Invites Demons" Former Yoga Teacher's Warnings | Angela Ucci

Episode Date: July 23, 2023

"Yoga Invites Demons" Former Yoga Teacher's Warnings | Angela Ucci Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Angela, as you know, is a former astrologer, yoga teacher, Reiki practitioner, and tarot reader, who spent nearly a decade engaged in New Age spirituality before finding true religion, which is great. And she has a really interesting story, which you can listen to for a long period of time on my YouTube channel. That's available now. I think it's at 1.1 million views. You can go check that out. And now we welcome on. Angela.

Angela, thank you for coming on the show. Of course. Thanks for having me back. So I want to start with a topic. we can branch off from there. But today is my day for difficult truths where people are going to want to shoot the messenger, but I'm just calling it like I sees it.

And we were talking about this in the 2024 presidential race, and I'm not going to hold back. And now I'm going to have to irritate, I think a not insignificant percentage of the audience when I point out that yoga is bad. I know young white women, even older white women, white women of a certain age, they love yoga, but no Bueno. No. In fact, a couple minutes ago when you said, speaking of people that insult their audience, I thought that's how you were introducing me because this insults my audience more than any other topic. And it's really amongst Christians that I get the most backlash from. And I have found that it is because,

honestly, I'm just going to come right out and say it's because yoga is the practice that invokes the most demons. So when you're practicing yoga constantly, you are entirely demonized. And so not only is your flesh kind of at enmity with the truth of what yoga is, but the demons are too. They don't like to hear that. And that's really why it gets the most backlash. But yeah, it's not the practice for Christians to be engaging in. I got this directly from the Indian Ministry of External Affairs, which is the government agency that's responsible for implementing Indian foreign policy. They say that yoga is essentially a spiritual discipline based on an extremely subtle science, which focuses on bringing harmony between mind and body.

The practice of yoga leads to union of individual consciousness with the universal consciousness. And so thus the aim of yoga is self-realization to overcome all kinds of. of suffering leading to the state of liberation, which they call moxha, otherwise known as freedom. So it's about living with freedom in all walks of life, health, harmony, which would be the objective main focus of the yoga practice. And so that's just like right away, completely antithetical to what the Bible says. We know that freedom comes from Jesus Christ. We know that John 836, if the sun sets you free, you are free indeed. We know 2nd Corinthians 317, the Lord is the spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And the

spirit of the Lord is not engaged in a Hindu practice, straight up. So the yoga, I always say is a, and I think I said this on your show, is that yoga is a spiritual practice with physical benefits. It is not a physical practice with spiritual benefits. And when you really go back into the roots of yoga because it's so important to really understand these things as they originate. You come back to this God, this Hindu god known as Shiva. So Shiva is the first yogi guru in the ancient yogic lore. And he's also known as Shiva, the destroyer or the god of destruction, which is funny when you look at scripture, how it says that the enemy is, his intention is to steal, kill,

and destroy. So that's kind of interesting. But it's believed in the Hindu religion. And for context, the religious worldview of Hinduism surrounds the foundational concepts basically of oneness and pluralism, which in and of itself is contradictory, but that's a discussion for another time. So it's believed that Shiva destroys the universe at the end of each two billion year cycle, which comes into its own thing with reincarnation and other things that we don't believe as Christians. And he destroys the universe at the end of each of those cycles, which allows for a new creation, which they call Brahma. And Brahma is known as the god of creation.

So that's essentially saying our God. Of course, again, that's antithetical to our worldview. But this is the basis of yoga because it's within this belief that it's said that. that Shiva, the destroyer, taught yoga to the seven great sages. And that was so that they could pass their knowledge along to all of humanity. And so those seven great sages are, get this, the mind-born sons of Brahma, of creation. So the sons of God. Who do we know is the son of God, right?

So it's just this major Antichrist spirit that is behind the curation, the origination of the yoga practice, the narrative of the yoga practice. And we know, I love to reference this verse in terms of the yoga practice, 1 Corinthians 1021, where it says, you cannot drink the cup of the Lord and of the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons. And that's exactly what engaging in the yoga practice is. You are partaking of the cup of demons. And I don't care how dramatic it sounds. That's what scripture says. And when you look at the history, when you look at the narrative of yoga, when you look at the foundations, it is demonic.

It is pagan. It is not of God. It is of devil. Because if it's not of God, it's of the other guy. Okay. Now, what do you say to our dear liberal or even somewhat conservative white women friends who say, look, man, I get it. I'm even willing to agree with you. And maybe it's some weird, like, kind of demon thing or whatever. But for me, it's just a thing I do before brunch on Sundays. And so I go,

I just stretch out my body. It's, I'm not trying to commune with spirits. I'm just trying to be a little peaceful and, like, sweat in my Lulu lemon pants. And then I go get a smoothie and eggs Benedict. And, you know, if I am not engaging with it, if I don't consciously view it that way, then why Is it bad if I kind of, you know, stretch around and do the ohms or whatever? Right. So to that I say, we know that the word says that the heart is deceitful above all things, first and foremost. So your intentions are kind of irrelevant to that.

I mean, the entire gospel alone proves that, how, you know, Jesus came for us because we would never be able to get to heaven without him, because we are just innately sinners. And so I say all the time that there is. is regardless of your subjective intent, there is always an objective reality to the things that you're participating in. And I like to use a very simple example of, say, a single mom is struggling,

can't keep a roof over her head, can't feed her kids. So she goes out and with the best intentions, she goes out and robs a bank so that she has the money to sustain her family. Subjective intention, good, wants to provide, objective reality, a crime. should not be doing that. So, I mean, you know, apples and oranges, but it's just, it's just the

point is your subjective intention does not negate the objective reality. This is such an important point. This is something a lot of people misunderstand even about Christianity, but this is the essential point of the sacraments is in our modern age, we think that all, all that really matters is my feelings, you know, or my intentions, the road to hell is paid with good intentions, or my mind space or my vibes man or whatever. And they fail to observe that Christianity is not a feeling, and it's not a philosophy, and it's not a poem. It's a fact, right? The gospels are journalism. They're not some work of fiction or poetry or something like that. And so in the sacrament of baptism, if you're being baptized, and I don't know, the morning's

news pops into your head, or you start thinking. about how much you look forward to the cheeseburger after the baptism, or I don't know, you're sort of thinking about your cousin Bill, and then the priest baptizes you. And you say, oh, no, did it take? I don't know. I wasn't in the right mind space, man. What people are confusing is the preeminence of objective reality over subjective feeling. The person who is doing the acting in baptism is not you. It's the Holy Spirit. When Christ goes and he heals the sick, it's not the sick who are acting. It's Christ who is acting.

When the priest forgives sins, who sins you forgive or forgiven, who sins you retainer. It's not you who is acting. I mean, you're penitent, obviously. You're requesting absolution. But it is outside of you. And that is very liberating. In a lot of New Age practices, you know it a lot better than I do. It seems like the whole point of it is just to focus yourself on yourself.

Mm-hmm. And with yoga specifically, it's, it's, I mean, that's true because it's ritualistically designed by means of enlightenment and it's self-enlightenment. I mean, the primary goal of the creation of yoga is salvation, personal self-salvation. And so within the context of the Christian worldview, the result is, I mean, it's inevitably blasphemous, just to be honest about it. because Hinduism, which is, again, yoga's founder is the direct antithesis of everything that the Bible says to be true. And as you just said, you know, what the Bible says is Romans 10, Romans 10 9 through 10. And so we don't, we just really shouldn't be doing this. And I know it sounds like, well, why can't I stretch? Why can't I do this? Why can't I do that? I know it sounds innocuous, but that's how the devil loves to present himself.

Second Corinthians 1114. He comes as an angel of light. Everything about yoga is presented as light and love. There's a reason that the mindfulness industry is like a $1.1 billion industry because it just capitalizes off of this lie of light and love. It capitalizes off 2nd Corinthians 1114. I love that point. I just want to hit it really briefly, which is that mindfulness and meditation, we hear about it all over the place. It's in schools now. And even I, I'm fairly attuned to this stuff, even I sometimes let it pass by. I think, oh, yeah, mindfulness, whatever, some hippie-dippy thing. But no, of course, mindfulness and meditation, that's presented as light. That's presented as love. But of course, that isn't that. I want to get your take on the people who are with you so far. They say, okay, yeah, sure. It's demon stuff. Okay, maybe I shouldn't do it. Maybe it's weird of Christians engage in these liturgical practices of non-Christian religions. But aren't all people just kind of, kind of. of moving toward God, meaning, you know, maybe we think God is like a fire hose. And someone else thinks

God is like a big tree trunk. But actually, we're all just kind of blind and we're just grabbing different parts of the elephant, you know, man. And so I'm grabbing the nose and someone's grabbing the leg. But we're all kind of doing the same thing. Isn't that a lot less harsh? You know, isn't that a lot nicer or two and just kind of more inclusive and welcoming? Well, it goes back to what we were just talking about, like subjective intention versus objective reality and how you even said Christianity is a fact. And I mean, it sounds harsh, but the truth often comes not easily taken. Yeah, it's not always easy to hear what is objectively true. And as far as inclusivity goes, it's a moot point.

Because the truth is there is no such thing as oneness. All roads do not lead to God. The Bible says that broad is the road to destruction, but narrow leads to the gate. And so the narrow road is the Christian lifestyle. And I'm not saying that because I want to be right. I'm saying that because I know God's word to be true because I know God keeps his promises. I know he is faithful. I know that Jesus is who he says he is when he says he is the way the true.

in the light. You know, Buddha said he is a truth seeker. Muhammad said he is a prophet of truth. Jesus said, I am the truth. And so I just, I'm not here to make anyone feel better. And I don't say that from a place of disrespect. It's just, I don't care about your feelings. I care about your eternity. I care about your soul. I care about what's going to happen to you at the other side, at the other side of this life. And I've said before on my own podcast that, you know, if someone was standing on a street corner about to set themselves on fire, you wouldn't just let them do it. You wouldn't just be like, yeah, go live your truth. If that's what you need to do for yourself, that seems like a great idea. Go ahead. It's like, no, you would take the match. You would take the

gasoline. And that's what I feel most Christians. I won't say all Christians because there are Christians that don't do it well, but most Christians that really want to demonstrate the gospel, when we tell you about the Word of God, that's what we are doing. We are trying to take the match and the gasoline from you and tell you that there is a better way because there is the way, and that is Jesus. But, you know, Penn Gillette, who was an atheist, I think he might still be an atheist, he said, 15, 20 years ago now, he said that he didn't have any respect for Christians who don't proselytize. is he said, if you really think that I'm in danger of hellfire, then I should hope you care enough about me to mention that I'm maybe on the wrong path.

What do you make of this objection from Hamodo Dragon, who says, quote, everything I don't like is just the devil and demonic? Because sometimes, you know, when you talk about these things a lot, sometimes people think that you're just, you know, claiming that everything that doesn't tickle your fancy is, you know, a red guy with a tail and horns. It's like satanic panic. Right.

So sin, the things that we tend to like as human beings are often sinful, and that does come from our fallen nature, which comes from the result of a fallen world, which is the devil's doing essentially the serpent in the garden. So, I mean, that's not necessarily a false thing to say. The things that we enjoy as human beings are often sinful and thus they're demonic. You know, if someone enjoys going out and getting drunk every night, that's, that's demonic because it's just a blatant sin. But not all things that we enjoy are that way. I mean, maybe in this culture, it's so easy to fall into, because of concupiscence, it's so easy to fall into pleasures that are vicious. But if you practice virtue and you try to turn away from that stuff, then one can derive a great deal of joy from taking a walk in a park, playing music or something like that. Right. Right. So, yeah, I'm not saying, you know, taking a walk in the park is demonic. But, you know, I'm not. I mean, it's just like within the context of things that, I guess, I guess that the Bible would

categorize is what we, what is sinful. Taking on the walk in the park, spending time with your pets, that's not demonic. But the point with yoga specifically is a completely different animal from somebody enjoying flying a kite, taking a walk in the park, going parasailing, surfing, stuff like that. It's like when the vine, is pagan, the fruit cannot be holy. Yeah. And so the vine here, specifically with yoga, if that's what this person is alluding to, something that they enjoy doing, then the fruit of yoga, if the vine is Hindu and the fruit

is yoga, so then we take it from this point of view. The vine is yoga, so the fruit is idolatrous. It's false worship. It's explicitly condemned in the word of God, and that just is what it is. And in John 15, Jesus calls himself the vine. That's the only vine that we should abide in. There's only one vine that produces holy fruit. And apart from him, we can do nothing.

And so just given the design, the history, and the purpose and the definitions surrounding yoga, we can be assured that those, that the one whose branch grows from the practice is withered and thrown away like we do see in John 15. I'm struck even by the language that people use around this stuff because there are going to be maybe more people after this segment than before who say, okay, you're right, yoga, I'm not going to engage in it, it's kind of weird, it's probably demonic, it's not good for me, okay, I'm not going to do it. But I just want to be at one with the universe, you know? I just want to, I just want to manifest good things, you know, like I just want, I just want to feel some good vibes, man, I'm putting good vibes out for you. And, you know, it's just like, it's like a yin and the yang,

you know what I mean, man? And I'm being slightly hyperbolic with the way I'm using. this language, but people, even conservative people, Christian people, traditional people, because language is so slippery and because it's so prevalent in our society and we're mimetic creatures, so we just imitate what other people do, they'll just use this language. And then the more you use that kind of language, the more it informs your view of the world because language constitutes in many ways our view of the world. I've heard people say, hey, can you just pray to the universe, man? And I think praying to the universe is exactly. explicitly condemned by all of the monotheistic religious views and of course Christianity. Praying to

the universe is to pray to creation, which is idolatry. And I know you don't mean to say that you want to be idolatrous, but that's how slippery the language can be. 100%. And I did say this on your show. If you go into a yoga studio, that's what you're going to hear them say, is let's, you know, oneness with the universe. Let's channel our source energy. It's not going to be about God. When I was at the tail end of my journey in New Age when I was teaching yoga and I was starting to wake up to the truth of Christianity. I tried to be like, well, I'm going to be a Christian yoga teacher, which is a hilarious thing that people like to say to me sometimes. I'm going to be a Christian yoga teacher. So I would try to talk about God. And it was just like, it just struck the room

in such a way where it just did not belong. Because it was not, it's not of God. So why are you trying to bring God in? God has nothing to do with the yoga practice. You know, it's really funny that, you know, I mentioned at the beginning, there's an Antichrist spirit behind yoga, and that's true. And it's actually called the Kundalini spirit. So there's something in the yoga practice that they refer to as the Kundalini spirit often. And it's literally referred to as a coiled snake that lives at the base of your spine. And through, yeah, a coiled snake. We know what the snake is. And so through the yoga practice, this snake travels up through your chakra system. And this is, this is done through the particular asanas. And the asanas are the, the movements that you go through. Stretching, by the way, I will just say as a sidebar, stretching and yoga are two different things. You can stretch. Just do not stretch within the context of yoga.

So this co-train-notice do it, though. Just to be safe, Angela. I try not to exercise or, you know, work out in any way. There's plenty of ways to exercise without channeling ancient deities. I'll just be really careful, though. I'm going to be on the side of caution. This snake travels up through your chakra system, according to yoga. and it's done through the multiple poses and the asanas,

and the intention with that snake traveling up through your spine and all of your seven chakras up through your head is to align with a higher version of yourself. And so basically the kundalini spirit is a counterfeit holy spirit. And so this whole play of Satan with the lore of the kundalini spirit in yoga, it's crafty because it is an assault to our very God-given design to crave the supernatural. You know, God gives us these yearnings because we are created for relational intimacy with our creator,

but too often we simply just don't want to invest the time, the fervent Bible study or a prayer or, you know, church going to really witness that. And so the, you know, the timing with the Holy Spirit is always in God's hands. It's not by our demand. And so then here comes the false prophet of the Kundalini spirit of this lore of the yoga practice that's like, oh, I can't. have it right now. And so yoga is just like a deception within that context. And you know, it's funny. It's funny, Angela, because it's, you know, when we say these things, you know, like yoga's bad, there's demons involved, don't do it. Then the, the lib media break it out, they say, listen to these crazy people. And I think, you know, look, obviously, according to the modern liberal view of things,

we probably sound pretty wacky. But we're not innovating here in any way. We're just stating something that Christians have believed for all of history and that the Old Testament Jews believed before there were such a thing as Christians. And so when you zoom out beyond the myopia of the last two decades or something of pop culture, and you

look at the scope of history, our view is the consistent view of the church forever. I got in trouble the other day because I pointed out that artificial contraception is like really bad and you shouldn't do it. And headlines all over the place. Well, this crazy radical guy, I think,

You know, there's nothing innovative about what I just, there's nothing original about what I just said. I'm articulating the view of the church for its entire history. You know, if people have a little perspective on this, I think they'll notice that what is strange is not the voices that are supposed, according to the mainstream media, are supposedly fringe today by expressing eternal religious truths. But maybe the fringiest, wackiest, most bizarre people are the ones engaging in all sorts of kooky practices. in our modern culture that are the ones that we are pointed to right now. We got to leave it there. Angela, where can people find you? So you can find Heaven and Healing podcast on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify.

My Instagram is just my full name. And I do actually have like a two-hour episode all about the yoga practice if people want to hear more. Excellent. Angela, always wonderful to see you. And I would encourage people to go check out our very long interview over at the Michael Knoll's YouTube channel. And we'll have to see you again very soon.