Yoga leads to Satan, says Northern Ireland priest
Father Roland Colhoun says yoga presents a 'spiritual health risk'
A Catholic priest in Northern Ireland warned that those who enjoy yoga and Indian head massages are taking risks with their "spiritual health" – opening themselves up to "Satan and The Fallen Angels".
It’s been used by Hindus to find spiritual peace for more than one-and-a-half millennia. But Father Roland Colhoun, from Glendermott parish in Derry, fears it could lead Christians to "The Kingdom of Darkness".
In an interview with the Derry Journal, he said that, while people may decide to take up yoga with good intentions, they could set themselves on a path towards "the bad spiritual domain" and even "Satan and The Fallen Angels".
He told the Journal: "Pope Francis said 'do not seek spiritual answers in yoga classes'. Yoga is certainly a risk. There's the spiritual health risk.
"When you take up those practices from other cultures, which are outside our Christian domain, you don’t know what you are opening yourself up to.
"The bad spirit can be communicated in a variety of ways. I’m not saying everyone gets it, or that it happens every time, and people may well be doing yoga harmlessly. But there‘s always a risk and that’s why the Pope mentioned it and that’s why we talk about that in terms of the danger of the new age movement and the danger of the occult today. That’s the fear."
Father Colhoun is not alone, within the Catholic Church, in his suspicions of Yoga as a potential source for evil. In 2011, the Vatican’s own chief exorcist, Gabriele Amorth, told The Telegraph that it leads to a belief in Hinduism, and that "all eastern religions are based on false belief in reincarnation".
"Practising yoga is Satanic, it leads to evil just like reading Harry Potter", he added.
And the late former Pope Benedict XVI, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, warned Christians that yoga, Zen, and other forms of transcendental meditation could "degenerate into a cult of the body" that devalues prayer.
But despite these warnings, a yoga teacher from Derry defended the practice and described herself as "a good Catholic".
Speaking to the Derry Journal, she says yoga students can "learn good posture and breathing to help them with tension in their bodies and to help calm a busy mind.
"In all the time I have been teaching, not one person has ever expressed an interest going deeper into the spiritual elements of yoga," she added.
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Just to keep it brief the dark kingdom essentially lies within whereas the light lies without. If one for instance obsesses over old wounds and hurts and lives off ones emotions then we are essentially living in the dark. Jesus said he was 'The way and the light', denoting that the way was without. But meditation is about non-attachment not attachment the real danger being that the pace at which a person grows in awareness may out-pace their spiritual capacity to assimilate the damage and so one can lead to the spiritual equivalent of bolting. This is why I always maintain contact with the sacraments and recite the Rosary as much as I meditate or chant. But this criticism could be said of any liberation movement including Marxism or indeed just a general sense of entitlement or compensation culture.
Our key problem is we've lost the art of self-sacrifice and are dragging instead of carrying the cross. We are all drag queens when it comes to it even Jesus needing help when he dragged his cross and from a tall-boy indicating he was short. But Yoga is generally about a wellness as is the entire Eastern wisdom tradition.
We must remember that while light leads to light sound can lead to dark. That's the intriguing point that in training the ear we can be ignoring the light by default. So for example 'His Master's Voice', may be a metaphor for Satan calling his followers via the music industry. So there's an issue with not seeing and not believing but that's very difficult to explain. But can one really say that no good has come from the music industry, from socialism or from Eastern esoteric traditions? Sometimes it seems to me Marxism is Christianity with the theism turned off. I think there is a spiritual fault-line of sorts here though and take Fr.Colhoun's point on board but I suspect it's one the God's themselves will have to resolve. Are we to believe that one crowd - the Fallen - are blind while the other - the Angels - are deaf? Surely the God's themselves could understand why we'd want the best of both worlds given that they made it in the first instance? Perhaps humanity is a sort of therapeutic resolution/reconciliation project for the gods themselves fallen or saved for who is completed by in-completion and who is found by his brother, sister or mother being lost?
@paulvcassidy
He is speaking Catholic doctrine but the severity of the condemnations imply hatred for the faith of yoga believers who are into the spiritual side. If he said that Protestantism means opening yourself up to forces that pretend to be from Heaven we would see this for the hate speech it is. It violates the fact that faith in religion should be strictly formulated in such a way that no harm or undue offence is caused should the faith turn out to be wrong.
A religion that hates the spirituality of others opens itself up to the same hatred. We know Protestants who believe that the Catholic mass is a masterpiece of idolatry where bread and wine are worshipped as God. They claim that there is no evidence that mass goers are any better than those who never bother with religion and they conclude that the belief that the Mass makes you good and holy is superstition. They think you are opening yourself up to satan's tricks by taking the communion.
No loving God would let demons be that good at pretending to be good spiritual entities that you would connect with during yoga. Those who practice the spiritual side often report a great love for all humanity and a drive to do good works. Surely God is bigger than our spiritual or religious errors? The priest's objections to yoga are about fear and power not faith in God.
Yoga believers do not say we should kill people for homosexuality or adultery. The Christians say there is nothing wrong with that in principle for it was commanded by God until he became man in Christ. I would look at my own faith before I would accuse any other of colluding with darkness.
You need very strong and good evidence before you can make such accusations. Religion just makes statements it cannot support with evidence and those statements often alienate and attack and hurt and divide.
Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered.
"But there‘s always a risk (of someone believing in Hinduism) and that’s why the Pope mentioned it ,"
Well, going to India could mean people risk believing in Hinduism. So could having a TV or the internet. So could being alive! Oh no, we're all at risk!
But you've got a serious point here: religious doctrines may not be squared but people of different religions should respect each other's freedom of religion. By religion I mean any systematic belief system ranging from Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Atheism or any recent 'we'll save the world because we know it better' movements/individuals.
Parallel interpretations of things (e.g. yoga) may exist even within any religion and this can lead to either sound intellectual debate - or a hopeless stream of verbal assault.
I guess we should stop preaching tolerance and start practicing it, even towards 'other religions'.
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What is 'Yoga'? and what is the purpose of it?
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The Background of 'Yoga' is interesting.
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The word "yoga" comes from the Sanskrit root yuj, which means "to join" or "to yoke"... and is related to that of the English word 'yoke'.
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It can mean to join or yoke together or to bring under a yoke, to harness or (be under) control.
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To an Oriental person, yoga is a technique or a discipline that leads to a passive union with a supernatural force or spirit. (To be possessed)
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It has been described as 'the yoking of all the powers of body, mind and soul to a god,' to be possessed.
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Some yoga fanatics believe that it ('Yoga') will lead them to attain a mental state called moksha, or freedom, a form of "perfection" through a merging with an all-pervading spirit... Possession again!!!
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The priest may not be so wrong after all... regardless of his religious ideal.
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