Question: Have you read Mind Games by André Kole, the Campus Crusade magician?...Kole’s book ...

Question: Have you read Mind Games by André Kole, the Campus Crusade magician? I saw a review of it in Christian News that had your picture because Kole’s book contradicts what you have written about demonic and satanic power in Occult Invasion and most of your other books. How do you respond to Kole?

Respond: André Kole is a very good friend whom I greatly respect. We have discussed this subject in detail and remain largely in disagreement.

However, we both agree that Satan’s power is not supernatural, but that only God can do true miracles, which override the laws governing the universe. Nevertheless, in my opinion, Satan has paranormal power that cannot be explained by science or duplicated by stage magicians. When Satan, as a spirit being (who is subject to God’s laws governing the spirit world), invades our physical dimension, he is able seemingly to defy physical laws to which we are subject. He cannot perform a genuine healing such as giving sight to someone who has no eyes, restoring an amputated limb or raising the dead (in spite of those who think Antichrist will be raised from the dead by Satan). However, whatever Satan can inflict (as boils on Job), he can remove and thus make it seem like a genuine healing.

André says he has traveled the world investigating shamans and other occultists and has never seen them do anything that he, André, couldn’t duplicate by stage trickery. He offers $25,000 to anyone who can demonstrate psychic power which he cannot duplicate and no one has claimed that prize. In my opinion, however, while there is much fraud in the world of psychics and shamans, it cannot all be a hoax!

If André is right, then we must believe that the “working of Satan with all power and signs” (2 Thes:2:9Even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
See All...) through Antichrist will be nothing but the stage magician’s craft, and that when Christ warns of false prophets who will do “great signs and wonders” (Mt 24:24) He is warning us not to be fooled by stage magic. Yes, Antichrist’s signs are called “lying wonders,” and the false prophets’ signs and wonders are designed to “deceive the very elect.” Surely the lying and deceit, however, involves turning men away from the truth, not merely causing them to admire a magician’s trickery!

Of these false prophets, Christ declares that they will say to Him one day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?” (Mt 7:22). While some of today’s false prophets use deception and have been exposed, that hardly seems to be the cause of Christ’s rebuke. Rather than knowingly engaging in mere illusion, they thought they had worked miracles in Christ’s name. That false prophets can indeed perform what can’t be attributed to trickery is indicated by God’s warning to Israel through Moses: “If there arise among you a prophet...and giveth you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass...” (Dt 13:1-2).

André is convinced that Satan has no power to enable psychics and witchdoctors and other occultists to do anything that he (André) cannot duplicate by the magician’s art. I referred him to Jannes and Jambres, the magicians in Pharaoh’s court, duplicating by the power of Satan some of the plagues with which God smote Egypt (2 Tm 3:8). André said they did it by the same methods he uses as a stage magician. But the Bible says that “the magicians did so with their enchantments” (Ex 7:11, 22; 8:7). If “enchantment” is simply stage magic, one wonders why it was forbidden to God’s people (Lv 19:26; Dt 18:10) and why André has made a profession out of it in disobedience to that prohibition. Obviously, enchantment must be something more.

I believe (and have expressed to André) that Satan manifested paranormal power in destroying Job’s property and family and putting boils on him. André, however, insists that God himself did those things at the urging of Satan. To support that view, he quotes this statement from God to Satan: “...thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause”(Job:2:3And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.
See All...). He also quotes Job’s statement concerning the evil that came upon him: “...the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away...” (1:21).

Most Christians would interpret this as meaning that God allowed Satan to do this evil and that Satan could only do what God allowed. That view is surely supported by God’s words to Satan: “Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand” (1:12); “Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life” (2:6). Nor does there seem any other interpretation to this statement: “So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown” (2:7). Since Satan put the boils on Job, we are justified in attributing Job’s other problems to Satan’s power to perform the paranormal (not the supernatural).

Consider the demoniac of whom we are told, “...no man could bind him, no, not with chains;...he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces” (Mk 5:3-4). This was no stage magician’s escape. He literally broke iron chains which would have safely bound even the strongest man. In contrast to Samson’s supernatural strength through the Holy Spirit (Jgs 13-16), this was paranormal strength due to “an unclean spirit” (Mk 5:2) possessing him. This, André could not duplicate by stage magic. André says that the musclemen on the “Power Team” do such feats. No, they have their limits; but not this man. The statement that “no man could bind him, no, not with chains” indicates that no matter how strong and how numerous the chains, he still “plucked [them] asunder,” that is, he broke them! André may be able to effect a Houdini-like escape no matter how heavy or how many the chains, but he can’t break them, nor can the “Power Team.” This is demonic power that cannot be explained by magicians or scientists. (You owe me $25,000, André!)

We are told that Satan, “taking him [Jesus] up into an high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time” (Lk 4:5). I hardly think that André or his friends could by the magician’s art take someone to the top of a distant mountain and show them all the kingdoms of the world in a moment! And to suggest that this is how it happened is to indict Jesus with being deceived by stage magic! Clearly, the Bible indicates that Satan has power beyond human ability or explanation and that he can manifest it through human beings in order to deceive mankind into thinking it is the miraculous power of God. Seduced by paranormal power, they are led away from the true God to follow the god of this world.