Question: What do you mean by "journaling"?

Question: I see the term “journaling” in several of your articles. Just what is meant by that?

Response: Some would refer to the daily exercise of keeping a diary as “journaling.” That’s not what we’re speaking of. Rather, too commonly today, “journaling” refers to the mystic practice of emptying one’s mind and calling upon a “spirit guide,” who is the one “channeling” their thoughts through our mind and guiding the hand recording these same ideas.

More than three decades ago, Dave Hunt wrote about The Way International former cult member Mark Virkler, who found his way into charismatic circles. He has since become a popular speaker.

“Virkler teaches seminars designed to ‘open one up to two-way communication with Almighty God,’ which…‘is going to change the nation….’ (Sadly enough, not just Virkler’s seminar but the growing use of visualization may indeed ‘change the nation.’) The secret is in two divination techniques (divination is forbidden by the Bible in any form): ‘journaling’ and ‘visualization.’ What Virkler calls ‘the breakthrough’ into two-way dialogue with God came through information gained at a seminar conducted by Dennis and Matthew Linn, Jesuit priests who teach the visualization of Mary and Joseph for inner healing. Virkler teaches visualization of a ‘Jesus’ who can be conjured up at will in the imagination but then begins to move and speak on his own. Clearly contact has been made with some spirit entity independent of the visualizer’s imagination, but it is not our Lord Jesus Christ, for He cannot be called from the right hand of the Father on high to appear before us as our private guru any time we please.”