| "For primitive man music is not merely recreation or a form of self-expression but is an integral part of the world in which he lives.... Through music he finds a link with the supernatural." (Encyclopedia Britannica)
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Adventures into the world of Zen, free sex, and mind-expanding drugs during the ‘60s paved many strange paths to "higher" consciousness. The long hair of those years was primarily a sign of eroding boundaries, rebellion against authority, and experimental ways to live — and die. Music nurtured this liberation. It summoned, taught, inspired, and unified the seekers. Those who sang the same words felt the same rhythms and caught the same vision. Like New Age spirituality, the music of the New Age has developed through syncretism and synthesis — a blending of contemporary dreams, ancient paganism, Eastern religions, and modern technology. The album jacket copy for Windham Hill’s "Pioneers of the New Age" summarizes the thrill of the "new" discoveries:
"It was like a gardener’s experiment in cross-pollination gone wild. Each different type of music fertilizing the other, producing a stunning hybrid flowering. John Coltrane mixed jazz with Eastern music. Bob Dylan mixed folk music with beat poetry and electric guitars. Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles [added] electronics and multitracking...."Two distinct forms of music emerged. First, the ambient sounds labeled "New Age Music" flow from a growing fascination with Eastern meditative religions. Appealing to man’s spiritual yearning for inner peace and harmony with nature, it can induce trance states -- especially when accompanied by New Age visualizations.
Second, the throbbing rock music unashamedly promotes occult values, sensual images, orgiastic rhythms, and vulgar expressions. It has captured the hearts and minds of children around the world.
On the surface, these two types of music seem as opposite as what they proclaim: inner peace or sensual violence. But they both lead toward the same result: union with the "angel of light" who seeks to immunize children against Truth and persuade them to worship idols. Rock star Jimi Hendrix summarized the process from his dark perspective:
"You hypnotize people [with music] to where they go right back to their natural state, which is pure positive . . and when you get people at that weakest point, you can preach into the subconscious what we want to say."2ANCIENT FORMS OF NEW AGE MUSIC
The New Age includes the dark as well as the beautiful side of evil. The mind behind the enticing masks hates God and everything He represents. Thus New Age music includes not merely the smooth, hypnotic strains that flow from electric synthesizers, but the whole range of music that lauds New Age enticements— and suggests the use of meditation, magic, and drugs to reach them.
Man’s attempts to transcend the boundaries of the physical world through music weave through the history of mankind. While God encouraged His people to enter His presence through songs of praise (Psalm 100), Satan offered a seductive counterfeit used in pagan societies as a connecting link to other gods. Nevill Drury, who promotes New Age meditation and visualization in his manual, Music for Inner Space, points to ancient cultures as models for today:
"In societies where magic and myth define and influence everyday existence, man aspires to be like the gods and to imitate them, thereby acquiring mastery of nature. ... In both primitive societies and ancient cultures, magical incantations and songs are a source of power."3In India, the ancient Hindu ragas would stir the imagination, alter consciousness and inspire occult exploration. Drury explains that the drone component— "the unchanging basic note or pitch"—sustains the music and "meditatively makes each musical performance an ‘inner journey.’ One literally travels with the music, lured into new areas of consciousness...."4 He continued,
"Repetitive rhythms and mantric musical patterns are used universally to induce trance states. However, we have a choice within the altered state of allowing ourselves to surrender to the music and be 'possessed' by its intoxicating rhythms or 'ride' the music or drumbeat on our journey to the inner world."In primitive Africa and South America, the witchdoctor functioned as a mediator between the tribe and demonic spirits. The sacred drum, which is credited with magical powers, together with hallucinatory drugs (sorcery) induced trances which transported him -- actually his mind and imagination -- into the spirit world. There he received guidance. As Obo Addy, a drummer and singer from Ghana explained, the beat opened the veil between the physical and spiritual domains:
"My father was a medicine man. He told the future and healed the sick. Music invoked the spirits my father possessed."5The ceremony often involved the whole tribe. Intoxicated by the drum’s beat, the dancers would eventually surrender to the persuasive rhythms and enter a state of trance. A description of the Macumba (Brazil) spiritists’ trance dance ends with this observation: "If I was looking for a mindless joy it was here, in a dance with the brain turned off and the body taking its orders straight from the drum."6
Musicologists Manfred Clynes and Janice Walker explained that "the central nervous system transforms a musical rhythm into a movement pattern." This "rhythmic experience of sound largely is not under control—we are driven by it."7 Nevill Drury illustrates the point:
"The rhythms which induce trance states are repetitive, energetic, and often loud and overwhelming. They lead the dancer away from the familiar setting of the everyday world into a disorienting atmosphere pulsing with vibrant rhythms, which usually build to a climax. In voodoo it is at this point that the loa gods possess and 'ride' their subjects in trance like hones, while in Africa the dancers imitate the movements and footsteps of the possessing spirits."8THE INTOXICATING MESSAGE OF ROCK
Hard rock soon soared in popularity, even among children. Heavy metal "differs from other forms of rock by its bombastic chords, screaming lead guitars, throat-wrenching vocals, and a demolition derby approach to drumming," warned Jeff Lilley in his 1989 article, "Dabbling in Danger."9
Dave Hart, a research analyst for Menconi Ministries, identifies three kinds of metal music.
1. Party metal, the most popular style, emphasizes sex, drugs, partying, and living for today with no thought for tomorrow. "It’s the stuff getting on the charts: Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, Del Leppard," explains Hart. "There is very little overt occultism."10
It does, however, teach Satan’s favorite messages: Follow your feelings and Live to lust. Mere explicit sex no longer shocks enough, so party metal has stooped to the level of kinky, cruel, and violent sex—"porn rock"—such as Judas Priest’s song about oral sex at gunpoint.
2. Thrash metal joins punk music and heavy metal in a perverted focus on violence and death. ‘"Eighty-six ways to die’ is the theme of half of these albums,"11 explains Hart. The album jackets flaunt hateful messages such as Megadeth’s Killing Is My Business—and Business Is Good, Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All, and Anthrax’s Spreading the Disease.
At concerts, "metalheads" or fans "shake their heads and hair vigorously to the beat. Many reel and careen into each other in a wild style of dancing called ‘moshing’—the punkers call it ‘slam dancing.’ Pity those who collapse under the feet of the feverish throng."12
3. Black metal is satanic. The album jackets display grotesque pictures smattered with skulls, chains, blood, demons, goat heads in pentagrams, and a mockery of crosses. The titles proclaim the power of supernatural evil: Destruction’s Bestial Invasion, Slayer’s Hell Awaits, Venom’s From Hell to the Unknown, and Maiden’s "Number of the Beast?" from the album Live After Death.
Whether the musicians personally practice Satanism or merely play at it for its shock value matters little to the children who absorb the messages. No doubt, the image of a vampirish Ozzy Osbourne drooling blood and singing about an "X—rated demon that lives in my head"13 has inspired occult fascination in the hearts of his young worshipers who had moved beyond fear. Surely Venom’s ritual images in the song, Sacrifice has fueled that curiosity:
"Sacrifice to Lucifer... /Bring the chalice/Raise the knife/Welcome to my sacrifice...."14Given full freedom to indulge natural desires, many youngsters learn to crave the most shocking, lewd and brutal entertainment available.
WHEN DARKNESS RULES One of Webster’s definitions for the word muse, the root of music, is "the personification of a guiding genius or principal source of inspiration."
Man has two main sources of inspiration outside of himself: God and Satan. While both communicate their thoughts to willing listeners, the latter is an aggressive liar who desires to stir rebellion against God. (See I Chronicles 21:1; John 3:2, 27; Acts 53; 13:10; Ephesians 2:2-5.)
Many popular singers have acknowledged their links to a supernatural source of inspiration other than God. For example, Joni Mitchel admitted being ruled by "a male muse named Art" who opened to her "the shrine of creativity."15 Angus Young of AC/DC confessed, "Someone else is steering me. I’m just along for the ride. I become possessed when I'm on stage."16
The fact that most rock singers look to themselves, drugs, or alcohol for inspiration - not consciously to Satan or spirit guides, fits the deceiver's plan perfectly. He is a master at using untamed desires for his cruel purposes.
God tells us not to give up on those who are caught in deception. Instead He encourages is to speak the truth in love so that "they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will." (2 Timothy 2:26).
WHAT DO CHILDREN LEARN?
"Children spend an estimated four to six hours a day with music. They get up to it get dressed to it, do their home- work to it, and fall asleep to it. That adds up to 11,000 hours of listening to music between the seventh and twelfth grades alone."17Do children really listen to the words? Former disc jockey and rock musician Bob DeMoss travels throughout the United States speaking to parents, teachers, and kids. He tests grade-school students to prove that children learn the lyrics and often understand the adult message.
When asked a question about the title of the Samantha Fox song, Touch Me, (I Want Your ___), eighty percent of the fourth-graders filled in the missing word "body." Obvious familiarity enabled them to sing the words to George Michael’s seductive I Want Your Sex. 18
Dr. Joseph Stuessy, professor of music theory at the University of Texas at San Antonio, contends: "There is a new element in the music, a meanness of spirit—outright hatred—that was not present in the early days of rock."19 People are more likely to remember a musical message than words spoken alone. When you add the fact that repetition internalizes the message, the sum spells DANGER.
Most hard rock and heavy metal bands—whether through records, MTV, or concerts—drum the following anti-Christian messages into children’s minds:
1. Spurn Jesus Christ.
2. Fuel the imagination with promiscuity, perversion and violence.
3. Indulge in drug and alcohol abuse
Song lyrics and personal testimonies extol the delights of chemical as well as sensual intoxication. Occasional warnings fade in the overwhelming contradiction of many rockers’ drug-dazed lifestyles. Guzzling their favorite whiskey during concerts and singing about the types and techniques of drug abuse, idolized models—like pied pipers—draw children into a deadly trap of mindlessness, hysteria, sensuality, and violence.
A reporter from The Boston Globe asked Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue (who flaunts his delight in drugs and Jack Daniels), "Do you ever have second thoughts about your influence on teenagers?"
"No," replied the rocker, "I think we have a very positive message. It’s very much an American message: Live free, express yourself, and it’s up to the youth to change the world. Also, just have a good time."27
4.Ignore dangers such as suicide and death.
Many experts link the six thousand (and rising) annual teen suicides to "depression fueled by rock music and lyrics that glamorize sadistic violence and drug abuse, as well as suicide itself."28 The coroner’s report for nineteen-year-old John McCollum from Indio, California states, "Decedent committed suicide by shooting self in head with .22-caliber pistol while listening to devil music."29
John, who died wearing his stereo headphones, had been listening to power-packed suggestions such as, "suicide is the only way out," in Ozzy Osbourne’s song "Suicide Solution" from the Blizzard of Ozz.
Why is this happening? Dr. Mark Rosenburg, speaking at the1988 Conference at the American Society of Suicidology, helps answer that question: "It was thought that the way to prevent suicide among teens was to treat depression... . That’s a fallacy. It is not the case with these kids. Rather than being clinically depressed, these young suicide victims are impulsive, acting out fantasies."
5. Experience the thrills of the dark occult.
"I like to drink blood out of a skull and torture females on stage,"30 says W.A.S.P.’s Blackie Lawless, master of shock rock. His concert props give the appearance that he means what he says.
A small fraction of the horrendous consequences of dabbling in the occult have come into public view in recent years—stories too horrible to comprehend, like that of fourteen-year-old Tom Sullivan. In January 1988, after a classroom assignment to research different religions, Tommy became fascinated with Satanism. He dreamt Satan told him to kill his family, so he murdered his mother with his Boy Scout knife, tried to burn his home, slashed his own wrists and throat, and died outside in the snow. In his diary, "Book of Shadows," he had written:
"To the Greatest Demons of Hell. I, Tommy Sullivan, would like to make a solemn exchange with you. If you give me the most extreme of all magical powers... I will kill many Christian followers who are serious in their beliefs... I will tempt all teenagers on earth to have sex, have incest, do drugs, and to worship you. I believe that evil will once again rise and conquer the love of God."31Throughout the week before the killing, Tommy, whose room was decorated with posters of his favorite heavy-metal musicians, had been singing a song "about blood and killing your mother."32
Such murderous acts shouldn't surprise us. "People are drawn in [to satanism] by music," explained Pete Roland, a satanic killer. "When you’ve got this music playing over and over again all the time—you know, Megadeth, Slayer, Metallica --- and you’re hearing praise to the devil and... to the ideals of evil, you begin to cheer for it."33
AC/DC’s Bon Scott died soon after recording Highway to Hell. He asphyxiated in his own vomit, joining the ranks of Jimi Hendrix and many other hard-drinking, drug-dazed rock idols. AC/DC quickly plugged in a new lead singer, but the same mocking spirit can be heard as he shrieks out the incredibly arrogant words of "Back in Black" at jackhammer speed:Indeed he is. In "Hells Bells" he hisses, "Got my bell, I’m gonna take you to hell..."34 "There’s a battle going on and the battleground is the kids," says Doug Raley, director of Frontline Ministries in Central Oregon. "There are casualties and fatalities... It’s a physical and spiritual war that’s as real as the Vietnam War."35"I’m let loose from the noose ... I got nine lives... running wild."
6. Envision a one world government.
While the dark side of the occult rages openly, an equally sinister assault hides behind the bright lie of global peace. Rock ‘n’ roll spectaculars like "Live Aid" and "Freedomfest" joined rock idols and their billions of worshipers in worldwide celebrations of globalist visions. "We Are the World,"36 they proclaimed, not realizing they celebrated a counterfeit oneness based on the New Age monism: All is one.
Many megastars who proclaim New Age consciousness-raising and leftist political ideologies, have been commended for their social concern. What do they teach? A popular song, "When the Children Cry" from the album, Pride, by White Lion, typifies the same anti-American, one-world sentiment we saw in global education: "No more presidents/ And all the wars will end/One united world under God."37
Their god is not our God, as evidenced by Pride’s other songs. There can be no peaceful united world until "at the name of Jesus every knee [will] bow... and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" (Philippians 2:10-1l). Between now and that great day, the world will be duped into welcoming a global religion and government. It will worship the ruler of the "one united world," the Antichrist, Satan’s shrewd, cruel puppet (Revelation 13:8). Meanwhile, He reminds us:
"We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-controlled... putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet." 1 Thessalonians 5:5-8
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