Ex-Disciple of Sai Baba: The Deception of "Higher Consciousness"

I can't afford books these days, but sometimes the ads for them carry enough information to be useful.

Tal Brooke who is President of Spiritual Counterfeits Project in Berkeley, California, spent a few years in India in the late sixties or early seventies as a disciple of the guru Sai Baba who recently died. While in India he was converted to Christ and then came back to the US where he joined the SCP and wrote a book about his experiences in Sai Baba's ashram (Avatar of Night), as well as other books about the spread of a dark deceptive spirituality that has been growing through the influence of eastern religions and New Age teachings.

Here is the blurb for a recent book from the SCP website:

RIDERS OF THE COSMIC CIRCUIT
by Tal Brooke

A Rider of the Cosmic Circuit is one who emerges from that rare explosion into superconsciousness called enlightenment, an exalted state attained by a mere fraction down the ages. Family and friends do not recognize him, for the Rider has changed on a fundamental level. Claiming Godhood, the Rider operates behind an unreadable face, manipulating the buttons of human reaction within those who believe his claim to deity. But his outer form masks an unknowable intelligence. Who is he really?

To the ordinary mind, enlightenment is like a black hole in deep space whose event horizon descends into unknowable blackness. What measuring stick can the normal mind use to judge those who claim to be enlightened and One with God. How can you judge one who claims to be as beyond ordinary human consciousness as it surpasses that of the ant?

The author, Tal Brooke spent years in India and came right up to the mouth of the flame. He himself was being [pr]epared for a leap into superconsciousness by India's premier godman, Sai Baba. Then he spotted a crack in the cosmic puzzle (the full story is in his intimate account, Avatar of Night.).

RIDERS OFTHE COSMIC CIRCUIT explores this deepest of conundrums and asks: Is there a dark side to superconsciousness? Does it have motives beyond the reach of most people? Is it capable of deception and evil? And is there any kind of pattern or map we can use to interpret this alien terrain of the metapsychology of cosmic consciousness? Indeed, is so-called superconsciousness in reality a state of perfect possession? And what is it that possesses the human host who has willfully abandoned the controls of his soul and mind in this all-or-none quest for Godhood?

I have to admit that sometimes Tal Brooke's writing (I assume this is his) is as mystifying as the descriptions of such things by the practitioners themselves. "Changed on a fundamental level" means what in simple descriptive terms? And I do have to ask: What exactly is this superconsciousness conscious OF? Puhleeze, this whole black hole darkness metaphor conveys exactly nothing. Is it really impossible for someone who has this experience to say something coherent about it?

But in response to his last paragraph I just wanted to say that a believer in the Bible should have no doubt: any supposed superconsciousness is imparted by demon spirits that possess the mind of the practitioner. Demon spirits or fallen angels no doubt do possess a higher, or at least different, mind than we do, and they are capable of much illusion and deception. There is simply no other explanation if you believe the Bible.

People who have become involved in these practices need to be set free, and only Jesus Christ is capable of setting them free.

"All who call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved."