"The forces of psuche are arrayed against the forces of pneuma"! What does this "soul-force" mean? Our correspondent writes at length as follows:

"The forces of the pit have gone forth to deceive the whole world (Revelation 12:712). The consequence is that great upheavals are taking place in the political world. It is important for us to take account of these happenings, as they vitally affect the Church of Christ.

"I once met a man in North India who had access to the highest circles of society in Simla, the summer seat of the government of India, who told me one evening of his connection with the mahatmas in India and in other countries of Asia. He said that he knew of great political events weeks and months before they came to pass. `I do not depend for news on telegrams and newspapers. They only record past events; we know events before they take place,' he said. How can a man in India know of the events happening in London and vice versa?

"It was explained to me that it was through `soul-force' being projected by men who knew the secret of the mahatmas. What is soul force? To the believer taught by the Spirit of God, in the light of the Word of God it is seen to be the power of the pit projected upon the nations of the world to deceive them, so as to bring about catastrophic changes.

" 'Soul-force' is a word whose charm and magic is only known in the East. It is the power believed to have been exercised by holy men, known as mahatmas, who were the spiritual leaders in India in centuries gone by and who are credited with supernatural powers as much today as in ages past. It is said to have the capacity not only to energize but to control the will of the people.

"To illustrate the potency of this word in the Indian mind, it is sufficient to point to the revision of the Treaty of Sevres, under which all that was lost to Turkey has to be restored. A greater triumph of one Eastern nation over all Western nations combined cannot be imagined. The explanation given, and believed in by millions in India, is expressed in the word 'soul-force.'

"This `soul-force' is believed to be cultivated by prayer, fasting and religious meditation. The Muslims point with pride to their gatherings for prayer in their mosques. Consider the mass of Muslims at prayer in the great Jumna Mosque of Delhi, where a hundred thousand followers of Mohammed assemble inside the mosque, with a still larger crowd engaged in prayer outside. It is here that `soul-force' is generated! In the mosques of India, which number thousands upon thousands, devout Muslims meet three times for prayer every day. It is here that the hidden springs of Islam lie. Every Muslim believes that the secret of world-power is in prayer, and what he believes, he practices. They `pray,' and so (they believe) the council of European nations is set aside. What a lesson to Christendom!

"And how is soul-force cultivated among the vast Hindu population of India? If the gatherings of Muslims for prayer are large, those of Hindus, when they meet for devotional exercise at their great festivals, are ten times larger. The Hindus point with pride to their sacred places of pilgrimage, where they assemble by hundreds of thousands. At the great Magh Festival at Allahabad, millions of Hindus assemble every seven years.

"Prayer -an exercise of devotion which unites Hindu and Muslim into one common action: to generate `soul force' in order that it may be projected upon Western nations to undermine their power and prestige in the East. It is the greatest revolt known in history! . . ."

There is a passage in Pember's Earth's Earliest Ages which throws light upon this matter. He writes that the man who would generate "soul-force" must "so bring his body under the control of his own soul that he can project his soul and spirit and, while living on this earth, act as if he were a disembodied spirit." The "man who attains to this power is called an `adept' and . . . can consciously see the minds of others. He can act by his 'soul-force' on external spirits . . . . He can subdue ferocious, wild beasts and send his soul to a distance," and he can "exhibit to his distant friends his spiritual body in the likeness of that of the flesh." We read that "the development of these faculties . . . can only be compassed by a long . . . training, the object of which is to break down the body to a complete subjection and to produce apathy in regard to all the pleasures, pains and emotions of this life . . . ."

The whole tenor of Indian religious life undoubtedly develops these soul-powers, for what can be the effect of intense "prayer" fixed on a given object by a hundred thousand men who know not the gospel of Christ but the "projecting" of soulforces, directed by the god of this world, upon the object desired.

"Soul-force" versus "spirit-force. " What does this mean in England? Just this: that the same development of psychic power is taking place all around us, both knowingly and unknowingly, bringing into action forces which are at the disposal of the invisible powers of evil. "The forces of psuche are arrayed against the forces of pneuma." What are the "forces of psuche" but the "natural man" drawing out of his nature latent powers which are not of the Spirit of God. And the "forces of pneuma," what are they? The power of God Himself as "Spirit" brought into action through the spiritual man, born of the Spirit, walking after the Spirit and praying to God on the ground of the blood of Calvary. (See Revelation 8:3-5 as an example.)

How this unwitting bringing into action of psychic force can affect spiritual believers has come to me in a recent letter. The writer says: "I have just come through a terrible onslaught of the enemy. My whole body was in a state of collapse from hemorrhage, heart palpitation, panting and exhaustion. It suddenly burst upon me while at prayer to pray against all psychic power exercised upon me by [psychic] 'prayer.' By faith in the power of the blood of Christ, I cut myself off from it. The result was remarkable. Instantly my breathing became normal, the hemorrhage stopped, exhaustion vanished, all pain fled and life came back into my body. I have been refreshed and invigorated ever since. God let me know in confirmation of this deliverance that my condition was the effect of a group of deceived souls who are in opposition to me and are `praying' about me! God has used me in the deliverance of two of them, but the rest are in an awful pit . . . ."

This is not the only instance which has come to my knowledge within the last few months of the fresh dangers coming upon spiritual believers-through the deepening tribulation conditions which are coming to pass throughout the whole inhabited earth. Through these other instances it appears that this generation of soul-force under the guise of Christian prayer is most likely to take place in those who have had great supernatural experiences but have in some way opened themselves to evil spirits. These Christian souls seem, in some way, to get what might be called a fanatical spirit of insistence that other believers should come into the same experience that they have had. And if these others in any way refuse to seek these experiences, or appear to these souls to be a block in the path of others obtaining these supernatural manifestations, they direct, as they think, "prayer upon them, that they should be punished by God with judgment or that they should be compelled to yield to what these souls call "the truth."

But this is very much like the disciples who said to the Lord, when they came to a village where they would not receive Him, "Lord, wilt Thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" And the Lord replied, "Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of." God never uses compulsion to force any soul into receiving Him, even for their own benefit. God the Holy Spirit recognizes the human responsibility of a man's own choice as to whether God shall save him or not.

So we would earnestly warn God's servants– truly God's servants– who seem to be concerned about others who will not seek their own particular line of "blessing." And we entreat them rather to commit these other believers to God and not to lay themselves open to the danger of generating soul-force by directing what might be called evil prayers upon them. In any case, it behooves all who give themselves to intense prayer to carefully avoid praying for others what they think is the "will of God" for them. And above all things, never to direct "prayer" upon others but always upward toward God, thus leaving those for whom they pray free from the possible danger of soul-force working upon them through the aerial currents of the hour.

As an example of this a minister writes: "We have recently had a convention in this town. One of the speakers was out to enforce his own supernatural experience on others-his own particular line of `blessing.' I was the subject of much 'prayer' on this line, and I have since seriously felt the effect . . . . This concentrating of the mind (Le., soul-force) in prayer on something that one wants is fraught with evil . . . ."

Let us remember that true Spirit-born prayer has its origin in the spirit and that it is not the mind concentrating upon something the person desires under the cover of prayer" language.