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MARTIAL
ARTSThe plan of "New Age" movement for the creation of a totalitarian, illiberal and apostate society has three implementation sectors - economy, politics and religion -, and many conscious and unconscious propagandists. Each of them stretches out New Age’s nets from his own standpoint. A net that every day catches fresh fish, not without profit, is called Martial Arts (Karate, Kung Fu, Aikido etc.)
FOR THE GLORY AND FOR THE MONEY!
Martial arts are one of the most widespread types of New Age "stores". They break into our homes everyday through television (movies and serials) and they enjoy:
The two trainees/disciples explained that the "philosophy" which is taught in martial arts schools is of a religious subject-matter, and includes exercice in Eastern religious practices, such as the much-vaunted meditation. The highly rewarded owners of martial arts schools immediately hastened to defend their honor by setting up a debate in a program of their own, 3 sponsored by a shop related to martial arts. All of them displayed themselves innocent, except for some unknown "bad guys". All the more so, an instructor who, by his own claim, "teaches philosophy of the martial arts", rebuked the Orthodox Christian priest who confirmed the two ex-trainees on the aforementioned program, because this priest addressed to a member of the parliament who was present using the word "saint", as if this was an event of great importance! That was the instructor’s main problem...
INTERCONNECTION WITH NEW AGE
The publishers-patrons who "care" about man's existential problems, in the western world, promote martial arts a fat lot, and bring famous instructors from foreign countries to offer highly priced seminars, in which they teach magical techniques (such as "energy experiences with the I - Ching symbols"; I-Ching is an ancient Chinese method of fortune-telling).
A representative example of the close collaboration between martial arts instructors and the New Age network is the frequent writing of articles by noted Martial Arts instructors for New Age magazines (e.g. P. Kontaxakis, K. Dervenis, and also D. Tsetselis and A. Provelengios, who teach martial arts in public schools!). Moreover, K. Dervenis, a Ninpo Tai Jutsu (Ninjutsu) instructor who declares to be a Taoist, participated in a publication of a Martial Arts magazine which was financed by the Gnostics' sect. The New Age magazine "Atrapos" in which K. Dervenis was editor-in-chief, is now published by the occult center "Aldebaran", (in Greece).
Ex-martial art trainees accuse martial art schools for their connections: they speak of links with occult organizations such as Robert Najemy’s - a Hindu guru Sai Baba's delegate - "Harmonious Life" organization, the "Gnostics" movement, P. Toulatos’s "Helion Fos" [Sunlight], Korean false Messiah San Myounk Moon's "Unification Church", even with black magic! The embracement among martial arts schools and sects is firm. Thus, sects as "Nea Acropoli" [New Citadel], "Osiris-Isis" (names of Egyptian gods), "Armoniki Zoe" [Harmonious Life] and others, offer martial arts courses. In some cases, the courses are taught by young people, who have been converted by a martial art school instructor, which they joined for doing "sports".
Some instructors boast for their relations to occultism: The "gymnastic and educational association Sagittarius, recognized by the Greek General Secretariat for Sports", organizes annual seminars with subjects such as "Hatha and Raja yoga, meditation, positive thinking" and the like. The bibliography of this seminar includes books published by "Nea Acropoli" and other cults, as well as books written by "New Age Christ", Sai Baba, and his delegate in Greece, Robert Najemy, by Lafayette Ron Hubbard, "messiah" of the Scientology sect, and by other occultists. Other instructors teach meditation and magical techniques even to little children, but they don’t explain them the real nature of these acts! Such things can happen even in some training room, the owner of which decided to upgrade it by co-operating with a martial art instructor... The circle ends with various "centers for psychotherapy and energy equalization", acupuncturists and other similar New Age "scientists" who promote or collaborate with martial arts schools or individual instructors.
Martial
arts for peace and calmness...
THE RELIGIOUS BACKGROUND OF MARTIAL ARTS
The main ingredient of the religious background of martial arts is Buddhism. According to Buddhism, "everything arises from vacuity, the impersonal and amorphous energy, which comes to a form. There is no faith to a Creator God. Buddha taught that the idea of the existence of a Creator is a result of the "dual mind": the mind which, by not having conquered "enlightenment" (which really means that it has not experienced the spiritual deception of this religion), does not understand (which means, it does not believe) that everything in the universe is empty and comprises a unity. In the Sutras (the holy scriptures of Buddhism) Buddha teaches his disciples that humanity comes from another solar system which got destroyed and his inhabitants were incarnated here because of the good "karma" they had accumulated. The first being that was born at some high level, before the earth was shaped, imagined it created everything it saw around it, because it was born without parents (!) and had lost its memory. Later, as other creatures from the former solar system started being born around it (without parents as well!), it thought that it created them: so it organized them to heavenly hierarchies and called itself "Mahabrahma", which means Great Creator.
Later on, planet Earth got shaped (by itself) and creatures begun to incarnate there (by themselves as well!) while Mahabrahma, always according to Buddha, imagined he was their creator. These are the teachings Buddha was inspired when he decided to find the truth about man and the world by himself, since initially, being a simple Hinduist, he believed that "the world is a dream of the gods, arising from the breath of god Brahma... Although he altered the cosmological and social aspects he had been taught as a Hinduist (the social "castes"), he preserved the theory of reincarnation (that a man is born many times until he comes to ‘enlightenment’) and of ‘dharma’ (that the sort of the way towards ‘enlightenment’ is determined by ‘karma’)... He also preserved the theory of iterative destruction and regeneration of the world (calpas). According to Hinduism, this happens every 4,320 million years. Buddha named "Nirvana" the unconscious state that Hinduism considers as serenity (and is attained by meditation). The aim of the Buddhist asceticism is the dissolution of the human personality into the ‘vacuity’ of the unshaped energy, so that the prospective reincarnations in this world, which is regarded as an illusion full of pain, can be avoided.
After Buddha’s death two Buddhist movements were formed: Hinayana, that followed the tradition faithfully, and Mahayana, that accented meditation more than the study of scriptures and the perpetration of good deeds. In China, Mahayana fused to various astrological, geomantic (fortune-telling by studying earth), ancestor-worshipping, alchemical and other beliefs, as well as to the philosophical and religious Taoism. Taoism teaches that the world and man are not creatures, but manifestations of God (pantheism), that there is a "mysterious and divine" energy which is called chi (qi) and everyone can use it by some techniques, and that evil comprises part of God and is equivalent to good, as was also taught by Persian Zoroastrianism, Manichaism and other dualistic religions.
Thus, Ch’an Buddhism was generated, which, in combination with martial techniques, was taught in Shao-lin monastery by Bodhidharma, a (Mahayana) missionary from India. Ch’an Buddhism, which in Japan is called Zen, is the religious background of martial arts which today are taught all over the world - and to our country. The connection between martial arts (and the religions that inspired them) and witchcraft is so intense, that in a book about Martial Arts, 1 a chapter of 43 pages is devoted exactly on this connection. Moreover, Ev. Koutroumbelis, a former wizard goes over martial arts at a chapter of his book titled "the rabble-rouser" (in Greek), reporting instructors who had magical achievements. 6
They were born Greeks!
WHY MARTIAL ARTS ARE PROMOTED
""New Age" promotes martial arts because it is not "new" at all: it’s a mishmash of witchcraft and ancient pagan religions and practices (astrology, meditation, various kinds of fortune-telling etc.) The central idea of "New Age" movement is that God is impersonal and that humanity is developing gradually, as one human being, to unite with the divine. It will succeed in its "ascension" by some techniques - mainly by meditation - and with the help of some "wise" and "developed" people, who will rule over the "undeveloped" ones. By the practicing of martial arts man can supposedly become a "wise man" of this kind. "The spread of the philosophy of martial arts is essentially tantamount to the spread of the ‘New Age’ ideas, and particularly imparts ‘New Age’ the prestige and glamour of the ‘ancient wisdom’ that was smothered by the ‘evil, reactionary, illiberal’ Christianity...
Unexpectedly, the dragon - a symbol by which God Himself describes Devil in the Old Testament - becomes a symbol of the ‘spirit’, and we are taught to study dragon’s techniques carefully, trying to imitate its "aerial effectiveness". Instead of trying to resemble to God, Who is beyond nature, we try to 'unite with nature' by imitating some animals (the tiger, the crane etc.)! Our movements derive from magical and occult symbols as the swastika, and the idea that good and evil are equivalent and complementary, an idea that Church fought from the first day of its establishment, is now swallowed at one gulp in the symbol of the Yin - Yang powers. We are not free anymore: our deeds are determined by the ruthless ‘necessity of nature’, the implacable ‘karma’. We are convicted, whether we want it or not, to be born many times!
Being taught about energy, we come to firmly accept the basic New Age idea that ‘all religions say the same thing in a different way’, and we come to the point to confuse ‘chi’ with the Holy Spirit! Christian faith is reduced to just another way of becoming God-like, and Christ, Who declared that no-one can reach Father unless through Him, and that He is ‘the Truth, the Resurrection and Life’, is considered as a ‘wise teacher’ similar to Lao Tse, Buddha and other people.
The nature of martial arts, that requires participation of body and soul, addicts man to continuous occupation with his own self and his own evolution: in this way he adopts by his practice the essential egotism of eastern religions, deviating from the Christian position that everything we do must be an offering to God, keeping pace with His will at any cost. The departure from church is unavoidable, since the martial arts devotee lives a life based on out-of-church models and mentality, while meditation opens the gate to the spirits of deception and allows them to intellectually and emotionally possess him. When this takes place, physical possession (complete possession by demons) is not necessary - though this also happens in some occasions.
Additionally, martial arts bring about addiction because of the physical exercise. Most of the times, martial arts become a way of life to their trainee, who gradually accepts their philosophy as well, because of this addiction. As a result, the traditional social structure, based very much on the fact that most people are of the same religion, grows weaker and weaker; a sense of globalism is introduced: the ‘worldwide family of martial arts’. The members of this ‘family’ accept the same symbols, get round to the same things and use the same terminology all over the world. Just think that in every Karate-do school, from Zimbabwe to Ireland, disciples wear the same uniform (karate-gi), follow the same hierarchical belt system and are taught the same philosophy and the same techniques which are taught worldwide, with their actual Japanese names, which are not translated in the language of the country where the school lies.
Nowadays, the banners and symbols of a Japanese or Korean or Chinese fighting system are familiar to people all over the world. Hence, in another way, people unconsciously get prepared for further global unification, by an emotionally acceptable and not remote method - as, for example, the day against AIDS might be.
The acceptance, by as many people as possible, of the idea that God is impersonal and that man can conquer god-likeness by some techniques and transform earth into paradise getting united with nature, would be a great contribution to the unhindered enthronement of the ‘man-god’, who will be seated at the top of the evolution pyramid of humanity as its absolute master and ruler: that is to say, the Antichrist. Furthermore, the acceptance of the fatalistic Zen doctrines will consolidate his dominance, since this dominance will be interpreted as the ‘karma of the humanity’. People won’t pay attention to this "illusion of the world’, but will occupy themselves with trying to be god-like by some ‘techniques’: if they get oppressed by the ‘New Age’ system, they will blame their karma, that is to say, themselves! So there will be ‘peace, order and public security’, as it happens for centuries in India, where the unjust and inhuman social system of the castes finds no social resistance: those who are oppressed put themselves in the hands of some ‘god-man’ gurus, expecting to escape from the supposed continuous reincarnations..." 1
IT’S NOT ONLY OCCULTISM...
Martial art schools sprout up without being supervised for the "services" they offer. As a Greek instructor said, "the Greek state gives everybody the right to open a school, even if he is an aviator. Usually the trainees pay the piper, because these (martial arts) magazines would publish anything just to collect money for an advertisement". Another instructor says that "these hypocritical fairy-tales about meditation are often used to cover up an incompetent teacher." Even worse, it seems that while most instructors do not consult doctors specialized in physical injuries caused by sporting activities, some try to use substitutes, even by using eastern quackery.1
Many instructors report fraud cases: some of their counterparts, who own schools and collect tuition fees, learned what they teach from videotapes, while others advertise themselves as Zen priests and others present themselves as disciples of Tibetan instructors, with whom they communicate by telepathy! As an instructor puts it, "this mystery on martial arts attracts suckers".
But the frauds in the field of martial arts are not always amusing: in a letter to a martial arts magazine, an instructor reveals that some people "take examinations, they don’t pass, and the day after they show up with a black belt and a two Dan degree, since someone has intervened to the advantage of his school"; also, instructors confess: "we tell the Japanese examiner who should pass and who should not because they come from another school... Everything happens in the presence of all of us and there is nothing we can do; those who are involved in such cases have senior positions in confederations and organizations, so they have the power in their hands"! At the same time, trainees reveal that some instructor diplomas are not genuine; they also reveal other shocking details which are not mentioned here because of lack of space.
Concerning the confederations, "which are supposed to protect us from this unacceptable situation, since they are assigned with the supervision of the technical competence and the moral quality of their members"1, an instructor says that "nowadays there are so many bogus confederations that it is justifiably difficult for somebody to make head or tail of them", while "it is shown by fact that even an initially trustworthy confederation may start giving false diplomas and degrees".1 Ninjutsu instructor K. Dervenis has charged his Japanese master instructor for such violations. Unfortunately, even a confederation which is considered reliable, as the EOEK (Greek Confederation of Non-Professional Karate-Do), "can not completely control the situation, nor the cooperations of its members. Thus, the TV ‘Messiah’ Panagiotis Toulatos, a graduate of the American occult school ‘Astara’ (an impostor, according to TV statements of his ex-followers), made lectures at a Wado-Ryu school at Nea Smyrni, Athens, which belonged to a member of EOEK." 1
Practicing martial arts involves serious risks to the health, like injuries during training. Training causes irreversible damages to the knees, spine and other parts of the body. Famous masters warn of these problems.1 What's more, "fatal accidents are not rare. K. Dervenis reports 4 recent deaths of trainees in the US and Canada, 2 deaths in Europe and many more accidents involving injuries. (These are reported in a book published in 1991, but until now these incidents have multiplied.) K. Dervenis attributes such accidents to immature and incompetent instructors. But who can guarantee the maturity and competence of all these ‘instructors’, who are in every neighborhood, in every provincial town of Greece? Who can guarantee even the physical safety of our youngsters, not to mention the spiritual alienation they will possibly undergo because of the influence of an eastern religion and philosophy?"
"Accidents do happen in championships... Because of these accidents, many disciples were obliged to use orthopedic collars or similar supporting equipment for a long time. To this situation contributes the policy of some martial arts school owners, who register their athletes to championships while concealing their real level of competence, so that they might easily win the competition."
The practicing of yoga, which is taught in many martial arts schools, should be added to the risks to the health; it can cause permanent damage to the nervous system." 1
G. Toumanidis, a former martial arts advocate, remarks that "anyone can learn martial arts, simply by paying the fees. As a result, ill-tempered, deranged or insane persons, armed with additional power, can be much more dangerous and menacing." 4 An instructor adds: "When a repressed person acquires some power, he uses Karate with bad intentions. In essence, you give them a weapon, but you don’t know how they‘ll use it."1 Interviews of trainees reveal a very bad attitude inside martial art schools.1
Have parents thought of what kind of people they bring their child in touch with, when they send it at a martial arts school? And who can guess what is hidden behind a seemingly polite instructor?
Ennoblement
of the spirit...
INCOMPATIBILITY TO CHRISTIANITY
On a radio program which discussed martial arts (‘radio paraga’), many well-known martial arts instructors took part; Ninjutsu instructor K. Dervenis, addressing to the discussion coordinator Rev. Constantinos Stratigopoulos, commented that there is no reason of worry for the youth of Greece, since more or less no martial arts instructor in Greece knows eastern religions well enough. "The fact that Mr. X. has a Shinto temple into his school does not mean that he is in position to teach Shinto or Buddhism or anything like that; he does so in order to create an eastern atmosphere", he said. Instructor Lycourgos objected that even if the instructor is half learned or totally ignorant, the interested trainees may find books on eastern philosophy by themselves, and he mentioned some examples.
The point for a Christian is not whether he is taught genuine or false Buddhism or Taoism or whatever, but that he loses Orthodox spirituality without even understanding it."1 As Rev. George Metallinos, a professor at the University of Athens, remarks, martial arts are "in poles apart with our Orthodox Christian faith. A Christian should not be occupied in them, because he automatically turns down his faith in God’s grace, which is the only power that can generate love in him, in the form of unselfishness and willingness for sacrifice for the fellow-man. Into the non-created grace, Christian learns to see other people as a means of his salvation, not as his enemies. For this reason, a Christian is he who charismatically reaches the point to love his enemies and to sacrifice himself for them."1
Still, some insist on teaching martial arts saying that they are Christians. A lot of them "analyze many essentially religious matters and then say that they don’t teach any religion... All these people may believe that they are Christians... They believe so because they ignore Orthodox theology, they are victims of a New Age syncretism, which is very common nowadays."5 Others say they don’t teach meditation, but a fighting sport "in order to have a way of defense in contemporary society" and that "being fighters, promotes us as a nation".
However, Rev. G. Metallinos is unequivocal: "Fathers of the Church Basil the Great and Athanasius the Great clarify that war is a satanic situation and is not acceptable but only bearable. In the case of an attack, we can use the contemporary arms to defend our country. There is no need to learn martial arts, which, either with or without meditation, are the product of a foreign civilization, which is not a civilization of god-likeness. Socrates said that it is better for somebody to be unfairly treated than to be unfair... The concept of self-defense is evil because it springs from egoism. For a Christian, only the defense of endangered people is meaningful. Christian self-defense is to turn the other cheek, yet no one tries to face evil by sanctity; everyone talks only of the easy ways. Orthodoxy has no need to use products of other cultures, which are cultures of demons; such methods cannot pass a Christian criticism"1.
Furthermore, Rev. George Metallinos accepts that "a woman can use violence to defend herself in case she is attacked to be raped", but it is obvious that she must not prepare herself for such an event by learning martial arts. Notably "it appears strange that attacks against women who know martial arts instead of being fewer, they are greater in number; however, this should be attributed to the fact that self-confidence of such women is inflated, so they put themselves in danger by walking during hours and in districts which bear such risks".1
The
particular martial art school is characterized by inter-orthodox conferences
on matters of heresy and destructive cults as "incompatible to the Orthodox
Faith and life".
DO MARTIAL ARTS OFFER PROTECTION?
Martial arts instructors claim that life is very dangerous and that someone must be capable of using self-defense to go through. A Greek martial arts instructor comments on this position as follows: "I don’t think that life is so dangerous, they say so for promotional purposes, to force people attend martial arts courses. Furthermore, it would take about 10 years of training for someone to use martial arts techniques well enough. Do not pay attention to those who talk of quickly learned fighting systems. Should they say how much time you need to learn them well, people would not go to martial arts schools. And how many times will you need this knowledge, shall we beat each other every day? Whoever is in good physical condition can manage a difficult situation. Do you think that if a basketball player is under attack, he won’t be able to defend himself efficiently? What's more, if someone has a phobia, he buys a gun and has no need to learn any martial art."1
Martial arts masters, who are considered experts - Bruce Lee is among them - warn that martial arts cannot protect from guns. However, even the little children know that today criminals use guns... It seems that martial art trainees put themselves in more trouble rather than getting rid of trouble, as they themselves confess.1
MARTIAL ARTS AND THE GREEK CHARACTER OF OUR CULTURE
"From the establishment of the new Hellenic state, Greeks have a tendency to follow the preferences of the West, despising their own inheritance. This happened also with martial arts: Bodhidharma came from the West as well, not from India or China. After West distorted Greek classical culture into "Western rationalism’, now makes its way to the ‘Wisdom of the East’, as we would say, out of the frying-pan into the fire... Hinduism-Buddhism, raw or worked out in New Age dominion cook-houses, comes to complete the work of rationalism, i.e. the destruction of man’s relation to the Truth, and therefore of man himself."1
"Martial arts remain in the era before Christ, where people were enemies, not brothers. Maybe this is their greatest barbarism and their greater opposition to Hellenism, since the national assembly of 1821 admitted as Greeks only those who believed in Christ. And since, with the word Greeks, we refer to the essence and not to the surface, we don’t speak of faith without deeds, which is dead. We also don’t speak of heresy nor of pretence in a quest for clients... We need to live our tradition and to reform our education, confronting critically the barbarisms of East and West. Let's ostracize barbarisms from our education, starting from the private sector, which is directly in our power." 1
WE AND MARTIAL ARTS
Of course, martial arts schools
do exist, like other New Age organizations and even the Masonic lodges.
Yet, no one obliges us and our children to go there. Even if a school teacher
teaches martial arts, our children don’t have to be taught. This would
be a plain transgression of the human rights of the parents, who proved
that they want to educate their children in the orthodox way by baptizing
them. Finally, it is a mistake to think that in the martial arts field
there are only people who long for power and not for God, people who turn
a deaf ear to the Truth. There are a lot of honest seekers of Truth, who
lost their way and got encircled in there." 1
David
Carradine, leading actor in the TV serial "Kung Fu", which initiated millions
of TV viewers to the philosophy of the martial arts.
Stimulus during childhood is much responsible for the trapping of people in occult and anti-christian systems. An ex-trainee who wrote a book about martial arts, stated in a related radio program that she, as well as all the instructors and trainees whom she interviewed while writing the book, watched the television serial "Kung Fu" during her childhood.5 Other instructors said they were influenced from Karate movies and related fiction.
The violent atmosphere in the family surroundings leads also to martial arts, as well as the upbringing with the use of beating, which fills a child’s soul with inhibitions (desire for imposition and revenge, etc.).
It’s time that those parents who are really interested on the psychic, spiritual and physical health of their children, set aside all of their jobs for a while, watching over what occupies their children and why. Let’s teach to our children not to become victims of each fashion, "which can be dangerous" 5, and let’s listen to Him who says: "Let the children come near me". Because Jesus Christ is the only real power in the world, and life by His side is the only life that makes people free from any addiction, insecurity and deception.
References
This text is based on
the book "The truth about martial arts", by Maria Dimitriadou, prefaced
by Rev. G. Metallinos and published by N. Panagopoulos bookstore. Its bibliography
index is 1.
The following sources
have also been used:
2. "A matter of love",
TV program (Mega Channel, 3-11-1997)
3. "Martial arts", TV
program (Channel 5, 8-11-1997)
4. "The confession of
a former Karate-do trainee", article by G. Toumanidis (newspaper "Student
lightning", Jan.-Feb. 1996)
5. Maria Dimitriadou’s
interview on the radio program "The Morning Rythm" (89,4 FM, 1-6-1998)
6. "The rabble-rouser",
by Ev. Koutroumbelis (Athens 1994)
