Page 193 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 7

Forum “Guidance

Through the
Peter Milnes & Genevieve Milnes (Australia) Holy Spirit

During the

Let me report a personal experience of “guidance” received during coun- Counseling
seling that did not bring blessings:
or Therapy
Me: I feel that I am in a dark place.
Therapist: I have a word from the Holy Spirit about you.I see you wal- Session:
king into a dark place because of the demon of pride that you carry. Blessings and
What do you think about that? Is there anything you need to confess?
Me: Yes, um, I can certainly see the dark place because that’s why I have Problems”
come here.And the pride, yes I can see that I probably have a little of
that too.

Next session (a week later):

Therapist: What did you think about last session?
Me: Well I thought about it.
Therapist: What sort of pride do you think it could be?
Me: I don’t know.
Therapist: Well let’s ask for guidance of the Holy Spirit so that you can
be freed from the demon of pride …
Me: Well, not right now … (I never went back).

While the first session may have had spiritual value, the second session
did not.In spite of the loaded language, I had been open to exploration
of the “pride I carried” being a source of darkness and thought about it
during the following week.However, the second session revealed that, no
matter what my therapist intended, she was starting down a pathway that
placed her revelations as a “voice of God” which I was expected to pas-
sively accept.In spite of the difficulties that I was facing at the time, this
second session led me to seek counseling elsewhere because my therapist Dr Peter Milnes (PhD,
had already begun crossing into the classic “eight methods of thought M.Ed.Admin, B.Div.,B.
reform” outlined by Lifton : Educ.) is an Adjunct
1
Associate Professor at
• milieu control (my therapist allowed no other explanation in the the School of Law and
session, the problem was spiritual and I needed the Holy Spirit to Justice at Edith Cowan
liberate me from the demon of pride.); University, Perth, We-
• mystical manipulation (my therapist heard from God and not me – stern Australia as well
I was expected to accept this as “truth”.); as a therapist speciali-
• demand of purity (in the “black-and-white world” of my therapist, I zing in Transactional
was either under bondage to pride and darkness or liberated by her Analysis at Psychology
“guidance”.); Australia. Peter is an
• cult of confession (my therapist encouraged me to confess elements ordained minister who
served for eight years
of “pride” in my life during counselling so that I could be cleansed. in Brazil as a director
These confessions could be used later.); of a cross-cultural stu-
• sacred science (my therapist held the gnosis [knowledge of the dies centre and semi-
truth] so that her claims/insights were as true as the Divine); nary lecturer.

1 Robert J. Lifton (1969) Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, New York:
W. W. Norton & Co. 1969.

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