Photo by Brooke Cagle on UnsplashMJB writes: "Some Wiccan friends of mine were recently married in a ritual called handfasting. What exactly is this and is it Christian?"
LL writes: "How do I know if a speaker is New Age or not? There are so many of them out there, and they make some very enticing promises. How do I know who is legit and who isn't?"
Photo by Joshua Newton on UnsplashThe ability to walk across burning hot coals is known as firewalking and many a New Age motivational speaker wants us to believe that our mind has the power to enable us to do this. Does this explain why so many people at these events end up with their feet on fire while others walk away unscathed?
PC writes: "Over the weekend I had a conversation with a few people (felt like a firing squad really) where they were saying it is perfectly fine for a Catholic to also be a Buddhist. Their argument was that Buddhism is not a religion but a philosophy for interior peace and nothing is contradictory to what Jesus said and did (to me Galatians 5:22-23 debunks this issue as God sends the Holy Spirit that gives us everything; therefore, Jesus is truly the "all in all"). The lengthy part of the argument was to say that Buddhism gives the peace that Christianity does not. Of course I argued the opposite to all of this but did not make a dent. Do you know of any good resources that I can look at?"
SMJ: “My therapist recently suggested that he’d like to employ a theoretical therapy based on the polyvagal theory. However, when I looked it up online, a lot of the practitioners were very New Agey and Wikipedia called it ‘unproven’. Is this something I should get involved in?”
KB writes: "My friend's mother is a spiritist medium. The mom wants to visit (stay for a while) but my friend is afraid of having her mom over because she knows her mother is a medium and she (my friend) has children at home she wants to protect from any 'spirits' her mother has attached to her. My friend made a mistake by allowing her mom to babysit her newborn then learned that the mom 'gave' the baby some spirit gift. How can my friend remove anything given by the misguided grandma?"How can she honor her mother (who will at some point perhaps need to live with her daughter as she ages), yet protect herself and her family? The daughter is a practicing Catholic."
BB writes: "A friend has brought to my attention a healing/praying modality called Ama-Deus, this is, I believe, the fruit of Alberto Aguas. Are you familiar with this and is it compatible with Catholic Church teaching?"
BD asks: "Is it okay for a Catholics to sell jewelry that they may have with insignia from freemasonry, and have it melted down for the gold?"
KB writes: "My son and I received acupuncture therapy. At one point, the doctor said that energy was being channeled into my son and she needed to respect that energy until it slowed down to continue. I feel uneasy about this, and am concerned that we may have exposed ourselves to something we should not have. What should I do about this?"
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