March 1977
Stan Petrowski
Months had passed since we moved to the campus. We had been working diligently, building the organizational structure, seeking tax exemption, trying to obtain the option to buy, and seeking to interest mission executives in being consultants and helping us with our task.
From time to time various ones on staff had felt inexplicably depressed. In that mood it was easy to assume with Elijah in 1 Kings 18:22, "I, even I only remain." Because we knew so certainly that God had called us to start the Center, we often asked ourselves why we felt so very discouraged.
It was bad enough when I felt depressed, but when I sensed that the few volunteers who had joined our staff also seemed unusually discouraged at the same time, I began to examine the situation.
"Is the outlook now more dark than it has been?" My answer was, "No."
"Is there suddenly more criticism or opposition from some source?" Again the answer was, "Not that I know of."
"Are we all fighting off the flu, perhaps?" And again
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everyone insisted they were well.
"What is it, then?" I asked Prudence. "Why do so many of us feel so down, all of a sudden?"
And a light of understanding sprang to her eyes! "So that's what it is!" she said.
"What?" I persisted.
"Several years ago, when I was the regional travelling representative for Campus Crusade, on several occasions I had experiences of this sort. The first time it happened I was confused, as you are, and then someone pointed out to me that it might be Satanic oppression, and urged me to follow the Biblical pattern of dealing with it. He said we have to remind Satan out loud that in dying on the cross Jesus has already won the victory, that we belong to Him and share in that victory. We must tell Satan that he has no authority at all over us, then in the name of Jesus, bind him and praise the Lord for our deliverance."
She called the staff together and explained what she felt was happening to us. We prayed together, then followed the pattern she outlined. Immediately it was as if a tremendous burden was lifted from our shoulders. We were full of joy and confidence in our Lord once more. And we thanked God for the valuable lesson we had learned.
But we still didn't associate this oppression with the presence of Summit International on our campus until one of the Christians in the community, who had been hired by the college to do work around the campus, informed us that Ralph's name was tacked onto the base of the large Buddha which had replaced the "old fashioned mourners bench" in the auditorium. Also prominently displayed, he said, was a notice that incantations should be chanted against us hourly. We were too naive, however, to understand just what all this meant.
One day in April, however, Erik Stadell showed Ralph a letter by a young Christian who some years before had been a highly placed member of the cult now on our campus. We
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were fascinated by his letter since all we knew about the Church Universal and Triumphant came from long, friendly articles in the local newspaper and bits and pieces picked up from Christian neighbors and friends.
Two days later, as Ralph and I were working on a chapter for a book soon to be published, Erik walked into the office, followed by a pleasant-looking, bearded young man in a light tan sports suit. His bright blue eyes were sparkling as he gripped Ralph's hand and said quietly, "I'm just praising the Lord. I'm so glad you're the ones here."
Stan Petrowski told us he had felt led of the Lord to come to Pasadena to see what Summit was up to. "I walked through the campus and then decided to see what the neighbors felt about them. So I knocked on a door down the street. The people there happen to be Lutherans and they told me that you people in the building on this side of the street are Christians, and that I should come to see you. So here I am."
This is the story he told us.
About eight years earlier Stan had been born again through contact with a few Christians who had helped him when his life was in a shambles. Almost immediately afterward, he had moved from the West Coast to Pennsylvania, where he knew no one. There he had set up a health food store as a way to support himself and also to attain the physical purity he sought. And there, alone, he tried to grow in his newly-found faith. But without Christian guidance of any kind, he was soon led astray.
People of all sorts came into his store looking for health food. Some came in to distribute "health literature." Among this literature was the Aquarian New Testament, which he was urged to read, and the Chinese book of divination called I Ching. Stan was not mature enough in the faith to recognize the additions to and misinterpretations of scripture included in the Aquarian New Testament, nor did anyone warn him of the dangers of becoming involved with I Ching and yoga.
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Over a period of time, while seeking to know God better, he was drawn into contact with various psychic and religious organizations.
Eventually, Stan found himself in a "monastery" — the Summit International headquarters located, at that time, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. There, the mixture of meditation, yoga, mantras, scripture and psychic practices coincided perfectly with his recent experiences. Unlike others he had known who were involved in such phenomena, these people seemed to be highly ethical, well dressed, and he was pleased to see that they stressed physical purity through abstinence from meat, alcohol, tobacco and drugs. The only thing that troubled him at first was their emphasis on wealth and their obvious materialism.
Summit leaders told him that the Bible was inaccurate, that ancient copyists had left out many things that were in the original documents of the early centuries. These left-out portions, they said, were being dictated to the leader of their movement, who was then Mark Prophet, by people now "ascended." His confidence in the Bible destroyed, Stan delved deeper and deeper into the "ancient wisdom" of which Summit leadership spoke.
Over the following years Stan rose in the Summit International movement until he was one of their top staff. He told us that at that point he had the ability to read other people's minds and, to a certain extent, even control their thought processes. This was all done through spirit power — an unholy spirit power, he added. Later he was sent to India and Nepal to visit a number of monasteries in order to incorporate into the cult's teaching the "truths" from Buddhism and Hinduism. Yet deep within he was hungry for the true and living God.
After four years, Stan left the organization and returned on his own to Nepal, searching for his "personal guru" who, he said, had contacted him psychically. He walked barefoot in the snow for 200 miles, visiting monastery after monastery,
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only to realize that what (or whom) he sought was not there. One day, trekking across a high mountain pass in the Himalayas, stumbling in the snow toward yet another Buddhist monastery, he fell on his knees and cried out, "Oh God, what is true?"
Prostrate in the snow, in tears, he felt a Presence he had not known before, and heard Someone say to him, "I, Jesus, am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. No man comes to the Father but by me." He was stunned! At the Summit monastery he had often chanted the first part of that phrase, but the last part had not been there. There, the "I AM" had referred to some god-presence which he himself was supposedly becoming. Now, Jesus was saying that He was the only way, the truth and the life. Moreover, there was no other way to the Father but by Him.
In a flash Stan remembered his experience long years before on the West Coast. That, then, had been the true way, and he had wandered so far, so needlessly.
Three days later he arrived at the monastery, but knew in his heart that the One who had spoken to him on the way was the One he had so long sought. After waiting out a small snow storm, he left abruptly and returned to the States. There, after days of prayer and fasting, he was led to a group of Christians who laid hands on him and prayed. For the first time in years he felt released from the spirit of oppression which only later he realized had been demonic. In his own words: "I went through a process of systematically renouncing every false religion that I had ever been involved in, in the name of Jesus Christ." It took long months of Bible study and many, many hours of communion with God before he learned to distinguish between spirits. But now he is a burning witness to God's power to rescue His own from the clutches of the "false prophets."
Today Stan spends his time on the road, warning Christians about false prophets and witnessing to young people caught up in the cults.
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That day in April, 1977 was an eye opener for us. As we listened to Stan, we were both fascinated and appalled. The world he spoke of was one we didn't know and couldn't understand.
He took more than an hour, talking about chants that have an unholy spiritual power, of "balancing kharma," of communication with people now dead and with powers in the spirit world, of incantations, mantras.
We were quiet, too shocked to know what to say, and perhaps a bit unbelieving. All we had set out to do was to buy this campus and to set in motion a new wave of mission interest that would complete the task of world evangelization. It seemed that, inadvertently, we also had stumbled into a confrontation with the occult. And we felt inadequate for what might lie ahead.
"What can we do?" I blurted out when Stan had finished.
"You just claim Christ's victory. And you pray. This situation is going to take a lot of prayer power." And Stan touched his knees as he looked straight into our eyes.
"You'll pray for us, too, won't you?" we begged.
"Listen, I'll pray for you every day. I know what you're going through. I could tell when I walked in that the devil's been giving you a rough time. But God's on the throne. Don't forget that. And Christ has already won the victory."
We prayed briefly together and then Stan was gone, to reappear again, unannounced, at the very end of June, the day before the cult's largest conference of the year was to begin.
