Following the runaway success of the “Twilight” series of books and films, Stephenie Meyer “was ranked No. 49 on Time magazine’s list of the ‘100 Most Influential People in 2008’, and was included in the Forbes Celebrity 100 list of the world’s most powerful celebrities in 2009, entering at No. 26. Her annual earnings exceeded $50 million. In 2010, Forbes ranked her as the No. 59 most powerful celebrity with annual earnings of $40 million”. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephenie_Meyer). That is quite an achievement for anyone, let alone a married Mom with kids. It also carries with it great responsibility.
The Occult Connection to Fantasy Worlds
Meyer’s powerful influence, especially over impressionable teenage girls, might be seen by some to have had good effects, at least in part. Stephenie’s biographer, George Beahm says, “Stephenie Meyer has gotten teenagers to go unplugged: they willingly turn off the iPods, the ringing cell phones, the plasma television, the computer, and all the other electronic distractions to immerse themselves into Meyer’s world of words” (Beahm p. 233). Unfortunately, it’s only to bring them into another world, a world of fantasy and warped romantic ideals; and worse, a world that is peopled by monsters – vampires, werewolves, and shape-shifters. Such creatures are hybrid monstrosities – part human, part demon. It is a world akin to that described in ancient Greek mythology, a world inhabited by demi-gods, hideous creatures, terrifying monsters, titans, and cruel and capricious gods, all of whom were a threat to normal mortals. And occasionally one of the gods would espy a mortal whom he or she desired and subsequently have sex with them, using coercion, deception, or force.
Even in medieval times there were dragons, giants, fairies, goblins, ghosts, witches, spirits of dead religious saints, and devils, all of which were thought to be very active in the world. And in our own time and universe there is a resurgence of witches, druids, shamans, mediums, and psychics, as well as ghosts and demons, and occult practices such as séances and occult worship which bring the practitioners into contact with the spirit realm. Correspondingly there is another world of super-heroes and super-villains, bizarre beings either born with their powers or the results of failed scientific experiments; and all of them possessing god-like powers and abilities.
Then there are the science fiction worlds of Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate, Dr. Who, and other universes such as Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Dungeons and Dragons, and Warhammer, all of which are also inhabited by alien beings and bizarre creatures, all of whom have incredible powers, and most or many of whom are hostile to human beings.
Again, there are the movies from the ‘30’s and 40’s, such as Boris Karloff as Frankenstein, Bella Lugosi as Dracula, Lon Chaney as the Werewolf, and zombies, which spawned a whole genre of horror movies with terrifying and threatening creatures such as The Blob, The Thing, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and other aliens from outer space, and culminating in gross and hideous beings such as Alien, Predator, and Terminator – and all are hostile to human beings.
These worlds and universes, these alternate realities, these creatures, are not really that much different to the world that Meyer has created; the monsters in Twilight have superhuman powers, are hostile to human beings, prey on them, and kill them. And the Twilight novels focus on a powerful but unnatural romance between one of these monsters, a misfit in his own world, and a teenage girl. It is a relationship which is wrong, and both know it. But they are slaves to their passions, emotions, and desires, and they will not deny themselves. It all sounds so impossibly romantic to an impressionable girl or young woman, a romance which overcomes all obstacles, and with many twists and turns to keep the suspense high.
But just like all the other worlds, realms, and universes just mentioned, this “Twilight” world that teenage girls want to inhabit is an unreal world that can never be realised, so their romantic emotions and desires can never be satisfied or fulfilled. They yearn intensely for a lie, a fantasy, and when they can’t have it, they share their imaginations and desires online with other girls who are experiencing the same. Meyer’s fans “want her timeless love story, the proverbial waltz at the end of the high school prom, to last forever. They want to go back somewhere in time and experience anew falling hopelessly in love for the first time with all its heady, intoxicating elements, and get swept up in a maelstrom of romantic feelings. They want to read Twilight from Edward Cullen’s perspective. They want more stories about their favourite cold-blooded vampire; and when no more are forthcoming from the author, they write fan fiction and eagerly share the products of their imaginations online with a virtual community. They want to linger for just one more moment in Meyer’s Twilight universe. In short, they don’t want the enchantment to end; they don’t want to see the dazzling glass carriage turn into a pumpkin” (Beahm, p. 232-233).
But there is a danger for these girls who have been conditioned by Meyer’s Twilight world; there is another genre of literature which is becomingly increasingly popular, a type of erotic fiction, mainly written for women, where sexual relationships with aliens, monsters, and supernatural beings are the focus. As those young women who were so enamoured of the romantic relationships in Twilight seek for something similar to take its place now that the series is completed, romantic/erotic supernatural fiction is sure to come within their horizon and, sadly, some of them will be ripe for it. And this, in turn, will be the lead-in to pornography, and worse, in general. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that everyone who reads Twilight will turn to alien erotica and pornography; I’m just saying that impressionable readers of Twilight are putting themselves in the way of temptation and will be more vulnerable to it. There is a connection between Twilight and pornography, even though Stephenie has not intended it or even necessarily foreseen it, and even though her readers are not necessarily “that type of girl”.
But Satan doesn’t usually tempt us with a great sin first up; he usually seduces us into it gently, covertly, by degrees. And each time we yield to a temptation, the barrier has been broken and we are ripe for the next, more serious step, until we reach his goal for us, which will ultimately destroy us. Thus, Twilight is a tool for him to bring people into the bondage and degradation of pornography and the occult. And whereas in Twilight, participation in the heady but perverted romance of Bella Swan and Edward Cullen can only be experienced in the mind and the emotions, active participation in the kind of sexual activities displayed in pornography is very easily come by.
The Occult Origin of “Twilight”
Stephenie Meyer is, of course, the author. But where did she get the idea for the books? She admits “that the idea for Twilight came to her in a dream on June 2, 2003. The dream was about a human girl and a vampire who was in love with her but thirsted for her blood. Based on this dream, Meyer wrote the draft of what became Chapter 13 of the book. In a matter of three months she had transformed the dream into a complete novel”. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephenie_Meyer).
However, following this dream which gave rise to the Twilight series, Stephenie tells us of a second dream after she’d written “Twilight”, the first in the series. “A little-known sequel occurred, as discussed in an interview with Meyer. It is differentiated from Stephenie’s normal dreams by its amount of truth. One night, Meyer was sleeping on the couch, and experienced something similar to sleep paralysis. According to Meyer, Edward stormed in menacingly, confronting his author. Edward told Stephenie that she’d gotten it all wrong, and he was a normal vampire. Stephenie described this as very frightening”. http://applesparkles.wikia.com/wiki/Meyer%27s_Dream_of_Death
By Stephenie’s own admission, she didn’t invent the story or its characters; they came to her in a dream. It all sounds so fascinating, an act of chance or fate, so random; a dream that was so vivid and sustained and intense that she felt compelled to record it. The story almost wrote itself.
However, the second dream reveals that the situation is more sinister and that there was an intelligence behind it all. This intelligence was not benign or friendly because it revealed to her a world of death, murder, monsters, and unnatural and evil acts. This intelligence was demonic; a vampire who was the creature of a combination of demon-inspired dream and Stephenie’s imagination, come to life to confront and threaten her.
Despite that some people would put this down to a condition known as: “Sleep paralysis is a state, during waking up or falling asleep, in which a person is aware but unable to move or speak. During an episode, one may hallucinate (hear, feel, or see things that are not there), which often results in fear. Episodes generally last less than a couple of minutes. It may occur as a single episode or be recurrent….Between 8% and 50% of people experience sleep paralysis at some point in their life. About 5% of people have regular episodes. Males and females are affected equally. Sleep paralysis has been described throughout history. It is believed to have played a role in the creation of stories about alien abduction and other paranormal events”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_paralysis
However, Meyer’s experiences are more involved and complex than sleep paralysis. Such dreams can also be seen as channelling and many examples can be given. But Stephenie wasn’t seeking anything, it just came to her. People to whom these things happen are called mediums and psychics and seem to have some kind of connection to the spirit world for one reason or another – hypnosis, meditation, séances, horoscopes, even such seemingly benign and harmless activities as palm reading or the reading of tea leaves or coffee grounds in a cup, can be taken advantage of by a demon. My grandmother was a medium and I know personally the power of these things. It can also happen when, through no fault of their own, the victim can be affected by a demon while under long-term medication for pain relief.
The Occult Origin of Mormonism
While it is doubtful that Stephenie would have knowingly done anything like this due to her Mormon upbringing, she still had such a connection to the demonic through that very Mormonism She may not have consciously sought contact with the spirit realm but she had unwittingly made that connection nonetheless because of her baptism into the Mormon church – a church which was born of two lying spirits revealing themselves to a young man named Joseph Smith, claiming to be God the Father and his Son, Jesus. But the Bible warns against blindly accepting that any and all kinds of spiritual experience are safe. “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God” (1 John 4:1). “Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light” (2 Cor 11:14).
It may surprise some to discover that Mormons speak in tongues. This “gift” is recorded in the Book of Mormon, and therefore has been in that (oc)cult since its beginning and has a permanent place in Mormonism. We read, “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, I know that if ye shall follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent, repenting of your sins, witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ by baptism – yea, by following your Lord and your Saviour down into the water, according to his word, behold, then shall ye receive the Holy Ghost; yea, then cometh the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost; and then can ye speak with the tongue of angels, and shout praises unto the Holy One of Israel. But, behold, my beloved brethren, thus came the voice of the Son unto me, saying: “After ye have repented of your sins, and witnessed unto the Father that ye are willing to keep my commandments, by the baptism of water, and have received the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost, and can speak with a new tongue, yea, even with the tongue of angels, and after this should deny me, it would have been better for you that ye had not known me” (2 Nephi 31:13-14).
And again: “Do ye not remember that I said unto you that after ye had received the Holy Ghost ye could speak with the tongue of angels? And now, how could ye speak with the tongue of angels save it were by the Holy Ghost? Angels speak by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, they speak the words of Christ. Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things that ye should do” (2 Nephi 32:2-3).
The spirit that the candidate for baptism into Mormonism receives is not the Holy Spirit as promised by the Book of Mormon; and the gift of tongues is not the biblical tongues or language spoken of in the Holy Bible. The spirit is a lying spirit (1 Kings 22:19-23), and the gift of tongues has caused the recipient to blaspheme hideously while being unaware that the language they are speaking is not the language of angels but of demons.
For a fuller discussion of Mormonism’s occult connection, which I found since writing this article, see link: http://mit.irr.org/occultic-and-masonic-influence-in-early-mormonism
“Twilight” is Opposed to the Kingdom of God
So Stephenie Meyer is predisposed to occult contact; her mind, because of her involvement with Mormonism and its practices, is an open door to demons and their influences. Coming to her in dreams they gave her a story of vampires, forbidden and unnatural romantic love, horror, beasts, and horrific deaths. The first dream motivated and energised her to write and keep writing until the end of the story, a tale inspired or dictated to her by a being coming to her in a dream. The second dream and the spirit that spoke to her frightened her. Is this of God?
Why would God give someone the plot for a book which is about the macabre; a story meant to entertain readers, but the content of which is against the principles which He insists upon in the Bible? It wouldn’t have been given her by God because it is the role of the Holy Spirit to focus people’s attention on Jesus (John 15:26). God wouldn’t give an author the plot for a book which portrays a world opposed to the kingdom of God and which is false; a world which is without God. It stands to reason, therefore, that the only being capable of speaking to Stephenie in a dream, giving her for publication the plot for a story which romanticises and elevates horror and perverted love, and frightening her by angrily telling her the vampire is not what was intended, would be a being who is in rebellion against God; a lying spirit (1 Kings 22:22).
It isn’t wrong, of course, to write fiction. Fiction novels have achieved tremendous good. Charles Dickens, for example, is known as a social reformer because he exposed the problems inherent in the institutions, practices, and attitudes of his day in his classic fiction stories and characters, and brought about change for the better. Shakespeare, Scott, Thackeray, Hardy and many others, used fiction to display the full range of human emotion and its tragic consequences when acted upon wrongly. And, of course, there is the wonderful and inspiring fictional allegory “The Pilgrim’s Progress”, which has been in print since it was first published in the 17th century.
But fiction which glorifies horror, written solely to evoke fear and describes in gory and depraved detail the worst imaginings of the fallen human mind, is most definitely wrong. It exalts those sinful corruptions which are the expression of demons and sinful humanity. I knew of a young boy from a lovely Christian family; he was a delightful child and a joy to his parents. When he was 13 years old he went to sleep over at his friend’s house. During the time he was there, the friend wanted them to watch the movie “The Exorcist”. The young guest had never come across anything like this movie in his life because his parents had wisely protected him from such dangers; thus, it had such a massive effect on him that he came home from his friend’s house depressed and fearful, not being able to separate in his mind the fiction from reality, and over time became increasingly difficult and hostile and violent. He remained like this for the rest of his short life; and when he was just 21 years old, he committed suicide. I’m not saying that everyone who watches this movie and others like it will become demon-possessed; but we do expose ourselves to that possibility when we involve ourselves with anything occult or horror.
But there is also an entrenched trend of a more “benign” fiction in the form of movies designed to deceive children into believing in Santa Claus. Movies such as the “Santa Claus” series, “Polar Express” and the multitude of similar films and stories do their utmost to keep children in that fantasy world and feeling of Christmas. These movie-makers are liars and their “keep believing in Santa” movies are cash cows to make more and more money. And they’re conditioning children to accept more “age-appropriate” fantasy and fiction as they get older, creating a “high” in their childhood minds and imaginations which, when the Santa Claus myth is finally exposed as such, they look for something else to produce that high that comforted and excited them as children.
God Condemns Spiritism and the Occult Realm
Satan and his angels want us to believe in fantasy worlds and unreality in order to take our minds off reality and our accountability to God, and to dull our minds so that God doesn’t seem to be real. He gives us the false in order to seduce and deceive humanity away from reality. He gives us the fear of death and hides from us that God has made provision for us to deliver us from death. His fallen angels seek to destroy every human being because we are made in the image of God.
Jesus, on the other hand, tells us the Truth (John 3:11). He is humanity’s true Champion and is not fictional: “Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:14-15).
His angels are “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation” (Heb 1:14). These angels are not, therefore, hostile to humanity, but are sent for our benefit.
God is evident to every human being (Rom 1:19-21). And although humanity, in Adam, disobeyed God and alienated us from him (Rom 5:12), and God is not willing that any should perish (John 3:16-17; 2 Peter 3:9), he sent Jesus into the world to become truly and perfectly man in order to die for us so that we could be reconciled to God (2 Cor 5:19).
We live in a world which is saturated with sex and we’re drowning in it….and most of it is a corrupt and perverted kind of sex anyway. High moral values and marriage are most often trashed and discarded in favour of various corrupt alternatives. Sadly, although Mormonism seems to promote such values, “Twilight” promotes and romanticizes a sick and perverted love from which no good can ever come.
Despite occasional demonic irruptions and individual contact with spirits through Spiritism and séances and such, God has closed the door to the spirit world, forbidding humans to make contact with it. “There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch. Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord: and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee” (Deut 18:10-12; see also Isaiah 8:19-20). While these verses don’t mention hellish half-breed monsters such as those in Twilight, God condemns them because of the unseen hellish realm from which they come, as well as mediums, necromancers, sorcerers, wizards and so on. The “Twilight” series romanticizes and makes desirable that which God detests and condemns, and for which he will cast off for eternity all who involve themselves in it.
Stop reading and watching things that have the power to possess or enslave you – you don’t know what can happen – sometimes nothing, sometimes devastation. There is a real spirit realm filled with both good and hostile beings, and the hostiles disguise themselves as angels of light in order to deceive and kill (2 Cor 11:14-15).
References
Beahm, George. 2009, “Bedazzled: Stephenie Meyer and the Twilight Phenomenon”, JR Books, London NW1 0ND
All scripture references are from the Authorised King James Version of the Bible.