Most people, with or without a condition such as ADHD, have a certain degree of struggles with lack of focus at times. We all want to be more disciplined and achieve more, but again and again most of us fall short and feel guilty. Very few of us are fully happy with our self discipline.

Self discipline is really a function of the brain, and brain is like muscle—the more you work it, the more it get strengthen. In my search for a cure, I have come across a few promising solutions, and one of my most recent experiments is playing a computer based brain training game called the Dual N Back, for 40 minutes each day. It’s free to download.

The point of this game is very simple. It flashes figures and makes sounds in a sequence that you need to retain in your mind for many seconds, and while the sequence is still going it tests if you recall what was shown earlier.

It trains “working memory”, which is like RAMs for computers. The more working memory a computer has, the more windows it can operate at the same time. Similarly, the stronger we develop our working memory, the better, faster, and longer we can focus, and switch focus from task to task. (i.e. multi-tasking)

Dual N back also trains users to filter out distraction, maintains a prolonged span of attention, and therefore directly impact our self discipline. Inhibition (i.e. suppression of impulses) is a function of the brain. The more you train the mind to ignore distractions and focus on one thing at a time, the better it gets at inhibition.

Workout for the Brain

It’s like doing push up. At first I was horrible. I could hardly complete the Dual 1-back. For the first 6 months since I started I had been doing a session of 20 minutes every few days. It was hardly enough for my brain to learn how to focus better and filter out distractions.

About 3 months ago, I visited the Arrowsmith school in Toronto (the founder is the author of the bestseller, The Woman Who Changed Her Brain). It is a private school that provides tailored brain exercises for individuals who have learning disabilities. They have achieved very good results for the last two decades. Many kids and adults have successfully reversed their cognitive defects by following an individual plan that suits their diagnosis. A director of the school told me that, to achieve lasting change in the brain, each area of the brain that their student works on requires a consistent amount of mental exercise for 40 minutes a day, 6 days a week. No more. No less.

It was a life changing revelation for me. No wonder I failed again and again trying to develop a better self discipline! Not only do I need to know what it really is, a function of the brain, but I also need to know what I need to do specifically to make it grows stronger. It takes 40 minutes of brain exercise almost every day, at the right level of difficulties, to stimulate the brain to change.

If we try to force our brain to focus for too long, or to work on mental task that is too overwhelming, we would get burnout. It’s like lifting too much weight. The brain needs the right level of challenge, for a consistent amount of time each day, to rewire itself.

What People and I Said about the Dual N Back

They report remarkable changes. People get off ADD medication, report higher IQ score, learn things much quicker, beat chess players who are at higher ranks, develop deeper interest in math and other subjects, and so much more, since they started playing the Dual N back game. (You can google their reports on Google groups, or the website of the game)

As for me, I have been playing it for 40 minutes, 6 weeks a day, for about 3 months now, and I also have been combining that with physical exercises, including aerobic, and supplement such as fish oil. For many people, this is a lot. By now they would have been working on higher levels in Dual N back. For me, I still have a long way to go. It would take a while before I see significant results.

My current college schedule is, however, very overwhelming. As part of the program, I have been teaching at an elementary school as an intern for weeks, and boy I never knew being a teacher requires so much focus. As a teacher, not only do I have to plan each lesson, but I have to keep on average a hundred of students focused. If the teacher isn’t organized and focused, the students would get out of line too.

My level of focus is like a roller-coaster. My lesson plan is skeleton, and non linear. My supervisor at the elementary school agreed that I am not a linear person, which mean I don’t think in a straight sequence, but I am all over the map at once. I think I need at least 3 personal assistants and an agent to help me manage my life.

At this point, I can’t tell how much Dual N back has been helping me, because I haven’t got enough sleeps and I was over my head with the work loads. When you don’t get enough sleep, the brain can hardly repair itself.

But still here is my progress curves

During the first month of trying Dual N back I couldn’t sit still for 40 minutes working only on this task, so I would watch a movie at the same time. This would explain the first portion of the curve being so low. Although I didn’t focus solely on the task, it was still very good for my brain because the harder I was working on filtering out the distraction (the movie), the more my brain is changing.

By the second month, I was able to focus on the task entirely for 40 minutes a day.

I will post more personal reports on this for months to come

Proverbs 4:25

 ²⁵ Let your eyes look straight ahead;

How to improve focus?

I have been searching for the answer to this question for a very long time, and no matter how much I tried, the answer would continue to escape me, until recently.

There are a lot of dimensions to the answer of this question, but the main idea was very simple—the ability to focus is like a muscle—it grows if you exercise it often. However, it is at the same time not simple at all, just as working out your muscles isn’t a child play—it takes a lot of knowledge and disciplines to build your muscles.

Being able to focus is a function of the brain, and the brain follows our minds (brain and mind are two different things, just as the brain and the spirits are different). It’s up to us to decide which functions to utilize more on a daily basis. The more we train certain functions of the brain, the more they grow.

To some people, being focus is a habit. They have been doing it all their life, so they don’t realize how they manage to do it. To people who are used to being distracted, like myself, it is also hard to detect what went wrong.

There was a period of time when I used to practice the presence of God, which is basically a spiritual practice that trains one to focus on God in   everything he or she does. The result was a great improvement in my spiritual awareness, and you may find out what I mean by clicking into the link.

Now I have discovered many other spiritual and scientific trainings that can improve focus. See, focus isn’t a one dimensional concept. There are many types of focus, and there are different ways to develop different types of focus.

If you are thinking about being attentive, there is specific training for that, such as a simple meditation exercise that requires you to focus on only one object for the entire session of the exercise (can range from 5 minutes to hours), while ignoring every single thought that is unrelated to the object of your focus, and in time, you will develop a stronger ability to focus on one thing at a time.

If you are thinking about focusing on one task that requires specific skills to perform, you have to think about which brain functions you are using for that task. For example, if you want to improve your focus on doing math, you need to work out brain functions responsible for math, including logic, abstract knowledge, geometry, and so on. You also need to have a strong working memory to process and manipulate the math mentally.

A person who have a strong language ability maybe able to focus on writing essays for hours, while another person with a weak language ability can only focus on similar tasks for maybe 20 minutes, before he or she is done (exhausted) for the day. The more you work out certain skills, the more you will be able to focus on tasks related to those skills.

When you first develop a particular type of focus, it is important to avoid comparing with other people who are very good at it, and putting yourself through guilt trips. If you condemn yourself by thinking you are too lazy, you might be pushing yourself too hard. It is counterproductive for you to kill the joy of trying through condemnation, but by working out your brain muscle little by little each day, eventually you will be able to focus on a specific type of tasks for hours.

Focus Doesn’t Come Naturally

As a math tutor who has tutored many kids, I have found out that focus doesn’t naturally grow on its own. Parents must provide a stable and consistent structures for their kids to develop it, such as by mandating them to do chores, sports, music, or academic work, at homes. Note that different activity train different skills, so make sure the activities you or your children engage in will develop the relevant skills.

Kids who are neglected (allowed to do anything they want since parents are always absent), or abused usually have very bad focus skills. The moments they want to do something or say something, they just do it. There are very little self-control. They are simply not trained or encouraged to focus most of their life.

It is deceptively simple and obvious sometimes why certain people are not being able to focus.

And some people have poor focus because they are malnourished, either due to some conditions, or wrong diets.

Why I Couldn’t Focus Before

For the most part, I had a lot of struggles with trying to focus. One big obstacle to getting more focus was lack of knowledge. For example, I didn’t know that focus was a cognitive matter. It takes specific cognitive exercises to develop a cognitive function, and it takes months to see substantial results. When I didn’t know better, I used to condemn myself every time I failed to sustain my focus, which killed the joy of the process, and created fears and confusion. The more I condemn myself, the harder it became for me to develop my focus.

The irony is that, when you don’t enjoy trying to focus, you might use distractions as escape. You might tell yourself you will stay distracted just a bit longer before getting back to work, but before you know it you already wasted hours on distractions. I had done that a lot.

Another reason why I couldn’t focus well was because I had a very strong inner dialogue. I talked inside my mind all the times, and when “distraction” popped up, it sometimes disguised itself as a spiritual thought, and I would ponder upon it so much I forgot what I was doing originally. I would give each thought a lot of inner reflections.

I didn’t know how to balance my inner dialogue and non-stop thirst for truth with the power of suppression—the ability to suppress thoughts, whether they are good thoughts or bad thoughts.

The moment I had a inspirational thought popping up, I would stop doing anything I was doing and ponder it. The moment I had a sinful thought I would stop and repent right away. This was a good practice, but in the long run this caused a major imbalance. I became too good at it. It was like a unprofessional body builder who overdeveloped the muscles on the front, but neglected his back!

See what I mean here:

If I use bodybuilding as metaphor, the man on left illustrates my inner imbalance

For me, to develop the ability to suppress thoughts is like working out the back muscle. I might have a strong chest and abs (figuratively speaking), but if my back muscle is weak, I would look like an ape!

To surpress a thought is deceptively simple—you simply let the popping thoughts come and go, without participating and investing into them.    You simply observe the distracting thoughts, without making a conscious effort to do anything about it. And the only effort you make is to go back to the single object of your focus, such as your own breathing, or God, without any inner dialogue or images. That’s it! In time, distractions would be starved to death.

At first, you might often catch yourself in the middle of distractions, and you may not even be aware of the exact point when you began to be distracted, and for how long, but that is okay. In time, your attentiveness will develop to the point where you see the distraction coming before it even pops up in your consciousness. Your power of suppression will also grow. You will become more and more calm and still.

Now I admit I learned this particular trick from Eastern Meditation, and according to science, the techniques behind eastern meditation does improve working memory, suppression of thoughts, and self-control. I just don’t necessarily agree with the spiritual side or the ultimate goals of the practice.

The ultimate goal of some eastern meditation is to be detached from EVERYTHING! I don’t have to go to that extreme. I choose to pick and choose some neutral techniques that can improve my focus, as proven by science. All I need is a maximum of maybe 20 minutes of practice each day to build up and maintain my suppression function, and as of now I still find it exhausting, but I try to do what I can, even only for a 10 minutes. It is probably smart to start from small, instead of overwhelming myself.

Activities You Can Do to Improve Focus

That should be a topic for the next blog post. There are a lot of cleverly designed brain puzzles to work out specific area of your brain. Don’t forget that many conventional hobbies are still very effective as well, for example, learning to sing or deliver a speech. It takes a lot of mental efforts and skills to master a song, or to craft and memorize a speech.

I have found Sudoko to be calming and addictive. I discovered that it can calm your mind even at your most disturbed times. I could do it for hours and temporarily put aside my worries. It wasn’t just a mental escape. It trained me to use logic to solve problems, which ultimately helped me to plan and trouble shoot my ways out of my problems.

There are a lot more other brain exercises, and spiritual practices that could train our focus. They offer specific or combined training to the function(s) of our brain, which is much like working out the body in a fitness gym.

There is one mental exercise you can do anytime anywhere. When you are walking, driving, or waiting in line, you can do it. You pick one thing to focus on while you go about your activity, such as breathing while you walk, or the awareness of driving itself. Try to keep doing it for 20 minutes, it is NOT EASY at all. Again, be prepared to encounter an overwhelming amount of distracting thoughts, be they good or not.

At the beginning, it is like doing 10 pushup for an untrained person. It feels so hard. In time, your strength will build up, and you will be able to do a 100.

For me, I would suddenly conceive an euphoric thought or multiple euphoric thoughts that give me a mental high when I try to focus like that. This is actually a trap. Good thoughts or depressive thoughts must be ignored altogether when you engage this exercise, because the point of the exercise is to help us focus on the thing we are supposed to be doing at present.

Suppose you are a bank clerk, or a student, you can’t be effective at your job if you can’t focus on the boring number, lecture, or assignment. If you can’t be effective with the small, mundane things, how can you actualize the more lofty goals and thoughts?

Ecclesiastes 11:4

He that observes the wind shall not sow; and he that regards the clouds shall not reap.

Working Memory

Studies show that one of the main reasons why elders and ADHD sufferers couldn’t focus was insufficient working memory.

Working memory is like the RAM of computers. We need it to perform tasks. Whether we are multitasking, learning, or single-tasking, we have to have working memory to help us perform the process.

Experts had created a brain exercise computer game called Dual-N-back, which can theoretically develop our working memory, and I believe it makes sense. I have been playing this game for a couple of months now. My focus has improved due to a lot of changes I have made to my lifestyle, so I can’t conclude how much of my recent improvement came from playing this game. I will have to count the benefits in hindsight, as I feel it is too early to report any tangible result as of writing.

You may download the game here, and read the research and testimonials of the game here.

1 Corinthians 15:33

Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character.”

I think we should let go of a friend when he or she is going too far astray, or if that person is not the kind of person you want to become. Friends can really bring you up or down to their level. The process doesn’t really take long.

It’s lonely and painful when you have to do it. At least unpleasant. You will have to endure the vacuum—that hole your friend leaves inside you. You have to really say no when they ask you out.

I think most people don’t do that enough. It’s an evil time. We need to change our people more often, until we find the right ones.

If we let the mediocre or negative people occupy the friend roles, new people can’t come in to replace them.

There was a long time when I had to change people so often. It was natural. I didn’t have to “break up” with some friends—I just had to not stay. I just moved on and on, meeting new people, and sought after people I looked up to.

In time, I have come to emulate good qualities from good people.

Sometimes though, some friends did become a negative influence in my life, but they won’t go away. I had to tell them repeatedly what the problem was, but they would come back again and again, without changing their attitudes, or acknowledging the problems.

It could easily become a mud pit. They might twist my words, or put words into my mouth, and accuse me of abandoning them, that I was sinning for not loving them unconditionally. They kept their old ways, however, and they acted like they were entitled to it because we were Christians (sometimes it was the Christian that you need to cut off, and that they were Christians make it even more necessary for you to cut them off as they are being held to a higher standard than unbelievers).

The truth was, these people were just using me for their own validations. As long as I stayed in that negative relationship, it somehow assured that they were okay, that there were nothing wrong.

When I got stuck in these situations, it felt like a mud pit. I felt like nothing work out for me. I felt stuck. I felt like everything looked gloomy, and I couldn’t exercise my potential properly when these people were around. They were so critical, negative, and mean. They just wanted to keep me to their level, but when I brought up new ideas and goals, they would resist them.

It made me feel bad about myself. The ironic thing was, the worst I felt about myself, the more I sought their company and validation. The vicious cycle fed on itself.

Examples

I met a girl a few months ago when I performed a stand up in a bar. She was alone, and she looked like she was on drug. She was the only girl in the place. The men were smoking weeds and drinking. Naturally I talked to her, seeing if she needed help and if she would hear about God.

I bought her a latte that night. Since that night, whenever I was in the area where she lived, I would text her to see if she wanted to talk. She was on heavy medication for bipolar and depression. I wanted to know why. I asked her about her family, her past, and everything. I tried to tell her about the Bible.

Recently, she told me she was prostituting herself. She met a pimp earlier, and worked with him for a short while, and now she was working by herself.

We talked about it. I even told her dad about the pimp. She didn’t stop. Unfortunately, she saw me as a John now. She saw my charity as payment for her time. She thought I was buying her foods because we were on “dates”.

We had an understanding before, that I was doing nice things because I was a Christian and I wanted to help. She agreed. But later, her mind somehow rationalized things to the point that she thought I was attracted to her.

Every time we met, she just asked me to buy her foods or pay for drinks. I simply wanted to introduce her to a group of my friends, who were Jewish (she was a Jew). And finally I did manage to do that for her. I had the heart to help out this lonely, wayward Jewish girl, and hoped to introduce friends she could identify with.

But the last time we met, I had had enough about her freeloader attitude. She accused me for being a John. Now I realized how far she had gone. She really came to rationalize her prostitute way, to the point that every male was somehow a John.

A brief confrontation about the definition of “John”, and we parted way. I felt humiliated. It wasn’t so bad for me, as I never expected a very good outcome for helping her out, given her condition, and that my first impression of her was already quite bad.

I had consolation from God in the following passage, because I already tried my best, even though I could have done better.

Luke 14: 12-13

“Suppose you give a lunch or a dinner,” he said. “Do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, or your relatives, or your rich neighbors. If you do, they may invite you to eat with them. So you will be paid back.

¹³ ”But when you give a big dinner, invite those who are poor. Also invite those who can’t walk, the disabled and the blind. ¹⁴ Then you will be blessed. Your guests can’t pay you back. But you will be paid back when those who are right with God rise from the dead.”

Another example. I met a friend I knew from University time. He could never hold to a job because of his problem with focus, which I could identify, because of my ADHD condition. I was sympathetic because I wasn’t better than him. I could identify similar struggles we both have.

I tried to give him friendly advice on how to eat better, exercise better, to manage the problem he had with focus at work. I understood how hard it was to not being able to focus at work.

However, he resigned again recently, and this time he wasn’t planning to look for work again. He wanted to marry a rich woman, and never work again.

I was revolted by his idea, but we talked about it at a dinner. Since then, I never saw him again. I knew I couldn’t afford to keep him as friend. His freeloader attitude will be contagious. I didn’t want someone like that near me. I didn’t even give him a farewell. I just didn’t return calls.

I knew if I continue to interact with him, my own financial struggle will get only worst. Laziness is contagious. Attitude is very important, and if someone with the wrong attitudes and excuses remain a part of your world, you will soon become more and more like that person too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You can’t change people all the time. Often, people get very defensive and vicious if you try to change them. The bad things they could do to you will get tattooed into your mind and cause pains if you let them. You have to restrict their access to you, or let them go, even if they are someone close—including family members.

If that person is someone you can’t avoid, you can still mentally turn him or her off. Tell yourself that what that person does or says to you is irrelevant, that it has no control over you. I find that helps. The Bible has plenty of good verses that you can use to create a mental shield against anyone who might mess with your mind. There are many techniques in how to do it. One simple way is to recite a lot of passages from the Bible when that person opens his or her mouth.

For someone who is shy to make new friends, or who is too tenderhearted to cut off anyone, it can be hard. And for someone who has a long history of being controlled by others, it is hard too. Don’t give up though, you really do need to let go sometimes. The Bible can help you stay strong. The words of God can neutralize vicious attacks that some people could launch at you, and can help you know when it was right to cut off someone. They might try to put you through guilt trips and turn the table back on you. Their departure might make you feel empty for a time, but for your long term well being, you got to do what you got to do.

For myself, things that parents said to me over the years, both curses or blessings, have consistently manifested into my reality. If what they said wasn’t true then, it became true later. I believe this can be explained by hypnosis.

I believe the reason parents have such huge influences over children’s life is because they have so much control over their most impressionable years. And not only parents, many other sources can contribute to the script of our life, such as TV, magazine, Internet, movies…

Images that we see, even just a quick, casual glimpse that we don’t pay attention to, can influence our psyches.

Here I want to show you a video that demonstrates the power of suggestion through imagery. This is just one of the many videos that Derren Brown made. His work really proved and demonstrated the power of hypnosis.

In the video, two graphic designers designed a logo, or they believed it was their own design, until Derren Brown revealed it was him who planted the idea of the design into their head. When he revealed how he did it, I was “wow”—it felt like the moments you discovered a real clever twist in the end of a good movie.

Proverbs 4:23
Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.

Subconsciousness… what is it really? For the sake of simplicity, let just say it’s the super computer in your brain that takes care of everything you are too busy to consciously do. Actually, it’s much more than that…

When you first learn to walk, you do so consciously. As you get used to it, you can walk while thinking about other things. You don’t have to focus on the act of walking anymore. Your subconscious mind is doing it for you. Same for millions other things. It takes care of most of the daily routines, leaving only a few things for your conscious mind to worry about.

Our habits and inner wiring are constantly being developed and reinforced. Through practices and other means of external inputs, information is installed into the subconscious, and later it will resurface as we need it.

Our subconscious mind has other functions as well. One of its big function is to make our imagination comes true. For example, if you focus on a direction when you drive, you tend to drift toward that direction. If you focus on not to imagine a big yellow chicken, you will form that image in your mind right now If it’s your favorite food, soon you will form a powerful desire to eat it.

The subconscious also guard our belief. Most people make true of what they love, rather than to love what is true. How do they do it? By blocking out any evidence that contradict with their belief. We all have met someone who put words into our mouth, who accused us of saying something we didn’t say, or ignored what we did say. In their reality, they are right, because their subconscious mind blocks out what they don’t want to see and hear, but create something they want to see and hear.

If we control our subconscious mind, we control our long term behavior, emotional circuits, and habits. We can even increase our IQ, improve creativity, and other skills. As a tutor, I see the most kids are extremely smart, but they are conditioned to get stuck at the current grade. When you believe you are stupid, you will subconsciously seek ways to dump yourself down. I see it happens a lot.

If you believe you will fail at something, you will subconsciously produce actions that sabotage yourself. This process is so sophisticated that most people who are doing it to themselves don’t notice it at all.

On the other hand, if you believe something is possible to achieve, your subconscious mind will nudge you toward people and resources that help your cause. It will constantly seek ways to enable you to achieve it. Again, the process is so subtle and sophisticated that you won’t notice it most of the time.

If our subconscious is carelessly guarded, it will absorb information we don’t want it to absorb. The power of suggestion is very strong, and everywhere we go, we are bombarded by messages that other people try to install into our minds. Our environment is collectively designed by many different interest groups to manipulate our consumption behaviors, our belief, our tax dollars, and the media we are exposed to is filled with embedded suggestions and commands.

Later in this post, I will talk about paranormal activities our minds can create.

How to Program Your Subconscious Mind

Don’t force it. Many times, our conscious mind and subconscious minds are at war, because we want new habits fast and we want them now, but our old habits are developed through years of conditioning. It doesn’t make sense if God designed conscious mind can simply override your God designed subconscious mind in a moment. The subconscious is designed to choose what it thinks would benefit you most of the time, and what is developed overtime seems to benefit you most.

What about willpower? The willpower cannot wipe out the programming of our subconscious. The subconscious mind always win.

There are probably thousands of mental techniques to help change the programming of our subconscious mind. As Christian, our daily meditation on the words of God, and other spiritual practices, can form powerful belief and imagery in our mind, and thus re-program our subconscious. Spiritual practices can create trance state and open our inner parts to God. For example, the subconscious mind is open to reprogramming if we are able to associate positive image and feeling with new behaviors and habits we try to develop in our mind, and associate bad image and feeling with old behaviors and habits we don’t want any longer.

Perhaps this is why the Bible has a lot of imagery, stories, and poetry.

Sport psychologists help athletes to improve sport performance by guiding them to visualize their ideal performance. Visualization is proven to improve sport ability, and even muscle strength. Simply visualize yourself doing weight training can strengthen your muscle!

Powerful Examples of Our Subconscious Mind

The mind is so powerful that it can create almost anything that it conceives (as long as it’s within our domain, as God entrusted the earth to men Genesis 1:28)

Example 1

Sometimes if we are too focused things can go wrong. Here is an excerpt from The Mothman Prophecies

There is an old house on a tree-lined street in New York’s Greenwich Village which harbors a strange ghost. Hans Holzer and other ghost-chasers have included the house in their catalogs of haunted places. The phantom has been seen by several people in recent years. It is dressed hi, a long black cape and wears a wide-brimmed slouch hat pulled down over its eyes as it slinks from room to room. Self-styled parapsychologists have woven all kinds of fantasies around this apparition. Obviously a spy from the revolutionary war was caught and killed in the old house.

But wait. This ghost may not be a member of the restless dead at all. There were never any reports of hauntings there until about twenty years ago, after the house was vacated by a writer named Walter Gibson. He was, and is, an extraordinarily prolific author. For many years he churned out a full-length novel each month, and many of those novels were written in the house in Greenwich Village. All of them were centered around the spectacularly successful character Gibson created in the 1930s, that nemesis of evil known as The Shadow. If you have read any of The Shadow novels you know that he was fond of lurking in dark alleys dressed in a cape and broad-brimmed slouch hat.

Why would a Shadow-like apparition suddenly appear in an old house? Could it be some kind of residue from Walter Gibson’s very powerful mind?

Example 2

In a Christian website, I found a testimony of a woman who used to have imaginary friends (who have their own minds and will). They turned out to be demons:

http://www.net-burst.net/sex_abuse/imaginary_friends.htm

Example 3

In this video, mentalist Derren Brown demonstrated how he planted ideas into minds of two artists that they created logo he wanted them to create.

One time I was walking in downtown Toronto (on Bay street if memory serves), and at a busy intersection there was a female reporter with a camera man, trying to find someone to interview. I got curious and volunteered to be interviewed. She told me to ask any question I might have for the experts, so I asked, “How come mutual fund often perform not as good as the non-managed index fund?”

She kept asking me to rephrase and repeat my question. She acted like she didn’t know what I was saying. I became worried that my English wasn’t good enough, and finally I found out that she wanted me to ask a non threatening question.

She was obviously under payroll of the industry. How sneaky. The reporter was actually commercial actress!

Many financial professionals are also just sales agents. There are so many traps.

You need unbiased sources if you want to learn how to manage your money. I concluded that you should never trust someone else for your money. Don’t ever save money through any insurance polices, or to have any mutual fund manager to manage your money. The way to true rich should be simple, and he who makes the money should manage the money.

The bailout of the banks and financial institutions contradicted biblical teaching. Those who squander money should face consequences. We shouldn’t give more money to those who have a bad financial record.

Similarly, it is not wise to impose high tax as it takes away resource from producers, and gives it to the debt-ridden government (which doesn’t produce wealth, but often mismanage the money and overspend).

According to the Bible, you are the best manager of your own money, because it was you who earned it in the first place.

You are the Best Manager for Your Money

The Bible clearly teaches this:

Matthew 13:12

Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him.

Luke 16:10

Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much.

I have seen the same pattern again and again—those who manage their own money with a simple plan accumulate great wealth over the years, and those who follow advice from insurance sellers, financial planners, or mutual fund sellers are often burned.

[Note: I read a very profound book on the subject---The Lazy Investor  The author follows a simple strategy---investing on high quality, dividend paying stocks, instead of diversifying or entrusting his money to the experts. He retired early and now focus on teaching people how to manage their own money]

Don’t rely on pensions either. You don’t know what might happen years later. Something somehow will happen and evaporate the money you trusted with someone else.

Matthew 6:19

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.

The financial salesmen (i.e. the experts) charge hefty commission. It might be 1 or 2% on paper, but in actually dollars, it often amount to a fortune over the years. I will spare you with the calculation here, or you can find good books on the subject.

How to Survive Financial Crisis

Then there are often financial crises that evaporates wealth.

Every 5 to 10 years, at least one financial recession or crisis. There were burst of the DOT com bubble, the sub-prime financial crisis, and now the eurozone crisis.

So how can we avoid financial crises that other people create? The Bible teaches us this.

Proverbs 27:18-27

23 Know the state of your flocks, and put your heart into caring for your herds,24 for riches don’t last forever, and the crown might not be secure for the next generation. 25After the hay is harvested, the new crop appears, and the mountain grasses are gathered in, 26your sheep will provide wool for clothing, and your goats will be sold for the price of a field. 27 And you will have enough goats’ milk for you, your family, and your servants.

It basically teaches us to mind our own business. Do what you know best. It is your passion, or calling, that you know best. Don’t let other people distract you and your resources, but focus on your true calling. There is always a financial reward to every calling.

I also believe the above passage tells us to invest on people, maybe our clients, students (if you are a teacher), or disciples. Focus on your calling, and every calling involves investing on people. If you invest on your people, they will eventually provide for you, for examples, your clients, congregation (if you are a minister), subscribers, readership, fans (if you are an entertainer or artist), or customers.

Invest on your Family

Psalm 127:3-5

³ Children are a heritage from the Lord,
offspring a reward from him.
⁴ Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are children born in one’s youth.
⁵ Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their opponents in court.

People used to see children as investment, not liability, but now some propaganda have brainwashed many people into believing that the world is overpopulated, and that raising children are expensive.

The world needs more good people, not less. It’s not expensive to raise children (ever heard of the Duggar Family?). If you are a good parent, you can raise your children to be productive members of the society. They will make the world a better place.

Psalm 112:1-2

…Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who finds great delight in his commands. His children will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.

Stock Market and other investments

I will cover that in future posts. Stock market can be a good vehicle, if you avoid immoral businesses, and invest only on companies that don’t go against biblical values. They might be few, but the good thing is that only very few stock (maybe a couple of hundreds) are worth investing anyways, and most stocks that pay good returns consistently are quite basic and simple to understand.

I just wrote a post on “Slain in the Spirit”. In that post I questioned the validity of the phenomenon, and suggested that it was produced by mass hypnotization.

In the video below, the famous illusionist Derren Brown trained a “faith healer” to perform the exact same miracles many faith healers have performed, including “slain in the Spirit”, pain removal, leg growth, and other typical street and faith healers’ work.

I don’t want you to become so skeptical about faith healing after you watch it, that you might lose faith in all miracle. Rather, I hope that by exposing the fake, you will have more room for the genuine. I want you to be able to save your time and money by being able to spot the fake prophets, fake teachers, and fake healers real quick. Then you can focus your effort and time on the real men and women of God.

I was always one of the few who was not even touched in the slightest… Many people in such meetings seemed to get something. One time, at a youth convention led by Benny Hinn, hundreds of young people around me (I was young too) were falling all over—left and right; before and behind me—they were all slain, when Benny “blew air” to the audience, but I remained standing, the entire time.

I looked up at Benny Hinn, who was on stage doing his thing, and he didn’t meet my glance.

At the time, I was dejected. I had been doubting if I had lost my salvation since I was at a very young age, and this experience made me feel like the Spirit might had given up on me. Maybe somehow I had crossed the path of no return by having committed an “unforgivable” sin?

I saw that some of the most handicapped people at the convention remained unhealed. They were quickly led passed the stage when people were taking turn to receive prayer from Benny on stage. The visibly handicapped weren’t healed!

I had been to several other gatherings, large or small, when slain in the Spirit occurred, and one time a pastor slightly pushed me when he laid hand on my chest to pray for me, and I remained standing. He moved on to the next person. This was what they all did when you didn’t manifest anything—they would move on to the next person.

These gatherings were always long winded. They began with great music, and then some teachings or testimonies, and then there came the “slain in the Spirit”, or other “manifestations”.

Now that I have read something about hypnotism, and watched some stage performances, I can’t help but to link this type of Christian meetings to hypnotism.

The way they conduct the miracle meeting is filled with signs of hypnotism—they way they make verbal suggestions throughout the meeting, the way they pump up emotions of the audience… you will know what I am talking about if you read some books on hypnotism.

Hypnotism or Biblical Practice?

There were many differences between miracles in the Bible, and miracles in modern faith healing gathering. The miracles in the Bible didn’t require long winded sermons, catchy music, and “slain in the Spirit”. There were no warm up. Jesus or his disciples would see the sick, and heal them right there and there. The blind would see. The deaf would hear. The handicapped would lift his arm or walk again.

These days, most healings are pain relief (adrenaline produced by the mood of such gathering, or power of suggestion would achieve that almost without fail), or short leg that grow back to normal length (can be easily done by an illusionist)

All in all, most modern miracles and signs I have heard or witnessed mostly resembled products of psychological, hypnotic, or magic tricks, rather than biblical miracles and signs.

Is “Slain in the Spirit” from the Bible?

The Bible never told us anything about “Slain in the Spirit” as a regular phenomenon in Christian gathering, not even as a rare phenomenon.

It does tell us that people do fall on their face, getting paralyzed by the powerful presence of spiritual beings such as angels, or God, but they generally don’t fall over when a minister prays over them (Revelation 1:17; Ezekiel 1;28; Daniel 8:17-18; 10:7-9; Matthew 17:6; Acts 9:3-4).

The one time when two believers fell before an apostle, Peter, they were struck dead by the Holy Spirit. It was not a positive spiritual experience. See below:

Acts 5:1-11

Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. ² With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.

³ Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? ⁴ Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”

⁵ When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. ⁶ Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.

⁷ About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. ⁸ Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”

“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”

⁹ Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”

¹⁰ At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. ¹¹ Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.

That was it. There were no other instance when “Slain in the Spirit” is mentioned. In the New Testament, nothing is said about it in the context of Church gathering.

Why Did I Stand When Others were Slain?

I have been reading a book about hypnotism recently, and it confirmed my theory why I always remained standing in faith healing gathering.

I believed that my mind was too scattered to be hypnotized by certain hypnotizing techniques. My mind was always thinking about this or that. I could’t focus on a single idea for a long enough period of time to be hypnotized.

I am not an auditory learner. I have to read to learn effectively. It’s hard for me to follow verbal instruction.

Also, I am often disengaged with those around me. Even in the most exciting environment, I often find my mind drifting off, detached from what’s going on in that place.

My inner voice never stopped talking when I was in faith healing gathering. It countered the minister’s verbal commands.

Because of these reasons, I remained standing when everybody around me were slain!

Some of the most extreme, false prophecies would be examples of end time date setting. Some false prophets claim to be able to tell when exactly Jesus is coming back and what date the Rapture is supposed to take place. This practice has been going on for at least hundreds of years. The false prophets never ran out and year after year there are new dates being set, and by the time the dates arrive, the same prophets would postpone the dates yet again and give some explanations as to why, and then continue to deceive people with new end time prophecies.

But Jesus clearly said no one will know when the end time is and when he is coming back.

Matthew 24:36

No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

Some false prophecies are not that specific. They are general enough that someone in the audience will feel like it is true to them personally. If the hearers want it to be true bad enough, they will rationalize it to the point that their mind will accept it as legitimate, spiritual experience.

Some personal examples that happened to my friends: a pastor of a church in a violent neighborhood said something like, “I feel like someone is here who has a family member in jail, a person who is about to get released. I want you to stand up and I am going to pray, because I can feel God working in their life and changes are about to happen.”

A girl from that church heard it, and with the persuasion of her sister, believed that it was addressed to her situation. She had a boyfriend who was in jail, and they were dating at the time. The guy wasn’t a Christian or family member, but the girl and her sister deliberately interpreted this prophecy as being addressed to her and her boyfriend. They wanted to believe that God approved this relationship so they rationalized it.

The pastor, in my opinion, was clearly manipulating the audience. The church was in the middle of a violent neighborhood, so surely someone must know someone whose family member was in jail. There were many small time criminals who went in and out of jail often in that area. Surely, a friend or family member of an inmate would like this prophecy to be true and interpret it accordingly. By the way, God is always working in our life and changes are always about to happen—they are as true as gravity—because the only constant in life is change, and God never stops working in our life.

No true prohecy in the Bible is so shallow and general. All the examples of true prophecies in the bible are specific and inflexible. They either come true or they don’t. It is easy to tell who and what a particular prophecy applies to.

I never heard a prophecy from modern religious leaders that was as specific and accurate as prophecies in the Bible.

A real prophecy from a real prophet should sound like this one:

Most prophecies uttered by so called prophets in our time are general predictions that are hard to refute, things that people want to hear, or things that will most likely be true to someone in the audience if the crowd is large enough.

A pastor of a big church spoke in a service and said that he sensed someone was at a high risk spiritually, and my friend felt that it was him. When he talked to me about it, I told him that this statement about someone at risk spiritually is always true, especially for a church of few thousand members. I doubt if more than half of the church is going to heaven anyway, so just “someone at risk spiritually” is simply an unstatement, given that most Christians might not even end up in heaven.

There are many downsides to false prophecies like this. For one, the control the false prophets have over their followers are constantly reinforced through these trickeries. These religious leaders have no real authorities, otherwise they don’t have to use these tricks to substitutes the real power of God. For two, those who base their important decisions on these prophecies subject their destinies to external influences, instead of what is truly best for them.

How to tell if a Prophecy is False

If a prophecy doesn’t come true, then it is a false prophecy, and the person who prophecies is a false prophet, pure and simple.

²⁰ But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak, or which he speaks in the name of other gods, ^[a]that prophet shall die.’ ^21 [b]You may say in your heart, ‘How will we know the word which the Lord has not spoken?’ ²²  When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the thing does not come about or come true, that is the thing which the Lord has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously; you shall not be afraid of him.

It is a huge waste of financial resource, faith, and time for the believers to follow these leaders. If you find your leaders are having similar pattern, then I encourage you to investigate further before you waste too much time with them and their church. If you have enough reasons and evidence to believe that they are actually illegitimate who utilizes trickeries instead of following the biblical model of leadership, then you have to be the true voice in the churches, oppose them as much as you can, and leave the church to find a real one.

Somehow it makes sense. If average believers don’t understand what hypnosis is about, then the secret would remain well kept. If we all look deeper into what it is, then we will find out the similarity of both worlds. The cat will be out of the bag and they will lose their power.

I am not sure if most ministers who can effectively put their audience into trance know what they are doing, but it is only human nature for a minister to continue to do what seems to get results. If certain preaching styles and techniques would cause the audience to “convert”, “slain in the Spirit“, or cheer up the “performer” (i.e. the minister) with more “amen” and “halleilujah”, then it’s only natural for him or her to do more of it.

When a church doesn’t really follow the model of the first century churches, but replaces it with the practice and tradition of its own, it is inevitable that they adopt psychological techniques, social dynamic, and other gimmicks, instead of biblical practices.

True Conversion or Something Else?

For example, preaching in a certain tempo and tone would create better responses in the audience. Billy Graham was able to convert thousands of thousands of people into Christianity, but was it genuine conversion? He led people into the Once Saved Always Saved gospel, and not suprisingly, his voice was hypnotising. Now that I reflect on ministry of this Christian celebrity I used to admire, I doubt how much of his work was really based on the Holy Spirit.

Click this link to watch a video of how hypnotist and mentalist Derren Brown converted a bunch of atheists into believing the existence of God.

How Churches are Really Built?

What is social dynamic? If you are good at it, you can read any social situation real fast. I recently mastered certain level of skills in social dynamic, and I now can see the same human behaviors over and over again in many situations, and am able to understand why humans behave in certain way under certain situations. Not only that, I am able to connect with people much more predicably using the scientific principles and theories I learned. They work like a charm.

I think if I continue to study and practice social dynamic, I will become good salesman, teacher, stand up comedian, poker player, and of course, pastor. There is no limit to what you can achieve when you know how to use these knowledge.

I believe many successful churches builders and leaders have high levels of social intelligence, either from training in NLP, social dynamic, and other related fields, or from mirroring what their mentors had been doing. Consciously or unconsciously, they are using human wisdom to build their churches, and credit it to God.

The New Testament, however, tells us how churches should be built, see my article on the early church:

Hypnosis and Paranormal

John A Keel, a paranormal investigator whom I trust, discovered that ET alien contactees, and witnesses of other paranormal phenomena, often fell into hypnotic trance when they had their paranormal encounters. This didn’t mean the experiences were fake. During the trance, time could be compressed or expanded. What felt like a few seconds of encounter for the witness could actually be hours, or vice versa.

“There seems to be a rule that each cosmic force has its imitators. Victims of UFO contact are often suffering from false illumination. Either their minds have misinterpreted the experience, or a lower force has re-programed them using the same mechanism. In a sense, they have become “possessed.” They suffer from hallucinosis—repeated hallucinations. Their lives are manipulated disastrously.” [The Mothman Prophecies]

I believe the “lower force” in question is actually demon in the Bible.

Men and women of God would fall into trance too when they encounter God or his angels.

Acts 10:9-11

⁹ About noon the following day as they were on their journey and approaching the city, Peter went up on the roof to pray. ¹⁰ He became hungry and wanted something to eat, and while the meal was being prepared, he fell into a trance. ¹¹ He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners.

This leads me to believe that many spiritual experience are hypnotic in nature, but some are from men (men made miracles), some are from demons, and some are from God.

Hypnosis is Common and Necessary

The hypnotic state is a common state in human. We enter the “alpha state” when watching TV, driving on highway, daydreaming, playing computer game, and we enter deep hypnotic trance at certain stages of our sleep cycle.

Trance is relaxing and it feels good. High achievers often knows how to enter a trance to help them perform well. Athletes enters the “zone” (trance) to achieve their best possible performance. During a trance, the senses are most alerts, the mind is sharp, and many hidden potentials come out more easily.

There are light trance and deep trances. Each day, we enter different trance more often than we think. For example, it is easy for most people to engage in daily routine and forget how they do it afterward. It’s like not remembering when we stop at red light on our way to work or home.

A good habit of prayer and meditation would train the mind to experience trances, which helps us open more to God’s word, and the work of the Holy Spirit. Not all form of hypnosis is bad. I don’t believe that demons would possess you simply because you are hypnotized, otherwise, all of us would have opened doors to demons when we watch TV, or drive on highway.

Rather, I believe that we must train ourselves to know what it is, and thus be able to distinguish and recognize what is from God, and what is simply common hypnotic phenomena. An intellectual person would instinctively know how to enter a trance to increase performance in school, sport, and spiritual practice (such as changing a bad habit). A Christian who is trained to recognize it for what it is can avoid mind control, social engineering, false ministers, and what not.