Father Marwan Khoury on astrologers
It’s time to stop this farce and hold them to account!
Father Marwan Khoury revealed that “the astrologers who appear before us in the media draw their information from three sources; I affirm this, and I challenge the greatest fortune-teller to stand before me and deny it.” He considers believing astrologers to be “a sin against my faith in God. If I believe in God, why would I believe in astrologers’ predictions?”
Father Marwan began his interview with the newspaper Al-Joumhouria by explaining the Church’s view of the growing phenomenon of astrology, prophecies and predictions. He said: no one knows the future except God, because the unknown includes both past and future. The forces of evil can know past things because they are events that have happened, and that is where the deception lies. When we willingly let another enter our inner self, we must pay attention to the nature of the Evil One. Evil is a spirit not subject to matter. For example, today I am a material being, and the wall in front of me blocks my view of what is behind it; but if I were a “spirit,” matter would not block my view of what lies behind material things. So, because of the devil’s nature, which is “spirit” and not bound to matter, he is able to see what happened in the past, because those are past events that cannot be undone, and since the devil is a spirit, he can see them. The deception happens when people turn to these astrologers and fortune-tellers, all of them without exception, most of whom are in contact with evil spirits. They tell a person straight away, “Such-and-such happened to you…” In other words, they talk about the past to deceive the person, and the weak, unbelieving and naïve person, on hearing real past events from his life, is dazzled, believes, and wonders what might happen in the future. What happens then is that evil enters his mind and takes what he is thinking, so this spirit, through the astrologer who is in contact with it, can tell him what he is thinking and planning, “and so he deduces and fabricates the future.”
Then the person says, “That’s right!” and falls into the trap of deception.
But this does not apply to what we heard from the astrologers on New Year’s Eve. What happened on New Year’s Eve is an entirely commercial affair: it is the story of weak souls glued to the screen. Because of the large viewership, advertising costs go up, and the media promote these programmes because they bring in a large financial return.
As for fortune-telling, Father Marwan insists: there is no such thing as “clairvoyance”! There is no such thing as “inspiration”! And the devil cannot know the future; the whole thing plays on the past.
“How can I, as a human being, accept that a source whose place and time I do not know gives me information that may be dangerous and involve terrifying events, and though I don’t know where it comes from, I believe it and trust it! How can that be?”
“And I ask this astrologer and that astrologer: why is the answer ‘Don’t ask how; we can’t explain’? Is it because there is a trick involved? Yes, because there is a big trick involved. For the truth requires that a person give a convincing justification for what he claims to know: a truth that explains in detail how he was able to know the unknown, whether through experiences this astrologer has had, through scientific justification, or through an official reference that reason can accept.”
Father Khoury wondered about this image that comes into the astrologer’s imagination: “Why doesn’t this image come to me, or to you?!”
He told of an astrologer on a television programme who “asked for a glass of water, looked into it and said: there will soon be an earthquake, a plane will soon crash, and such-and-such a leader will be assassinated. I was present on that programme, and I asked this astrologer, who had stuck his head into the glass of water, what he had seen in it. He answered, ‘I’m talking with God!’ I replied: I studied theology for ten years and never once learned that if I wanted to talk with God I should stick my nose into a glass of water! But let’s suppose, for argument’s sake, that God talks to you through a glass of water. You have made serious and weighty statements; how accurate are they? He said, ’80 percent.’ I answered, ‘Thanks, you’ve given yourself away!’ Now I’m sure you’re a skilled liar, because when we attribute words to God we don’t speak of 80 or 70 percent; when God speaks his word, it will happen 100 percent. And if it doesn’t happen, that is the greatest proof that this astrologer is a great liar, because God does not make mistakes and does not announce evil. He is always the Good News, and the Gospel is the joyful news. God is not a ‘death notice.’ And if there is a hidden danger in store for people, God warns them through secrets. This has happened in the history of the Church, most notably at Fatima. The Virgin gave three secrets and asked people to pray a great deal to prevent them! And because we did not pray enough, they actually happened, including the Second World War and the attempt on the Pope’s life. She gave this information in the form of secrets, and she also announced salvation to us if we prayed without growing weary; she gave us good news and said: if you do not repent, your sins will lead you into great troubles. And so that people may be sure that astrologers’ words do not come from God, the Gospel says: ‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away’ (Matthew 24:35), because he is God and does not err by a single letter, let alone a word! The truth of his word has no percentages; it is always one hundred percent.”
Father Marwan lamented the growing number of astrologers, saying: “There used to be one astrologer running loose on his own; now the competition has heated up. But I’m not sad for them; I’m sad for the weak who listen and believe. And I wonder about the empty minds and weak souls who are dragged along by their words and forget that God gave them discernment so that they would know whom to listen to and whom to believe. How can a person let himself be tamed to this degree?”
Father Marwan revealed that the astrologers who appear before us in the media draw their information from three sources, “which I affirm, and I challenge the greatest fortune-teller to stand before me and deny it.”
On the sources of these self-styled astrologers, he said:
The first source is reason. God created human beings with a mind capable of deduction, and in their deductions they sometimes have enough intelligence to be right 70 to 80 percent of the time, just like the journalist-analyst whose political analyses are sometimes 80 to 90 percent accurate. Does this astrologer or that journalist then become a prophet?! If we give the mind some facts, like someone standing on a high hill who sees a speeding car near a dangerous bend, it is natural for him to judge an accident highly likely! But he certainly won’t become a prophet if the accident happens; he simply judged it very probable. Astrologers, and I know one of them, a famous one who used to be in my parish, put twenty local and international magazines in front of them, read them, gather the local and world events that are happening and give them an outcome through mental deductions that any of us could make, provided of course that we read widely…
The second source is intelligence services. Some of these astrologers, indeed most of them, deal with local and international intelligence services, and everyone knows that the intelligence services have information the ordinary citizen doesn’t, including information about people under threat of assassination. One of them, a senior official in the state and its agencies, told me that a famous astrologer came to him wanting to know when a major political figure would be released from prison! The official told him, “Within two months.” And a week after that meeting the astrologer announced it, claiming it was one of his predictions. Likewise, the intelligence services may receive information that a clergyman is under threat; the “astrologer” then claims it as his own and predicts my death, and if the assassination actually happens, “our brother” becomes a prophet!
The third source, the most dangerous, is the summoning of spirits.
Here the name “sorcerer” truly applies to the astrologer, for the devil has greater power than human beings and is more intelligent than they are, because his angelic nature is stronger than human nature; at the same time he has greater knowledge than human beings, first because, as I said, he can call up the past, and the present is before him. But the devil does not know the future, because it is in God’s hand alone. That is why I repeat: “Whoever claims to know the unknown and the future is a liar.” Beyond the past the devil cannot know anything, but he can enlist other supernatural demonic powers through the summoning of spirits to ask them certain questions, because some of them have greater perception: they can enter a person’s thoughts, know what people are thinking, and so work out their plans for the future from their thinking.
These are the three elements from which astrologers draw their information in order to manipulate people’s minds and appear through the media; and our people, empty of faith, receive this information and are influenced by it, so that it seeps into every home and family, settles in and takes the place of God. Father Marwan explained that God is light, and the person whose heart God fills is given the ability to distinguish good from evil and truth from falsehood; but a family that lacks the hearing of God’s Word and does not raise its children to know God’s Word can be knocked over, along with its ideas, by such predictions.
Why doesn’t the Church run an awareness campaign? Father Marwan replies: “We have spoken enough, and we have left no means untried to warn of the danger of astrologers, sorcerers and devil-worshippers, in our talks, our Divine Liturgies and our spiritual retreats; and in our schools we have told our generations: this path is wrong, there is a deception, be careful. As a clergyman I say that the error lies in our claiming to love God, for God is insulted when I don’t listen to what he asks of me or when I turn a deaf ear to him!”
As for what the Gospel says about these predictions, Father Marwan answers: the Bible says, “Our God is a jealous God” (Exodus 34:14). He is jealous and does not like you to call anyone else your saviour; he does not like you to get information from anyone but him. So when I listen to these people, I “insult God” and betray him, because I betray my faith in him, just like a husband betraying his wife. It’s a matter of principle, and it is a sin against my faith in God. If I believe in God, why would I believe astrologers’ predictions? Why mix the two? The believer listens to, believes and is faithful only to the one Word of God and to the truth that cannot be divided.
He explained that “the Church is against all these sorcerers because they take people outside their fundamental reference point, which is God. A person charts his history and his future with his God, because he knows him and knows that he loves him. And when I am outside this plan and go off to chart my own history and make decisions based on a revelation that may be demonic or something like it… what am I drawing? First, they will have thrown me into an abyss and wounded my relationship with God, because God truly loves me and he is jealous, and I am striking a blow at my love for him and my trust in him, since I no longer trust what he has told me but what these people tell me! And at the same time they are making a living ‘off my back,’ taking money and laughing at people’s minds.”
As for the greatest danger: if these people summon evil spirits and turn them against a person, they may harm him and “wreck his home,” so that the damage is not only material but spiritual too. Regarding the few predictions that come true, Father Khoury said they could be the best proof of the astrologers’ lies and hypocrisy, explaining that God does not play that way, because every word he speaks will happen… because everything he says is truth. With God there are no percentages.
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Father Marwan Khoury
