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Alana Arguello: Unearthing YOGA’S Ancient Roots & Why It Is Not Christian · Worldview Matters With David Fiorazo

• 0:02
  Welcome to Worldview Matters, discussing controversial issues, discerning current events, defending biblical Christianity. No topic, off limits. And now, here's your host, David Fiorazzo.
• 0:20
  Friends, family in Christ, thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Worldview Matters. We're moving through the year. My goodness, I don't know how many episodes we've done now. It's like we hit 500 a couple months ago. Who knows where we're at, but I'm just so blessed to be able to talk about these issues that are so important to the body of Christ, but also bring on experts, men and women of God, who have amazing testimonies or amazing teachings at their church or wherever, whatever their sphere of influence is.
• 0:49
  I get encouraged and I learn a lot every single podcast. That's why I'm so excited to bring on today's guest. Her name is Alana Arguello. And I want to give her website because we're going to be getting into yoga. And the website is thereturningraven.com.
• 1:07
  TheReturningRaven.com. She also has a YouTube channel. You can go subscribe. There's some outstanding videos there. And I want to make sure you know about the book we'll be talking about. You can link on her website or go straight to Amazon. It's called Unearthing Yoga's Ancient Roses.
• 1:29
  Transcripts Roots, Exposing Sorcery and Its Transcultural Reach. This is going to be amazing. A foreword was written by Ron Rhodes. So you know it's got to be good. Alana, thank you so much for your time today. Good to see you. Thanks for connecting. Oh, thank you, David. I appreciate you having me on your show.
• 1:49
  And she's taken the time in transit moving from one state to another, so I'm just so thankful we could work this out. So let's get right down to your testimony, because there's so many notes that I wanted to ask you about the book, about yoga, going back to the early church days, and we're going to talk a little bit about yoga's influence on everything from transgenderism to maybe even environmentalism and Mother Earth and everything.
• 2:14
  But let's go back to how you were in this full on and God rescued you. In fact, over on your website, how does it how is it put being saved by the grace of Jesus Christ? He called me out of the new age, the occult, Buddhism and yoga.
• 2:32
  And we're doing this for many reasons, one of which is some Christians, some believers, think there's no problem with doing yoga if you don't do certain, I don't know, poses, or if you think you're not worshiping. We'll get to that. Alana, tell us your story. Yes. Well, yes, I was raised to go to in church. I was raised in Sunday school and read about Jesus and understood about Jesus at one point.
• 3:01
  I don't remember my age, but I don't remember. It might have been the History Channel. It was definitely a history show. I remember them saying that Jesus was just a manifestation of the same God that manifests in all religions. And it's interesting how much one thing can...
• 3:20
  influence a lost heart, right? And so I went on sort of, I had several different things throughout my life as all of us have, struggles and different things, different traumas. And at one point I was praying to Jesus. And then when things weren't in my mind getting better, I
• 3:41
  started to reject him. I started to get really upset with him. I also saw a lot of hypocrisy in the church. And I was still very young and didn't understand that we were still sinners. I didn't understand a lot of these concepts. And so I started to lump Jesus Christ with bad behavior in the church. And I was upset.
• 4:03
  And then a final thing when I was 18 that happened that I got very upset with God. And I actually still remember the moment of I fell on my knees, which was interesting. I fell on my knees.
• 4:19
  Before God, but I, and so like I was praying, but I was so upset and angry at him. I actually cursed at him and I told him that I was going to disprove him. And which is clearly you can't disprove. I know he's real because I'm talking to him.
• 4:36
  So I went on this research and I was already from my father, I went into debate, youth in government, was planning to be a lawyer. So I was very already in that and looking at all different sides of things. And so I went digging and I worked with some professors and looked.
• 4:59
  and found out, wow, Jesus was who he said he was. He was real. It sounds like he was also God, bodily resurrected, all of these things. But I thought still that imprint from when I was a kid and I heard that, I think it was still there, that imprint, well, maybe he's in all other religions and I'm gonna find out.
• 5:17
  So I started a concentration in college. I was in the philosophy department and I concentrated and focused on East Asian studies. And so I was reading and studying the Eastern text. And then that led to traveling to the East and studying in the East. And eventually I was, this was all the philosophy there. So it was just their sacred text. I wasn't getting into the practices at this point.
• 5:46
  And I will tell you this, I did not find Jesus in those other religions. But at that point, I'd gone so far in, I was studying it. And then after I graduated, I moved to Los Angeles. And in Los Angeles, I sort of became a mix of a lot of different things.
• 6:06
  And and so and then I started work. I went through I got a clinical master's degree. I went to a very liberal master's program for that. And then I started working with gang members in East Los Angeles County. And I did what's called street work. So I was doing crisis therapy on the street. So I saw a lot of death, kids shot little girls right after they were raped, a lot of violence.
• 6:34
  And it started really wearing on me. So I thought, I need to any, many, many, mo, and pick one of these religions that I've studied. I feel like I need a religion to feel better. And so I picked a sect of Mahayana Buddhism called Nishran Buddhism, and I became devout. I was completely full in. I even spoke at Ahsoka Goparana National Events, which is a large Buddhist event in Los Angeles.
• 7:03
  or large Buddhist organization in Los Angeles. I spoke at one of their regional programs. I think it was in Glendale or somewhere when I did that. And I had a gohanzen. I went to groups. I was chanting all of the time, doing all of this. And I had a few sort of logic points when I understood the hanzit on my gohanzen, which is the shrine, essentially the altar for your for your worship.
• 7:31
  in the Hansa is the Chinese characters. And, uh, some of the characters were actually about a demon goddess and eating children. And I would have these moments like, that seems odd. And I also felt like, wow, I felt like things were getting worse in my life, which was justified in the practices of the East and like the Lotus Sutra that they, um,
• 7:57
  that you are, you're, what you're doing is, is pulling in your karma from a thousand years past, um, and, and how it's moving forward. So you're trying to get rid of it. So if you stump your toe, you stumped your toe because it could have been something you did that a thousand years before.
• 8:14
  And so it was getting very burdensome, right? And just exhausting. And it was in that I got to sort of the end of myself. And I was just still witnessing a lot of horrible things and with kids and that in itself, I think, was traumatizing me. And during that time, when I was still fully practicing, I was...
• 8:42
  God called me out of it. Like he actually, I heard him. I'm careful with saying that, David, because I think a lot of people are trying to force like God's a genie, like he has to talk to them. I believe the word of God is finished. And if God wants to talk to you, he will, but that's enough. But I actually heard I am Yahweh.
• 9:02
  And that was it. And I heard it and I knew it. I understood in my mind, I guess, in a way, I didn't hear this part, but there was this clear understanding that God was telling me, you think you've been chasing me, but I'm the one that's been chasing you. And then I heard, and then it was from there that.
• 9:28
  just how he led me to go to a church and to listen. And I was there for about seven or eight months. And the, the Lord was just after that seven or eight months, I used to leave the worship because I couldn't stand it. I mean, I was at one point, one side of my family used to watch, what is that show? Can't remember now, South Park.
• 9:51
  like as a Christmas holiday event, you know, and South Park has a horrible episode where it mocks Christian music and Christian worship and singing to Jesus. And so that was just so imprinted on me that I was like, Oh, I can't listen to this worship. I'll come listen to this sermon and get a good, you know, word for the day and walk away. But I was, as I usually do leaving when they started worship at the end of
• 10:16
  And just the Lord again, just pressing me, I need to go back inside. And I went back inside and they had Jesus was on the cross. And I just, it felt the best way to describe it. I didn't understand the hardening of hearts or anything yet, but the like asphalt in my chest.
• 10:33
  And like light just broke it and God broke it and it crumbled. And right when it did, I didn't understand grace yet. But all I knew is, is a love that I didn't know how to describe just was just pouring over me. And I was repenting. Like I was.
• 10:50
  just things I was remembering things that I didn't know I remembered. And I was, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And it was just a brokenness that happened. But even after every sorry that I was saying, I would just feel this love and this understanding of him and
• 11:10
  And that would call me to repent again. I'd repent again. And so that's when I fully repented and surrendered and gave my life to Jesus Christ, to Yahweh. And at that point, I thought, well, I need to go to Barnes and Noble and any mini, miny, moe Bible. I had any mini, miny, moe to religion at one point. And now I had no idea what Bible to grab. I went to Barnes and Noble.
• 11:34
  I picked a green one with a coffee mug on it because I like coffee. And that was it. And I was just poured into it for the first three years of being a Christian. I started staying home. I had the Bible in my cubicle at work. I was just studying the word. And so all of that, I had a...
• 12:00
  David is still like a lingering regret. And I know that it was just always still with me of how far I had gone and what I was into. And once you know who Jesus is, right, and his love and his grace and his freedom, that I...
• 12:21
  I regretted what I had done and all I've done. All I saw is years wasted. And I was reading the scriptures and how, you know, the Lord can redeem, you know, the time and how all of these things. But it was still there. And then after three years is when the Lord brought my husband.
• 12:39
  And my husband was the one that really started digging me more into the scriptures. And he was also the one that first pointed out, I already knew like yoga and yoga philosophy.
• 12:56
  But it's interesting. I still I wasn't at one point when I was still Christian, I tried to go back to do gym yoga and our studio yoga. But I just had all this anxiety and it was bothering me. And it was my husband that was saying, I don't think this is separate. And and he.
• 13:13
  And I was like, you know what, of course, I should know this, I studied this. This is not, it's not separate, it's the same. But it was that leading that for me to dig further and dig more into it. And why is it being sold as gym yoga?
• 13:29
  um when it's actually still from the the yoga philosophy and yoga doctrine and then my husband also was the one that led me that he said i think you should be teaching in writing and uh and i started teaching i started teaching world religions and values and ethics at a local christian college in san diego and it was from there that i really started seeing my students would come and ask me questions
• 13:56
  about things they were seeing in the church or things another professor was telling them is okay, or books, they bring me books. And I was like, wow, that's exactly a book from the New Age and the occult, but with a Christian name on it.
• 14:12
  And and so or you'd read their introduction and it would it would quote people that I knew were from the New Age and the occult and they were supposedly Christian writing. And so I started seeing this more and more. In fact, my values and ethics class, I used to put this box out and I would say, hey, do you have a question? So values and ethics, we were talking about transgender, abortion, euthanasia, these topics.
• 14:38
  And sometimes I would get questions like, yeah, my niece is thinking she's transgender. What do I do with it? I would get that. But a lot of the questions were really based on, it was like liberal theology. Like my pastor said, God's a woman. My pastor said that I have to speak in tongues or bark like a dog to be saved. Like all the things that I actually know are yoga. It's all from yoga. And so...
• 15:04
  that's when the lord really i had peace and understanding that he had not only redeemed my soul but he was going to redeem my past and so i knew then that i was supposed to share this with everyone even if i even the one just the one if it's just someone that i see walking the dog but that i am by his leading
• 15:28
  and timing to share. And so I took all that research I'd done, but did even more research and for about a decade, just digging all of this up and trying to put it in a way that the church can understand
• 15:42
  what all of these things are and how it actually, even if they don't practice it, a lot of people think they think they know what yoga is. And I challenge that people don't, they think yoga is not in the Bible. And I challenge that that's actually incorrect. And they also think that if they don't practice it, it doesn't affect them. And that's absolutely wrong. I guarantee you any of your audience,
• 16:05
  Um, if they were, if we had a live show and they came on, I guarantee you can show where yoga philosophy has implant infected their family, their faith, even, and all the apostasy issues in the church is yoga. All the liberal things that you see going wrong in the church is yoga. And so, um, so again, thank you for being bold to contend for the truth and, um,
• 16:28
  And yes, so that's... Well, thanks, Alana, for condensing a very detailed testimony and your experience and your history and how you came to the Lord and you went through all that. Interesting. Kudos to your husband, by the way, for nudging you in the right direction a few times.
• 16:47
  But let's talk about the influence that we're not really aware of, not just in the church, because we've seen Christian organizations or some churches host yoga classes and whatever. There is so much ignorance about the roots of it. And that's why your book is called Unearthing Yoga's Ancient Roots.
• 17:07
  So first, why don't we just go to the cover, talk about the cover of your book. People can be doing these poses and just think, yeah, I'm just relaxing. I'm just stretching. I'm just meditating. Maybe they're thinking about God. But there's a conflict there, isn't there, Alana? Tell us about that.
• 17:25
  Yes. Yeah. Actually, the picture that you see there, the reason why I chose that picture is for several reasons. So one, you can see the earth underneath because yoga, all of the Mother Earth worship that you see globally, this is actually a yoga idea. Yoga is actually an idea of yoga.
• 17:46
  based in a philosophy that has doctrines that produces practices. So there's not just one form of yoga. There's many forms of yoga, sometimes not called yoga. So beyond just the physical yoga that's come into the church, there's other forms that are actually in the church. And so in that picture, so that's why I put that, because it's earth and celestial worship. In fact, the postures even at the gym yoga,
• 18:13
  is earth and celestials and creature worship. The positions that people get in are called asanas, which in the root of Sanskrit actually means the throne of a deity. So each posture you get into, you are stepping into the throne of a deity.
• 18:33
  the the everything has a meaning and that that actually sitting it's a sitting asana um it's very ancient and uh that here what what they're doing here touching this here people say oh they're using it for meditating of course meditating probably many in your audiences know is not the same meditation of the bible meditation of the bible like sika in other words
• 18:57
  actually means to use your mind. Whereas Eastern is in, this is one of the confusing parts, David. Eastern is sort of about emptying your mind, but it's actually about changing your mind. That's the real goal of meditation and yoga and Buddhist meditation as a form of yoga. But that symbol there that you saw in the book with the index finger and the thumb
• 19:21
  This is for Gnosis, for where you, Gnosis is, you understand the Gnostics that invaded and corrupted the gospel after Jesus ascended.
• 19:30
  but they got their information from the East and from Egypt. But the gnosis, so it's supposed to be where you get all knowledge from by putting these fingers together. And the actual meaning of this, it's called a mudra. And there's many mudras, but this mudra specifically is the means the seal or the mark of the Lord of the beast. Wow. Wow.
• 19:57
  There's a lot in there, and I'm so glad you explained that because this is not just an innocent practice. In fact, you say, Alana, yoga is not a practice at all. Explain that a little bit more.
• 20:13
  Right, right. Yoga is not a practice, as I mentioned earlier. And also just to clarify with your audience, that subtitle, 84 Postures to Challenge You Beyond the Mat. I'm an apologist. So postures, I'm playing on the word. I'm saying I'm going against yoga like I'm speaking against it to challenge you beyond the mat. The 84 is because...
• 20:36
  The Lord of Yoga, Shiva, who has many other names, including the rider of the clouds, which is a name shared with Baal. Actually, Shiva has a lot shared with Baal. He's also the Lord of Thieves and Robbers. A lot of things that should wake us up to yoga is really actually talked about in the Bible or not. But Shiva was taught the goddess 84 times.
• 21:06
  yoga postures to have her spread it across the earth for all time in all cultures. And it was in order, like what they did. So that's why I'm giving 84 very short chapters challenging that the Christian cannot
• 21:22
  and practice yoga and to understand what yoga actually has to do with ancient sorcery that's talked about in the Bible and end time sorcery. But yes, yoga in a first place, most people think yoga is a practice. It is not a practice. I repeat this a lot. When people say yoga practice, that word is actually yoga khara, not yoga. Yoga is an idea that
• 21:47
  And essentially the idea that you are God. But it's an idea that's based in philosophy. Empty philosophies of deceit based on the elements. So when Paul talks about the elements and philosophy and empty deceit, it's a philosophy that has doctrines, different doctrines that produce all sorts of practices. All the things you see in the church, like word of faith, prosperity, gospel, the repeating of the I am's,
• 22:17
  All of the ideas that when you think of Earth, astrology, yoga is tied to astrology. That's why the Vedic gods share the same names as a lot of the other...
• 22:30
  you know, astrological gods that you see in like Roman and Greek myths. And so this, to wake up that the ancient world had massive trade and migration, and archaeology is illuminating cultural anthropology. We now know, we know trade routes that Solomon had, and how that what those were influenced, and all it is,
• 22:54
  If we understand the Bible and we take the Bible literally from a historical grammatical interpretation, it is true. We have the Tower of Babel and all these practices were scattered. And so, but they all were out of the same ideology, the same philosophy. But we think they're different because we read Baal.
• 23:14
  But Baal, by description, and his consort, his goddess, is also in all other regions. It's just different languages. That's why I compare these different goddesses like Shiva and Kali. And they say, oh, well, that's ancient. No. What was...
• 23:30
  Still is, right? There's nothing new under the sun. And all of the same things of the ancient pagan world we still see today. Goddess, the goddess of yoga is still having children sacrificed to her today. It's completely likened to Molech and all of these. So, yes.
• 23:48
  But it's not a practice. Yoga is, in fact, I should mention contemplative prayer, too, because the Luciferian occult, your big, even theosophists, these people that even people don't understand, like Aleister Crawley, which is a different subsect of the occult, but
• 24:04
  He has eight lectures on, he has the lectures on yoga. Watch where he got his information. We say he channeled Baphomet, but how? Practicing yoga. Annie Passant, Alice Bailey, yoga. And they actually talk about that they were going to use the form of contemplative prayer, which is that movement you see of go into the silence and go into the rooms, go into the silence. What you think a lot of the monkery type things are coming into the church is,
• 24:34
  That was the one that they believed that type of yoga was going to be the thing that was going to get the majority of the church to let go of their Bible and help them usher in their Messiah, who by description is our Antichrist.
• 24:52
  Thank you. You are connecting so many dots, and I got Alana to commit. We're going to do another podcast with her, at least one. These are the type of shows that I'm thinking, man, I wish we had double or triple the time. But let's get down just in the last two and a half minutes. One of the things you say is by biblical definitions, yoga is sin, idolatry, and sorcery. Just unpack that if you can bullet point it in just two minutes.
• 25:22
  Yes. So yoga to the root. Yoga is always, all the practices of yoga are a form of mind, body, or word magic. And word magic can include name magic. So if you're saying Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus...
• 25:40
  you are actually practicing mantra name magic, which is a form of yoga. But like mantra, for example, in Sanskrit means to cast a spell. And it is specifically linked with the word, if you understand incantations. So when you read Deuteronomy and all the descriptions, including incantations, charms, yoga in the root,
• 26:03
  word of yoking, actually one of the names for yoga is besides trick, I should tell your audience, it also means trick, fraud. It also means charm. So when you understand the language in the history, the ancient yogis were called sorcerers.
• 26:21
  So the yoginis, which are the female yogis, were called predatory witches. And so they would actually practice something that Islam would later take, that idea of takia to infiltrate. That takia comes from yoga. So yogis would practice and mask like they were part of you, like it's nothing. Actually using words, it's science exercise. And they would infiltrate cultures to take over them.
• 26:48
  but it's ancient sorcery. So all the roots of yoga, like the list in Deuteronomy, when God says what witchcraft is, what all these things are, are all actually forms of yoga. Yoga uses charms, stones, geometric shapes, like triangles, different things to focus on,
• 27:06
  This is called Yantra yoga, all of these different things. But yoga was in the ancient world, sometimes called yoga, sometimes not. And it would develop out. And it was during the times before Jesus, during the time of Jesus, after Jesus, major archaeological pieces that came out after Jesus ascended with marks of yogis, which
• 27:30
  on different seals that were practicing practices saying that you're all Christ, right? Like when Jesus said, many people, many Christ would come in my name. He warned us about this. So it masks, it camouflage, it acts like it's a gray area. And you see this in the church. The church is always like, it's no big deal. Don't look over it. It's nothing. It's nothing to worry about. That was the exact historical and present.
• 27:57
  part of yoga is to look like it's no big deal has nothing but yoga has always been sorcery world even when you look in revelation pharmakia the word pharmakia it's drugs well guess where drugs and that drug use came from
• 28:12
  Yogis, they're rishus, they used to practice putting mushrooms, what we understand as mushrooms now, it's something else called soma, but like the nectar of immortality. You see this push for ketamine, for mushrooms in the culture, all this, look it up in yogi studios, gym studios, add it to your practice. And then the word there, pharmakia, is not just drugs.
• 28:35
  It's actually also incantations, which is what you would understand as Buddhist meditation focused, even prana, yama and yoga, the breathing, all of those things. But historically, the historic world knew this. The early church defenders knew this. And I'm not the first I actually put in the book. There's many contenders of truth that called out to the church from the beginning what this was.
• 29:01
  Be careful of the East. Be careful of the gymnosophis. And even in the Reformation time, I pull out some people, not known names of contenders of truth that tried to tell the church, this is a snake in the grass. And I think it's part of it. I think it's the end time sorcery, or at least a huge part of it.
• 29:23
  Well, Alana, we've got to continue this conversation, and we will. I want to give the website again. It's thereturningraven.com. Make sure to check out her 10 shorts on the 10 myths of yoga. That's on our YouTube channel. God bless you, Lord willing. We'll continue this. Thanks again for your time in the book. Thank you, David. Appreciate you having me. God bless you. Friends, God bless you. And as always, keep speaking the truth about things that matter.