When we read the Bible’s accounts of people who have had an experience of being allowed to look into heaven, there is no mention of special techniques that have to be employed in order to get the experience. In the Bible, it is God Who in His sovereignty allows people to get an experience of heaven.
In stark contrast to the Bible’s accounts, we find that occult literature describes the use of special techniques in order to enter the spiritual realm. Michael Harner describes this in “The Way of the Shaman”. The shaman is the healer, prophet and counsellor in folk religion. With the help of drums beaten at a fast pace, shamans help each other to enter into the spiritual realm. They often pass through some sort of tunnel in the spiritual world. Having got through the tunnel, they explore the spiritual realm and later describe it to their helper. In this way they visit heaven or the underworld. Other similar techniques to enter the spiritual realm are described by occultists, for instance in Robert A. Monroe’s book “Journeys Out of the Body.”
In occult practices, it is often recommended that you should have a spiritual guide in order to avoid getting out of control in the spiritual realm. It is a recognised danger that unguided spiritual travel may be hazardous to one’s health. In contrast, this is not the case with Biblical prayer, and it is not dangerous to pray to God without the help of a spiritual guide.
Faith preachers do clearly reject shamanism and other forms of occultism, declaring that the source of power in shamanism is demonic. However, while they generally take a stronger stand against occult practices such as shamanism than many other Christians do, they do not seem to realise that some of their own spiritual techniques are not very different from those that are used within shamanism.
God is able to let us see visions in order that we may understand what He wants (Acts 10:9-16; 16:9-10). A person can also be caught up to heaven by God (II Corinthians 12:1-4). This is something God does sovereignty, and not something we can help one another to experience. The people in the Bible who experienced heaven only experienced it on very few and special occasions. Some of the preachers today say that they go on trips to heaven just about as easily as they would take a trip on a ferry. This is not how it happened in the Bible!
In the Book of Revelation, the Apostle John is describing the real heaven. The message Jesus gave him concerned, first and foremost, repentance and conversion to God. Apart from that, the message was about the work of love and about combating error. The book concludes with a strong warning against adding anything to the heavenly reality (Revelation 22:18). But the latter is exactly what people are running the risk of doing when they write books and issue tapes of their own descriptions of heaven.
