Make me a channel of your peace.
Where there is hatred let me bring your love.
The Power of Intentional Deceit
We all know what comes next: “Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord / And where there’s doubt, true faith in You.”
But a little twist with serious consequences was presented by Dr. Wayne Dyer in his PBS lecture, The Power of Intention. Toward the end of his three-hour address, he brought out his beautiful daughter, 22-year-old Skye Dyer, to sing a subtly new version of “Prayer of St. Francis.”
The first few seconds were lovely, yet confusing: Wayne Dyer is not known for promoting the theology of Catholic saints. But just three lines into this beautiful hymn, it was twisted and shred void of its original intent. Skye sang not the words above, but this:
“Where there is injury, your pardon, love.”
And this was no simple mistake. The word “love” was clearly added two more times during Miss Dyer’s rendition.
The audience was enraptured. They stood swaying and crying as she sang, chins uplifted and faces glowing. It seemed to bother them not one jot that God had just been stripped from a hymn.
That’s right. Sebastian Temple’s hymn, “Prayer of St. Francis”, had been twisted from desiring to spread the goodness of God to sharing some New Age, feel-good, amorphous concept of “love.”
Clear-Thinking People Might Ask for Evidence
It is upon these little twists that Dr. Wayne Dyer has built a career. Some years ago, one of his books quoted Jesus uttering, “I said, you are gods.” Dr. Dyer claimed this proved that even Christ himself considered us all divine, and he reveled in using the passage to quiet any Christian critics. But his interpretation of Jesus’ words was just slightly twisted.
A quick check of this passage, John 10:34, shows that Jesus was not stating that we humans are gods. He was quoting Psalm 82, where God is condemning human judges who, according to the New American Bible commentary, are “godlike in their prerogative of establishing justice on earth.” Far from proclaiming all humankind to be divine, Jesus was using Old Testament Scripture to turn the tables on those who criticized Him.
The Power of Intention is a quasi-religious presentation that urges viewers to connect to ‘Source’, which Dr. Dyer occasionally names ‘God’. He credits the idea of Source to the infamous drug-guru Carlos Castaneda, and defines Source as the immeasurable, indescribable force of the universe, a connecting link attaching every material thing to ‘intent’. According to Dr. Dyer:
Everything in this universe was ‘intended’ here, including you….Source can be thought of as that which ‘intends’ things into the material world.
This banal statement so moved the audience that one woman was captured on camera with tears glistening on her cheeks. And while it may at first sound like a mere repackaging of the God of Christianity in language palatable to New Age devotees, viewers find that Dr. Dyer has added a dangerous little twist. He proposes that once you become more in harmony with this ‘field of intention’, you’ll able to do everything that this ‘field of intention’ is able to do:
You are able to create miracles, you are able to heal yourself, you are able to attract into your life the abundance that has been missing, you are able to find the right people and have them show up exactly on time.
So Dr. Dyer is not only re-naming God, but he is promising his viewers that they will have powers we know are reserved solely to God.
Clear-thinking people might ask for some proof that Dr. Dyer’s theories have actually worked. Has Dr. Dyer been able to heal himself? Actually, a stent had to be inserted in a clogged artery when Dr. Dyer suffered a heart attack a few years ago. Has he been able to find the right people when he needs them? Actually, after twenty years of marriage and the blessings of seven children, Dr. Dyer’s wife left him for someone else. So despite Dr. Dyer’s obvious devotion to the idea that we can perform miracles, his own life actually denies the veracity of his theories.
Dyer’s Familiar Spirit Impersonates a Great Saint
All of this becomes exceptionally curious when you listen closely to Dr. Dyer’s explanation of the process of writing of his books. He describes how his books are all written in longhand, how they are written without his planning, and even how they are written by others through him. This comes perilously close to the description of automatic writing, an occult channeling of information from a spirit being sometimes masquerading as “your higher self.” Most troubling are Dr. Dyer’s hints that it was St. Francis himself who “helped” write the book version of The Power of Intention. But he can only claim this by several little twists of the truth.
Dr. Dyer states, “Back in the 13th century, there was a man whose name was Francesco … [who] later became known as St. Francis of Assisi.” Twist: St. Francis’ baptismal name was actually Giovanni.
Dr. Dyer tells his audience that a “powerful statue of Francesco” sat next to him while he wrote The Power of Intention. Twist: Statues aren’t powerful; they’re merely visual aids to remind us of saints’ great service to God.
On a visit to Italy, Dr. Dyer watched while “the ancestors who lived in Assisi” carved this statue in his presence. Twist: While they sound important and mystical, ancestors can’t carve; they’re dead.
“And feel his presence? I’m telling you I feel him right here, right now, on this stage,” Dr. Dyer told his audience. Twist: St. Francis, holy man of God, would not be “present” on a stage while God is being wrenched from a prayer.
Dr. Dyer introduced the song not by its title, but as “the words of this little man [Francesco].” Twist: The words were written in the early twentieth century and printed on the back of an image of St. Francis, most probably by a Franciscan priest. All scholars agree that St. Francis himself did not pen these words.
After Skye finished singing, Dr. Dyer entreated viewers to play the words to the song over and over again. Remember that the song had been twisted to eliminate any mention of God, yet Dr. Dyer felt the need to make this point quite explicit. “It’s not a prayer,” he said. “It’s not a religious statement.” Twist: The song is entitled, “Prayer of St. Francis,” and has always been intended specifically as both a prayer and a religious statement.
And in one, final, ironic twist, Dr. Dyer showed that earth-bound “source” is not nearly as important to him as the cosmological Source he venerates. Oregon Catholic Press, the copyright holder of “Prayer of St. Francis,” reports that neither Wayne nor Skye Dyer ever received permission to record or perform the song. Just as important, OCP states that permission for a change to original text is not freely given, and was certainly not given in this case.
All this serves as a cautionary tale. We must listen carefully to those who purport to know the “true” pathway to God. “I am the way, the truth, and the life;” said Jesus, “no one comes to the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). When the truth is twisted, so too is the pathway to God. “Prayer of St. Francis” reminds us that God Himself is the source of peace, love, pardon and eternal life. This message was never meant to be twisted.
© Copyright 2004 Catholic Exchange
