Dr. Alana Arguello's Testimony with Dr. JB Hixson, NBW Ministries

NBW Episode: 1502. Testimony Tuesday with Dr. Alana Arguello
Apr 28, 2026 • Dr. J.B. Hixson, Morgan Hixson, Dr. Alana Arguello

NBW Ministries

Not By Works Ministries advances the clear, accurate, and urgent Gospel message while providing commentary and insights on current events through the lens of Scripture.

"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us." (Titus 3:5)

NBW Ministries newcomer Alana Arguello joins the Hixsons to share her journey of faith.

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Copy rights granted by NBW ministries.

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Welcome to The Returning Raven: Clarity Points for Truth, where we discern how pagan worship, specifically yoga in all its forms and philosophies, infects and impacts the church, the family and you. It’s time to get out of the grey, and into the Light...to worship in truth! 

Dr. Arguello takes a literal, historical-grammatical view of the Word of God.

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Dr, Arguello's Book: Unearthing Yoga’s Ancient Roots: Exposing Sorcery and Its Transcultural Reach (Amazon's weblink below):

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DQVJ4QR4

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For Book and Show Information videos, as well as 10 Myths: Introducing the Yoga You Don’t Know, please visit Dr. Arguello’s website and media:

https://www.thereturningraven.com

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Host: Dr. Alana Arguello (Apologist, Author)
TRR Managing Media Editor: JA

Stock Assets: All media licensed via Envato Elements, Adobe Stock, and Riverside FM along with additional media used by Audreyalbafilms.com licensed via Artlist.io.
Videographer: Jason Herrerra, https://www.audreyalbafilms.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the NBW Ministries Podcast, advancing the clear, accurate, and urgent gospel message. Your host, Dr. J.B. Hickson, is an author and pastor who provides commentary and insights on current events through the lens of Scripture. Dr. Hickson interacts with various experts on cultural, theological, and political issues while proclaiming God's word to a world in desperate need of the truth. If you enjoy today's podcast, be sure to forward it to others. And now, here's your host, J.B. Hickson.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Well, good morning, friends. JB and Morgan with you here. It's Tuesday, and that means Testimony Tuesday. We've got another first-time guest this week. You know, last week we had Dr. Mike Spaulding. This week we've got Dr. Alana Arguello. And uh she is such a great uh guest. Really have enjoyed uh kind of picking her brain and getting to know her a little bit. I know you're going to love her too, uh, but uh we'll get to her testimony. Uh comes out of a background in yoga. And uh I know it was really fascinating uh when we talked to her. But uh it is Tuesday, April 28th, 2026, and I'm uh sitting here as usual in my humble studio beneath the sky, nestled neatly beneath the tall timbers of colorful Colorado. And uh Morgan is, I think, still in Kansas City, but you're on the way to Cedar Rapids, your new home, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:16

Yes, figuratively speaking, I am on the way. I'm not literally traveling there yet. We're still in my kitchen in Kansas City, uh slash dining room, because it's one room and it's small, which is part of the reason we're moving. So yeah, looking forward to it for sure. I believe that um if I see one more roll of packing tape, I might lose it just a little bit. My hands can constantly feel that, and you know, I'm getting kind of sick of cardboard, but we are gonna count our blessings, and the blessing is new health, uh new good health, a new house, and uh wonderful weather. Very happy. Awesome. Yeah, you guys are gonna get a dog when you get your new house with a yard? We're talking about it. We actually don't have a fenced in backyard, so that's probably gonna be one of our early projects is putting one up and then while we're talking about dogs, we're talking about cats. Um on the one hand, cats are not as fun as dogs, but on the other hand, a cat might scare you away for a little while. And so you really got to weigh the pros and cons. Be spilled my heart.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

I can't, I can't believe that you're even saying that. Oh, that would be I thought I taught you better than that, Morgan. No, um, that's great. Well, we're proud of you. Excited. I remember when your mom and I bought our first house. Um, let's see, Bethany, your oldest sister, was born. I think Brooke was a newborn. Uh I can't remember. We had we had gotten married and we'd had taken our first full-time church in Illinois, and we were living in a parsonage. And after we'd been there a couple of years, we decided we wanted to buy our own house. So we moved out of the parsonage and bought a house. It was before you were born, obviously. But it was quite just really a proud moment, an exciting moment, and uh really happy for you guys there. It's gonna be in Cedar Rapids. So I would love to come help you pack and move, but I think instead I'm gonna schedule a simultaneous uh colonoscopy and root canal because I'd much rather enjoy that than packing and moving. So unfortunately, I won't be able to help you.

SPEAKER_03 3:04

No, I totally understand. I totally understand more than most.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Yeah, yes, you do. You've been through a few moves. All right. Listen, uh, Dr. Alana Arguello is uh really a fascinating uh guest, and uh, we're gonna hear how she came to know the Lord. That in itself is a powerful story. And then she's gonna also talk a little bit about just the whole uh yoga and eastern mysticism, which she came out of. And uh, you know, Morgan and I, you've already talked. We're gonna have to have her back on the show again for sure, at least one more time, if not multiple times, because she is a wealth of information. But uh, it's the end of April, and we're on the heels of our next big conference. So I do want to make mention of that. May 1st and 2nd, we'll be up in Canada at the Last Days Prophecy Conference. By the way, uh we all the details are on our website, but I love the way they're they're promoting this conference, a kind of a play on words, last days D-A-Z-E, as if the church is in a daze, the last days of apostasy, they're calling it. And of course, that's a subject that's near and dear to me with my uh book last year, my latest book on the Great Last Days Apostasy. And so really looking forward to being up there with them. You can find out all the details at knotbyworks.org. But if you're in Canada, obviously Canada's a big country, but if you're anywhere near there, I'd love to come and meet some of our Canadian friends at that conference May 1st and 2nd. And then lots more coming down the pike. Be sure and keep up with us through our app. And how are we doing on our social media metrics? Are we starting to reach more people? How's that looking?

SPEAKER_03 4:31

I think so. I think we've seen a recent uptick on our sub stack, especially. But yeah, we're just chugging right along. I think the one thing I would say is if you are on Twitter and you're not following us, I mean, it would be nice if you were. You can follow us at at I think at not badworks. We post pretty similar content all across the board just to make sure we don't leave anyone out. But yeah, we're on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and of course Substack. But I think the best place, if you don't really care about the social media, if you try to stay off of it because it's kind of a cesspool at this point. I don't blame you.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Uh not our channels, but everybody else's. No, of course not.

SPEAKER_03 5:05

But just in general, the algorithms and the AI and the robots and all that. You can follow us on our app or on our website, or you can get our email. And I'd say those are all very valid ways to stay up to date on all things in BW.

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Yes, excellent. And by the way, we're all speaking of you know getting subscribers uh to some of our channels and so forth, we're offering a special. Right now, all believers get an extra thousand years in heaven if you follow us on Instagram. So there you go. You can't beat that. And it's even better than that, Morgan. We're gonna let the person pick whether they want that thousand years on the front end or back end of eternity, their choice, whatever they want. So yeah, yeah. So anyway, that's our special for this month. All right, all kidding aside, let's look at our verse for the day before we bring on uh Dr. Arguello. Uh from Philippians 4, 6 and 7. Familiar verse to many of you, I'm sure. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which passes surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. What a great encouragement. There's definitely a direct connection between anxiety and prayer. When you're praying and laying your burdens before the Lord, it's it's tough to be anxious, that's for sure. So let the peace of God guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus today. All right. Uh let's go now to our testimony Tuesday with Dr. Alana Arguello. Well, Dr. Alana Arguello is with us today and uh looking forward to a great discussion. First time guest, but we're glad to have you on the program.

SPEAKER_00 6:31

Thank you. Happy to be here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 6:34

Yeah, really looking forward to this discussion. Uh sounds like just from chatting with you a little bit before we hit record, you got a really interesting life story and just you really know your stuff. So yeah, absolutely looking forward to it. Welcome.

SPEAKER_01 6:46

Yeah. So uh Alana is the author of the book Unearthing Yoga's Ancient Roots. And this is a topic that, like I believe, many Christians in the world, I've always kind of had, you know, in the back of my mind as, yeah, yoga is bad, but I've never really had any firsthand really uh opportunity to deal with it, to study it, to to teach about it. I knew enough to know, hey, this is not good, but I really didn't know the details until a few months ago we had another guest on who, like you, comes out of a background in yoga and helped kind of educate our audience a bit on the dangers of yoga. But you really are at the tip of the spear on this issue, and I'm so honored to kind of have you share your story a little bit on our show. But since it's your first time, take a moment to tell us a little bit about yourself, your website, how folks can get in touch with you, and then we'll give you the time to just kind of share your testimony.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Okay, yes, yes. So the book is on Amazon, Unearthing Yoga's Ancient Roots, Exposing Sorcery and its Transcultural Reach, really addressing in the book the yoga that most people don't know, what yoga actually is and the philosophies behind yoga and how you can compare that with the culture. And my show is called The Returning Raven Clarity Points for Truth. And you can find that at the Returning Raven on YouTube. I also have some podcasts on through Spotify and Apple and other that they can find, but they can find all that through the YouTube or through the website, thetreturningraven.com.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Awesome. Yeah, and we'll link up to all those uh there. But you know, we're we're going to try to accomplish two things on on the short time we have together today on the podcast. Uh first of all, this is uh a testimony Tuesday episode, so we can't wait to hear how the Lord drew you to himself and you came to faith in Christ and and became born again. Uh, but then a part of that story I I am assuming is inseparably linked to your experience with yoga and how the Lord brought you out of that. So why don't we just yield the floor and uh we'll give you some time to kind of tell us how you first met the Lord, and then Morgan and I'll maybe make a few notes and comments along the way. Uh why don't you why don't you take it from here?

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Yes. So well, my testimony. So I I knew Jesus was real, and the Jesus of the Bible knew he was real when I was young as a child. So I was my parents were divorced, and my mom's side were believers. My mom took me to church, and uh my dad's side non-believers, and my mom's side would go to church, and I walked myself even down the down the aisle of a small Baptist church in in Texas and gave my life to the Lord and um on my own. I mean, I remember doing that as I was gonna go to Jesus and I knew he was real. I talked to Jesus, prayed to Jesus. Um, I was even, I think, a little bit of a already an apologist, a little bit. I have a memory and my family has a memory of a when I was young, probably I don't know, eight, nine, or ten. Uh someone had said something that was wrong about Jesus, had misrepresented Jesus. And I was just young and fiery, and that's not the Jesus of the Bible. They have the wrong Jesus. And that's interesting because that now my call is is about the false Jesus and it's uh in the church now. So, but that was I went through several different things, different traumas and different um struggles that happened, and I started distancing myself from God and um praying about things, wanting things to change, and when I didn't see things change, I was distancing from him. And then I think I I probably started judging or or misunderstanding that that Christians are still sinners and and I saw bad behavior in the church, and I started somehow in my mind merging Jesus and the sinners, like that was Christianity, right? That it was just hypocrisy. And so I my anger was subtle at that point, but then when I was around 18 or 19, I was I another event happened in my life and I cursed God. I was upset and and I remember actually being on my knees but cursing God. And I told God I was going to disprove him, his existence, which was of course, right? You see the failed logic, right? That I'm talking to him, that I'm gonna disprove his existence. So clearly, right. So there was a problem there. But I so I went on this quest. I I I became a philosophy major, a concentration in East Asian studies. And first I actually started studying about Jesus, and I came to the determination that Jesus was real, what he said was probably true, he probably was God, he died on the cross. All of these things were true. But I thought he has to be in all the other religions. So the same God just manifested in different forms. So I studied first before I experimented with different religions. I was studying. So uh academically, uh, and studying their philosophies and their their sacred texts. I went for a while and studied in Asia, and this went on for for many years. Eventually I ended up in Los Angeles, and then I started practicing. I started dabbling in different uh occult, shaman, definitely the East was you know, practicing different forms of yoga and just but dabbling. I was just sort of a mix of all these different things and just would try anything. And I then got a job that was a pretty heavy job. I worked with gang members in East Los Angeles, so I saw a lot of death, rape, uh, a lot of hard things. And I thought, goodness, I think I need a religion. So I felt like I needed to have a religion. And so of all the religions I had studied, I any mini mini mode, and I picked a sect of Mahayana Buddhism called Nishran Buddhism, and I picked it and started practicing and became a very serious practic practitioner of Nishran Buddhism. Uh, even spoke once for Sokogakar International. Very serious practice. I moved from LA to San Diego and had a Gahanzen, which has all the Hansit characters on there, about the and the demon gods on there and all of this. I started, there was some, I think because I had been a philosophy major and studied logic and uh and I also, my dad's side, he wanted me to be a lawyer like him. So I was trained in debate and and all of this. So I there was something that was was bothering me with the Buddhist practice where just some of the failed logic and some of the things. So I definitely saw that. But I was living in San Diego and all I gotta say is that the Lord just called me out of it and just stopped me. It was it was one day and I actually saw my whole life before me and all the times it was interesting when throughout my years, when Christians came to me to tell me the gospel, these random times, like at a coffee shop on a plane on the way to Thailand, like all these random times that people were giving me the gospel and seeding. And of course, you know, I ate their lunch because I had a lot to say. So I always tell people to be encouraged is of course, when people reject you, when you give them the gospel, they're not rejecting you, right? They're rejecting God, but his word will never return void. And I think that's something the Lord was showing me in that was it was not going to return. It was being seated. And uh, and I don't know how to explain it, except that there was a an understanding, but but put in me by by God. Like there was just this understanding in my mind. I didn't hear this, but just understood that I had been chasing after God, but he was the one chasing me. And right at that moment I did hear, I heard outside of me, I heard I am Yahweh. And that was that was it. I knew that was the God of the Bible. And so I went to there's some a few more details here for but for time's sake. I ended up going to a church, but very hesitant, very, you know, what is this? And but when you had that have that profound of an experience, you you go. I knew I was was to go to church. And I was listening probably for close to eight months, going to church and listening on Sundays, but I was sitting there just waiting for them to upset me. I was very liberal at that time. I was with the ACLU in California with Prop 8. I was I was just waiting to hear something and just, but I was went every Sunday and listened. And after about eight months, I just remember the worship band was singing and there was the image of Jesus on the cross. And uh I tried to leave and go out. I didn't like the worship music. I didn't like the beginning or the the end. I would just go to hear the sermon. But the Lord kept prompting me to go back inside, to go back inside. And so I went back inside and I was listening and I saw the image of um, I couldn't see his face, it was just Jesus hanging on the cross. And then suddenly it was just as if I didn't understand about hardened hearts, but it was as if my chest was asphalt. Like, like, and just God's light just broke it apart and and it was just breaking. And as it broke, I just started, I was repenting. And all these things were flooding my mind of my whole life of things to repent for. Like it was exposed, and I just was repenting. And every time I repented, at the time I didn't understand grace, but I I knew it was some sort of love that I couldn't describe, just was was just covering me. Just this amazing love. And then the love was pouring over me. And as the love poured, I wanted to repent more. So I was just repenting and then just God's love and repenting, and it just um I don't even know, to be honest, how long that happened. I don't know how even I got home, but I did get home as just the Lord just met me. And um, and yes, and it was it was a repentance, like I was wanting to repent and I was crying, but I was free the moment I was repenting. It was just like free from it. And and again, I didn't understand there's no condemnation in Christ. I didn't understand all of these scriptures, right? And um, and so that was it. I was, I was, I knew I'd given my life to the Lord and was very serious about it. And so just as before I had any mini mining mode of religion, I went to Barnes and Noble and thought I'd any mini mining mode a a Bible. I didn't know which Bible to get. And so I picked a green one that had a coffee mug on it because I like green and I like coffee. So I thought, get this Bible. And I just started studying. I was still single at the time. Uh, the Lord had not brought my husband yet, and I was just staying home and studying the word of God and just very thirsty. Just the my first Bible had to be rebounded twice. Just really just studying. And I had this, I knew it was forgiven and I knew I was free, but I had this weight on me a little bit because I had so much regret about my past and and how much I had delved in and how many people I had influenced probably with these false teachings, right? And um, and by the way, I should say in all that research, I didn't find Jesus in any of the other religions, right? When when I first thought he must be in all of them. And so I had this sort of I had this regret and it was always there. But what the Lord showed me that um, and it was in time, but he showed me that he not only redeemed my soul, but he redeemed my past as well. And so I when he brought my husband, my husband and I met, and it was through my husband that he he was the one that told me, I think you should be writing and teaching. Like this is, you know, maybe something you should be doing. And that led to um a professor job. I ended up teaching philosophy in world religions. It was very interesting. They were seeking that, and I had this whole background in world religions, right? And so, but it was at a Christian college, and I was teaching different things and in world religions, teaching about the occult and all these philosophies and things of the East. And my students would kept coming to me with questions, and they were questions of things and practices that were going on in their church. Sometimes they would bring me books that I knew were from the occult, but with a Christian label and title over them. They would in a lot of things just going on inside of the church, but then also um through other professors, they would come or they'd say, Hey, this professor is showing this video, and I would know, right? I'd see all these false teachers coming through. And then students would ask me, Well, what about this teacher? What about that teacher? And I thought, well, I want to be. I I I grew up very, you know, especially my dad's side of the family, an academic, you know, family. I want to do the research. So they would ask me someone, and then they might have 35 books, and I'd so I'd read all the books to make sure, right? I didn't want to falsely accuse, but they'd have 90% um okay, right? Maybe not meet, but okay. And then they'd have this little sliver of all but major sliver that you're God or you're a little Christ or all these things. And so the vetting the teachers was getting exhausted, exhausting. It kept the Lord kept pressing on me about this, that this was um, but it's all the same teachings. It always has been the same teachings, it's just repackaged. And once you vet and find out if a teacher is true or false, by the time you get done with that, Satan's already got another teacher. So I was already really, why doesn't the church understand what the false teachings are? So then they can identify the false teachers through the teachings. So, but the Lord, this was happening. And at the same time, my husband was in the military and we were moving quite a bit. And a lot of times we actually move to quote red states, politically conservative states. And you would think that you could find a solid church, but we would go looking for a church that says the Bible's not just infallible, but without error. And we would read the testimony and uh or the statement of faith, excuse me, and we'd read it and say, okay, we're going to go to this church. And we would go into these conservative evangelical churches, and either we would see outright practices that were shaman sorcery, which I would say is all yoga, but we'd see these practices in the church and was like, How is this here? Online, it's not what it looks like. But boots on the ground experience showed us something else. Or we'd go into, like, for example, we went into a church in Montana of all places that was supposed to be a Bible believing church, and the pastor. Was quoting an open theist, Charles Charles Hodson, and using some of his formulas, and also quoting Schopenhauer, a Buddhist who hated Christians, and then having the church chant that they're co-creators with God, right? Which is a panentheistic worldview. And I just knew these things because I read Charles Hodson, right? But the church didn't know and Schopenhauer, so they didn't know who these philosophers were that the, you know, was coming from the pulpit. And so, and then definitely in the worship music too, started noticing things coming in. And so all of these things, I couldn't get away from it. And so I felt like the Lord just kept all that time of lost and straying and in all of these studying these religions, that the Lord was going to use that to expose what was the apostasy, the falling away, what was coming into the church. And so, and then giving me the boots on the ground experience that we had moving around and going to these different churches, I didn't just see it online. I saw it firsthand. And then sometimes because and and this is sad, but this is the way the world is, right? But my my husband was with the SEAL teams, and so sometimes people liked that, right? So we'd get invited to some big church, you know, private event, a special event, because they wanted a SEAL to go to the events. And um we got an inside look at things that were going on in major churches that are supposed to be conservative, Bible-believing churches. So um the Lord wasn't showing me that to judge. I think the Lord is just showing me this is real. This is we are witnessing kind of the last leg around the track, I believe, of the end times. And we've been in the end times, right, since Jesus ascended, but we're we're closer and closer. And there's more and more evidence to that. And so yeah, so I wanted to be accurate. So I I the research, even yoga philosophy, yoga is a philosophy, but I'm sorry if you had a question before I go into the book.

SPEAKER_01 24:03

But that's my yeah, let's let's this was a good pause before we get into some of the the high points of yoga and and the and and and your book. I'm fascinated by hearing people's journeys and stories, and that's our real heartbeat here is how how people come to faith. And so I'd like to just connect a few dots. And I know Morgan, you probably have some comments or questions too. Yeah. Let me go first because I like me better than you.

SPEAKER_03 24:28

Is that we'll save the best for last.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Okay. All right, there you go. Um, so I want to go back to that childhood moment because obviously becoming a Christian, born again to use Jesus' terminology that he talked with Nicodemus about, happens at a punctilliar moment in time. You pass from death to life and shall never come into judgment. That happens by faith alone 160 times. The New Testament conditions it upon faith. But so many people who who maybe grow up in a Christian home, they are conditioned culturally to walk an aisle or sign a card or do something that sort of they mark the moment from, but they may not have truly understood in that moment that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who died and rose again to pay their personal penalty for sins. And as you're telling the story, I'm I'm sort of gathering that, you know, as you sort of mark your moment. And again, we a lot of people, we we don't necessarily know the day or the time, or, you know, it's not like we record it on our calendar. The question is, have you placed your faith in Christ today? And the answer is yes. But I'm gathering that you feel like whatever happened as a child wasn't really when you came to faith. It was more later on in California as a single adult when the Lord got a hold of you in that church. Is that is that what I'm hearing?

SPEAKER_00 25:40

Yes, yes. I think it was like I um, you know, and I think this is some of the danger of cultural Christianity, right? So there was uh even I knew Jesus was real. It's like, but even the demons know that God is real. So when I say I knew Jesus is real, and I knew the Jesus of the Bible. So even when I talked about being a little apologist, right? But there's a big difference when you willingly give your life over to the Lord, right? And that He is your He is your Lord and Savior. And so I um and that was when I say cultural Christianity is is I knew Jesus is real, but I didn't know him so well that I actually knew he was, that was something that happened later that knew no, he is not the church, right? Like we're still sinners, right? They weren't they're not one in that way, right? Like so there was just a misunderstanding of who God is and who we are, which all comes from a true, you know, knowledge of what you're giving your life over to.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

And so, and just because we're so passionate about clarity, you know, a lot of times, especially in the West, in American West evangelical churches, we we talk about trusting Christ for salvation. We use colloquialisms like give your heart to the Lord, give your life to the Lord. What we mean by that is trusting in Him. Obviously, the Bible never says you you get saved by giving anything to the Lord. God's the giver, we're the receiver. It's it's a unilateral gift. Uh, it's not a bi-directional contract. So we come, nothing in my hands I bring simply to the cross I cling, and we receive the gift, John 1.20. But we know what we mean when we say that. In other words, you're entrusting your life to the Lord Jesus who paid your sin debt and died on the cross for you. Um, a couple of details that just for my own curiosity, what kind of church was it in California when you when you first started attending that large church that where you ended up getting saved?

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Well, that was interesting. And and I would say, yes, I agree with you and about the indwelling, right? It's pistis pistoy, right? We surrender, and then he puts the indwelling faith right in us.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Well, not to quibble, but I don't think faith is a gift. I think faith is a volitional expression. So yeah, you know my views on Calvinism, but yeah, he draws us to him, and and it's whosoever will let him come drink of the water of life freely. Romans 324, we're justified freely. So the it's a universal bona fide offer, but each individual has to personally receive it by faith, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Yes, yes, believe that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

So but you were just gonna say what kind of church was it?

SPEAKER_00 28:08

Well, it was interesting because I would say I would use the language to say that church was in it, an emergent church.

SPEAKER_03 28:15

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

So it was and it was interesting. So God can use use anything. Amen. Because for me, I mean I pulled up to that church with, you know, several very liberal stickers on my car. And so, and like I said, I was waiting for them to say something to upset me, which was interesting. They didn't say anything that upset me. And but I did hear, at least on that whatever that eight month was, the true gospel, right? Of about surrendering your life to Jesus. So, um, which is what I was doing right when I repented and just giving my life over to him. So this, but during that at that time, it was not long after that, that the Lord um brought my husband. My husband and I met, and my husband was at the church, and I still remember the time where he sat in the outside and he said, We were still dating. He was meeting with my pastor all of this, and he said, 'You have you have a very nice church, nice people, but I think we should be in a church that's really studying the Bible. Led us to uh a a very Bible-believing church and Bible-studying church. And so it was actually the leading of my husband that led me away from that church. But I think that church was used by God, so I didn't run out when I heard, you know, something I didn't want to hear.

SPEAKER_01 29:32

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I mean, um, you know, God can hit a home run with a crooked stick, thankfully, right? And so, um, but uh, but certainly now, having grown in the faith and done all the research and been a apologist for truth, you know, we all understand the dangers of the emergent movement and all of that. Um, I've got a couple of other little just tidbits of questions here, but I want to give you the chance to kind of weigh in with some of your brilliant profundities.

SPEAKER_03 29:58

Thank you very much. I'll try to live up to that. Uh oh, but uh yeah, I think it's you have a really, really, you know, relatable story. I feel like I think the part that struck me the most was when you were talking about how sort of early in your walk as you were, I think, truly saved and sort of trying to come to terms with what that means, how you felt like you didn't it wasn't that you didn't really believe in in God's grace, it was that you you didn't really know how to experience it, I guess. You kind of talked about how you didn't really feel his grace, and so you kept feeling like you had to repent and and it was just sort of a never-ending cycle. I just feel like that is such a common type of condition for a lot of Christians who don't understand the importance of grace. That those are the words you used. You said you didn't understand the importance of his grace, I think. Like I think that's why that's one of the reasons that we care about the the clarity of the gospel, because his grace is sufficient for all. It's it's one thing in our head to know that, yeah, Christ died for us and rose again for our sins, but to experience that and truly feel it and not feel the weight of constantly backsliding and having to repent and hoping that you haven't pushed them away, and then you come back and then you're walking with them, and then you're backsliding, and you hope you haven't pushed them away and you got to repent. And just doing that over and over again, I feel like it's completely different. But when you really understand that his grace is sufficient for all, and that even on the cross, he knew our past, our present, and our future faults. He knew the sins that we were gonna commit. He knew the sins we were gonna commit before we were Christians and the sins we were gonna commit after Christian we were Christians, and he still chose to sacrifice himself and become our savior. His grace is sufficient for all. From our perspective, it is so hard to wrestle with, but just like coming to grips with the importance of that and really internalizing it, I think is one of the most difficult things to do for new Christians, but it's also one of the most important. So that that really struck me.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Yeah. Yeah, I thought that was that was uh, you know, when you were describing that moment in that church of repentance, I I sort of pictured it in my mind as like a brokenness. It was like just the weight of sin and the recognition of of sinful ideologies and sinful behaviors, perhaps, and all that was just kept coming back. You know, Morgan makes a good point. Yeah, I think you mentioned at one point, I don't remember where it was in the journey, but you were redeemed from the past. I mean, that that's right. Christ's death pays our sin debt, past, present, and future. And that's why there's nothing we can do as a believer, a child of God, that can undo what he did at that punctilliar moment in time when we pass from death to life. Yeah, repentance is another one of those sort of sticky wickets. Uh, you know, we use it in different ways. Repent biblically just means change your mind to come to a changing of the mind. Metano is the Greek word. And so certainly the moment of salvation is a changing of the mind. You you used to think you could save yourself, or you used to think you didn't need a savior, or whatever, and you've come to realize that only Jesus has the power to save you. So I I want to go back to your characterization as you were traveling with your husband of churches. And I know you're probably going to get into some of this in a moment when you get into the book. So feel free to kind of kick that can down the road a bit if you need to. But I could sort of relate because when I was working on my PhD, I was working for a company called Lagos Bible Software, and I was an academic advisor and national conference speaker, and they would send me to all these big major conferences, most of which were way off the you know, norm for you conservative biblical evangelical Christianity, I mean emergent conferences, places like that. So I got to be sort of in the green room and intermingling with a lot of bad theology, and the Lord used that in my life to open my eyes to a lot of this, and that it ended up becoming interwoven into my first book. But my question for you is do you, in your experience now, having continued to study and teach about it, do you feel like that is a sort of an intentional conspiracy? All these mega churches are somehow being directed by the same dark forces, or is it just, you know, sort of an innocent blindness and churches get caught up in whatever the latest fat is and they don't really recognize just how bad it is, or maybe it's a little bit of both. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 34:00

Yeah, I think it's a it's it's a little bit of both. I mean, I think that it's it's even how I see, you know, and what my book is is that yoga is sorcery and then it's end time sorcery, right? So I think even churches, there's no perfect church. And so, you know, talking about these denominations, groups, all of this, even the churches that are are doing their best, if you if you study the apostasy, you can go in, you're gonna find something false, or at least I can. I can show where it's in the children's ministry or the women's ministry, it's somewhere creeping in. It's always trying to creep in in some form. So I think that there's a little bit of both. I think that the collective whole coming together and in the digital world, there is a driving force for that. There's something about cult mentality that happens when you see larger groups and they think they experience these things, right? And then feelings become the test for truth and all of these things are happening, and it can happen through the worship, the ASC, the altered states of consciousness, because you're putting people under where their their mind is more susceptible to be influenced. So uh especially through like mantra music and things like this. These things are happening sometimes in the larger churches. I think it's harder for larger churches to protect and and guard. But um, but I think that that can be anywhere because we we saw false things in very small, you know, churches that were were supposed to be Bible-believing churches. And I've seen it in mega churches and I've taught at larger churches that are really, you know, that let someone like me teach their teach the women and and and that are really trying to safeguard against some of these things. But but as we know, it is going to come, right? There's gonna be um, I think that we're gonna see it more and more words everywhere. But definitely any large movements are gonna have a bigger impact to manipulate the masses.

SPEAKER_01 36:00

Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah, I mean, obviously we all understand that there's an ultimate enemy that's sort of orchestrating this, the Prince of the Power of the Air and the God of this age and all of that. But I do think sometimes think think there are megachurches and megachurch pastors that I believe are are CA's controlled assets that are that are advancing a Luciferian agenda intentionally and they know it. But most of the time it's just a lack of discernment. And these pastors and churches, you know, especially at larger ones, as you say, that are that it's harder to safeguard doctrine, are just letting this stuff come in. And first thing you know, you're immersed in it, right?

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Right. Well, and the the the the Luciferian elite, the cult, uh, said they were going to do this. They were going to send people in. And and specifically, they got their answers through different practices of yoga. And, you know, again, talk about yoga is not just sham yoga, what people think it is, but they they were also going to infiltrate the church with all these forms of of yoga. And so, and they were going to be an army that they were going to send in. So absolutely, there are wolves among us and uh have been placed. We know this with witchcraft that there are, you know, covens will send people in to slowly bring in false doctrine or to seduce a pastor. These things happen. It's difficult for people to sometimes we want to say puppies and kittens and roses and daffodils and ignore, but that's not what you know scripture says. It's not what Jesus said, right? We're we're supposed to be not deceived. And that's part of it too, you know, since it's Testimony Tuesday, that you know, that I am sometimes careful about my testimony because you know, my testimony included that I I heard God, I heard, I am Yahweh. And there's nothing I can't, that was significant, and I heard it and I knew that was a God of the Bible. All I knew that's the God of the Bible. And and I would have no way to know that, right? I hadn't looked at Hebrew that far in or anything like that. So and then also like how the Lord showed me, right? Like all these seeds that have been happening. Well, then I you go into the church and the experience church, and people are trying to make these things happen. They're trying to practice hearing God. They're trying to, this is how you get dreams and visions. And like that's not what that's not what happened in my testimony. That is not when people are doing that. That's witchcraft. You are trying to conjure God, you're trying to produce something, the supernatural in the in our world, right? That's witchcraft. And so it's a very so I've been careful about sharing my testimony because sometimes people think that, oh, I want to hear this, I want to hear I am Yahweh. And you can't treat God like He is a genie. And and and you don't, we don't do those practices. And if He chooses to give you a vision, if He chooses to give you a dream, He will. But we the way we know the Lord is through the Word. That is the main way that He is speaking to us today. And that is so that we have that ultimate test for truth and is the Word of God, and that's where you go.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

Yeah, I I I totally agree. I differ with some of my old school dispensational, you know, sort of cessationist brand of dispensationalism in the sense that I absolutely believe God can work in miraculous ways in that way, but only to the extent that it's consistent with his revealed written word, right? God's not giving new revelation today. We don't need to open up the Bible and add a 67th book, but absolutely he can do that through dreams. I've preached and taught on dreams, uh, not as something that you you strive for or conjure up, as you say, but yeah, God, God can can speak. And he obviously got a hold of you in that moment. Now, we've only got about eight minutes left, which is obviously hardly even scratch the surface, but I do want to make sure we leave our readers with, you know, what is yoga? You've kind of alluded to it a few times, and I and it's not just an exercise class, right? So what is yoga? And then um, you know, tell us a little bit more maybe about uh the Cliff Snotes version of your expose uh uh about it.

SPEAKER_03 40:05

And then if there's time, I wanted to ask how, in your opinion, do you think we can broach this kind of subject to people who are maybe engrossed in these hobbies or don't really see any of the dangers? How do we broach the subject of of this with grace without downplaying the severity of the issue?

SPEAKER_00 40:21

Okay. So um, so I'll try to do all of that. So the front one, I will say this. So yoga is not a practice. That that's the very first thing that people have to remove from their mind. When you talk about yoga practice, you're actually talking about something called yoga kara. That is the practice or observance of yoga. Yoga is an idea, and it's essentially the idea from the garden. It's the idea that all is God, all God. There's one all God. It's essentially more pan-entheistic than it is pantheism. It is all God. That's the idea of yoga. Yoga, the idea, has a philosophy that has been built up around it in the ancient text. So it is a philosophy, so it's an idea embedded in a philosophy as doctrines, and from those doctrines, it produces practices, and those practices are not always called yoga in our contemporary world, but in the ancient world, it's a rinse and repeat of the same thing. It's in people also tend to think that yoga is just from Hinduism. This is not true. Yoga is what birthed Hinduism, yoga is the foundation of Hinduism. Hinduism helped uh uh one of the major players that packaged and marketed it to America. They are probably who we could say is rightly um was the one responsible for putting yoga into what you understand the entire systematic of yoga about three, four hundred years after Jesus. But before that, yoga is extremely ancient. It's in all cults, it's in all religions, and it's various forms. And all the issues that you see going on in the church, prosperity gospel, the repeating of the I ams, the breath work, the healing touch work, the contemplative prayer, lecto divina, all of those things are various forms of yoga. Anything that when you think of new age, uh yoga, uh astrology, goddess worship, the root of yoga is the goddess, actually. Um, but the yoga philosophy, when you look at the culture, we see there is no absolute truth. There are many truths. You can it's true for you, not not true for me. You see transgender, you see lawlessness, you see cancel culture. All of those things are yoga philosophy. So in fact, when you see all these things in the culture, that means the culture has been imprinted and conformed to yoga philosophy.

SPEAKER_01 42:59

Would it be an overstatement to say that yoga really is sort of the enemy's overarching worldview?

SPEAKER_00 43:06

Yes. And because panentheism is what Satan needs that for to make us beast ready, to make us ready for antichrist. It's better to sell the collective whole is all God. In fact, Namaste means I bow to the God in you as you will bow to the God in me. I believe that's what the antichrist will say. Because he wants everybody to believe they're little gods and now follow me. It's a cult mentality to follow your guru. And then reduced yoga is mind, body, word, magic. In fact, the ancient world yogis were called sorcerers. The root of the word yoga means trick and fraudster. So this is, and people think, oh, well, yoga is a gray area, it's just an exercise. Yoga is a spiritual exercise. We now know the the neuroscience, but what it's doing to your brain, even if you go practice it, but you don't uh You still believe in God. The data shows that you will eventually believe in an Eastern view of God. It's actually changing the brain. It has the same impact on the brain as drugs. And it was old world sorcery. I believe it is the end time sorcery, all of its forms, right? Not just the gym kind of yoga, but all of its forms. It's a spiritual system that gets formed, right? Not just a one religion. And it's going to be all of these practices. The United Nation talks about how it's what's going to unite the world, all of these things. Mind, body, word, magic, it was always sorcery and it still is sorcery today. And people say, well, oh, it's not in the Bible, it's a gray area. That is not true. Cultural anthropology has been illuminated by archaeology and linguistics. We now know what the Hittattites were practicing. We now know what was going on in Ephesus and Galatia when Paul's talking to them. And so to say, people, we think yoga is exercise because we think it's new. We think we can handle it, which means we've been influenced by an evolutionary model of religion. We think we're better than the early church somehow. We can handle it. And so we think it's exercise because you're wearing a name brand clothes for yoga clothes. And it's always been a spiritual exercise. The early church called them the gymnosophist, the exercise philosophers. Um, so and it's and it was before, it's before um Jesus' time, during Jesus' time, and after Jesus' time. And so the reason why it's confusing, it's part of the deception. People think it's one compartmentalized separate thing, but it it's actually not. It's it's that's part of the how the deception works. It's actually its philosophies, it's the and the idea of it is the center of all of it. All of those practices are forms of yoga.

SPEAKER_01 45:51

Yeah, and I want to I want to give you a minute to answer Morgan's question, but I feel like that that goes hand in in puppet with the ultimate end times religion, the the beast religion that the Antichrist and false prophet will perpetrate on the world. I've long said that look, the enemy is not Islam or this or that. Those are part of the problem, and certainly those are not good, but the final religion is not going to be Islamic. It's going to be pluralism. It's going to be this one world, everybody coming together, and that's exactly what you're describing, right?

SPEAKER_00 46:20

And that's what you even see, and people are so surprised. You're exactly uh right, JB, because this is even in Islam, you can look up now, there's yogis in it in the Muslim religion. There's it, this is something, this is again why the United States, excuse me, the United Nations says it's what will unite the world because it's for everyone. And and there's again multiple forms of it that you can there's only so many, and they're just all rents and repeated. And you can pick and choose which yoga practice you want to operate in and which one you want to use. You can be pragmatic about it. And and yes, it is the it is the the pluralism, and it's um and if you look everywhere, look where anywhere you go, you will see yoga and you see these things of um, you see the rise of mother goddess worship and all of that. That is all from yoga, the goddess. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:14

So what you know, as we come across aspects of this in in churches or in with fellow Christians, how can we even begin to broach the subject without um, as Morgan said, balancing grace with truth? I mean, uh any suggestions there?

SPEAKER_00 47:29

Yes, I think that, you know, it is difficult. And and you know, two of the ways that when the enemy is gonna offer yoga to you is when you are increasing in wealth or when you're in tragedy and in loss. And if you know people that are into yoga, think about it. Like, like think about when what happened to them. Did it were they getting promotions or their ministry was growing, or did they go through a horrible divorce or lose a child? And there's always that route that we know that anthropologically, that's when this yoga witchcraft has entered in as an offering that hey, do you want to participate in this that Satan offers people? And so I think that being aware um of in your church, like when there's a loss or someone's hurting and praying for them and warning them Satan's gonna come in, like they're gonna give you a new way to hear God, or you know, somehow is gonna come in when you're hurting or when you're doing well. So I think being paying attention to that, I think that the church also we could do better at uh teaching the right view of God to actually teaching the nature of God, how he's biblically described himself, so that we can know the difference with a a pan-entheistic worldview of God so that people can discern a little bit better. But um, I think you know, truth and love are supposed to go together. You're never supposed to give truth without love or love without truth. So for um to do it rightly, we have to, but I think you should do it prayerfully because again, like exactly what you said, that people were that you believe their son that were actually put into the church to deceive the church. This is the same thing, right? They they go hand in hand. In fact, I I believe, you know, some of what you're talking about with technology, that's the mechanism for these things. It's the vessel that's carrying things. That's why you see it in the apps. You see different forms of contemplative Raja yoga on the apps. It's what in that the occult said they were going to do this without knowing that technology was coming, that was gonna come in these, um, you know, uh through the worship too, and all of these different things that they plan to do this. So being aware, you know, Ephesians 6 of what we're that this is this there is warfare when you go into this. So do everything prayerfully um and timing-wise of how you do things, but you have to. We we can't have the blood on our hands if you know that it is false and you know that it is they should not be in it. You are supposed to warn. You know, Paul's quoting Ezekiel. You're supposed to warn the lost and the ones that are inside the church that are set to the left or to the right. We are called to warn them. And so you have to.

SPEAKER_01 50:12

Amen. Well, we've been talking with Dr. Alana Arguello and uh her book is Unearthing Yoga's Ancient Roots. And we're definitely gonna have to get you back on soon because I want to dive more into this spiritual warfare and sort of you know how this is all related to what's coming, the end times uh prophecy, uh, and and just more nuts and bolts of it. But uh thank you so much for for sharing your time with us today. Folks can find the book Unearthing Yoga's Ancient Roots at uh Amazon and tell us again about your YouTube channel.

SPEAKER_00 50:43

It's at the Returning Raven. So the website's thereturningraven.com and the YouTube channel is uh the returning raven.

SPEAKER_01 50:50

Perfect. Perfect. Well, uh, yeah, thanks. Go ahead, Martin.

SPEAKER_03 50:53

I was just saying that the link for that should be below where we're speaking, regardless of the platform. So awesome, awesome.

SPEAKER_01 50:59

Well, we'll definitely do it again. I I mean this is too important of an issue, and it it as you've so well described, its tentacles are really everywhere. It's not it's not just about, oh, should my church have a yoga club? It's way bigger than all of that, right? So uh we'll get you back on. I'll have Lacey reach out to you and we'll do do some more uh deep dive into this. But in the meantime, thanks everybody for for watching. Enjoy the rest of your day, and we will do it again soon. God bless.

SPEAKER_02 51:23

This has been the NBW Ministries Podcast with Dr. J.B. Hickson. You can learn more about NBW by visiting notbyworks.org or through the free NBW Ministries app, available in the App Store or Google Play Store. Thanks again for listening. And remember, it's not by works of righteousness we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us. Titus 3, verse 5.