Several years ago I visited the White Temple in Thailand. It’s pretty impressive (all photos from https://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/02/wat-rong-khun-buddhist-temple-inspired.html).

I decided (probably not recommended) to let myself feel the effects of the evil spirits there. I asked God to protect me and then just let it happen.

I walked underneath some structure and I felt raw power, like being in an electric field or something. I could feel it all the way through my body. Strange, a little scary, but not because it was creepy, just unnatural.

Then past the skulls, serpents and all the hands reaching up from I guess hell. That felt really evil. Like intimidatingly evil. I felt powerless. I knew God was with me, but I sure couldn’t feel Him.

Then I approached the bridge into the actual temple. It was like a tractor beam from Star Wars. I was drawn to the power within the temple. It’s almost as if I was physically pulled toward it. That was the strangest part of the experience. Such a powerful force. I was afraid. Like in a Lord of the Rings way.

When I got inside the “inner sanctum” or whatever they call it, there was nothing there. An empty room with some cartoon-like paintings. An exit sign and a broom someone had left there. It reminded me of Disneyland – fake and plastic. And all the power was instantly gone. Vanished. I was back in my right mind.

I told the missionary I was with what I had experienced. He explained Buddhism is like that: all about desire. We prayed that the people lost in Buddhism would be able to see past all the teaching into where it leads: nowhere. (A year later I a different missionary who wasn’t in our story told me that many Buddhist monks in Thailand were being exposed on TV for embezzlement and adultery – a partial answer to prayer.)

This whole experience seems like real life to me:

1. Some temptation seems really impressive. Not just your normal temptation. A really compelling one.
2. We begin to give in to it and we feel something powerful happening in our bodies.
3. At that point we can tell something about this is evil, but we feel powerless. God doesn’t seem near.
4. Then we get pulled in and seem unable to resist. Like our decision making capabilities have left us and it’s just inevitable.
5. Then we receive whatever it is that the devil promised to us and it’s a big nothing. No reward for our misbehaviour. No power there. No life. No anything.

Probably better not to visit those “temples” in the first place.

So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it. Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. – 1 Co 10:12-14