When I was around nine years old, there used to be a cartoon segment that appeared along with the Scooby Doo cartoon entitled The Laff-A-Lympics that was a cartton spoof combination of the Olympics and the ABC television series Battle of the Network Stars.

In the Laff-A-Lympics, there were three ‘teams’ of cartoon characters that ‘competed’ for points in Olympic style games. Two of the teams (the “Scooby Doobies” and the “Yogi Yahooeys”) were considered to be ‘good guys’ consisted of various good characters from old Hanna-Barbera cartoons while the third team, the “Really Rottens” consisted of various villians on old Hanna-Barbera cartoons and some that were specifically made up for the show. One in particular (besides the obnoxious grinning Mumbly) was a magician by the name of “The Great Fondoo” and his sidekick magic rabbit whose magic tricks would usually do his team more harm than good.

The typical Great Fondoo magic act involved cheating and trickery in an attempt to win the event. However on most episodes, the Really Rottens would be on the verge of winning, before making a fatal error at the very end that allowed one of the other two teams to end up at the top. Sometimes, their cheating and trickery would be exposed and the Really Rottens would be disqualified from that particular event and have points taken away from them.

In many ways, the words ‘charismatic” and “magician” put side-by-side does come across as an oxymoron because each word represents two diametrically opposite viewpoints. However, the concept of ‘charismatic magician’ does exist in the church today. The Great Fondoo is a perfect example of the charismatic magician in action.

Magic, in the realm of illusion, is defined as:

The art of entertaining an audience by performing illusions that baffle and amaze, often by giving the impression that something impossible has been achieved, almost as if the performer had magic or supernatural powers. Yet, this illusion of magic is created entirely by natural means.

How does the charismatic magician work? He or she works in many ways ranging from:

Collusion with a person in the congregation: Here, the charismatic magician has a ‘story’ already prearranged with a person in the audience where he comes across and ‘prophecies’ to this person some made up future event. If the charismatic magician is into faith healing, have the person in the congregation to show up in a wheelchair and perform a fake miracle.

The Chinese Interlocking Rings Have Holes.: Here, the charismatic magician has a ‘testimony’ about some grand thing that God has done. However, he fails to tell the part that will expose the tricky flaw that makes the story not a miracle.

The divided body still remains halved. : Here, the charismatic magician says something that cuts like a knife and splits the body of Christ in two. Instead of edifying the body, the body is split and damaged.

This is similar to the “Sawing Through A Woman” trick mastered by Horace Goldin where an assistant would get inside a long chest and appears to lay flat down. The audience will see the front of the box and assume assume that the assistant is laying down with head and feet exposed while the torso is crossing the path of the saw. In reality, the box may be internally divided in half (which the audience cannot see from their perspective), and the assistant curled up in the top half thereby clearing the cutting blade and the prefabricated box ends would be hidden by the inserts inserted. The box halves would then be spun and then refastened and re-opened to show a complete body.

However, the charismatic magician performs the split but the split is so divisive that the body never reappears back together healthy and in one piece. Two halves are now two seperate entities going onward with life trying to function and be complete but realizing deep inside that they need the other half of the body to feel complete and functional.

The pushdown: Here, the charismatic magician is holding a prayer service and wants to show the effect of being ‘slain in the Spirit’. Where the person does not appear to ‘go down’, the charismatic magician will push harder on the forehead in an order to attempt to push them down. When the person refuses to ‘go down’, the charismatic magician goes on and makes it appear that the one who did not go down has ‘missed God’ or ‘God is angry at them’.

However, there is one difference between the charismatic magician and the Great Fondoo. The Great Fondoo could be easily identified because he wore a white “R” on the front vest of his black magician’s suit. The charismatic magician has no distinguishable marks to identify who he really is or who he associates himself with. Therefore, discernment must be used to distinguish the charismatic magician from the anointed man of God.

True Christians who truly flow with Spiritual Gifts are out there. However, one must learn to distinguish the real from the fake. One must distinguish the truly supernatural from the fake supernatural done by natural trickery. It may appear that the charismatic magicians are winning the battle over truth in the church but like the Really Rottens in the Laff-A-Lympics, they will be exposed in the end one glorious day via the discernement of the fatal deception and God’s true believers will march away victorious as conquerors.

And good will win over evil.

Related Posts

1. The Pathetic Realm – Charismatic Witchcraft
2. The Pathetic Realm – Charismatic Fortune-telling
3. The Prophetic Versus The Pathetic
4. The ‘Charismatic ‘ Creed
5. Charismatic Comparisons