Recovered In Christ

There is some evidence that the founders of AA did have opportunity to hear the Gospel, but instead of receiving Christ as Lord and Savior and experiencing freedom in Christ and victory over sin through faith in Christ alone, Wilson and Smith took only what they wanted from the Oxford Group.

Occult Guidance

Members of the Oxford Group practiced what they called guidance by praying and then quieting their minds in order to hear from God. Then they would write down whatever came to them. Examples of such “guidance” are in the book God Calling, edited by A. J. Russell of the Oxford Group. The book was written anonymously by two women who thought they were hearing from God, but who passively received messages in the same way spiritists obtain guidance from demons. This book is credited for inspiring many “channeling Jesus” type books such as ‘Jesus Calling’ by Sarah Young.

Members of the Oxford Group primarily found their guidance from within rather than from a creed or the Bible. Buchman, for instance, was known to spend “an hour or more in complete silence of soul and body while he gets guidance for that day.”

J. C. Brown in his book The Oxford Group Movement says of Buchman:

He teaches his votaries to wait upon God with paper and pencil in hand each morning in this relaxed and inert condition, and to write down whatever guidance they get. This, however, is just the very condition required by Spiritist mediums to enable them to receive impressions from evil spirits. . . and it is a path which, by abandoning the Scripture-instructed judgment (which God always demands) for the purely occult and the psychic, has again and again led over the precipice. The soul that reduces itself to an automaton may at any moment be set spinning by a Demon. (Emphasis his.)

Dr. Rowland V. Bingham, Editor of The Evangelical Christian says:

We do not object to their taking a pad and pencil to write down any thoughts of guidance which come to them. But to take the thoughts especially generated in a mental vacuum as Divine guidance would throw open to all the suggestions of another who knows how to come as an angel of light and whose illumination would lead to disaster. (Emphasis his.)

In a very real sense their personal journals became their personal scriptures. Wilson practiced this passive form of guidance, which he originally learned through the Oxford Group. He and Smith were also heavily involved in contacting and conversing with so-called departed spirits from 1935 on. This is necromancy, which the Bible forbids. During the same period of time, Wilson was practicing spiritism in a manner similar to channeling. Thus, Wilson combined the Oxford Group practice of guidance with spiritism or channeling, and this appears to be the process he used when writing the Twelve Steps:

“As he started to write, he asked for guidance. And he relaxed. The words began tumbling out with astonishing speed.”

Wilson was accustomed to asking for guidance and then stilling his mind to be open to the spiritual world, which for him involved various so-called departed spirits. Wilson does not identify any specific entity related to the original writing of the Twelve Steps, but he does give credit to the spirit of a departed bishop when he was writing the manuscript for Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, which constitutes Wilson’s commentary on how all of the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions are to be understood, interpreted, and practiced.

When he wrote the essays on each of the twelve steps, he sent some to Ed Dowling, a Roman Catholic priest, to evaluate. In his accompanying letter of July 17, 1952, Wilson says, “But I have good help — of that I am certain. Both over here and over there.” Then he explains that one spirit from “over there” that helped him called himself Boniface. Wilson says:

One turned up the other day calling himself Boniface. Said he was a Benedictine missionary and English. Had been a man of learning, knew missionary work and a lot about structures. I think he said this all the more modestly but that was the gist of it. I’d never heard of this gentleman but he checked out pretty well in the Encyclopedia. If this one is who he says he is—and of course there is no certain way of knowing—would this be licit contact in your book?

Dowling responds in his letter of July 24, 1952:

Boniface sounds like the Apostle of Germany. I still feel, like Macbeth, that these folks tell us truth in small matters in order to fool us in larger. I suppose that is my lazy orthodoxy.

One can see the stretch of years during which Wilson received messages from disembodied spirits. The official biography of Bill Wilson says, “One of Bill’s persistent fascinations and involvements was with psychic phenomena.” It speaks of his “belief in clairvoyance and other extrasensory manifestations” and in his own psychic ability. This was not a mere past-time. It was a passion directly related to AA. The manner in which Wilson would receive messages not of his own making was definitely channeling. The records of these sessions, referred to as “Spook Files,” have been closed to public inspection.

Satan can appear as an angel of light and give guidance that may sound right because it may be close to the truth or contain elements of truth. A discerning Christian would avoid any guidance that comes through occult methods. AA, as the Oxford Group’s revival quickly became contaminated by spiritism, It did not become religiously neutral and did not remain “Christian based”, losing its way and only hope for true revival when it let go of the cross and the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). Rather than faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified, it is a religion of self-improvement and subjective mysticism, working as a cover for demonic oppression and possession, these demons masquerading as “spirit guides” live only for the intent to deceive, mislead and keep men and women from the only gospel that would save their souls.

Edited and Sourced from: Martin and Deidre Bobgan. Psychoheresy Awareness Ministries.