Frank Peretti warns that messages promising enlightenment through extraterrestrial encounters carry a familiar temptation: Humanity can become its own god.
The author of “This Present Darkness” says the spiritual deception behind that promise reaches back to the Garden of Eden.
“These extraterrestrials entice you and lead you toward godhood,” Peretti said during a recent interview with Charisma Media’s John Matarazzo. “Well, nothing’s changed. It wears different disguises, but the lies are the same.”
Peretti connected modern UFO spirituality with the New Age beliefs, occult practices and channeling that helped shape the spiritual conflict in his novels four decades ago.
Beneath the promises of supernatural knowledge, he identified three recurring lies: Everything is one. There is no death or final accountability before God. Human beings can become gods.
“We don’t die, we get recycled,” Peretti said, describing the deception surrounding reincarnation.
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The promise of godhood, he explained, appeals to the desire to become “your own deity, your own determiner of right and wrong, your own lord over the universe.”
In his account, the temptation that drew humanity into rebellion is still finding willing ears.
Discussing UFO encounters, Peretti described gatherings where participants use meditation and altered states of consciousness to seek contact with extraterrestrials. He said messages attributed to those beings echo the teachings promoted through earlier forms of channeling.
The encounters may appear extraordinary. Peretti’s warning centers on the familiar spiritual message beneath them.
That concern helped drive “This Present Darkness,” now marking its 40th anniversary. As New Age spirituality gained attention, Peretti used fiction to portray deception, intercessory prayer and the unseen struggle surrounding everyday lives.
Yet the author also challenged expectations about his own experiences with spiritual warfare.
“I never really had any exciting spooky powerful attacks,” he said. “Demons never appeared to me in my room.”
His battles involved anger, resentment, temptation, bitterness and shame. Discouragement could turn past mistakes into accusations that he was a failure and beyond God’s forgiveness.
Peretti recalled feeling washed up while working in a ski factory after disappointments in college and pastoral ministry. He said God met him in that discouragement and affirmed his calling to write.
Later, cancer brought months of searing pain. Through that ordeal, he chose to surrender to the Lord and ask what God wanted him to learn.
“Lord, help me to get it,” he recalled praying.
Those experiences sharpened his emphasis on trust, prayer and Christ’s victory. God hears quiet prayers and tearful cries, he said. Following Jesus continues even when the path ahead remains hidden.
After decades of hearing disturbing accounts of supernatural experiences, Peretti urged Christians to resist becoming consumed with darkness.
“Don’t wallow in this stuff. Walk in victory,” he said. “This present darkness has good guys in it, too. And they win.”
James Lasher, a seasoned writer and editor at Charisma Media, combines faith and storytelling with a journalism background from Otterbein University and ministry experience in Guatemala and at the LA Dream Center. A Marine Corps and Air Force veteran, he is the author of The Revelation of Jesus: A Common Man’s Commentary and a contributor to Charisma magazine. For interviews and media inquiries, please contact [email protected].
