SPECIAL NOTE: This list is just now being compiled which is the reason not many books are listed. Please be patient as we review and add, from time to time, more books to not recommend.

Catholic Books Not Recommended

All books by Francis MacNutt

Deliverance from Evil Spirits: A Practical Manual

Healing

Prayer that Heals

The Power to Heal

Praying for Your Unborn Child

Overcome by the Spirit: The Extraordinary Phenomenon that is
    Happening to Ordinary People

The Nearly Perfect Crime: How the Church Almost Killed the Ministry of Healing

...and others

Although there is a lot of good material in Mr. MacNutt's books, we cannot offer a overall positive recommendation. Mr. MacNutt is a laicized priest who is so concerned about ecumenism that the Catholic distinctives has faded away in favor not offending non-Catholics. He is more a Pentecostal charismatic with all the erroneous praxiology about healing, spiritual warfare, the gifts of the Spirit, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit that comes with Pentecostalism.

While it is true that one could, if they know what to look for, sift through and filter out the non-Catholic or pseudo-Catholic notions and worldview and thereby find some good material, we would ask why risk it when there is no legitimate information in his books that cannot be found in the books of solidly orthodox Catholics who are Catholic and can be trusted to present a thoroughly Catholic teaching and worldview instead of some combination of Protestant Pentecostal/Catholicism.

Protestant Books Not Recommended

Pigs in the Parlor: A Practical Guide to Deliverance by Frank Hammond and Ida Mae Hammond

 

One of the hallmarks of testing private revelations is whether or not such private revelations contradict the teachings of the Christian faith or contradict known truths of other types.

In Chapter 21 entitled “Schizophrenia” there is a section called, the Schizophrenic Revelation Mr. Hammond introduces this section by sounding knowledgable: “The disturbance and disintegration of personality known as schizophrenia or dementia praecox is frequently encountered by the deliverance minister.”

He continues: “The Lord has graciously given us a special revelation on the problrm which enables us to deal with such cases more effectively. Since this revelation came to my wife, Ida Mae, I have asked her to to write the remainder of this chapter.”

So far so good — until we read the details of Ida Mae's “revelation”.

In working with a client named Sarah, Ida Mae alledgedly received a revelation that Sarah's problem was schizophrenia. There is no way to know what Sarah's problem may have been since there is no reference to a psychiatric examination or any information that may help us to speculate on her problem.

The true “revelation,” however, comes in the definition of schizophrenia that God gives to Ida Mae. She first tells us that she studied psychology a little bit in college and had a passing familiarity with some psychological terminology. She states further, “I reached back in my memory to recall that schizophrenia is sometimes referred to as ‘split personality.’”

Here we begin to see a problem. There is no such psychiatric term of “split personality.” This term is an inaccuate and misleading slang often used by non-professionals to refer to schizophrenia.

The Ida Maa quotes from God Himself the definition of Schizophrena (she puts quotation marks around the following):

“Schizophrenia is a disturbance, distortion or disintegration of the development of the personality. You will no longer call her Sarah but ‘Sarah One’ and ‘Sarah Two’, for she has more than one personality in her.”

This is NOT the definition of schizophrenia. Multiple personality disorder and schizophrenia are two different conditions with two separate definitions.

1. Schizophrenia: A psychotic disorder characteristically marked by a retreat from reality with delusion formation, hallucinations, emotional disharmony, and regressive behavior. (source: Brain Institute of the University of Florida Online Dictionary of Neuroscience)

2. Multiple Personality Disorder: is called Dissociative Identity Disorder in the DSM IV. This condition is a dissociative disorder, which is a different class of disorder than Schizophrenic disorders, where “one person who appears to be two or more entirely different personalties and characters.” (source: Concise Textbook of Clinical Psychiatry)

The question is now begged: How could God give this woman a revelation revealing the true nature of schizophrenia that includes a definition of multiple personality when schizophrenia and multiple personality are two separate classes of psychiatric disorders with two completely different definitions?

It is also interesting that the alleged definition from God parallels the common misunderstanding of these disorders that is typical among laymen — the same false definition Ida Mae gives in her false revelation.

This illustrates just another problem of the Charismatic tendency to rely upon subjective and mediumistic “revelations” that are mostly derive at best from their subconscious and not from God. In any event, God would not confuse schizophrenia and a dissociative disorder. Ida Mae's revelation is false and derives either from Satan, the father of lies, or from her own mind — either way it is false.

Given that the Hammonds are of the type of Charismatics who rarely think with reason, but rather with subjective and even mediumistic approaches, and given that we have proof-positive that Ida Mae's “revelation” is false, we cannot possibly recommend this book.

The only portion of this books that has some limited value is a chart of demonic groupings and attributes. Especially in Deliverance Counseling in which we are not allowed to ask demons for their names, we must refer to them by attribute. The Hammond's have a chart in their book as an example of the various attributes demons may take on. Other than that, there is no value in this book.

Secular Books Not Recommended

Not listed at this time.