The NEW AGE Movement

Founder: Being an eclectic blend of many ancient and modern religions and philosophies, there is no single human founder.

Founding Date: Many attribute the rise of the current New Age Movement (NAM) to evolving occult movements, such as New Thought and Theosophy in the late 1800's, and the counter-culture movement of the 1960's. Its root forms, however, actually are expressed in Satan's temptation of man in Genesis 3, and in the beliefs of many pagan and eastern religions, thousands of years old.

Other Names: Higher Consciousness Movement, Occultism, Eastern Mysticism, Eastern Spirituality, Ancient or Perennial Wisdom, Age of Aquarius, Holistic Health Movement.

DEFINITION
New Age is a developing belief system encompassing thousands of autonomous (and sometime contradictory) beliefs, organizations, and events. Generally the New Age borrows its theology from pantheistic Eastern religions and its practices from 19th century Western occultism. The term “New Age” is used herein as an umbrella term to describe organizations, which seem to exhibit one or more of the following beliefs:

(1)     All is one, all reality is part of the whole;

(2)     Everything is God and God is everything;

(3)     Man is God or a part of God;

(4)     Man never dies, but continues to live through reincarnation;

(5)     Man can create his own reality and/or values through transformed consciousness or altered states of consciousness.

INTRODUCTION

The New Age Movement is both a religious and a social movement. It's a multi-focused, multi-faceted synthesis, in varying degrees, of the Far Eastern, mystical religions, mainly Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Western Occultism, adapted to and influenced by Western, materialistic culture. It sometimes appears in secularized forms.

It is comprised of hundreds of groups and individuals who have gained significant influence, affecting almost every area of the culture - sociology, psychology, medicine, the government, ecology, science, arts, education, the business community, the media, entertainment, sports, and even the church. The movement expresses itself in widely divergent and various mutated forms, from the blatantly obvious to the subtle. It is expressed in organized religious forms such as Christian Science, Unity, and even forms of Witchcraft. Yet, it shows up in secular forms as well, in various human potential seminars, and much in between, i.e., transcendental meditation, some alternative holistic health practices, and certain curriculum in public (and private) schools.

The most central and commonly shared beliefs among New Agers are various combinations of Pantheism, gnosticism and occultism.

·         Pantheism means that everything that exists is GOD, Man is God, a grain of sand is God.

·         Gnosticism is an ancient world-view stating that Divine essence is the only true or highest reality, and that the unconscious Self of man is actually this essence. It is through intuitional experience, "visionary experience or initiation into secret doctrine", that man becomes conscious of this true Self (Encyclopedia Brittanica, Vol. 10, 1968, p. 506; J.D. Douglas, ed., New Bible Dictionary, pp. 473-4).

·         Occultism is a "general designation for various theories, practices, and rituals based on esoteric knowledge, especially alleged knowledge about the world of spirits and unknown forces of the universe" (Encyclopedia Brittanica, Vol. 7, p. 469).

The term "New Age" is an informal term derived from astrology, which indicates that this earth, if not the cosmos, is on the verge of an evolutionary transition from the Picean Age (rationality) to the Aquarian Age of spirituality, bliss, and harmony of all things. Even though it is undergoing a significant revival, the "New Age" is hardly new. In fact, it is very old.

HISTORY

The New Age Movement is a modern revival of very ancient, divergent, religious traditions and practices. The actual original root is squarely centered in Genesis 3:1-5, and reverberates throughout the movement's continued historical expressions.

In the original lie, Satan questions God's word, His authority and benevolent rule (v. 1), disputes that death results from disobedience (v. 4), and claims that through the acquisition of secret or Gnostic wisdom, man can be “enlightened” and can be "like God" (v. 5). Anyone with some form of Spiritual discernment can easily see that the very essence of New Age belief is grounded firmly in the foundation of Satan’s original desire to become “God”.

Many of the occult practices and beliefs revived by the modern NAM were a part of very early pagan cultures. Many practices common to the NAM such as witchcraft/sorcery, spiritism, divination, (clairvoyance; seeing the future), necromancy (consulting the dead), and astrology are clearly and strongly condemned in Scripture (Deuteronomy 18: 9-17; Isaiah 47: 9-15). These and other occultic practices were spread through the ancient magic and mystery religions of the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and most notably the Assyrian-Babylonian culture (Ancient Empires of the New Age, pp. 15-62). Noting the scope of its continuing presence, the Bible informs Christians of Babylon's eschatological implications. The lie of Genesis 3 is significantly developed in Babylon (Isaiah 47) and continues to its ultimate state of development, revealed as Satan's one-world system at the end of the age (Revelation 17-18).

Three major world religions whose beliefs and practices are entwined with the NAM are Hinduism, a product of 5,000 years of development, Buddhism, circa 560 B.C., and Taoism, circa 500 B.C. (Eerdman's Handbook to the World's Religions, pp. 170, 221, 252). Another prominent occultic influence in Europe was Druidism, the religion of the Celts, which extended from 300 B.C. into the middle ages (Ibid., pp. 114-19).

Prominent expressions of the NAM were carried on into more modern times in Europe and America by Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), transcendentalists like Thoreau, Emerson, and Wordsworth (early 1800's), and Theosophy introduced by Madame Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891) (The New Age Rage, pp. 22-4). The decade of the sixties witnessed a revival of Eastern mysticism as traditional values were being challenged. Zen, Carlos Castañada, the Beatles, Transcendental Meditation, and yoga all became popular.

In the eighties, Shirley MacLaine's autobiographical books and television mini-series gave the NAM more popular exposure and momentum. Today, various research polls are consistently demonstrating that a significant shift has been occurring in the West, both in the beliefs and practices of the New Age world-view. For example, 36% of Americans believe that astrology is scientific, and 25% now believe in reincarnation (Russell Chandler, Understanding the New Age, pp. 20, 130-133).

It is important to recognize even the most disguised forms of the New Age Movement. The following is a list of some of the organizations, beliefs and practices associated with the NAM: astrology, aura, black and white magic, bioenergy, Brahman, Buddhism, chakras, chi energy, Christ-consciousness, Christian Science, Church Universal & Triumphant, crystals, Druidism, Eastern mysticism, ESP, est, extraterrestrials, the Forum, firewalking, Gaia, gnosticism, Hare Krishna, higher consciousness, Hinduism, human potential movement, Kaballah, karma, Magick, Mind Science, Native American spirituality, near-death experiences, neo-paganism, nirvana, parapsychology, prana, psi, psychic, reflexology, reiki, reincarnation, Religious Science, shamanism, Silva Mind Control, spiritism, Tai Chi, Taoism, tarot cards, Theosophy, therapeutic touch, trance-channeling, Transcendental Meditation, transpersonal psychology, UFOs, Unity School of Christianity, Witchcraft, yin-yang, Yoga, and Zen.

DOCTRINE

Keeping in mind that the myriads of New Age groups are quite eclectic, drawing from several religious traditions mentioned earlier, the following is a general description of the more prominent unifying themes of the NAM.

God

Even though many New Age adherents describe "God" in personal terms, ultimately, "God" is an impersonal life force, consciousness or energy (M. Ferguson, Aquarian Conspiracy, p. 382; S. Gawain, Living In the Light, pp. 7-8). The cosmology (nature of the world and universe) of the NAM is monistic and pantheistic, which means that everything that exists is of “One essence”, and that “One essence” is God. Everything is a different form of that essence (energy, consciousness, power, love, force). The state of God is called by various terms among different New Age groups, i.e., God-consciousness, Universal Love, Self-Realization, the “I AM”, Higher Self, Brahman, Nirvana, etc.

Jesus Christ

Jesus was a man who evolved spiritually to the state of "the Christ being”. "The Christ" is an actual state of “ultimate essence”. Everyone's true being is "the Christ:" and each person's goal is to come to that self-realization (A Course in Miracles, Vol. 3, pp. 83-4). So to the New Ager, Jesus, the Christ, is one of many ascended masters - a way-shower, whose function is to awaken humanity and illumine the path. Many even reinvent the historical Jesus by claiming that He traveled to India and learned the New Age doctrines there during His "silent years" (Shirley MacLaine, Out on a Limb, pp. 233-34).

Man

Man is not sinful since his true essence is divine and perfect. The only discontinuity between man and "God" is man's ignorance of his unlimited potential. Man is divine. He creates his own reality. Absolute truth is replaced by relativistic, subjective experience.

Man's Destiny

Since man is intrinsically divine and perfect, his only real problem is ignorance of that fact. Man has a perception of finiteness, which is in reality an illusion (Ken Keyes, Jr., Handbook to Higher Consciousness, pp. 125-29). Salvation in the New Age is for man to become enlightened through experiential knowledge (gnosis). New Age groups offer various occultic techniques to enable individuals, and ultimately the world, to evolve into this oneness (unitive) consciousness (James Redfield, The Celestine Prophecy: An Experimental Guide, pp. 243-60). These techniques may include altered states of consciousness (often transcendental meditation), yoga, crystals, channeling (spirit guides), psychics, past life therapy, acupuncture, etc.

An almost universal belief among New Agers is an adaptation of the Hindu concept of reincarnation, which teaches that after death, the soul, or essence comes back in another form to continue spiritual evolvement.

DISCUSSION

New Age terms and dogma are mere fantasy, devoid of any logic and based on the vain imagination of deluded occultists. The theory that man is divine and perfect, is such a bizarre stretch of the imagination (look at the world around us!), that it boggles the brain how so many people could actually believe such fabricated nonsense. This is the most disturbing aspect of New Age thinking - they view themselves as God, possibly committing the ultimate blasphemy.

“As long as you live a ‘good’ life, the Universal Consciousness will bless you” - rather than have such a depraved outlook that goes beyond mere arrogance – that man is certainly not divine and is far, far from perfect; humility needs to be attained in submission to the One Almighty God who created us. 

New Age thinking offers “Nirvana, The Void” as it’s ultimate state – where there is an impersonal vacuum, a nothing, just “oneness with the Universe”. What kind of “hope” is this? There is NO clear way to get there, no clear description of Nirvana, no means of salvation, no love, no forgiveness, no justice, no GOD - just an impersonal “force”. This is NOT HOPE! 

Hope IS….  a personal relationship and communication with the God of all mankind – YAHWEH - the God of Israel, who created us and provided us with His Inspired Word – a perfect book that has the answers to every important question man has EVER asked. Because man has such an innate tendency to try control his destiny, to fail and to sin, God offered a means for forgiveness, for justification, for sanctification, for redemption and salvation UNTO HIMSELF, PERSONALLY – clearly outlined in His Word. He did this by becoming man in the person of Jesus Christ, who symbolically, physically and spiritually set us free by sacrificially dieing for all mankind’s sins; thus opening the way for us to have eternal life with God, our Father in Heaven. To be able to fellowship with GOD for all eternity! This is LOVE, this is HOPE, this is FULFILMENT! 

Man’s main problem is that he will always seek the comfortable, easy way out of any situation. In order to avoid the commitment and dedication of serving God, humans will fabricate myths, fantasies and delusions about “spiritual matters”; comfortable doctrines that deny all truth. The Truth is that submission to the Word of God demands a major commitment for anyone who chooses that narrow, rocky road - a NEW life that is very rarely easy, but is joyful because of the presence of the Holy Spirit of Christ within us. Through love for His creation, he desires all mankind to come to knowledge of Him. He has stated categorically that His love knows no boundaries and that by His Grace, the only way to that love and knowledge of Him, is through His Son Jesus Christ.

 God IS the same yesterday, today and tomorrow; He IS full of grace, patience, mercy and love; but, He is also a jealous God, who promises His fearful wrath, judgement and destruction on all those who reject Him… a Hell with eternal suffering and torment … perhaps sometime sooner than we think!

 So what have you chosen?

·         A pointless cycle of life with a vacuum as a reward, or

·        a life dedicated to Christ, with the reward being the REAL Glory of God in Heaven for all eternity?

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