What goes around... comes around

The New Age movement is not a monolithic or homogeneous entity, but rather something like a swarm-like reality of many seemingly unrelated elements, which still display important common characteristics.  We cannot restrict the New Age to a certain group of people or a particular organization; nevertheless there still seems to be a common force with a distinct purpose.  Although there is no human conspiracy or human mastermind, yet there seems to be a spiritual reality which drives it and steers it.

In two posts I seek to expose some of the themes which seem to dominate the movement so that we may recognize it whenever and wherever we encounter its existence.

1)       the relationship between humans and nature

2)       the relationship between humans, nature, and the spirit world

3)       the relationship between humans in the natural world and in the spirit world

4)       the relationship between human individuals and the greater web of life

1              the relationship between humans and nature

(Voice of the New Age) In the past we have always emphasized that humans were at odds with their natural environment. We saw nature as a wild force to be mastered and tamed into submission.  It was the human mandate to conquer the wilderness so that it would yield its power and resources in the service of us, humankind.  This colonial attitude has resulted in the destruction of natural beauty and the wellbeing of all global citizens.

We now see humankind first of all as just one small, yet domineering part of a complex network of life, where each element has its own place and function, so that all can harmoniously co-habit the planet for its ongoing welfare.  We now look at ecological relationships as examples of harmonious and peaceful habitation of our shared habitat.  Therefore, we must stop seeing ourselves as superior to other animals, and we must learn to place the long-term wellbeing of Mother Earth above our private, cultural, or national interests.

The Gaya hypothesis: Named after the ancient goddess Gaya, our planet is now viewed by many as a large-scale organism which seeks to maintain its own wellbeing and preservation. Where human impact becomes destructive, Gaya may have to fight back in order to protect herself as well as all the organisms that depend on her wellbeing. 

This worldview is fundamentally incompatible with the biblical view! Although we are creatures and part of creation, we are also its students and its stewards.  We are God’s special creation, as we have been created in His image.  Although God did not create the world and everything in it for our benefit but for His glory, yet He told us to care for it, and He encouraged us to use it- to His glory.  Although creation originally was good, in many ways it has been corrupted by the fall, and consequently it is now groaning for the glorious return of its Good Creator and Provider.  Only through God’s intervention can there be restoration of the Rule of God, and only when God’s Kingdom has been fully restored can creation regain all its beauty and harmony.  We don’t live in a godless universe on a spaceship adrift, for the One who created everything beautifully holds it all together in his providential care, and He is working to restore it to His Glory!

2              the relationship between humans, nature, and the spirit world

Science had taken on the role to demythologize the world.  Wherever people noticed anything mysterious or miraculous, scientists would step in to expose yet another fantasy or fraud.  And so, we have been made to believe that there are no spiritual beings (gods or spirits) which control the world and its events.  In the western cities and academic institutions this view seemed reasonable, but in many other areas and cultures western science could not satisfy the full reality of life.   Although science proudly boasted in its superior knowledge, it was in effect terribly naïve when it came to the spiritual reality.  Its methods and its instruments were not designed to see anything beyond the material reality, and the western mind was closed to the possibility of a supernatural dimension.

When I was teaching science in a school with a significant population of “Native Americans”, I would always bring this up as introduction to the course.  On the reserve these students would visit the Longhouse, where the elders taught them how to live with the spirits and how to express thankfulness to the Great Spirit. At school, the going worldview was that such teaching is primitive and backwards.  Although typically our Native students would not dare to protest this implied ethnocentricity, it must have contributed to cultural alienation.  I suggested to my students that perhaps it was not their elders but modern scientists who were ignorant about the reality of spiritual beings.  After showing the importance of recognizing underlying mindsets or worldviews, I could then show them a third way (monotheism, rather than atheism or pantheism) and explain the Gospel in a nutshell.

Ruth Montgomery used to be a skeptical and modern journalist, but after she joined a friend to a séance, she could no longer ignore the supernatural reality. With all her western upbringing, she had no way to make sense of such experiences, and so she faced a paradigm shift.  Like so many others, she began to reject her atheistic worldview while adopting a pantheistic one. She learned how to communicate with the spirit world, where spirits are anxious to prove their trustworthiness.  It often happens that such spirits, through mediums, claim that the skeptic’s ancestors are there- with them.  So, these spirits might give some story of his grandmother’s past, to make him think, “How is it possible that this spirit knows this about my deceased grandmother? It must be true what she is telling me!”

Barney Lacendre was a Native American, who grew up in northern Saskatchewan.  He observed how some people in his community possessed special gifts or powers from their allegiance with the spirit world. So, as a boy already, he wanted to tap into these powers, too. He learned to invite the spirits to come into his life by frequent and persistent ‘prayers’ at night. After some time spirits like those of the robin, the frog, and the horse introduced themselves and invited him to make ‘a covenant’ with them. In return for certain sacrifices, gifts or other acts of allegiance, the spirits would offer their services and powers. One day, Barney’s spirits seemed powerless to bless him on his trap-line. He figured that some enemy had put a spell on it, but in the end this crisis led Barney to discover the power and the love of the One Creator God.  So, Barney broke all his spirit relationships to show his full allegiance to the Holy Spirit, and God used him to preach the Good News to his people.  

3              Afterlife and Reincarnation

The New Age movement is not something new or geographically isolated. It shares its main ideas with Animism, Hinduism, (North American) Native Spirituality, Neo-paganism, Witchcraft, and the Occult.  These traditions are basically all pan-theistic, meaning that “the divine” is seen as an integral part of the material world.  Essentially all elements of the world are to some extent hosting this divine power or presence.  While atheism typically teaches that there is no afterlife and no judgment, pantheism teaches that life is cyclical: ‘What goes around… comes around!’

(New Age voice) Even if we are not conscious about our previous lives, we are reincarnated in an ongoing cycling of life and ‘death’.  In fact, your previous lives may explain specific problems you are experiencing in your life today. Therefore, you are advised to participate in PLR (Past Life Regression) sessions. While under hypnosis, you can have vivid experiences of events or situations which do not originate from your personal experience- at least in your current life as you remember it.  Rather, they originate from your previous lives!  

This experience (brought on by deceiving spirits!?) are considered proof of reincarnation.  So, more and more westerners begin to accept this as a fact.  One of my native students, Victoria*, once shared her experience in my class at a public school for alternative education.  She had experienced PLR, and she embraced New Age teaching. Once -during class- she became very emotional, standing up to warn the other students in class to repent of their selfishness, for they would face judgment and come to regret wasting their lives on earth!  I was amazed, but I understood what she was saying.

Like many evangelicals today, New Age promoters present their message as one of Good News, encouraging love and peace and harmony!  They don’t want to talk about judgment, and so they tell us not to fear death, for there is no Holy Judge waiting at the other side, ready to throw us into a ‘pool of fire’.  Yet, their “gospel” also has a dark side! 

(New Age voice) Reincarnation is not a blessing; it is a curse for all those who have lived selfish lives on earth. When we cross over into the spirit world we must face “the mirror of life”. In it we must observe all what we have done and said or thought. Yet, at that time we are forced to see our lives from “a true perspective”, and we realize our many ‘sins and shortcomings’. While we are there, in this spiritual waiting room, we begin to realize that we have built up a serious debt, which can only be paid off in a future life! For most of these ‘souls’ in the spirit world this presents a serious crisis. According to various sources**, more than half of them hope to return to earth as a severely handicapped person, so that this situation may facilitate them to pay off their debt!  

4              Unity

We already noted how John Lennon and Yoko Ono sought to bring an end to (the old) religion in order to facilitate the rising of The New Age.  Central to the movement is a desire to establish and secure world peace through the oneness of all people and all life. Obviously this does not refer to building God’s Kingdom by reconciling Creator and creation through the work of Jesus Christ.  No, Christianity is usually seen as the problem, rather than the solution. 

(New Age) Look at the Plantagenets, the Crusaders, the Conquistadores, the European colonizers, and the recent American presidents.  Most of them claimed to be Christians, and yet they showed no respect for other nations and did not hesitate to murder many for their own power or glory! Look at the Christians (wrote Lynn White): In their zeal to obey the Cultural Mandate, they exploited and abused Mother Earth! Can’t you see that the Bible and the church cannot help us in the current crisis?

‘Religions divide people and lead to wars!’ This is one of the popular myths promoted (by the enemy) today. The facts that during the last century most people were killed in human attempts to build their own Utopias (Heaven on earth), and that religions are usually hijacked by leaders with political agendas to give themselves an aura of divine sanction, are usually ignored.  And so, Eastern religions, repackaged in the New Age, are presented as the panacea for the planet!  Eastern religions advertize themselves as tolerant and accepting of all other religions, yet they will seek to transform these religions and introduce new definitions for their familiar words, like ‘faith’, ‘god’, ‘love, and ‘salvation’.  Consequently, Jesus cannot be the (only!) Truth or the (only!) Way to God!  Pluriformity and equality of all religions (although they are obviously mutually exclusive) are basic tenets of “the new faith”, which is promoted as the only religion that can secure (or enforce?) world peace!  In Europe and North America, the most frequently heard objection against Christianity is that it is arrogant in insisting that it is the only true religion. (Yet, in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, this is not an issue.)  Interestingly, those who think they are most open-minded on religion, are often the ones that narrowly follow the western popular opinion.

I will try to conclude this topic in another post, “The Whole is Greater than its Parts”.  After that I hope to write about the impact of the New Age on the church today.

*not her real name

**Ravi Zacharias, “Jesus among other gods”, about Hinduism; and in “Ruth Montgomery, Herald of the New Age”

I am not absolutely sure about my sources, for more than 90% of my library is at home in Canada, while more than 90% of the year I am away from home in China.