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PONTIFICAL COUNCIL FOR CULTURE PONTIFICAL
COUNCIL FOR INTERRELIGIOUS DIALOGUE
JESUS CHRIST THE BEARER OF THE WATER OF LIFE. A Christian
reflection on the "New Age"
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword
1.
What sort of reflection
1.1. Why now?
1.2. Communications
1.3. Cultural background
1.4. The New
Age and Catholic faith
1.5. A positive challenge
2.
New Age spirituality: an overview
2.1.
What is new about New Age?
2.2.
What does the New Age claim to offer?
2.2.1.
Enchantment: There Must be an Angel
2.2.2.
Harmony and Understanding: Good Vibrations
2.2.3. Health: Golden
Living
2.2.4. Wholeness:
A Magical Mystery Tour
2.3.
The fundamental principles of New Age thinking
2.3.1.
A global response in a time of crisis
2.3.2.
The essential matrix of New Age thinking
2.3.3. Central
themes of the New Age
2.3.4. What
does New Age say about...
2.3.4.1. ...the human
person?
2.3.4.2. ...God?
2.3.4.3. ...the world?
2.4.
"Inhabitants of myth rather than history": New Age and
culture
2.5.
Why has New Age grown so rapidly and spread so effectively?
3.
New Age and Christian faith
3.1. New
Age as spirituality
3.2. Spiritual narcissism?
3.3. The Cosmic Christ
3.4.
Christian mysticism and New Age mysticism
3.5. The God within
and theosis
4.
New Age and Christian faith in contrast
5.
Jesus Christ offers us the water of life
6. Points
to note
6.1.
Guidance and sound formation are needed
6.2. Practical steps
7. Appendix
7.1.
Some brief formulations of New Age ideas
7.2. A select glossary
7.3. Key New Age places
8. Resources
8.1.
Documents of the Catholic Church's Magisterium
8.2. Christian studies
9.
General bibliography
9.1.
Some New Age books
9.2.
Historical, descriptive and analytical works
NOTES
The present study is concerned with the complex phenomenon of "New
Age" which is influencing many aspects of contemporary culture.
The study is a provisional report. It is the fruit of the common
reflection of the Working Group on New Religious Movements, composed
of staff members of different dicasteries of the Holy See: the Pontifical
Councils for Culture and for Interreligious Dialogue (which are
the principal redactors for this project), the Congregation for
the Evangelization of Peoples and the Pontifical Council for Promoting
Christian Unity.
These reflections are offered primarily to those engaged in pastoral
work so that they might be able to explain how the New Age movement
differs from the Christian faith. This study invites readers to
take account of the way that New Age religiosity addresses
the spiritual hunger of contemporary men and women. It should be
recognized that the attraction that New Age religiosity has
for some Christians may be due in part to the lack of serious attention
in their own communities for themes which are actually part of the
Catholic synthesis such as the importance of man' spiritual dimension
and its integration with the whole of life, the search for life's
meaning, the link between human beings and the rest of creation,
the desire for personal and social transformation, and the rejection
of a rationalistic and materialistic view of humanity.
The present publication calls attention to the need to know and
understand New Age as a cultural current, as well as the
need for Catholics to have an understanding of authentic Catholic
doctrine and spirituality in order to properly assess New Age
themes. The first two chapters present New Age as a multifaceted
cultural tendency, proposing an analysis of the basic foundations
of the thought conveyed in this context. From Chapter Three onwards
some indications are offered for an investigation of New Age
in comparison with the Christian message. Some suggestions of a
pastoral nature are also made.
Those who wish to go deeper into the study of New Age will
find useful references in the appendices. It is hoped that this
work will in fact provide a stimulus for further studies adapted
to different cultural contexts. Its purpose is also to encourage
discernment by those who are looking for sound reference points
for a life of greater fulness. It is indeed our conviction that
through many of our contemporaries who are searching, we can discover
a true thirst for God. As Pope John Paul II said to a group of bishops
from the United States: "Pastors must honestly ask whether they
have paid sufficient attention to the thirst of the human heart
for the true 'living water' which only Christ our Redeemer can give
(cf. Jn 4:7-13)". Like him, we want to rely "on the perennial
freshness of the Gospel message and its capacity to transform and
renew those who accept it" (AAS 86/4, 330).
The following reflections are meant as a guide for Catholics involved
in preaching the Gospel and teaching the faith at any level within
the Church. This document does not aim at providing a set of complete
answers to the many questions raised by the New Age or other
contemporary signs of the perennial human search for happiness,
meaning and salvation. It is an invitation to understand the New
Age and to engage in a genuine dialogue with those who are influenced
by New Age thought. The document guides those involved in
pastoral work in their understanding and response to New Age
spirituality, both illustrating the points where this spirituality
contrasts with the Catholic faith and refuting the positions espoused
by New Age thinkers in opposition to Christian faith. What
is indeed required of Christians is, first and foremost, a solid
grounding in their faith. On this sound base, they can build a life
which responds positively to the invitation in the first letter
of Saint Peter: "always have your answer ready for people who ask
you the reason for the hope that you all have. But give it with
courtesy and respect and a clear conscience" (1 P 3, 15 f.).
1.1. Why now?
The beginning of the Third Millennium comes not only two thousand
years after the birth of Christ, but also at a time when astrologers
believe that the Age of Pisces - known to them as the Christian
age - is drawing to a close. These reflections are about the
New Age, which takes its name from the imminent astrological
Age of Aquarius. The New Age is one of many explanations
of the significance of this moment in history which are bombarding
contemporary (particularly western) culture, and it is hard to see
clearly what is and what is not consistent with the Christian message.
So this seems to be the right moment to offer a Christian assessment
of New Age thinking and the New Age movement as a
whole.
It has been said, quite correctly, that many people hover between
certainty and uncertainty these days, particularly in questions
relating to their identity.(1)
Some say that the Christian religion is patriarchal and authoritarian,
that political institutions are unable to improve the world, and
that formal (allopathic) medicine simply fails to heal people effectively.
The fact that what were once central elements in society are now
perceived as untrustworthy or lacking in genuine authority has created
a climate where people look inwards, into themselves, for meaning
and strength. There is also a search for alternative institutions,
which people hope will respond to their deepest needs. The unstructured
or chaotic life of alternative communities of the 1970s has given
way to a search for discipline and structures, which are clearly
key elements in the immensely popular "mystical" movements. New
Age is attractive mainly because so much of what it offers meets
hungers often left unsatisfied by the established institutions.
While much of New Age is a reaction to contemporary culture,
there are many ways in which it is that culture's child. The Renaissance
and the Reformation have shaped the modern western individual, who
is not weighed down by external burdens like merely extrinsic authority
and tradition; people feel the need to "belong" to institutions
less and less (and yet loneliness is very much a scourge of modern
life), and are not inclined to rank "official" judgements above
their own. With this cult of humanity, religion is internalised
in a way which prepares the ground for a celebration of the sacredness
of the self. This is why New Age shares many of the values
espoused by enterprise culture and the "prosperity Gospel" (of which
more will be said later: section 2.4), and also by the consumer
culture, whose influence is clear from the rapidly-growing numbers
of people who claim that it is possible to blend Christianity and
New Age, by taking what strikes them as the best of both.(2)
It is worth remembering that deviations within Christianity have
also gone beyond traditional theism in accepting a unilateral turn
to self, and this would encourage such a blending of approaches.
The important thing to note is that God is reduced in certain New
Age practices so as furthering the advancement of the individual.
New Age appeals to people imbued with the values of modern
culture. Freedom, authenticity, self-reliance and the like are all
held to be sacred. It appeals to those who have problems with patriarchy.
It "does not demand any more faith or belief than going to the cinema",(3)
and yet it claims to satisfy people's spiritual appetites. But here
is a central question: just what is meant by spirituality in a
New Age context? The answer is the key to unlocking some of
the differences between the Christian tradition and much of what
can be called New Age. Some versions of New Age harness
the powers of nature and seek to communicate with another world
to discover the fate of individuals, to help individuals tune in
to the right frequency to make the most of themselves and their
circumstances. In most cases, it is completely fatalistic. Christianity,
on the other hand, is an invitation to look outwards and beyond,
to the "new Advent"
of the God who calls us to live the dialogue of love.(4)
1.2. Communications
The technological revolution in communications over the last few
years has brought about a completely new situation. The ease and
speed with which people can now communicate is one of the reasons
why New Age has come to the attention of people of all ages
and backgrounds, and many who follow Christ are not sure what it
is all about. The Internet, in particular, has become enormously
influential, especially with younger people, who find it a congenial
and fascinating way of acquiring information. But it is a volatile
vehicle of misinformation on so many aspects of religion: not all
that is labelled "Christian" or "Catholic" can be trusted to reflect
the teachings of the Catholic Church and, at the same time, there
is a remarkable expansion of New Age sources ranging from
the serious to the ridiculous. People need, and have a right to,
reliable information on the differences between Christianity and
New Age.
1.3. Cultural background
When one examines many New Age traditions, it soon becomes
clear that there is, in fact, little in the New Age that
is new. The name seems to have gained currency through Rosicrucianism
and Freemasonry, at the time of the French and American Revolutions,
but the reality it denotes is a contemporary variant of Western
esotericism. This dates back to Gnostic groups which grew up in
the early days of Christianity, and gained momentum at the time
of the Reformation in Europe. It has grown in parallel with scientific
world-views, and acquired a rational justification through the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries. It has involved a progressive rejection
of a personal God and a focus on other entities which would often
figure as intermediaries between God and humanity in traditional
Christianity, with more and more original adaptations of these or
additional ones. A powerful trend in modern Western culture which
has given space to New Age ideas is the general acceptance
of Darwinist evolutionary theory; this, alongside a focus on hidden
spiritual powers or forces in nature, has been the backbone of much
of what is now recognised as New Age theory.
Basically, New Age has found a remarkable level of acceptance
because the world-view on which it was based was already widely
accepted. The ground was well prepared by the growth and spread
of relativism, along with an antipathy or indifference towards the
Christian faith.
Furthermore, there has been a lively discussion about whether and
in what sense New Age can be described as a postmodern phenomenon.
The existence and fervor of New Age thinking and practice
bear witness to the unquenchable longing of the human spirit for
transcendence and religious meaning, which is not only a contemporary
cultural phenomenon, but was evident in the ancient world, both
Christian and pagan.
1.4. The New
Age and Catholic Faith
Even if it can be admitted that New Age religiosity in some
way responds to the legitimate spiritual longing of human nature,
it must be acknowledged that its attempts to do so run counter to
Christian revelation. In Western culture in particular, the appeal
of "alternative" approaches to spirituality is very strong. On the
one hand, new forms of psychological affirmation of the individual
have be
come very popular among Catholics, even in retreat-houses, seminaries
and institutes of formation for religious. At the same time there
is increasing nostalgia and curiosity for the wisdom and ritual
of long ago, which is one of the reasons for the remarkable growth
in the popularity of esotericism and gnosticism. Many people are
particularly attracted to what is known - correctly or otherwise
- as "Celtic" spirituality,(5)
or to the religions of ancient peoples. Books and courses on spirituality
and ancient or Eastern religions are a booming business, and they
are frequently labelled "New Age" for commercial purposes.
But the links with those religions are not always clear. In fact,
they are often denied.
An adequate Christian discernment of New Age thought and
practice cannot fail to recognize that, like second and third century
gnosticism, it represents something of a compendium of positions
that the Church has identified as heterodox. John Paul II warns
with regard to the "return of ancient gnostic ideas under the guise
of the so-called New Age: We cannot delude ourselves that
this will lead toward a renewal of religion. It is only a new way
of practising gnosticism - that attitude of the spirit that, in
the name of a profound knowledge of God, results in distorting His
Word and replacing it with purely human words. Gnosticism never
completely abandoned the realm of Christianity. Instead, it has
always existed side by side with Christianity, sometimes taking
the shape of a philosophical movement, but more often assuming the
characteristics of a religion or a para-religion in distinct, if
not declared, conflict with all that is essentially Christian".(6)
An example of this can be seen in the enneagram, the nine-type tool
for character analysis, which when used as a means of spiritual
growth introduces an ambiguity in the doctrine and the life of the
Christian faith.
1.5. A positive challenge
The appeal of New Age religiosity cannot be underestimated.
When the understanding of the content of Christian faith is weak,
some mistakenly hold that the Christian religion does not inspire
a profound spirituality and so they seek elsewhere. As a matter
of fact, some say the New Age is already passing us by, and
refer to the "next" age.(7)
They speak of a crisis that began to manifest itself in the United
States of America in the early 1990s, but admit that, especially
beyond the English-speaking world, such a "crisis" may come later.
But bookshops and radio stations, and the plethora of self-help
groups in so many Western towns and cities, all seem to tell a different
story. It seems that, at least for the moment, the New Age
is still very much alive and part of the current cultural scene.
The success of New Age offers the Church a challenge. People
feel the Christian religion no longer offers them - or perhaps never
gave them - something they really need. The search which often leads
people to the New Age is a genuine yearning: for a deeper
spirituality, for something which will touch their hearts, and for
a way of making sense of a confusing and often alienating world.
There is a positive tone in New Age criticisms of "the materialism
of daily life, of philosophy and even of medicine and psychiatry;
reductionism, which refuses to take into consideration religious
and supernatural experiences; the industrial culture of unrestrained
individualism, which teaches egoism and pays no attention to other
people, the future and the environment".(8)
Any problems there are with New Age are to be found in what
it proposes as alternative answers to life's questions. If the Church
is not to be accused of being deaf to people's longings, her members
need to do two things: to root themselves ever more firmly in the
fundamentals of their faith, and to understand the often-silent
cry in people's hearts, which leads them elsewhere if they are not
satisfied by the Church. There is also a call in all of this to
come closer to Jesus Christ and to be ready to follow Him, since
He is the real way to happiness, the truth about God and the fulness
of life for every man and woman who is prepared to respond to his
love.
Christians in many Western societies, and increasingly also in
other parts of the world, frequently come into contact with different
aspects of the phenomenon known as New Age. Many of them
feel the need to understand how they can best approach something
which is at once so alluring, complex, elusive and, at times, disturbing.
These reflections are an attempt to help Christians do two things:
- to identify elements of the developing
New Age tradition;
- to indicate those elements which are inconsistent with the Christian
revelation.
This is a pastoral response to a current challenge, which does
not even attempt to provide an exhaustive list of New Age phenomena,
since that would result in a very bulky tome, and such information
is readily available elsewhere. It is essential to try to understand
New Age correctly, in order to evaluate it fairly, and avoid
creating a caricature. It would be unwise and untrue to say that
everything connected with the New Age movement is good, or
that everything about it is bad. Nevertheless, given the underlying
vision of New Age religiosity, it is on the whole difficult
to reconcile it with Christian doctrine and spirituality.
New Age is not a movement in the sense normally intended
in the term "New Religious Movement", and it is not what is normally
meant by the terms "cult" and "sect". Because it is spread across
cultures, in phenomena as varied as music, films, seminars, workshops,
retreats, therapies, and many more activities and events, it is
much more diffuse and informal, though some religious or para-religious
groups consciously incorporate New Age elements, and it has
been suggested that New Age has been a source of ideas for
various religious and para-religious sects.(9)
New Age is not a single, uniform movement, but rather a loose
network of practitioners whose approach is to think globally
but act locally. People who are part of the network do not necessarily
know each other and rarely, if ever, meet. In an attempt to avoid
the confusion which can arise from using the term "movement", some
refer to New Age as a "milieu",(10)
or an "audience cult".(11)
However, it has also been pointed out that "it is a very coherent
current of thought",(12)
a deliberate challenge to modern culture. It is a syncretistic structure
incorporating many diverse elements, allowing people to share interests
or connections to very different degrees and on varying levels of
commitment. Many trends, practices and attitudes which are in some
way part of New Age are, indeed, part of a broad and readily
identifiable reaction to mainstream culture, so the word "movement"
is not entirely out of place. It can be applied to New Age
in the same sense as it is to other broad social movements, like
the Civil Rights movement or the Peace Movement; like them, it includes
a bewildering array of people linked to the movement's main aims,
but very diverse in the way they are involved and in their understanding
of particular issues.
The expression "New Age religion" is more controversial,
so it seems best to avoid it, although New Age is often a
response to people's religious questions and needs, and its appeal
is to people who are trying to discover or rediscover a spiritual
dimension in their life. Avoidance of the term "New Age religion"
is not meant in any way to question the genuine character of people's
search for meaning and sense in life; it respects the fact that
many within the New Age Movement themselves distinguish carefully
between "religion" and "spirituality". Many have rejected organised
religion, because in their judgement it has failed to answer their
needs, and for precisely this reason they have looked elsewhere
to find "spirituality". Furthermore, at the heart of New Age
is the belief that the time for particular religions is over,
so to refer to it as a religion would run counter to its own self-understanding.
However, it is quite accurate to place New Age in the broader
context of esoteric religiousness, whose appeal continues to grow.(13)
There is a problem built into the current text. It is an attempt
to understand and evaluate something which is basically an exaltation
of the richness of human experience. It is bound to draw the criticism
that it can never do justice to a cultural movement whose essence
is precisely to break out of what are seen as the constricting limits
of rational discourse. But it is meant as an invitation to Christians
to take the New Age seriously, and as such asks its readers
to enter into a critical dialogue with people approaching the same
world from very different perspectives.
The pastoral effectiveness of the Church in the Third Millennium
depends to a great extent on the preparation of effective communicators
of the Gospel message. What follows is a response to the difficulties
expressed by many in dealing with the very complex and elusive phenomenon
known as New Age. It is an attempt to understand what New
Age is and to recognise the questions to which it claims to
offer answers and solutions. There are some excellent books and
other resources which survey the whole phenomenon or explain particular
aspects in great detail, and reference will be made to some of these
in the appendix. However they do not always undertake the necessary
discernment in the light of Christian faith. The purpose of this
contribution is to help Catholics find a key to understanding the
basic principles behind New Age thinking, so that they can
then make a Christian evaluation of the elements of New Age
they encounter. It is worth saying that many people dislike the
term New Age, and some suggest that "alternative spirituality"
may be more correct and less limiting. It is also true that many
of the phenomena mentioned in this document will probably not bear
any particular label, but it is presumed, for the sake of brevity,
that readers will recognise a phenomenon or set of phenomena that
can justifiably at least be linked with the general cultural movement
that is often known as New Age.
2.1. What is new about
New Age?
For many people, the term New Age clearly refers to a momentous
turning-point in history. According to astrologers, we live in the
Age of Pisces, which has been dominated by Christianity. But the
current age of Pisces is due to be replaced by the New Age
of Aquarius early in the third Millennium.(14)
The Age of Aquarius has such a high profile in the New Age
movement largely because of the influence of theosophy, spiritualism
and anthroposophy, and their esoteric antecedents. People who stress
the imminent change in the world are often expressing a wish
for such a change, not so much in the world itself as in our
culture, in the way we relate to the world; this is particularly
clear in those who stress the idea of a New Paradigm for living.
It is an attractive approach since, in some of its expressions,
people do not watch passively, but have an active role in changing
culture and bringing about a new spiritual awareness. In other expressions,
more power is ascribed to the inevitable progression of natural
cycles. In any case, the Age of Aquarius is a vision, not a theory.
But New Age is a broad tradition, which incorporates many
ideas which have no explicit link with the change from the Age of
Pisces to the Age of Aquarius. There are moderate, but quite generalised,
visions of a future where there will be a planetary spirituality
alongside separate religions, similar planetary political institutions
to complement more local ones, global economic entities which are
more participatory and democratic, greater emphasis on communication
and education, a mixed approach to health combining professional
medicine and self-healing, a more androgynous self-understanding
and ways of integrating science, mysticism, technology and ecology.
Again, this is evidence of a deep desire for a fulfilling and healthy
existence for the human race and for the planet. Some of the traditions
which flow into New Age are: ancient Egyptian occult practices,
Cabbalism, early Christian gnosticism, Sufism, the lore of the Druids,
Celtic Christianity, mediaeval alchemy, Renaissance hermeticism,
Zen Buddhism, Yoga and so on.(15)
Here is what is "new" about New Age. It is a "syncretism
of esoteric and secular elements".(16)
They link into a widely-held perception that the time is ripe for
a fundamental change in individuals, in society and in the world.
There are various expressions of the need for a shift:
- from Newtonian mechanistic physics
to quantum physics;
- from modernity's exaltation of reason to an appreciation of
feeling, emotion and experience (often described as a switch from
'left brain' rational thinking to 'right brain' intuitive
thinking);
- from a dominance of masculinity and patriarchy to a celebration
of femininity, in individuals and in society.
In these contexts the term "paradigm shift" is often used. In some
cases it is clearly supposed that this shift is not simply desirable,
but inevitable. The rejection of modernity underlying this desire
for change is not new, but can be described as "a modern revival
of pagan religions with a mixture of influences from both eastern
religions and also from modern psychology, philosophy, science,
and the counterculture that developed in the 1950s and 1960s".(17)
New Age is a witness to nothing less than a cultural revolution,
a complex reaction to the dominant ideas and values in western culture,
and yet its idealistic criticism is itself ironically typical of
the culture it criticizes.
A word needs to be said on the notion of paradigm shift.
It was made popular by Thomas Kuhn, an American historian of science,
who saw a paradigm as "the entire constellation of beliefs, values,
techniques and so on shared by the members of a given community".(18)
When there is a shift from one paradigm to another, it is a question
of wholesale transformation of perspective rather than one of gradual
development. It really is a revolution, and Kuhn emphasised that
competing paradigms are incommensurable and cannot co-exist. So
the idea that a paradigm shift in the area of religion and spirituality
is simply a new way of stating traditional beliefs misses the point.
What is actually going on is a radical change in world- view, which
puts into question not only the content but also the fundamental
interpretation of the former vision. Perhaps the clearest example
of this, in terms of the relationship between New Age and
Christianity, is the total recasting of the life and significance
of Jesus Christ. It is impossible to reconcile these two visions.(19)
Science and technology have clearly failed to deliver all they
once seemed to promise, so in their search for meaning and liberation
people have turned to the spiritual realm. New Age as we
now know it came from a search for something more humane and beautiful
than the oppressive, alienating experience of life in Western society.
Its early exponents were prepared to look far afield in their search,
so it has become a very eclectic approach. It may well be one of
the signs of a "return to religion", but it is most certainly not
a return to orthodox Christian doctrines and creeds. The first symbols
of this "movement" to penetrate Western culture were the remarkable
festival at Woodstock in New York State in 1969 and the musical
Hair, which set forth the main themes of New Age in
the emblematic song "Aquarius".(20)
But these were merely the tip of an iceberg whose dimensions have
become clearer only relatively recently. The idealism of the 1960s
and 1970s still survives in some quarters; but now, it is no longer
predominantly adolescents who are involved. Links with left-wing
political ideology have faded, and psychedelic drugs are by no means
as prominent as they once were. So much has happened since then
that all this no longer seems revolutionary; "spiritual" and "mystical"
tendencies formerly restricted to the counterculture are now an
established part of mainstream culture, affecting such diverse facets
of life as medicine, science, art and religion. Western culture
is now imbued with a more general political and ecological awareness,
and this whole cultural shift has had an enormous impact on people's
life-styles. It is suggested by some that the New Age "movement"
is precisely this major change to what is reckoned to be "a significantly
better way of life".(21)
2.2. What
does the New Age claim to offer?
2.2.1.
Enchantment: There Must be an Angel
One of the most common elements in New Age "spirituality"
is a fascination with extraordinary manifestations, and in particular
with paranormal entities. People recognised as "mediums" claim that
their personality is taken over by another entity during trances
in a New Age phenomenon known as "channeling", during which
the medium may lose control over his or her body and faculties.
Some people who have witnessed these events would willingly acknowledge
that the manifestations are indeed spiritual, but are not from God,
despite the language of love and light which is almost always used....
It is probably more correct to refer to this as a contemporary form
of spiritualism, rather than spirituality in a strict sense. Other
friends and counsellors from the spirit world are angels (which
have become the centre of a new industry of books and paintings).
Those who refer to angels in the New Age do so in an unsystematic
way; in fact, distinctions in this area are sometimes described
as unhelpful if they are too precise, since "there are many levels
of guides, entities, energies, and beings in every octave of the
universe... They are all there to pick and choose from in relation
to your own attraction/repulsion mechanisms".(22)
These spiritual entities are often invoked 'non-religiously' to
help in relaxation aimed at better decision-making and control of
one's life and career. Fusion with some spirits who teach through
particular people is another New Age experience claimed by
people who refer to themselves as 'mystics'. Some nature spirits
are described as powerful energies existing in the natural world
and also on the "inner planes": i.e. those which are accessible
by the use of rituals, drugs and other techniques for reaching altered
states of consciousness. It is clear that, in theory at least, the
New Age often recognizes no spiritual authority higher than
personal inner experience.
2.2.2.
Harmony and Understanding: Good Vibrations
Phenomena as diverse as the Findhorn garden and Feng Shui (23)
represent a variety of ways which illustrate the importance of being
in tune with nature or the cosmos. In New Age there is no
distinction between good and evil. Human actions are the fruit of
either illumination or ignorance. Hence we cannot condemn anyone,
and nobody needs forgiveness. Believing in the existence of evil
can create only negativity and fear. The answer to negativity is
love. But it is not the sort which has to be translated into
deeds; it is more a question of attitudes of mind. Love is energy,
a high-frequency vibration, and the secret to happiness and health
and success is being able to tune in, to find one's place in the
great chain of being. New Age teachers and therapies claim
to offer the key to finding the correspondences between all the
elements of the universe, so that people may modulate the tone of
their lives and be in absolute harmony with each other and with
everything around them, although there are different theoretical
backgrounds.(24)
2.2.3. Health: Golden
living
Formal (allopathic) medicine today tends to limit itself to curing
particular, isolated ailments, and fails to look at the broader
picture of a person's health: this has given rise to a fair amount
of understandable dissatisfaction. Alternative therapies have gained
enormously in popularity because they claim to look at the whole
person and are about healing rather than curing. Holistic
health, as it is known, concentrates on the important role that
the mind plays in physical healing. The connection between the spiritual
and the physical aspects of the person is said to be in the immune
system or the Indian chakra system. In a New Age perspective,
illness and suffering come from working against nature; when one
is in tune with nature, one can expect a much healthier life, and
even material prosperity; for some New Age healers, there
should actually be no need for us to die. Developing our human potential
will put us in touch with our inner divinity, and with those parts
of our selves which have been alienated and suppressed. This is
revealed above all in Altered States of Consciousness (ASCs), which
are induced either by drugs or by various mind-expanding techniques,
particularly in the context of "transpersonal psychology". The shaman
is often seen as the specialist of altered states of consciousness,
one who is able to mediate between the transpersonal realms of spirits
and gods and the world of humans.
There is a remarkable variety of approaches for promoting holistic
health, some derived from ancient cultural traditions, whether religious
or esoteric, others connected with the psychological theories developed
in Esalen during the years 1960-1970. Advertising connected with
New Age covers a wide range of practices as acupuncture, biofeedback,
chiropractic, kinesiology, homeopathy, iridology, massage and various
kinds of "bodywork" (such as orgonomy, Feldenkrais, reflexology,
Rolfing, polarity massage, therapeutic touch etc.), meditation and
visualisation, nutritional therapies, psychic healing, various kinds
of herbal medicine, healing by crystals, metals, music or colours,
reincarnation therapies and, finally, twelve-step programmes and
self-help groups.(25)
The source of healing is said to be within ourselves, something
we reach when we are in touch with our inner energy or cosmic energy.
Inasmuch as health includes a prolongation of life, New Age
offers an Eastern formula in Western terms. Originally, reincarnation
was a part of Hindu cyclical thought, based on the atman or
divine kernel of personality (later the concept of jiva),
which moved from body to body in a cycle of suffering (samsara),
determined by the law of karma, linked to behaviour in past
lives. Hope lies in the possibility of being born into a better
state, or ultimately in liberation from the need to be reborn. What
is different in most Buddhist traditions is that what wanders from
body to body is not a soul, but a continuum of consciousness. Present
life is embedded in a potentially endless cosmic process which includes
even the gods. In the West, since the time of Lessing, reincarnation
has been understood far more optimistically as a process of learning
and progressive individual fulfilment. Spiritualism, theosophy,
anthroposophy and New Age all see reincarnation as participation
in cosmic evolution. This post-Christian approach to eschatology
is said to answer the unresolved questions of theodicy and dispenses
with the notion of hell. When the soul is separated from the body
individuals can look back on their whole life up to that point,
and when the soul is united to its new body there is a preview of
its coming phase of life. People have access to their former lives
through dreams and meditation techniques.(26)
2.2.4. Wholeness:
A Magical Mystery Tour
One of the central concerns of the New Age movement is the
search for "wholeness". There is encouragement to overcome all forms
of "dualism", as such divisions are an unhealthy product of a less
enlightened past. Divisions which New Age proponents claim
need to be overcome include the real difference between Creator
and creation, the real distinction between man and nature, or spirit
and matter, which are all considered wrongly as forms of dualism.
These dualistic tendencies are often assumed to be ultimately based
on the Judaeo-Christian roots of western civilisation, while it
would be more accurate to link them to gnosticism, in particular
to Manichaeism. The scientific revolution and the spirit of modern
rationalism are blamed particularly for the tendency to fragmentation,
which treats organic wholes as mechanisms that can be reduced to
their smallest components and then explained in terms of the latter,
and the tendency to reduce spirit to matter, so that spiritual reality
- including the soul - becomes merely a contingent "epiphenomenon"
of essentially material processes. In all of these areas, the
New Age alternatives are called "holistic". Holism pervades
the New Age movement, from its concern with holistic health
to its quest for unitive consciousness, and from ecological awareness
to the idea of global "networking".
2.3.
The fundamental principles of New Age thinking
2.3.1.
A global response in a time of crisis
"Both the Christian tradition and the secular faith in an unlimited
process of science had to face a severe break first manifested in
the student revolutions around the year 1968".(27)
The wisdom of older generations was suddenly robbed of significance
and respect, while the omnipotence of science evaporated, so that
the Church now "has to face a serious breakdown in the transmission
of her faith to the younger generation".(28)
A general loss of faith in these former pillars of consciousness
and social cohesion has been accompanied by the unexpected return
of cosmic religiosity, rituals and beliefs which many believed to
have been supplanted by Christianity; but this perennial esoteric
undercurrent never really went away. The surge in popularity of
Asian religion at this point was something new in the Western context,
established late in the nineteenth century in the theosophical movement,
and it "reflects the growing awareness of a global spirituality,
incorporating all existing religious traditions".(29)
The perennial philosophical question of the one and the many has
its modern and contemporary form in the temptation to overcome not
only undue division, but even real difference and distinction, and
the most common expression of this is holism, an essential ingredient
in New Age and one of the principal signs of the times in
the last quarter of the twentieth century. An extraordinary amount
of energy has gone into the effort to overcome the division into
compartments characteristic of mechanistic ideology, but this has
led to the sense of obligation to submit to a global network which
assumes quasi-transcendental authority. Its clearest implications
are a process of conscious transformation and the development of
ecology.(30)
The new vision which is the goal of conscious transformation has
taken time to formulate, and its enactment is resisted by older
forms of thought judged to be entrenched in the status quo. What
has been successful is the generalisation of ecology as a fascination
with nature and resacralisation of the earth, Mother Earth or
Gaia, with the missionary zeal characteristic of Green politics.
The Earth's executive agent is the human race as a whole, and the
harmony and understanding required for responsible governance
is increasingly understood to be a global government, with a global
ethical framework. The warmth of Mother Earth, whose divinity pervades
the whole of creation, is held to bridge the gap between creation
and the transcendent Father-God of Judaism and Christianity, and
removes the prospect of being judged by such a Being.
In such a vision of a closed universe that contains "God" and other
spiritual beings along with ourselves, we recognize here an implicit
pantheism. This is a fundamental point which pervades all New
Age thought and practice, and conditions in advance any otherwise
positive assessment where we might be in favor of one or another
aspect of its spirituality. As Christians, we believe on the contrary
that "man is essentially a creature and remains so for all eternity,
so that an absorption of the human I in the divine I will never
be possible".(31)
2.3.2.
The essential matrix of New Age thinking
The essential matrix of New Age thinking is to be found
in the esoteric-theosophical tradition which was fairly widely accepted
in European intellectual circles in the 18th and 19th
centuries. It was particularly strong in freemasonry, spiritualism,
occultism and theosophy, which shared a kind of esoteric culture.
In this world-view, the visible and invisible universes are linked
by a series of correspondences, analogies and influences between
microcosm and macrocosm, between metals and planets, between planets
and the various parts of the human body, between the visible cosmos
and the invisible realms of reality. Nature is a living being, shot
through with networks of sympathy and antipathy, animated by a light
and a secret fire which human beings seek to control. People can
contact the upper or lower worlds by means of their imagination
(an organ of the soul or spirit), or by using mediators (angels,
spirits, devils) or rituals.
People can be initiated into the mysteries of the cosmos, God and
the self by means of a spiritual itinerary of transformation. The
eventual goal is gnosis, the highest form of knowledge, the
equivalent of salvation. It involves a search for the oldest and
highest tradition in philosophy (what is inappropriately called
philosophia perennis) and religion (primordial theology), a
secret (esoteric) doctrine which is the key to all the "exoteric"
traditions which are accessible to everyone. Esoteric teachings
are handed down from master to disciple in a gradual program of
initiation.
19th century esotericism is seen by some as completely
secularised. Alchemy, magic, astrology and other elements of traditional
esotericism had been thoroughly integrated with aspects of modern
culture, including the search for causal laws, evolutionism, psychology
and the study of religions. It reached its clearest form in the
ideas of Helena Blavatsky, a Russian medium who founded the Theosophical
Society with Henry Olcott in New York in 1875. The Society aimed
to fuse elements of Eastern and Western traditions in an evolutionary
type of spiritualism. It had three main aims:
1. "To form a nucleus of the Universal
Brotherhood of Humanity, without distinction of race, creed, caste
or colour.
2. "To encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy
and science.
3. "To investigate unexplained laws of Nature and the powers latent
in man.
"The significance of these objectives... should be clear. The first
objective implicitly rejects the 'irrational bigotry' and 'sectarianism'
of traditional Christianity as perceived by spiritualists and theosophists...
It is not immediately obvious from the objectives themselves that,
for theosophists, 'science' meant the occult sciences and philosophy
the occulta philosophia, that the laws of nature were of
an occult or psychic nature, and that comparative religion was expected
to unveil a 'primordial tradition' ultimately modelled on a Hermeticist
philosophia perennis".(32)
A prominent component of Mrs. Blavatsky's writings was the emancipation
of women, which involved an attack on the "male" God of Judaism,
of Christianity and of Islam. She urged people to return to the
mother-goddess of Hinduism and to the practice of feminine virtues.
This continued under the guidance of Annie Besant, who was in the
vanguard of the feminist movement. Wicca and "women's spirituality"
carry on this struggle against "patriarchal" Christianity today.
Marilyn Ferguson devoted a chapter of The Aquarian Conspiracy
to the precursors of the Age of Aquarius, those who had woven the
threads of a transforming vision based on the expansion of consciousness
and the experience of self-transcendence. Two of those she mentioned
were the American psychologist William James and the Swiss psychiatrist
Carl Gustav Jung. James defined religion as experience, not dogma,
and he taught that human beings can change their mental attitudes
in such a way that they are able to become architects of their own
destiny. Jung emphasized the transcendent character of consciousness
and introduced the idea of the collective unconscious, a kind of
store for symbols and memories shared with people from various different
ages and cultures. According to Wouter Hanegraaff, both of these
men contributed to a "sacralisation of psychology", something that
has become an important element of New Age thought and practice.
Jung, indeed, "not only psychologized esotericism but he also sacralized
psychology, by filling it with the contents of esoteric speculation.
The result was a body of theories which enabled people to talk about
God while really meaning their own psyche, and about their own psyche
while really meaning the divine. If the psyche is 'mind', and God
is 'mind' as well, then to discuss one must mean to discuss the
other".(33)
His response to the accusation that he had "psychologised" Christianity
was that "psychology is the modern myth and only in terms of the
current myth can we understand the faith".(34)
It is certainly true that Jung's psychology sheds light on many
aspects of the Christian faith, particularly on the need to face
the reality of evil, but his religious convictions are so different
at different stages of his life that one is left with a confused
image of God. A central element in his thought is the cult of the
sun, where God is the vital energy (libido) within a person.(35)
As he himself said, "this comparison is no mere play of words".(36)
This is "the god within" to which Jung refers, the essential divinity
he believed to be in every human being. The path to the inner universe
is through the unconscious. The inner world's correspondence to
the outer one is in the collective unconscious.
The tendency to interchange psychology and spirituality was firmly
embedded in the Human Potential Movement as it developed towards
the end of the 1960s at the Esalen Institute in California. Transpersonal
psychology, strongly influenced by Eastern religions and by Jung,
offers a contemplative journey where science meets mysticism. The
stress laid on bodiliness, the search for ways of expanding consciousness
and the cultivation of the myths of the collective unconscious were
all encouragements to search for "the God within" oneself. To realise
one's potential, one had to go beyond one's ego in order
to become the god that one is, deep down. This could be done by
choosing the appropriate therapy - meditation, parapsychological
experiences, the use of hallucinogenic drugs. These were all ways
of achieving "peak experiences", "mystical" experiences of fusion
with God and with the cosmos.
The symbol of Aquarius was borrowed from astrological mythology,
but later came to signify the desire for a radically new world.
The two centres which were the initial power-houses of the New
Age, and to a certain extent still are, were the Garden community
at Findhorn in North-East Scotland, and the Centre for the development
of human potential at Esalen in Big Sur, California, in the United
States of America. What feeds New Age consistently is a growing
global consciousness and increasing awareness of a looming ecological
crisis.
2.3.3. Central
themes of the New Age
New Age is not, properly speaking, a religion, but it is
interested in what is called "divine". The essence of New Age
is the loose association of the various activities, ideas and
people who might validly attract the term. So there is no single
articulation of anything like the doctrines of mainstream religions.
Despite this, and despite the immense variety within New Age,
there are some common points:
- the cosmos is seen as an organic whole
- it is animated by an Energy, which is also identified as the
divine Soul or Spirit
- much credence is given to the mediation of various spiritual
entities
- humans are capable of ascending to invisible higher spheres,
and of controlling their own lives beyond death
- there is held to be a "perennial knowledge" which pre-dates
and is superior to all religions and cultures
- people follow enlightened masters...
2.3.4. What
does New Age say about...
2.3.4.1. ...the human
person?
New Age involves a fundamental belief in the perfectibility
of the human person by means of a wide variety of techniques and
therapies (as opposed to the Christian view of co-operation with
divine grace). There is a general accord with Nietzsche's idea that
Christianity has prevented the full manifestation of genuine humanity.
Perfection, in this context, means achieving self-fulfilment, according
to an order of values which we ourselves create and which we achieve
by our own strength: hence one can speak of a self- creating self.
On this view, there is more difference between humans as they now
are and as they will be when they have fully realised their potential,
than there is between humans and anthropoids.
It is useful to distinguish between esotericism, a search
for knowledge, and magic, or the occult: the latter is a
means of obtaining power. Some groups are both esoteric and occult.
At the centre of occultism is a will to power based on the dream
of becoming divine.
Mind-expanding techniques are meant to reveal to people their divine
power; by using this power, people prepare the way for the Age of
Enlightenment. This exaltation of humanity overturns the correct
relationship between Creator and creature, and one of its extreme
forms is Satanism. Satan becomes the symbol of a rebellion against
conventions and rules, a symbol that often takes aggressive, selfish
and violent forms. Some evangelical groups have expressed concern
at the subliminal presence of what they claim is Satanic symbolism
in some varieties of rock music, which have a powerful influence
on young people. This is all far removed from the message of peace
and harmony which is to be found in the New Testament; it is often
one of the consequences of the exaltation of humanity when that
involves the negation of a transcendent God.
But it is not only something which affects young people; the basic
themes of esoteric culture are also present in the realms of politics,
education and legislation.(37)
It is especially the case with ecology. Deep ecology's emphasis
on bio-centrism denies the anthropological vision of the Bible,
in which human beings are at the centre of the world, since they
are considered to be qualitatively superior to other natural forms.
It is very prominent in legislation and education today, despite
the fact that it underrates humanity in this way.. The same esoteric
cultural matrix can be found in the ideological theory underlying
population control policies and experiments in genetic engineering,
which seem to express a dream human beings have of creating themselves
afresh. How do people hope to do this? By deciphering the genetic
code, altering the natural rules of sexuality, defying the limits
of death.
In what might be termed a classical New Age account, people
are born with a divine spark, in a sense which is reminiscent of
ancient gnosticism; this links them into the unity of the Whole.
So they are seen as essentially divine, although they participate
in this cosmic divinity at different levels of consciousness. We
are co- creators, and we create our own reality. Many New Age
authors maintain that we choose the circumstances of our lives (even
our own illness and health), in a vision where every individual
is considered the creative source of the universe. But we need to
make a journey in order fully to understand where we fit into the
unity of the cosmos. The journey is psychotherapy, and the recognition
of universal consciousness is salvation. There is no sin; there
is only imperfect knowledge. The identity of every human being is
diluted in the universal being and in the process of successive
incarnations. People are subject to the determining influences of
the stars, but can be opened to the divinity which lives within
them, in their continual search (by means of appropriate techniques)
for an ever greater harmony between the self and divine cosmic energy.
There is no need for Revelation or Salvation which would come to
people from outside themselves, but simply a need to experience
the salvation hidden within themselves (self-salvation), by mastering
psycho- physical techniques which lead to definitive enlightenment.
Some stages on the way to self-redemption are preparatory
(meditation, body harmony, releasing self-healing energies). They
are the starting-point for processes of spiritualisation, perfection
and enlightenment which help people to acquire further self-control
and psychic concentration on "transformation" of the individual
self into "cosmic consciousness". The destiny of the human person
is a series of successive reincarnations of the soul in different
bodies. This is understood not as the cycle of samsara, in
the sense of purification as punishment, but as a gradual ascent
towards the perfect development of one's potential.
Psychology is used to explain mind expansion as "mystical" experiences.
Yoga, zen, transcendental meditation and tantric exercises lead
to an experience of self-fulfilment or enlightenment. Peak-experiences
(reliving one's birth, travelling to the gates of death, biofeedback,
dance and even drugs - anything which can provoke an altered state
of consciousness) are believed to lead to unity and enlightenment.
Since there is only one Mind, some people can be channels
for higher beings. Every part of this single universal being has
contact with every other part. The classic approach in New Age
is transpersonal psychology, whose main concepts are the Universal
Mind, the Higher Self, the collective and personal unconscious and
the individual ego. The Higher Self is our real identity, a bridge
between God as divine Mind and humanity. Spiritual development is
contact with the Higher Self, which overcomes all forms of dualism
between subject and object, life and death, psyche and soma, the
self and the fragmentary aspects of the self. Our limited personality
is like a shadow or a dream created by the real self. The Higher
Self contains the memories of earlier (re-)incarnations.
2.3.4.2. ...God?
New Age has a marked preference for Eastern or pre-Christian
religions, which are reckoned to be uncontaminated by Judaeo-Christian
distorsions. Hence great respect is given to ancient agricultural
rites and to fertility cults. "Gaia", Mother Earth, is offered as
an alternative to God the Father, whose image is seen to be linked
to a patriarchal conception of male domination of women. There is
talk of God, but it is not a personal God; the God of which New
Age speaks is neither personal nor transcendent. Nor is it the
Creator and sustainer of the universe, but an "impersonal energy"
immanent in the world, with which it forms a "cosmic unity": "All
is one". This unity is monistic, pantheistic or, more precisely,
panentheistic. God is the "life-principle", the "spirit or soul
of the world", the sum total of consciousness existing in the world.
In a sense, everything is God. God's presence is clearest in the
spiritual aspects of reality, so every mind/spirit is, in some sense,
God.
When it is consciously received by men and women, "divine energy"
is often described as "Christic energy". There is also talk of Christ,
but this does not mean Jesus of Nazareth. "Christ" is a title applied
to someone who has arrived at a state of consciousness where he
or she perceives him- or herself to be divine and can thus claim
to be a "universal Master". Jesus of Nazareth was not the
Christ, but simply one among many historical figures in whom this
"Christic" nature is revealed, as is the case with Buddha and others.
Every historical realisation of the Christ shows clearly
that all human beings are heavenly and divine, and leads them towards
this realisation.
The innermost and most personal ("psychic") level on which this
"divine cosmic energy" is "heard" by human beings is also called
"Holy Spirit".
2.3.4.3. ...the world?
The move from a mechanistic model of classical physics to the "holistic"
one of modern atomic and sub-atomic physics, based on the concept
of matter as waves or energy rather than particles, is central to
much New Age thinking. The universe is an ocean of energy,
which is a single whole or a network of links. The energy animating
the single organism which is the universe is "spirit". There is
no alterity between God and the world. The world itself is divine
and it undergoes an evolutionary process which leads from inert
matter to "higher and perfect consciousness". The world is uncreated,
eternal and self-sufficient The future of the world is based on
an inner dynamism which is necessarily positive and leads to the
reconciled (divine) unity of all that exists. God and the world,
soul and body, intelligence and feeling, heaven and earth are one
immense vibration of energy.
James Lovelock's book on the Gaia Hypothesis claims that "the entire
range of living matter on earth, from whales to viruses, and from
oaks to algae, could be regarded as constituting a single living
entity, capable of manipulating the Earth's atmosphere to suit its
overall needs and endowed with faculties and powers far beyond those
of its constituent parts".(38)
To some, the Gaia hypothesis is "a strange synthesis of individualism
and collectivism. It all happens as if New Age, having plucked
people out of fragmentary politics, cannot wait to throw them into
the great cauldron of the global mind". The global brain needs institutions
with which to rule, in other words, a world government. "To deal
with today's problems New Age dreams of a spiritual aristocracy
in the style of Plato's Republic, run by secret societies...".(39)
This may be an exaggerated way of stating the case, but there is
much evidence that gnostic élitism and global governance coincide
on many issues in international politics.
Everything in the universe is interelated; in fact every part is
in itself an image of the totality; the whole is in every thing
and every thing is in the whole. In the "great chain of being",
all beings are intimately linked and form one family with different
grades of evolution. Every human person is a hologram, an
image of the whole of creation, in which every thing vibrates on
its own frequency. Every human being is a neurone in earth's central
nervous system, and all individual entities are in a relationship
of complementarity with others. In fact, there is an inner complementarity
or androgyny in the whole of creation.(40)
One of the recurring themes in New Age writings and thought
is the "new paradigm" which contemporary science has opened up.
"Science has given us insights into wholes and systems, stress and
transformation. We are learning to read tendencies, to recognise
the early signs of another, more promising, paradigm. We create
alternative scenarios of the future. We communicate about the failures
of old systems, forcing new frameworks for problem-solving in every
area".(41)
Thus far, the "paradigm shift" is a radical change of perspective,
but nothing more. The question is whether thought and real change
are commensurate, and how effective in the external world an inner
transformation can be proved to be. One is forced to ask, even without
expressing a negative judgement, how scientific a thought-process
can be when it involves affirmations like this: "War is unthinkable
in a society of autonomous people who have discovered the connectedness
of all humanity, who are unafraid of alien ideas and alien cultures,
who know that all revolutions begin within and that you cannot impose
your brand of enlightenment on anyone else".(42)
It is illogical to conclude from the fact that something is unthinkable
that it cannot happen. Such reasoning is really gnostic, in the
sense of giving too much power to knowledge and consciousness. This
is not to deny the fundamental and crucial role of developing consciousness
in scientific discovery and creative development, but simply to
caution against imposing upon external reality what is as yet still
only in the mind.
2.4.
"Inhabitants of myth rather than history"(43)?:
New Age and culture
"Basically, the appeal of the New Age has to do with the
culturally stimulated interest in the self, its value, capacities
and problems. Whereas traditionalised religiosity, with its hierarchical
organization, is well-suited for the community, detraditionalized
spirituality is well-suited for the individual. The New Age is
'of' the self in that it facilitates celebration of what it is to
be and to become; and 'for' the self in that by differing from much
of the mainstream, it is positioned to handle identity problems
generated by conventional forms of life".(44)
The rejection of tradition in the form of patriarchal, hierarchical
social or ecclesial organisation implies the search for an alternative
form of society, one that is clearly inspired by the modern notion
of the self. Many New Age writings argue that one can do
nothing (directly) to change the world, but everything to change
oneself; changing individual consciousness is understood to be the
(indirect) way to change the world. The most important instrument
for social change is personal example. Worldwide recognition of
these personal examples will steadily lead to the transformation
of the collective mind and such a transformation will be the major
achievement of our time. This is clearly part of the holistic paradigm,
and a re-statement of the classical philosophical question of the
one and the many. It is also linked to Jung's espousal of the theory
of correspondence and his rejection of causality. Individuals are
fragmentary representations of the planetary hologram; by looking
within one not only knows the universe, but also changes
it. But the more one looks within, the smaller the political
arena becomes. Does this really fit in with the rhetoric of democratic
participation in a new planetary order, or is it an unconscious
and subtle disempowerment of people, which could leave them open
to manipulation? Does the current preoccupation with planetary problems
(ecological issues, depletion of resources, over-population, the
economic gap between north and south, the huge nuclear arsenal and
political instability) enable or disable engagement in other, equally
real, political and social questions? The old adage that "charity
begins at home" can give a healthy balance to one's approach to
these issues. Some observers of New Age detect a sinister
authoritarianism behind apparent indifference to politics. David
Spangler himself points out that one of the shadows of the New
Age is "a subtle surrender to powerlessness and irresponsibility
in the name of waiting for the New Age to come rather than
being an active creator of wholeness in one's own life".(45)
Even though it would hardly be correct to suggest that quietism
is universal in New Age attitudes, one of the chief criticisms
of the New Age Movement is that its privatistic quest for
self-fulfilment may actually work against the possibility of a sound
religious culture. Three points bring this into focus:
- it is questionable whether New Age demonstrates the intellectual
cogency to provide a complete picture of the cosmos in a world
view which claims to integrate nature and spiritual reality. The
Western universe is seen as a divided one based on monotheism, transcendence,
alterity and separateness. A fundamental dualism is detected in
such divisions as those between real and ideal, relative and absolute,
finite and infinite, human and divine, sacred and profane, past
and present, all redolent of Hegel's "unhappy consciousness". This
is portrayed as something tragic. The response from New Age
is unity through fusion: it claims to reconcile soul and body, female
and male, spirit and matter, human and divine, earth and cosmos,
transcendent and immanent, religion and science, differences between
religions, Yin and Yang. There is, thus, no more alterity; what
is left in human terms is transpersonality. The New Age world
is unproblematic: there is nothing left to achieve. But the metaphysical
question of the one and the many remains unanswered, perhaps even
unasked, in that there is a great deal of regret at the effects
of disunity and division, but the response is a description of how
things would appear in another vision.
- New Age imports Eastern religious practices piecemeal
and re- interprets them to suit Westerners; this involves
a rejection of the language of sin and salvation, replacing it with
the morally neutral language of addiction and recovery. References
to extra-European influences are sometimes merely a "pseudo-Orientalisation"
of Western culture. Furthermore, it is hardly a genuine dialogue;
in a context where Graeco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian influences
are suspect, oriental influences are used precisely because they
are alternatives to Western culture. Traditional science and medicine
are felt to be inferior to holistic approaches, as are patriarchal
and particular structures in politics and religion. All of these
will be obstacles to the coming of the Age of Aquarius; once again,
it is clear that what is implied when people opt for New Age
alternatives is a complete break with the tradition that formed
them. Is this as mature and liberated as it is often thought or
presumed to be?
- Authentic religious traditions encourage discipline with the
eventual goal of acquiring wisdom, equanimity and compassion.
New Age echoes society's deep, ineradicable yearning for an
integral religious culture, and for something more generic and enlightened
than what politicians generally offer, but it is not clear whether
the benefits of a vision based on the ever-expanding self are for
individuals or for societies. New Age training courses (what
used to be known as "Erhard seminar trainings" [EST] etc.) marry
counter-cultural values with the mainstream need to succeed, inner
satisfaction with outer success; Findhorn's "Spirit of Business"
retreat transforms the experience of work while increasing productivity;
some New Age devotees are involved not only to become more
authentic and spontaneous, but also in order to become more prosperous
(through magic etc.). "What makes things even more appealing to
the enterprise-minded businessperson is that New Age trainings also
resonate with somewhat more humanistic ideas abroad in the world
of business. The ideas have to do with the workplace as a 'learning
environment', 'bringing life back to work', 'humanizing work', 'fulfilling
the manager', 'people come first' or 'unlocking potential'. Presented
by New Age trainers, they are likely to appeal to those businesspeople
who have already been involved with more (secular) humanistic trainings
and who want to take things further: at one and the same time for
the sake of personal growth, happiness and enthusiasm, as well as
for commercial productivity".(46)
So it is clear that people involved do seek wisdom and equanimity
for their own benefit, but how much do the activities in which they
are involved enable them to work for the common good? Apart from
the question of motivation, all of these phenomena need to be judged
by their fruits, and the question to ask is whether they promote
self or solidarity, not only with whales, trees or
like-minded people, but with the whole of creation - including the
whole of humanity. The most pernicious consequences of any philosophy
of egoism which is embraced by institutions or by large numbers
of people are identified by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as a set of
"strategies to reduce the number of those who will eat at humanity's
table".(47)
This is a key standard by which to evaluate the impact of any philosophy
or theory. Christianity always seeks to measure human endeavours
by their openness to the Creator and to all other creatures, a respect
based firmly on love.
2.5.
Why has New Age grown so rapidly and spread so effectively?
Whatever questions and criticisms it may attract, New Age
is an attempt by people who experience the world as harsh and heartless
to bring warmth to that world. As a reaction to modernity, it operates
more often than not on the level of feelings, instincts and emotions.
Anxiety about an apocalyptic future of economic instability, political
uncertainty and climatic change plays a large part in causing people
to look for an alternative, resolutely optimistic relationship to
the cosmos. There is a search for wholeness and happiness, often
on an explicitly spiritual level. But it is significant that New
Age has enjoyed enormous success in an era which can be characterised
by the almost universal exaltation of diversity. Western
culture has taken a step beyond tolerance - in the sense of grudging
acceptance or putting up with the idiosyncrasies of a person or
a minority group - to a conscious erosion of respect for normality.
Normality is presented as a morally loaded concept, linked necessarily
with absolute norms. For a growing number of people, absolute beliefs
or norms indicate nothing but an inability to tolerate other people's
views and convictions. In this atmosphere alternative life-styles
and theories have really taken off: it is not only acceptable but
positively good to be diverse.(48)
It is essential to bear in mind that people are involved with New
Age in very different ways and on many levels. In most cases
it is not really a question of "belonging" to a group or movement;
nor is there much conscious awareness of the principles on which
New Age is built. It seems that, for the most part, people are
attracted to particular therapies or practices, without going into
their background, and others are simply occasional consumers of
products which are labelled "New Age". People who use aromatherapy
or listen to "New Age" music, for example, are usually interested
in the effect they have on their health or well-being; it is only
a minority who go further into the subject, and try to understand
its theoretical (or "mystical") significance. This fits perfectly
into the patterns of consumption in societies where amusement and
leisure play such an important part. The "movement" has adapted
well to the laws of the market, and it is partly because it is such
an attractive economic proposition that New Age has become
so widespread. New Age has been seen, in some cultures at
least, as the label for a product created by the application of
marketing principles to a religious phenomenon.(49)
There is always going to be a way of profiting from people's perceived
spiritual needs. Like many other things in contemporary economics,
New Age is a global phenomenon held together and fed with
information by the mass media. It is arguable that this global community
was created by means of the mass media, and it is quite clear that
popular literature and mass communications ensure that the common
notions held by "believers" and sympathisers spread almost everywhere
very rapidly. However, there is no way of proving that such a rapid
spread of ideas is either by chance or by design, since this is
a very loose form of "community". Like the cybercommunities created
by the Internet, it is a domain where relationships between people
can be either very impersonal or interpersonal in only a very selective
sense.
New Age has become immensely popular as a loose set of beliefs,
therapies and practices, which are often selected and combined at
will, irrespective of the incompatibilities and inconsistencies
this may imply. But this is obviously to be expected in a world-
view self-consciously based on "right-brain" intuitive thinking.
And that is precisely why it is important to discover and recognise
the fundamental characteristics of New Age ideas. What is
offered is often described as simply "spiritual", rather than belonging
to any religion, but there are much closer links to particular Eastern
religions than many "consumers" realise. This is obviously important
in "prayer"-groups to which people choose to belong, but it is also
a real question for management in a growing number of companies,
whose employees are required to practise meditation and adopt mind-expanding
techniques as part of their life at work.(50)
It is worth saying a brief word about concerted promotion of
New Age as an ideology, but this is a very complex issue. Some
groups have reacted to New Age with sweeping accusations
about conspiracies, but the answer would generally be that we are
witnessing a spontaneous cultural change whose course is fairly
determined by influences beyond human control. However, it is enough
to point out that New Age shares with a number of internationally
influential groups the goal of superseding or transcending particular
religions in order to create space for a universal religion which
could unite humanity. Closely related to this is a very concerted
effort on the part of many institutions to invent a Global Ethic,
an ethical framework which would reflect the global nature of
contemporary culture, economics and politics. Further, the politicisation
of ecological questions certainly colours the whole question of
the Gaia hypothesis or worship of mother earth.
3.1. New Age as
spirituality
New Age is often referred to by those who promote it as
a "new spirituality". It seems ironic to call it "new" when so many
of its ideas have been taken from ancient religions and cultures.
But what really is new is that New Age is a conscious search
for an alternative to Western culture and its Judaeo-Christian religious
roots. "Spirituality" in this way refers to the inner experience
of harmony and unity with the whole of reality, which heals each
human person's feelings of imperfection and finiteness. People discover
their profound connectedness with the sacred universal force or
energy which is the nucleus of all life. When they have made this
discovery, men and women can set out on a path to perfection, which
will enable them to sort out their personal lives and their relationship
to the world, and to take their place in the universal process of
becoming and in the New Genesis of a world in constant evolution.
The result is a cosmic mysticism (51)
based on people's awareness of a universe burgeoning with dynamic
energies. Thus cosmic energy, vibration, light, God, love - even
the supreme Self - all refer to one and the same reality, the primal
source present in every being.
This spirituality consists of two distinct elements, one metaphysical,
the other psychological. The metaphysical component comes
from New Age's esoteric and theosophical roots, and is basically
a new form of gnosis. Access to the divine is by knowledge of hidden
mysteries, in each individual's search for "the real behind what
is only apparent, the origin beyond time, the transcendent beyond
what is merely fleeting, the primordial tradition behind merely
ephemeral tradition, the other behind the self, the cosmic divinity
beyond the incarnate individual". Esoteric spirituality "is an investigation
of Being beyond the separateness of beings, a sort of nostalgia
for lost unity".(52)
"Here one can see the gnostic matrix of esoteric spirituality.
It is evident when the children of Aquarius search for the Transcendent
Unity of religions. They tend to pick out of the historical religions
only the esoteric nucleus, whose guardians they claim to be. They
somehow deny history and will not accept that spirituality can be
rooted in time or in any institution. Jesus of Nazareth is not God,
but one of the many historical manifestations of the cosmic and
universal Christ".(53)
The psychological component of this kind of spirituality
comes from the encounter between esoteric culture and psychology
(cf. 2.32). New Age thus becomes an experience of personal
psycho- spiritual transformation, seen as analogous to religious
experience. For some people this transformation takes the form of
a deep mystical experience, after a personal crisis or a lengthy
spiritual search. For others it comes from the use of meditation
or some sort of therapy, or from paranormal experiences which alter
states of consciousness and provide insight into the unity of reality.(54)
3.2. Spiritual narcissism?
Several authors see New Age spirituality as a kind of spiritual
narcissism or pseudo-mysticism. It is interesting to note that this
criticism was put forward even by an important exponent of New
Age, David Spangler, who, in his later works, distanced himself
from the more esoteric aspects of this current of thought.
He wrote that, in the more popular forms of New Age, "individuals
and groups are living out their own fantasies of adventure and power,
usually of an occult or millenarian form.... The principal characteristic
of this level is attachment to a private world of ego-fulfilment
and a consequent (though not always apparent) withdrawal from the
world. On this level, the New Age has become populated with
strange and exotic beings, masters, adepts, extraterrestrials; it
is a place of psychic powers and occult mysteries, of conspiracies
and hidden teachings".(55)
In a later work, David Spangler lists what he sees as the negative
elements or "shadows" of the New Age: "alienation from the
past in the name of the future; attachment to novelty for its own
sake...; indiscriminateness and lack of discernment in the name
of wholeness and communion, hence the failure to understand or respect
the role of boundaries...; confusion of psychic phenomena with wisdom,
of channeling with spirituality, of the New Age perspective
with ultimate truth".(56)
But, in the end, Spangler is convinced that selfish, irrational
narcissism is limited to just a few new-agers. The positive aspects
he stresses are the function of New Age as an image of change
and as an incarnation of the sacred, a movement in which most people
are "very serious seekers after truth", working in the interest
of life and inner growth.
The commercial aspect of many products and therapies which bear
the New Age label is brought out by David Toolan, an American
Jesuit who spent several years in the New Age milieu. He
observes that new-agers have discovered the inner life and are fascinated
by the prospect of being responsible for the world, but that they
are also easily overcome by a tendency to individualism and to viewing
everything as an object of consumption. In this sense, while it
is not Christian, New Age spirituality is not Buddhist either,
inasmuch as it does not involve self-denial. The dream of mystical
union seems to lead, in practice, to a merely virtual union, which,
in the end, leaves people more alone and unsatisfied.
3.3. The Cosmic Christ
In the early days of Christianity, believers in Jesus Christ were
forced to face up to the gnostic religions. They did not ignore
them, but took the challenge positively and applied the terms used
of cosmic deities to Christ himself. The clearest example of this
is in the famous hymn to Christ in Saint Paul's letter to the Christians
at Colossae:
"He is the image of the unseen God and
the first-born of all creation,
for in him were created all things in heaven and on earth:
everything visible and everything invisible,
Thrones, Dominations, Sovereignties, Powers-
all things were created through him and for him.
Before anything was created, he existed, and he holds all things
in unity.
Now the Church is his body, he is its head.
As he is the Beginning, he was first to be born from the dead,
so that he should be first in every way;
because God wanted all perfection to be found in him
and all things to be reconciled through him and for him,
everything in heaven and everything on earth,
when he made peace by his death on the cross" (Col 1: 15-20).
For these early Christians, there was no new cosmic age to come;
what they were celebrating with this hymn was the Fulfilment of
all things which had begun in Christ. "Time is indeed fulfilled
by the very fact that God, in the Incarnation, came down into human
history. Eternity entered into time: what 'fulfilment' could be
greater than this? What other 'fulfilment' would be possible?" (57)
Gnostic belief in cosmic powers and some obscure kind of destiny
withdraws the possibility of a relationship to a personal God revealed
in Christ. For Christians, the real cosmic Christ is the one who
is present actively in the various members of his body, which is
the Church. They do not look to impersonal cosmic powers, but to
the loving care of a personal God; for them cosmic bio-centrism
has to be transposed into a set of social relationships (in
the Church); and they are not locked into a cyclical pattern of
cosmic events, but focus on the historical Jesus, in particular
on his crucifixion and resurrection. We find in the Letter to the
Colossians and in the New Testament a doctrine of God different
from that implicit in New Age thought: the Christian conception
of God is one of a Trinity of Persons who has created the human
race out of a desire to share the communion of Trinitarian life
with creaturely persons. Properly understood, this means that authentic
spirituality is not so much our search for God but God's
search for us.
Another, completely different, view of the cosmic significance
of Christ has become current in New Age circles. "The Cosmic
Christ is the divine pattern that connects in the person
of Jesus Christ (but by no means is limited to that person). The
divine pattern of connectivity was made flesh and set up its
tent among us (John 1:14).... The Cosmic Christ... leads a new
exodus from the bondage and pessimistic views of a Newtonian, mechanistic
universe so ripe with competition, winners and losers, dualisms,
anthropocentrism, and the boredom that comes when our exciting universe
is pictured as a machine bereft of mystery and mysticism. The Cosmic
Christ is local and historical, indeed intimate to human history.
The Cosmic Christ might be living next door or even inside one's
deepest and truest self".(58)
Although this statement may not satisfy everyone involved in
New Age, it does catch the tone very well, and it shows with
absolute clarity where the differences between these two views of
Christ lie. For New Age the Cosmic Christ is seen as a pattern
which can be repeated in many people, places and times; it is the
bearer of an enormous paradigm shift; it is ultimately a potential
within us.
According to Christian belief, Jesus Christ is not a pattern, but
a divine person whose human-divine figure reveals the mystery of
the Father's love for every person throughout history (Jn 3:16);
he lives in us because he shares his life with us, but it is neither
imposed nor automatic. All men and women are invited to share his
life, to live "in Christ".
3.4.
Christian mysticism and New Age mysticism
For Christians, the spiritual life is a relationship with God which
gradually through his grace becomes deeper, and in the process also
sheds light on our relationship with our fellow men and women, and
with the universe. Spirituality in New Age terms means experiencing
states of consciousness dominated by a sense of harmony and fusion
with the Whole. So "mysticism" refers not to meeting the transcendent
God in the fullness of love, but to the experience engendered by
turning in on oneself, an exhilarating sense of being at one with
the universe, a sense of letting one's individuality sink into the
great ocean of Being.(59)
This fundamental distinction is evident at all levels of comparison
between Christian mysticism and New Age mysticism. The New
Age way of purification is based on awareness of unease or alienation,
which is to be overcome by immersion into the Whole. In order to
be converted, a person needs to make use of techniques which lead
to the experience of illumination. This transforms a person's consciousness
and opens him or her to contact with the divinity, which is understood
as the deepest essence of reality.
The techniques and methods offered in this immanentist religious
system, which has no concept of God as person, proceed 'from below'.
Although they involve a descent into the depths of one's own heart
or soul, they constitute an essentially human enterprise on the
part of a person who seeks to rise towards divinity by his or her
own efforts. It is often an "ascent" on the level of consciousness
to what is understood to be a liberating awareness of "the god within".
Not everyone has access to these techniques, whose benefits are
restricted to a privileged spiritual 'aristocracy'.
The essential element in Christian faith, however, is God's descent
towards his creatures, particularly towards the humblest, those
who are weakest and least gifted according to the values of the
"world". There are spiritual techniques which it is useful to learn,
but God is able to by-pass them or do without them. A Christian's
"method of getting closer to God is not based on any technique
in the strict sense of the word. That would contradict the spirit
of childhood called for by the Gospel. The heart of genuine Christian
mysticism is not technique: it is always a gift of God; and the
one who benefits from it knows himself to be unworthy".(60)
For Christians, conversion is turning back to the Father, through
the Son, in docility to the power of the Holy Spirit. The more people
progress in their relationship with God - which is always and in
every way a free gift - the more acute is the need to be converted
from sin, spiritual myopia and self-infatuation, all of which obstruct
a trusting self-abandonment to God and openness to other men and
women.
All meditation techniques need to be purged of presumption and
pretentiousness. Christian prayer is not an exercise in self-contemplation,
stillness and self-emptying, but a dialogue of love, one which "implies
an attitude of conversion, a flight from 'self' to the 'You' of
God".(61) It
leads to an increasingly complete surrender to God's will, whereby
we are invited to a deep, genuine solidarity with our brothers and
sisters.(62)
3.5. The "god
within" and "theosis"
Here is a key point of contrast between New Age and Christianity.
So much New Age literature is shot through with the conviction
that there is no divine being "out there", or in any real way distinct
from the rest of reality. From Jung's time onwards there has been
a stream of people professing belief in "the god within". Our problem,
in a New Age perspective, is our inability to recognise our
own divinity, an inability which can be overcome with the help of
guidance and the use of a whole variety of techniques for unlocking
our hidden (divine) potential. The fundamental idea is that 'God'
is deep within ourselves. We are gods, and we discover the unlimited
power within us by peeling off layers of inauthenticity.(63)
The more this potential is recognised, the more it is realised,
and in this sense the New Age has its own idea of theosis,
becoming divine or, more precisely, recognising and accepting
that we are divine. We are said by some to be living in "an age
in which our understanding of God has to be interiorised: from the
Almighty God out there to God the dynamic, creative power within
the very centre of all being: God as Spirit".(64)
In the Preface to Book V of Adversus Haereses, Saint Irenaeus
refers to "Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love,
become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is
Himself". Here theosis, the Christian understanding of divinisation,
comes about not through our own efforts alone, but with the assistance
of God's grace working in and through us. It inevitably involves
an initial awareness of incompleteness and even sinfulness, in no
way an exaltation of the self. Furthermore, it unfolds as an introduction
into the life of the Trinity, a perfect case of distinction at the
heart of unity; it is synergy rather than fusion. This all comes
about as the result of a personal encounter, an offer of a new kind
of life. Life in Christ is not something so personal and private
that it is restricted to the realm of consciousness. Nor is it merely
a new level of awareness. It involves being transformed in our soul
and in our body by participation in the sacramental life of the
Church.
It is difficult to separate the individual elements of New Age
religiosity - innocent though they may appear - from the overarching
framework which permeates the whole thought-world on the New
Age movement. The gnostic nature of this movement calls us to
judge it in its entirety. From the point of view of Christian faith,
it is not possible to isolate some elements of New Age religiosity
as acceptable to Christians, while rejecting others. Since the
New Age movement makes much of a communication with nature,
of cosmic knowledge of a universal good - thereby negating the revealed
contents of Christian faith - it cannot be viewed as positive or
innocuous. In a cultural environment, marked by religious relativism,
it is necessary to signal a warning against the attempt to place
New Age religiosity on the same level as Christian faith,
making the difference between faith and belief seem relative, thus
creating greater confusion for the unwary. In this regard, it is
useful to remember the exhortation of St. Paul "to instruct certain
people not to teach false doctrine or to concern themselves with
myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather
than the plan of God that is to be received by faith" (1 Tim
1:3-4). Some practices are incorrectly labeled as New Age
simply as a marketing strategy to make them sell better, but are
not truly associated with its worldview. This only adds to the confusion.
It is therefore necessary to accurately identify those elements
which belong to the New Age movement, and which cannot be
accepted by those who are faithful to Christ and his Church.
The following questions may be the easiest key to evaluating some
of the central elements of New Age thought and practice from
a Christian standpoint. "New Age" refers to the ideas which
circulate about God, the human being and the world, the people with
whom Christians may have conversations on religious matters, the
publicity material for meditation groups, therapies and the like,
explicit statements on religion and so on. Some of these questions
applied to people and ideas not explicitly labelled New Age
would reveal further unnamed or unacknowledged links with the whole
New Age atmosphere.
* Is God a being with whom we have a relationship or
something to be used or a force to be harnessed?
The New Age concept of God is rather diffuse, whereas the
Christian concept is a very clear one. The New Age god is
an impersonal energy, really a particular extension or component
of the cosmos; god in this sense is the life-force or soul of the
world. Divinity is to be found in every being, in a gradation "from
the lowest crystal of the mineral world up to and beyond the Galactic
God himself, about Whom we can say nothing at all. This is not a
man but a Great Consciousness".(65)
In some "classic" New Age writings, it is clear that human
beings are meant to think of themselves as gods: this is more fully
developed in some people than in others. God is no longer to be
sought beyond the world, but deep within myself.(66)
Even when "God" is something outside myself, it is there to be manipulated.
This is very different from the Christian understanding of God
as the maker of heaven and earth and the source of all personal
life. God is in himself personal, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
who created the universe in order to share the communion of his
life with creaturely persons. "God, who 'dwells in unapprochable
light', wants to communicate his own divine life to the men he freely
created, in order to adopt them as his sons in his only-begotten
Son. By revealing himself God wishes to make them capable of responding
to him, and of knowing him, and of loving him far beyond their own
natural capacity".(67)God
is not identified with the Life-principle understood as the "Spirit"
or "basic energy" of the cosmos, but is that love which is absolutely
different from the world, and yet creatively present in everything,
and leading human beings to salvation.
* Is there just one Jesus Christ, or are there
thousands of Christs?
Jesus Christ is often presented in New Age literature as
one among many wise men, or initiates, or avatars, whereas in Christian
tradition He is the Son of God. Here are some common points in
New Age approaches:
- the personal and individual historical Jesus is distinct from
the eternal, impersonal universal Christ;
- Jesus is not considered to be the only Christ;
- the death of Jesus on the cross is either denied or re-interpreted
to exclude the idea that He, as Christ, could have suffered;
- extra-biblical documents (like the neo-gnostic gospels) are considered
authentic sources for the knowledge of aspects of the life of Jesus
which are not to be found in the canon of Scripture. Other revelations
about Jesus, made available by entities, spirit guides and ascended
masters, or even through the Akasha Chronicles, are basic
for New Age christology;
- a kind of esoteric exegesis is applied to biblical texts to purify
Christianity of the formal religion which inhibits access to its
esoteric essence.(68)
In the Christian Tradition Jesus Christ is the Jesus of Nazareth
about which the gospels speak, the son of Mary and the only Son
of God, true man and true God, the full revelation of divine truth,
unique Saviour of the world: "for our sake he was crucified under
Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died and was buried. On the third day
he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures; he ascended into
heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father".(69)
* The human being: is there one universal being
or are there many individuals?
"The point of New Age techniques is to reproduce mystical
states at will, as if it were a matter of laboratory material. Rebirth,
biofeedback, sensory isolation, holotropic breathing, hypnosis,
mantras, fasting, sleep deprivation and transcendental meditation
are attempts to control these states and to experience them continuously".(70)
These practices all create an atmosphere of psychic weakness (and
vulnerability). When the object of the exercise is that we should
re-invent our selves, there is a real question of who "I" am. "God
within us" and holistic union with the whole cosmos underline this
question. Isolated individual personalities would be pathological
in terms of New Age (in particular transpersonal psychology).
But "the real danger is the holistic paradigm. New Age is
thinking based on totalitarian unity and that is why it is a danger...".(71)
More moderately: "We are authentic when we 'take charge of' ourselves,
when our choice and reactions flow spontaneously from our deepest
needs, when our behaviour and expressed feelings reflect our personal
wholeness".(72)
The Human Potential Movement is the clearest example of the conviction
that humans are divine, or contain a divine spark within themselves.
The Christian approach grows out of the Scriptural teachings
about human nature; men and women are created in God's image and
likeness (Gen 1.27) and God takes great consideration of
them, much to the relieved surprise of the Psalmist (cf. Ps 8).
The human person is a mystery fully revealed only in Jesus Christ
(cf. GS 22),and in fact becomes authentically human properly in
his relationship with Christ through the gift of the Spirit.(73)This
is far from the caricature of anthropocentrism ascribed to Christianity
and rejected by many New Age authors and practitioners.
* Do we save ourselves or is salvation a free gift
from God?
The key is to discover by what or by whom we believe we are saved.
Do we save ourselves by our own actions, as is often the case in
New Age explanations, or are we saved by God's love? Key words
are self-fulfilment and self-realisation, self-redemption.
New Age is essentially Pelagian in its understanding of about
human nature.(74)
For Christians, salvation depends on a participation in the
passion, death and resurrection of Christ, and on a direct personal
relationship with God rather than on any technique. The human situation,
affected as it is by original sin and by personal sin, can only
be rectified by God's action: sin is an offense against God, and
only God can reconcile us to himself. In the divine plan of salvation,
human beings have been saved by Jesus Christ who, as God and man,
is the one mediator of redemption. In Christianity salvation is
not an experience of self, a meditative and intuitive dwelling within
oneself, but much more the forgiveness of sin, being lifted out
of profound ambivalences in oneself and the calming of nature by
the gift of communion with a loving God. The way to salvation is
not found simply in a self-induced transformation of consciousness,
but in a liberation from sin and its consequences which then leads
us to struggle against sin in ourselves and in the society around
us. It necessarily moves us toward loving solidarity with our neighbour
in need.
* Do we invent truth or do we embrace it?
New Age truth is about good vibrations, cosmic correspondences,
harmony and ecstasy, in general pleasant experiences. It is a matter
of finding one's own truth in accordance with the feel- good factor.
Evaluating religion and ethical questions is obviously relative
to one's own feelings and experiences.
Jesus Christ is presented in Christian teaching as "The Way,
the Truth and the Life" (Jn 14.6). His followers are asked
to open their whole lives to him and to his values, in other words
to an objective set of requirements which are part of an
objective reality ultimately knowable by all.
* Prayer and meditation: are we talking to ourselves
or to God?
The tendency to confuse psychology and spirituality makes it hard
not to insist that many of the meditation techniques now used are
not prayer. They are often a good preparation for prayer,
but no more, even if they lead to a more pleasant state of mind
or bodily comfort. The experiences involved are genuinely intense,
but to remain at this level is to remain alone, not yet in the presence
of the other. The achievement of silence can confront us with emptiness,
rather than the silence of contemplating the beloved. It is also
true that techniques for going deeper into one's own soul are ultimately
an appeal to one's own ability to reach the divine, or even to become
divine: if they forget God's search for the human heart they are
still not Christian prayer. Even when it is seen as a link with
the Universal Energy, "such an easy 'relationship' with God, where
God's function is seen as supplying all our needs, shows the selfishness
at the heart of this New Age".(75)
New Age practices are not really prayer, in that they are generally
a question of introspection or fusion with cosmic energy, as opposed
to the double orientation of Christian prayer, which involves introspection
but is essentially also a meeting with God. Far from being a merely
human effort, Christian mysticism is essentially a dialogue which
"implies an attitude of conversion, a flight from 'self' to the
'you' of God".(76)"The
Christian, even when he is alone and prays in secret, he is conscious
that he always prays for the good of the Church in union with Christ,
in the Holy Spirit and together with all the saints".(77)
* Are we tempted to deny sin or do we accept that
there is such a thing?
In New Age there is no real concept of sin, but rather one
of imperfect knowledge; what is needed is enlightenment, which can
be reached through particular psycho-physical techniques. Those
who take part in New Age activities will not be told what
to believe, what to do or what not to do, but: "There are a thousand
ways of exploring inner reality. Go where your intelligence and
intuition lead you. Trust yourself".(78)
Authority has shifted from a theistic location to within the self.
The most serious problem perceived in New Age thinking is
alienation from the whole cosmos, rather than personal failure or
sin. The remedy is to become more and more immersed in the whole
of being. In some New Age writings and practices, it is clear
that one life is not enough, so there have to be reincarnations
to allow people to realise their full potential.
In the Christian perspective "only the light of divine Revelation
clarifies the reality of sin and particularly of the sin committed
at mankind's origins. Without the knowledge Revelation gives of
God we cannot recognize sin clearly and are tempted to explain it
as merely a development flaw, a psychological weakness, a mistake,
or the necessary consequence of an inadequate social structure,
etc. Only in the knowledge of God's plan for man can we grasp that
sin is an abuse of freedom that God gives to created persons so
that they are capable of loving him and loving one another".(79)Sin
is an offense against reason, truth and right conscience; it is
a failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse
attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures
human solidarity...(80)Sin
is an offense against God... sin sets itself against God's love
for us and turns our hearts away from it... Sin is thus 'love of
oneself even to contempt of God'".(81)
* Are we encouraged to reject or accept suffering
and death?
Some New Age writers view suffering as self-imposed, or
as bad karma, or at least as a failure to harness one's own resources.
Others concentrate on methods of achieving success and wealth (e.g.
Deepak Chopra, José Silva et al.). In New Age, reincarnation
is often seen as a necessary element in spiritual growth, a stage
in progressive spiritual evolution which began before we were born
and will continue after we die. In our present lives the experience
of the death of other people provokes a healthy crisis.
Both cosmic unity and reincarnation are irreconcilable with
the Christian belief that a human person is a distinct being, who
lives one life, for which he or she is fully responsible: this understanding
of the person puts into question both responsibility and freedom.
Christians know that "in the cross of Christ not only is the redemption
accomplished through suffering, but also human suffering itself
has been redeemed. Christ - without any fault of his own - took
on himself 'the total evil of sin'. The experience of this evil
determined the incomparable extent of Christ's suffering, which
became the price of the redemption... The Redeemer suffered in place
of man and for man. Every man has his own share in the redemption,
Each one is also called to share in that suffering through which
the redemption was accomplished. He is called to share in that suffering
through which all human suffering has also been redeemed. In bringing
about the redemption through suffering, Christ has also raised human
suffering to the level of the redemption. Thus each man in his suffering
can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ".(82)
* Is social commitment something shirked or positively
sought after?
Much in New Age is unashamedly self-promotion, but some
leading figures in the movement claim that it is unfair to judge
the whole movement by a minority of selfish, irrational and narcissistic
people, or to allow oneself to be dazzled by some of their more
bizarre practices, which are a block to seeing in New Age a
genuine spiritual search and spirituality.(83)
The fusion of individuals into the cosmic self, the relativisation
or abolition of difference and opposition in a cosmic harmony, is
unacceptable to Christianity.
Where there is true love, there has to be a different other
(person). A genuine Christian searches for unity in the capacity
and freedom of the other to say "yes" or "no" to the gift of love.
Union is seen in Christianity as communion, unity as community.
* Is our future in the stars or do we help to construct
it?
The New Age which is dawning will be peopled by perfect,
androgynous beings who are totally in command of the cosmic laws
of nature. In this scenario, Christianity has to be eliminated and
give way to a global religion and a new world order.
Christians are in a constant state of vigilance, ready for the
last days when Christ will come again; their New Age began 2000
years ago, with Christ, who is none other than "Jesus of Nazareth;
he is the Word of God made man for the salvation of all". His Holy
Spirit is present and active in the hearts of individuals, in "society
and history, peoples, cultures and religions". In fact, "the Spirit
of the Father, bestowed abundantly by the Son, is the animator of
all".(84)We
live in the last times.
On the one hand, it is clear that many New Age practices
seem to those involved in them not to raise doctrinal questions;
but, at the same time, it is undeniable that these practices themselves
communicate, even if only indirectly, a mentality which can influence
thinking and inspire a very particular vision of reality. Certainly
New Age creates its own atmosphere, and it can be hard to distinguish
between things which are innocuous and those which really need to
be questioned. However, it is well to be aware that the doctrine
of the Christ spread in New Age circles is inspired by the
theosophical teachings of Helena Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophy
and Alice Bailey's "Arcane School". Their contemporary followers
are not only promoting their ideas now, but also working with New
Agers to develop a completely new understanding of reality,
a doctrine known by some observers as "New Age truth".(85)
The Church's one foundation is Jesus Christ, her Lord. He is at
the heart of every Christian action, and every Christian message.
So the Church constantly returns to meet her Lord. The Gospels tell
of many meetings with Jesus, from the shepherds in Bethlehem to
the two thieves crucified with him, from the wise elders who listened
to him in the Temple to the disciples walking miserably towards
Emmaus. But one episode that speaks really clearly about what he
offers us is the story of his encounter with the Samaritan woman
by Jacob's well in the fourth chapter of John's Gospel; it has even
been described as "a paradigm for our engagement with truth".(86)
The experience of meeting the stranger who offers us the water of
life is a key to the way Christians can and should engage in dialogue
with anyone who does not know Jesus.
One of the attractive elements of John's account of this meeting
is that it takes the woman a while even to glimpse what Jesus means
by the water 'of life', or 'living' water (verse 11). Even so, she
is fascinated - not only by the stranger himself, but also by his
message - and this makes her listen. After her initial shock at
realising what Jesus knew about her ("You are right in saying 'I
have no husband': for you have had five husbands, and he whom you
now have is not your husband; this you said truly", verses 17- 18),
she was quite open to his word: "I see you are a prophet, Sir" (verse
19). The dialogue about the adoration of God begins: "You worship
what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is
from the Jews" (verse 22). Jesus touched her heart and so prepared
her to listen to what He had to say about Himself as the Messiah:
"I who am speaking to you - I am he" (verse 26), prepared her to
open her heart to the true adoration in Spirit and the self-revelation
of Jesus as God's Anointed.
1Helen Bergin o.p., "Living One's Truth", in The
Furrow, January 2000, p. 12.
The woman "put down her water jar and hurried back to the town
to tell the people" all about the man (verse 28). The remarkable
effect on the woman of her encounter with the stranger made them
so curious that they, too, "started walking towards him" (verse
30). They soon accepted the truth of his identity: "Now we no longer
believe because of what you told us; we have heard him ourselves
and we know that he really is the saviour of the world" (verse 42).
They move from hearing about Jesus to knowing him personally, then
understanding the universal significance of his identity. This all
happens because their minds, their hearts and more are engaged.
The fact that the story takes place by a well is significant. Jesus
offers the woman "a spring... welling up to eternal life" (verse
14). The gracious way in which Jesus deals with the woman is a model
for pastoral effectiveness, helping others to be truthful without
suffering in the challenging process of self-recognition ("he told
me every thing I have done", verse 39). This approach could yield
a rich harvest in terms of people who may have been attracted to
the water-carrier (Aquarius) but who are genuinely still seeking
the truth. They should be invited to listen to Jesus, who offers
us not simply something that will quench our thirst today, but the
hidden spiritual depths of "living water". It is important to acknowledge
the sincerity of people searching for the truth; there is no question
of deceit or of self-deception. It is also important to be patient,
as any good educator knows. A person embraced by the truth is suddenly
energised by a completely new sense of freedom, especially from
past failures and fears, and "the one who strives for self-knowledge,
like the woman at the well, will affect others with a desire to
know the truth that can free them too".(87)
An invitation to meet Jesus Christ, the bearer of the water of
life, will carry more weight if it is made by someone who has clearly
been profoundly affected by his or her own encounter with Jesus,
because it is made not by someone who has simply heard about him,
but by someone who can be sure "that he really is the saviour of
the world" (verse 42). It is a matter of letting people react in
their own way, at their own pace, and letting God do the rest.
6.1.
Guidance and sound formation are needed
Christ or Aquarius? New Age is almost always linked
with "alternatives", either an alternative vision of reality or
an alternative way of improving one's current situation (magic).(88)
Alternatives offer people not two possibilities, but only the possibility
of choosing one thing in preference to another: in terms of religion,
New Age offers an alternative to the Judaeo-Christian heritage.
The Age of Aquarius is conceived as one which will replace the predominantly
Christian Age of Pisces. New Age thinkers are acutely aware
of this; some of them are convinced that the coming change is inevitable,
while others are actively committed to assisting its arrival. People
who wonder if it is possible to believe in both Christ and Aquarius
can only benefit from knowing that this is very much an "either-or"
situation. "No servant can be the slave of two masters: he will
either hate the first and love the second, or treat the first with
respect and the second with scorn" (Lk 16.13). Christians
have only to think of the difference between the wise men from the
East and King Herod to recognise the powerful effects of choice
for or against Christ. It must never be forgotten that many of the
movements which have fed the New Age are explicitly anti-Christian.
Their stance towards Christianity is not neutral, but neutralising:
despite what is often said about openness to all religious standpoints,
traditional Christianity is not sincerely regarded as an acceptable
alternative. In fact, it is occasionally made abundantly clear that
"there is no tolerable place for true Christianity", and there are
even arguments justifying anti-Christian behaviour.(89)
This opposition initially was confined to the rarefied realms of
those who go beyond a superficial attachment to New Age, but
has begun more recently to permeate all levels of the "alternative"
culture which has an extraordinarily powerful appeal, above all
in sophisticated Western societies.
Fusion or confusion? New Age traditions consciously and
deliberately blur real differences: between creator and creation,
between humanity and nature, between religion and psychology, between
subjective and objective reality. The idealistic intention is always
to overcome the scandal of division, but in New Age theory
it is a question of the systematic fusion of elements which
have generally been clearly distinguished in Western culture. Is
it, perhaps, fair to call it "confusion"? It is not playing
with words to say that New Age thrives on confusion. The
Christian tradition has always valued the role of reason in justifying
faith and in understanding God, the world and the human person.(90)
New Age has caught the mood of many in rejecting cold, calculating,
inhuman reason. While this is a positive insight, recalling the
need for a balance involving all our faculties, it does not justify
sidelining a faculty which is essential for a fully human life.
Rationality has the advantage of universality: it is freely available
to everyone, quite unlike the mysterious and fascinating character
of esoteric or gnostic "mystical" religion. Anything which promotes
conceptual confusion or secrecy needs to be very carefully scrutinised.
It hides rather than reveals the ultimate nature of reality. It
corresponds to the post-modern loss of confidence in the bold certainties
of former times, which often involves taking refuge in irrationality.
The challenge is to show how a healthy partnership between faith
and reason enhances human life and encourages respect for creation.
Create your own reality. The widespread New Age conviction
that one creates one's own reality is appealing, but illusory. It
is crystallised in Jung's theory that the human being is a gateway
from the outer world into an inner world of infinite dimensions,
where each person is Abraxas, who gives birth to his own world or
devours it. The star that shines in this infinite inner world is
man's God and goal. The most poignant and problematic consequence
of the acceptance of the idea that people create their own reality
is the question of suffering and death: people with severe handicaps
or incurable diseases feel cheated and demeaned when confronted
by the suggestion that they have brought their misfortune upon themselves,
or that their inability to change things points to a weakness in
their approach to life. This is far from being a purely academic
issue: it has profound implications in the Church's pastoral approach
to the difficult existential questions everyone faces. Our limitations
are a fact of life, and part of being a creature. Death and bereavement
present a challenge and an opportunity, because the temptation to
take refuge in a westernised reworking of the notion of reincarnation
is clear proof of people's fear of death and their desire to live
forever. Do we make the most of our opportunities to recall what
is promised by God in the resurrection of Jesus Christ? How real
is the faith in the resurrection of the body, which Christians proclaim
every Sunday in the creed? The New Age idea that we are in
some sense also gods is one which is very much in question here.
The whole question depends, of course, on one's definition of reality.
A sound approach to epistemology and psychology needs to be reinforced
- in the appropriate way - at every level of Catholic education,
formation and preaching. It is important constantly to focus on
effective ways of speaking of transcendence. The fundamental difficulty
of all New Age thought is that this transcendence is strictly
a self-transcendeence to be achieved within a closed universe.
Pastoral resources. In Chapter 8 an indication is given
regarding the principal documents of the Catholic Church in which
can be found an evaluation of the ideas of New Age. In the
first place comes the address of Pope John Paul II which was quoted
in the Foreword. The Pope recognizes in this cultural trend some
positive aspects, such as "the search for new meaning in life, a
new ecological sensivity and the desire to go beyond a cold, rationalistic
religiosity". But he also calls the attention of the faithful to
certain ambiguous elements which are incompatible with the Christian
faith: these movements "pay little heed to Revelation", "they tend
to relativize religious doctrine in favor of a vague worldview",
"they often propose a pantheistic concept of God", "they replace
personal responsibility to God for our actions with a sense of duty
to the cosmos, thus overturning the true concept of sin and the
need for redemption through Christ".(91)
6.2. Practical steps
First of all, it is worth saying once again that not everyone or
everything in the broad sweep of New Age is linked to the
theories of the movement in the same ways. Likewise, the label itself
is often misapplied or extended to phenomena which can be categorised
in other ways. The term New Age has even been abused to demonise
people and practices. It is essential to see whether phenomena linked
to this movement, however loosely, reflect or conflict with a Christian
vision of God, the human person and the world. The mere use of the
term New Age in itself means little, if anything. The relationship
of the person, group, practice or commodity to the central tenets
of Christianity is what counts.
*The Catholic Church has its own very effective networks,
which could be better used. For example, there is a large number
of pastoral centres, cultural centres and centres of spirituality.
Ideally, these could also be used to address the confusion about
New Age religiosity in a variety of creative ways, such as providing
a forum for discussion and study. It must unfortunately be admitted
that there are too many cases where Catholic centres of spirituality
are actively involved in diffusing New Age religiosity in
the Church. This would of course have to be corrected, not only
to stop the spread of confusion and error, but also so that they
might be effective in promoting true Christian spirituality. Catholic
cultural centres, in particular, are not only teaching institutions
but spaces for honest dialogue.(92)
Some excellent specialist institutions deal with all these questions.
These are precious resources, which ought to be shared generously
in areas that are less well provided for.
*Quite a few New Age groups welcome every opportunity
to explain their philosophy and activities to others. Encounters
with these groups should be approached with care, and should always
involve persons who are capable of both explaining Catholic faith
and spirituality, and of reflecting critically on New Age thought
and practice. It is extremely important to check the credentials
of people, groups and institutions claiming to offer guidance and
information on New Age. In some cases what has started out
as impartial investigation has later become active promotion of,
or advocacy on behalf of, "alternative religions". Some international
institutions are actively pursuing campaigns which promote respect
for "religious diversity", and claim religious status for some questionable
organisations. This fits in with the New Age vision of moving
into an age where the limited character of particular religions
gives way to the universality of a new religion or spirituality.
Genuine dialogue, on the other hand, will always respect diversity
from the outset, and will never seek to blur distinctions in a fusion
of all religious traditions.
*Some local New Age groups refer to their meetings
as "prayer groups". Those people who are invited to such groups
need to look for the marks of genuine Christian spirituality,
and to be wary if there is any sort of initiation ceremony. Such
groups take advantage of a person's lack of theological or spiritual
formation to lure them gradually into what may in fact be a form
of false worship. Christians must be taught about the true object
and content of prayer - in the Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ,
to the Father - in order to judge rightly the intention of a "prayer
group". Christian prayer and the God of Jesus Christ will easily
be recognised.(93)
Many people are convinced that there is no harm in 'borrowing' from
the wisdom of the East, but the example of Transcendental Meditation
(TM) should make Christians cautious about the prospect of committing
themselves unknowingly to another religion (in this case, Hinduism),
despite what TM's promoters claim about its religious neutrality.
There is no problem with learning how to meditate, but the object
or content of the exercise clearly determines whether it relates
to the God revealed by Jesus Christ, to some other revelation, or
simply to the hidden depths of the self.
*Christian groups which promote care for the earth
as God's creation also need to be given due recognition. The
question of respect for creation is one which could also be approached
creatively in Catholic schools. A great deal of what is proposed
by the more radical elements of the ecological movement is difficult
to reconcile with Catholic faith. Care for the environment in general
terms is a timely sign of a fresh concern for what God has given
us, perhaps a necessary mark of Christian stewardship of creation,
but "deep ecology" is often based on pantheistic and occasionally
gnostic principles.(94)
*The beginning of the Third Millennium offers a real
kairos for evangelisation. People's minds and hearts are already
unusually open to reliable information on the Christian understanding
of time and salvation history. Emphasising what is lacking in other
approaches should not be the main priority. It is more a question
of constantly revisiting the sources of our own faith, so that we
can offer a good, sound presentation of the Christian message.
We can be proud of what we have been given on trust, so we need
to resist the pressures of the dominant culture to bury these gifts
(cf. Mt 25.24-30). One of the most useful tools available
is the Catechism of the Catholic Church. There is also an
immense heritage of ways to holiness in the lives of Christian men
and women past and present. Where Christianity's rich symbolism,
and its artistic, aesthetical and musical traditions are unknown
or have been forgotten, there is much work to be done for Christians
themselves, and ultimately also for anyone searching for an experience
or a greater awareness of God's presence. Dialogue between Christians
and people attracted to the New Age will be more successful
if it takes into account the appeal of what touches the emotions
and symbolic language. If our task is to know, love and serve Jesus
Christ, it is of paramount importance to start with a good knowledge
of the Scriptures. But, most of all, coming to meet the Lord Jesus
in prayer and in the sacraments, which are precisely the moments
when our ordinary life is hallowed, is the surest way of making
sense of the whole Christian message.
*Perhaps the simplest, the most obvious and the most
urgent measure to be taken, which might also be the most effective,
would be to make the most of the riches of the Christian spiritual
heritage. The great religious orders have strong traditions
of meditation and spirituality, which could be made more available
through courses or periods in which their houses might welcome genuine
seekers. This is already being done, but more is needed. Helping
people in their spiritual search by offering them proven techniques
and experiences of real prayer could open a dialogue with them which
would reveal the riches of Christian tradition, and perhaps clarify
a great deal about New Age in the process.
In a vivid and useful image, one of the New Age movement's
own exponents has compared traditional religions to cathedrals,
and New Age to a worldwide fair. The New Age Movement
is seen as an invitation to Christians to bring the message of the
cathedrals to the fair which now covers the whole world. This image
offers Christians a positive challenge, since it is always time
to take the message of the cathedrals to the people in the fair.
Christians need not, indeed, must not wait for an invitation to
bring the message of the Good News of Jesus Christ to those who
are looking for the answers to their questions, for spiritual food
that satisfies, for living water. Following the image proposed,
Christians must issue forth from the cathedral, nourished by word
and sacrament, to bring the Gospel into every aspect of everyday
life - "Go! The Mass is ended!" In Apostolic Letter Novo Millennio
Ineunte the Holy Father remarks on the great interest in spirituality
found in the secular world of today, and how other religions are
responding to this demand in appealing ways. He goes on to issue
a challenge to Christians in this regard: "But we who have received
the grace of believing in Christ, the revealer of the Father and
the Savior of the world, have a duty to show to what depths the
relationship with Christ can lead" (n. 33). To those shopping around
in the world's fair of religious proposals, the appeal of Christianity
will be felt first of all in the witness of the members of the Church,
in their trust, calm, patience and cheerfulness, and in their concrete
love of neighbour, all the fruit of their faith nourished in authentic
personal prayer.
7.1.
Some brief formulations of New Age ideas
William Bloom's 1992 formulation of New Age quoted in Heelas,
p. 225f.:
*All life - all existence - is the manifestation of
Spirit, of the Unknowable, of that supreme consciousness known by
many different names in many different cultures.
*The purpose and dynamic of all existence is to bring
Love, Wisdom, Enlightenment... into full manifestation.
*All religions are the expression of this same inner
reality.
*All life, as we perceive it with the five human senses
or with scientific instruments, is only the outer veil of an invisible,
inner and causal reality.
*Similarly, human beings are twofold creatures - with:
(i) an outer temporary personality; and (ii) a multi-dimensional
inner being (soul or higher self).
*The outer personality is limited and tends towards
love.
*The purpose of the incarnation of the inner being is
to bring the vibrations of the outer personality into a resonance
of love.
*All souls in incarnation are free to choose their own
spiritual path.
*Our spiritual teachers are those whose souls are liberated
from the need to incarnate and who express unconditional love, wisdom
and enlightenment. Some of these great beings are well- known and
have inspired the world religions. Some are unknown and work invisibly.
*All life, in its different forms and states, is interconnected
energy - and this includes our deeds, feelings and thoughts. We,
therefore, work with Spirit and these energies in co-creating our
reality.
*Although held in the dynamic of cosmic love, we are
jointly responsible for the state of our selves, of our environment
and of all life.
*During this period of time, the evolution of the planet
and of humanity has reached a point when we are undergoing a fundamental
spiritual change in our individual and mass consciousness. This
is why we talk of a New Age. This new consciousness is the
result of the increasingly successful incarnation of what some people
call the energies of cosmic love. This new consciousness demonstrates
itself in an instinctive understanding of the sacredness and, in
particular, the interconnectedness of all existence.
*This new consciousness and this new understanding of
the dynamic interdependence of all life mean that we are currently
in the process of volving a completely new planetary culture.
Heelas (p. 226) Jeremy Tarcher's "complementary formulation".
1. The world, including the human race, constitutes an expression
of a higher, more comprehensive divine nature.
2. Hidden within each human being is a higher divine self, which
is a manifestation of the higher, more comprehensive divine nature.
3. This higher nature can be awakened and can become the center
of the individual's everyday life.
4. This awakening is the reason for the existence of each individual
life.
David Spangler is quoted in Actualité des religions nş
8, septembre 1999, p. 43, on the principal characteristics of the
New Age vision, which is:
*holistic (globalising, because there is one single
reality-energy);
*ecological (earth-Gaia is our mother; each of us is
a neurone of earth's central nervous system);
*androgynous (rainbow and Yin/Yang are both NA symbols,
to do with the complementarity of contraries, esp. masculine and
feminine);
*mystical (finding the sacred in every thing, the most
ordinary things);
*planetary (people must be at one and the same time
anchored in their own culture and open to a universal dimension,
capable of promoting love, compassion, peace and even the establishment
of world government).
7.2. A Select Glossary
Age of Aquarius: each astrological age of about 2146 years is named
according to one of the signs of the zodiac, but the "great days"
go in reverse order, so the current Age of Pisces is about to end,
and the Age of Aquarius will be ushered in. Each Age has its own
cosmic energies; the energy in Pisces has made it an era of wars
and conflicts. But Aquarius is set to be an era of harmony, justice,
peace, unity etc. In this aspect, New Age accepts historical
inevitability. Some reckon the age of Aries was the time of the
Jewish religion, the age of Pisces that of Christianity, Aquarius
the age of a universal religion.
Androgyny: is not hermaphroditism, i.e. existence with the physical
characteristics of both sexes, but an awareness of the presence
in every person of male and female elements; it is said to be a
state of balanced inner harmony of the animus and anima.
In New Age, it is a state resulting from a new awareness
of this double mode of being and existing that is characteristic
of every man and every woman. The more it spreads, the more it will
assist in the transformation of interpersonal conduct.
Anthroposophy: a theosophical doctrine originally popularised by
the Croat Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), who left the Theosophical
Society after being leader of its German branch from 1902 to 1913.
It is an esoteric doctrine meant to initiate people into "objective
knowledge" in the spiritual-divine sphere. Steiner believed it had
helped him explore the laws of evolution of the cosmos and of humanity.
Every physical being has a corresponding spiritual being, and earthly
life is influenced by astral energies and spiritual essences. The
Akasha Chronicle is said to be a "cosmic memory" available
to initiates.(95)
Channeling: psychic mediums claim to act as channels for information
from other selves, usually disembodied entities living on a higher
plane. It links beings as diverse as ascended masters, angels, gods,
group entities, nature spirits and the Higher Self.
Christ: in New Age the historical figure of Jesus is but
one incarnation of an idea or an energy or set of vibrations. For
Alice Bailey, a great day of supplication is needed, when all believers
will create such a concentration of spiritual energy that there
will be a further incarnation, which will reveal how people can
save themselves.... For many people, Jesus is nothing more than
a spiritual master who, like Buddha, Moses and Mohammed, amongst
others, has been penetrated by the cosmic Christ. The cosmic Christ
is also known as christic energy at the basis of each being and
the whole of being. Individuals need to be initiated gradually into
awareness of this christic characteristic they are all said to have.
Christ - in New Age terms - represents the highest state
of perfection of the self.(96)
Crystals: are reckoned to vibrate at significant frequencies. Hence
they are useful in self-transformation. They are used in various
therapies and in meditation, visualisation, 'astral travel' or as
lucky charms. From the outside looking in, they have no intrinsic
power, but are simply beautiful.
Depth Psychology: the school of psychology founded by C.G. Jung,
a former disciple of Freud. Jung recognised that religion and spiritual
matters were important for wholeness and health. The interpretation
of dreams and the analysis of archetypes were key elements in his
method. Archetypes are forms which belong to the inherited structure
of the human psyche; they appear in the recurrent motifs or images
in dreams, fantasies, myths and fairy tales.
Enneagram: (from the Greek ennéa = nine + gramma
= sign) the name refers to a diagram composed of a circle with nine
points on its circumference, connected within the circle by a triangle
and a hexangle. It was originally used for divination, but has become
known as the symbol for a system of personality typology consisting
of nine standard character types. It became popular after the publication
of Helen Palmer's book The Enneagram,(97)
but she recognises her indebtedness to the Russian esoteric thinker
and practitioner G.I. Gurdjieff, the Chilean psychologist Claudio
Naranjo and author Oscar Ichazo, founder of Arica. The origin
of the enneagram remains shrouded in mystery, but some maintain
that it comes from Sufi mysticism.
Esotericism: (from the Greek esotéros = that which is within)
it generally refers to an ancient and hidden body of knowledge available
only to initiated groups, who portray themselves as guardians of
the truths hidden from the majority of humankind. The initiation
process takes people from a merely external, superficial, knowledge
of reality to the inner truth and, in the process, awakens their
consciousness at a deeper level. People are invited to undertake
this "inner journey" to discover the "divine spark" within them.
Salvation, in this context, coincides with a discovery of the Self.
Evolution: in New Age it is much more than a question of
living beings evolving towards superior life forms; the physical
model is projected on to the spiritual realm, so that an immanent
power within human beings would propel them towards superior spiritual
life forms. Human beings are said not to have full control over
this power, but their good or bad actions can accelerate or retard
their progress. The whole of creation, including humanity, is seen
to be moving inexorably towards a fusion with the divine. Reincarnation
clearly has an important place in this view of a progressive spiritual
evolution which is said to begin before birth and continue after
death.(98)
Expansion of consciousness: if the cosmos is seen as one continuous
chain of being, all levels of existence - mineral, vegetable, animal,
human, cosmic and divine beings - are interdependent. Human beings
are said to become aware of their place in this holistic
vision of global reality by expanding their consciousness
well beyond its normal limits. The New Age offers a huge variety
of techniques to help people reach a higher level of perceiving
reality, a way of overcoming the separation between subjects and
between subjects and objects in the knowing process, concluding
in total fusion of what normal, inferior, awareness sees as separate
or distinct realities.
Feng-shui: a form of geomancy, in this case an occult Chinese method
of deciphering the hidden presence of positive and negative currents
in buildings and other places, on the basis of a knowledge of earthly
and atmospheric forces. "Just like the human body or the cosmos,
sites are places criss-crossed by influxes whose correct balance
is the source of health and life".(99)
Gnosis: in a generic sense, it is a form of knowledge that is not
intellectual, but visionary or mystical, thought to be revealed
and capable of joining the human being to the divine mystery. In
the first centuries of Christianity, the Fathers of the Church struggled
against gnosticism, inasmuch as it was at odds with faith. Some
see a reborth of gnostic ideas in much New Age thinking, and some
authors connected with New Age actually quote early gnosticism.
However, the greater emphasis in New Age on monism and even pantheism
or panentheism encourages some to use the term neo-gnosticism
to distinguish New Age gnosis from ancient gnosticism.
Great White Brotherhood: Mrs. Blavatsky claimed to have contact
with the mahatmas, or masters, exalted beings who
together constitute the Great White Brotherhood. She saw them as
guiding the evolution of the human race and directing the work of
the Theosophical Society.
Hermeticism: philosophical and religious practices and speculations
linked to the writings in the Corpus Hermeticum, and the
Alexandrian texts attributed to the mythical Hermes Trismegistos.
When they first became known during the Renaissance, they were thought
to reveal pre-Christian doctrines, but later studies showed they
dated from the first century of the christian era.(100)
Alexandrian hermeticism is a major resource for modern esotericism,
and the two have much in common: eclecticism, a refutation of ontological
dualism, an affirmation of the positive and symbolic character of
the universe, the idea of the fall and later restoration of mankind.
Hermetic speculation has strengthened belief in an ancient fundamental
tradition or a so-called philosophia perennis falsely considered
as common to all religious traditions. The high and ceremonial forms
of magic developed from Renaissance Hermeticism.
Holism: a key concept in the "new paradigm", claiming to provide
a theoretical frame integrating the entire worldview of modern man.
In contrast with an experience of increasing fragmentation in science
and everyday life, "wholeness" is put forward as a central methodological
and ontological concept. Humanity fits into the universe as part
of a single living organism, a harmonious network of dynamic relationships.
The classic distinction between subject and object, for which Descartes
and Newton are typically blamed, is challenged by various scientists
who offer a bridge between science and religion. Humanity is part
of a universal network (eco-system, family) of nature and world,
and must seek harmony with every element of this quasi-transcendent
authority. When one understands one's place in nature, in the cosmos
which is also divine, one also understands that "wholeness" and
"holiness" are one and the same thing. The clearest articulation
of the concept of holism is in the "Gaia" hypothesis.(101)
Human Potential Movement: since its beginnings (Esalen, California,
in the 1960s), this has grown into a network of groups promoting
the release of the innate human capacity for creativity through
self-realisation. Various techniques of personal transformation
are used more and more by companies in management training programmes,
ultimately for very normal economic reasons. Transpersonal Technologies,
the Movement for Inner Spiritual Awareness, Organisational Development
and Organisational Transformation are all put forward as non-religious,
but in reality company employees can find themselves being submitted
to an alien 'spirituality' in a situation which raises questions
about personal freedom. There are clear links between Eastern spirituality
and psychotherapy, while Jungian psychology and the Human Potential
Movement have been very influential on Shamanism and "reconstructed"
forms of Paganism like Druidry and Wicca. In a general sense, "personal
growth" can be understood as the shape "religious salvation" takes
in the New Age movement: it is affirmed that deliverance
from human suffering and weakness will be reached by developing
our human potential, which results in our increasingly getting in
touch with our inner divinity.(102)
Initiation: in religious ethnology it is the cognitive and/or experiential
journey whereby a person is admitted, either alone or as part of
a group, by means of particular rituals to membership of a religious
community, a secret society (e.g. Freemasonry) or a mystery association
(magical, esoteric-occult, gnostic, theosophical etc.).
Karma: (from the Sanskrit root Kri = action, deed) a key
notion in Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism, but one whose meaning
has not always been the same. In the ancient Vedic period it referred
to the ritual action, especially sacrifice, by means of which a
person gained access to the happiness or blessedness of the afterlife.
When Jainism and Buddhism appeared (about 6 centuries before Christ),
Karma lost its salvific meaning: the way to liberation was knowledge
of the Atman or "self". In the doctrine of samsara,
it was understood as the incessant cycle of human birth and death
(Huinduism) or of rebirth (Buddhism).(103)
In New Age contexts, the "law of karma" is often seen as
the moral equivalent of cosmic evolution. It is no longer to do
with evil or suffering - illusions to be experienced as part of
a "cosmic game" - but is the universal law of cause and effect,
part of the tendency of the interconnected universe towards moral
balance.(104)
Monism: the metaphysical belief that differences between beings
are illusory. There is only one universal being, of which every
thing and every person is a part. Inasmuch as New Age monism
includes the idea that reality is fundamentally spiritual, it is
a contemporary form of pantheism (sometimes explicitly a rejection
of materialism, particularly Marxism). Its claim to resolve all
dualism leaves no room for a transcendent God, so everything
is God. A further problem arises for Christianity when the question
of the origin of evil is raised. C.G. Jung saw evil as the "shadow
side" of the God who, in classical theism, is all goodness.
Mysticism: New Age mysticism is turning inwards on oneself
rather than communion with God who is "totally other". It is fusion
with the universe, an ultimate annihilation of the individual in
the unity of the whole. Experience of Self is taken to be experience
of divinity, so one looks within to discover authentic wisdom, creativity
and power.
Neopaganism: a title often rejected by many to whom it is applied,
it refers to a current that runs parallel to New Age and
often interacts with it. In the great wave of reaction against traditional
religions, specifically the Judaeo-Christian heritage of the West,
many have revisited ancient indigenous, traditional, pagan religions.
Whatever preceded Christianity is reckoned to be more genuine to
the spirit of the land or the nation, an uncontaminated form of
natural religion, in touch with the powers of nature, often matriarchal,
magical or Shamanic. Humanity will, it is said, be healthier if
it returns to the natural cycle of (agricultural) festivals and
to a general affirmation of life. Some "neo-pagan" religions are
recent reconstructions whose authentic relationship to original
forms can be questioned, particularly in cases where they are dominated
by modern ideological components like ecology, feminism or, in a
few cases, myths of racial purity.(105)
New Age Music: this is a booming industry. The music concerned
is very often packaged as a means of achieving harmony with oneself
or the world, and some of it is "Celtic" or druidic. Some New
Age composers claim their music is meant to build bridges between
the conscious and the unconscious, but this is probably more so
when, besides melodies, there is meditative and rhythmic repetition
of key phrases. As with many elements of the New Age phenomenon,
some music is meant to bring people further into the New Age
Movement, but most is simply commercial or artistic.
New Thought: a 19th century religious movement founded
in the United States of America. Its origins were in idealism, of
which it was a popularised form. God was said to be totally good,
and evil merely an illusion; the basic reality was the mind. Since
one's mind is what causes the events in one's life, one has
to take ultimate responsibility for every aspect of one's situation.
Occultism: occult (hidden) knowledge, and the hidden forces of
the mind and of nature, are at the basis of beliefs and practices
linked to a presumed secret "perennial philosophy" derived from
ancient Greek magic and alchemy, on the one hand, and Jewish mysticism,
on the other. They are kept hidden by a code of secrecy imposed
on those initiated into the groups and societies that guard the
knowledge and techniques involved. In the 19th century, spiritualism
and the Theosophical Society introduced new forms of occultism which
have, in turn, influenced various currents in the New Age.
Pantheism: (Greek pan = everything and theos = God)
the belief that everything is God or, sometimes, that everything
is in God and God is in everything (panentheism). Every element
of the universe is divine, and the divinity is equally present in
everything. There is no space in this view for God as a distinct
being in the sense of classical theism.
Parapsychology: treats of such things as extrasensory perception,
mental telepathy, telekinesis, psychic healing and communication
with spirits via mediums or channeling. Despite fierce criticism
from scientists, parapsychology has gone from strength to strength,
and fits neatly into the view popular in some areas of the New
Age that human beings have extraordinary psychic abilities,
but often only in an undeveloped state.
Planetary Consciousness: this world-view developed in the 1980s
to foster loyalty to the community of humanity rather than to nations,
tribes or other established social groups. It can be seen as the
heir to movements in the early 20th century that promoted a world
government. The consciousness of the unity of humanity sits well
with the Gaia hypothesis.
Positive Thinking: the conviction that people can change physical
reality or external circumstances by altering their mental attitude,
by thinking positively and constructively. Sometimes it is a matter
of becoming consciously aware of unconsciously held beliefs that
determine our life-situation. Positive thinkers are promised health
and wholeness, often prosperity and even immortality.
Rebirthing: In the early 1970s Leonard Orr described rebirthing
as a process by which a person can identify and isolate aoreas in
his or her consciousness that are unresolved and at the source of
present problems.
Reincarnation: in a New Age context, reincarnation is linked
to the concept of ascendant evolution towards becoming divine. As
opposed to Indian religions or those derived from them, New Age
views reincarnation as progression of the individual soul towards
a more perfect state. What is reincarnated is essentially something
immaterial or spiritual; more precisely, it is consciousness, that
spark of energy in the person that shares in cosmic or "christic"
energy. Death is nothing but the passage of the soul from one body
to another.
Rosicrucians: these are Western occult groups involved in alchemy,
astrology, Theosophy and kabbalistic interpretations of scripture.
The Rosicrucian Fellowship contributed to the revival of
astrology in the 20th century, and the Ancient and
Mystical Order of the Rosae Crucis (AMORC) linked success with
a presumed ability to materialise mental images of health, riches
and happiness.
Shamanism: practices and beliefs linked to communication with the
spirits of nature and the spirits of dead people through ritualised
possession (by the spirits) of a shaman, who serves as a medium.
It has been attractive in New Age circles because it stresses
harmony with the forces of nature and healing. There is also a romanticised
image of indigenous religions and their closeness to the earth and
to nature.
Spiritualism: While there have always been attempts to contact
the spirits of the dead, 19th century spiritualism is
reckoned to be one of the currents that flow into the New Age.
It developed against the background of the ideas of Swedenborg and
Mesmer, and became a new kind of religion. Madame Blavatsky was
a medium, and so spiritualism had a great influence on the Theosophical
Society, although there the emphasis was on contact with entities
from the distant past rather than people who had died only recently.
Allan Kardec was influential in the spread of spiritualism in Afro-Brasilian
religions. There are also spiritualist elements in some New Religious
Movements in Japan.
Theosophy: an ancient term, which originally referred to a kind
of mysticism. It has been linked to Greek Gnostics and Neoplatonists,
to Meister Eckhart, Nicholas of Cusa and Jakob Boehme. The name
was given new emphasis by the Theosophical Society, founded by Helena
Petrovna Blavatsky and others in 1875. Theosophical mysticism tends
to be monistic, stressing the essential unity of the spiritual and
material components of the universe. It also looks for the hidden
forces that cause matter and spirit to interact, in such a way that
human and divine minds eventually meet. Here is where theosophy
offers mystical redemption or enlightenment.
Transcendentalism: This was a 19th century movement
of writers and thinkers in New England, who shared an idealistic
set of beliefs in the essential unity of creation, the innate goodness
of the human person, and the superiority of insight over logic and
experience for the revelation of the deepest truths. The chief figure
is Ralph Waldo Emerson, who moved away from orthodox Christianity,
through Unitarianism to a new natural mysticism which integrated
concepts from Hinduism with popular American ones like individualism,
personal responsibility and the need to succeed.
Wicca: an old English term for witches that has been given to a
neo-pagan revival of some elements of ritual magic. It was invented
in England in 1939 by Gerald Gardner, who based it on some scholarly
texts, according to which medieval European witchcraft was an ancient
nature religion persecuted by Christians. Called "the Craft", it
grew rapidly in the 1960s in the United States, where it encountered
"women's spirituality".
7.3. Key New Age places
Esalen: a community founded in Big Sur, California, in 1962 by
Michael Murphy and Richard Price, whose main aim was to arrive at
a self-realisation of being through nudism and visions, as well
as "bland medicines". It has become one of the most important centres
of the Human Potential Movement, and has spread ideas about holistic
medicine in the worlds of education, politics and economics. This
has been done through courses in comparative religion, mythology,
mysticism, meditation, psychotherapy, expansion of consciousness
and so on. Along with Findhorn, it is seen as a key place in the
growth of Aquarian consciousness. The Esalen Soviet-American Institute
co-operated with Soviet officials on the Health Promotion Project.
Findhorn: this holistic farming community started by Peter and
Eileen Caddy achieved the growth of enormous plants by unorthodox
methods. The founding of the Findhorn community in Scotland in 1965
was an important milestone in the movement which bears the label
of the 'New Age'. In fact, Findhorn 'was seen as embodying
its principal ideals of transformation'. The quest for a universal
consciousness, the goal of harmony with nature, the vision of a
transformed world, and the practice of channeling, all of which
have become hallmarks of the New Age Movement, were present
at Findhorn from its foundation. The success of this community led
to its becoming a model for, and/or an inspiration to, other groups,
such as Alternatives in London, Esalen in Big Sur, California, and
the Open Center and Omega Institute in New York".(106)
Monte Veritŕ: a utopian community near Ascona in Switzerland. Since
the end of the 19th century it was a meeting point for European
and American exponents of the counter-culture in the fields of politics,
psychology, art and ecology. The Eranos conferences have
been held there every year since 1933, gathering some of the great
luminaries of the New Age. The yearbooks make clear the intention
to create an integrated world religion.(107)
It is fascinating to see the list of those who have gathered over
the years at Monte Veritŕ.
Documents
of the Catholic Church's magisterium
John Paul II, Address to the United States Bishops of Iowa,
Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska on their "Ad Limina" visit, 28
May 1993.
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Letter to Bishops
on Certain Aspects of Christian Meditation (Orationis Formas),
Vatican City (Vatican Polyglot Press) 1989.
International Theological Commission, Some Current Questions
Concerning Eschatology, 1992, Nos. 9-10 (on reincarnation).
International Theological Commission, Some Questions on the
Theology of Redemption, 1995, I/29 and II/35-36.
Argentine Bishops' Conference Committee for Culture, Frente
a una Nueva Era. Desafio a la pastoral en el horizonte de la Nueva
Evangelización, 1993.
Irish Theological Commission, A New Age of the Spirit? A Catholic
Response to the New Age Phenomenon, Dublin 1994.
Godfried Danneels, Au-delŕ de la mort: réincarnation et resurrection,
Pastoral Letter, Easter 1991.
Godfried Danneels, Christ or Aquarius? Pastoral Letter,
Christmas 1990 (Veritas, Dublin).
Carlo Maccari, "La 'mistica cosmica' del New Age", in
Religioni e Sette nel Mondo 1996/2.
Carlo Maccari, La New Age di fronte alla fede cristiana,
Turin (LDC) 1994.
Edward Anthony McCarthy, The New Age Movement, Pastoral
Instruction, 1992.
Paul Poupard, Felicitŕ e fede cristiana, Casale Monferrato
(Ed. Piemme) 1992.
Joseph Ratzinger, La fede e la teologia ai nostri giorni,
Guadalajara, May 1996, in L'Osservatore Romano 27 October
1996.
Norberto Rivera Carrera, Instrucción Pastoral sobre el New Age,
7 January 1996.
Christoph von Schönborn, Risurrezione e reincarnazione,
(Italian translation) Casale Monferrato (Piemme) 1990.
J. Francis Stafford, Il movimento "New Age", in L'Osservatore
Romano, 30 October 1992.
Working Group on New Religious Movements (ed.), Vatican City,
Sects and New Religious Movements. An Anthology of Texts From the
Catholic Church, Washington (USCC) 1995.
Christian studies
Raúl Berzosa Martinez, Nueva Era y Cristianismo. Entre el diálogo
y la ruptura, Madrid (BAC) 1995.
André Fortin, Les Galeries du Nouvel Age: un chrétien s'y promčne,
Ottawa (Novalis) 1993.
Claude Labrecque, Une religion américaine. Pistes de discernement
chrétien sur les courants populaires du "Nouvel Age", Montréal
(Médiaspaul) 1994.
The Methodist Faith and Order Committee, The New Age Movement
Report to Conference 1994.
Aidan Nichols, "The New Age Movement", in The Month, March
1992, pp. 84-89.
Alessandro Olivieri Pennesi, Il Cristo del New Age. Indagine
critica, Vatican City (Libreria Editrice Vaticana) 1999.
Ökumenische Arbeitsgruppe "Neue Religiöse Bewegungen in der Schweiz",
New Age - aus christlicher Sicht, Freiburg (Paulusverlag) 1987.
Mitch Pacwa s.j., Catholics and the New Age. How Good People
are being drawn into Jungian Psychology, the Enneagram and the New
Age of Aquarius, Ann Arbor MI (Servant) 1992.
John Saliba, Christian Responses to the New Age Movement. A
Critical Assessment, London (Chapman) 1999.
Josef Südbrack, SJ, Neue Religiosität - Herausforderung für
die Christen, Mainz (Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag) 1987 = La
nuova religiositŕ: una sfida per i cristiani, Brescia (Queriniana)
1988.
"Theologie für Laien" secretariat, Faszination Esoterik, Zürich
(Theologie für Laien) 1996.
David Toolan, Facing West from California's Shores. A Jesuit's
Journey into New Age Consciousness, New York (Crossroad) 1987.
Juan Carlos Urrea Viera, "New Age". Visión Histórico-Doctrinal
y Principales Desafíos, Santafé de Bogotá (CELAM) 1996.
Jean Vernette, "L'avventura spirituale dei figli dell'Acquario",
in Religioni e Sette nel Mondo 1996/2.
Jean Vernette, Jésus dans la nouvelle religiosité, Paris
(Desclée) 1987.
Jean Vernette, Le New Age, Paris (P.U.F.) 1992.
9.1. Some New Age books
William Bloom, The New Age. An Anthology of Essential Writings,
London (Rider) 1991.
Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels
between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism, Berkeley (Shambhala)
1975.
Fritjof Capra, The Turning Point: Science, Society and the Rising
Culture,
Toronto (Bantam) 1983.
Benjamin Creme, The Reappearance of Christ and the Masters of
Wisdom,
London (Tara Press) 1979.
Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy. Personal and Social
Transformation in Our Time, Los Angeles (Tarcher) 1980.
Chris Griscom, Ecstasy is a New Frequency: Teachings of the
Light Institute, New York (Simon & Schuster) 1987.
Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago
(University of Chicago Press) 1970.
David Spangler, The New Age Vision, Forres (Findhorn Publications)
1980.
David Spangler, Revelation: The Birth of a New Age, San
Francisco (Rainbow Bridge) 1976.
David Spangler, Towards a Planetary Vision, Forres (Findhorn
Publications) 1977.
David Spangler, The New Age, Issaquah (The Morningtown Press)
1988.
David Spangler, The Rebirth of the Sacred, London (Gateway
Books) 1988.
9.2.
Historical, descriptive and analytical works
Christoph Bochinger, "New Age" und moderne Religion: Religionswissenschaftliche
Untersuchungen, Gütersloh (Kaiser) 1994.
Bernard Franck, Lexique du Nouvel-Age, Limoges (Droguet-Ardant)
1993.
Hans Gasper, Joachim Müller and Friederike Valentin, Lexikon
der Sekten, Sondergruppen und Weltanschauungen. Fakten, Hintergründe,
Klärungen, updated edition, Freiburg-Basel-Vienna (Herder) 2000.
See, inter alia, the article "New Age" by Christoph Schorsch,
Karl R. Essmann and Medard Kehl, and "Reinkarnation" by Reinhard
Hümmel.
Manabu Haga and Robert J. Kisala (eds.), "The New Age in Japan",
in Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, Fall 1995, vol.
22, numbers 3 & 4.
Wouter Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture. Esotericism
in the Mirror of Nature, Leiden-New York-Köln (Brill) 1996.
This book has an extensive bibliography.
Paul Heelas, The New Age Movement. The Celebration of the Self
and the Sacralization of Modernity, Oxford (Blackwell) 1996.
Massimo Introvigne, New Age & Next Age, Casale Monferrato
(Piemme) 2000.
Michel Lacroix, L'Ideologia della New Age, Milano (Il Saggiatore)
1998.
J. Gordon Melton, New Age Encyclopedia, Detroit (Gale Research
Inc) 1990.
Elliot Miller, A Crash Course in the New Age, Eastbourne
(Monarch) 1989.
Georges Minois, Histoire de l'athéisme, Paris (Fayard) 1998.
Arild Romarheim, The Aquarian Christ. Jesus Christ as Portrayed
by New Religious Movements, Hong Kong (Good Tiding) 1992.
Hans-Jürgen Ruppert, Durchbruch zur Innenwelt. Spirituelle Impulse
aus New Age und Esoterik in kritischer Beleuchtung, Stuttgart
(Quell Verlag) 1988.
Edwin Schur, The Awareness Trap. Self-Absorption instead of
Social Change, New York (McGraw Hill) 1977.
Rodney Stark and William Sims Bainbridge, The Future of Religion.
Secularisation, Revival and Cult Formation, Berkeley (University
of California Press) 1985.
Steven Sutcliffe and Marion Bowman (eds.), Beyond the New Age.
Exploring Alternative Spirituality, Edinburgh (Edinburgh University
Press), 2000.
Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self. The Making of the Modern
Identity, Cambridge (Cambridge University Press) 1989.
Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity, London (Harvard
University Press) 1991
Edęnio Valle s.v.d., "Psicologia e energias da mente: teorias alternativas",
in A Igreja Católica diante do pluralismo religioso do Brasil
(III). Estudos da CNBB n. 71, Săo Paulo (paulus) 1994.
World Commission on Culture and Development, Our Creative Diversity.
Report of the World Commission on Culture and Development, Paris
(UNESCO) 1995.
M. York, "The New Age Movement in Great Britain", in Syzygy.
Journal of Alternative Religion and Culture, 1:2-3 (1992) Stanford
CA.
(1)Paul Heelas,
The New Age Movement. The Celebration of the Self and the Sacralization
of Modernity, Oxford (Blackwell) 1996, p. 137.
(2)Cf. P. Heelas,
op. cit., p. 164f.
(3)Cf. P. Heelas,
op. cit., p. 173.
(4)Cf. John
Paul II, Encyclical Letter Dominum et vivificantem (18 May
1986), 53.
(5)Cf. Gilbert
Markus o.p., "Celtic Schmeltic", (1) in Spirituality, vol.
4, November-December 1998, No 21, pp. 379-383 and (2) in Spirituality,
vol. 5, January-February 1999, No. 22, pp. 57-61.
(6)John Paul
II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, (Knopf) 1994, 90.
(7)Cf. particularly
Massimo Introvigne, New Age & Next Age, Casale Monferrato
(Piemme) 2000.
(8)M. Introvigne,
op. cit., p. 267.
(9)Cf. Michel
Lacroix, L'Ideologia della New Age, Milano (il Saggiatore)
1998, p. 86. The word "sect" is used here not in any pejorative
sense, but rather to denote a sociological phenomenon.
(10)Cf. Wouter
J. Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture. Esotericism
in the Mirror of Secular Thought, Leiden-New York-Köln (Brill)
1996, p. 377 and elsewhere.
(11)Cf. Rodney
Stark and William Sims Bainbridge, The Future of Religion. Secularisation,
Revival and Cult Formation, Berkeley (University of California
Press) 1985.
(12)Cf. M.
Lacroix, op. cit., p. 8.
(13)The Swiss
"Theologie für Laien" course entitled Faszination Esoterik puts
this clearly. Cf. "Kursmappe 1 - New Age und Esoterik", text
to accompany slides, p. 9.
(14)The term
was already in use in the title of The New Age Magazine,
which was being published by the Ancient Accepted Scottish Masonic
Rite in the southern jurisdiction of the United States of America
as early as 1900 Cf. M. York, "The New Age Movement in Great
Britain", in Syzygy. Journal of Alternative Religion and Culture,
1: 2-3 (1992), Stanford CA, p. 156, note 6. The exact timing and
nature of the change to the New Age are interpreted variously by
different authors; estimates of timing range from 1967 to 2376.
(15)In late
1977, Marilyn Ferguson sent a questionnaire to 210 "persons engaged
in social transformation", whom she also calls "Aquarian Conspirators".
The following is interesting: "When respondents were asked to name
individuals whose ideas had influenced them, either through personal
contact or through their writings, those most often named, in order
of frequency, were Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, C.G. Jung, Abraham
Maslow, Carl Rogers, Aldous Huxley, Robert Assagioli, and J. Krishnamurti.
"Others frequently mentioned: Paul Tillich, Hermann Hesse, Alfred
North Whitehead, Martin Buber, Ruth Benedict, Margaret Mead, Gregory
Bateson, Tarthang Tulku, Alan Watts, Sri Aurobindo, Swami Muktananda,
D.T. Suzuki, Thomas Merton, Willis Harman, Kenneth Boulding, Elise
Boulding, Erich Fromm, Marshall McLuhan, Buckminster Fuller, Frederic
Spiegelberg, Alfred Korzybski, Heinz von Foerster, John Lilly, Werner
Erhard, Oscar Ichazo, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Joseph Chilton Pearce,
Karl Pribram, Gardner Murphy, and Albert Einstein": The Aquarian
Conspiracy. Personal and Social Transformation in Our Time,
Los Angeles (Tarcher) 1980, p. 50 (note 1) and p. 434.
(16)W.J. Hanegraaff,
op. cit., p. 520.
(17)Irish
Theological Commission, A New Age of the Spirit? A Catholic Response
to the New Age Phenomenon, Dublin 1994, chapter 3.
(18)Cf. The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago (University of
Chicago Press), 1970, p. 175.
(19)Cf. Alessandro
Olivieri Pennesi, Il Cristo del New Age. Indagine critica,
Vatican City (Libreria Editrice Vaticana) 1999, passim, but
especially pp. 11-34. See Also section 4 below.
(20)It is
worth recalling the lyrics of this song, which quickly imprinted
themselves on to the minds of a whole generation in North America
and Western Europe: "When the Moon is in the Seventh House, and
Jupiter aligns with Mars, then Peace will guide the Planets, and
Love will steer the Stars. This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius...
Harmony and understanding, ympathy and trust abounding; no
more falsehoods or derision - golden living, dreams of visions,
mystic crystal revelation, and the mind's true liberation. Aquarius...".
(21)P. Heelas,
op. cit., p. 1f. The August 1978 journal of the Berkeley Christian
Coalition puts it this way: "Just ten years ago the funky drug-based
spirituality of the hippies and the mysticism of the Western yogi
were restricted to the counterculture. Today, both have found their
way into the mainstream of our cultural mentality. Science, the
health professions, and the arts, not to mention psychology and
religion, are all engaged in a fundamental reconstruction of their
basic premises". Quoted in Marilyn Ferguson, op. cit., p.
370f.
(22)Cf. Chris
Griscom, Ecstasy is a New Frequency: Teachings of the Light Institute,
New York (Simon & Schuster) 1987, p. 82.
(23)See the
Glossary of New Age terms, §7.2 above.
(24)Cf. W.J.
Hanegraaff, op. cit., chapter 15 ("The Mirror of Secular
Thought"). The system of correspondences is clearly inherited from
traditional esotericism, but it has a new meaning for those who
(consciously or not) follow Swedenborg. While every natural element
in traditional esoteric doctrine had the divine life within it,
for Swedenborg nature is a dead reflection of the living spiritual
world. This idea is very much at the heart of the post-modern vision
of a disenchanted world and various attempts to "re-enchant" it.
Blavatsky rejected correspondences, and Jung emphatically relativised
causality in favour of the esoteric world-view of correspondences.
(25)W.J. Hanegraaff,
op. cit., pp. 54-55.
(26)Cf. Reinhard
Hümmel, "Reinkarnation", in Hans Gasper, Joachim Müller, Friederike
Valentin (eds.), Lexikon der Sekten, Sondergruppen und Weltanschauungen.
Fakten, Hintergründe, Klärungen, Freiburg-Basel-Wien (Herder)
2000, 886-893.
(27)Michael
Fuss, "New Age and Europe - A Challenge for Theology", in Mission
Studies Vol. VIII-2, 16, 1991, p. 192.
(28)Ibid.,
loc. cit.
(29)Ibid.,p.
193.
(30)Ibid.,p.
199.
(31)Congregation
for the Doctrine of Faith, Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic
Church on Some Aspects of Christian Meditation (Orationis Formas),
1989, 14.
Cf. Gaudium et Spes, 19; Fides et Ratio, 22.
(32)W.J. Hanegraaff,
op. cit., p. 448f. The objectives are quoted from the final
(1896) version, earlier versions of which stressed the irrationality
of "bigotry" and the urgency of promoting non-sectarian education.
Hanegraaff quotes J. Gordon Melton's description of New Age religion
as rooted in the "occult-metaphysical" tradition (ibid., p.
455).
(33)W.J. Hanegraaff,
op. cit., p. 513.
(34)Thomas
M. King s.j., "Jung and Catholic Spirituality", in America, 3
April 1999, p. 14. The author points out that New Age devotees "quote
passages dealing with the I Ching, astrology and Zen, while Catholics
quote passages dealing with Christian mystics, the liturgy and the
psychological value of the sacrament of reconciliation" (p. 12).
He also lists Catholic personalities and spiritual institutions
clearly inspired and guided by Jung's psychology.
(35)Cf. W.J.
Hanegraaff, op. cit., p. 501f.
(36)Carl Gustav
Jung, Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido, quoted in Hanegraaff,
op. cit., p. 503.
(37)On this
point cf. Michel Schooyans, L'Évangile face au désordre mondial,
with a preface by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Paris (Fayard) 1997.
(38)Quoted
in the Maranatha Community's The True and the False New Age.
Introductory Ecumenical Notes, Manchester (Maranatha) 1993,
8.10 - the original page numbering is not specified.
(39)Michel
Lacroix, L'Ideologia della New Age, Milano (il Saggiatore)
1998, p. 84f.
(40)Cf. the
section on David Spangler's ideas in Actualité des religions
nş 8, septembre 1999, p. 43.
(41)M. Ferguson,
op. cit., p. 407.
(42)Ibid.,p.
411.
(43)"To be
an American... is precisely to imagine a destiny rather than
inherit one. We have always been inhabitants of myth rather than
history": Leslie Fiedler, quoted in M. Ferguson, op. cit.,
p. 142.
(44)Cf. P.
Heelas, op. cit., p. 173f.
(45)David
Spangler, The New Age, Issaquah (Mornington Press) 1988,
p. 14.
(46)P. Heelas,
op. cit., p. 168.
(47)See the
Preface to Michel Schooyans, L'Évangile face au désordre mondial,
op. cit. This quotation is translated from the Italian, Il
nuovo disordine mondiale, Cinisello Balsamo (San Paolo) 2000,
p. 6.
(48)Cf.
Our Creative Diversity. Report of the World Commission on Culture
and Development, Paris (UNESCO) 1995, which illustrates the
importance given to celebrating and promoting diversity.
(49)Cf. Christoph
Bochinger, "New Age" und moderne Religion: Religionswissenschaftliche
Untersuchungen, Gütersloh (Kaiser) 1994, especially chapter
3.
(50)The shortcomings
of techniques which are not yet prayer are discussed below in §
3.4, "Christian mysticism and New Age mysticism".
(51)Cf. Carlo
Maccari, "La 'mistica cosmica' del New Age", in Religioni
e Sette nel Mondo 1996/2.
(52)Jean Vernette,
"L'avventura spirituale dei figli dell'Acquario", in Religioni
e Sette nel Mondo 1996/2, p. 42f.
(53)J. Vernette,
loc. cit.
(54)Cf. J.
Gordon Melton, New Age Encyclopedia, Detroit (Gale Research)
1990, pp. xiii-xiv.
(55)David
Spangler, The Rebirth of the Sacred, London (Gateway Books)
1984, p. 78f.
(56)David
Spangler, The New Age, op. cit., p. 13f.
(57)John Paul
II, Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente (10 November
1994), 9.
(58)Matthew
Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ. The Healing of Mother Earth
and the Birth of a Global Renaissance, San Francisco (Harper
& Row) 1988, p. 135.
(59)Cf. the
document issued by the Argentine Bishops' Conference Committee for
Culture: Frente a una Nueva Era. Desafío a la pastoral en el
horizonte de la Nueva Evangelización, 1993.
(60)Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, Orationis Formas, 23.
(61)Ibid.,3.
See the sections on meditation and contemplative prayer in the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§. 2705-2719.
(62)Cf. Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, Orationis Formas, 13.
(63)Cf. Brendan
Pelphrey, "I said, You are Gods. Orthodox Christian Theosis
and Deification in the New Religious Movements" in Spirituality
East and West, Easter 2000 (No. 13).
(64)Adrian
Smith, God and the Aquarian Age. The new era of the Kingdom,
Great Wakering (McCrimmons) 1990, p. 49.
(65)Cf. Benjamin
Creme, The Reappearance of Christ and the Masters of Wisdom,
London (Tara Press) 1979, p. 116.
(66)Cf. Jean
Vernette, Le New Age, Paris (P.U.F.) 1992 (Collection Encyclopédique
Que sais-je?), p. 14.
(67)Catechism
of the Catholic Church, 52.
(68)Cf. Alessandro
Olivieri Pennesi, Il Cristo del New Age. Indagine Critica,
Vatican City (Libreria Editrice Vaticana) 1999, especially pages
13-34. The list of common points is on p. 33.
(69)The Nicene
Creed.
(70)Michel
Lacroix, L'Ideologia della New Age, Milano (Il Saggiatore)
1998, p. 74.
(71)Ibid.,
p. 68.
(72)Edwin
Schur, The Awareness Trap. Self-Absorption instead of Social
Change, New York (McGraw Hill) 1977, p. 68.
(73)Cf. Catechism
of the Catholic Church, §§ 355-383.
(74)Cf. Paul
Heelas, The New Age Movement. The Celebration of the Self and
the Sacralization of Modernity, Oxford (Blackwell) 1996, p.
161.
(75)A Catholic
Response to the New Age Phenomenon, Irish Theological Commission
1994, chapter 3.
(76)Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, Orationis Formas, 3.
(77)Ibid.,7.
(78)William
Bloom, The New Age. An Anthology of Essential Writings, London
(Rider) 1991, p. xvi.
(79)Catechism
of the Catholic Church, § 387.
(80)Ibid.,
§ 1849.
(81)Ibid.,
§ 1850.
(82)John Paul
II, Apostolic Letter on human suffering "Salvifici doloris" (11
February 1984), 19.
(83)Cf. David
Spangler, The New Age, op. cit., p. 28.
(84)Cf. John
Paul II, Encyclical Letter Redemptoris Missio (7 December
1990), 6, 28, and the Declaration Dominus Jesus (6 August
2000) by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, 12.
(85)Cf. R.
Rhodes, The Counterfeit Christ of the New Age Movement, Grand
Rapids (Baker) 1990, p. 129.
(86)Helen
Bergin o.p., "Living One's Truth", in The Furrow, January
2000, p. 12.
(87)Ibid.,p.
15.
(88)Cf. P.
Heelas, op. cit., p. 138.
(89)Elliot
Miller, A Crash Course in the New Age, Eastbourne (Monarch)
1989, p. 122. For documentation on the vehemently anti-Christian
stance of spiritualism, cf. R. Laurence Moore, "Spiritualism", in
Edwin S. Gaustad (ed.), The Rise of Adventism: Religion and Society
in Mid-Nineteenth-Century America, New York 1974, pp. 79-103,
and also R. Laurence Moore, In Search of White Crows: Spiritualism,
Parapsychology, and American Culture, New York (Oxford University
Press) 1977.
(90)Cf. John
Paul II, Encyclical letter Fides et Ratio (14 September 1998),
36-48.
(91)Cf. John
Paul II, Address to the United States Bishops of Iowa, Kansas,
Missouri and Nebraska on their "Ad Limina" visit, 28 May 1993.
(92)Cf. John
Paul II, Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Ecclesia in Africa
(14 September 1995), 103. The Pontifical Council for Culture has
published a handbook listing these centres throughout the world:
Catholic Cultural Centres (3rd edition, Vatican City, 2001).
(93)Cf. Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith, Orationis Formas, and § 3
above.
(94)This is
one area where lack of information can allow those responsible for
education to be misled by groups whose real agenda is inimical to
the Gospel message. It is particularly the case in schools, where
a captive curious young audience is an ideal target for ideological
merchandising. Cf. the caveat in Massimo Introvigne, New
Age & Next Age, Casale Monferrato (Piemme) 2000, p. 277f.
(95)Cf. J.
Badewien, Antroposofia, in H. Waldenfels (ed.) Nuovo Dizionario
delle Religioni, Cinisello Balsamo (San Paolo) 1993, 41.
(96)Cf. Raúl
Berzosa Martinez, Nueva Era y Cristianismo, Madrid (BAC)
1995, 214.
(97)Helen
Palmer, The Enneagram, New York (Harper-Row) 1989.
(98)Cf. document
of the Argentine Episcopal Committee for Culture, op. cit.
(99)J. Gernet,
in J.-P. Vernant et al., Divination et Rationalité, Paris
(Seuil) 1974, p. 55.
(100)Cf.
Susan Greenwood, "Gender and Power in Magical Practices", in Steven
Sutcliffe and Marion Bowman (eds.), Beyond New Age. Exploring
Alternative Spirituality, Edinburgh (Edinburgh University Press)
2000, p. 139.
(101)Cf.
M. Fuss, op. cit., 198-199.
(102)For
a brief but clear treatment of the Human Potential Movement, see
Elizabeth Puttick, "Personal Development: the Spiritualisation and
Secularisation of the Human Potential Movement", in: Steven Sutcliffe
and Marion Bowman (eds.), Beyond New Age. Exploring Alternative
Spirituality, Edinburgh (Edinburgh University Press) 2000, pp.
201-219.
(103)Cf.
C. Maccari, La "New Age" di fronte alla fede cristiana, Leumann-Torino
(LDC) 1994, 168.
(104)Cf.
W.J. Hanegraaff, op. cit., 283-290.
(105)On
this last, very delicate, point, see Eckhard Türk's article "Neonazismus"
in Hans Gasper, Joachim Müller, Friederike Valentin (eds.), Lexikon
der Sekten, Sondergruppen und Weltanschauungen. Fakten, Hintergründe,
Klärungen, Freiburg- Basel-Wien (Herder) 2000, p. 726.
(106)Cf.
John Saliba, Christian Responses to the New Age Movement. A Critical
Assessment, London, (Geoffrey Chapman) 1999, p.1.
(107)Cf.
M. Fuss, op. cit., 195-196.
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