Summary of the New Age Movement

From New Age Almanac, by J. Gordon Melton:

“The New Age Movement can best be dated from circa 1971. By that year, Eastern religion and transpersonal psychology (the key elements needed to create the distinctive New Age synthesis) had achieved a level of popularity, and metaphysical leaders could begin to articulate the New Age vision…Baba Ram Dass, a transformed refugee from the psychedelic age, emerged as the first national prophet…Despite its relatively recent appearance, the movement should not be viewed as a startlingly new phenomenon in Western culture.  Rather, it is more adequately seen as the latest phase in occult/metaphysical religion, a persistent tradition that has been the constant companion of Christianity through the centuries and blossomed heartily as a product of eighteenth century scientific enlightenment.

The occult, largely destroyed by Protestantism and the first major waves of religious skeptical thinking, representing in such movements as Deism, needed a new vehicle to replace the out-moded supernaturalism of medieval magic and alchemy.  It found that vehicle in the new science of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries…thus, as science has grown, so has the metaphysical/occult community….”

When the New Age Movement made its first public appearance in the west, its gurus came wearing funny clothes, dirty hair, and performing bizarre rituals that western minds mocked as ‘crazy’. But its promoters studied the western mind and changed their approach. Identifying the western idols of self-fulfillment, power, success, education, physical health, and comfort, gurus put on business suits or khakis and peddled their worldview as ‘wellness’, ‘fitness’, ‘self-control’, ‘self-optimization’, self-healing – in other words, appealing to men’s desire to have it all, do it all, and be it all, all on their own terms, in their own time, and by their own power. NAM was sold to millions who would have rejected the absurdities of open Hinduism or Chinese traditional spirituality as the means for each man to become his own master and master his circumstances and ultimately the universe. Many who follow New Age beliefs and practices would deny being new Agers at all, because the driving philosophies behind it have become so commonplace as to have become socially invisible. Moreover, most New Age ideas and practices are presented as being scientifically validated, and many are couched in scientific-sounding terminology. Many people don’t realize they have incorporated pantheistic philosophy into their thinking or pagan practices into their lifestyles. Unlike other cults, New Age ideology has become mainstream; New Age thought has been incorporated into every aspect of life.

The New Age is the old lie that you can be as God because you are God or a part of God. All man needs is to realize his godhead by pursuing the beliefs and practices they offer for removing the barriers to achieving unity with the universal force that is “God”. New age appeals to selfishness. It is promoted as being a means by which we become the most and best we can be. The key phrase is ‘I am’. It offers power over ourselves, our circumstances, and ultimately over the world. That power is achieved through processes and from entities and elements around us.

The New Age Movement is a synthesis of eastern mystery religious practice and beliefs with western concepts of self-fulfillment. NAM feeds the western idols of “I want / I think / I feel”. While individual practitioners emphasize different practices or traditions, the main religious contributors are Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, and traditional Chinese mysticism.

While most members of the New Age Movement deny that it is a ‘religion’, NAM is both a religious and a political movement. It proposes answers to the key questions of origin, purpose, meaning, and destiny of the universe, and defines “God” and man’s relationship to “God”. Political goals and religious beliefs operate inseparably within the movement. The political goal is to bring about a New World Order through world-wide change in thinking about ultimate reality and global needs. One government, one global community, one spiritual understanding.

 Unlike other cults, the New Age Movement was not developed around a single instigator nor is there one recognized leader or leadership group today. Rather, New Age thought began to be articulated in the late 1800’s by people like Helena Blavatsky, Alice Bailey (Theosophical Society, Lucis Trust; said to have originated the term “New Age”), and Edgar Cayce (psychic; occult ‘healing’). The New Age Movement blends eastern mysticism and western cultural humanism. All the current big names follow the same few early teachers and embrace the several key ‘doctrinal’ principles. Understanding the goals of the NAM is necessary to understanding the approach to practice.

 It is believed that humanity is in a succession of evolutionary stages, the next one of which is to an ascended spiritual state. If humanity continues its upward evolution, it will survive and progress; otherwise it will be destroyed. In order for the race as a whole to progress to a higher spiritual plane, there must be a ‘critical mass’ of people in line with the right energy frequency to bring humanity to the point of evolutionary advance. Not everyone needs to understand or even know the goal, but many need to possess the right ideas and values and perform the right actions to make the ‘quantum leap’ into the next age possible (the age of Aquarius). New Agers are persuaded that the next evolution will bring humanity to divinity, making this the most important evolutionary phase in world history. They also believe that survival of the race depends on this advancement.

 Leaders and initiates and those deepest into the secrets (occult) of the movement evangelize, initiate and train other evangelists. Deception is considered both desirable and necessary, as some people are unfit or unworthy to receive the secrets, but are needed in line so their actions and ideas enhance the greater mass of universal energy in order for humanity to progress. Double-talk and gibberish characterize many New Age writings or proclamations.

 Because many New Age practices and terminology have become common-place, people have lost sensitivity to the fact or presence of the movement. Otherwise normal people don’t question practices like homeopathy, reiki, yoga, relaxation exercises, breathing / centring exercises, therapeutic touch, using Chinese traditional or ayurvedic principles for ‘nutrition’ or ‘medication’. Within the professing church the greatest inroad of NAM originally was so-called naturopathic medicine, now referred to as ‘alternative medicine’ or ‘natural treatments’. Every element of ‘holistic health’ is based in eastern religious teaching about ‘energy’ or ‘spirit’ and the optimizing of that energy that will ultimately enable the individual to become ‘one with the universe’, which means to rediscover and re-establish their divinity. Man shall become God.

 In New Age ideology, the system (the universe) is divine, and preservation of the system must occur at any cost. Elements within the system are also divine. (“Earth” rather than “earth”.)

Christians should avoid incorporating New Age language into their vocabulary. It serves to affirm and validate New Age beliefs in the minds of the uninformed when Christians in particular adopt New Age terminology.

New Agers believe that we have lost our awareness of our divinity. We are all part of “God”, having emanated from that impersonal life force or ‘energy’ that existed ‘in the beginning’, and from which everything became. While meanings tend to shift, many New Agers believe there are higher beings – ascended humans or superior spirits – and many believe in ‘gods’, yet also define “God” as that non-personal force, qi, chi, prana, kundalini, otic force, etc.

 The goal of the New Age Movement is to return humanity to its perfection – full knowledge of ourselves as God. Those who will not accept this are considered to be such low evolutionary creatures as to be incapable of ‘getting it’, are a hindrance to humanity’s progress and survival, and expendable. Others will buy the sales pitch to engage values and practices, bringing them into that higher, purer energy level to facilitate collective advancement, but they are not actually advanced enough themselves to make the transition and will be likewise expendable – useful idiots.

 The key tool of NAM to achieve higher progression is the altered consciousness. When humans allow their conscious attention to be suppressed, they become vulnerable to outside suggestion. Many of the claims of NAM are absurd, which any reasoning mind will recognize at once. The motto: “Don’t think; feel”, and the push from modernism to post-modernism further enables the paradigm shift.

Because altered consciousness is key to influencing people to New Age thinking, getting people to meditate is imperative. The more people who will open their minds to Satan’s influence, the more deeply he can mislead. Meditation was pushed into the schools 25 years ago. The thrust into churches is well underway; mainline churches have all incorporated meditative practices, many evangelical churches have also done so.

Not everyone who participates in New Age activities considers themselves a “new ager’. Not everyone who would call themselves a new ager would agree with the Luciferian basis for the ideology, nor do they all believe in the existence of higher spirit beings. Not every New Ager is aware of the globalism agenda that is the keystone of NAM.

 The devil appeals to pride to lure people into lowering their consciousness in order to have them open to his various idolatrous and blasphemous suggestions. Only the select – the most fit, the smartest, etc. – are allowed to receive the secrets, so once the mind has been submitted to Satan’s lies, he appeals to each one’s self-perception of superiority to draw them further in. Arrogance typifies the New Age mindset.

Every compromise with the new age, whether by health practices, meditation, exercise, superlearning, gives the devil a foothold to further mislead and destroy. This applies to professing Christians as much as to those who make no such profession. To follow the New Age is idolatry. New Age paganism is the religion of anti-Christ that all the world will follow by whatever title, and New Age religious ideas and practices are presently used by nearly all westerners including inside the ‘church’, particularly: holistic medications, herbs, potions, homeopathy, meditation, centring, controlled breathing, visualization, relaxation, ‘the silence’, contemplative prayer, lectio divina, yoga, etc.

NEW AGE CONCEPT OF GOD

• Non-personal, universal force, ‘intelligence’ – ‘spirit’ or ‘God’

• In and through all things (pantheism / panentheism)

• Initiated the universe and continues to motivate / empower it

• All problems/conflicts are a result of this force being blocked or ‘out of balance’ within individuals, among people, in cosmos

• Humanity is part of ‘the divine’ or “God”

• Humanity’s survival is dependant upon realignment and free flow of energy within individuals, among people, throughout universe.

• Man’s goal is to achieve highest evolutionary state – spiritual ascendency

• Mottoes of love, peace, harmony among men, all creatures, the earth & the universe. All terms are defined based upon man’s fulfilment of the agenda for higher consciousness and planetary well-being.

• ‘save the world’ message based upon this premise. ‘green’ movement is about environmental balance. We are connected to everything, so everything must be rightly adjusted.

• Key leaders have always believed in “Jehovah”, Lucifer, Adonai, Jesus, “the Christ”. Lucifer is the emancipator of men oppressed by Jehovah, a jealous and infantile regent who has no title to rule. Jesus is sometimes one of many great teachers (avatar) and other times the enemy of Lucifer and a fraud.

• “The Christ’ is a principle rather than a person. The Christ will manifest when the Ascended Masters agree that the time is right, based on world need and human preparedness.

• Christ-consciousness is the awareness that we are God, divine, anointed as world leaders and saviours, and awareness of the salvation principle for the world.

• Mono-theistic religions, especially Judaism and Christianity, are repressive and harmful to humanity and the planet, because they do not accept either the NA understanding of God or the means of ‘salvation’.

• The “New Age” or the “Age of Aquarius” is that age in which mankind reaches its highest potential, becoming one with the cosmos in ‘peace, harmony, and love’.

THREE AREAS OF PRACTICE
 
Sacred activities – ritual or observances – dietary, exercise, personal care / hygiene, ‘worship’ activities (either worship of earth or luminaries, or self-worship)
 
Meditative practices – to achieve altered states of consciousness necessary to connect with “God”
 
Interaction with ‘higher beings’ – spirit guides, inner guides, wise teachers, ascended masters, spiritual hierarchy, guru, avatar.  NB: Many claim their ‘inner guide’ to be a Biblical character: Jesus, “Christ”, Holy spirit, Gabriel, Michael, Mary.
 
THE NEW AGE CHRIST
 
Christians need to take care when using Christian terminology. New Age employs many similar terms to mean entirely different things.
 
“Christ in you” is not a good evangelistic term. New Age understanding of “Christ in you” is the presence of the esoteric redemptive principle that empowers ‘people of good will’ to make the planet and humanity whole. They will entirely agree with you in the language, and you will never succeed from that point in clarifying that Jesus is Christ, there has only been one Christ, that He is a living being, and that Jesus is Christ rather than having had ‘the Christ’ come upon Him.
 
Christ principle – the redemptive ‘principle’ that resides in each person because of their latent divinity, and is realized or released as they become aware of their godhood
 
Christ consciousness – the awareness of the presence of the Christ principle in each person; a state of enlightenment in which the person has acquired the firm knowledge of their godhood and lives by it. The evolutionary force in each person and the universe.
 
“The Christ” – the highest member of the Spiritual hierarchy – the disembodied spiritual entity who leads the Ascended masters who oversee the affairs of this world. Some believe the Christ to be an individual entity, while others see it as the role a particular entity fulfills.  For the latter, there can be more than one ‘Christ’, and many ‘Christ’s’ come through the ages of earth history.
 
Atonement means “at – one – ment”. When all become one with all through New Age ideas and practices.
 

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