NEW AGE FAITH
"What is the New Age movement?"
The expression “New Age” came into
existence in the 1970s and 1980s. It was promoted by the circulation of
the New Age Journal and a book by Mark Satin called New
Age Politics. Marilyn Ferguson’s best-selling Aquarian Conspiracy was
a presentation of the social agenda and philosophical vision of the New Age.
Ferguson’s writing attained status as the unofficial scripture of the movement.
As Russell Chandler, a writer for the Los Angeles Times, wrote
in Understanding the New Age, “If Ferguson wrote the New Age ‘Bible,‘
Shirley MacLaine is its high priestess.”
Shirley MacLaine’s book, Out on
a Limb, chronicles her reluctant conversion to New Age belief. This book
describes her travels and studies, which include science fiction-like
dimensions, out-of-body travel, contact with extraterrestrial beings, “trance
channeling” (séances), and a “guided tour” of the unseen world. MacLaine’s
second book, Dancing in the Light, tells about her reach into the
world of yoga, reincarnation, crystal power, Hindu mantras, and past-life
recall experiences mediated through acupuncture. Her spirit guides informed her
that each individual is God, and she passed along the “wisdom” that the person
is unlimited. One only has to realize it (Chandler, page 6-2).
New Age thinking has its roots, then,
in Eastern mysticism, which attempts to bypass the mind. There is a new organ
of perception—the third eye—which gives spiritual light. One needs to get to
the “psychic self” by training one’s self to ignore messages from the mind or
to see that the mind is actually achieving “cosmic consciousness.” The mind can
create reality.
Neil Anderson in his book, Walking
Through the Darkness, writes this: “The New Age movement is not seen as a
religion but a new way to think and understand reality. It’s very attractive to
the natural man who has become disillusioned with organized religion and
Western rationalism. He desires spiritual reality but doesn’t want to give up
materialism, deal with his moral problems, or come under authority” (page 22).
Anderson goes on to summarize New Age thinking (pages 22–24) as follows:
(1) It is monism. The belief that all
is one and one is all. History is not the story of humanity’s fall into sin and
its restoration by God’s saving grace. Rather, it is humanity’s fall into
ignorance and the gradual ascent into enlightenment.
(2) All is God. If all is one,
including God, then one must conclude that all is God. It is pantheism—trees,
snails, books, and people are all of one divine essence. A personal God who has
revealed Himself in the Bible and in Jesus Christ is completely rejected. Since
God is impersonal, the New Ager doesn’t have to serve Him. God is an “it,” not
a “He.”
(3) There is a change in consciousness.
If we are God, we need to know we are God. We must become cosmically conscious,
enlightened, or attuned to the cosmic consciousness. Some who reach this
enlightened status will claim to be “born again”—a counterfeit of biblical
conversion. The essential is not whether we believe or meditate, but whom we
believe in and what we meditate upon. Christ is the true, personal, objective
reality, as He said that He is the way, the truth and the life, and no one
comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6).
(4) A cosmic evolutionary optimism is
taught. There is a New Age coming. There will be a new world order, a new world
government. New Age thinkers believe that there will eventually be a
progressive unification of world consciousness. This, according to the Bible,
is a counterfeit kingdom led by Satan himself. Christ has the true kingdom, and
He will one day rule on earth with peace for all who accept Him as Savior and
King (Revelation 5:13).
(5) New Agers create their own reality.
They believe they can create reality by what they believe, and, by changing
what they believe, they can change reality. All moral boundaries have been
erased. There are no absolutes because there is no distinction between good and
evil. Nothing has reality until one says that it is reality or says that it is
truth. If finite man can create truth, we are in desperate trouble in our
society. Unless there are eternal absolutes from the eternal God, man will
eventually be his own destruction.
(6) New Agers make contact with the
kingdom of darkness. Calling a medium a “channeler” and a demon a “spirit
guide” has not changed the reality of what they are. This is the kingdom of
darkness of which Satan is the head. Those involved in this kind of activity
are in contact with a world that is totally opposed to the biblical God
revealed to us in Jesus Christ, who defeated Satan (Matthew 4:1–11; Colossians 2:15; Hebrews 2:14–18).
The New Age movement is a counterfeit
philosophy that appeals to the feelings of individuals, leading them to think
that that they are God and can enhance their lives through their own person.
The reality is that we are born, grow up, live a while on planet Earth, and
die. Humans are finite. We can never be God. We need someone greater than we
who can provide us forgiveness and life eternal. Praise the Lord for the
God-man, Jesus Christ. Through His death and bodily resurrection, He has won
for us what we desperately need: forgiveness from God, a life of purpose and
meaning in this life, and eternal life beyond the grave. Don’t miss out on who
Jesus Christ is and what He has done for you. Read John chapter 3. Ask Christ
to be your Savior. Your life will be transformed, and you will know who you
are, why you are here, and where you are going.
Recommended Resource: Encountering
World Religions by Irving Hexham
Gotquestions.org
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