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Title: New Age Spiritualities or The New Age Movement TNAM


1
New Age SpiritualitiesorThe New Age Movement
(TNAM)
  • Dr David J Vine

2
Introduction
  • Definition
  • Review of history and the main influences in its
    development
  • What are its beliefs?
  • What challenges does it bring to Christian
    witness?

3
What Does The Term Mean?
  • Umbrella term embracing Eastern religions,
    mysticism, occultism, etc.

4
What Does The Term Mean?
  • A movement, network, synthesis
  • No structure, no membership, no headquarters or
    hierarchy, and no statement of faith or religious
    ceremonial. John Stott

5
What Does The Term Mean?
  • Essentially a syncretism of ideas from a wide
    variety of non-Christian
  • Religions mixed with modern theories of
    philosophy and psychology

6
What Does The Term Mean?
  • Characterised by a flight from the secular
    worldview
  • Religious manifestation of postmodernity

7
Historical Development
  • New does not imply novel
  • Drawn from ancient spiritualities in East, West,
    ancient Egypt, pagan Europe, India, Western
    occultism or esotericism

8
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
  • 1831- 1891
  • Mother died when 11yrs brought up by various
    relatives
  • Talked with animals became a medium

9
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
  • Had face to face encounter with her Hindu figure
    master who told her to organise the Theosophical
    Society
  • Married when 17 to elderly general for three
    months only

10
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
  • Wrote two books Isis Unveiled and The Secret
    Doctrine the latter an occult classic
  • Both dictated from her masters, The Ascended
    Masters of Wisdom more highly evolved beings
    who after various reincarnations had left earths
    plan and were now guiding mankind

11
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky
  • Adolf Hitler was a follower of her teaching
    keeping a copy of The Secret Doctrine by his bed
  • From theosophists he derived his beliefs of a
    controlling hierarchy of initiates

12
Theosophists Beliefs
  • All great religion and the teachings of he wise
    throughout history have a certain core of basic
    knowledge that is referred to as theosophy
  • Principle doctrines are closely connected with
    Hindu traditions

13
Theosophists Beliefs
  • Universe is a unity based on universal laws
  • Humanity is part of a general evolutionary process

14
Theosophists Beliefs
  • Life forms are transient but the human spirit is
    eternal
  • Upon death the individual spirit continues and in
    time will be reincarnated

15
Theosophists Beliefs
  • Individuals resulting earthly conditions are
    determined according to the law of karma
  • However, within this, individuals have the power
    to free themselves from all human limitations and
    to experience reality directly through the
    process of meditation

16
Alice Bailey
  • 1880 1941 first to coin term New Age
  • Born in Manchester to parents of high social
    standing both dying when she was young.

17
Alice Bailey
  • She rejected Christianity after a time in
    Christian work.
  • She had a painful marriage and was left with
    three young daughters.

18
Alice Bailey
  • She was "converted" to theosophy through reading
    The Secret Doctrine.
  • She then became a channel for thirty years for
    the "Tibetan Master.

19
Alice Bailey
  • She died just thirty days after she claimed he
    had finished writing through her.
  • She held extreme anti-Christian and anti-Jewish
    views

20
Alice Bailey
  • She wrote twenty four books and founded the Lucis
    Trust, under the name Lucifer Publishing Company.
  • Today it has 6000 members

21
Alice Bailey
  • Members include some of the most renowned
    financial and political leaders such as Robert
    McNamara, Henry Kissinger, David Rockefeller and
    George Schultz, headquartered until 1980's in the
    United Nations Plaza.

22
Carl Gustav Jung
  • 1875 1961- born in Switzerland
  • Presentation of the occult as a science
  • Strong family history of occultism in maternal
    grandfather and mother especially.

23
Carl Gustav Jung
  • He had a very strong bond as a child with nature.
  • He had a significant esoteric dream that proved
    to be an initiation into darkness.
  • He worked closely with Sigmund Freud.

24
Carl Gustav Jung
  • He was searching for an answer to the sense of
    lostness, an alienation within modern humanity
  • Concluded due to lack of mythology

25
Carl Gustav Jung
  • Impressed by the Pueblo Indians they had a much
    closer relationship with the earth and a
    mythology that gave them meaning

26
Carl Gustav Jung
  • His teachings include the concept of the
    collective unconsciousness containing archetypes.
  • An archetype is a universal thought form or
    predisposition to perceive the world in certain
    ways.

27
Carl Gustav Jung
  • They appear to people through dreams, myths, art
    and ritual. They represent the total latent
    potential of the psyche.
  • Some include birth, death, magic, the hero, God,
    the wise old man, the demon and mother earth.

28
Gurdjieff
  • 1866 1949 born in Alexandropol, Russia
    travelled to Paris in 1922
  • Established Institute for the Harmonious
    Development of Man

29
Gurdjieff
  • All human beings are like prisoners but are all
    capable of obtaining the enlightened state
  • Done much to encourage transformation techniques

30
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
  • 1881 1955 - born in France to traditional
    Catholic family
  • Studied geology and became passionate about
    evolution

31
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
  • Developed a pantheistic blend to his Catholic
    background leading to a warning from the Catholic
    Holy Office on his works in 1957 and again in
    1962.
  • Now his works have been accepted by Pope John
    Paul 2 and he is hailed a great thinker and
    scientific genius.

32
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
  • In The Aquarian Conspiracy - arguably the most
    important modern work on the New Age movement -
    there are numerous different references to him.
  • Many powerful world leaders quote him, e.g. Al
    Gore.

33
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
  • Died 10/4/1955 Easter Sunday with lines of a
    litany on his desk
  • "Focus of ultimate and universal energy
  • Centre of the cosmic sphere of cosmogenesis
  • Heart of Jesus, heart of evolution, unite me to
    yourself"

34
Edgar Cayce
  • (NAM and medicine) - 1877 1945
  • Born in Kentucky
  • Only son of family of five children

35
Edgar Cayce
  • Didn't go to school but educated by a Mormon but
    was introduced to Christianity as a child.
  • He had an "angelic" visitation when he was 13
    years old and was allowed a wish - he wished to
    help others with healing

36
Edgar Cayce
  • He discovered healing powers through hypnosis,
    moving on to clairvoyant and psychic readings.
  • He also gave prophecies and predictions and there
    were similarities to Nostradamus.

37
Edgar Cayce
  • He birthed the holistic health movement with the
    marriage of the occult to health issues.

38
Barbara Hubbard
  • (World unity) - 1929 -
  • Grandmother figure from privileged background
    committed to bringing global unity through a
    restructuring of the world's governments.
  • Founder or member of many political organisations.

39
Barbara Hubbard
  • Founder or member of many political
    organisations.
  • She was heavily influenced by Chardin's writings.
  • She became a channel for her "voices"
    re-interpreting the book of Revelation.

40
John Randolph Price
  • (World unity) 1932 - He and his wife Jean are
    co-founders of the Quartus Foundation
  • He champions a global society, a world religion.
  • He held World Healing Day, hoping for five
    hundred people to give "mental consent" for the
    healing of the planet.

41
John Randolph Price
  • His spirit guide, Asher, communicated to him
    about the destructiveness of "negative thought
    patterns". When enough people think "black
    thoughts" it affects the entire planet causing
    tornadoes etc - called Hundreth Monkey concept -
    "quantum leap".

42
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
  • (The environmental agenda) 1931-
  • Grew up in home of Russian Orthodox peasant
    farmers.
  • He rejected Christianity aged 21 and became
    member of the Communist Party.

43
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
  • He became President of the Soviet Union
    1990-1991.
  • He wrote his books with his policies of glasnost,
    openness in the media, and perestroika, economic
    and political restructuring or reform.
  • Nobel Peace Prize 1990

44
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
  • "Gentlemen, comrades, do not be concerned about
    all you hear about glasnost and perestroika and
    democracy in the coming years. These are
    primarily for outward consumption. There will be
    no significant internal change within the Soviet
    Union, other than for cosmetic purposes. Our
    purpose is to disarm the Americans and let them
    fall asleep"

45
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev
  • He launched his program in 1995 - a virtual
    "coming out party for New Age elitists".
  • The Earth Charter and Green Cross International
    are his initiatives.
  • Rio Earth Summit 1992 included the Convention on
    Biodiversity and Agenda 21.

46
Robert Muller
  • (Global citizens) (Education) 1923
  • Born in Belgium and raised in France he
    experienced constant political turmoil.
  • He was a member of the French Resistance and
    captured by the Nazis.

47
Robert Muller
  • In 1948 he won an essay prize on "how to govern
    the world" - the prize being an internship in the
    newly created UN.
  • Eventually he reached the post of assistant
    secretary-general until he retired in 1986.

48
Robert Muller
  • He has authored 14 books. He and his companion,
    Barbara Gaughen, refer to themselves as "The
    Cosmic Couple".
  • He has been referred to as the "Philosopher" and
    the "Prophet of Hope". His New Age views have
    become the driving force behind his political
    activism.

49
Robert Muller
  • His motto in his writings
  • "See the world with global eyes
  • Love the world with a global heart
  • Understand the world with a global mind
  • Merge the world through a global spirit"

50
Robert Muller
  • Associated with others like Lucille Green in
    other organisations especially WCPA World
    Constitution and Parliament Association
  • Now boasting a network of more than 430
    organisations.

51
Robert Muller
  • Robert Muller became involved in education
    creating the WCC Manual - World Core Curriculum.

52
Robert Muller
  • The Manual states The world is indebted to Dr
    Robert Muller, Former Assistant Secretary General
    of the United Nations, author and lecturer, for
    the formulation of the World Core Curriculum in
    its skeletal form. It is upon that scaffold
    combined with the Ageless Wisdom teachings that
    this present work has precipitated. The
    underlying philosophy upon which The Robert
    Muller School is based will be found in the
    teachings set forth in the books of Alice A
    Bailey by the Tibetan teacher, Djwhal Khul
    (published by Lucis Publishing Company).
    Emphasis from The New World Religion

53
Robert Muller
  • Mullers spiritual quest
  • He grew up in a Catholic home but practised
    Eastern meditation.
  • At the UN it was Secretary General U Thant, a
    Buddhist, who left the deepest impression on him.

54
Robert Muller
  • It was U Thant who introduced him to Chardin's
    philosophy.
  • His personal beliefs are summarized in his book,
    New Genesis.

55
Robert Muller
  • In another book, My Testament to the UN, Muller
    favourably quotes Sri Chinmoy, a Hindu priest,
    regarding the UN's ultimate destiny "No human
    force will ever be able to destroy the United
    Nations, for the United Nations is not a mere
    building or a mere idea it is not a manmade
    creation, The United Nations is the vision-light
    of the Absolute Supreme, which is slowly,
    steadily, and unerringly illuminating the
    ignorance, the night of our human life. The
    divine success and supreme progress of the United
    Nations is bound to become a reality. At his
    choice hour, the Absolute Supreme will ring his
    own victory-bell here on Earth through the loving
    and serving heart of the United Nations"

56
The Sixties
  • Upsurge of interest from the counter-culture
    movement
  • Flower power sensual freedom
  • Drugs, mind trips

57
The Sixties
  • Beatles Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
  • Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band new
    holistic approach to meaning of life
  • George Harrisons My Sweet Lord in praise of
    Krishna

58
The Sixties
  • Age of Aquarius musical Hair - symbol of the
    initiation of a new age
  • Marilyn Ferguson The Aquarian Conspiracy we
    are entering a millennium of love and light .
    the time of the minds true liberation

59
The Sixties
  • Hippie trail to Nepal and India
  • Hindu yogi from east to west bringing meditation
    and yoga
  • Beatles, Shirley MacLaine

60
Mass Media
  • New Age concepts have become commercially
    profitable especially when linked to science
    fiction and fantasy
  • Jungian psychologists say that science fiction
    has become the mythology of Western people

61
Mass Media
  • The Star Wars series of films
  • Luke Skywalkers use of intuition rather than
    computers
  • TV series e.g. Sabrina the Teenage Witch, The
    X-files

62
Mass Media
  • These films however have a commercial purpose
    rather than merely to propagate New Age ideas

63
Recent History Of TNAM
  • 1970 Findhorn Foundation
  • 1982 Maitreya
  • 1986 Assisi Interfaith Mass

64
Recent History Of TNAM
  • 1989 Canterbury Interfaith and Multifaith Event
  • 1991 Proliferation of NA shops, psychic fairs,
    alternative medicines, festivals

65
Aims Of TNAM
  • New World Order
  • One World Leader
  • One World Religion
  • One World Political System
  • One World Economic System

66
Influence - Politics
  • Organisations UNO, UNESCO, Illuminati
  • Ecology, food supplies
  • Health issues, genetics, Aryanism, abortion,
    euthanasia etc

67
Influence - Politics
  • Disarmament, law enforcement
  • Education, Feminism
  • Media

68
Economics
  • Controls on credit, companies, countries,
    cashless society, monetary union
  • Global finances
  • Economic manipulation crucial to NA goals

69
Medicine
  • Ethical issues abortion, genetics, euthanasia
  • Alternative medicine bridgehead
  • Health food shops, holistic

70
Medicine
  • Infiltration, acceptance by allopathic medicine
  • Sexuality issues
  • Counselling and psychology based on Jungs ideas

71
Education
  • World core curriculum
  • More of an issue in USA
  • Influence of Robert Muller

72
Entertainment
  • Personalities Shirley Maclaine
  • Films ET, Star Wars, Ghost Busters etc
  • Theatre Hair
  • Books, videos, tapes

73
Entertainment
  • Children Dungeons and Dragons, bracelets,
    symbols, rainbows
  • Clothes fashion, symbols, jewellery

74
Religion
  • Creation centred spirituality worship of nature,
    mother earth
  • One world religion worship of Lucifer
  • Worship of man
  • Apostasy of Church

75
World Council of Churches
  • Created in 1948 pro UN a report in 1994 stated
    "after the Second World War, the establishment of
    the World Council of Churches in 1948 signalled
    the resolve of the ecumenical community both to
    work for the fuller unity of the church and to
    participate in the struggle for a new just world
    order".

76
One World Religion
  • Vatican 2 in 1962 by Pope John Paul 2 established
    the Secretariat for World Religions
  • In 1986 an interfaith summit was held in Assisi,
    Italy.

77
One World Religion
  • In 1993 the Parliament of World Religions was
    created. This organisation issues the Templeton
    Prize, of the Templeton Foundation, an umbrella
    for a wide assortment of interfaith religious
    activities
  • Gorbachev considers Pope John Paul 2 as "the
    world's highest moral authority".

78
One World Religion
  • The United Religions Initiative headed up by Rev
    William Swing of Grace Episcopal Cathedral in San
    Francisco.
  • He hosted a Global Interfaith Summit in 1996
    co-sponsored by the Gorbachev Foundation and the
    World Conference on Religion and Peace - WCRP -
    an organisation of strong Catholic
    representation.

79
One World Religion
  • Muller and Swing have become facilitators for the
    UN, the Vatican and the Gorbachev Foundation in
    establishing the new religious order.

80
Tenants Of Belief
  • Cosmic consiousness
  • Mans higher self capable of reaching cosmic
    consciousness
  • Awakening of higher self is goal of life

81
Tenants Of Belief
  • Process of awakening is transformation
  • New Age techniques help this process
  • Personal transformation leads to global
    transformation

82
Four Pillars of the NAT
  • 1 Evolution - humanity is part of an evolving
    god-force
  • 2 Reincarnation - progress up the ladder to
    perfection

83
Four Pillars of the NAT
  • 3 Astrology - guidance through the stars and
    planets
  • 4 Occult meditation - music, triangles - creative
    meditation, divine energy, life force, vibrations

84
The Cosmos
  • Pure, undifferentiated, universal energy, or
    life force one vast interconnected process
    considered as deity
  • I.e. God is all and all is God pantheism,
    characteristic of Hinduism

85
The Cosmos
  • Regarded as living organic entity rather than
    mere material object
  • Atoms not basic building blocks of physical world
    but energy fields

86
The Cosmos
  • Reality is a total, all-embracing whole
  • No distinction between natural and supernatural

87
The Cosmos
  • Dreams and fantasies of equal value to objective
    experiences
  • Nature a reflection of ultimate reality
  • Ecology therefore very important

88
The Cosmos
  • Undefinable reality which transcends all else may
    be perceived in a multitude of forms which are
    expressed in the major world religions
  • New Age exponents tolerant of religions

89
The Cosmos
  • Syncretism
  • Resulted in turning back to pre-Christian tribal
    religions

90
Humanity
  • As All is One humanity is one and part of the
    divine
  • Basically spiritual not merely physical

91
Humanity
  • Individuality is an illusion there is but One
    Self
  • Main objective is to discover the reality that
    one is divine through subjective experiences of
    the mind

92
Humanity
  • Western people need to develop right hemisphere
    rather than left i.e. music, images, not
    organise, analyse etc
  • Reincarnation the progression of the soul
    through many life cycles according to the working
    out of ones karma

93
Humanity
  • Final aim is to achieve mergence with Absolute
    One
  • Escape only achieved through mystical knowledge
    key to being awakened from our ignorance of
    divinity

94
Humanity
  • Pain and illness derive from imbalance of
    spiritual energy chi, prana
  • Healing requires balancing of these forces e.g.
    yoga, herbs etc
  • Different concepts of sickness and healing than
    Western secular view

95
Humanity
  • Individual must achieve cosmic consciousness
    through individualistic means
  • Hence self-actualisation, human potential,
    self-potential key words

96
Humanity
  • Emphasis on unity leads to need for world peace
    important theme
  • Political boundaries becoming obsolete one
    government to rule the world

97
Values
  • No absolutes all relative
  • No absolute dichotomy between good and evil
    they are what society labels them
  • People essentially good although they may do bad
    things

98
Values
  • Sin is ignorance of unity and belief
  • If All is One, then unless violence is used, no
    form of sexual activity violates another persons
    sanctity

99
Quote
  • All true mystics have agreed that the essence of
    life is soul, or consciousness. That all living
    creatures, whether, plants, bacteria, dinosaurs,
    shellfish, animals, birds or men are, in essence,
    drops in the Divine Ocean of Being, Consciousness
    or Life. The material universe too, is His
    creation, His play or projection, and there is no
    part in which He is not present. He is within
    everything there is nothing in which He is not
    the inward and continuously active Creator. He
    is everything, and yet He is also all in all.
  • John Davidson The Golden Womb and the Formative
    Mind in New Humanity, April-May 1989, p 10

100
Mullers Objectives
  • 1 To make this planet a paradise
  • 2 To eradicate from it all poverty, misery etc
    engendered by power, greed and egotism
  • 3 To make out of all humans one family
  • 4 To create a new social, political world order
    for the centuries to come

101
Mullers Objectives
  • 5 To attain a life of fulfilment and happiness
    for all humans
  • 6 To achieve a human family in harmony with the
    Earth and the heavens
  • 7 To be the ultimate cosmic success of the

102
Is There A New Age Conspiracy?
  • Variable levels
  • Some extreme views see New Age influence
    everywhere
  • Many are ignorant lack of discernment

103
Is There A New Age Conspiracy?
  • The truth probably lies between but everyone has
    an agenda and Satan is behind all these things

104
Conspiracy?
  • Marilyn Ferguson a leading New Ager claims in
    her book The Aquarian Conspiracy there is a
    conspiracy, but it is a conspiracy without
    political doctrine. Without a manifesto. With
    conspirators who seek power only to disperse it,
    and whose strategies are pragmatic, even
    scientific, but whose perspective sounds so
    mystical that they hesitate to discuss it. i.e.
    shared assumptions rather than centralised
    planning

105
Conspiracy?
  • Russel Chandler in Understanding the New Age
    argues that it seems inconsistent to assume that
    such an unstructured, effervescent collection of
    movements and ideas that are embraced by the term
    New Age could be part of some gigantic,
    centralized conspiracy against the church headed
    by Satan.

106
Conspiracy?
  • Douglas Groothuis in Unmasking the New Age
    presents a more moderate view The New Age
    movement is better viewed as a worldview shift
    than a unified global conspiracy. This is not to
    minimize its influence but to recognize it as an
    intellectual, spiritual and cultural force to be
    reckoned with in all sobriety.

107
Worldview Shift
  • David Burnet in Clash of Worlds says In the New
    Age Movement one sees the evolution of a new
    worldview based upon a syncretization of Eastern
    and traditional themes with secular worldview
    themes.

108
How Have Christians Responded?
  • There has been an attempt by some to syncretise
    historical Christianity with New Age thought
  • There has been assimilation of New Age thought
    into Christian doctrine without the realisation
    of error

109
How Have Christians Responded?
  • There has been a failure to recognise that the
    new thought has appeared as a response to lack in
    Christian experience and teaching

110
Areas of Compromise?
  • Positive confession
  • Self-esteem teachings and related psychology
  • Inner healing involving visualisation techniques
    etc
  • Complimentary medicine

111
The Challenge
  • The church needs to
  • Be a living witness to Biblical revelation and to
    move from her secularisation

112
The Challenge
  • Be taught correctly and have answers that are
    relevant to the times
  • To recognize the opportunity she has to reach out
    to people seeking spirituality

113
Transforming Worldviews
  • Personal transformation to Jesus Christ
  • Become convinced about the Biblical worldview

114
Transforming Worldviews
  • Transformation of a culture must be concerned
    with changing worldviews e.g. Jesus teachings
    and parables
  • Discover key themes for change e.g. the person
    and nature of God e.g. Paul at Athens

115
Quotes
  • I got the impression that instead of going out
    to shoot birds, I should go out and shoot the
    kids who shot birds
  • Paul Watson (founder of Greenpeace) as quoted by
    Dixie Lee Ray, Trashing the Planet, p 166

116
Quotes
  • Childbearing (should be) a punishable crime
    against society, unless the parents hold a
    government license All potential parents
    (should be) required to use contraceptive
    chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to
    citizens chosen for childbearing
  • David Brower (first executive director of the
    Sierra Club, founder of Friends of the Earth and
    founder of the earth Island Institute), as quoted
    by Dixie Lee Ray, Trashing the Planet, p 169

117
Quotes
  • A total population of 250-300 million people, a
    95 decline from present levels, would be ideal
  • Ted Turner (medial mongul and United Nations
    advocate), as quoted by Donald McAlvany, The
    McAlvany Intelligence Advisor, June 1996, MIA, PO
    Box 84904, Phoenix, AZ 85071

118
Bibliography
  • Clash Of Worlds by David Burnett
  • The New World Religion by Gary H Kah
  • Understanding the New Age by Roy Livesey
  • Understanding Alternative Medicine Health Care
    inn the New Age by Roy Livesey
  • Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow by Constance E
    Cumbey

119
Bibliography
  • The Seduction of Christianity by Dave Hunt and T
    A McMahon
  • Beyond Seduction by Dave Hunt
  • Peace, Prosperity and the Coming Holocaust by
    Dave Hunt
  • The Psychological Way, The Spiritual Way by
    Martin and Deidre Bobgan
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