The M+G+R Foundation
THE NEW AGE MOVEMENT
Beware! The New Age Movement Is More
Than Self-Indulgent Silliness
A Comprehensive Exposé of The New Age
Movement
by Lee
Penn
SECTION 1 of 6
Published by - New Oxford Review, July-August 2000, pp. 19-31
Please Note: Although The M+G+R Foundation agrees with
Mr. Penn about the dangers that lurk in the New Age Movement, we do not
necessarily agree with each point and/or statement, written or implied,
in Mr. Penn's document.
PREFACE
This article is intended as a warning against the spiritual and
socio-political dangers associated with the New Age and globalist
movements. The intent is not to call down fire upon "bad guys." Rather,
I seek to sound an alarm, to awaken those who are in these movements
(and those who might be in a position to resist these movements) to
these perils. Let no one hastily assume that the rank-and-file
adherents of these movements are aware of, and culpable for, the
bizarre beliefs (described below) of the New Age and globalist leaders.
Very often, spiritual seekers and those who desire political reform
enter these movements with good intentions, and never have a reason to
look inside the movement's closets for skeletons. In addition, the
writings of the globalist and New Age leaders are crashingly dull, and
few of their followers will examine these texts in sufficient detail to
learn of the darkness at the heart of these movements.
Christian opponents of the New Age and globalist movements need to
remember the profound truth in the saying, "the cults are the unpaid
bills of the Church." Some of the causes that the New Age and globalist
movements support (such as protection of the environment from
pollution, and an end to inter-religious violence) are praiseworthy.
Some of what the New Age and globalist movements oppose (for example,
racial discrimination and imperialism) also deserves Christian
opposition. Thus, a knee-jerk reaction (i.e., if the New Age is for
"X," Christians must oppose "X") is unwise. Christian opponents of the
New Age and globalist movements should consider what real injustices
and spiritual hungers lead people to follow these movements - so that
the People of God might answer these real, unmet needs of their fellow
men.
Christ loves, and also came to save, all who are now in the New Age and
globalist movements. (That goes for the leaders: "Father, forgive them;
for they know not what they do!" [Lk. 23:34]) Let us never forget to
pray for them all, and to entrust them all to God's Mercy. For all of
us, myself included, are utterly dependent upon this same Mercy.
INTRODUCTION
In recent years the New Age movement has come out of the closet in the
Church and in the world. The New Age movement is made up of those who
follow a potpourri of beliefs and practices that fall outside the
boundaries of the major traditional religions (Christianity, Judaism,
Islam, Hinduism, animism, and Buddhism). Its manifestations are
protean. Some Catholic nuns walk on labyrinths to contact the "Divine
Feminine." Increasing numbers of health insurance companies have heeded
consumers' demands to cover offbeat treatments, ranging from Ayurvedic
herbal medicine to "therapeutic touch" - in which a "healer's" hands
manipulate "energy fields" but never touch the patient's body. Hillary
Clinton was moved to contact the spirit of Eleanor Roosevelt under the
guidance of Jean Houston - a New York-based avatar who runs a "Mystery
School," and who inspired the current fad of walking on labyrinths.
Millions of Americans with more money than commonsense are buying into
this trendy, feel-good style of spirituality; they have helped to keep
Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations with God on the best-seller lists
since 1997. These are the people who say, "I'm spiritual, but not
religious."
Many Christians view the New Age movement as merely self-indulgent
silliness. Unfortunately, there's far more to the movement than
astrology, crystals, weird workshops, and psychobabble. Many New Age
spiritual leaders have a firmly entrenched anti-Christian worldview,
and harbor a special hatred for the Catholic Church. Some New Age
leaders believe that the Fall was really man's ascent into knowledge,
assisted by Lucifer - whom they hail as the bringer of light and
wisdom. These New Age teachers expect an imminent, apocalyptic
transformation that will lead humanity into the New Age. By acts of men
or by an act of "spirit," earth will be cleansed of those who refuse to
evolve. In the New Age, there will be world government; the economy
will be remade to promote "sharing." Traditional morality and
traditional families will disappear. Orthodox religions - especially
Christianity and Judaism - are considered "separative" and "obsolete";
in the New Age, they too will vanish.
HISTORY
and SUPPORTERS of the NEW AGE MOVEMENT
For the last 125 years, New Age leaders worldwide have followed the
false light of Theosophy; they now whisper into the itching ears of the
powerful - politicians, media moguls, UN officials, foundation
grant-makers, and Anglican bishops. As the West moves into a
post-Christian era, the influence of the New Age movement grows.
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky blended Eastern religion with Western
occultism, establishing the Theosophical movement in 1875 in New York
City. Theosophy has influenced occult, spiritualist, "New Thought," and
New Age movements around the world ever since. For Blavatsky, the LORD
is not God; mankind is. She says, "Man is truly the manifested deity in
both its aspects - good and evil." Since mankind is god, it follows
that "mankind will become freed from its false gods, and find itself
finally - SELF-REDEEMED." Or rather, some of mankind is "god-informed"
and capable of self-redemption - namely, "the Aryan and other civilized
nations." Others, "such human specimens as the Bushmen, the Veddhas of
Ceylon, and some African tribes" are "lower human creatures," "inferior
races" that are "now happily...dying out. Verily mankind is 'of one
blood,' but not of the same essence."(1)
In the early 1900s Alice A. Bailey carried forward the teachings of
Theosophy in the U.S. She founded the Lucifer [yes!] Publishing Company
in New York City in 1922, renaming it the Lucis Publishing Company in
1923. Between 1922 and 1949, Bailey published 24 books of "revelations"
that she claimed to have channeled from the Tibetan ascended "spiritual
master" Djwhal Khul. All these books remain in print, and are widely
available.
The influence of Theosophy continues to grow a half-century after her
death. Robert Muller, former assistant Secretary General of the United
Nations, won the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education in 1989 for his World
Core Curriculum. He says, "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."
Like Muller, Neale Donald Walsch praises Theosophy. James Parks Morton,
the Dean of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York
City until his 1997 retirement, praises Theosophist David Spangler, as
"a genuine mystic."
Muller, Walsch, and Morton's Temple of Understanding all actively
support the United Religions Initiative (URI), a well-funded venture in
religious syncretism led by Episcopal Bishop William Swing of San
Francisco. (Other Theosophists are lining up to support the URI. The
Rudolf Steiner Foundation has recently made a grant to the URI, and the
Lucis Trust newsletter, World Goodwill, has praised the URI twice in
1999.) Laurance S. Rockefeller and his Fund for the Enhancement of the
Human Spirit have financed New Agers Matthew Fox, Barbara Marx Hubbard,
and Bishop Swing's Grace Cathedral. Morton has friends in high places;
he is on the Council of Advisers for Global Green, USA (an affiliate of
Mikhail Gorbachev's Green Cross International, an environmentalist
organization), and was co-chairman of UN conferences on the environment
in 1992 and 1997.
Another of Gorbachev's organizations, the San Francisco-based State of
the World Forum, draws funding from a galaxy of corporations and
foundations, ranging from Archer Daniels Midland, CNN, Hewlett-Packard,
and Occidental Petroleum to the Carnegie Corporation, the Kellogg
Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The State of the World
Forum attracts almost 1,000 VIPs to San Francisco each year, and
encourages them to believe that they will be the ones to shape the
emerging "new civilization." Not all participants are eggheads and
political has-beens; the 1998 Forum included Georges Berthoin,
President of the Trilateral Commission, James Michel, the chairman of
the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and other
power brokers. Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu is one of the 22
co-chairs of the Forum, along with Gorbachev, Ted Turner, Federico
Mayor (Director General of UNESCO), and other high UN officials.
Neither orthodox Christian nor Orthodox Jewish leaders have spoken at
any Forum sessions. Instead, the assembled dignitaries have heard New
Age-style preaching from such people as Andrew Weil, Michael Lerner,
Barbara Marx Hubbard, Michael Murphy and Steven Donovan (leaders of the
Esalen Institute), Fritjof Capra, Jean Houston, Sam Keen, Ram Dass,
Matthew Fox, Deepak Chopra, and Tony Robbins.
In short, promoters of New Age and Theosophical ideals are not social
outcasts. On the contrary, these followers of the Spirit of the Age get
attention and money from the rich and the powerful.
Bibliography
for SECTION 1
NOTE: Internet document citations are based on research done between
September 1997 and January 2000. Web citations were accurate as of the
time that each Web page was accessed. However, some documents may since
have been moved to a different Web site, or they may have been removed
entirely from the Web.
(1) H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The
Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Vol. II -
Anthropogenesis, Theosophical University Press, 1970, "Verbatim with
the Original Edition, 1888," p. 515
(2) H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The
Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Vol. II -
Anthropogenesis, Theosophical University Press, 1970, "Verbatim with
the Original Edition, 1888," p. 420
(3) H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The
Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Vol. II -
Anthropogenesis, Theosophical University Press, 1970, "Verbatim with
the Original Edition, 1888," p. 421, footnote
(4) H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The
Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy, Vol. I - Cosmogenesis,
Theosophical University Press, 1970, "Verbatim with the Original
Edition, 1888," pp. 410-411
(5) Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, The Occult Roots of
Nazism, New York University Press, 1992
(6) 6 Robert Muller School, World Core Curriculum
Manual (Overview), 1986, Arlington, Texas, preface page
(7) Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson,
Spiritual Politics: Changing the World from the Inside Out, Ballantine
Books, 1994, ISBN 0-345-36983-1, front cover endorsement
(8) Barbara Marx Hubbard, Conscious Evolution:
Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential, New World Library, Novato,
California, 1998, ISBN 1-57731-016-0, p. 216
(9) Lucis Trust bookmark; also, on p. vii of
Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations, Lucis Publishing
Company, New York, 1960, ISBN 0-85330-122-0
(10) Lucis Trust bookmark; also, on p. vii of
Alice A. Bailey, The Rays and the Initiations, Lucis Publishing
Company, New York, 1960, ISBN 0-85330-122-0
(11) Robert Gilman, "Between Order and Chaos: An
Interview with David Spangler," Internet document,
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC34/Spangler.htm,
p. 1
(12) Rudolf Steiner Foundation, "Client
Profiles," Internet document,
http://www.rsfoundation.org/clientprofiles/projectdescriptions.html,
p.
1
(13) Lucis Trust, "Transition Activities: The
United Religions Initiative," World Goodwill, vol. 1, 1999; Internet
document, http://www.lucistrust.org/goodwill/wgnl991.shtml,
p. 21;
Lucis Trust, "Invoking the Spirit of Peace," World Goodwill, vol. 3,
1999; Internet document,
http://www.lucistrust.org/goodwill/wgnl993.shtml,
p. 2
(14) Matthew Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic
Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global
Renaissance, Harper San Francisco, 1988, ISBN 0-06-062915-0, p. xi
(15) Donor list, Grace Cathedral Magazine, Spring
1995, p. 9; covers donations made to the Cathedral capital campaign as
of March 1, 1995; Rockefeller donated at least $10,000, according to
this listing.
(16) Barbara Marx Hubbard, Conscious Evolution:
Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential, New World Library, Novato,
California, 1998, ISBN 1-57731-016-0, p. viii
(17) State of the World Forum, "Our Common
Enterprise - Participants," Internet document,
http://www.worldforum.org/news-events/oce_participants.html,
p. 1
(18) State of the World Forum, "Our Common
Enterprise - Participants," Internet document,
http://www.worldforum.org/news-events/oce_participants.html,
p. 9
(19) State of the World Forum, 1999 brochure
inviting participation in the 5th annual State of the World Forum, list
of co-chairs, p. 3
(20) Case Western Reserve University, "Global
Excellence in Management," Internet document,
http://www.nexxus.som.cwrv.edu/gem,
pp. 3-4
(21) James Gregory Lord, "What more can higher
education be to society," Internet document, http://www.university.org,
p. 2
(22) Taos Institute, "Consulting," Internet
document, http://www.serve.com/taos/consult.html,
pp. 1-2
(23) Taos Institute, "Conferences and Workshops:
In the Past," Internet document,
http://www.serve.com/taos/conference.html,
pp. 1-2
(24) Taos Institute, "About the Founders: To
briefly introduce the founders of the Taos Institute," Internet
document, http://www.serve.com/taos/founder.html,
p. 1
(25) Dennis Delman, "United Religions Initiative
Advances with Appreciative Inquiry" Pacific Church News, February/March
1998, p. 22. All ellipses are as given in the original article.
(26) H. P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: Vol. I,
Science, The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, Illinois, original
edition 1877, "new edition, revised and corrected, and with additional
material, 1972," ISBN 0-8356-0193-5, p. 639
(27) Wittenberg Center for Alternative Resources,
"The Course: Survival & Empowerment for the Twenty-First Century,"
Internet document, http://www.balpoint.com/wicar/survival.htm,
pp. 1, 2
(28) Wittenberg Center for Alternative Resources,
"The Course: Survival & Empowerment for the Twenty-First Century,"
Internet document, http://www.balpoint.com/wicar/survival.htm,
p. 1
(29) Wittenberg Center for Alternative Resources,
"The Course: Survival & Empowerment for the Twenty-First Century,"
Internet document, http://www.balpoint.com/wicar/survival.htm,
p. 1
(30) Wittenberg Center for Alternative Resources,
"Interfaith Seminary Program,"
http://www.balpoint.com/wicar/seminary.htm,
p. 2
(31) Wittenberg Center for Alternative Resources,
"Board of Directors," Internet document,
http://www.balpoint.com/wicar/director.htm,
p. 1
END NOTES
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