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 3 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.
CHANGES
REQUIRED TO ENTER THE NEW AGE
[A]
Religious
For mankind to enter the New Age, we
must abandon the traditional
religions, especially the monotheistic faiths. Judaism was one
of
Bailey's targets - before,
during, and after the Holocaust. Bailey
wrote that the Jews' sufferings were "the
working out of the
retributive aspect of the Law of Cause and Effect.... Much that has
happened to the Jews originated in their past history and in their
pronounced attitude of separativeness and nonassimilability, and in
their emphasis upon material good...." Bailey's accusations are
serious, since she says "the true
nature of cosmic evil" is "the
supreme evil of materialistic selfishness and the sense of isolated
separativeness."
New Age writers disdain orthodox
Christians, whom they denounce as
"fundamentalists."
Robert Muller said at the 1996 URI summit conference
that the United Religions must tame "fundamentalism"
and profess
faithfulness "only to the global
spirituality and to the health of this
planet." Recently he added an anti-Catholic twist: "Two of the worst
principles and words still used on planet Earth are: fundamentalism and
infallibility." Muller
also said, "the French Revolution
abolished
religions as troublemakers. Even
today, many regard religions as
troublemakers." Muller seems to pose two alternatives for
us: Worship
Gaia or face the Jacobins' response to religious "troublemakers."
(Unfortunately, the crimes of many Christians, hierarchs and laity
alike, provided a basis for revolutionary hostility - in 1789, 1917,
1936, and on many other tragic occasions.)
Matthew Fox concluded The Coming of the Cosmic Christ with
a vision of
"Vatican III," to be called by
Pope John XXIV to define the doctrine of
the Cosmic Christ as intrinsic to faith. The future Pope has replaced
the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith with a board of
grandmothers. "Still another action
taken by this pope has been to
gather all the Opus Dei bishops of the world on one island where, it is
said, they are undergoing a two-year spiritual retreat that includes a
critique of the history of fascism and Christianity on the one hand and
an inculcation of creation spirituality on the other. It is said these
bishops do body prayer three times daily and art as meditation four
hours per day. The native people of the island are the instructors for
the art as meditation classes. Women have assumed the office of bishop
in their respective diocesan sees." In other words, the rightist
extremists are to be brainwashed.
There is literary precedent for sending undesirables to islands. In
Brave New World those who do not fit into society are sent to islands
of their choice; World Controller Mustapha Mond leaves the misfits to
their own devices and does not force them to change. Thus, Fox's
utopia would treat its dissenters more harshly than Huxley's dystopia.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and no throne long remains vacant. If the New
Age movement were to dethrone Christ the King, who would take His
place? If Gorbachev has his
way, the god of the New Religion will be
nature. He has said, "Nature is my god. To me, nature is
sacred. Trees
are my temples and forests are my cathedrals." Muller has also hailed
the Earth as God: "Hindus call our
earth Brahma, or God, for they
rightly see no difference between our
earth and the divine."
New Age writers say that we will accept the New Religion when we
understand that all religions have the same source and the same end.
Bailey said, "The day is dawning when all religions
will be regarded as
emanating from one great spiritual source; all will be seen as unitedly
providing the one root out of which the
universal world religion will
inevitably emerge." Likewise, Episcopal Bishop William Swing
believes
that all religions "come together at
the apex, in the Divine." Their
affirmation of religious unity echoes Blavatsky,
who said that all
religions have "been derived from
one primitive source," and that
separate religions are "but shades
of human error and the signs of
imperfection." Blavatsky's turgid writings of 1877 have become
the
received truth for some religious liberals in 2000.
Bailey expected the New Religion,
which she called the "Church
Universal," to emerge by the
close of the 20th century - in other
words, now. Bailey said, "Only those
will remain as guides and leaders
of the human spirit who speak from living experience, and who know no
creedal barriers; they will recognise the onward march of revelation
and the new emerging truths." Thus, liberal Protestants and
heretical
Catholics will have a happy place in the New Religion. Bailey believed
that the New Religion would work closely with the UN: "Thus the
expressed aims and efforts of the United Nations will be eventually
brought to fruition and a new church of God, gathered out of all
religions and spiritual groups, will unitedly bring to an end the great
heresy of separateness." Muller
has gone further, proposing to deify
the United Nations: "At the beginning the
UN was only a hope. Today it
is a political reality. Tomorrow it will be the world's religion."
The New Religion will bring spiritual
totalitarianism. New Age leaders
agree that the last 2,000 years - the Age of Pisces - were a time for
development of individual identity and personality. In the coming Age
of Aquarius, people will happily let go of individuality and merge
their personal goals and identity into that of the whole race. As
Bailey said, "the will
of the individual will voluntarily be blended
into the group will." The existence of separate persons is an
illusion;
we are all really part of "The One."
In language that foreshadows Bishop Swing's blather about the emergence
of a "global soul," Teilhard de Chardin, whom New Age
writers hail as a
prophet, said, "The organization of
human energy... is directed and
pushes us towards the ultimate formation, over and above each personal
element, of a common soul of humanity."
(Are you aware that you are
only a "personal element"?) The goal of human evolution, for Teilhard,
is for people to "acquire the consciousness, without
losing themselves,
of becoming one and the same person."
If we understand things rightly,
we will "love the preordained forces
that unite" us. As Orwell said of
his protagonist, Winston, at the end of 1984, "He had won the victory
over himself. He loved Big Brother."
Bibliography
for SECTION 3
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.
(88) Alice A. Bailey, The Rays
and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960,
Lucis Publishing Company, New York, ISBN 0-85330-122-0, p. 754
(89) Alice A. Bailey, The
Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, New
York, ISBN 0-85330-106-9, p. 558, footnote
(90) Alice A. Bailey, The
Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, New
York, ISBN 0-85330-106-9, p. 548
(91) Alice A. Bailey, Esoteric
Healing - Volume IV: A Treatise on the Seven Rays, Lucis Publishing
Company, New York, 1953; pp. 265-266
(92) Alice A. Bailey, The Rays
and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960,
Lucis Publishing Company, New York, ISBN 0-85330-122-0, p. 753
(93) Alice A. Bailey, The
Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, New
York, ISBN 0-85330-106-9, p. 78
(94) Alice A. Bailey, The Rays
and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960,
Lucis Publishing Company, New York, ISBN 0-85330-122-0, p. 635
(95) The Rev. Betsy Stang
(Wittenberg Center for Alternative Resources), telephone interview by
Lee Penn, 12/10/97
(96) Jorge Aquino (Religion
News Service), "A Bold Attempt to Close Breach Between Religions," San
Jose Mercury News, p. 11-E, June 29, 1996; Internet document, p. 2
(97) Robert Muller, 2000 Ideas
And Dreams For A Better World, Idea 1942, Internet document, http://www.lsw.org/ideas/RMideas.html
(98) Robert Muller and Douglas
Roche, Safe Passage into the Twenty-First Century: The United Nations'
Quest for Peace, Equality, Justice, and Development, Continuum (A
Global Education Associates Book), New York, 1995, ISBN 0-8264-0866-4,
p. 28
(99) State of the World Forum,
"A New Spirituality," article about Dr. Jim Garrison's presentation to
the 1998 State of the World Forum; Internet document,
http://www.worldforum98.org/spirit/article_spirit_.html,
pp. 2-3
(100) State of the World Forum,
"A New Spirituality," article about Dr. Jim Garrison's presentation to
the 1998 State of the World Forum; Internet document,
http://www.worldforum98.org/spirit/article_spirit_.html,
p. 3
(101) H. P. Blavatsky, Isis
Unveiled: Vol. II, Theology, The Theosophical Publishing House,
Wheaton, Illinois, original edition 1877, "new edition, revised and
corrected, and with additional material, 1972," ISBN 0-8356-0193-5,
preface to part II, page iv
(102) 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," pp. 377-378
(103) Fred Matser, "Nature Is
My God," an interview with Mikhail Gorbachev, Resurgence 184, Internet
document, http://www.gn.apc.org/resurgence/184/gorbachev.htm,
p. 3
(104) Robert Muller, New
Genesis: Shaping a Global Spirituality, World Happiness and
Cooperation, P.O. Box 1153, Anacortes, Washington 98221, 1993, ISBN
1-880455-04-8, p. 49
(105) 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. 613
(106) 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," pp. 378-379
(107) 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. 378
(108) Hilaire Belloc, "The New
Paganism," in Essays of a Catholic, TAN Books and Publishers, Inc.,
1931, ISBN 0-89555-463-1, p. 12
(109) Alice A. Bailey, Problems
of Humanity, Lucis Publishing Company, New York, 1st ed. 1947; rev. ed.
1964, p. 140
(110) Bishop William Swing, The
Coming United Religions, United Religions Initiative and CoNexus Press,
1998, ISBN 0-9637897-5-9; p. 59
(111) 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
(112) Alice A. Bailey, The
Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, New
York, ISBN 0-85330-106-9, pp. 545-546
(113) Colleen O'Connor,
"Uniting Religions: Bishop Swing talks about religious terrorism,
atomic bombs, and why we need a United Religions now," Internet
document,
http://www.gracecathedral.org/enrichment/interviews/index.shtml,
p. 2
(114) Alice A. Bailey, The
Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, New
York, ISBN 0-85330-106-9, p 510; the "wise prophecy" of Blavatsky
appears to be the statement that "In Century the Twentieth some
disciple more informed, and far better fitted, may be sent by the
Masters of Wisdom to give final and irrefutable proofs that ... like
the once-mysterious sources of the Nile, the source of all religions
and philosophies now known to the world has been for many ages
forgotten and lost to men, but is at last found." (Blavatsky, The
Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, p. xxxviii; Internet document,
http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/sd/sd1-0-in.htm)
(115) Alice A. Bailey, The
Externalisation of the Hierarchy, 1957, Lucis Publishing Company, New
York, ISBN 0-85330-106-9, p. 202
(116) Alice A. Bailey, The
Destiny of the Nations, Lucis Publishing Company, New York, 1949; p. 152
(117) Robert Muller, My
Testament to the UN: A Contribution to the 50th Anniversary of the
United Nations, World Happiness and Cooperation, P.O. Box 1153,
Anacortes, Washington 98221; ISBN 1-880455-07-2, p. 4
(118) Alice A. Bailey, Problems
of Humanity, Lucis Publishing Company, New York, 1st ed. 1947; rev. ed.
1964, p. 159
(119) David Spangler,
Reimagination of the World: A Critique of the New Age, Science, and
Popular Culture: The Chinook Summer Conferences of David Spangler and
William Irwin Thompson, July 1988 and 1989; Bear & Company
Publishing, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1991; ISBN 0-939680-92-0, p. 127
(120) Barbara Marx Hubbard,
Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential, New
World Library, Novato, California, 1998, ISBN 1-57731-016-0, pp. 89-90
(121) Alice A. Bailey, The Rays
and the Initiations: Volume V, A Treatise on the Seven Rays, 1960,
Lucis Publishing Company, New York, ISBN 0-85330-122-0, p. 109
(122) David Spangler, Towards a
Planetary Vision, Findhorn Publications, 2nd ed. 1980; ISBN
0-905249-49-6, p. 88
(123) Neale Donald Walsch,
Conversations with God: An Uncommon Dialogue, Book 3, Hampton Roads
Publishing Company, Inc., 1998; ISBN 1-57174-103-8; p. 260
(124) Bishop William Swing,
"What is missing is a global soul," Pacific Church News,
August/September 1995, p. 5
(125) Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin, Human Energy, translated by J. M. Cohen, Collins, St. Jame's
Place, London, 1969, first pub. 1962; p. 137
(126) Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin, "Life and the Planets: What is Happening at this Moment on
Earth?," The Future of Man, translated by Norman Denny, Harper &
Row, New York and Evanston, 1964, p. 120
(127) Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin, "A Great Event Foreshadowed: the Planetisation of Mankind,"
The Future of Man, translated by Norman Denny, Harper & Row, New
York and Evanston, 1964, pp. 124-125
(128) George Orwell, 1984, New
American Library edition, 1961, p. 245
END NOTES
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