New Age — Truth or Deception?

In today’s society you can come across the ‘New Age’ almost anywhere — the media is full of stories of reincarnation and ‘alternative’ healing, advertisements extolling the benefits of acupuncture, transcendental meditation and yoga, courses available to combat the effects of stress or improve the mental faculties using mind control techniques, or popular success for astrologers, witches and mediums. In the world of business, hard-pressed executives are invited to take part in courses designed to develop their ‘inner potential’. Many bookshops have large sections devoted to the New Age. Many of these ideas and philosophies can seem attractive to us. So what is this New Age? And is there anything in it for us?

The New Age movement is like an umbrella under which many religious ideas and philosophies shelter. It is a rag-bag embracing the cults, the occult, Hinduism, astrology and many others. The key-word is tolerance — though many of the people that could be labelled ‘New Agers’ will be agreed on an issue such as concern for ecological preservation, on others they may be strongly opposed. Another definition likens the New Age to ‘a smorgasbord of spiritual substitutes for Christianity, all heralding our unlimited potential to transform ourselves and the planet so that a “New Age of peace, light and love” will break forth’. Society is moving away from the set ideas of Christianity, seen by many as outdated, inflexible and restrictive. Most people’s only experience of Christianity is at Sunday school, which seemed boring and irrelevant. Western society can no longer call itself Christian, being now almost entirely secular in orientation. Yet increasingly people seek for relief from the alienation and desolation of modern consumerism. “There must be more to life?!!?” they cry. People were intended by God to have both a physical and a spiritual life — instinctively non-Christians seek to fill the spiritual void inside of them, and satisfy their natural curiosity about the spiritual side of life. We as Christians know of the deep, satisfying spiritual experience available to those who make a commitment to Jesus, but the World rejects this and goes in search of spiritual substitutes.

Into this vacuum comes the influence of Eastern religion and mysticism. The widespread interest in reincarnation in Western society illustrates the fact that oriental religious ideas are becoming more acceptable in the West. Stories of hypnotic regressions and spontaneous recalls of former lives are regular features in newspapers and magazines. The age old question of ‘who am I?’ is being replaced by the even more puzzling ‘who was I?’ One of the basic tenets of Eastern religions is the doctrine of reincarnation, also called transmigration — the idea that the soul is in some way passed on after we die. This is inextricably linked to the doctrine of karma, the concept that what we do in this life influences the next. The healthy and wealthy are supposed to have accumulated good karma in a previous life, while the less fortunate are seen to be getting their just reward for past sins. Some Hindus take this idea to extremes, being unwilling to help some unfortunate person on the grounds that they believe that they would be interfering with the law of karma. This belief is diametrically opposed to the Christian belief in salvation and resurrection. Other Eastern practices, such as yoga, are taught and advocated for physical and mental well-being; yet yoga is essentially part of Hindu worship. The Beatles popularised eastern mysticism in the sixties, and today Boy George has recently enjoyed chart success with his celebration of Hare Krishna, misleadingly entitled ‘Jesus loves you’. Eastern religions are mainly concerned not with the search for salvation, but for enlightenment. The trend is towards self-realisation, likewise the New Ager seeks to get in touch with his true Inner self, or a Universal consciousness. To quote a leading New Ager, Marilyn Ferguson, ‘Beyond the personal reunification, the inner recollection, the re-awakening of lost portions of oneself, there is the connection to an even larger Self… when the self joins the Self there is power’. God is therefore in each of us and the idea is to get in tune with this ‘divine nature’. Basically, this is exactly the ancient eastern concept of Pantheism — All is God. ‘New Age’ is therefore hardly ‘new’ at all, but old beliefs dressed up in the modern clothes of the Human Potential movement.

To the New Ager, since All is God and God is in everyone and everything, it follows that all religions are one. What could be more attractive than this in the multi-faith, multi-racial and multi-cultural society in which we live? The New Age ideal of bettering ourselves as we become more in tune with our divine nature is a sort of self-evolution, supposedly leading on a large scale to world evolution — humanity becoming more tolerant of each other and less prejudiced. In a society torn by much division and warfare, people are eager to embrace this idea of Unification. Yet this is almost totally opposed to the Bible’s teaching that Jesus is ‘The Way, the Truth and the Life’ and that He is the only way to God. Though as Christians we should be concerned to come against prejudice and conflict between peoples, we should be wary of going to the opposite extreme and compromising our faith by tolerance.

Also central to New Age philosophy is the ‘Green’ issue — the concern for the conservation of the environment. Various events of the eighties have contributed to the Green revolution — the discovery of the hole in the ozone layer, the explosion at Chernobyl demonstrating the horrific possibilities of nuclear destruction and more recently the publicly recognised threat posed by the Greenhouse effect. Every day there are new horror stories in the media, and it would be wrong to deny that we are facing serious ecological problems. However there is a spiritual dimension to the Green Movement which is leading many people into New Age thinking. Linked with the idea of Pantheism is the concept of the divine in nature, the recognition of value inherent in all living things, added to a belief that nature and the self are one. the idea of getting in tune with the divine self, or that part of the self which belongs to the divine, is identified with ‘learning to reconnect with the Earth’, or with the force that is behind nature. Jonathan Porrit, Director of Friends of the Earth, stresses the importance of Green spirituality. He sees the importance of working with all faiths to further ecological concern and commends the ecological awareness of Buddhism, to which the philosophy of Pantheism is fundamental. He is positive about the New Age movement and favours seeking the divine in nature and connecting with the cosmos. He says, ‘when the concept of the human spirit is understood as the mode of consciousness in which the individual feels connected to the cosmos as a whole it becomes clear that ecological awareness is spiritual in its deepest essence’. He also supports the Gaia Hypothesis — the concept of the planet as a single living system with each species likened to different organs in a body, each having its own function and each supporting the functioning of the body as a whole. This Hypothesis suggests that the planet looks after its own welfare, she has no particular reason to presence humanity if we threaten her well-being. Humanity is then looked on as a form of ‘planetary cancer’ — a view totally opposed to the Biblical one. Yet the Green movement is not in total opposition to Biblical Christianity by any means — the environment is a Christian Issue. The Bible clearly intends man to care for creation. He was set in the Garden of Eden as a steward. Hence we should treat it as God’s possession entrusted to our care. Through sin, man’s relationship with God, with fellow man and with mature was spoilt. Those who have received forgiveness through Christ ought therefore to be exemplary in relating to nature. Christians ought to be conservationists! Ecology is a biblical responsibility neglected by Western Christians, and so New Age ecology, with its roots in Eastern mysticism, is taking over.

As observed earlier, the New Age Movement reflects society’s rediscovered awareness of the supernatural. Unfortunately, many people have turned to the world of the occult — with mediums, witches, Ouija boards, tarot cards and seances enjoying new popularity. Yet not every New Ager is therefore an Occultist. In fact, the term ‘New Ager’ itself is hard to defined, since although at its extreme the movement has its devoted followers, believing in spiritual guides (David Icke being the prime example currently in the media), or the incarnation of the ‘One World Christ’, it is at the same time subtle and infiltrates out everyday modern world view. New Age key-words slip into modern jargon — talk of enhancing personality and performance by improving the mind, realising your Inner Potential, the concept of alternative therapies- all of these are now part of modern philosophy and psychology. Even within the Church, inter-faith compromise is seen as acceptable in this age of tolerance. On 12th March 1990 ‘An Observance for Commonwealth Day’ was held in Westminster Abbey. The ‘service’ included the reading of a ‘Discourse of the Buddha’ on how to attain Nirvana and a reading in praise of Allah. If non-Christian Gods are worshipped on Church property, surely this is at the very least implying that Christians agree that there are other ways to God. The problem is not one of opposition to friendly relations between people of different faiths, but of ensuring that no impression be given that all religions are equally true. New Age thinking has become part of our everyday lives and we need to rethink attitudes that are seen as right and acceptable by society, however attractive.

The New Age is basically concerned with the spiritual — but this can include both good and evil powers. Those phenomena which are from God are ‘genuine’ while others are ‘counterfeit’ (see 2 Thessalonians 2:9), and the counterfeit must resemble the genuine in as many respects as possible in order to deceive. It is possible that certain supernatural experiences are actually produced by demons — the existence of whom is clearly stated in the Bible — and designed to deceive spiritually hungry people seeking for experience of the supernatural in their lives. How then can we as Christians test which spiritual experiences are from God, since we cannot dismiss all supernatural powers as fraud. Anything which is contrary to the teaching of the Bible is obviously not from God — anything which advocates rebellion against God’s commands, the worship of other gods, or denies the truth that Jesus is the only Messiah. We are commanded in the New Testament to ‘test the spirits’ using God’s Word. The early Church tested the content of spiritual messages in this way (see 1 Corinthians 12:3, 1 John 4:2–3). Another test is by looking at the effects (see Matthew 7:15–17). Paul contrasted the difference between ‘acts of the sinful nature’ with ‘the fruit of the spirit’ which is expressed in ‘love, joy, peace, patience…’ etc (Galatians 5:19–23). This is not to say that all kinds of phenomena are the work of demons, but in practice it’s virtually impossible to distinguish any ‘neutral’ source, if such exists, from the demonic or the divine. The Christian must be aware that we are engaged in spiritual warfare and that it is necessary to be equipped with the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The New Age movement is an international network of groups, encompassing the occult, Eastern religions and Western humanism. It is concerned for the future peace, preservation and well-being of the world, and is drawing more and more people from different backgrounds together on the grounds of common objectives, not necessarily a bad thing, but it seems to spread its tendrils into every part of society. Is there then a conspiracy afoot to take over the world? In her book The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow (a New Age symbol) Constance Cumbey says that ‘the conspiracy is a network of all the cults, political and humanitarian organisations and of isolated groups’. Many leading world figures have been associated with the New Age Movement, particularly in the United Nations. A New Age Directory for a New World lists 10 000 organisations such as centres of various occult, Eastern and mystical religions, metaphysical bookshops yoga teachers etc, which it claims are linked in some way. There is certainly evidence that there is some substance in the claim that there is a plan. According to many New Age writers, such as Alice Bailey, this is a conspiracy to usher in the rule of the New Age Christ, the head of the hierarchy of Spiritual Masters. In 1982 the New Age Movement placed in newspapers an advertisement which explained ‘The Christ is now here…. He comes not to judge but to aid and inspire… The world teacher is known as Lord Maitreya, known by Christians as the Christ. As Christians await the Second coming, so Jews await the Messiah, the Buddhists await the fifth Buddha and the Hindus await Krishna. All these are names for one individual. With his help we will build a New World’. This is not the Second Coming as described in the Bible. Jesus warned of false Christs, so is the New Age therefore a conspiracy to herald the rule of the Antichrist on Earth? There are many arguments against the One World conspiracy, just as one might also take the prophesies of Revelation and use them to point to its truth, but of one thing the Christian should remain sure. God is the God of History. He has already won the victory in Jesus and promises that He has the future in His hands.

There are many fundamental conflicts between the teaching of the New Age and the truth of Christianity. John Stewart Collis, one of the visionaries of the Green Movement wrote: ‘It is not a belief in one God, it is not a belief in many gods. It is not a belief at all, not a conception in the intellectual. It is an extension of the consciousness…’. The New Age ideal of searching for the divine within ourselves is basically a self-centred one. It is not seeking an experience of God in order to worship Him. Christianity at its heart is God-centred. It is an attractive idea to think that we are all inherently divine and that salvation can be found within ourselves, but this refuses to acknowledge the reality of sin and the need for grace. New Age sees man as becoming one with nature, and concludes that Nature is God. Christianity perceives God as creator to be both involved in the world, and above and beyond it. New Age promotes various techniques of meditation. The Christian too should meditate, but on the Word of God, filling the mind with the truth rather than emptying it and opening the door to the intrusion of influences which are not of God. New Age teaches inter-faith theology, intolerance has become frowned upon while tolerance has an appeal of sophistication. However for the Christian the only way to God is through Jesus. In Acts 4:12 the Bible says, ‘salvation is to be found through Him alone, in all the world there is no-one else whom God has given who can save us’. The Bible teaches what no other religion gives — forgiveness. Christianity cannot be fitted into any other pattern. Yet the Christian does not condemn New Age faith by a blanket denial of all that it represents. As we have seen, the movement is concerned with the preservation of creation, as should Christians be too. The New Age stresses the importance of the body and its care — this should concern us as Christians for our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. New Agers promote world peace, so should Christians. We need to understand the philosophy of the New Age and be concerned for the truth as revealed in the Bible. The real ‘New Age’ is promised in Scripture — Jesus has won the victory over death and the universe will be transformed at His Second Coming. Man cannot be transformed by himself — he is only changed, made a New Creation and made Holy by the work of the indwelling Spirit of the living God.

Ian Jones

New Age — Truth or Deception?

Further Reading