The Spiritual Dynamics of the New Age Nevement

532 Pages·2008·23.3 MB·English

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for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) and Christian Science to name but two
- should not be considered part of the movement, 'in spite of the many
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beliefs they hold in common with it. Compare this with the more
inclusive stance adopted by Norman Geisler, a professor of Systematic
Theology at the Dallas Theological Seminary, who describes Christian
Science, Bahai, Scientology, Transcendental Meditation, ISKCON and the
Unification Church as 'cultic' manifestations of the 'shift from the Old
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Age humanism to New Age pantheism. A more problematic but equally
plausible position is expressed by psychologists Steve and Linda Dubrow-
Eichel, who suggest that 'a "New Ager" is perhaps primarily a self-
described grouping or social status.' 6 Overall, as Paul Heelas of
Lancaster University comments, the New Age movement 'tends to mean
different things to different people, academics included.'7
To add to the confusion, some organizations and individuals
identified with the movement seem keen to remove themselves from any
such association. William Bloom, editor of a selection of New Age
writings, argues that such manoeuvres represent attempts by some New
Agers to divorce themselves from 'incompatible elements' associated with
the movement. He writes:
It would be a mistake to assume that all people who might come
under the New Age banner get on with each other - either
personally or in terms of their ideas. In fact, some who are
identified as New Agers actively reject the label for fear of
being associated with seemingly incompatible elements.(8)
Such is the case with the Findhorn Foundation in northern Scotland.
Miller describes Findhorn as 'In almost legendary New Age community. '
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The community itself would perhaps beg to differ. On the community's
behalf, Carol Riddell writes that 'We are now a little wary of this [New
Age] description, which was once eagerly embraced by the Findhorn
Community.' The community is wary of the term because in popular
thought it has become associated with sensation seekers 'whose interest
lies less in seeking spiritual transformation than in dabbling in the
occult, or in practising classical capitalist entrepreneurship on the
naive."0 Another example of such dissociation is Natthew Fox, a former
Dominican priest and proponent of creation or creation-centred
spirituality. According to Ted Peters, a professor of Systematic
Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, Fox and the New
d'
Age are like 'Two peas in a single pod. There would appear to be
reasonable grounds for assuming this. Fox's written works line the
shelves of New Age bookshops and are packed full with New Age rhetoric.
For instance, he presents the movement from 'fall/redemption' to
creation-centred spirituality as part of a paradigmatic shift out of
'the now dead-age of pisces.' 12 Again, the Centre for Creation
Spirituality at St. James's Church in London works in association with a
workshop programme called 'Alternatives.' This programme is described
as being 'dedicated to New Age thinking,' and aims to provide 'a
friendly atmosphere in which to taste the best of New Age ideas." 3 Yet,
Fox seeks to remove both himself and creation spirituality from any
association with the New Age movement. He does this on the grounds that
the New Age, unlike creation spirituality, has little or nothing to say
on the issue of social justice. I have personally heard Fox denounce
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the New Age for being nothing more than a 'fundamentalism for the
rich. ,14
A similar stance is adopted by former physicist Fritjof Capra.
Niller describes Capra as a 'celebrated New Age author' and one of the
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movement's 'significant thinkers. Capra himself characterizes the New
Age as an asocial movement and consciousness of the 1970s, and although
considerably different in the 1980s, to the extent that it began to take
on board both feminist and ecological issues, feminist and ecological
activists no longer wish to be identified with it. He says:
I define it [the New Age movement] as a particular
manifestation of the social paradigm shift ... that flourished
in California in the 1970s ... a particular constellation of
concerns, interests and topics - the human potential movement
humanistic psychology, the interest in spirituality, in
the occult, in paranormal phenomena, and the holistic health
movement ... what characterized them in the negative sense was
the practically total absence of social and political
consciousness ... there was neither ecological consciousness
nor social consciousness ... Nor was there feminist
consciousness. All this was absent from the New Age movement.
In the 1980s this changed quite a bit. These various holistic
therapists and humanistic psychologists embraced the concerns
of the peace movement, of the women's movement, of various
other social movements, to the extent that they don't want to
be called New Agers any longer. So I tell people in Europe
that when we use the term New Age now, we mostly talk about
people who are still New Agers, who are stuck in the
consciousness of the 1970s.(16)
Finally, while some question whether the New Age movement is
actually cohesive enough to be called a movement, others question
whether the New Age as a movement actually exists at all. Martin
Palmer, the founder-director of ICOREC (International Consultancy on
Religion, Education and Culture), argues that to a large extent the New
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Age movement 'is a publishing phenomenon, in part created, certainly
sustained, and possibly even ... invented by a publishing world that has
sensed the spiritual ... hunger and has set out to make money feeding
it.' There is, he argues, 'no evidence of either a Movement which can
be honestly titled New Age, or a conspiracy which can be called New
Age. ,17
Some Recent Overviews
Despite the above observations, there appears to be no shortage of
writers - Christian writers in particular - for whom terms like 'New
Age movement' and 'New Age thinking' connote things at once both easily
recognizable and universally consistent. Roger Olson of Bethel College
speaks for many when he asserts: 'though the movement is diverse and
dynamic, there seems to be a unifying woridview just as there is a basic
unifying woridview underlying the many forms and manifestations of
Christianity.'18
Christian overviews of the New Age movement range from the balanced
and informed to the paranoid and confrontational. A good representative
of the latter is Constance Cumbey's The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow.
Cumbey, like other researchers from the fundamentalist pole of Christian
thought, seems to know exactly what the New Age is. For her, it is an
organized satanic conspiracy for world-takeover. "It is the contention
of this writer," she declares, in what was the first attempt by a
Christian to describe the movement in its entirety, "that for the first
time in history there is a viable movement - the New Age Movement - that
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truly meets all the scriptural requirements for the antichrist and the
political movement that will bring him on the world scene." The
foundations for this conspiracy were laid, she asserts, in the writings
of novelist H. G. Wells and in those of Theosophist Alice Bailey. Its
final form was realized in 1980 with the publication of Marilyn
Ferguson's The Aguarian Conspiracy. (This is a text which many regard
as the New Age movement's principal 'manifesto.') She warns that the
New Age antichrist - 'Naitreya' - is already here, and that his
followers are busy preparing the way for him, preparing "the last stage
of the New Age scheme to take the world for Lucifer." The New Age
'Plan' includes "the installation of a New World 'Messiah,' the
implementation of a new world government and new world religion under
Naitreya." The New Age satanists also intend "to utterly root out
people who believe in the Bible and worship God and to completely stamp
out Christianity." 19 Cumbey also informs her by now terrified readers
that New Age conspirators can be identified through a number of
'codewords' that they employ; these include terms like 'global village,'
'holistic,' 'paradigm' and 'self-realization.' Cumbey's work - written
in 1983 - was the first major effort by fundamentalists to come to terms
with the New Age, and, as Palmer notes, it still 'forms the basis for
just about all the subsequent books by writers from that section of
Christianity.' Moreover, it is also widely believed: 'It is perhaps
important to pause ... and remember that Cumbey's book outsells
Ferguson's The Aguarian Conspiracy, that videos based upon the book sell
worldwide and that she is quoted with approval by many opponents of the
New Age. ,20
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More balanced and informed Christian overviews of the New Age
include those advanced by Miller, Peters and Russell Chandler.21
Chandler, the Religion writer for the Los Angeles Times, acknowledges
that a 'precise definition [of the New Age movement] is a chimera.'
Nevertheless, he insists that its 'broad lines of commonality form a
pattern, and for me, at least, the big New Age picture-puzzle has come
together. Indeed, for Chandler, the movement is distinguished 'by a
common vision, a shared woridview about the nature of existence and the
purpose of life in the cosmos.' Underlying this shared worldview are a
number of shared theological assumptions. These include monism or the
belief that reality can be reduced to one undifferentiated principle,
whether it be Mind, Power, Principle, or Energy. In short, 'All is
One.' New Agers are also pantheists, and believe that if all is one,
then all is divine, including humanity: 'humans, like everything else,
are an extension of the Oneness, which is all the divinity there is.'
There is also the belief that humans have a suppressed or 'higher' self
that is at one with divinity. Thus: 'All is One. We are all One. All
is God. And we are God.' Another common belief states Chandler is that
of 'metaphysical amnesia' - the belief that humanity participates in a
spiritual blindness which 'has caused us to forget our true identity';
that is, our divinity. Much of the blame for this blindness is placed
upon Western society, which, the New Age claims, 'has caused most people
to accept the fragmented vision of self-limitation and "failures" rather
than know that they can be "like God." Another key element in the
movement's perennial religion is the common belief in reincarnation.
The final goal of life on earth for the New Ager is, according to
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Chandler, to work out one's karma and then 'merge with the cosmos, or
God, and end the repetitious and painful birth-death-rebirth process.'
Finally, New Agers hold that a new order - the Aquarian Age - will
emerge from the old. This will be achieved through a 'paradigm shift'
in consciousness; a shift from the egoic self to the higher self, from
dualistic thinicing to holistic thinking. This can be achieved through
numerous consciousness-changing therapies or 'psychotechnologies,'
including meditation, yoga, chanting, martial arts, esoteric religious
systems and mind-expanding drugs, to name a few. The discovery of the
higher self leads the New Ager to 'psycho-spiritual power and
enlightenment.' Self-realized individuals will then inaugurate a
'planetary transformation, characterized by mass enlightenment and
social evolution.' In tandem with the above assumptions, the New Age
movement argues Chandler advances a 'broad social agenda,' including
environmental activism, the abandonment of gender role-types, a concern
with world peace, a movement away from conventional medicine to
'natural' healing processes, the setting-up of small-scale industrial
and agricultural collectives, and of 'an eclectic "world religion" that
closely resembles Eastern religious systems rather than Western
monotheistic faiths. ,22
Chandler goes on to discuss those interests, beliefs, practices,
and organizations which he considers as being historical tributaries to,
and/or contemporary components of the New Age movement. Historical
tributaries include a variety of Western esoteric traditions (including
Gnosticism), the American Transcendental movement, Spiritualism,
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Theosophy, Jungian psychology, the insights into the nature of reality
revealed by post-Newtonian physics, and the evolutionary theology of
Telihard de Chardin. Contemporary components include widespread
interest in the 'intuitive' capacities of the brain's right hemisphere,
Eastern mysticism, the channeling of supernatural and extraterrestrial
entities, guruism, Scientology, Jungian and humanistic psychology, the
human potential movement, holistic health, the development of unusual
faculties through crystals and pyramids, interest in psychic phenomena
and UFOs, certain management and educational programmes, New Age music,
the creation spirituality of Fox, Neopaganism, ecofeminism, deep
ecology, global politics, the peace movement, and appropriate
technology. (Unfamiliar terms will be discussed and defined as the
inquiry proceeds.)
Niller's critique presents a similar picture of the New Age
movement. He argues that the movement is best understood as 'an
extremely large, loosely structured network of organizations and
individuals bound together by common values (based in mysticism and
monisrn ...) and a common vision (a coming "new age" of peace and mass
enlightenment, the "Age of Aquarius").' Within this New Age
'metanetwork' are numerous smaller networks and movements, 'encompassing
a wide variety of interests and causes (all compatible with the ends of
the larger network).'23
While acknowledging that New Agers place more emphasis upon
experience than belief, Niller still insists that 'it should be obvious
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that certain assumptions cannot be separated from New Age thinking, or
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there could be no such thing as New Age thinking. According to Miller,
'universal' New Age religious beliefs and practices include monism,
pantheism, and techniques for altering consciousness (such as
meditation, chanting, and sensory deprivation). These techniques
tenable the seeker to ... experience ... oneness with God.' 'Ignorance'
lies at the root of the individual's sense of separation from divinity:
'man is separated from God only in his own consciousness. He is the
victim of a false sense of separate identity which blinds him to his
essential unity with God, and this is the cause of all his problems.'
Thus, continues Miller, salvation for the New Ager is connected with
spiritual knowledge or tgflOsjS,t 'the realization that one's true Self
is God.' Mystical experience is viewed as the doorway to 'personal
transformation': a 'lifelong growth process marked by increasing
wholeness and personal power.' In addition to these universal beliefs,
'most New Agers adhere to the ancient . Hindu doctrines of reincarnation
and karma.' Another three 'central' New Age beliefs include, according
to Miller, a 'spiritualized' doctrine of evolution, the conviction that
personal transformation leads to planetary transformation, and of course
'the concept of the New Age itself (usually defined astrologically). ,24
For Miller, key organizations, ideas and practices which have
contributed towards and/or embrace these core aspects of New Age
thinking include the counterculture movement of the 1960s, the human
potential movement, channeling, Neopaganism, post-Newtonian physics,
systems theory, holistic health, humanistic and transpersonal education,
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the Green movement, the Findhorn Foundation, creation spirituality, and
process theology.
Peters' account of the New Age concentrates particularly upon the
theological underpinnings of New Age spirituality and constitutes
perhaps the most sympathetic Christian appraisal to date. Peters
attempts to place the entire spectrum of New Age spirituality under the
single rubric of 'modern gnosticism.' The New Age woridview argues
Peters is 'a version of the perennial philosophy or, more specifically,
a form of gnosticism which makes use of neologisins plus vocabulary
borrowed from Hinduism and humanistic psychology.' 25 Peters argues that
the New Age is reminiscent of Hellenistic Gnosticism 'both in what it
teaches and in its competitive position vis a vis Christian orthodoxy.'
However, he uses the Gnostic label primarily to highlight the movement's
concern with 'gnosis': 'I suggest [using] the term gnosticism ...
because the term gnosis, having to do with knowledge, is here [in the
New Age movement] the basic category for understanding the nature of the
human predicament and for solving it.' 26 Peters identifies eight tenets
of 'the new age variant on gnosticism,' and these are as follows:
1) Wholism: the affirmation of interconnecteciness, and of the
universal tendency towards the development of 'ever more complex and
significant wholes' - both organic and psychic.
2) Nonism: 'metaphysical wholism' - 'When new agers articulate what
they mean by wholism ... it quickly becomes cosmic.'