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Tract 31c
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The New Age Movement is the teachings of Far Eastern mysticism, using the labels you would expect to find in a Norman Vincent Peele book or a Dale Carnegie Course. It is the underlying concepts of Hinduism and Buddhism in the clothing of a self-help book on how to analyze, manage, and capitalize on your own thoughts and feelings. It is Eastern meditative introspection for Western personal and business success. It is ancient Far Eastern cult lore with up-to-date Western tags, salesmanship and objectives.
The New Age Movement is a non-Christian and anti-Biblical religion that is being presented to worldlings and Christians alike as the stairway to success in a modern, hectic world. It is a mystic way of life--a fascinating religio-experience--that hints at its gods without openly naming them. It is a return to heathenism as an escape from personal problems and failures.
The New Age Movement offers worldly success through the careful absorption of a mysterious secret: You are god; the only god there is. You have power within you to achieve any goal, and you can do it apart from external standards or help. This power is independent of moral principles or the intrusion of people. It resides inherently in you. It has always been there. You need only acknowledge its existence in order to arouse it. In bowing before its awesome power, you will find it arising within you to take over and manage your being.
Through an act of imagination, you will begin tasting its delicious fruits. Through contemplation you will think you have already touched them. By envisioning your new self and your material goals--and then believing the shadowy dreams that are called forth--you will imagine that you have entered a new, higher state of existence. This imagined reality is the proof that you have entered the experience--and that the secret is really true: You are god.
This is the New Age--an entrance to an appearance of light,--which is really a journey into darkness. For it is more than mere mental suggestibility by oneself; it is more than "beneficial self-hypnosis;"--it is a submission for selfish purposes to mind control by Satan.
The objective was yourself, and the pathway was repeatedly imagining a lie until it gripped you, and you slipped under the control of a power that you had permitted to gain access to your mind. That power was a real entity--but it was not yourself. It was the god of self-centeredness, the god of materialism, the god of this world.
For when you make yourself both your reference point and your touchstone for standards and objectives, and your only source of strength and attainment,--you may be imagining that you are becoming something of a little god, but you are in reality placing yourself under the direct power of Satan.
The following are some excerpts from the book, "The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow" by Constance Cumby. Ms Cumby, a Christian attorney, has done extensive study into New Age teachings and activities. If you wish a copy of the entire volume, write to the publishers, Huntington House, Inc., 1200 North Market Street, Suite 6, Shreveport, Louisiana 71107. It is a paperback retailing for $5.95.-- Vance Ferrell, for Pilgrims' Rest
According to New Age sources, the New Age Movement is a worldwide network. It consists of tens of thousands of cooperating organizations. Their primary goal or the secret behind their "unity-in-diversity" is the formation of a "New World Order." The Movement usually operates on the basis of a well-formulated body of underlying esoteric or occult teachings.
The glue binding most New Age devotees is one of common mystical experiences. "Experiential religion" is considered vital within the Movement. A substantial proportion of those within the Movement strongly believe in psychic phenomena and say they do so because of "direct experiences."
Those among their number who have not participated in the communal tripping of the "Light Fantastic" are encouraged to try meditation, LSD, or any one of the scores of "psychotechnologies" promised to induce "transformation"-- a euphemism for progressively deeper levels of demonic influence.
The New Age Movement, called by Marilyn Ferguson The Aquarian Conspiracy, and deriving its name from the so-called Age of Aquarius, encompasses a number of groups and submovements, such as: the Holistic Movement, Humanistic Psychology, Transpersonal Psychology, Humanistic Movement, New Thought, Third Wave, Third Force, The New Spirituality, the Human Potential Movement, Secular Humanism, and Humanism.
Contrary to the assertions of New Agers that their conspiracy lacks dogma, there is a discernible body of teachings dominant within the Movement. While many paths may be employed to reach the trance-like state they encourage, once that state is reached, the paths are nearly identical from that point forward. As Alice Bailey said, "[T]he emphasis in all esoteric schools is necessarily, and rightly, laid upon meditation."
Marilyn Ferguson's The Aquarian Conspiracy, an important New Age manifesto, attempts to announce and popularize what the New Agers chose to publicly display in their Movement. Heavily extolling the joys of "altered states of consciousness," her book contains more euphemisms than facts when it comes to describing the promised land of the New Age.
Frustratingly, most of the participants in these New Age networks are quite innocently involved. Either they do not know the true aims and intents of its leadership or, more often, they are operating under the influence of extremely sophisticated forms of mind control.16
Classes such as TM, Silva Mind Control, EST, Life springs, Arica and dozens of other such "psychotechnologies" help the trainers induce the desired trance-like state in the would-be initiate.
The New Age teachings are the same old lies that have been about since the snake beguiled Eve in the Garden of Eden: "Thou shalt not surely die . . . and thou shalt be as gods." Combine that line together with an attack on God's Word and understand the reason why Lucifer was originally expelled from Paradise and you will perfectly understand the philosophies and goals of the New Age Movement.
They rationalize the concepts of initiation and secret ritual by claiming a need for the "geniuses" among us to have their own, private language and code. The Movement has managed to win many of the very cream of our intellectual crop by flatteries. The flattery is the same as that employed by the serpent to Eve -- "Thou shalt be as gods."
In fact, the New Agers claim they are a "new species." They have "evolved" into homo noeticus. They "evolved" by employing mind-expansion techniques such as meditation and the "other disciplines."23
New Age communication employs a specialized vocabulary extensive enough to require a separate New Age Dictionary which helps worldwide New Agers speak each other's language.24
The Movement teaches the Law of Rebirth or reincarnation. This is basically a teaching that man does not really die, but that he instead is endlessly reborn into new life cycles until such time as he perfects himself sufficiently to qualify for endless rest (Nirvana). Of course, this just happens to match one of the lies of the serpent in the Garden of Eden in telling Eve "you shall not surely die."
The Movement teaches that the Trinity is inferior to an entity known as "The Solar Logos." In fact, the Alice Bailey writings contain in at least two places elaborate organization charts of the "gods" and "masters." The "Solar Logos" is just a notch above the Trinity -- a false trinity that does not match our Holy Trinity in that instead of being a personal godhead there is a "Solar Trinity or Logoi" consisting of:
I The Father Will
II The Son Love-wisdom
III Holy Spirit Active Intelligence
After the Solar Trinity come the "Seven Rays" and below that, but deriving "authority" directly from "The Solar Logos" is "S. Sanat Kumara (a scrambling of Satan)." According to Benjamin Creme, David Spangler, the Alice Bailey writings, and the Helena Petrovna Blavatsky writings, this so-called Sanat Kumara is our "God," the "Ancient of Days" and the "One Initiator." Probably, more truthfully the "Venus" link of occultism gives us a better clue as to who Sanat Kumara really is. For "Sanat Kumara" is allegedly 'the eternal youth from the Planet Venus." Lucifer is also known in occultdom as "Venus." Therefore, Sanat Kumara is merely another name for Satan or Lucifer.
The same chart also contains several lower levels of assorted "Kumaras," "departmental heads," "Manus," "Bodhisattvas," and "Mahachohans," and beneath them, in their turn, many "masters."
Guess who is at the bottom of this chart? None other than "The Master Jesus!" They have demoted our Lord and Savior to the lowest possible spot on their "Hierarchy of Masters!" Furthermore, adding insult to injury, he is shown as reporting to an entity known as the "Venetian Master."
The same organizational chart has separate listings for Jesus and the Christ -- a distinct mark of the spirit of antichrist.
Initiation is considered by them to be the heart and core of the planned New World Religion.
This initiation has been clearly defined as "Luciferic" in the Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Alice Ann Bailey, and David Spangler writings. Sadly, the New Age Movement has infiltrated even many of our Christian denominations with this pagan concept.
Further, the Movement's theology contains a strong belief in an "inner government" of our planet by a hierarchy of spirits or alleged "masters of wisdom."
Even Christian bookstores have not escaped the deceptive influence of the New Age Movement. There the shelves groan under the weight of books that contain virtually every plank of the New Age Movement -- from meditation and positive/possibility thinking to support for a New World Order. They differ only from the standard textbooks of the New Age Movement by being labeled "Christian." The Christian books will usually proclaim the fact that we are engaged in a conspiracy to make the world better and better until the Lord returns.
Away from the bookstores, the recruiting of unsuspecting self-improvers continues. People are encouraged to study one of the dozens of "psychotechnologies" -- visualization, autosuggestion, hypnotherapy, guided imagery -- techniques almost guaranteed to bring one in contact with "spirit guides" -- ,i.e., demons.
Silva Mind Control, EST, A Course in Miracles, as well as several other mind "science" courses, are virtually guaranteed to convert participants into New Agers. More shocking still is the fact that in some cases these courses are being attended and even taught by both Protestant and Catholic clergy and nuns.
In the city of Detroit, for example, a Roman Catholic priest and nun are co-teaching a Silva Mind Control course. An Episcopalian church in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, has sponsored a holistic health center. The Cathedral of St. John the Divine Episcopal, New York City, has even featured sermons by David Spangler -- the same David Spangler who has said that Luciferic initiation would be required to enter the New Age.
Of course, the reach-out efforts of Unity and Unitarians continue to increase in momentum. Unity and the Unitarian Church alike reach out to singles, newly divorced, the depressed, the overweight, alcoholics, and others searching for themselves and their identities.
Urban dwellers are reached by appeals from these churches to their sense of community. Come-as-you-are potluck dinners and dances for singles are often featured. Mind-control courses and seminars on books such as Wayne Dyers' are offered for the insecure.
Likewise, health food stores and juice bars often are turned into New Age recruiting centers. Once again, they are filling the vacuum for a place where one may mingle and converse without having to resort to alcoholic beverages.
According to Marilyn Ferguson in her New Age classic, The Aquarian Conspiracy:
"It is impossible to overestimate the historic role of psychedelics as an entry point drawing people into other transformative technologies. For tens of thousands of 'left-brained' engineers, chemists, psychologists, and medical students who never before understood their more spontaneous, imaginative right-brained brethren, the drugs were a pass to Xanadu, especially in the 1960's.
"The changes in brain chemistry triggered by psychedelics cause the familiar world to metamorphose. It gives way to rapid imagery, unaccustomed depths of visual perception and hearing, a flood of 'new' knowledge that seems at once very old, a poignant primal memory.
"Those who ingested psychedelics soon found that the historic accounts closest to their own experiences derived either from mystical literature or from the wonderland of theoretical physics -- complementary views of 'the all and the void . . .'
"As one chronicler of the sixties remarked, 'LSD gave a whole generation a religious experience.' But chemical satori is perishable, its effects too overwhelming to integrate into everyday life. Non-drug psychotechnologies offer a controlled sustained movement toward that spacious reality. The annals of The Aquarian Conspiracy are full of accounts of passages: LSD to Zen, LSD to India, psilocybin to psychosynthesis" (page 89-90).
Government is not the only large American institution invaded by the New Age conspirators. They have also called on the financial and social pressures of big business to attain their goals for world domination -- a world to be peopled by those more schooled in mysticism than everyday common sense.
Marilyn Ferguson reports in The Aquarian Conspiracy that they have managed to win the financial support of Lockheed Aircraft, Blue Cross-Blue Shield, the Rockefeller Foundation and others for holistic health forums. Again, while it is hard to argue with the case for organically grown vegetables and enough sleep at night, nevertheless, one may view the agenda with justifiable concern if it sounds more like a catalog of New Age occultism than it does like a health improvement seminar.
These programs have and continue to routinely feature the following which are all nothing more than variations on Eastern occult techniques:
Meditation, visualization (according to occultists, this is a shortcut to unlocking all the mysteries of mysticism), biofeedback (of course, enhanced by; meditation), acupuncture (manipulation of "The Force" or "Life Force"), hypnosis, psychic healing, etc.
And if this were not enough to gladden the hearts of New Agers everywhere, the latest news from the halls of industry should be. For suddenly courses in "New Age Thinking" have become the order of the day -- particularly for middle and upper-level management personnel and salesmen. From General Motors and Chrysler Corporation through AT&T and southwestern oil concerns such courses have been offered. One such course that has been in wide use at many major corporations is called "New Age Thinking" and is taught by Lou Tice of The Pacific Institute, Inc.
Employees attending these institutes are even encouraged to bring their entire families. Self-image psychology is stressed as part of a new "mental tool kit." Like other psychotechnologies, the perceptions of the participants are played with in an attempt to shift their focus to "New Age Thinking."
Participants are basically taught that they create their own world by their own thought-forms and that by ignoring or downplaying negative inputs their world will become a brighter, better place. Of course, believing you are your own god is the next logical step. And where does such a program tell one to go for spiritual and religious guidance? Again, dear to the heart of the most dedicated New Age psychic and spiritualist, they are sent to the major advocates of the "deity of man": Pierre Teilhard deChardin, Herman Hesse, Eric Fromm, Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and most outrageously of all, Ram Dass -- an avowed enemy of orthodox Judeo-Christian religious tradition and proponent of a mass conversion to Hinduism and other forms of Eastern mysticism.
Clearly, enforced attendance at these New Age seminars is a form of religious discrimination by the employer that should not be tolerated. Neither should it be made a ground for promotion or demotion among those attending or refusing to attend. Could an employer demote or promote one for regularly attending mass or evangelical services? The answer, of course, is a clear no. Neither should the employer be allowed to do this to those whose consciences do not permit their attendance at seminars promoting "New Age Thinking."
The Graduate Theological Union of Berkeley is a case in ecumenical point.
Established in 1962 at Berkeley, it has brought Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish participants together in a sort of commonized apostasy. In fact, they are so apostate that they have expanded their theological horizons to include Hinduism, Buddhism, Sufism, Sikhism, Feminist Spirituality, New Age groups, occultism, neo-paganism and witchcraft. Their activities meet approval with at least one important source: The New Consciousness Sourcebook (Spiritual Community Guide No. 5). The alternate title for this book for the past several years has been Handbook for a New Age.
Engaging in what they call "creative borrowing," they have managed to water down Christianity to a state of bare recognizability. One of Union's professors, Dr. Charles S. McCoy, quotes John Cobb's Christ in a Pluralistic Age with approval. Cobb suggested that the Christians copy Buddhism in order to "reconceive Christ." McCoy enthusiastically endorses Cobb's thesis that "Christ must be reconceived as creative transformation in all human experiences and not bound to the historical Jesus or to any past doctrine."
It is one thing to read through a book which has subtle bends, twists, and turns, realizing that in serpentine fashion you are being inched in the direction of the New Age Movement. It is quite another experience to read one that comes on as bold as a cobra selling its venom door to door. Such a book is Journey to Inner Space: Finding God in Us. I have seen few worse in occult bookstores.
Journey to Inner Space is not the product of a Hindu sect. Incredibly, it was written by the senior pastor of the First Baptist Church of Seattle, Washington, Rodney R. Romney.
The glue binding the New Agers together is that of common mystical experiences. They literally believe they are seeing things and hearing things the rest of us do not.
However, the past several years have been characterized by a barrage of "pop" psychologies and mind control courses. Mind control was to be an essential component of preparation for the New World Order and the New Age "Christ."
The occult principle behind this is labeled "The Law of Rebirth." It is not the same as what Jesus called being "born again."
In rebirthing, by contrast, one is conditioned to believe that all wisdom is contained within oneself. Like ancient yogis and mystics, modern New Agers look inward -- to the center of themselves -- to receive "wisdom" and knowledge.
The occultists say that light comes from our own "higher selves." The Bible says that Jesus is the only Christ. Occultists say there have been many Christs.
Dr. Romney openly discusses this process:
"There is much I have not covered concerning the meditation experience. I have not talked about the seven nerve centers (chakras) and the corresponding colors of these centers. Nor have I discussed the forces within our cerebrospinal system known as the kundalini shakti, a mysterious fire of love that rises up within us through daily, sincere periods of meditation and which transports us into a new land of expanded consciousness."16
"I always sit in the same chair if possible, which faces east. Facing east while praying is an ancient practice which draws a symbolism between the rising sun and the dawning of divine light in one's consciousness. In the opinion of some this also offers exposure to greater forms of cosmic energy."
"Your assignment is not to follow any earthly teacher or guru on the earth path. Your assignment is to discover the Christ within you . . . Teach yourself. Be your own master. Be your own healer. Find the Christ within" (ibid., p. 130).
"So God first made light as spiritual energy and from that light created all things. We, therefore, are not made of solid, impenetrable matter -- we are made of light energy. This primal force of energy is what we call God. When the Bible says we are made in God's image, it means that we are constructed of the very energy force which is God. When we establish a connection with God, we receive an increased flow of this energy.
"When people advance into the higher realms of spiritual consciousness, they often perceive this light through the spiritual sense, sometimes diffused into brilliant colors that go beyond any shades and hues ever seen before, just as they will often distinguish sounds that normally the human ear cannot register . . . The deep center of our inner space, where we are conscious of being filled by God, transcends all mortal limitations and brings perceptions to us that are impossible at any other level.
"For centuries it was known in the Eastern countries that a powerful, invisible force seemed to flow through the hands and arms of the so-called holy people. People who consciously identified with God seemed to have an abundance of energy which was healing in its effect. Certainly this was true of Jesus" (ibid., p. 72-73).
When I spoke with Dr. Romney, he was not reticent about admitting he considered his book to be an example of "New Age" writing. His book actually alludes to this coming "New Age":
"Most students of the spiritual realm agree that we are entering today into a New Age of Light on this planet. This light is beginning to expose and correct malfunctions in the created order. But this is not an age to fear, it is one in which to rejoice. As the light purges and purifies the darkness, we feel the death rattle of an old age and the birth pangs of a new one in which the highest aspirations and possibilities of creation will rise to the fore" (ibid., p.74-75).
"Those who understand the principle of light, who know how to project it into a condition and hold there, and who understand that this light comes from God and God's invisible workers who are on this earth, will discover that they are able to change conditions in positive ways and usher in the age of abiding peace on earth" (ibid., p. 75).
Satan works on the human mind to lead it to defy God, transgress His laws, deny His existence, and blot out His people. Then, as men realize they have common objectives, they begin working together. Thus it has been for thousands of years, and so it is today. Satan is the real conspirator; men live too briefly to accomplish much with their plans and conspiracies. Satan is the one who tries to unite men into vast networks to destroy us all. But soon the networks topple, and Satan tries another approach. Satan is the leader; wicked men do his bidding. He is the mastermind; and our Bible-Spirit of Prophecy heritage tells us that it will be Rome, apostate Protestantism and Spiritualism that will be his special tools in the last days to effect his objectives. We may consider some other looser agencies of his, such as humanism, New Age, and the advocates of evolution, -- but let us keep our eyes primarily on the picture given in the pages of "Great Controversy".
Men desire to deny the existence of God because they wish to deny the existence of sin. If there is no God, there will be no sin in disobeying Him. And if there is no sin, then there will be no future judgment. The New Theology and the New Age have much in common; more than many realize.
The pattern used by the New Theologians is to professedly accept the Bible while at the same time denying those aspects of Biblical theology which require obedience to God: the truth about the nature of Christ, the nature of man, the nature of the atonement, and the nature of the judgment.
The device of the New Agers is to inculcate practical atheism -- by teaching the ancient heathenism of the Far East. This includes such concepts as salvation by meditation, God is man, man is God, and transmigration of the soul. (The last three of which, incidentally, are also the teachings of Mormonism."
Every wind of doctrine and false religion is blowing today. On one hand, we must be alert and ready to meet error in any form in which it presents itself. But on the other, we must cling to the Inspired Word of God and focus our life, our work, our goals and our future on the teachings given in those precious writings sent us from the God of Heaven.
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