By American Life League

The New Age Movement: Highway to Hell

By American Life League

And many false prophets will rise and deceive many ... For false christs and false prophets will arise and show great signs and wonders so as to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand.Matthew 24:11, 25.

Anti-Life Philosophy

Every person should be free to pursue his or her version of spirituality. After all, every person IS God.

Contrary to what far-Right religious control freaks say, the various tools of the "New Age" movement are useful and necessary for self-empowerment and spiritual development. The only reason that conservative Christians oppose the use of such empowering techniques is that they want to control everyone's lives.

The Deadliness of the "New Age"

Whom the mad would destroy, they first make gods.-British journalist Bernard Levin.[1]

A Nationwide Loss of Faith

The United States is now one of the most unchurched countries in the world. In fact, almost all "Westernized" nations seem to have lost their faith in Jesus Christ.

Our nation's commitment to God is shallower now that it has been at any time since its founding more than two centuries ago. Through Modernism, we have rejected God and set ourselves up in His place.

However, man is essentially a spiritual being. He needs to believe in a supernatural force. As St. Augustine once remarked, "There is a God-shaped hole in every person."

As Christians know, Satan is powerful, but lacks imagination. All of his evil works consist of warping and perverting what God originally created to be entirely good.

So Satan has eagerly stepped into our nation's painful spiritual vacuum with a bewildering plethora of "New Age" beliefs and practices: A "counterfeit Christianity."

The "New Age" Fills the Gap

The "New Age" movement is an enduring facet of American culture. We spend billions of dollars every year on fortune telling, Tarot cards, astrology, channeling, crypto-zoology, and hundreds of other dubious and ineffective methods and trinkets.

Even if all this is a waste of good money, it all seems so harmless like a hobby, perhaps. At least it keeps people busy and content. At least it provides some semblance of spirituality.Or is it so harmless?

The "New Age" movement is unquestionably the 'glue' that holds the core of the anti-life movement and its many components together. It is perhaps Satan's most devastatingly effective weapon, because it is the antithesis of Christianity. Christians allow themselves to be controlled and led by the supernatural in their case, Jesus Christ. "New Age" devotees, on the other hand, seek the opposite: To control the supernatural.

What "New Age" practitioners do not know, of course, is that it is Satan who is doing the controlling. And the reward he has in store for his slavish followers is too hideous to contemplate.

Who Is Behind the "New Age?"

Satan, also known as Lucifer, or "Light-Bearer," was the most beautiful and intelligent Angel of all before he was cast out of Heaven for trying to take God's place. He is still trying to take God's place by adopting his most seductive mask in the form of the "New Age" Movement.

This fact is actually acknowledged by leading "New Age" practitioners.

Many New Age religions envision the coming of a last and greatest "Christ" (an 'Avatar'), named the Lord Maitreya, who will fulfill all of the prophecies of all religions for a savior, teacher, and prophet, and who will solve every environmental, social, religious, racial, and economic problem in the world, thereby leading us from the shortsighted, unfulfilled "age of Pisces" into the enlightened and divine "age of Aquarius." Amazingly, most 'major' New Age religions fully recognize that Lord Maitreya will be completely under the control of a being called Lucifer.

However, New Agers simply do not recognize that Lucifer is in reality Satan. Alice A. Bailey of the Theosophical Society describes Lucifer as "... the oversoul of the great collective consciousness of mankind."

David Spangler, in his book Reflections on the Christ, says that "Lucifer works with each one of us, to bring us to wholeness, as we move into the New Age," and that "It is necessary to take a Luciferian Initiation if one is to enter the New Age alive."

This could not be a better description of the activities of the Antichrist.

Discerning the Source

Christians must remember that, despite his great power, Satan is only a created creature, and thus cannot create an original entity on his own. He operates by perverting the work of God. As just one example, Satan took God's beautiful creation of sex and has twisted it into a thousand cruel and ugly perversions: Pedophilia, fetishes, homosexuality, pornography, artificial contraception, abortion, and bestiality. He is doing the same thing to the Christian religion with his New Age perversions.

The central objection Christians have to the "New Age" movement is the result of a simple and logical three-step exercise in the process of elimination. There is no "New Age" practitioner who has ever been able to refute this classically simple logic. Instead, they employ torrents of verbiage and Newspeak to try and confuse the issue.

WHY THE "NEW AGE" MOVEMENT IS SATANIC:
THE SIMPLE THREE-STEP PROCESS OF ELIMINATION

(1) There are only two ultimate sources of supernatural power: GOD and SATAN.

(2) The "New Age" movement involves supernatural phenomenon which are, quite obviously, not of God.

(3) Therefore, by simple elimination, all "New Age" supernatural phenomena must be Satanic.

Conclusion

There can be no doubt whatever that the Devil is the motivating force behind the "New Age" movement. This seductive philosophy has lured millions of one-time Evangelicals and Catholics into its sticky trap, from which there seems to be no escape. Once a person has tasted total freedom and has gained 'permission' to construct his own reality at will, the idea of organized religion and the concept of any type of moral or ethical limitation is repugnant.

In short, the "New Age" movement is nothing more or less than ancient Paganism repackaged in a much more attractive and seductive format.

The True Nature of the "New Age" Movement

You too shall be as God; you surely shall never die.-Satan speaking to Eve in Genesis 3:4-5

The Bottom Line

The true essence of the "New Age" movement can be summarized quite simply:

EVERYONE CAN CREATE THEIR OWN REALITY,BECAUSE EVERYONE IS THEIR OWN GOD.

Jay Rosen, media critic and Professor of Journalism at New YorkUniversity, summed up the essential essence of the "New Age" when he said that "The New Age is just another name by which the hollowness of modernity has been known. People want instant and total change, and New Age scams from psychics to astrologers flourish by letting people believe they can change themselves without effort or discipline. They tell people what they want to hear and give them vague advice they're already predisposed to follow."

According to Harvard theologian Harvey Cox, "The New Age Movement is a kind of yuppie religious expression in which you can have everything without any discomfort or pain or inconvenience."

In summary, if everyone is God, moral standards of any kind have been totally eliminated, and nothing at all can be called 'wrong.' Therefore, the person who immerses him/herself in the New Age movement is making an attempt at eradicating a deep-seated guilt.

For a detailed description of the manner in which guilt tortures and drives the Neoliberal, see Chapter 2 in Volume I, "The Anti-Life Mentality."

'Theology' On the Loose

Much of the "New Age" theological mishmash is rooted in Hinduism, which teaches that God is not a person, but a principle, an idea, or an emotion. People are simply points in a circle, because there is really no Creation, and we are all striving for nothingness. There is no reality outside of us, and so all reality exists inside us. Hindu ethics will tolerate no absolutes; everything depends on the situation.[2] There is no such thing as personal or individual sin, but only collective sin that is causing hunger or pollution or racism. This, of course, frees the individual from any responsibility for cleaning up his own life.

Hinduism and Buddhism teach reincarnation, by which a soul is reborn again and again as it tries to 'work off' bad karma so that it may eventually cease to exist and join the 'cosmic nothingness' of Nirvana.

Christianity, of course, is antithetical to the New Age, because its commandments and tenets are 'restrictive' and 'hold people back' from 'attaining their full potential' in the spiritual evolutionary process.

Of course, some parts of the "New Age" movement borrow heavily from Christianity in particular the Old Testament but not in order to build on the Bible's teachings, but to warp them. The results can be spectacularly silly.

Many "New Age" practitioners assert that Jesus earned His divinity (or "Christ-ship") as a guru who attained near-perfection though Transcendental Meditation but that He is nowhere near as 'perfect' as Buddha or Mohammed.

As one example, the Spring 1989 issue of The World Peace Agenda postulated that Jehovah, or "commander," had a brother Jehovah. In fact, an entire tribe having this name had Mars as a residence for some time during this period of the Old Testament. The entity known as Jesus was essentially from the Intergalactic Space Command, or the Max Pax the Galactic Man. These entities basically being high vibration creations, entered into the realm of Terrestia from the area of Celestria. Jesus moved through the various vibratory planes until he was born as a physical being upon this earth ... Essentially, Jehovah was a renegade from the outer space connections...

Objections from the Skeptics

Christians aren't the only persons who object to the "New Age" philosophy.

Since its inception in 1976, the 600-member Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSI-COP), meeting periodically at the University of Chicago and other campuses, has described the entire body of "New Age" beliefs as "bunk," "rubbish," "idiocy," and "nonsensical drivel."[3] The CSI-COP publishes the Skeptical Inquirer, which relentlessly pans not only the "New Age" beliefs, but most Christian tenets as well in other words, anything that cannot be proven by science.

There's One Born Every Minute

When the need is strong, there are those who will believe anything.-American writer Arnold Lobel.[1]

Diversity of the Movement

The "New Age" movement is definitely a business, and a very lucrative one at that for those who have the right words, attitude and appearance. Curiously, many of the same people who ridicule those who contribute to televangelists will turn right around and spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on various pieces of useless "New Age" junk.

People in this country spend $100 million annually on chunks of plain quartz whose geometry they believe has healing and prophetic power. Americans also annually spend $300 million on "New Age" videos and tapes. Shirley MacLaine cleared $1,500,000 on her 1986 15-city tour an average of about $8,000 per 'working' hour.

The "New Age" movement is not restricted to a small bunch of unwashed hairies living in the Oregon hills; it is far more pervasive than most people think. Most individuals have heard of many of the terms listed in Figure 130-1, all of which are part of the "New Age" language and culture.

FIGURE 130-1
A PARTIAL LIST OF NEW AGE PRACTICES, PRACTITIONERS, AND ORGANIZATIONS

Alpha brain wave training
Astral (out-of-body) experiences
B'ahai Faith
Alice A. Bailey (Theosophical Society)
Meditations (certain programs)
Biofeedback
Edgar Mitchell (Institute of Noetic Sciences)
Biorhythms
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Workshops [MBTI]
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky(founder of the Theosophical Society)
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (Enneagram)
Breathing regimens (certain programs)
"New Age" diets, real estate, and travel
Channeling
"New Age" management training courses
Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT)
Ouija boards
Color healing
Out-of body experiences,including near-death experiences (NDEs)
Crystals and other shapes used for "empowering"
"Past life regression analysis"
Dream Workshops
Positive thinking (certain programs)
Dungeons and Dragons game
Elizabeth Clare Prophet
Erhard Sensitivity Training (est) Forum Seminars

Marilyn Ferguson (biofeedback)
Lifespring

Luciferian initiations

Shirley MacLaine

Native American sweat lodges (reconstructions)

Crypto-zoology

David Spangler ('Luciferian Initiations')

Psychics and 'psychic surgeons'
Floatation tanks
Pyramidology
Focusing
Reflexology
Fortune telling
Rolfing
Hare Krishna
Rosicrucianism
Holistic health therapy
Ruth Banks' Quest Schools (Superlearning)
Homeopathy[Homoeopathy]
Scientology
Horoscopes
Silva Mind Control
Barbara Marx Hubbard(New Testament evolutionary)
Spirit guides
Human Potential Seminars
Tarot card reading
Hypnosis and subliminal training tapes
UFOlogy
Unitarian Universalist Church
"Journey to the Self" Seminars

Ancient 'Wisdom?'

The "New Age" movement is a vast and nebulous conglomeration of Eastern religion, magic, warped Christianity, and, rarely, good old-fashioned horse sense brightly packaged and given a jawbreaker name. It is inevitable, therefore, that some of the antics of the "New Age" gurus and their followers would be hilarious and highly entertaining.

J.Z. Knight, a Yelm, Washington housewife who breeds Arabian horses, has an interesting and very lucrative sideline; she "channels" the thoughts, ideas and philosophy of 'Ramtha,' a 35,000 year old warrior who lived in the lost city of Atlantis. Ramtha has even dictated a book through Knight entitled I Am Ramtha, appropriately printed by Beyond Words Publishing. Knight has made an estimated $5,000,000 from people who pay $150 per session to hear the 'wisdom' of Ramtha, who instructs them to pray for mink coats, BMWs, summer homes in the Hamptons, and cabs during the rush hour.[4]

Gerry Bowman of Los Angeles channels John the Evangelist on radio KIEV promptly at midnight every Sunday night. Another channeler, Jo Ann Karl, speaks for the Archangel Gabriel. Karl also claims that she was married to St. Peter. Her views on life with the Apostles are as follows: "We traveled widely with Jesus, teaching with Him. After He was crucified, we continued to teach and travel for several more years, until we were caught by the Romans. Peter was crucified, and I was raped, pilloried, and thrown to the lions. Now I understand why I've always been afraid of large animals."[4]

Jimmy Hoffa, being channeled by an Austin resident, described his untimely demise: "They cold-cocked me with something and then dumped me into a junk car compactor. I finally landed in a smelter, and that is one hell of a way to be cremated."[4]

In June of 1988, tens of thousands of "New Age" devotees gathered at eleven "critical points" on the earth's surface and chanted and sang for the purpose of propelling the earth and all of its people "to the next step in evolution." Many people, including ultraliberal Garry Trudeau of "Doonesbury" fame, satirically referred to the event as the "Moronic Convergence."

Unfortunately, despite the Convergence, we are apparently still mired in our current lowly stage of evolution. However, the "New Agers" will certainly try again at another auspicious time.

Waiting for Better Times

Some of the concrete manifestations of the "New Age" movement are physically bizarre and not always innocuous.

Take the American Cryonics Society as a case in point. This group believes that death is only a temporary inconvenience, and that the body (or parts of it) may be quick-frozen like chicken drumsticks, to be revived in some far and better future, where it may be defrosted, repaired, and cured of whatever killed it in the first place.

Sometimes the "cryophiles" get carried away in their eagerness to wake up in the year 3000. In one instance, six members of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Riverside, California were questioned in 1988 after they cut off and froze one client's head before she had legally been declared dead![5]

Leaders of the Cryonics Society envision finding large structures (say, abandoned Titan missile silos) that could be filled with liquid nitrogen and "suspension members" (i.e., frozen heads) that would be revived at some future date. Says Jerry White, founder of the Cryonics Society, "I was envisioning these big silos just full of liquid nitrogen, the liquid nitrogen generators busy 24 hours a day just spewing stuff in there, and you could see thousands of patients in there, see them bobbing around."[5]

What a perfectly charming scene!

Future Schlock

Metaphysics is almost always an attempt to prove the incredible by an appeal to the unintelligible.-H.L. Mencken.[1]