New Age philosophy

[SedesDomi]

If reincarnation is true and everybody eventually makes it to the same place I don’t have anything to worry about if I’m wrong. I’ll get a chance in my next life to get it right.

I don’t know what your friend thinks, but reincarnation/rebirth (as it is originally taught among the Hindus and Buddhists) does not necessarily mean everyone eventually makes it. Many Hindus don’t believe everyone will make it. And those who do believe so, argue that one can still spend eons in a very painful state of existence (i.e., a hell). So just because everyone will eventually make it, doesn’t tell you (1) how long “eventually” actually is; nor (2) how much pain and suffering you might experience before “eventually” happens. For my money, eons spent in hell, is not a whole lot different than eternity spent in hell.

And by the way, many Buddhists believe that the most painful hells are indeed eternal, because once you’re there, (1) you don’t know how long you’ll be there; and (2) you can’t get yourself out of it, and will have to hope someone comes and helps you.:bigyikes: So, theoretically, you could stay there for eternity. (Luckily, though, the Buddhas are always searching for people to help. But, of course, you have to want to be helped.)

 

[erothe]

Can anyone point me to some good reading materials on this subject; especially those from a Catholic view point.

 

[geometer]

Can anyone point me to some good reading materials on this subject; especially those from a Catholic view point.

Go to:

www.ewtn.com

find the library link and the audio archive. Mitch Pacwa did a lecture series on the New Age based on a book that he wrote.

 

[erothe]

Thank you

 

[KayakGirl]

I too spent a lot of time studying the new age philosophy of various groups. I found that there are so many different beliefs and there is no consistency. One person thinks this one person thinks that. You end up going around in circles and circles. I got so dizzy and could find no solid ground, until I returned to Catholicism. I now totally understand the parable of the Prodigal Son, as I left home (Catholicism) and went through the dens of the New Age and returned home and was welcomed by my parish priest with open arms and words of welcome home. I also understand how the Church is our rock. When you get in the whirlwind of the new age, it is great to find the rock of the church on which to ground yourself.

I also did some ghost hunting with a paranormal group that used major scientific equipment, no psychics, just science. I quit attending, but still have a lot of questions about how Catholicism sees these spirits, entities, demons. (I did experience some things). I heard on a program just a few days ago, that Catholics believe that spirits can get stuck in Purgatory and these are the roaming human spirits we may encounter. I also know we, I, believe in demonic spirits and in angels also. The question for me is the human ghosts we encounter.

Does anyone know what the official teaching is about human ghosts?

Thanks for listening to my rambling…

 

[Victorious]

Does anyone know what the official teaching is about human ghosts?

The Church teaches that at the moment of death comes Judgment, and then the soul goes immediately to its reward: heaven (including purgatory) or hell (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1022). From this it follows that human souls cannot haunt places on earth. On rare occasions, and for particular purposes (e.g., as a rare gift of consolation, or as a rare grace to cure someone’s unbelief in the existence of hell) God permits the souls of the dead to appear to the living; but aside from that, and cases of fraud, I’d say “hauntings” are actually demonic activity.

 

[KayakGirl]

Thank you. I believe the demonic will present themselves in many forms in order to get us to interact with them and allowing them to bait us into relationships with them.

Again, thank you.

 

[Convert66]

This is an interesting thread. As many have pointed out, New Age can be applied to any number of religious and spiritual influences and practices with no clear cut doctrines defining “orthodoxy.” It is heterodox, in that, it is inclusive of everything except orthodoxy, of course, and even the Wiccans and neo-pagans are not really witches and pagans at all because they are not orthodox pagans and witches. I recall that Alexis de Toqueville said of democracy that it’s natural religious inclination would be towards pantheism (literally, God is all) because democracies make every man’s (or woman’s) opinion as valuable as any others. He was Roman Catholic. Real pagans, like the Norsemen or the Druids, were orthodox and would laugh at the thought of inclusiveness and then sacrifice you to Odin or the Wicker Man.

Earlier, Detales posted—“Why don’t you all just go find a new ager and talk for a while and see what they actually say themselves, instead of acting like biddies across the back fence?”

For the simple reason that it wouldn’t aid us in the least in defining what the New Age philosophy actually entails. Asking one or two or ten thousand “New Agers” what their philosophy is tells us nothing at all about New Age philosophy. It only tells us what that one or two or ten thousand have syncretized into their personal philosophy.

And this makes the entire philosophy, at its heart, a generality. The “incarnation” of vague.

Delates again, I think it was (not to be picking on you intentionally)—“It is so easy to negate someone’s way of thinking by means of generalities.”

This would mean, logically, that it is so easy for the new ager to negate their own way of thinking because their philosophy is nothing but generalities (anything at all and nothing in particular). You can’t think about everything, because everything is not even a real thing. It is a generalization.

SpiritMeadow adds—“Anybody who warns you away from said groups is someone I would beware of. Truth is never arrived at by shutting out thought and learning. Truth rises to the top by rigorous examination of all the information available.”

I could easily turn this back at you by saying, “anyone who warns you against said groups is someone I would beware of. . .” in which case we must also be wary of you.

Truth does not rise, because the Truth (if it is the Truth at all) does not move. Two and two never rise to five. They are fixed at four. Things that rise to the top include: dead fish; dross; and hot air. It may be said that " . . .truth is never arrived at by shutting out thought and learning," if one excludes the possibility of revelation; but it is likewise certain that truth, once arrived at, has no further need of pondering contrary opinions in order to see what is true because it has already been fixed. Once I have decoded the mysterious riddle of the sum of two and two, I can exclude all thought of them making five as nonsense.

" . . .someone who is desperate to protect their own mind concept of God and faith. "

To the contrary it is heterodox open-mindedness that is the attempt to protect one’s mind concept of God and faith . . . namely, the concept that God and faith can mean anything in general, but never anything in particular. The orthodox need not ever be “. . . desperate to protect their own mind concept of God and faith,” because it wasn’t their own mind concept to begin with, by virtue of it having already been defined for them prior to their assent. If it were some desperation to protect their own mind concept of God and faith, they certainly wouldn’t be orthodox. They’d be new agers.

All my best . . .

 

[excaliber]

The term New Age is not useful and is nothing more than an unbrella term for a lot of faith systems all held to be not exactly Christian in orientation. There is little connection between them internally. There are quite fringe groups and some that would be highly understandable by the average Christian.

They are commonly hated by right wing Christians, especially fundamentalists and others who are essentially that since such persons and groups believe there is only ONE way to achieve salvation, their way (being the church they personally belong to).

Many New Age are actually New Thought groups who draw their lineage back to Plotinus who lived and wrote in around the 200 CE time frame I believe.

Many of them preach a cross between Christianity and Buddhism. They do preach often a very uplifting, loving, service oriented spirituality. This is considered very dangerous by some mainstream churches, especially the right wings of them, who fear that they will be supplanted by a more intellectual and spiritually grown view of God.

Many are probably weird, as weird as some would find as one person put it, someone who had never heard of Christianity walking into a RCC and seeing a dead man attached to a cross. It might well frighten you out the door.

Many of the others are quite benign and seem to teach a strong message of love one another. Oprah has featured a few of these folks years ago, but I don’t subscribe to the idea that said talk show host is some guru. Again, that tends to come from the right wing.

Anybody who warns you away from said groups is someone I would beware of. Truth is never arrived at by shutting out thought and learning. Truth rises to the top by rigorous examination of all the information available. When you start getting warned, then think fundamentalist and someone who is desperate to protect their own mind concept of God and faith.

you have thinking like mine.
Faith here is the issue, you are to
give up your intellectual abilities.

You are to come to your conclusion based on faith…complete trust in what others tell you.

 

[geometer]

you have thinking like mine.
Faith here is the issue, you are to
give up your intellectual abilities.

You are to come to your conclusion based on faith…complete trust in what others tell you.

Complete trust in what others tell you would be gulibility. Faith is complete trust in the existence of God.

 

[Detales]

Hi '66,

Yes, I did say "*—“Why don’t you all just go find a new ager and talk for a while and see what they actually say themselves, instead of acting like biddies across the back fence?”
*That was in post #11 of this thread. If you were to go back there and read that sentence in context, you would discover that i was specifically addressing an issue with Clair from DE, Hers is (I hope was) part of a greater issue which manifests on here as a tendency of posters to ask each other opinions about issues as distinct from going to a source–any source other than Catholic “friends.” In other words I was addressing the issue of gossip, I was not defending New Ageism.

In fact, "66’, earlier I had said that “New Age” philosophy is what happens when teaching points used in the esoteric systems are made public and deteriorate through misunderstanding into the things people on here have called it. It ought to be clear from that, in post #6, that whatever I think New Age philosophy might be, I think it is a deterioration of something else. I don’t believe that such a stance makes be a supporter of said philosophy, does it?

Your mis-reading of my intent and using it to show me in an inaccurate light, is as well the pattern of another error rampant on these pages: lack of accurate reading and of critical thinking. Thank you for being an example for us all; we each perform such service occasionally.

Again, I did say )—“It is so easy to negate someone’s way of thinking by means of generalities.”

But this:

"*For the simple reason that it wouldn’t aid us in the least in defining what the New Age philosophy actually entails. Asking one or two or ten thousand “New Agers” what their philosophy is tells us nothing at all about New Age philosophy. It only tells us what that one or two or ten thousand have syncretized into their personal philosophy.

And this makes the entire philosophy, at its heart, a generality. The “incarnation” of vague*

from you, could as well be applied as easily to Catholics if you read what is going on in these fora between the faithful, and especially if you read their comments on the “less” faithful. And, again, as it happens, I agree with you. Generally speaking, “New Agers” have not much of a clue as to what is at the heart of their popularizations. They have as little of that as do Catholics of the derivation of their own faith.

And I’m not about to speak for SpiritMeadow, but for myself regarding your comment about her statement “Anybody who warns you away from said groups is someone I would beware of. Truth is never arrived at by shutting out thought and learning. Truth rises to the top by rigorous examination of all the information available.” Isn’t it a bit naive of you to criticize her manner of speaking about rigorous examination instead of agreeing that rigorous examination is useful? Your reaction smacks to me of defensiveness relative to her stance about actual contact with “New Agers” as distinct from favoring even your 2=2=4, which in the case of Catholics is within the validity of their self-verifying logic. It is rarely inclusive of dynamics and facts unfavorable to the Church.

But that is an issue that fills libraries made necessary by the convolutions of defense put up by piety. Faith is not Knowledge. It is belief. That is an adult word for “Let’s behave as if…” And there is nothing wrong with that as long as one doesn’t mistake faith for knowing, no one gets hurt, or if you don’t try to foist your way on others by missionaryism or militancy. But what has history shown us about that and our Church as well as others? “You shall know we are Christians (Muslims, whatever) by our love” as we conduct Crusades, Inquisitions, retard science, destroy cultural maps, mutilate women, etc, etc. I will say it again: religion and good are two separate issues. So if you think your own way is so wonderful, why not act with such love as will attract all those New Agers to the Church? And don’t pass it off to the alleged "rightness’ of your institution, you attract them.

 

[excaliber]

Hi '66,

Yes, I did say "*—“Why don’t you all just go find a new ager and talk for a while and see what they actually say themselves, instead of acting like biddies across the back fence?”
*That was in post #11 of this thread. If you were to go back there and read that sentence in context, you would discover that i was specifically addressing an issue with Clair from DE, Hers is (I hope was) part of a greater issue which manifests on here as a tendency of posters to ask each other opinions about issues as distinct from going to a source–any source other than Catholic “friends.” In other words I was addressing the issue of gossip, I was not defending New Ageism.

In fact, "66’, earlier I had said that “New Age” philosophy is what happens when teaching points used in the esoteric systems are made public and deteriorate through misunderstanding into the things people on here have called it. It ought to be clear from that, in post #6, that whatever I think New Age philosophy might be, I think it is a deterioration of something else. I don’t believe that such a stance makes be a supporter of said philosophy, does it?

Your mis-reading of my intent and using it to show me in an inaccurate light, is as well the pattern of another error rampant on these pages: lack of accurate reading and of critical thinking. Thank you for being an example for us all; we each perform such service occasionally.

Again, I did say )—“It is so easy to negate someone’s way of thinking by means of generalities.”

But this:

"*For the simple reason that it wouldn’t aid us in the least in defining what the New Age philosophy actually entails. Asking one or two or ten thousand “New Agers” what their philosophy is tells us nothing at all about New Age philosophy. It only tells us what that one or two or ten thousand have syncretized into their personal philosophy.

And this makes the entire philosophy, at its heart, a generality. The “incarnation” of vague*

from you, could as well be applied as easily to Catholics if you read what is going on in these fora between the faithful, and especially if you read their comments on the “less” faithful. And, again, as it happens, I agree with you. Generally speaking, “New Agers” have not much of a clue as to what is at the heart of their popularizations. They have as little of that as do Catholics of the derivation of their own faith.

And I’m not about to speak for SpiritMeadow, but for myself regarding your comment about her statement “Anybody who warns you away from said groups is someone I would beware of. Truth is never arrived at by shutting out thought and learning. Truth rises to the top by rigorous examination of all the information available.” Isn’t it a bit naive of you to criticize her manner of speaking about rigorous examination instead of agreeing that rigorous examination is useful? Your reaction smacks to me of defensiveness relative to her stance about actual contact with “New Agers” as distinct from favoring even your 2=2=4, which in the case of Catholics is within the validity of their self-verifying logic. It is rarely inclusive of dynamics and facts unfavorable to the Church.

But that is an issue that fills libraries made necessary by the convolutions of defense put up by piety. Faith is not Knowledge. It is belief. That is an adult word for “Let’s behave as if…” And there is nothing wrong with that as long as one doesn’t mistake faith for knowing, no one gets hurt, or if you don’t try to foist your way on others by missionaryism or militancy. But what has history shown us about that and our Church as well as others? “You shall know we are Christians (Muslims, whatever) by our love” as we conduct Crusades, Inquisitions, retard science, destroy cultural maps, mutilate women, etc, etc. I will say it again: religion and good are two separate issues. So if you think your own way is so wonderful, why not act with such love as will attract all those New Agers to the Church? And don’t pass it off to the alleged "rightness’ of your institution, you attract them.

It is true that I have been misunderstood countless times
on threads.

However I am one in favor of reason, because faith without reason DOSE harm people. Particularly those involved with cults.

Anyway you bring up a good point
about transmitting information.
If you speak to a thousand new age followers and get a thousand different answers would that not
provide evidence that it was not
correct?

Everything in creation is or was at one time orderly. If religion is disorderly, could it be a creation of God?

Compare that with pure spirituality
which is not man made, but is in
all of us from birth. Is spirituality and not religion from God?

 

[Convert66]

Hello Detales,

Yes, I was clear that you were not defending “new age philosophy”, per se, but rather assumptions about what new age philosophy entails or may entail to it’s actual adherents.

In other words I was addressing the issue of gossip, I was not defending New Ageism.

Again, this is quite clear from reading your thoughts throughout the thread. I have no special insight, but I think the intent of this thread was to seek out others opinions on “new age philosophy.”

Your mis-reading of my intent and using it to show me in an inaccurate light . . . lack of accurate reading and of critical thinking.

As I said above, I understood you clearly. I simply used your words as written to demonstrate that asking a million opinions about something that can not be definitively articulated is simply asking for a million opinions. This may aid in getting to know what individuals believe, but it does little if anything to answer the question: “what is new age philosophy.” Was I myself not clear in this, or did you read me inaccurately?

Again, I did say )—"It is so easy to negate someone’s way of thinking by means of generalities . . .
They have as little of that as do Catholics of the derivation of their own faith.

Perhaps you should begin your own thread and enlighten the ignorant Catholics about the actual “derivation of their own faith.” Are you an authority or just another opinion on an internet forum?

Isn’t it a bit naive of you to criticize her manner of speaking about rigorous examination instead of agreeing that rigorous examination is useful?

I criticized her “manner of speaking about rigorous examination” in order to highlight her lack of same. You may not have noticed this in the same context:

“It may be said that ’ . . .truth is never arrived at by shutting out thought and learning . . .’”
which is a tacit agreement with her premise. I criticized her statement for its lack of rigorous examination, and is why I was critical of her conclusion. Naive? I merely find irony very amusing.

Your reaction smacks to me of defensiveness relative to her stance . . .

My “2=2=4” is not at odds with her stance about actual contact with “new agers.” If new ager A tells me that she seeks wisdom from Buddha and Deepak Chopra, and new ager B says they seek wisdom from TM and Marianne Williamson, it is critically rigorous and logical to assume that both of them seek wisdom.

Also, the validity of logic is always self-verifying because all logical argument is premised on an axiom which can not be proved.

It is rarely inclusive of dynamics and facts unfavorable to the Church.

Then you are correct to point out its lack of thoroughness. In and of itself, though, this is simply communicative shorthand. I doubt, for instance, that the TM devotee has incorporated the Maherishi Mahesh Yogi’s lustfulness into the category of “wisdom” for which they are supposedly chanting in the first place. They are seeking wisdom, not lustfulness, as it were. I need not defend the scoundrels who have occupied the Chair of St. Peter over the centuries, only the doctrine of Papal infallibility. To exhaustively explain every premise and assumption is an exercise in infinite regress and, as such, would be impossible on its own terms to ever progress into actual conversation.

But that is an issue that fills libraries made necessary by the convolutions of defense put up by piety. Faith is not Knowledge. It is belief.

My impression is that it was low editorial and publishing standards that filled the libraries, but that is beside the point.

“Faith is not knowledge. It is belief.” Close, but it is not just belief. It is also, and perhaps more importantly, trust. If you have exhausted the universe and aquired all knowledge then it can be rigorously said that “faith is not knowledege.” It is subjective and personal, perhaps, but not fundamentally different than any other type of knowledge which is always premised upon an assumption that itself can not be proved and is always personal and subjective. We can read the English language because we first consent that such things as “we,” “reading”, “English” and “language” exist. We can’t prove it without positing yet another and another unprovable assertion, however. Better put is “all knowledge is faith.” But what do I know . . .

“So if you think your own way is so wonderful, why not act with such love as will attract all those New Agers to the Church?”

I have no illusions that my own way is either, “my own way,” or “so wonderful.” I assent to the Catholic faith but it was here long before I. It is most definitely not my “own way.” If I sought my own way I would not assent to a religion that makes me so uncomfortable with myself and my own wishes. This, for me personally, testifies to the verity of the Catholic faith—it is right not just where I am right. It is right where I am wrong.

I’m not sure how you could possibly “know” how I act throughout the course of my days by reading a post on an internet forum in which how I spend my days is not addressed. Omniscience, perhaps? It is precisely because I know the difference between faith vs. works (words vs. deeds) that I strive to love even my enemies in word and deeds. It is, however, impossible for me to enter into the sufferings and needs of others on an internet forum with deeds and, because of this, my demonstration of love will always be obscured by a computer screen and subject to inaccurate readings and lack of critical thought on behalf of many readers.

All my best . . .

 

[Convert66]

Delates,

My response was quite long before and it dawned on me that, as it appeared, and without the previous exchange to translate it before you readily, it may appear incoherent. Mea Culpa. Let me try to put succinctly where I see that you and I diverge.

In your original response to me you wrote:

—“In fact, “66’, earlier I had said that “New Age” philosophy is what happens when teaching points used in the esoteric systems are made public and deteriorate through misunderstanding into the things people on here have called it.” It ought to be clear from that, in post #6, that whatever I think New Age philosophy might be, I think it is a deterioration of something else. I don’t believe that such a stance makes be a supporter of said philosophy, does it?”—

The simple answer is “of course not.” I do not suspect you necessarily a supporter of new age philosophy. I suspect you are arguing from your own convictions, just as anyone else would do. The underlined portion above I agree with. It resembles my own conviction that the single most identifiable commonality under the big umbrella called “new age” is heterodoxy. In short, “new age” is an agreement to be heterodox instead of orthodox. There is no Dogma that must be believed to be “new age” other than “openness” or “open-mindedness” or “how we feel about X.”

New age philosophy does not believe anything for you. There is nothing that you must adhere to in order to be considered “new age” in the way that Dogma demands a core of truth or truths in order to be considered orthodox. “New ageism”, like any other philosophy (or anything at all solid in the world), defines itself by what it excludes and not what it includes (I exist because I perceive something other than myself and it is not myself).

New ageism can include anything at all except exclusion ( nature abhors a vacuum, indeed!) So there’s literally no room for a belief that a real first fact to adhere to even exists. It’s like a syllogism without an axiom. 1) I’m not claiming to be right or anything, but, 2) God is anything you say god is to you . . .therefore, 3) everyone agrees that there’s no God we can truly know because no one can define God.

But God could, if God exists.

What “new ageism” does exclude is anything making a dogmatic claim. That alone really defines it, and is the only discernible unifying characteristic; something more concrete than a vague impression of “connectedness” to something indefinable and indescribable." Therefore, we shall never be able to describe it (either God or New Ageism) accurately or define it coherently. Orthodoxy defines itself around a center truth and then demands that we adhere to it or we are not its own. It grounds us to a fact not of our own making, (like the fact that we have mothers and fathers we did not make ourselves)and therefore not originating in ourselves or in “mankind as a whole.” If God exists, it does no real good to speculate about what we think from our finite perspectives or “feelings” because any sane person has to know that they can not be god unless god is a 30-something housewife from Sheboygan, Wisconsin with a knack for intution and a fondness for crystals.

If God exists He must first give us a fact of His own revealing or else we shall always and only be speculating about our own feelings and our own impressions, or our parents philosophy (or our rebellion against it), the cultural influences, or our hatred of the culture’s influences and not really God at all. In the least, it must mean from the beginning that we are truly making god in our own image, and we can know so by this simple glaring fact: New ageism claims that God is anything any person claims God is.

Therefore, to adequately answer the question “what is new age philosophy” we can safely define it as commonly used as indefinable, and indescribable, (and therefore, rationally unknowable) except that it is exclusively heterodox. It is, literally, heresy.

That’s my answer. All my best . . .

 

[KayakGirl]

Totally off topic for you guys at present, but there is a gentleman in You Tube that has made several interesting videos and I thought I would share his site. His talk of Christianity, in general, is interesting and very simplistic and I enjoy his subscription.

His name is Shazoolo… You can search for him and check out some of his videos and hopefully you will enjoy them as much as I do.

Peace Be With You All

 

[Detales]

Hi '66 ~~"*The simple answer is “of course not.” *" Thanks; that’s what i was going for. Clearly you are a thoughtful individual, and I respect your stance. I even agree with much of what you said, since I thought much of that was what I was saying anyway, and felt your expansion on it was well spoken.

 

[wmscott]

I think it depends on who you talk to.

In the early 90’s I had contact with a “psychic” due to a radio station I was working at. She talked about “good” energies and “bad” energies. She’d keep touching me because I had “good” energies. At one point I told her to knock if off that I was tired of her “stealing all my good energies.” LOL!

I did take a look into that and tarot cards for a while. Embarassingly, I was interested in the occult - but more like psychics and tarot cards, not wicca or paganism.

At anyrate, I think the “new age” belief can be as unique as each person you ask what their “spirituality” is. The few I met did believe in “good” and “bad” “energies.”

Isn’t there something in the OT about the occult or witches or something related to these?

 

[kbrigan]

Recommended read is The Adventures of Holistic Harry (free download!), from the same MD who wrote Health Food Junkies, and coined the term “orthorexia.” He’s writing from a more or less, sorta kinda agnostic position (grain of salt, there), but his descriptions of alternative health movements and “spirituality” are spot on. And frequently hilarious.

orthorexia.com/

 

[jewells17]

This website is a must read! Please go to www.christiananswersforthenewage.org and read Marcia’s story…she was in the thick of the New Age and she tells everything you need to know and how she escaped! Check it out…you won’t be sorry.

 

[theistgal]

BTW, what do you get if you cross an agnostic, a dyslexic and an insomniac? You get someone who stays awake all night wondering if there really is a dog.

I notice this didn’t get the attention it so richly deserved, so bump!