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Kevin12
Guest
Let me ask - if this is the case, why didn’t you or one of your former cohorts go display these real and dangerous powers and collect the million dollar prize from the Randi Foundation?
Why do some consider New Age spirituality worse or on the same level as atheism or agnosticism?
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ProdglArchitect
Guest
Powers not in the sense of physical / metal abilities; but rather powers meaning ill-intentioned beings seeking to negatively influence your soul.
Your cousin may not be attempting to harm people, someone else may be. I personally am a skeptic, and doubt that a curse it to blame. That being said, I also recognize that evil exists, and has the ability to influence people, so it is not entirely outside of the realm of possibility. What I read in those posts was not fear, however (well, fear in the woman’s, but not the responders) but rather dedication to and trust in the Lord. The gist of the advice she got was, if she’s seeing evil, turn to God, Jesus and the saints for help. I don’t see anything wrong with that.
With this, I must close my part in the discussion. I hope you are able to have a good discussion.
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Lisa1967
Guest
Kevin–I’m just seeing this thread for the first time.
I have heard that some fundamentalist Christians consider the New Age to be the same as Satanism.
I have known many pagans (paganism is not the same as the New Age). Most pagans I know do not try to harm people in any way. Some are very family oriented. They believe in many gods and goddesses, and some do magic, and they believe in live and let live.
There is a pagan, Skadi, who is answering questions from people in this forum under the thread Ask a Pagan in Spirituality. I suggest that people who are interested check it out.
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Kevin12
Guest
If this is the case, how is there any proof that such influences came from someone placing a curse on you? Indeed, there were all sorts of cases of people in the middle ages who were caught in fornication or adultery who claimed they did so under the influence of an incubus or succubus, when the much simpler explanation is just that they committed sins by their own free choice?
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LegoGE1947
Guest
Thank you. The artists that I mentioned are favorites of mine and I was wondering if I was wrong to like them or listen to them. I especially like Buddy Merrill, who is a guitarist and does music using the technique known as “dubbing” where he plays all the guitars on a recording on separate master tracks and then dubs them together in the final recording. (At one time he was with Lawrence Welk’s orchestra before going solo in the late 1960s)
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johnnyc176
Guest
We are on Catholic Answers forum. Just curious…do you ever listen to CAL? One of the shows is called New Age Deception. It is on tomorrow.
catholic.com/radio/shows/the-new-age-deception-8394
How about Fr. Mitch Pacwa. Have you ever heard him talk about new age beliefs? Let’s just say he’s not a big fan.
amazon.com/Catholics-Father-Mitch-Pacwa-S-J/dp/089283756X
This is Catholic teaching, not trad Catholics or conservative Catholics. Not sure where you get that from. I don’t think ecumenism means becoming more like the other guy. We are to live our faith and spread the true gospel, no?
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Edmundus1581
Guest
I dabbled in the New Age in my late teens before a powerful conversion experience to Protestant Christianity.
I have seen New Age be both a good influence in some peoples’ lives, and a very dangerous influence in others. It can be a good influence when people who have no religion become aware of spiritual matters and learn to pray and see God in the world. Such people can be respectful of Christianity. However it can be a very dangerous influence when people start to crave mystical experiences and occult powers, or when a Christian compromises their own faith for New Age beliefs and practices. Frightening examples are the Protestant ministers who preach the Feminine principle in God and Catholic retreat houses which set up New Age oriented retreats.
Another problem with New Age is when it becomes a rejection of all reason and scientific knowledge. Such people can become very, very confused and incapable of rational decisions.When this happens I believe that the atheist or agnostic can be better off.
An example of this ambivalence is a Dominican monastery I knew which allowed Transcendal Meditation ™ to use their house for retreats for while because they believed it was good for people to take some time quiet time in their busy lives, but eventually stopped it when they took a closer look at TM’s teachings and practices.
This document, JESUS CHRIST, THE BEARER OF THE WATER OF LIFE, A Christian reflection on the “New Age”, is a very useful resource for an in-depth response to your question. I think it takes a balanced view. Please note, however, that it is a provisional document for information, and not a formal response by the Church.
I agree, in general, with the opinion of C.S.Lewis that you posted.
I have seen New Age be both a good influence in some peoples’ lives, and a very dangerous influence in others. It can be a good influence when people who have no religion become aware of spiritual matters and learn to pray and see God in the world. Such people can be respectful of Christianity. However it can be a very dangerous influence when people start to crave mystical experiences and occult powers, or when a Christian compromises their own faith for New Age beliefs and practices. Frightening examples are the Protestant ministers who preach the Feminine principle in God and Catholic retreat houses which set up New Age oriented retreats.
Another problem with New Age is when it becomes a rejection of all reason and scientific knowledge. Such people can become very, very confused and incapable of rational decisions.When this happens I believe that the atheist or agnostic can be better off.
An example of this ambivalence is a Dominican monastery I knew which allowed Transcendal Meditation ™ to use their house for retreats for while because they believed it was good for people to take some time quiet time in their busy lives, but eventually stopped it when they took a closer look at TM’s teachings and practices.
This document, JESUS CHRIST, THE BEARER OF THE WATER OF LIFE, A Christian reflection on the “New Age”, is a very useful resource for an in-depth response to your question. I think it takes a balanced view. Please note, however, that it is a provisional document for information, and not a formal response by the Church.
I agree, in general, with the opinion of C.S.Lewis that you posted.
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Allegra
Guest
Wow! Way to be extremely judgemental about people before they’ve even had a chance to post a response!
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Portofino
Guest
I appreciate what you’re trying to express, Kevin. Those who are interested in New Age spirituality are still theists; and all theists have some conscious recognition and appreciation of the divine.
It’s also true that what we would call alternative or heterodox spirituality is an extremely broad category. Many artistic individuals, in paritcular, tend to be attracted to alternative forms of spirituality. Examples that come to mind are the poets William Blake and William Wordsworth; Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and the Transcendentalists (they were influenced by Eastern religions, but so are many contemporary “New Agers”); Frank Baum (author of the Wizard of Oz, who had an interest in theosophy); Carl Jung; Jim Henson (the puppeteer); Richard Bach (author of “Jonathan Livingston Seagull”). Baum, Henson, and Bach all professed a belief in reincarnation, for example; Jim Henson and Richard Bach, in particular, were interested in the phenomenon of trance mediumship.
I’ve long been interested in New Age material – of the more philosophical stamp, as opposite to anything regarding “crystals” or “deities”, or even Tarot cards – but have only tried to share this with Christians twice in my life (once with a High School religion teacher, once with an older colleague at work). Both times, truth be told, the person with whom I shared the book – which was a book of trance channeling – advised that this is probably demonic. I think it is the “trance mediumship” aspect of much New Age material that helps provoke this reaction, even though a psychologist – such as American psychologist William James – could have taken an interest in trance mediumship, as an extension of studying hypnosis and other altered states of consciousness.
For these Christians I shared it with, “trance mediumship” was, at best, but a hair’s breadth from demonic possession, even if the messages coming through were all about peace, love, and understanding.
From my perspective, the comfort level in reaching out to New Agers as fellow theists is not very high, and this (sometimes, albeit not as frequently) extends to Eastern religions, as well.
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Kevin12
Guest
I don’t think you have read anything I said. Naturally we are supposed to spread the Gospel. I was simply implying that it is far better to believe in some sort of half-baked mysticism than to be in nothing at all - or at least, such a person would be more easily lead to the truth than an atheist, if only they were not treated with the same hostility.
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Kevin12
Guest
You are right, I apologize for my reaction. I have a tendency to snap like that - it is something I am trying to work on.
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Kevin12
Guest
If it lead to a rejection of reason, it might lead to superstition, but I am not sure that this is worse than atheism. You may be right though. I have only seen parts of that movie “The Wicker Man”, but it would make a strong argument that it would be better to be an atheist than a certain kind of pagan.
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BlaconPaul
Guest
Kevin 12
To try and answer your original question as quickly as possible, an awful lot of the inspiration for much of the various NewAge type religious ideas come from people like Madame Blavatsky, Alice Bailey, and other authors quite deeply involved in and revered by the occult world.
On the other hand, her concept of theosophy strongly influenced people like the OTO and even mr666 himself (Crowley the father of modern satanism). Dont get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that people who follow the new age are satanists, or even that the new age is satanic.
Another thing tha I find weird about the new age is that so many people who follow new age spirituality call themselves “light workers”, and talk about “channeling” Jesus, or Archangel Michael, or even the “angels of light” (reminds of a certain biblical warning to us about being deceived by beings that come to us clothed in light…)
Not sure if this was the kind of answer you were looking for, but I hope it helps.
Pray for peace
To try and answer your original question as quickly as possible, an awful lot of the inspiration for much of the various NewAge type religious ideas come from people like Madame Blavatsky, Alice Bailey, and other authors quite deeply involved in and revered by the occult world.
On the other hand, her concept of theosophy strongly influenced people like the OTO and even mr666 himself (Crowley the father of modern satanism). Dont get me wrong, I’m not suggesting that people who follow the new age are satanists, or even that the new age is satanic.
Another thing tha I find weird about the new age is that so many people who follow new age spirituality call themselves “light workers”, and talk about “channeling” Jesus, or Archangel Michael, or even the “angels of light” (reminds of a certain biblical warning to us about being deceived by beings that come to us clothed in light…)
Not sure if this was the kind of answer you were looking for, but I hope it helps.
Pray for peace
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Allegra
Guest
Well alright then. I would say that while I personally have never take then time to put New Age Beliefs and Atheism on the scale to determine “worseness”, if I was asked to defend this position, this is what I would say. Every step in a direction away from God is really like three steps away because you have to make up two steps to get back to zero and then figure in the time you wasted going the wrong way. Many atheists come by it honestly. It’s not that they hate God, it’s just that they haven’t seen any proof in their everyday life. In fact, they may have seen hypocritical Christians and Catholics that, at least in their mind, disprove the idea that man is made in God’s image. So, until they hear God’s voice, they don’t believe and they are sort of at zero. Whereas, someone who is going the New Age route is actively stepping away from God. Now the flaw with this agrument is that it assumes several generalizations about both atheists and new agers. Frankly, I don’t see any point in trying to figure out who is more wrong. I expect both camps have individuals who mean others harm and individuals who don’t.
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heidi_storage
Guest
Any creed but that in which Christ is exalted as the only true way to restore man’s relationship with God is false and leads, ultimately, to total separation from God. It seems, therefore, silly to weigh the relative merits of atheism and New Age stuff–or of Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, or any other nonChristian worldview.
As to any one choice being “a step forward” or “a step back”–people with many, many different backgrounds have come to Christ and taken many various paths to so doing. We shouldn’t be concerned with trying to get people to what we perceive to be a friendlier state of error than the one in which they currently exist; we should be promoting the Gospel as the only religious truth.
I’m not worried about being perceived as nonecumenical. The question simply is, what is right and what is saving to the soul?
As to any one choice being “a step forward” or “a step back”–people with many, many different backgrounds have come to Christ and taken many various paths to so doing. We shouldn’t be concerned with trying to get people to what we perceive to be a friendlier state of error than the one in which they currently exist; we should be promoting the Gospel as the only religious truth.
I’m not worried about being perceived as nonecumenical. The question simply is, what is right and what is saving to the soul?
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Tobias65
Guest
I think that many Christians are similar to atheists for all practical purposes. We may affirm a belief in God with our mouths, but in our lives we make no room for Him to do anything for us. We have no expectation for anything supernatural ever to happen to us, not until after we die and hope the angels show up to carry us off to heaven.
The dangers then of the New Age and other forms of alternative spirituality is that they are real. Through them, many former Christians experience the supernatural for the first time. This makes it incredibly difficult to re-convert these people back to an atheistic (or is it deistic?), non-miraculous form of Christianity.
I kind of chuckled when I read the op. First make them good pagans, then convert them to Christianity? lol that’s a thought. I’m not sure that’s the best answer, but perhaps C.S. Lewis was just trying to make a point.
The dangers then of the New Age and other forms of alternative spirituality is that they are real. Through them, many former Christians experience the supernatural for the first time. This makes it incredibly difficult to re-convert these people back to an atheistic (or is it deistic?), non-miraculous form of Christianity.
I kind of chuckled when I read the op. First make them good pagans, then convert them to Christianity? lol that’s a thought. I’m not sure that’s the best answer, but perhaps C.S. Lewis was just trying to make a point.
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vames
Guest
If you want a simple answer: the Church (and not only people on various online places) sees all things New Age as dangerous precisely because they assume a belief in the supernatural, which implies the risk of contaminating the official religion, i.e. the risk of syncretism. Now any religion is, up to a point, syncretic and a result of syncretism, but in the internet and globalization era, the risk of destructive syncretism is even bigger for any kind of organized religion. People who are not atheists sometimes build their own personalized religion, using a do-it-yourself approach: you see Catholics attracted to the idea of reincarnation or to the traditions of their ancestors (German, Slavic, Celtic beliefs and so on) or simply to popular superstitions. Sometimes, this trend can become a marketing approach even for priests who try to “spice up” the perceived dryness and rationalism of the official religion with something more intense, exotic or mystical, so as to attract people - this dawned on me when I saw these posts:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=10287232&postcount=401
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=10288720&postcount=405
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=10292000&postcount=424
Such danger to the official religion doesn’t exist with atheists, who don’t believe in supernatural things and therefore can’t “corrupt” any religion by mixing it with other faiths and superstitions. You say you were helped by your knowledge about classical mythologies, but others can be simply confused or end up by “practicing” a strident, ridiculos kind of syncretism. Examples:
luckymojo.com/archangelmichael.html
luckymojo.com/saintjoseph.html
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Kevin12
Guest
What about the likes of John Shelby Sponge and other so-called Christian Atheists? The claim these people can’t corrupt Christianity from within isn’t something I can take seriously. Indeed, I think the state Church of Finland is funded almost entirely by nonbelievers who think of it as part of their “cultural” heritage.
Also, when you say some priests “spice up” the perceived dryness and rationalism of the official religion with something more intense, exotic or mystical" - surely you must mean the Latin Mass? Most descriptions of that form of the Mass boast of how it is more intense and mysterious (since few people can actually understand it - which leads to the “exotic” part). Surely, even though the insistence on Latin may make it seem like people are treating the Mass as some kind of magic ritual, one ought to be more charitable.
I’ll take a syncretist or a pagan any day over an agnostic or an atheist. If you think spiritual blindness is better than spiritual myopia, I can’t understand your way of thinking.
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Kevin12
Guest
“They are real” - yes, I hear this a lot, and I’ll refer you back to my previous statement that any claim of New Agers to “real” power is much more easily explained as the power of suggestion and general magical thinking on the part of the person effected. If you look at the legal codes of the middle ages (as those of Charlemange and Lombardy) the notion of witches was treated as a superstition. Belief in witches is an almost entirely Protestant phenomenon.I think that many Christians are similar to atheists for all practical purposes. We may affirm a belief in God with our mouths, but in our lives we make no room for Him to do anything for us. We have no expectation for anything supernatural ever to happen to us, not until after we die and hope the angels show up to carry us off to heaven.
The dangers then of the New Age and other forms of alternative spirituality is that they are real. Through them, many former Christians experience the supernatural for the first time. This makes it incredibly difficult to re-convert these people back to an atheistic (or is it deistic?), non-miraculous form of Christianity.
I kind of chuckled when I read the op. First make them good pagans, then convert them to Christianity? lol that’s a thought. I’m not sure that’s the best answer, but perhaps C.S. Lewis was just trying to make a point.
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Kevin12
Guest
You ought to consider where you are. There are plenty of people on this forum who almost certainly believe you yourself are doomed to Hell unless you convert to Catholicism. If you are against ecumenism, why are you even here?
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