I originally wrote this blog post in 2006 as an undergraduate essay towards my B.A. in Christian Ministries. It is amazing how revelatory this actually is. The New Age Movement is very diverse and at the same time, hidden. In the nineteenth century, Paganism began to rise from seclusion in America to popular acceptance by the 1960’s and 70’s. Despite appearances however, and a name that sounds contemporary, what we know as New Age, is a movement that parallels another ancient cult. The early church and even the Biblical authors had to address many of the same teachings, and still, the Scripture stands as our source of objective truth in lieu of an emphatically subjective religion.
Harmonial Religion is a religion which believes that all of reality, such as health, economic success, and overall prosperity are directly related to the condition and outlook of the individual psyche. Sarah Pike, in “New Age and Neopagan Religions,” traces the history of this religious perspective pointing to Mesmerism as the first in this succession of spiritual movements. Anton Mesmer (1734-1815), the individual credited with the beginning of this movement, was a physician and an astrologer whose beliefs were carried over from Europe by his followers. Mesmer believed that by going into a trance, he could effectively diagnose a person’s condition and prescribe treatment. This in turn led to the belief amongst his followers that actual physical healing could be effected through the control of the fluid of which all things are made.
These men migrated to America and began doing demonstrations from town to town, and in the wake of the Second Great Awakening, these spiritual alternatives to Christianity flourished, and Mesmerism began to have greater influence. It particularly influenced two men: the first is Phineas Quimby (1802-1866) and the other is Andrew Davis (1826-1910). Quimby began early on practicing mental healing, and he eventually established a practice in Portland, Maine:
Quimby promoted the idea that humanity’s natural state was health and that disease was caused by mental disturbance, an understanding widely shared by mesmerists and Spiritualists, and some others. Quimby’s healing methods were simple…Patients were sick, he told them, because they believed they were. Then he visualized the patients as healthy and encouraged them to see themselves that way. Quimby’s work established psychic healing and visualization as key elements of the alternative religious tradition.
Quimby’s work spread and his influence “snow-balled” in the thoughts of subsequent cults and spiritualists. Among others, he had a direct influence on the thinking of those who would later found the Christian Science denomination.
Another individual who is of huge significance in the progression of Harmonial Religion, is Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). Swedenborg actually had a major impact on Quimby, and his writings laid the foundation for the development of Spiritualism in the Nineteenth century. William Butler Yeats writes of him in “Swedenborg, Mediums and the Desolate Places” –
In his fifty-eighth year he was sitting in an inn in London, where he had gone about the publication of a book, when a spirit appeared before him who was, he believed, Christ himself, and told him that henceforth he could commune with spirits and angels. From that moment he was a mysterious man describing distant events as if they were before his eyes, and knowing dead men’s secrets…
Swedenborg therefore believed that he had been given the means and implicit command from God to interpret not only metaphysical reality but also the Word of God. Thus, Swedenborg believed that he could travel in out-of-body experiences in his search for truth. Pike writes, “Swedenborg argued that the natural world was divine and that divine knowledge could be found within the self.”
Transcendentalists took this understanding further and emphasized still more the harmony between the self and the cosmos. Spiritualists, in turn, took Swedenborg and Mesmer’s teachings further in practice and performed séances and rituals contacting spirits. Then came the emergence of New Thought in the 1890’s and it “described an attitude toward mind and body that would characterize the New Age movement to come; both put responsibility for health and illness on the individual.” Thus these factions had their own emphasis on different aspects of “harmonial religion.” Theosophy also branched out from Spiritualism and, proliferating their ideas, centered on the Theosophical Society founded in New York in 1875 by Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891):
Like contemporary Neopagans and New Agers, Theosophists looked to the past and to ancient cultures for truth and wisdom, hoping that through their reinvention of those cultures and revival of ancient myths and rituals they would usher in a new age of enlightenment.
There would continue to be numerous perspectives and practices involved in the advance of these religions. Some of these branched out and institutionalized like Creation Science and Mormonism while others shunned this and focused on decentralization like paganism and spiritualism. If one was to do justice to the movement and trace all of the intricacies of its advance, then he/she would find that there were multiple views, practices and perspectives each seeming to focus on one aspect or practice, but the important thing is that at the bottom line, each of these groups that branched out from early spiritualism focused on certain aspects of the centrality of the self and the union of the cosmos and everything in it. What makes these views differ is often observed in how they use this realization.
New Agers and Neopagans base their religious lives on providing and accessing what they see as much-needed alternatives to available religious options. They believe that their special role is not to maintain tradition, though there may be some who try to do this, but rather to change self and society. On issues from gender roles to politics, they believe that humans should interact in different, and, to their minds, healthier ways…Even when it is social and political structures that need changing, the self and not the institution is the agent and locus of change.
The New Age movement is a movement that is characteristically vague as it is based on neither creed nor text but on a perspective and focus, a vision of life that seeks to overcome evil through the realization of individual oneness with the world and all things contained in it.
Taken in the broadest context, the New Age movement and Christianity are probably the top two spiritual influences in America today. The issue then follows of how to address the issues that arise in this clash of eastern and western ideas, and obviously more important to those who follow Christ, what are the Biblical answers to the New Age movement?
Peter Jones, a leading figure in the Christian understanding of New Age, demonstrates that the New Age religion directly parallels the philosophy of Gnosticism that the early church fought against in the first three centuries AD. He makes five very good parallels that should be noted.
1) Cosmological; the early Gnostics believed that the world was a cosmic accident thrown into existence by a foolish and arrogant creator that they called “Yaldaboath” [paralleled with YHWH], chief of the Archons. 2) Redemption; the Gnostics taught, as found in the Hypostasis of the Archons that “Dame Wisdom, the heavenly Eve, enters the snake called the “Instructor” and teaches Adam and Eve the true way of salvation. Consequently, they not only taught salvation through knowing yourself, the result of their disobedience, but they even deified Satan, or rather the woman used as a representation of Satan.
3) Christology; they taught that the Gnostic is a Christ. They completely switch around the confession, “You are the Christ” in the Gospel account turning it into a mock confession of Christ showing that they themselves are in fact Christs:
Jesus said to His disciples, “Compare me to someone and tell Me whom I am like.”
Simon Peter said to Him, “You are like a righteous angel.”
Matthew said to Him, “You are like a wise philosopher.”
Thomas said to Him, “Master, my mouth is wholly incapable of saying whom You are like.”
Jesus said, “I am not your master. Because you have drunk, you have become intoxicated by the bubbling spring which I have measured out.”
And He took him and withdrew and told him three things. When Thomas returned to his companions, they asked him, “What did Jesus say to you?”
Thomas said to them, “If I tell you one of the things which he told me, you will pick up stones and throw them at me; a fire will come out of the stones and burn you up.”
4) Theology; God, the true and ultimate God, is unknowable and is only known at all because of the divine spark in mankind. Jones quotes the following text showing the patriarchal/matriarchal beliefs of the being of God as believed by the Gnostics:
Trimorphic Protennoia,
I am androgynous. I am Mother (and) I am Father, since I copulate with myself. I copulated with myself and with those who love me, and it is through me alone that the All stands firm. I am the Womb that gives shape to the All by giving birth to the Light that shines in splendor. I am the Aeon to come. I am the fulfillment of the All, that is, Meirothea, the glory of the Mother. I cast voiced Speech into the ears of those who know me.
5) Sexuality; the Gnostics taught that ultimate redemption is accomplished in the sexless nature of the individual. Thus, the Gospel of Thomas reads (in logion 22),
They said to Him, “Shall we then, as children, enter the Kingdom?”
Jesus said to them, “When you make the two one, and when you make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside, and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye, and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter [the Kingdom].”
Jones points out the obvious inversion of roles and how this results in the confusion of male and female. As shown above, “The serpent and the woman are ‘teachers.’ The Creator and Adam are fools.” The natural result is obviously degrading and harmful. As if the foregoing points were not enough, there are even recorded teachings on the benefits of meditation and the ecstatic experiences that are produced.
1) Cosmology. The New Age religion today calls on everyone to worship Mother Earth. “Gaia” The Greco-Roman goddess of fertility and growth has become the modern, Mother earth, signifying the wholeness of everything in existence. She truly represents a type of “syncronistic pantheism,” borrowing from Hindu teachings. New Age, like Gnosticism thus believes that mind is the essence of existence while matter is simply a temporary vehicle for fulfillment of the soul’s final purpose.
2) Redemption. New Age teaches that redemption is a matter of self-realization of the oneness of the cosmos. It points very often to the means of this “salvation” as one of two things, or both: the first is the female. New Agers believe that the idealized society comes through egalitarianism and often implied is the dominance of the female. A second means of redemption is pursued in Satan-worship. They exalt the serpent as the one who enlightened the human race and liberated it through the wisdom obtained in the act of eating the fruit and disobeying the patriarchal, tyrannical voice of God.
3) Christology. As shown above in the Gnostic text of the Gospel of Thomas, we find that Christ is seen as a type of example or perhaps another figurehead for the attaining of personal enlightenment. Because there is no salvific work, Jesus is an example, and the person who realizes and experiences the reality espoused by the New Age, is the person who himself or herself becomes a Christ just as Jesus did.
4) Theology. The overwhelming declaration of the New Age Movement has been that “we are God.” An individual actually comes to realize that he or she is God through introspection. This is the natural result of pantheistic monism which says that God is everything and everything is God. When a person sees himself as part of this, it is not a far jump to seeing oneself as God.
5) Sexuality. Knowing this, it is not a far jump to the utter confusion that is seen today in sexuality. Homosexuality is not only tolerated but spoken of as natural to the point that same-sex marriage is promoted in many circles. The nuclear family is lost, and people have not a clue as to God’s original intent for this foundational concept. It destroys the balance and basis for happiness while promising a utopia that New Age offers. It is obvious that the New Age is a new version of an old religion known then as Gnosticism, and by the same means it was defeated then, so now the only real means to defeat it is to contradict it with the the Word of God. We have to contradict it with biblical practice and teaching.
The New Age cult really makes its break with Christianity at the point of authority. As previously shown, they turn the serpent into a hero for enlightening humanity and for bringing mankind to some kind of fuller consciousness, when in fact Satan tempted Adam and Eve to disobey God’s command and sin against Him thus bringing the curse of death upon a fallen race. The New Age could not be more wrong. They exalt the fallen condition of man’s heart when the Bible says that it is “wicked and deceitful above all things.” They uphold man’s rebellion as if it were a milestone in human existence when in fact it was the beginning of separation from God. They claim it brought humanity nearer to God but it erected an impassable chasm between them.
As a current and very telling example of this, note the following introduction to the hip new show called “Hazbin Hotel” on Amazon Prime:
Ultimately, to New Age, the individual is God and he is sovereign: “At the essence, or core, of each of us is a perfect, loving, and caring being…each of us already has everything necessary to achieve and be all we want in our lives…we literally create our experience of life based upon our beliefs about ourselves and how we expect the universe to react to us.” The New Ager is self-deceived:
Romans 1:21-25 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
Knowing God they reject Him in an unparalleled display of arrogance and declare himself/herself to be God.
One very obvious and striking reality about the New Age religion is that it takes everything that is self-evident – and to the natural, rational mind, – true saying that it is completely different than what it appears to be. In other words, the universe is full of distinct, concrete things and human beings are separate and distinct (made in the image of God), and rather than see that these are separate creations of God and that God is holy and He is Spirit, the New Ager must say, “no, it is not the way it seems…everything is one and you and I are as much God as a rock or a tree.” Just as in Star Wars, everything is permeated and filled with the force or god. Psalms 115:2-8 says:
Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see. They have ears, but do not hear; noses, but do not smell. They have hands, but do not feel; feet, but do not walk; and they do not make a sound in their throat. Those who make them become like them; so do all who trust in them.
The New Age religion has fashioned a God of flesh and bone, of mind and matter, and called it God. he saves himself through introspection and interconnectedness of the spirit-world, but in the end, this only compounds his bewilderment and sense of disconnection. If the heart is wicked and deceitful above all things but it is God, then New Agers, in effect, seal their own fate.
The New Age Movement employs words and phrases that seem to mean one thing but actually mean something entirely different to insiders. “God” in the New Age is the Pantheistic god of ancient paganism, the All of Hinduism, and not the transcendent God of the Judeo-Christian Bible. Thus “transcendental meditation,” which is Hinduism posing as science, is a deceptive label that really means the opposite: “subscendence” following oneself.
How can “subscendence as oneself” enlighten people? Truth is external and objective as opposed to internal and subjective; it has to come from a source other than fallible minds, and the only objective truth is found in the absolute authority of God who has spoken in His Word. It is “True Truth,” as Francis Schaeffer called it. Ultimately, the final reason why New Age is futile is that it chooses to reject the words of God.
The New Age Movement tries to construct a vision of life and morality that is based on at least three key presuppositions: 1) Everything is in God and God is in everything; 2) people are just another part of this all-encompassing oneness; 3) Humanity is headed toward eventual Utopia through the love and goodness of individuals. Salvation, as such, is not even existent but is actually an ascendance, so called, to a “higher level” of consciousness. There could not be a greater lie than to say that not only is mankind naturally good, but mankind is actually God, and he saves himself through “transcendental meditation,” whatever that is. At its heart, this is arrogant self-worship.
If Proverbs says that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” then New Agers have gone as far away from wisdom as possible. They have chosen to serve themselves rather than God. The text that best describes the origins and end of the New Age Movement is found in Romans 1:21-32. They have rejected God whose attributes are self-evident, turned to worship the creature, or themselves, and therefore, God has given them over to the lusts of their hearts and to a debased mind. These are the things that in fact characterize the New Age movement and will ultimately condemn them under God’s judgment unless they repent.
Bibliography
“Gospel of Thomas, The.” Sacred Texts Online [Home Page Online]; http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/thomas.htm; Internet; accessed 8 August 2006.
Jones, Peter. The Gnostic Empire Strikes Back. New Jersey: P&R Publishing, 1992.
Pike, Sarah M., New Age and Neopagan Religions in America, New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.
“Trimorphic Protennoia,”Gnostic Society Library, The. The Nag Hammadi Library, The Gnostic Society Library Online [Home Page Online];
http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/trimorph.html; Internet; accessed 8 August 2006.
Yeats, William Butler, “Swedenborg, Mediums and Desolate Places (Legends/Sagas: Yeats)” Sacred-Texts Online [home-page online]; available from
http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/vbwi/vbwi21.htm; Internet; accessed 8 August 2006.
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