The New Age: An Emerging Worldview in Society – Program 2

By: Brooks Alexander, Dave Hunt, Tal Brooke; ©1988

Is there a way we can get out from under the burden of guilt, sin and accountability? If I am God, why don’t I know it?

“I’ve Got My Truth…”

Ankerberg: Welcome! We’re talking about what you might have seen in Time magazine, their article on the New Age. Maybe you’ve visited one of the 2,500 New Age bookstores in this country. Maybe you’ve bought one of the 8 million books that Shirley MacLaine has printed concerning her experi­ences in the New Age. Maybe you’ve read some of the books by Robert Muller at the United Nations or you have seen some of our people in the medical society talking about holistic medicine or our psychiatrists talking about Jungian philos­ophy and New Age thinking. Maybe you have seen some of our educa­tional people talking about bringing New Age techniques into the school room and you’re wondering what in the world is all this stuff about. And one of the things that you have to admit that you’re seeing on television — Oprah Winfrey, Donahue, and other programs — is that you have some of these channelers. People are having an experience with extraterrestrials as they say. Voices speaking through their bodies. But these kinds of experiences, Dave…I want to come to you tonight. Let’s talk about the average scientist. Let’s talk about your average doctor, your lawyer, your university professor, your students. People that are having experi­ences — mystical experiences — like Shirley MacLaine. What is the attrac­tion? Why are these people going for these experiences?

Hunt: Well, as we mentioned in the last program, the big attraction is, if I can be God, if I don’t have to give an account to my Creator, if I can be out from under this burden of guilt, of ac­countability, of sin, you know…part of it is a rebellion. It’s the innate rebellion in the human heart against God. Now, if you can show me that I’m justified in rebelling, if you can come and tell me that…like you know, flying in here last night, because I was reading books on the New Age and so forth, why a young lady came up and wanted to talk to me. She thought I was into it. And so I began to….

Ankerberg: You look like you’re into it!

Hunt: Yeah. I began to pull the rug out from under this thing. She doesn’t want to admit that anything is right or wrong. She says, “Oh, it’s different. That’s an alternative. We want to be positive.” You see? “Don’t tell me I’m wrong.” She says, “I’ve got my truth; you’ve got your truth.” I said, “That’s like saying, `You’ve got your mathematics and I’ve got my mathemat­ics.'” I mean, it’s ridiculous! But it’s a very appealing….it has to be an appeal­ing lie! Why do I have to pay Shirley MacLaine, for example, $300 to spend a weekend with her to find out that I’m God. If I’m really God, why don’t I know it?! Why do I have to pay somebody to tell me? And then Shirley says, “You’re God. Act like it!” Well, how come I’m not acting like it if that’s who I am? And if I’m not God, how in the world am I going to act like it? You know? It’s so ridiculous, it has to be a great delusion that the human race wants to believe.

Ankerberg: Yeah, but you come from a different angle. If you take your people that are listening tonight, Dave, I think they would say, “Look, I didn’t know that. And I had an experience like Tal Brooke and all of a sudden that experience changed my whole world view.” You’ve got guys like Muller…and you remember we had Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. You were with her as a guest on the program. She was a lady that risked her entire reputation to find out if these experiences were true. She had the experience, and that experience gave her a completely new philosophy of life. Now, that’s where they’re coming from. They’re saying, “I don’t know why I was ignorant. But baby, don’t tell me I didn’t have an experience! I had an experience, and that convinced me!”

Hunt: Yeah. But, John, I’m not denying their experience. But what I’m trying to say is, it’s absurd. I mean, so I go off on a trip — [an] altered state of con­sciousness. And I have…let me give you a quote from…if I can find it here, from Walter Bromberg in his book From Shaman to Psychotherapist. He says, “Whereas in previous generations altered consciousness was considered a mark of Bohemian depravity if sought voluntarily, or one of madness if involuntary, nowadays a “high” is the essence of psychologic sophistication.” Now, the experience that I’m God or what Tal is saying that “I am the universe” or as Edgar Mitchell — one of our astronauts on Apollo 14, the sixth man to walk on the moon — he has this experience that he is the universe. Okay, great. In an altered state you’ve got this. You come back to planet earth, you’ve got your feet on the ground, you’re not God. I’m not the universe. I know it’s not true. So all I’m trying to say is, it is so absurd that there’s got to be a tremendous seduction. It has to be a lie. It’s like the serpent. He inoculated the very blood of the human race with this poison.

Ankerberg: Okay, there’s got to be another reason behind it and you’re going right to that reason. Basically, we don’t doubt…I mean, Time magazine records voices speaking out of these channelers. They talk about doctors that in their life all of a sudden are having voices speak out of the blue and they come to be persuaded that other “unseen doctors” who are smarter than they are can give them information and they do operations and they do things, and the people actually are healed. There’s something taking place. We’re not denying the reality of what’s taking place. We’re saying the reality is not all it’s cracked up to be. Okay. Brooks, what do you think?

Alexander: I think one of the reasons that the experience is so appealing is not only that very often, having this unitive or mystical experience feels good at the moment. It provides a pro­found sense of relief at two important levels for the individual. Number one, it relieves guilt because it dissolves morality.

Ankerberg: Why? Why? Stop right there. You’re right, but why?

Alexander: Because you transcend all categories of opposition, all categories of opposite, all polarities, all dualities. You get above everything of that kind where there’s a “White” and a “Black,” a “Yes” and a “No,” and an “On” and an “Off” and a “Plus” and “Minus.”

Ankerberg: Let me see if we can put what you’re saying here and see if it’s right. You’re saying that if I am persuaded logically because of my experience that everything is connected, and that God is all and all is God, that means I’m a part of God. I’m a part of everything that’s here — good ol’ pantheism. It’s been around forever. The logical conclusion of that is there cannot be any absolute right or wrong.

Alexander: No, that’s not the logical conclusion. That is the experience of the reality that you have that you are beyond those categories. You are no longer affected by concepts of right and wrong. The whole thing is put behind you. It’s a tremendous psychological release from a sense of guilt.

Ankerberg: So you’re saying you experience it first and you think about it second.

Alexander: Precisely. And in addition to that, the unitive aspect of it does provide a sense of meaning to the universe if you’ve been existing in a world that’s fragmented and torn apart.

Ankerberg: Why does that kind of an experience of oneness give meaning?

Alexander: Because it provides something which ties everything together. Provides a central point which gives you an ability to understand how things relate to one another. It’s a wrong meaning, but it is a meaning as opposed to existing in a world where there are no obvious connections.

Ankerberg: In other words, filling the vacuum…

Alexander: Exactly.

Ankerberg: …If you don’t have anything from science, you don’t have anything from philosophy, it’s something to grab hold of and it works. Dave?

Hunt: I talk too much but this is some­thing…this was picked up in the executive offices of Warner Studios down in Hollywood. Very popular. “Self Discov­ery.” I’m going to discover who I am. And down here it says — just what we’re talking about: “Whenever you make a mis­take, remember, you are God. God doesn’t make mistakes, He just has experiences.” Okay? Because if you’re God, there’s nobody to tell you you’re wrong. You create your own reality. That’s a very appealing lie.

Ankerberg: All right, we’re going to take a break and we’re going to come right on back and take a look at this. And we want to talk about, if you embrace these experi­ences…for example: some people are saying, “Ankerberg, you’re whetting our appetite and we’d like to try it. Maybe philosophically it doesn’t work but I’ve got nothing anyway. So the fact is, I’d like to try it. Got nothing going on Saturday night so I’m going to try it.” Guys, for all those people that are saying, “Hey, it sounds pretty good,” I want you to tell them the other side. If they choose, what are the choices they’ve got to make and what are the ramifications? Please stick with us.

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Ankerberg: All right, we’re back, and we’re talking about, what are these experi­ences — these mystical experiences that are bringing a New Age philosophy to our culture? First of all, everybody’s got to have a world view. You’ve got to have something. And if people are turning away from science and they’re turning away from philosophy because it’s bankrupt, and if the church — and this is where Christians are at fault — if the church is dead, then the people are going to be open to anything else. And fellows, if the New Age is giving us experiences and these give us a world view that is differ­ent than what we had before, if there are people listening in and saying, “You know, I’ve got nothing to do on Saturday night; I’m going to try for one of these experiences.” What can happen? What will change in their life? What are the ramifications? What do people need to know they’re getting into? Tal?

Brooke: There are some very major experi­ences that really rocked America down the line. One was a Harvard professor named Alan Watts who took LSD in the countryside of New England; he had this incredi­ble unitive experience and then he wrote a book called The Joyous Cosmology, taking a lot of the Harvard faculty with him. Not long after that, many of you remember, who was the big acid guru? Timothy Leary. I met him way back when. He used to take gradu­ate students on weekend LSD trips. Again, the experience. He later did a book called The Psychedelic Experience which was based on the Tibetan Book of the Dead about Eastern occult experiences. What does this mean to all of us? It means that the LSD experiences that they were having most closely resembled Tibetan Buddhist rituals, which we will get into later. Recently in the last ten years Carlos Canstaneda, an anthropologist at UCLA, has done scores of books on these incredible experiences. So there’s a lot of them. Aldous Huxley wrote a book called The Doors of Perception: Heaven and Hell based on his experience on mescaline. Here’s what happened to him. When he died, his wife actually gave him LSD to finally make his final trip out of life. Today, thanatologists like Kubler-Ross are using this sort of idea to use the death and dying thing as being a leaping off point just like the Tibetan yogis…the Tibetan roshis in Leary’s rendition of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. We’re getting a cross network here.

Ankerberg: The fact is, now we don’t need the drugs anymore to have the experience. Why, Dave?

Hunt: Well, because you can get a lot higher on yoga than you ever did on drugs.

Ankerberg: What happens in yoga?

Hunt: I have parents talk to me and they say, “Well, my son or my daughter used to be on drugs. But now they’re into yoga and I don’t understand this yoga thing, but thank God, at least they’re not on drugs.” And I have to tell them, “I’m sorry to inform you, but drugs was the kindergarten. They’re into graduate school now. I mean, they’ve really moved into this thing.” So that was what opened us in fact to the….

Ankerberg: Explain why yoga gets you an experience.

Hunt: Well, yoga is one of the basic means of reaching this altered state of con­sciousness — controlled means: you do it to yourself. All right? Now, let me explain the altered state, because that’s the doorway to the occult. Sir John Eccles, Nobel Prize Winner for his research on the brain describes the brain, as I think Tal already inferred, “A machine that a ghost can operate.” Now here’s the mechanics of the thing. In a normal state of consciousness your spirit, psychokinesis is going on right now. My spirit is ticking off the neurons in my brain and operating my body. I’m not just a lump of protein molecules wired with nerves, no matter if you think that. You know, just a piece of educated beef steak. You can’t explain love and joy and peace and a sense of justice and so forth in those terms. We are spirits connected with a body. But in an altered state, reached under drugs, yoga, hypnosis,…you can go to your library, for example, and get a book, 250 Ways to Reach an Altered State Without Drugs. That’s another word for the New Age Movement is the “Consciousness Revolution.” In the altered state, that loosens…in this passive but alert state the connection between my spirit and my brain is loosened. That allows another spirit to interpose itself, [to] begin to tick off the neurons in my brain, create an entire universe of illusion. Shirley MacLaine hasn’t been out of her body, she’s had a demon playing a video tape in her brain. This is where the whole thing comes from. So, you’ve opened yourself up…it’s called sorcery. It’s also…we are teaching ourselves how to be demonized, literally. In the name of developing our full potential.

Ankerberg: So you’re saying that when people go through these techniques, and now we’ve got all of these groups like Erhard Seminar Training and we’ve got Silva Mind Control where you’ve got 5 million people that have gone through Silva Mind Control, and on the third day they teach you how to invite two spirit guides into your mind that will stay with you forever. That’s more people that have gone through Silva than there are Mormons in the world.

Hunt: Right.

Ankerberg: You have other courses. You have the techniques coming right across the way. You’ve got 2,500 New Age bookstores with hundreds of magazines just covering up America with saying, “Listen, try the technique.” And the thing that I find interesting, Brooks, is the fact that it’s getting easier and easier for people to have the altered state of consciousness. It seemed 25 or 30 years ago a guy really had to really sweat it out to get that experience. Now the experience is almost immediate. Three days in Silva Mind Control. And some of these other groups are saying, “You come. We can give it to you immediately.” What’s behind that?

Alexander: Well, there are several things going on at different levels. For one thing, there has been definitely a refine­ment of the techniques for manipulating people’s states of consciousness. And it’s something that has developed because it’s particularly easy to pull off in a mass pressure-cooker situation, where you have a lot of people crowded together as opposed to 20 or 30 years ago you had the solitary seeker, and if he could find a yoga teacher he was lucky. Today, you have mass trainings being carried on in hotel ball­rooms where you’ll be put into a very, very stressful situation; your rational, criti­cal intellect will be confused with double talk and paradox to the point that it simply lets go and quits trying to evaluate everything. And then all of this sudden up-rush of emotionality emerges, and as Richard Ofshe, Professor of Sociolo­gy at the University of California in Berkeley pointed out, the New Age techniques major in emotional arousal which is a prime tool of influence. So what it produces is a person who is hyper-aroused, whose critical consciousness has been numbed or supressed at least for the moment, and is therefore a very malleable and very manipula­table kind of individual. And people are going through processes which are essentially training them to react to reality in this fashion. And the real danger socially of the widespread acceptance of this kind of state of mind is that it’s an adman’s dream; it’s a dictator’s fantasy. It’s your bureaucrat’s ideal. A person who is not going to complain and who will go along — easily manipulated, easily influenced, go along with anything you want.

Ankerberg: You are “tuning” in because demons are in back. Satan and evil powers have got a host of people out there…host of “persons” out there, if you want, that are giving these experiences to you for what reason?

Brooke: Deception. You’re being deceived.

Ankerberg: Deceived for what purpose?

Brooke: There’s something interesting that’s going on and that is that when the Bible originally said we’re made in the image of God — terms of intellect. Brooks talked about the mind being erased — emotions, will, intuition, creative imagi­nation — something happens in this. Let’s run through this one. In a way I told you I felt like I was being turned inside out. What’s happening is that those natural defenses that God has given us are being systematically cut down so something else, which we’re going to get into, can get in there. I want you to think of an analogy. The disease AIDS which is very serious right now is one. The way it operates is that it cuts out the body’s natural defens­es so anything can get in. I want you to think of this as being a spiritual analogy to AIDS. Once these defenses that God has given you — the image of God — have been systematically cut down, and the truth about the psychotechnologies that these two brothers have been talking about is that they systematically cut down all these things that make you in the image of God, and immunize you from this. Now, what happens when AIDS comes on is that you lose your immunity and you get the disease. What happens, and we’re going to get into this later in these programs, is that when you lose your — the best way you’re being immunized against other spiritual influenc­es, something else plays the piano wires.

Ankerberg: What does Deuteronomy 18 warn us about, Dave?

Hunt: Well, it says we’re not to get involved in any of this sort of thing. Sorcery, communication with these spirit entities and so forth.

Ankerberg: And a guy says, “I don’t believe that. I’m going to go do it anyway.” What happens?

Hunt: Well, it’s like jumping off of a cliff. This girl on the airplane said, “But have you tried it? Have you tried this altered state of consciousness? You don’t know until you experience it.” I said, “That’s like telling me that I don’t know what it’s like to jump off of a cliff until I try it!” I want to know what this thing is going to do. First of all, I’ve got to have a ration­ale. And, John, what the rationale behind it is…the reason of this deception is, it is a counterfeit that undercuts the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, if we really are creatures accountable to God, then this says, “No you’re not. You are “God,” accountable to nobody!” If I’m a sinner — that’s what the Gospel says — this says, “No, you’re not a sinner. It’s simply ignorance! You just didn’t realize who you were. There are no right or wrong; it’s just positive or negative. You’re not separated from God, you’re sepa­rat­ed from your higher self. And you don’t need Christ to die for your sins, what you need to do is tune in to this power and then you can have eternal life, you’ll never die, you’ll get reincarnated. You could heal your body and so forth.” So what it is, it is the lie that counteracts…God has a remedy for our situation. It denies what our situation is. If you don’t accept the diagnosis, you’ll never accept the remedy. So it gives us a false diagnosis and it gives us a false cure of our problems.

Ankerberg: So the people that are in the New Age that have gone a little further than what we have even talked about and they’re starting to see the down side, in 30 seconds, Dave, what’s the good news to them, because Christ is who He is?

Hunt: The good news is that although we have offended infinite justice and we could never pay the penalty because we’re finite beings, God who is infinite, could pay the penalty. It wouldn’t be just for Him to do so because He’s not a member of our race, so He became a man to pay a debt we could never pay, and He offers us, having died for our sins and satisfied the claims of justice, He offers us as a free gift eternal life. We can be reconciled to Him. We don’t become one with Him, but we become united with Him in His love, and we know His joy and His peace and His presence forever and forever. And we will be with Him eternally. That’s not self-realization, that’s realizing who He is and then accepting the remedy that He offers for our condition.

Ankerberg: It’s also realizing the truth. All right, next week we’re going to contin­ue this and we’re going to go into: Are we training our children, starting in the first grade, how to be open to the demonic? Are we federally funding that? What kind of education are we preparing our students for all across this country in terms of New Age thinking? We’re going to talk about it next week; I hope you’ll join us.

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