New Age, Old Lie

By: Dave Hunt; ©2003

The appealing messages received by practitioners of the New Age movement are remarkably similar to the lies Eve heard in the Garden of Eden. Dave Hunt illustrates.

New Age, Old Lie

There is a remarkable center of occultism known as Findhorn on the east coast of Scot­land. Sometimes called “the Vatican of the New Age movement,” Findhorn was founded upon the specific instructions of alleged “spirit guides.” Cofounder Eileen Caddy was appar­ently the first to receive this guidance through an “inner voice” that said, “Be still… and know that I am God…. Listen to Me, and all will be well…. I am closer than your breath, than your hands and feet. Trust in Me.” An inner voice is a major tool of the occult. We have seen the prevalence of this delusion within the church and the devastation it creates.

All of the original adult members of this unique community of Findhorn were “channels” for a variety of entities that had brought them all together by similar “guidance.” Harmony with nature and communion with the spirits inhabiting nature were the common theme. Even the alleged spirits of “transformed” Russian prisoners that channeled through Anne Edwards preached the familiar gospel of naturalism/ pantheism: that everything is “God” and that each person’s “Higher Self,” as a part of “God,” can create its own reality.^[1]

This appealing message, so similar to what the serpent told Eve in the Garden, is being repeated through literally thousands of “channels” as the phenomenon of contact with “spirit guides” explodes around the world. Satan has been the source of this lie since the beginning and continues to instill it in minds that are open to his inspiration. Psychiatrist and LSD researcher Stanislav Grof notes with approval the consistent thread running through the world of the occult:

In these LSD experiments, people were… moving into what we call transpersonal realms… which include past-life memories, mythological encounters, experiences of oneness with nature, oneness with the cosmos, and so on….

When I met Swami Muktananda who invited me to a seminar on Kashmir Sivaism, a system of Indian Philosophy, I discovered… that this ancient philosophical system was extremely similar to the system that has emerged spontaneously from the non-ordinary [altered] states of consciousness of modern Westerners.

To find such a convergence was a very interesting thing… that people are discovering the same perennial truths [in] these non-ordinary states as the ancient mystics had discovered….

The most advanced developments in science are returning to this ancient knowledge that comes from the mystical traditions.^[2]

This consistency cannot be the result of imagination. Will Baron, however, was reluctant to believe that the visualizations and meditation he was being indoctrinated into were any­thing more than imagination. Yet the experiences were so surprising and powerful that he was convinced. He describes the first experience:

As one of the group members was channeling a message, all of a sudden the inside of my forehead lighted up… as if someone had switched on an electric light bulb inside the front of my brain.^[3]

Further convincing evidence came when a new member gave psychic readings to the group after they had visualized her “in the center of a triangle of golden light… this Christ light…aligned to her higher self.” She told Will things about himself that she couldn’t possibly have known. Says Will:

I was absolutely stunned…. With excitement I told Rosie… that everything channeled had been 100 percent accurate.

At the end of the class, I… [asked her], “Rosie, have you been involved in this kind of channeling activity for a long time?”

“No, not at all,” she replied. “In fact this is the first class that I have attended….”

“Wow,” I exclaimed. “You have incredible psychic ability!”^[4]

Selling the Lie

Demonstrations of apparent “psychic power” such as Will encountered give credibility and respectability to the occult in our day. The belief that alleged psychics are simply tap­ping into a power that we all have is supported by supposed authorities, as in this state­ment by Joseph Campbell in his Bill Moyers interview:

We are at this moment participating in one of the very greatest leaps of the human spirit to a knowledge… of our own deep inward mystery. [In fact], the greatest ever.^[5]

The occult invasion is gathering momentum. Much of that growth is due to the new respectability granted to “spirituality,” and nothing seems so spiritual as the occult. Writing for the New York Times News Service, Mary Tabor said:

In the last few years readers have begun gobbling up an even broader range of books on religious and spiritual topics. Religious and quasi-spiritual books are creeping onto mainstream best-seller lists… [riding] a groundswell of interest in spiritual and theological matters….

Publishers and booksellers say the upswing in reader interest stems partly from a desire for spiritual and moral guidance, and partly from disillusionment with a computer-driven and increasingly violent society.^[6]

One of those best-selling books is The Celestine Prophecy. Although it is fiction, its alleged “insights… and the uncanny accuracy” concerning “the quantum leap forward hu­mankind is preparing to make as we approach the new millennium” are being taken seri­ously by a wide range of readers. The author recites in a different and exciting manner the same lies one hears consistently from the proliferating channels, lies echoing the serpent in Eden and by now familiar to every reader. Nor can there be any doubt, as the book states, that a “spiritual renaissance [is] occurring on our planet today.”^[7]

The new respectability granted to “spirituality” opens the door to the clever deceit that a person may be “spiritual” but not “religious.” When he first encountered the New Age cult in which he became entangled. Will Baron asked what “religion” it represented. In response to his inquiry, the leader replied, “No, we are not a religion. We are spiri­tual.”^[8] Even Sears, that bastion of conservatism which has the trust of millions, in its very first newsletter to women promoted occultism in the reprint of an article condensed from New Woman magazine:

First, relax. Make your mind still and quiet—an absolute blank…. Meet your inner adviser. With your quieted mind, invite a very loving, wise figure into your awareness. It could be an old man or woman, a plant, a dog. Sit patiently and let an image emerge. Then talk about whatever is troubling you….^[9]

As earlier noted, “spirituality” has become the great delusion. It doesn’t matter what kind of “spirituality” one espouses. Just being “spiritual” is sufficient for the New Age mentality. “Spirituality” has taken on a generic and ecumenical meaning divorced from truth. In fact, to suggest that truth exists and that all else is a lie brings immediate antagonism. This new spirituality is Satan’s net in which he snares multitudes.

Marina Raye is a “spiritual motivator, seminar leader and president of High Performance.” She teaches “Sacred Sexuality” based upon the belief that “everything is God… the pitcher of water, the floor, the fly that buzzes around… it’s all God… [so] we can greet our fellow humans as divine beings. Goddesses and Gods. We recognize the interconnectedness of all life….” Raye says, “A hopeful sign of the shift in consciousness is that many churches are willing to sponsor my workshops…. What better place to normalize Sacred Sexuality than in a church sanctuary!”^[10]

Notes

1. ↑ Paul Hawk in The Magic of Findhorn (Bantam Books, 1976), pp. 103-04.
2. ↑ “Stan Grof Interview,” in Sounds True Audio Catalog, 1989-90, pp. 21, 24.
3. ↑ Will Baron, Deceived by the New Age (Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1990), p. 44.
4. ↑ Ibid., pp. 47-48.
5. ↑ Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth (Doubleday, 1988), p. xviii.
6. ↑ Mary B. W. Tabor for The New York Times News Service, “Publishers spread wings with spiritual books; reap benefits,” in The Daily Astorian, August 11, 1995, p. 9A.
7. ↑ James Redfield, The Celestine Prophecy: An Adventure (Warner Books, Inc., 1993), from the jacket.
8. ↑ Baron, Deceived, p. 31.
9. ↑ Sue Browder, “Basic Instincts,” in All Together: The Women’s Newsletter from SEARS, first edition October 1994, p. 6.
10. ↑ Innerself, November 1994, p. 34.