The New Age, the same old deceptions…

Again and again throughout history, man has dreamed of the arrival of a “golden age” for humanity, of a happy and perfect world in which there would be no disease, no poverty, no war, no hunger, no limitations, no divisions. He would like to see the entire universe transform before his eyes as if by magic and become something radically new.

He would like to free himself once and for all from the world’s problems, of which he himself is the cause. This dream is still alive and makes itself felt more strongly than ever in our day as the end of the millennium approaches. Our world, technically advanced yet spiritually starving, experiences a deep disillusionment in the face of a well-being that does not erase its poverty, a freedom that does not remove its slavery, and a science that does not dispel its deep uncertainty.

For about thirty years now, a cultural/philosophical/religious wave has been forming that seeks to react against the present state of humanity and to push humanity toward a new consciousness, toward a new way of being spiritual. We call this wave the New Age and, today, there is no aspect of our life that has not felt its effects in some way.

The ideas and goals of the New Age gather elements from Eastern religions, spiritism, alternative therapies, transpersonal psychology, deep ecology, astrology, gnosticism, and other currents. It mixes them and markets them in a thousand ways, proclaiming the beginning of a new era for humanity. But, at bottom, it seems to be nothing more than another vain attempt by man to save himself, making promises he cannot keep and claiming powers he does not possess.

1. Is the New Age a religious sect?

No. The New Age is not a sect, nor a church, nor a religion. It is a way of seeing, thinking, and acting that many people and organizations have adopted in order to change the world according to certain beliefs they hold in common. But it has no leader, no rules, no fixed doctrines, and no common discipline.

2. Why, then, is it said to be a “new religion”?

The New Age speaks of many things that touch our faith: God, creation, life, death, meditation, the meaning of our existence, etc.… but it is not a religion. It takes various aspects from many religions and also from the sciences and literature and mixes them with a certain originality to give fanciful answers to the most important questions of human life. At times it even uses Christian language to express ideas quite contrary to Christianity.

3. Who belongs to the New Age?

Anyone can be part of the New Age. Its leaders and thinkers are usually people from the “countercultural revolution” of the 1960s and 70s who rejected traditional religious values and paths in favor of licentiousness, drug culture, free love, and the experiments of utopian communities. Today their ideas are so widespread that a great number of people share them without any formal and evident rejection of their own culture or way of life.

4. What does the New Age believe?

What is typical of the New Age is the spirit of individualism that allows each person to formulate his own religious, philosophical, and ethical truth. But there are some common beliefs that almost all participants in the New Age share:
a) The world is about to enter a period of worldwide peace and harmony marked by astrology as “the Age of Aquarius”.
b) The “Age of Aquarius” will be the fruit of a new consciousness in mankind. All the therapies and techniques of the New Age aim to create this consciousness and hasten the coming of the Age of Aquarius.
c) Through this new consciousness man will become aware of his supernatural powers and will know that there is no God outside himself.
d) Each man, therefore, creates his own truth. There is no good and evil; every experience is a step toward the full awareness of his divinity.
e) The universe is a single, living being evolving toward the full knowledge of itself, and man is the manifestation of its self-awareness.
f) Nature also forms part of the one cosmic being and, therefore, also shares in its divinity. Everything is “god” and “god” is in everything.
g) All religions are equal and, at bottom, say the same thing.
h) There are invisible “masters” who communicate with people who have already attained the new consciousness and instruct them about the secrets of the cosmos.
i) All men live many lives, reincarnating again and again until they attain the new consciousness and dissolve into the divine force of the cosmos.

5. What do the followers of the New Age say when one points out to them that these beliefs are pure fantasy?

When someone does not accept this absurd vision of God, of man, and of the world, the New Age tells him that his consciousness is not yet enlightened and that his understanding is conditioned by cultural frameworks that will be surpassed in the new era.

6. But how do they expect to prove beliefs that correspond in no way to reality?

They normally resort to testimonies of subjective personal experiences that are as impossible to verify as they are to refute. Sometimes they rely on myths or on legends from the traditions of ancient peoples. Sometimes they take data from the sciences and apply them to man’s spiritual life as if the same laws governed both worlds.

7. If things are like this, what place is there in the New Age for the God who was revealed to us in Jesus Christ?

None. The God of the Catholic faith is a person; the “god” of the New Age is an impersonal and anonymous force. The God of the Catholic faith is the Creator of all things, but is not identified with anything created. The “god” of the New Age is the creation that little by little becomes aware of itself. The God of the Catholic faith is infinitely superior to man, yet bends down toward him to enter into friendship with him. The God of the Catholic faith will judge each man according to his response to that love. The “god” of the New Age is man himself, who is beyond good and evil. In the New Age the highest love is love of self.

8. Does the New Age say anything about Jesus Christ?

The New Age says that Jesus Christ was one more enlightened master among many. It says that the only difference between Jesus Christ and other men is that He became aware of his divinity while most men have not yet discovered it. In this way the New Age strips Jesus Christ of his unique and unrepeatable character as the Son of God and ridicules the fact that God became man to “save us from sin”.

9. Can a Catholic accept belief in reincarnation?

Not at all. Reincarnation is the belief in a chain of returns to this life under different bodily forms. If it were true, my freedom would be useless and my decisions, struggles, efforts, sacrifices, and sufferings in life would have no value, since in the end I would have to do everything all over again and again. If reincarnation were true, the passion and death of Christ would have no meaning and his resurrection would not assure us of redemption. The resurrection is the definitive transformation of the human being and the entrance into eternity. One dies only once, and death is followed by resurrection and judgment. As Saint Paul says: “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable” (1 Cor 15:19).

10. Is the New Age not confused with environmentalism?

No. True environmentalism seeks to conserve the planet and to respect all forms of life, especially human life, which has a value far superior to all the rest, since man was made “in the image and likeness of God”. The exaggerated environmentalism of the New Age says that man is worth the same as a whale, a mountain, or a tree. It goes so far as to regard man as the planet’s worst enemy instead of seeing him as its guardian and its master.

11. Is there also a music called “new age”?

Yes. “New age” music is so called because it draws inspiration from certain themes of great interest to the New Age: nature, the religions of ancient peoples, Eastern cultures, etc.… It is usually instrumental music, mixed with natural sounds, sometimes very repetitive, at other times without any melody at all.

12. Is it wrong to listen to this music?

“New age” music is like any other music: a combination of sounds more or less pleasant to the ear. What could make it “bad” would be some harmful content (the lyrics) or some irresponsible use of the music (e.g. to help induce an altered state of consciousness; to provoke negative feelings, etc.).

13. Why does the New Age speak so much about “energy”?

One of the basic ideas of the New Age is that all visible reality, man included, is reduced to a “cosmic energy”. According to this, as long as the cosmos is in its evolutionary phase, its energy manifests itself in many forms: a stone, the wind, the human mind, etc.… Supposedly there are things, places, and exercises that can increase our capacity and our control over this energy (e.g. wearing a quartz crystal, visiting a pyramid or another “sacred” place on the day of the spring equinox, performing certain yoga postures, etc.).

14. Are the programs of mind control, healing, and self-improvement a deception?

Each program must be seen and judged separately. But some programs teach simple techniques of relaxation, concentration, memory, or strengthening of the will that produce immediate results in their clients. These techniques, which are nothing extraordinary, are clothed in pseudo-scientific language and presented as a great discovery or a secret of ancient wisdom. Frequently one passes from a psychological or emotional therapy into the spiritual world, incorporating elements of pantheism, gnosticism, or Eastern spirituality without warning the client. The most modest results in the human field are given a supernatural character. From there the client is convinced of his “special powers”, his “enlightened consciousness”, or anything at all. The worst thing is that some of these programs present themselves as an excellent complement to Christianity when, at bottom, they are based on concepts incompatible with the Catholic faith.

15. Are the new meditation techniques useful?

The New Age has no scruples about mixing religious forms from very different traditions, even when there are fundamental contradictions. We must remember that Christian prayer is based on the Word of God, is centered on the person of Christ, leads to a loving dialogue with Jesus Christ, and always issues in charity toward one’s neighbor. The techniques of deep concentration and the Eastern methods of meditation enclose the subject within himself, drive him toward an impersonal or undefined absolute, and ignore the Gospel of Christ.

16. And what about yoga?

Yoga is, in its essence, a spiritual and bodily exercise born of Hindu spirituality. The postures and exercises, although presented as a mere method, are inseparable from their proper meaning in the context of Hinduism. Yoga is an introduction to a religious tradition very foreign to Christianity. The word “yoga” means “union”. We would have to ask ourselves: union with what?

17. Why does the New Age give so much importance to astrology, the horoscope, tarot, contact with spirits, etc.…?

The ancient techniques of divination and spiritism have always aroused people’s curiosity. The New Age has marked a revival of interest in the occult, magic, astrology, and mediumistic practices. These are currents that claim to endow man with supernatural mental and spiritual powers and to set him up as the absolute master of his own destiny. The New Age erases the distinctions between matter and spirit, between the real and the imaginary, between the possible and the impossible. But no effort of the New Age will succeed in reconciling occultism, esotericism, or spiritism with the faith and life of the Catholic.

18. The organizations that promote the New Age in the Hispanic world

In some way one can call promoters of the New Age everyone from a little witch performing cleansing rituals at the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan to famous media personalities who devote themselves to matters of commercial and popular esotericism. But there are some international organizations that also operate in Spanish-speaking America.

For example:

a) The Theosophical Society: founded in 1875 in New York by the Russian Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891), a spiritist and medium. Its doctrine is a mixture of spiritism, occultism, gnostic principles, and Eastern spirituality. The main beliefs of the Society include reincarnation, communication with discarnate masters, yoga, and astrology.

b) New Acropolis: founded in Argentina in 1957 by Jorge Ángel Livraga. It is an occultist and gnostic group inspired principally by the writings of Blavatsky and a mixture of the concepts of ancient thinkers. Its members seek a higher spiritual state through suggestive ceremonies of initiation and the use of many symbols and rites typical of paramilitary groups.

c) Silva Mind Control: founded in Laredo, Texas in 1966 by José Silva (b. 1914), it consists of short courses in techniques of inner control and concentration by which one seeks to control the mental waves until attaining Over-Consciousness or the total mastery of one’s mental states. The method contains elements of spiritism and subtly leads its practitioners into pantheism. It handles many fundamental concepts of the New Age and centers the hope of salvation on the mental powers of man. Despite the fact that many of the method’s teachers speak a “Christian” language and assure their clients that the method will help them in their spiritual life, there are substantial elements of the program incompatible with the Catholic faith. Recently the Silva organization in Mexico has devoted itself to collecting signatures of priests and nuns who approve the method in order to facilitate its promotion in Catholic circles.

d) Transcendental Meditation: founded in 1958 by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in India, but it did not become popular until 1967, thanks to the publicity provided by the Beatles and other famous artists of the counterculture of the 1960s. In its doctrine, which arises from Hinduism, one seeks the enlightenment of consciousness through personal reflection by means of the repetition of mantras (sacred words) and religious rites. Implicit in the teachings of TM are the rejection of doctrines essential to Christianity (a personal God, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, etc.…) and the veneration of the Maharishi and of Guru Dev as saints and divine messengers.

e) The Great Universal Fraternity: founded in 1948 in Caracas by the Frenchman Serge Reynald de la Ferrière (1916-1962), who was very active with groups of theosophy, astrology, and Freemasonry. Its doctrine is based on astrological, esoteric, and occultist practices, and affirms that all religions are equal, although it favors Hindu beliefs and practices. It presents a religious syncretism that appeals to a superior science which is the true basis of all religion.

f) The Church of Scientology / Dianetics: founded by L. Ron Hubbard (1911-1986), a science-fiction novelist who in 1950 published Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health, a manual of self-knowledge and development of human potential based on the analysis of experiences prior to birth. The most prestigious medical associations in the United States have repeatedly condemned the theories and therapies of Dianetics as totally lacking a scientific basis and harmful to mental health. Its theory is that all human ills are caused by “engrams” or negative charges that are recorded in man’s unconscious and cause continual havoc. To free oneself, an “auditing” by an expert is required, who will recommend a series of courses that will supposedly bring the client to the state of “clear” or free of “engrams”. Reincarnation and out-of-body experiences form part of the doctrine of the sect. Hubbard also has writings that harshly attack Christianity. The Church of Scientology has been defined as a destructive and belligerent sect and maintains many associations of a social and humanitarian character in order to gain greater acceptance in society, for example: Narconon and the Citizens Commission on Human Rights.

Source: Conoze.com