“The temptation to believe in the false myths of success and power is strong; it is dangerous to embrace evanescent concepts of the sacred which present God in the form of cosmic energy, or in other ways not in accord with Catholic doctrine. Young people, do not believe in deceptive illusions and fleeting fashions which not infrequently leave behind a tragic spiritual emptiness!” —John Paul II to young people, August 26, 2004.
Before entering into the meaning of the New Age, I present an article published by a proponent of it in the Venezuelan newspaper “La Verdad,” June 2001:
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The New Age, Kaled Yorde (proponent of the New Age)
The process of man’s spiritual evolution is unstoppable and advances slowly and imperceptibly, but steadily, even though it may seem that we are at a dead end. These are times of suffering and of overwhelming dehumanization, the product of a soulless society and of a science that acts without conscience.
Nevertheless, many have begun to realize that science, technology and a higher standard of living for some do not necessarily produce happier human beings, nor do they make the world a more pleasant place. Reasons? Many, but the most important is the absence of the divine and the essential in daily life; that is, the lack of God and of a genuine divine life in the thoughts, feelings and actions of man. The consequence of this reflection gives rise, as a response, to the birth of an emerging worldwide spiritual movement, spontaneous and transparent, which has sprung from the inner light of many men and women, regardless of the creed they profess, the nationalities, race and social condition to which they belong.
The New Age represents the birth of a new consciousness, a kind of mental openness of tolerance, brotherhood, reconciliation and a new way of seeing and living life. The clearest vision of the idea of what the New Age is comes from one of the originators of the movement, David Spangler: “The birth of a new consciousness and the perception of daily life as something sacramental, as a religious, intellectual, artistic, affective and physical search for the sacred experience that should beat at the heart of the new holistic culture that is beginning to emerge and that would provide us with a new lifestyle and a different vision of the universe.”
The New Age is a movement of man’s natural inner growth, the product of the process of spiritual evolution that never stops, as already noted. It lacks hierarchy, leadership, high priests, organization, etc., and, what is most important, dogmas of faith. It is not a new religion that comes to replace the old ones, but the desideratum of all religions, with a clear objective: the promotion of universal brotherhood grounded in the fact that all living beings and the whole cosmos are creatures of God, so that in the process of living there can be nothing other than union and solidarity among men, under a single watchword: that of love for all and toward all.
At the core of New Age thought lies the idea that human beings possess many levels of consciousness within which we can perfectly work, without being reduced exclusively to the lowest level of all, which is material life with its attachments, confrontations, selfishness, sectarianisms, hatred and violence, fears and anxieties.
The New Age constitutes an emerging culture that teaches man to know himself as the child of God that he is. This idea promotes the fraternal union of all men, as well as the cultivation of love for nature and toward all living creatures, in addition to the practice of human values and of the good, which lead unfailingly to correct human relations. In other words, the true teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.
The New Age, pruned of some excesses and deviations resulting from the commercialization of these times, will unify all the aspects of the one truth, admitting within itself a healthy religious syncretism. This will have to do with the promotion of health, diet, natural medicine, the practice of yoga and meditation, belief in reincarnation as an absolute truth that the official cults deliberately concealed from the faithful, under a single creed: the Universal Religion of Love and Good Will. What does this represent? Nothing less than the path of the christification of man, who will move with a new degree of expansion of consciousness.
The mental and conscious openness of the New Age will lead to spiritual self-realization, with man being aware that, as the child of God that he is, he must always act as a divine being in his dealings with others. It is what Paul the apostle meant when he pointed out that it was necessary to crucify the old man we carry within us in order to give birth to the new man.
Unfortunately, as happens with everything, the New Age movement has been infiltrated by materialistic interests, and for that reason there exist within it charlatans and profiteers who market products for the supposed transformation of man, the healing of illnesses, good luck, etc. Those things have nothing to do with the New Age. The New Age in no way blurs God or Jesus; much less does it discard the spiritual teachings that the great masters have brought to humanity; on the contrary, it reaffirms, strengthens and deeply underscores them in the heart of every man, since its basic philosophy is none other than the practice of unconditional love and of the good toward everything and everyone.
This goal of man’s self-realization and his christification will be attained without the intermediation of any of the existing religious organizations, which will return to being what they were in the beginning: simple sites or assemblies of the faithful where people gather to pray. As can be seen, this last idea is not pleasing to sectarian religious men, and for that reason they fiercely attack the New Age movements, because these constitute a grave threat to the authoritarian pretension and control that religious organizations arrogate to themselves over the souls of men and their salvation.
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How has the process of the New Age’s penetration unfolded? —From the book “Synthesis of the New Age Movement” by Eileen McGarrity.
1st Stage: Church NO – Christ YES: Stage of penetration by sects of Christian origin and, in our countries, a stage of discrediting the Church and priests: “I believe in Christ, but not in priests” was a comment that began to spread and to be heard back then, becoming almost a “slogan.”
2nd Stage: Christ NO – God YES: Stage of invasion of Eastern religiosity and of the Eastern gurus into the Christian West.
3rd Stage: God NO – Religion YES: Stage in which secular matters become quasi-religious. In
politics, Marxism; in science, Freudianism and the beginning of the movements of the “development of the unlimited potential of the human being.”
4th Stage: Religion NO – Sacredness YES: Stage of promotion of occult beliefs and practices that
are promoted as sacred: it is already the Stage of the New Age.
This has been a process of penetration that is unnoticed and underhanded, slow and gradual, but effective and sure. They have been phases of estrangement from the truth that have followed one after another throughout the whole world.
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Analysis of the New Age. Father Jordi Rivero
I take advantage of the article above to analyze the New Age.
The New Age claims to have “a clear objective”: universal brotherhood and love.
But what lies behind the beautiful words that the New Age uses?
The New Age speaks of God, but of what God? Although its adherents lament the lack of God in the environment and claim to be the vanguard of a spiritual revival, their concept of God is very distant from the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; from the God whom Jesus revealed to us as Father. The God of the New Age is not the transcendent, supernatural God who intervenes in history, who loves us, who establishes a covenant with His Commandments. The God of the New Age is nothing more than an “inner energy.” Man is not moved by the grace of God but by a “natural inner growth of man, the product of the process of spiritual evolution that never stops” (we quote the article above). It is, then, a matter of an impersonal god.
The New Age claims to reconcile what is contradictory: the Personal, Almighty God (Christianity) and the “god-energy” that is confused with matter (pantheism). They also invoke many gods. One example of this: the 9th Feminist Encounter in Playa Tambor, Costa Rica, December 2, 2002. The report given by the feminists relates the opening night: “Invoking the ancestral goddesses, the women, led by the shamanesses of the Holistic Cave, gave themselves over to the night, in an atmosphere of profound reflection and spirituality. With maracas, candles and incense, the inauguration ritual included black, Aztec, Mayan, Inca, Caribbean and white women, among others, placed at the four cardinal points and referring to the four elements: earth, water, air and fire.”
The New Age is a religion made to the consumer’s taste. It mixes the religious elements that man considers attractive in order to satisfy his spiritual need; that is, to “feel good” without having to commit himself seriously. It is more emotional than doctrinal.
A god is thus created that is the fruit of the human mind, that seems to have very beautiful qualities but all of them manipulated by our own ego. It is true, for example, that God “understands” us and “accepts us as we are.” But, unlike the true God, the god of the New Age does not demand conversion. Rather, with the New Age any sin is justified, so that man remains enslaved. It is a “god” that does not commit itself to us nor expect from us any commitment. That god is very different from the one whom Jesus Christ revealed to us by dying for us on the cross.
For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him may not perish, but may have life everlasting. — John 3:16
Man puts himself in the place of God. The New Age is a religion designed to the measure of modern man, who has made himself his own god. That is why it invites each person to choose from each religion according to his taste. They have made themselves wiser than Christ. Now each man is his own way, his truth and his life. He himself absolves himself, he himself saves himself. Spiritual growth is reduced to a personal technique with pretensions of self-deification:
“at the core of New Age thought lies the idea that human beings possess many levels of consciousness within which we can perfectly work, without being reduced exclusively to the lowest level of all, which is material life with its attachments, confrontations, selfishness, sectarianisms, hatred and violence, fears and anxieties.”
According to the New Age: the “self-realization of man and his christification will be attained without the intermediation of any of the existing religious organizations.”
The man of the New Age “christifies” himself; he does not need Christ. It thus becomes clear that Christ for them is not the Savior of the world, but merely an example of what man can achieve by himself.
The New Age quotes Jesus, claims to acknowledge him, but manipulates his teachings and essentially contradicts him.
While they say that they do not need a Church, the truth is that Jesus personally instituted it with hierarchy and authority:
Jesus says to Simon: “And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven” (Mt 16:18-19)
In the New Age, Jesus is reduced to an obsolete master of an old, supposedly superseded religion. Man believes he has surpassed Jesus Christ! Now he believes himself capable, by himself, of “spiritual self-realization” and of entering into the “holistic culture” (a sophisticated name for the jumble of ideas from different religions that is proposed). Nothing new, in reality. It is the ancient arrogance of Lucifer and of Gnosticism.
The New Age is particularly allergic to any dogma or spiritual order.
The New Age, as the article above tells us: “It lacks hierarchy, leadership, high priests, organization, etc., and, what is most important, dogmas of faith.” This is an important key to understanding the grave error that the New Age is. It is something emotional but devoid of doctrine.
Authentic love entails order and commitment around the truth. In the beginning God put order into the chaos. The same happens spiritually. Christians seek to free themselves from the oppression and chaos of the world, but they submit out of love to the order of God, obeying Him in everything.
Jesus answered him: “If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and will make our abode with him. He that loveth me not, keepeth not my words. And the word which you have heard, is not mine; but the Father’s who sent me.” —John 14:23-24
Come to him, the living stone, rejected indeed by men, but chosen and precious in the sight of God; you also, as living stones, be built up into a spiritual house, for a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. — 1 Peter 2:4-5
The absence of dogmas, of hierarchy, of organization and of priesthood may be very attractive to modern man, but it reflects that there is in the New Age no fundamental truth (dogma) and no constructive form of life (organization).
The Dogmas
In the New Age, since there is no revelation, there can be no dogmas (absolute truths communicated by God). Nor are there structures or hierarchies that order life in relation to a supreme God and to men.
Very different is the God of the Jews and of the Christians. He is a God who makes himself known, who reveals himself. That is why both religions are founded on dogmas. The word dogma has three meanings according to the dictionary of the Spanish language:
1. A proposition held as firm and certain and as an undeniable principle of a science.
2. Doctrine of God revealed by Jesus Christ to men and attested by the Church.
3. Foundation or capital points of any system, science, doctrine or religion.
These doctrines reveal the love of God manifested in Jesus and contain practical commandments that order us into a way of life. Christians submit to the truths that God reveals. There is consequently a hierarchy of truths that orders the Church and society according to the divine mandates, all submitted to God as to the head.
Whereas love unites the beloved and orders everything toward Him, the New Age seeks to free itself from God and from the order that He has established. The New Age proclaims the “liberation” of man from all spiritual order. God is no longer obeyed; rather, man makes himself god. In reality, the New Age is nothing new: it is the same temptation from the beginning: “You shall be as gods.” Here is revealed who is behind this spiritualist sling called the New Age.
With what does the New Age replace the dogmas of the Christian faith?
The New Age does not concern itself with tracing a reasonable process for seeking truth and the development of man. It claims rather to achieve extraordinary results as if by magic. We return to the article above:
“The New Age represents the birth of a new consciousness, a kind of mental openness of tolerance, brotherhood, reconciliation and a new way of seeing and living life.”
What can these words, so attractive in the world of the New Age, mean?
Tolerance: The adherents of the New Age demand that there be tolerance toward every behavior, because for them there is no objective reference regarding good and evil. But they know how to be intolerant against those who adhere to the principles of morality.
Reconciliation: For the Christian, reconciliation is the union in Christ of the parts that were previously separated (e.g., the prodigal son). This requires that both parties yield, that there be recognition of the need for conversion, and that they move toward the objective truth. But the New Age does not admit the existence of universal truths that can unite men. Each one has his own truth. Therefore the New Age is not conducive to reconciliation. The most it can aspire to is a shared selfishness.
A religion made by men in which the aim is to unify all religions.
In a merely human way, the proponents of the New Age claim to make a synthesis of all religions, choosing from each one what seems best to them:
This (syncretism) will have to do with the promotion of health, diet, natural medicine, the practice of yoga and meditation, belief in reincarnation as an absolute truth that the official cults deliberately concealed from the faithful, under a single creed: the Universal Religion of Love and Good Will.
It is not a new religion that comes to replace the old ones, but the desideratum of all religions.
In the New Age, man himself establishes his own “truths” and his own means of self-realization. But, there being so many men, each one making his own “desideratum,” we will have to ask them how they will arrive at the unity so cherished.
In reality, unity is not achieved by inventing a religion, but only by obeying God, who through the centuries has revealed himself until reaching the fullness of time in which he sent us His Son. Only Christ can unite us in the truth. He is the fullness of the truth that has been definitively revealed. Christ already founded his Church almost 2000 years ago: the Catholic Church.
The New Age is nothing new. From the beginning there have existed similar religious impostures that have sought to supplant Christ and His Church. At the beginning of the new millennium it is not surprising that the prince of darkness should prepare a plan to steal away the new age that is beginning.
Before Christ’s second coming the Church must pass through a final trial that will shake the faith of many believers. The persecution that accompanies her pilgrimage on earth will unveil the “mystery of iniquity” in the form of a religious deception offering men an apparent solution to their problems at the price of apostasy from the truth. The supreme religious deception is that of the Antichrist, a pseudo-messianism by which man glorifies himself in place of God and of his Messiah come in the flesh. —Catechism of the Catholic Church #675
For every Catholic with a little formation it must be evident that the New Age is a religion radically incompatible with Christianity, a religious imposture. Its threat should encourage us to renew our faith in Christ Jesus and to dedicate ourselves to the new evangelization of the world.
Of the New Age one can say what has already been said of Marxism: “Everything good it has is not new, and everything new it has is not good.”
Author: Father Jordi Rivero
Source: Corazones.org
