wakeinbliss
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF ESOTERIC SOPHISTRY
One of the most common elements in New Age "spirituality" is a
fascination with extraordinary manifestations, and in particular with
paranormal entities. People recognised as "mediums" claim that their
personality is taken over by another entity during trances in a New
Age phenomenon known as "channeling", during which the medium may
lose control over his or her body and faculties. Some people who have
witnessed these events would willingly acknowledge that the
manifestations are indeed spiritual, but are not from God, despite
the language of love and light which is almost always used.... It is
probably more correct to refer to this as a contemporary form of
spiritualism, rather than spirituality in a strict sense. Other
friends and counsellors from the spirit world are angels (which have
become the centre of a new industry of books and paintings). Those
who refer to angels in the New Age do so in an unsystematic way; in
fact, distinctions in this area are sometimes described as unhelpful
if they are too precise, since "there are many levels of guides,
entities, energies, and beings in every octave of the universe...
They are all there to pick and choose from in relation to your own
attraction/repulsion mechanisms".(22) These spiritual entities are
often invoked 'non-religiously' to help in relaxation aimed at better
decision-making and control of one's life and career. Fusion with
some spirits who teach through particular people is another New Age
experience claimed by people who refer to themselves as 'mystics'.
Some nature spirits are described as powerful energies existing in
the natural world and also on the "inner planes": i.e. those which
are accessible by the use of rituals, drugs and other techniques for
reaching altered states of consciousness. It is clear that, in theory
at least, the New Age often recognizes no spiritual authority higher
than personal inner SELF experience.
2.2.2. Harmony and Understanding: Good Vibrations
Phenomena as diverse as the Findhorn garden and Feng Shui (23)
represent a variety of ways which illustrate the importance of being
in tune with nature or the cosmos. In New Age there is no distinction
between good and evil. Human actions are the fruit of either
illumination or ignorance. Hence we cannot condemn anyone, and nobody
needs forgiveness. Believing in the existence of evil can create only
negativity and fear. The answer to negativity is love. But it is not
the sort which has to be translated into deeds; it is more a question
of attitudes of mind. Love is energy, a high-frequency vibration, and
the secret to happiness and health and success is being able to tune
in, to find one's place in the great chain of being. New Age teachers
and therapies claim to offer the key to finding the correspondences
between all the elements of the universe, so that people may modulate
the tone of their lives and be in absolute harmony with each other
and with everything around them, although there are different
theoretical backgrounds.(24)
2.2.3. Health: Golden living
Formal (allopathic) medicine today tends to limit itself to curing
particular, isolated ailments, and fails to look at the broader
picture of a person's health: this has given rise to a fair amount of
understandable dissatisfaction. Alternative therapies have gained
enormously in popularity because they claim to look at the whole
person and are about healing rather than curing. Holistic health, as
it is known, concentrates on the important role that the mind plays
in physical healing. The connection between the spiritual and the
physical aspects of the person is said to be in the immune system or
the Indian chakra system. In a New Age perspective, illness and
suffering come from working against nature; when one is in tune with
nature, one can expect a much healthier life, and even material
prosperity; for some New Age healers, there should actually be no
need for us to die. Developing our human potential will put us in
touch with our inner divinity, and with those parts of our selves
which have been alienated and suppressed. This is revealed above all
in Altered States of Consciousness (ASCs), which are induced either
by drugs or by various mind-expanding techniques, particularly in the
context of "transpersonal psychology". The shaman is often seen as
the specialist of altered states of consciousness, one who is able to
mediate between the transpersonal realms of spirits and gods and the
world of humans.
There is a remarkable variety of approaches for promoting holistic
health, some derived from ancient cultural traditions, whether
religious or esoteric, others connected with the psychological
theories developed in Esalen during the years 1960-1970. Advertising
connected with New Age covers a wide range of practices as
acupuncture, biofeedback, chiropractic, kinesiology, homeopathy,
iridology, massage and various kinds of "bodywork" (such as orgonomy,
Feldenkrais, reflexology, Rolfing, polarity massage, therapeutic
touch etc.), meditation and visualisation, nutritional therapies,
psychic healing, various kinds of herbal medicine, healing by
crystals, metals, music or colours, reincarnation therapies and,
finally, twelve-step programmes (like AA)and self-help groups.(25)
The source of healing is said to be within ourselves, something we
reach when we are in touch with our inner energy or cosmic energy.
Inasmuch as health includes a prolongation of life, New Age offers an
Eastern formula in Western terms. Originally, reincarnation was a
part of Hindu cyclical thought, based on the atman or divine kernel
of personality (later the concept of jiva), which moved from body to
body in a cycle of suffering (samsara), determined by the law of
karma, linked to behaviour in past lives. Hope lies in the
possibility of being born into a better state, or ultimately in
liberation from the need to be reborn. What is different in most
Buddhist traditions is that what wanders from body to body is not a
soul, but a continuum of consciousness. Present life is embedded in a
potentially endless cosmic process which includes even the gods. In
the West, since the time of Lessing, reincarnation has been
understood far more optimistically as a process of learning and
progressive individual fulfilment. Spiritualism, theosophy,
anthroposophy and New Age all see reincarnation as participation in
cosmic evolution. This post-Christian approach to eschatology is said
to answer the unresolved questions of theodicy and dispenses with the
notion of hell. When the soul is separated from the body individuals
can look back on their whole life up to that point, and when the soul
is united to its new body there is a preview of its coming phase of
life. People have access to their former lives through dreams and
meditation techniques.(26)
2.2.4. Wholeness: A Magical Mystery Tour
One of the central concerns of the New Age movement is the search
for "wholeness". There is encouragement to overcome all forms
of "dualism", as such divisions are an unhealthy product of a less
enlightened past. Divisions which New Age proponents claim need to be
overcome include the real difference between Creator and creation,
the real distinction between man and nature, or spirit and matter,
which are all considered wrongly as forms of dualism. These dualistic
tendencies are often assumed to be ultimately based on the Judaeo-
Christian roots of western civilisation, while it would be more
accurate to link them to gnosticism, in particular to Manichaeism.
The scientific revolution and the spirit of modern rationalism are
blamed particularly for the tendency to fragmentation, which treats
organic wholes as mechanisms that can be reduced to their smallest
components and then explained in terms of the latter, and the
tendency to reduce spirit to matter, so that spiritual reality –
including the soul – becomes merely a contingent "epiphenomenon" of
essentially material processes. In all of these areas, the New Age
alternatives are called "holistic". Holism pervades the New Age
movement, from its concern with holistic health to its quest for
unitive consciousness, and from ecological awareness to the idea of
global "networking".
2.3. The fundamental principles of New Age thinking
2.3.1. A global response in a time of crisis
"Both the Christian tradition and the secular faith in an unlimited
process of science had to face a severe break first manifested in the
student revolutions around the year 1968".(27) The wisdom of older
generations was suddenly robbed of significance and respect, while
the omnipotence of science evaporated, so that the Church now "has to
face a serious breakdown in the transmission of her faith to the
younger generation".(28) A general loss of faith in these former
pillars of consciousness and social cohesion has been accompanied by
the unexpected return of cosmic religiosity, rituals and beliefs
which many believed to have been supplanted by Christianity; but this
perennial esoteric undercurrent never really went away. The surge in
popularity of Asian religion at this point was something new in the
Western context, established late in the nineteenth century in the
theosophical movement, and it "reflects the growing awareness of a
global spirituality, incorporating all existing religious traditions".
(29)
The perennial philosophical question of the one and the many has its
modern and contemporary form in the temptation to overcome not only
undue division, but even real difference and distinction, and the
most common expression of this is holism, an essential ingredient in
New Age and one of the principal signs of the times in the last
quarter of the twentieth century. An extraordinary amount of energy
has gone into the effort to overcome the division into compartments
characteristic of mechanistic ideology, but this has led to the sense
of obligation to submit to a global network which assumes quasi-
transcendental authority. Its clearest implications are a process of
conscious transformation and the development of ecology.(30) The new
vision which is the goal of conscious transformation has taken time
to formulate, and its enactment is resisted by older forms of thought
judged to be entrenched in the status quo. What has been successful
is the generalisation of ecology as a fascination with nature and
resacralisation of the earth, Mother Earth or Gaia, with the
missionary zeal characteristic of Green politics. The Earth's
executive agent is the human race as a whole, and the harmony and
understanding required for responsible governance is increasingly
understood to be a global government, with a global ethical
framework. The warmth of Mother Earth, whose divinity pervades the
whole of creation, is held to bridge the gap between creation and the
transcendent Father-God of Judaism and Christianity, and removes the
prospect of being judged by such a Being.
In such a vision of a closed universe that contains "God" and other
spiritual beings along with ourselves, we recognize here an implicit
pantheism. This is a fundamental point which pervades all New Age
thought and practice, and conditions in advance any otherwise
positive assessment where we might be in favor of one or another
aspect of its spirituality. As Christians, we believe on the contrary
that "man is essentially a creature and remains so for all eternity,
so that an absorption of the human I in the divine I will never be
possible".(31)
2.3.2. The essential matrix of New Age thinking
The essential matrix of New Age thinking is to be found in the
esoteric-theosophical tradition which was fairly widely accepted in
European intellectual circles in the 18th and 19th centuries. It was
particularly strong in freemasonry, spiritualism, occultism and
theosophy, which shared a kind of esoteric culture. In this world-
view, the visible and invisible universes are linked by a series of
correspondences, analogies and influences between microcosm and
macrocosm, between metals and planets, between planets and the
various parts of the human body, between the visible cosmos and the
invisible realms of reality. Nature is a living being, shot through
with networks of sympathy and antipathy, animated by a light and a
secret fire which human beings seek to control. People can contact
the upper or lower worlds by means of their imagination (an organ of
the soul or spirit), or by using mediators (angels, spirits, devils)
or rituals.
People can be initiated into the mysteries of the cosmos, God and the
self by means of a spiritual itinerary of transformation. The
eventual goal is gnosis, the highest form of knowledge, the
equivalent of salvation. It involves a search for the oldest and
highest tradition in philosophy (what is inappropriately called
philosophia perennis) and religion (primordial theology), a secret
(esoteric) doctrine which is the key to all the "exoteric" traditions
which are accessible to everyone. Esoteric teachings are handed down
from master to disciple in a gradual program of initiation.
19th century esotericism is seen by some as completely secularised.
Alchemy, magic, astrology and other elements of traditional
esotericism had been thoroughly integrated with aspects of modern
culture, including the search for causal laws, evolutionism,
psychology and the study of religions. It reached its clearest form
in the ideas of Helena Blavatsky, a Russian medium who founded the
Theosophical Society with Henry Olcott in New York in 1875. The
Society aimed to fuse elements of Eastern and Western traditions in
an evolutionary type of spiritualism. It had three main aims:
1. "To form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity,
without distinction of race, creed, caste or colour.
2. "To encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy and
science.
3. "To investigate unexplained laws of Nature and the powers latent
in man.
"The significance of these objectives... should be clear. The first
objective implicitly rejects the 'irrational bigotry'
and 'sectarianism' of traditional Christianity as perceived by
spiritualists and theosophists... It is not immediately obvious from
the objectives themselves that, for theosophists, 'science' meant the
occult sciences and philosophy the occulta philosophia, that the laws
of nature were of an occult or psychic nature, and that comparative
religion was expected to unveil a 'primordial tradition' ultimately
modelled on a Hermeticist philosophia perennis".(32)
A prominent component of Mrs. Blavatsky's writings was the
emancipation of women, which involved an attack on the "male" God of
Judaism, of Christianity and of Islam. She urged people to return to
the mother-goddess of Hinduism and to the practice of feminine
virtues. This continued under the guidance of Annie Besant, who was
in the vanguard of the feminist movement. Wicca and "women's
spirituality" carry on this struggle against "patriarchal"
Christianity today.
Marilyn Ferguson devoted a chapter of The Aquarian Conspiracy to the
precursors of the Age of Aquarius, those who had woven the threads of
a transforming vision based on the expansion of consciousness and the
experience of self-transcendence. Two of those she mentioned were the
American psychologist William James and the Swiss psychiatrist Carl
Gustav Jung. James defined religion as experience, not dogma, and he
taught that human beings can change their mental attitudes in such a
way that they are able to become architects of their own destiny.
Jung emphasized the transcendent character of consciousness and
introduced the idea of the collective unconscious, a kind of store
for symbols and memories shared with people from various different
ages and cultures. According to Wouter Hanegraaff, both of these men
contributed to a "sacralisation of psychology", something that has
become an important element of New Age thought and practice. Jung,
indeed, "not only psychologized esotericism but he also sacralized
psychology, by filling it with the contents of esoteric speculation.
The result was a body of theories which enabled people to talk about
God while really meaning their own psyche, and about their own psyche
while really meaning the divine. If the psyche is 'mind', and God
is 'mind' as well, then to discuss one must mean to discuss the
other".(33) His response to the accusation that he
had "psychologised" Christianity was that "psychology is the modern
myth and only in terms of the current myth can we understand the
faith".(34) It is certainly true that Jung's psychology sheds light
on many aspects of the Christian faith, particularly on the need to
face the reality of evil, but his religious convictions are so
different at different stages of his life that one is left with a
confused image of God. A central element in his thought is the cult
of the sun, where God is the vital energy (libido) within a person.
(35) As he himself said, "this comparison is no mere play of words".
(36) This is "the god within" to which Jung refers, the essential
divinity he believed to be in every human being. The path to the
inner universe is through the unconscious. The inner world's
correspondence to the outer one is in the collective unconscious.
The tendency to interchange psychology and spirituality was firmly
embedded in the Human Potential Movement as it developed towards the
end of the 1960s at the Esalen Institute in California. Transpersonal
psychology, strongly influenced by Eastern religions and by Jung,
offers a contemplative journey where science meets mysticism. The
stress laid on bodiliness, the search for ways of expanding
consciousness and the cultivation of the myths of the collective
unconscious were all encouragements to search for "the God within"
oneself. To realise one's potential, one had to go beyond one's ego
in order to become the god that one is, deep down. This could be done
by choosing the appropriate therapy – meditation, parapsychological
experiences, the use of hallucinogenic drugs. These were all ways of
achieving "peak experiences", "mystical" experiences of fusion with
God and with the cosmos.
The symbol of Aquarius was borrowed from astrological mythology, but
later came to signify the desire for a radically new world. The two
centres which were the initial power-houses of the New Age, and to a
certain extent still are, were the Garden community at Findhorn in
North-East Scotland, and the Centre for the development of human
potential at Esalen in Big Sur, California, in the United States of
America. What feeds New Age consistently is a growing global
consciousness and increasing awareness of a looming ecological crisis.
2.3.3. Central themes of the New Age
New Age is not, properly speaking, a religion, but it is interested
in what is called "divine". The essence of New Age is the loose
association of the various activities, ideas and people who might
validly attract the term. So there is no single articulation of
anything like the doctrines of mainstream religions. Despite this,
and despite the immense variety within New Age, there are some common
points:
– the cosmos is seen as an organic whole
– it is animated by an Energy, which is also identified as the divine
Soul or Spirit
– much credence is given to the mediation of various spiritual
entities
– humans are capable of ascending to invisible higher spheres, and of
controlling their own lives beyond death
– there is held to be a "perennial knowledge" which pre-dates and is
superior to all religions and cultures
– people follow enlightened masters...
2.3.4. What does New Age say about...
2.3.4.1. ...the human person?
New Age involves a fundamental belief in the perfectibility of the
human person by means of a wide variety of techniques and therapies
(as opposed to the Christian view of co-operation with divine grace).
There is a general accord with Nietzsche's idea that Christianity has
prevented the full manifestation of genuine humanity. Perfection, in
this context, means achieving self-fulfilment, according to an order
of values which we ourselves create and which we achieve by our own
strength: hence one can speak of a self- creating self. On this view,
there is more difference between humans as they now are and as they
will be when they have fully realised their potential, than there is
between humans and anthropoids.
It is useful to distinguish between esotericism, a search for
knowledge, and magic, or the occult: the latter is a means of
obtaining power. Some groups are both esoteric and occult. At the
centre of occultism is a will to power based on the dream of becoming
divine.
Mind-expanding techniques are meant to reveal to people their divine
power; by using this power, people prepare the way for the Age of
Enlightenment. This exaltation of humanity overturns the correct
relationship between Creator and creature, and one of its extreme
forms is Satanism. Satan becomes the symbol of a rebellion against
conventions and rules, a symbol that often takes aggressive, selfish
and violent forms. Some evangelical groups have expressed concern at
the subliminal presence of what they claim is Satanic symbolism in
some varieties of rock music, which have a powerful influence on
young people. This is all far removed from the message of peace and
harmony which is to be found in the New Testament; it is often one of
the consequences of the exaltation of humanity when that involves the
negation of a transcendent God.
But it is not only something which affects young people; the basic
themes of esoteric culture are also present in the realms of
politics, education and legislation.(37) It is especially the case
with ecology. Deep ecology's emphasis on bio-centrism denies the
anthropological vision of the Bible, in which human beings are at the
centre of the world, since they are considered to be qualitatively
superior to other natural forms. It is very prominent in legislation
and education today, despite the fact that it underrates humanity in
this way.. The same esoteric cultural matrix can be found in the
ideological theory underlying population control policies and
experiments in genetic engineering, which seem to express a dream
human beings have of creating themselves afresh. How do people hope
to do this? By deciphering the genetic code, altering the natural
rules of sexuality, defying the limits of death.
In what might be termed a classical New Age account, people are born
with a divine spark, in a sense which is reminiscent of ancient
gnosticism; this links them into the unity of the Whole. So they are
seen as essentially divine, although they participate in this cosmic
divinity at different levels of consciousness. We are co- creators,
and we create our own reality. Many New Age authors maintain that we
choose the circumstances of our lives (even our own illness and
health), in a vision where every individual is considered the
creative source of the universe. But we need to make a journey in
order fully to understand where we fit into the unity of the cosmos.
The journey is psychotherapy, and the recognition of universal
consciousness is salvation. There is no sin; there is only imperfect
knowledge. The identity of every human being is diluted in the
universal being and in the process of successive incarnations. People
are subject to the determining influences of the stars, but can be
opened to the divinity which lives within them, in their continual
search (by means of appropriate techniques) for an ever greater
harmony between the self and divine cosmic energy. There is no need
for Revelation or Salvation which would come to people from outside
themselves, but simply a need to experience the salvation hidden
within themselves (self-salvation), by mastering psycho- physical
techniques which lead to definitive enlightenment.
Some stages on the way to self-redemption are preparatory
(meditation, body harmony, releasing self-healing energies). They are
the starting-point for processes of spiritualisation, perfection and
enlightenment which help people to acquire further self-control and
psychic concentration on "transformation" of the individual self
into "cosmic consciousness". The destiny of the human person is a
series of successive reincarnations of the soul in different bodies.
This is understood not as the cycle of samsara, in the sense of
purification as punishment, but as a gradual ascent towards the
perfect development of one's potential.
Psychology is used to explain mind expansion as "mystical"
experiences. Yoga, zen, transcendental meditation and tantric
exercises lead to an experience of self-fulfilment or enlightenment.
Peak-experiences (reliving one's birth, travelling to the gates of
death, biofeedback, dance and even drugs – anything which can provoke
an altered state of consciousness) are believed to lead to unity and
enlightenment. Since there is only one Mind, some people can be
channels for higher beings. Every part of this single universal being
has contact with every other part. The classic approach in New Age is
transpersonal psychology, whose main concepts are the Universal Mind,
the Higher Self, the collective and personal unconscious and the
individual ego. The Higher Self is our real identity, a bridge
between God as divine Mind and humanity. Spiritual development is
contact with the Higher Self, which overcomes all forms of dualism
between subject and object, life and death, psyche and soma, the self
and the fragmentary aspects of the self. Our limited personality is
like a shadow or a dream created by the real self. The Higher Self
contains the memories of earlier (re-)incarnations.
2.3.4.2. ...God?
New Age has a marked preference for Eastern or pre-Christian
religions, which are reckoned to be uncontaminated by Judaeo-
Christian distorsions. Hence great respect is given to ancient
agricultural rites and to fertility cults. "Gaia", Mother Earth, is
offered as an alternative to God the Father, whose image is seen to
be linked to a patriarchal conception of male domination of women.
There is talk of God, but it is not a personal God; the God of which
New Age speaks is neither personal nor transcendent. Nor is it the
Creator and sustainer of the universe, but an "impersonal energy"
immanent in the world, with which it forms a "cosmic unity": "All is
one". This unity is monistic, pantheistic or, more precisely,
panentheistic. God is the "life-principle", the "spirit or soul of
the world", the sum total of consciousness existing in the world. In
a sense, everything is God. God's presence is clearest in the
spiritual aspects of reality, so every mind/spirit is, in some sense,
God.
When it is consciously received by men and women, "divine energy" is
often described as "Christic energy". There is also talk of Christ,
but this does not mean Jesus of Nazareth. "Christ" is a title applied
to someone who has arrived at a state of consciousness where he or
she perceives him- or herself to be divine and can thus claim to be
a "universal Master". Jesus of Nazareth was not the Christ, but
simply one among many historical figures in whom this "Christic"
nature is revealed, as is the case with Buddha and others. Every
historical realisation of the Christ shows clearly that all human
beings are heavenly and divine, and leads them towards this
realisation.
The innermost and most personal ("psychic") level on which
this "divine cosmic energy" is "heard" by human beings is also
called "Holy Spirit".
2.3.4.3. ...the world?
The move from a mechanistic model of classical physics to
the "holistic" one of modern atomic and sub-atomic physics, based on
the concept of matter as waves or energy rather than particles, is
central to much New Age thinking. The universe is an ocean of energy,
which is a single whole or a network of links. The energy animating
the single organism which is the universe is "spirit". There is no
alterity between God and the world. The world itself is divine and it
undergoes an evolutionary process which leads from inert matter
to "higher and perfect consciousness". The world is uncreated,
eternal and self-sufficient The future of the world is based on an
inner dynamism which is necessarily positive and leads to the
reconciled (divine) unity of all that exists. God and the world, soul
and body, intelligence and feeling, heaven and earth are one immense
vibration of energy.
James Lovelock's book on the Gaia Hypothesis claims that "the entire
range of living matter on earth, from whales to viruses, and from
oaks to algae, could be regarded as constituting a single living
entity, capable of manipulating the Earth's atmosphere to suit its
overall needs and endowed with faculties and powers far beyond those
of its constituent parts".(38) To some, the Gaia hypothesis is "a
strange synthesis of individualism and collectivism. It all happens
as if New Age, having plucked people out of fragmentary politics,
cannot wait to throw them into the great cauldron of the global
mind". The global brain needs institutions with which to rule, in
other words, a world government. "To deal with today's problems New
Age dreams of a spiritual aristocracy in the style of Plato's
Republic, run by secret societies...".(39) This may be an exaggerated
way of stating the case, but there is much evidence that gnostic
?litism and global governance coincide on many issues in
international politics.
Everything in the universe is interelated; in fact every part is in
itself an image of the totality; the whole is in every thing and
every thing is in the whole. In the "great chain of being", all
beings are intimately linked and form one family with different
grades of evolution. Every human person is a hologram, an image of
the whole of creation, in which every thing vibrates on its own
frequency. Every human being is a neurone in earth's central nervous
system, and all individual entities are in a relationship of
complementarity with others. In fact, there is an inner
complementarity or androgyny in the whole of creation.(40)
One of the recurring themes in New Age writings and thought is
the "new paradigm" which contemporary science has opened up. "Science
has given us insights into wholes and systems, stress and
transformation. We are learning to read tendencies, to recognise the
early signs of another, more promising, paradigm. We create
alternative scenarios of the future. We communicate about the
failures of old systems, forcing new frameworks for problem-solving
in every area".(41) Thus far, the "paradigm shift" is a radical
change of perspective, but nothing more. The question is whether
thought and real change are commensurate, and how effective in the
external world an inner transformation can be proved to be. One is
forced to ask, even without expressing a negative judgement, how
scientific a thought-process can be when it involves affirmations
like this: "War is unthinkable in a society of autonomous people who
have discovered the connectedness of all humanity, who are unafraid
of alien ideas and alien cultures, who know that all revolutions
begin within and that you cannot impose your brand of enlightenment
on anyone else".(42) It is illogical to conclude from the fact that
something is unthinkable that it cannot happen. Such reasoning is
really gnostic, in the sense of giving too much power to knowledge
and consciousness. This is not to deny the fundamental and crucial
role of developing consciousness in scientific discovery and creative
development, but simply to caution against imposing upon external
reality what is as yet still only in the mind.
2.4. "Inhabitants of myth rather than history"(43)?: New Age and
culture
"Basically, the appeal of the New Age has to do with the culturally
stimulated interest in the self, its value, capacities and problems.
Whereas traditionalised religiosity, with its hierarchical
organization, is well-suited for the community, detraditionalized
spirituality is well-suited for the individual. The New Age is 'of'
the self in that it facilitates celebration of what it is to be and
to become; and 'for' the self in that by differing from much of the
mainstream, it is positioned to handle identity problems generated by
conventional forms of life".(44)
The rejection of tradition in the form of patriarchal, hierarchical
social or ecclesial organisation implies the search for an
alternative form of society, one that is clearly inspired by the
modern notion of the self. Many New Age writings argue that one can
do nothing (directly) to change the world, but everything to change
oneself; changing individual consciousness is understood to be the
(indirect) way to change the world. The most important instrument for
social change is personal example. Worldwide recognition of these
personal examples will steadily lead to the transformation of the
collective mind and such a transformation will be the major
achievement of our time. This is clearly part of the holistic
paradigm, and a re-statement of the classical philosophical question
of the one and the many. It is also linked to Jung's espousal of the
theory of correspondence and his rejection of causality. Individuals
are fragmentary representations of the planetary hologram; by looking
within one not only knows the universe, but also changes it. But the
more one looks within, the smaller the political arena becomes. Does
this really fit in with the rhetoric of democratic participation in a
new planetary order, or is it an unconscious and subtle
disempowerment of people, which could leave them open to
manipulation? Does the current preoccupation with planetary problems
(ecological issues, depletion of resources, over-population, the
economic gap between north and south, the huge nuclear arsenal and
political instability) enable or disable engagement in other, equally
real, political and social questions? The old adage that "charity
begins at home" can give a healthy balance to one's approach to these
issues. Some observers of New Age detect a sinister authoritarianism
behind apparent indifference to politics. David Spangler himself
points out that one of the shadows of the New Age is "a subtle
surrender to powerlessness and irresponsibility in the name of
waiting for the New Age to come rather than being an active creator
of wholeness in one's own life".(45)
Even though it would hardly be correct to suggest that quietism is
universal in New Age attitudes, one of the chief criticisms of the
New Age Movement is that its privatistic quest for self-fulfilment
may actually work against the possibility of a sound religious
culture. Three points bring this into focus:
– it is questionable whether New Age demonstrates the intellectual
cogency to provide a complete picture of the cosmos in a world view
which claims to integrate nature and spiritual reality. The Western
universe is seen as a divided one based on monotheism, transcendence,
alterity and separateness. A fundamental dualism is detected in such
divisions as those between real and ideal, relative and absolute,
finite and infinite, human and divine, sacred and profane, past and
present, all redolent of Hegel's "unhappy consciousness". This is
portrayed as something tragic. The response from New Age is unity
through fusion: it claims to reconcile soul and body, female and
male, spirit and matter, human and divine, earth and cosmos,
transcendent and immanent, religion and science, differences between
religions, Yin and Yang. There is, thus, no more alterity; what is
left in human terms is transpersonality. The New Age world is
unproblematic: there is nothing left to achieve. But the metaphysical
question of the one and the many remains unanswered, perhaps even
unasked, in that there is a great deal of regret at the effects of
disunity and division, but the response is a description of how
things would appear in another vision.
– New Age imports Eastern religious practices piecemeal and re-
interprets them to suit Westerners; this involves a rejection of the
language of sin and salvation, replacing it with the morally neutral
language of addiction and recovery. References to extra-European
influences are sometimes merely a "pseudo-Orientalisation" of Western
culture. Furthermore, it is hardly a genuine dialogue; in a context
where Graeco-Roman and Judaeo-Christian influences are suspect,
oriental influences are used precisely because they are alternatives
to Western culture. Traditional science and medicine are felt to be
inferior to holistic approaches, as are patriarchal and particular
structures in politics and religion. All of these will be obstacles
to the coming of the Age of Aquarius; once again, it is clear that
what is implied when people opt for New Age alternatives is a
complete break with the tradition that formed them. Is this as mature
and liberated as it is often thought or presumed to be?
– Authentic religious traditions encourage discipline with the
eventual goal of acquiring wisdom, equanimity and compassion. New Age
echoes society's deep, ineradicable yearning for an integral
religious culture, and for something more generic and enlightened
than what politicians generally offer, but it is not clear whether
the benefits of a vision based on the ever-expanding self are for
individuals or for societies. New Age training courses (what used to
be known as "Erhard seminar trainings" [EST] etc.) marry counter-
cultural values with the mainstream need to succeed, inner
satisfaction with outer success; Findhorn's "Spirit of Business"
retreat transforms the experience of work while increasing
productivity; some New Age devotees are involved not only to become
more authentic and spontaneous, but also in order to become more
prosperous (through magic etc.). "What makes things even more
appealing to the enterprise-minded businessperson is that New Age
trainings also resonate with somewhat more humanistic ideas abroad in
the world of business. The ideas have to do with the workplace as
a 'learning environment', 'bringing life back to work', 'humanizing
work', 'fulfilling the manager', 'people come first' or 'unlocking
potential'. Presented by New Age trainers, they are likely to appeal
to those businesspeople who have already been involved with more
(secular) humanistic trainings and who want to take things further:
at one and the same time for the sake of personal growth, happiness
and enthusiasm, as well as for commercial productivity".(46) So it is
clear that people involved do seek wisdom and equanimity for their
own benefit, but how much do the activities in which they are
involved enable them to work for the common good? Apart from the
question of motivation, all of these phenomena need to be judged by
their fruits, and the question to ask is whether they promote self or
solidarity, not only with whales, trees or like-minded people, but
with the whole of creation – including the whole of humanity. The
most pernicious consequences of any philosophy of egoism which is
embraced by institutions or by large numbers of people are identified
by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger as a set of "strategies to reduce the
number of those who will eat at humanity's table".(47) This is a key
standard by which to evaluate the impact of any philosophy or theory.
Christianity always seeks to measure human endeavours by their
openness to the Creator and to all other creatures, a respect based
firmly on love.
wakeinbliss@yahoo.ca
(http://mail.rambler.ru/Redirect/groups.yahoo.com/group/ESOTERICPHILIOSOPHY/)
THULE - SARMATIA
The East European Metapolitical Association of New Right International
