Excerpt from chapter three in: A Catholic Response to the New Age Phenomenon by the Irish Theological Commission in 1994. To see the contents of the whole chapter, click here.
"New Age Movement" is abbreviated as NAM.
The NAM offers a new spirituality. In fact, it is all about spiritual transformation. 149 Group meetings are often called 'prayer' meetings, which is confusing for the Christian. Each person must discover their 'Higher Self' or their own 'divinity'. They are encouraged to reach out for transcendental experiences in order to reach the new enlightenment - which is the discovery of their own divinity and their own unlimited potential. Any means that works to achieve this end is permitted. One of their catch-phrases is that if a thing works for you, it is for you!
Many of these groups abuse prayer techniques such as 'centreing'. They also use relaxation techniques, or mind control techniques in order to achieve 'peace' or quiet in mind and body. The centre is the self, not God, therefore there is no prayer. The purpose of achieving this relaxed mind and body is often for material gain in better work output in the market-place, or better health. Sometimes the pray-er wants 'spirituality' in out-of-the-body experiences which they call 'mysticism'. The means used to achieve altered states of consciousness are drugs, tarot cards, crystals, pendulums, yoga, TM, mantes, fasting, isolation, self-hypnosis, seances, and a form of mind control that is meditation on oneself and a programming of the mind.150
NOTES
(Full details of the publications referred to in these notes can be found in the Select Bibliography).
149. 'Images of New Age' in Reimagination of the World, pp. 2933. Spangler admits that spirituality & transformation are the goals of NAM.
150. Inside the New Age Nightmare, Randall N. Baer, p. 102.
