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.
We live in the age of the counterfeit. It is so acceptable to have a copy of an original that we hardly think about it. Women wear counterfeit jewels that look just as good as the real thing. The paper copy of the master painting looks good. The wood veneer looks as good as real wood. The plastic version of an object is commonplace. Today, counterfeit religion is also available, and it, too, looks superficially like the real thing. The NAM is a religious system even though its leaders cloak it with humanistic or pseudoscientific language. It is religious syncretism, a mixture of the occult with aspects of eastern mysticism, neopaganism and human potential psychology.116 NAM speakers say that 'All religions are essentially the same', especially at the deeper levels, so there is no room for a religion like Judaism or Christianity that is based in a historical revelation that does not change (ibid.). To them revelation is continuous, and they are the new bearers of the word, and consequently the new leaders of humanity.117
Marilyn Ferguson admits that the NAM looks for a personal religion, but outside the mainstream of Christianity. 118 She says that among the millions now engaged in the New Age search, many, if not most, were drawn into it almost unawares. They were already moving away from the Christian Churches and from Judaism towards eastern religions. It was a shift from a religion mediated by authority to one of personal experience. 'Now the heretics are gaining ground' she says. 'Doctrine is losing its authority, and knowing is superseding belief'.119
Many in the NAM pride themselves on being tolerant of all spiritual paths, because they say that all paths lead to the same place. But when confronted with biblical Christianity they are hostile, accusing Christians of being judgmental, and rigidly dogmatic. They do not accept the notion of Christian revealed truth, while accepting all that they receive through their spirit entities, and out-of-the-body experiences.120 It is objective truth that they reject, while accepting subjective experience, apparently without discernment. A whole new series of Bible commentaries has been published by the New Age Bible and Philosophy Centre in Santa Monica, California. These books, called New Age Bible Interpretation, are an all-out assault on the Bible. 121 Examples of reinterpretation of the gospels are found in all references to Jesus of Nazareth in these NAM writings. Reinterpretation of the Fall, Redemption, Grace all abound in these books. Helena Blavatsky, for example, speaks of 'the metaphorical Fall, just as we have the metaphorical atonement and crucifixion .... and the God-slandering doctrine of Hell... 122
NOTES
(Full details of the publications referred to in these notes can be found in the Select Bibliography).
116. Confronting tbe New Age, Douglas Groothuis, p. 31.
117. See Revelation: Tbe Birtb of a New Age, David Spangler. See also Tbe Rays and Initiations and 77oe Eocternalisation of tbe Hierarchy, both by Alice A. Bailey. These are just some of the works containing the 'new revelation'.
118. Tbe Aquarian Conspiracy, Marilyn Ferguson, p. 403.
119. Ibid., pp. 402, 404, 406, 407.
120. Inside tbe New Age Nightmare, Randall N. Baer, pp. 65, 69.
121. Dark Secrets of tbe New Age,Texe Marrs, p. 146.
122. Antbropogenesis, Helena Blavatsky, p. 484.
