Excerpt from chapter four 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.
There are hundreds of tapes of NAM music available, which many people enjoy without realising that it is NAM music. They just enjoy the sound. However, this is not why many of these tapes are made! They are made to help one in the meditative process, and there are sounds that are meant to affect the mind. It is debatable whether they are harmful in themselves, however. New Age music tapes can be recognised by their covers, very often, for they illustrate mythological and druidic themes. They also deal with themes of relaxation of mind and body.
Elliot Miller has a balanced discussion of NAM music in his book A Crasb Course in the New Age (pp. 190-192). He says that there are different types of NAM music available. One type consists of music deliberately constructed to help 'build a bridge between the conscious and the unconscious' such as that of Swiss harpist Andreas Vollenweider, just to give one example. There is also the type that 'gets on the bandwagon' for the sake of financial gain or even artistic expression, but may not have any commitment to the NAM, or to persuading people to join it. Then there are the 'evangelistic types' who want to convert people through the medium of music, and they usually run seminars helping people to enter into ASCs (altered states of consciousness) through the help of the music.
If the NAM music is without words it is debatable whether the authors can affect the consciousness of the listener, as the listener may just enjoy the sound without going any further. But if the music has the mantra OM in it, and, the mantra is chanted or given in a meditative, rhythmic way, then one realises that one is being led into NAM: ASCs. Every listener must make up their own mind on the subject, and not allow an invasion of their privacy. We must be wary, and discern.
There are also video cassettes available called 'Video Hypnosis'. They are meant to be used for self-hypnosis for gaining self-confidence, losing weight, relaxation, accelerated learning etc. It should be superfluous to point out the dangers of self-hypnosis, for whatever reason, for how can one seek help if something goes wrong while locked into a hypnotic state?
