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 leaders and writers of the NAM claim that Christianity has failed. To them it is obsolete. It represents the 'old age thinking', the Piscean Age that has passed, so it should be either transformed by NAM teaching or 'dealt with', a point we shall look at later. First, NAM tries to transform it, just as it tries to transform the political and social structures of society. 18 That transformation lies in mixing Christianity with eastern religions initially, then with the occult. William Thompson says that 'Christianity needs Buddhism. Paradoxically, Buddhism plays Redeemer to Christianity, just as Christianity played Redeemer to Judaism'.19 , Elsewhere the same author says 'that what Christianity was to Judaism, science is to Christianity. Science is to reform Christianity...'. 20
Other NAM writers speak in the same vein: Benjamin Creme asserts that ' the Churches have gone very far away from the religion which the Christ inaugurated'. 21 The 'old age theology' of the Church is now put aside,22 because 'religion is more often than not reactionary: it sees the sacred as the previous level of evolution; it sees the emergent as the profane ... 'Religion', he says, 'is sacerdotal and not sacred; it is a too-restrictive celebration of the previous level of evolution'. He admits that the fundamentalists are right in viewing the NAM as irreligious on their terms.23
Religion is not condemned per se, however, for it is useful. 'It can be sweet and loving and administer to the victims of earthquakes ... but is too passive, too reactive, to be creative enough to imagine a novel emergence ... the sacerdotal is all tied up in and with the past'.24 They blame the Christian Church for putting guilt on everyone because it teaches that we must repent of our sins in order to be saved. They claim that there is no sin, and that salvation is self-made. According to them, problems can be solved through psychology, eastern religions, the occult, or any combination of them. 25 In her chapter called 'Introductory Remarks', Alice Bailey lists the churches and religions under the heading of 'negative groups' which must be dealt with, 26 because 'religion as a whole has gone astray ... because the eyes of the theologians have been on the material, phenomenal aspect of life, through fear' 27 The entity D.K., dictating this text, is quite sure that both Christianity and Judaism must be eliminated in their present form. Speaking about the new festivals that are emerging through NAM, it says that 'the Christian Church has so distorted its mission and ruthlessly perverted the intention for which He (The NAM 'Christ' manifesting through the Disciple Jesus) originally manifested...' that it is not very useful in its present form.28 'The failure of Christianity can be traced to its Jewish background ...' claims this spirit who 'has already pointed out the faults in world religions and their obsolete theologies ... and also the evils of Judaism'. 29 Some of these faults are 'the political scheming of the Vatican, its exploitation of the masses, and its emphasis on ignorance ...,30 and their ridiculous belief that they know what is in the Mind of God ...'.31 The ignorance referred to here is the fact that most Christians are not mystics, or do not claim mystical experience. They are seen as adhering to the externals of religion without knowing its inner content.
In a discussion paper on 'The Bringing Forth of Worlds', William Thompson goes further, and speaks about the role of evil in the New Age and in the Church. He says that 'the real dynamic of the New Age is happening where nobody is looking - namely, in just those profane areas ... warfare, pollution, and the light and shadow economies of the globe. In other words, the revelation is taking place at the edges of our peripheral vision in such ignored areas as "noise" and "evil" (quotation marks his).'32 Since, according to him, 'there is no single Messiah, then there is no single hierarchy with God the Father and the pope at the top and humanity at the bottom' (ibid.). Therefore, he asserts that 'we need the Other to rescue us' from Christianity,33 and the context would appear to locate this 'Other' in evil!
Initially he says that this encounter with the 'Other' can be Buddhism, it can be angels ... dolphins ...or extra-terrestrials as one learns to expand one's consciousness (ibid.). He says that religion generates evil: 'the vision of complexity in the energising of evil is there for all to see in the gospel of John, for Judas cannot betray Jesus until he is given a sop of vinegar. In other words, a negative - a shadow - Eucharist empowers Judas, just as the others are empowered by bread and wine' (ibid.). 'If one unconsciously ignores the role of evil in Christianity ... one ends up playing it out in the cruelty and passionate hatreds that are so characteristic of those committed to a doctrinal view of life. The fanatically devout generate the Other in the kinds of religious warfare we see today in Northern Ireland and Beirut .... One of the greatest forces for evil in the world today, is religion'. 34 Creme says that 'it has been the tremendous triumph of the forces of evil that the churches throughout the centuries have been allowed to monopolise the idea of spirituality: what is to do with the church and religion is spiritual and everything else is not'. 35
NOTES
(Full details of the publications referred to in these notes can be found in the Select Bibliography).
18. Ibid., pp. 89-127. He was formerly involved in the NAM, and gives a balanced clear exposition of it and its effects on the political, social and religious scene in America. He is very clear on NAM politics.
19. 'The Bringing Forth of Worlds', p. 175, an article in Reimagination of the World, David Spangler/William Thompson.
20. 'Sixteen Years into New Age', p. 15, an article in Reimagination of the World, David Spangler/William Thompson.
21. Reappearance of Christ & the Masters of Wisdom, Benjamin Creme, p. 46.
22. 'The Self and the Other', an article by William Thompson in Reimagination of the World, David Spangler/ William Thompson.
23. Reimagination of the World, David Spangler/ William Thompson, p.112.
24. Ibid., p. 113.
25. New Age From a Biblical Viewpoint, M. Basilea Schlink.
26. Externalisation of the Hierarchy, Alice A. Bailey, p. 33.
27. Ibid., p. 355.
28. Ibid., p. 542.
29. Ibid., p. 543.
30. Ibid., p. 545.
31. Ibid., p. 544.
32. Reimagination of the World, David Spangler/ William Thompson.
33. Ibid., p. 175.
34. Ibid., p. 176.
35. Reappearance of Cbrist and the Masters of Wisdom, B.Creme, p. 67.
