What is the New Age Movement?
The New Age Movement (NAM) is not one movement. It is like a river with many tributaries and it is very difficult to know which tributary you are in, or even whether you are in the main river itself. The NAM has no founder, no headquarters, no holy books, no leaders, and no dogmas. It is associated with the development of consciousness, importance of spiritual experiences, mysticism and anti-consumerism, as well as gurus, holistic health spas, psychics, crystals, charms, and tarot cards; not to mention UFO’s and ET’s.
The term “New Age” seems to have been coined by one of the successors of Madame H. P. Blavatsky (1831-1891) who is considered the “godmother of the New Age Movement.” Supposedly inspired by telepathic messages coming from a Tibetan master, this successor proclaimed the return of Christ, who will inaugurate a new age.[1]
Can you at least give me a definition?
While NAM is eclectic (that is, it combine individual elements from many sources), Lode Wostyn came up with the following definition which is helpful in categorizing the various thoughts that could be considered “new age”:[2]
The NAM is new spirituality of people convinced that they have arrived at a turning point in history, triggered off by a new holistic understanding of the world and the universe. This is because of the awakening of a new consciousness among individuals who then link up into all kinds of groups, organization, and communities, and gradually developing into networks.
What does the Catholic Church say about NAM?
One way that the Vatican document on “A Christian Reflection on the ‘New Age’” describes NAM is as the return of Gnosticism, a philosophy that St. Paul had to counter during his preaching. Gnosticism refers to a religious creed in which salvation is ascribed to the possession of a superior, spiritual knowledge (the Greek word gnosis) which bring human beings into immediate contact with the divine.[3] It believes that human beings have a divine spark in themselves, but it is caught within the evil material world; through gnosis, however, people can re-establish contact with their divine origin, free themselves from the material world, and become one with the divine.[4]
The key problems of NAM and its conflicts with our Catholic religion are in the following areas:
1. Theology – Rejects the otherness of God. If everything is God and God is everything, it also means that God comes in many forms. Grants relative value to all religions, denying Jesus as the fullness of revelation.
2. Spirituality – 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.[5] accepts many cultic and occultic practices rejected by Scriptures and the Church like sorcery and fortune-telling.
3. Ethics – 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.[6]
Is NAM all bad?
It is also important to understand that the NAM was a reaction to the modern Western culture of science, technology and rationalism which offered much in terms of consumption, yet so little in terms of meaning. The NAM can be described as a contemporary movement which attempts to answer the old questions of meaning in our personal and social life. This search for answers influences the spiritual aspects of our humanity such as yearning for ultimate meaning, our interconnectedness with the universe and with each other, mystical experiences, millenarianism (or the dawning of the “age of Aquarius”), and transcendence. Indeed, the Church admits that the “New Age is attractive mainly because so much of what it offers meets hungers often left unsatisfied by the established institutions.”[7]
Importantly, our Church considers the popularity of NAM as conveying a message, which challenges all Christians: People feel the Christian religion no longer offers them – or perhaps never gave them – something they really need. The search which often leads people to the New Age is a genuine yearning: for a deeper spirituality, for something which will touch their hearts, and for a way of making sense of a confusing and often alienating world.[8]
What can I do when I meet someone who believes in NAM?
The problems that the Church finds in NAM are NOT in the questions that it raises regarding how life should be lived, but in the answers that it provides, as enumerated above.
The challenge then, is for you and our Church to be able to provide the “better” answers that NAM believers find in NAM. To those who adhere to NAM, the appeal of Christianity will be felt first of all in the witness of the members of the Church, in their trust, calm, patience and cheerfulness, and in their concrete love of neighbour, all the fruit of their faith nourished in authentic personal prayer.[9]
Practical tip for the Single: New Age groups refer to their meetings as “prayer groups”. Those people who are invited to such groups need to look for the marks of genuine Christian spirituality, and to be wary if there is any sort of initiation ceremony. Such groups take advantage of a person's lack of theological or spiritual formation to lure them gradually into what may in fact be a form of false worship. Christians must be taught about the true object and content of prayer – in the Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ, to the Father – in order to judge rightly the intention of a “prayer group”.
Sources:
1. The article “A Christian Reflection on the ‘New Age’” by the Pontifical Council for Culture and the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious dialogue, as published by the Vatican
2. A New Church for a New Age by Lode Wostyn (Manila: Claretian Publications, 1997), and
3. My personal notes during a Shepherds’ Deepening Course conducted in our Renewal Movement in September 2000.
[1] Wostyn, p. 14.
[2] Wostyn, p. 35.
[3] Wostyn, p. 15.
[4] Wostyn, p. 15.
[5] A Christian Reflection, 2.2.1.
[6] A Christian Reflection, 2.2.2.
[7] A Christian Reflection, 1.1.
[8] A Christian Reflection, 1.5.
[9] A Christian Reflection, 6.2.
