New%20Age

1
New Age

• Gnosticism
• The coming religion of Europe

"In turbulent times, in times of great change,
people head for the two extremes fundamentalism
and personal, spiritual experience John
Naisbitt
2
New Age Beliefs

1. All humanityindeed all life, everything in the
   universeis spiritually interconnected,
   participating in the same energy. God is one
   name for this energy.
2. Spiritual beings (e.g. angels, ascended masters,
   elementals, ghosts, and/or space aliens) exist,
   and will guide us, if we open ourselves to their
   guidance.
3. The human mind has deep levels and vast powers,
   which are capable even of overriding physical
   reality. You create your own reality.

3
New Age Beliefs Continued

• 4. Nevertheless, this is subject to certain
  spiritual laws, such as the principle of cause
  and effect (karma).
• The individual has a purpose here on earth, in
  the present surroundings, because there is a
  lesson to learn. The most important lesson is
  love.
• Death is not the end. There is only life in
  different forms. What some refer to as an
  afterlife does not punish us but teaches us,
  perhaps through the mechanisms of reincarnation
  or near-death experiences

4
New Age Beliefs Continued

• 7. Science and spirituality are ultimately
  harmonious. New discoveries in science
  (evolution, quantum mechanics), rightly
  understood, point to spiritual principles.
• 8. It shares with many major world religions
  the idea that Intuition or "divine guidance" is a
  more appropriate guide than rationalism,
  skepticism, or the scientific method. Western
  science wrongly neglects such things as
  parapsychology, meditation, and holistic health.
• 9. There exists a mystical core within all
  religions, Eastern and Western. Dogma and
  religious identity are not so important.

5
New Age Beliefs Continued

• 10. The Bible is considered by some, but not
  all, to be a wise and holy book. Many important
  truths are found in the Bible, or are referred to
  only very obliquely. Some say that Jesus was an
  Essene, or that he traveled to India in his youth
  to study Eastern religions. Others say that Jesus
  was a later avatar of Buddha.
• 11. Feminine forms of spirituality, including
  feminine images of the divine, such as the female
  Aeon Sophia in Gnosticism, are viewed as having
  been subordinated, masked, or obliterated by
  patriarchal movements that were widely practiced
  when sacred teachings were first committed to
  writing. A renaissance of the feminine is
  particularly appropriate at this time.
• 12. Ancient civilizations such as Atlantis may
  truly have existed, leaving behind certain relics
  and monuments (the Great Pyramid, Stonehenge)
  whose true nature has not been discovered by
  mainstream historians.

6
New Age Beliefs Continued

• 13. There are no coincidences. Everything around
  you has spiritual meaning, and spiritual lessons
  to teach you. You are meant to be here, and are
  always exactly where you need to be to learn from
  what confronts you.
• 14. The mind has hidden powers and abilities,
  which have a spiritual significance. Dreams and
  psychic experiences are ways in which our souls
  express themselves. Meditation, yoga, t'ai chi,
  and other Eastern practices are valuable and
  worthwhile.
• 15. The food you eat has an effect on your mind
  as well as your body. It is generally preferable
  to eat fresh organic vegetarian food.

7
New Age Beliefs Continued

• 16. Ultimately every interpersonal relationship
  has the potential to be a helpful experience in
  terms of our own growth.
• 17. We learn about ourselves through our
  relationships with other people by getting to see
  what we need to work on ourselves and what
  strengths we bring to the other party in order to
  help them in their life.
• 18. All our relationships are destined to be
  repeated until they are healed, if necessary over
  many lifetimes.
• 19. As Souls seeking wholeness, our goal is
  eventually to learn to love everyone we come in
  contact with

8
New Age Blending of Truth

• New Age is syncretic in nature and has roots as a
  counter-cultural phenomenon. Thus New Age
  adherents tend to emphasize a relativist approach
  to truth, often referring to the Vedic statement
  of "one truth, but many paths.
• New Agers believe they do not contradict
  traditional belief systems, but rather some of
  them say that they are concerned with the
  ultimate truths contained within those systems,
  separating these truths from false tradition and
  dogma.

9
New Age Forces Power

• Forces. It is commonly held that there exist
  certain forces, independent of spiritual beings
  or agencies, and also distinct from forces as
  defined by science (e.g., gravitation,
  electro-magnetism, etc.). These forces are
  elemental in nature and are held to operate in
  an automatic fashion as part of the natural order
  (for example, the force which causes seeds to
  sprout, grow, and bloom).
• Power. The "forces", and everything else, are
  energized by a mystical power that exists in
  varying degrees in all things. Power is
  transferable, through physical contact, sensory
  perception, or mere proximity. Power may be
  accumulated or depleted in a person or object
  through a variety of mechanisms, including fate
  and esoteric practices. This power is held to be
  physically observable as "auras" and "psi
  energy" and when encountered in great
  concentration, may even be dangerous.

10
New Age Energy and Spirit

• Energy. In some belief systems, "forces" and
  "power" may seem to merge e.g., in the concept
  of "vital force" that exists in so many
  traditional belief systems, and finds its
  expression in New Age concepts such as the
  alleged "energies" in Therapeutic Touch and
  Reiki, and ideas of flowing streams of power in
  Earth, like "leylines" in Britain and Europe and
  earth energies addressed in the Chinese geomantic
  system of feng shui. The New Age use of the word
  "energy" should obviously not be confused with
  the scientific one.
• Spirit. All beings (particularly sentient beings)
  are accompanied by a specific, intentional
  "energy" which corresponds to their
  consciousness, but is in some way independent of
  their corporeal existence. This energy typically
  is more primary than the physical entity, in the
  sense that it remains in some form after the
  physical death of that being.

11
New Age Health and Cosmic Goal

• Holism. A coherent, interconnected cosmos.
  Everything in the cosmos is actually or
  potentially interconnected, as if by invisible
  threads, not only in space but also across time.
  Further, it is held that every thing and every
  event that has happened, is happening, or will
  happen leaves a detectable record of itself in
  the cosmic "medium" such as the Akashic Records
  or the morphogenic field.
• Cosmic goal. There is typically a belief that all
  entities are (willingly or unwillingly)
  cooperating in some cosmic goal of achieving a
  "higher" or more complete coherence with a cosmic
  "consciousness" (or some other goal state of
  "goodness"), often described as an evolutionary
  process or simply to learn. This underlying
  cosmic goal gives direction

12
Create your own reality

• Some New Age writers have taken the belief that
  You create your own reality and applied it to
  disease with the conclusion that illnesses have a
  metaphysical origin and can be treated by a deep
  evaluation of long held negative emotional and
  spiritual attitudes. This has a parallel in the
  Christian notion that "it is done unto you as you
  believe." Notably, Louise Hay has published books
  containing lists of diseases and the associated
  negative belief, accompanied by the correcting
  positive belief. A cure may be sought by
  repeating the correcting positive affirmation.
  This approach has its origins in Christian
  Science

13
Crystal Healing

• Crystal healers claim that every living organism
  has a "vibrational energy system," which includes
  chakras, subtle bodies and meridians. By using
  the appropriate crystals one can allegedly "tune"
  an energy system or rebalance energies, thus
  improving well-being.

14
Channeling

• Research of articles by channellers has shown
  they allegedly have channelled ascended masters
  like Buddha, Jesus, or St. Germain. people that
  have passed away angels higher dimensional
  beings and extra-terrestrials of a spiritual or
  more evolved nature. Channelling is a popular
  source of revealed teachings in some New Age
  groups.

15
two types of channelling using the spoken word

• . Conscious voice channelling and trance
  channelling. Conscious voice channelling is when
  the channeller calms their mind down and connects
  to the energy of the source being channeled. The
  source uses the vocabulary of the channeller to
  speak through them.
• A trance channeller through meditation has
  their consciousness leave their body and the
  source consciousness enters it. Observers will
  notice the channeller's voice change when the
  transition is complete.

16
Channeling Defined

• The divine, inspired words (or energy) of God as
  imparted to Humans by Humans.
• The above definition is what channelling actually
  IS. That means that not only were most of the
  sacred scriptures of the planet (all religions)
  channelled originally, but also much artwork and
  music too! It is absolutely commonplace, but like
  so many other re-emerging processes in the New
  Age, it has a stigma about it that is strange.
  God did not write the Bible... Humans did, while
  divinely inspired. by Lee Carol

17
Man is God

• Man is the central figure in the NAM.  He is
  viewed as divine, and progressing toward a kind
  of godhood, or Christ-Consciousness
• Many NAM divisions are pantheistic they
  believe God is in everything, and everything
  together makes up God.  Therefore, as a part of
  nature, man is part of God.   

18
Man Evolving

• Many New Age practices are designed to push man
  through the spiritual evolution to godhood. 
  Astral projection (training your soul to have
  out-of-body experiences), contacting spirit
  guides, and using crystals to purify your body
  and minds energy systems are among these
  practices.  Many New Agers believe in
  reincarnation and in Karma. 

19
Improve one Self?

• man is the central figure.  One must improve
  ones self to become one with nature and god. 
  You may also hear New Age followers using
  Christian terms.  This is because they view Jesus
  as a man who excelled at spiritual evolution and
  progression, and was tuned into his Christ
  Consciousness.  Do not be fooled, though.  The
  Christian terms you will hear will have a
  different meaning to a New Ager than they will
  for you.

20
Christian differences with NAM

• God is an impersonal force.God is all and all is
  God.  He is part of creation, as are all of
  us.There is no sin, only misunderstanding of
  truth.  Man saves himself.Heaven and Hell do not
  exist.  They are states of mind.  Jesus is a man
  who exemplified Christ Consciousness, and the
  divinity that is man.
• God is personal.  He is our Heavenly Father who
  loves us.God is the Almighty Creator of the
  universe, and all within it.  Man is finite, and
  one of Gods creations.  Rebellion from God is
  sin.  All have sinned, and all must be saved.
  Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sins.  Only
  through faith in Him may man be saved.There is a
  literal Heaven, and a literal Hell.Jesus is the
  Son of God, and is part of the triune nature of
  God. 

21
Philosophy of NAM

• provides from personal accountability and
  responsibility.  Moral Relativism claims that
  there is no such thing as right or wrong.  Each
  PERSON, in their effort to achieve oneness, must
  travel their own path and make their own
  decisions.  And those decisions are never wrong,
  provided theyre not wrong in that persons own
  mind.

22
What NAM does in the world

• It is a sponge that attempts to absorb all
  religions, cultures, and governments.
• It seeks to unify all systems into one spiritual,
  socio-economic unity.
• It uses various means to have mystical
  experiences with God and/or nature and/or self.

23
What NAM does not do

• It does not teach that man is a sinner - Rom.
  512 Eph. 23.
• It does not teach that man is dependent upon God
  for all things - Isaiah 437 James 117.
• It does not teach that punishment is eternal -
  Rev. 1411.
• It does not teach that the wages of sin is
  eternal separation from God - Rom. 623 Isaiah
  592.
• It does not teach that Jesus is the only way to
  God - Matt. 1127 John 146.
• It does not accept Christianity as the truth - 2
  Tim. 316.

24
Nam Views of Salvation

• Salvation in the NAM. means to be in tune with
  the divine consciousness.
• In tune means to be in harmony with reality and
  whatever is perceived to be true.
• Since the NAM. doesn't acknowledge sin or
  sinfulness, there is no need for a redeemer like
  Jesus. Salvation, to them, is simply the
  realization of our divine nature. "I am not a
  body. I am free. For I am still as God created
  me. Salvation of the world depends on me"

25
Conclusion

• Only the Bible has the message of Grace. Grace is
  the unmerited favor of God upon His people. Grace
  is the undeserved kindness of God. Grace is
  getting the blessings we do not deserve. At the
  death of Christ we are blessed we are given
  grace we are given eternal life and forgiveness
  of sins. Only Christianity has the message of
  free forgiveness given. Every other religious
  system on earth has some form of salvation
  dependent totally or in part on what the
  adherents do. Not so with Christianity.
• Humanity is not unlimited, but just the opposite
  it is under bondage (Romans 512). Sin is its
  master and a deadly and deceitful one at that.

26
Finally

• True morality is that which is revealed by God in
  the Bible (Exodus 20). Anything else is only an
  imitation, a set of ideas laid down by man that
  originate from the mind of sinful man.
• The Bible opposes almost all the tenets of the
  New Age Movement. As Christians, we should be
  watchful to recognize what is false and teach
  what is true.

27
(No Transcript)