Rev Father Maximiadis
‘Old Age’ Superstitious practices have re-emerged from the Medieval period ( circa 1000AD to 1450AD ) and migrated to the United States between the late 20th c. and early 21th c. Superstitious practices spread expeditiously into the American mindset, by way of the subcultural fringe (or counterculture of the ‘hippy’ movement). The advent of the so-called ‘Age of Aquarius’ in the 1960s and 1970s. After that, the ‘Old Age’ irrational beliefs, i.e., the residual remains of primitive belief systems, proliferated into the global mindset; repackaged under the ‘New Age’ brand.
The Movement’s precursors included the likes of Paracelsus (1493-1541), Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), and Franz Mesmer (1734-1815). Other influential precursors were Godfrey Higgins (1772-1833), Eliphas Levi (1810-1875), Helena Blavatsky (1831-1891). The Fox sisters (1814-1893) George Gurdjieff (1866-1949), Alice Baily (1880-1949), and Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902). Their writings (or activities), espoused a disparate mélange. Including astrology, alchemy, Hermeticism’s spurious pseudepigrapha (ψευδής ἐπιγραφή) of circa 18th c., mysticism. Animal magnetism, ceremonial magic, metempsychosis (μετεμψύχωσις), and the supernatural. In New Age parlance, the supernatural is mistakenly understood in the sense of the various hypothesised paranormal phenomena and the preternatural, et cetera.
Belief in the Supreme God or the ultimate ‘reality’ above the natural is transparently absent. Furthermore, there is a mistaken notion, int. al., of the definition of spiritualism, and spiritism. The former means belief, or faith, in the supreme God. The word Spiritism [codified, in 19th c., by Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail who wrote under the Allan Kardec pseudonym] refers to particular beliefs. These beliefs include the illusory (or delusional) faculty of futuristic sense perceptions outside the normal human range. For example, communications between the living, and hypothesized deceased entities, through mediums. For example, clairvoyance, or channelling [which the channeler purportedly hears messages from disembodied masters, angels, or others], or talking [Ouija] boards, crystal balls; or other such appurtenances.
Subsequent to the 1960s and 1970s, the New Age advocates, have gained widespread acceptance, of their beliefs and practices, by the masses. The movement was popularised by the eager incautious, support of the transatlantic mass-media, without regard to concerns for unproven beliefs and practices; and the fragmenting effects on established institutions.
An evidential identifying feature of New Age Movement’s beliefs, amongst many others, verge on blurring boundaries between reality and fiction, between ‘truth’ and ‘transient fancies’. Through oversimplification or ‘dumbing down,’ – i.e., reducing intellectual contents so as to make it accessible to a larger readership – to the cognitive bias, which are contrary to objective reality. A further identifying feature of the Movement is insulating its intellectually limiting teachings, and practices, from analytical inquiries, at the expense of recourse to systematic reasoning.
The pre-rational, quasi-spiritual rhetoric of New Age advocates (et alii) has influenced the mindset and vocabulary of ‘popular culture’. In New Age parlance, the Church has been downgraded to the anti-Christian phrase: “organized religion”. Furthermore, Western values, and the time-honoured 2,000-year traditional Christian Church and mainstream Protestant traditions have gradually been displaced with ‘borrowings’ from exotic sources. These sources include Hinduism, Kabbalah, Buddhism, Sufism, and Taoism, forming a conglomeration of eclectic ideas (eclecticism). These ideas include, but not limited to Neopaganism, pantheism, polytheism, Perennialism. Other ideas include pseudoscience, parapsychology, UFO religions, pseudoscientific medicine (e.g., crystal healing, Reiki, chiropractics, naturopathy), and alien abductions, et cetera.
Advocates of the New Age ‘spiritist’ subculture are not amenable to open debate, and are patently hostile, in their continuous railings determined to fragment the very foundations of the Christian church. They consider Christian teachings inferior to their own without acknowledging the prominent role the Christian church played in the history of Western civilisation.
The “NEW AGE” Cults.
The cults include the Gardnerian Wicca cult that draws from ancient pre-Christian pagan practices. Pagan beliefs and practices were restored and inaugurated under the new name ‘Wicca’ in 1945, by Gerald Brosseau Gardner (1884-1964), a retired civil servant, amateur anthropologist and archaeologist. He adopted concepts, structures of ritual practice and 20-centuary hermetic motifs from the Golden Dawn or The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. William Wynn Westcott (1848-1925) et al., established the Order in London circa 1890. The Wiccans and other pagan cults have gained considerable popularity since the 60s and 70s.
Lafayette Ronald Hubbard also known as L. Ron Hubbard (1911-1986), a science fiction writer, founded The ‘Church’ [sic] of Scientology in 1954. Since 1954, it has become a significant addition to the ‘New Age’ religions. Its teaching and practices of Dianetics include int. al., the abreactive therapy technique that removes longstanding repressed emotions, through recollection, i.e., ‘recall,’ facilitated through a modified ohm-meter into a pseudo-scientific “E-meter”. The instrument is believed to indicate the construction or destruction of “mental mass,” through the movement of a needle. These concepts are regarded, by the medical community, as pseudoscience. Scientology’s teachings stem from Gnosticism (circa 2nd c.), and occultist and ceremonial magician; Aleister Crowley. Additionally, it includes borrowings from the psychotherapist, Carl Gustav Jung, also known as C. G. Jung (1875-1961), who initiated the concepts of the ‘archetypes’ and ‘collective unconscious’. Moreover, neurologist, Sigismund Schlomo Freud, also known as Sigmund Freud (1856–1939); who was instrumental in founding psychoanalysis. High profile celebrities, such as the like of filmic actors, Tom Cruse and John Travolta; who are Scientology’s chief proselytisers. Vide: ‘Tinsel Mecca and The Celluloid New Agers – para., New Age Heresy and Celeb-idolatry’ at:
Oprah Winfrey Cult is the most menacing adversary to the Christian Church. Oprah, a former television hostess who metamorphosed into an aggressive, hostile New Age ‘theologian’ of a sort; bent on demolishing the traditional Church, and the mainstream, Protestant Churches. She denies God’s Command (regarding idolatry) in the Decalogue. “You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God…” (Exodus 20:5 NASB) And she denies Jesus’ teachings. For example,” Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6 KJV). Vide: ‘Tinsel Mecca and The Celluloid New Agers – para., The Oprah Winfrey Cult’ at:
She aggressively promotes her New Age opinions that are profoundly contrary to what is universally accepted by the Apostolic Churches, and the Protestant Churches. She categorically, claims to be a Christian and stubbornly denying that she is a ‘New Ager’. New Ageism is pantheistic, and Christianity is monotheistic. Clearly, an example of inconsistency and contradiction; Oprah cannot have it both ways.
In 2010, Life magazine described her as ‘one of the most important people who have changed the world; up there with Jesus Christ and Elvis Presley! Presley extrapolated his beliefs from over 200-books in his portable library. His portable library included writings of Paramahansa Yogananda, Manley Palmer, Baird Spalding, Cheiro, Blavatsky, Leadbetter, Urantia Book, Alice Bailey and Krishnamurti. Presley was an adherent of New Age beliefs, e.g., Theosophy, Hinduism, numerology, et cetera. Furthermore, he was never baptised, made a profession of faith, or belonged to a church. However, he did spend a lifetime extolling rock and roll music, and a lifestyle of drug abuse; both of which are contrary to Christian standards.
Time magazine relating the recalcitrant anti-Christian Oprah Winfrey, and Elvis Presley adherent of New Age beliefs as ‘having changed the world, up there with Jesus Christ’ is perplexing. Many Christians would regard this as offensive, and perhaps sheer blasphemy. New Ageism is the indubitable toxic residua recycled from ‘Old Age’ irrationalities.
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