by LeePenn
Published by - New OxfordReview, July-August 2000, pp. 19-31
The Complete UnEdited Text
SECTION 1 of 6
PREFACE
This article is intended as a warning against the spiritual andsocio-politicaldangers associated with the New Age and globalist
movements. When I shout in this story, it is not to call downfire upon "bad guys." Rather, I seek to sound an alarm, to awaken those
who are in these movements (and those who might be in a position toresist these movements) to these perils. Let no one hastily
assume that the rank-and-file adherents of these movements are awareof, and culpable for, the bizarre beliefs (described below) of the
New Age and globalist leaders. Very often, spiritual seekersand those who desire political reform enter these movements with good
intentions, and never have a reason to look inside the movement'sclosetsfor skeletons. In addition, the writings of the globalist and New
Age leaders are crashingly dull, and few of their followers willexaminethese texts in sufficient detail to learn of the darkness at the heart
of these movements.
Christian opponents of the New Age and globalist movements need torememberthe profound truth in the saying, "the cults are the unpaid
bills of the Church." Some of the causes that the New Age andglobalist movements support (such as protection of the environment from
pollution, and an end to inter-religious violence) arepraiseworthy. Some of what the New Age and globalist movements oppose (for
example, racial discrimination and imperialism) deserves Christianopposition. Thus, a knee-jerk reaction (i.e., if the New Age isfor"X,"
Christians must oppose "X") is unwise. Christian opponents ofthe New Age and globalist movements should consider what realinjustices
and spiritual hungers lead people to follow these movements - so thatthe People of God might answer these real, unmet needs of their
fellow men.
Christ loves, and came to save, all who are now in the New Age andglobalistmovements. (That goes for the leaders as well as the
followers: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do!"[Lk. 23:34]) Let us never forget to pray for them all,and to entrust them
all to God's Mercy. For all of us, myself included, are utterlydependent upon this same Mercy.
INTRODUCTION
In recent years the New Age movement has come out of the closet intheChurch and in the world. The New Age movement is made up of
those who follow a potpourri of beliefs and practices that fall outsidethe boundaries of the major traditional religions (Christianity,Judaism,
Islam, Hinduism, animism, and Buddhism). Its manifestations areprotean.Some Catholic nuns walk on labyrinths to contact the "Divine
Feminine." Increasing numbers of health insurance companies have heededconsumers' demands to cover offbeat treatments, ranging
from Ayurvedic herbal medicine to "therapeutic touch" - in which ahealer's hands manipulate "energy fields" but never touch the patient's
body. Hillary Clinton has contacted the spirit of Eleanor Rooseveltunder the guidance of Jean Houston - a New York-based avatar who
runs a "Mystery School," and who inspired the current fad of walkingon labyrinths. Millions of Americans with more money than common
sense are buying into this trendy, feel-good style of spirituality;they have helped to keep Neale Donald Walsch's Conversations with God
books on the best-seller lists since 1997. These are the people whosay, "I'm spiritual, but not religious."
Many Christians view the New Age movement as merely self-indulgentsilliness.Unfortunately, there's far more to the movement than
astrology, crystals, weird workshops, and psychobabble. Many New Agespiritual leaders have a firmly entrenched anti-Christian
worldview, and harbor a special hatred for the Catholic Church. SomeNew Age leaders believe that the Fall was really man's ascent into
knowledge, assisted by Lucifer - whom they hail as the bringer of lightand wisdom. These New Age teachers expect an imminent,
apocalyptic transformation that will lead humanity into the New Age.By acts of men or by an act of "spirit," earth will be cleansed ofthose
who refuse to evolve. In the New Age, there will be world government;the economy will be remade to promote "sharing." Traditional
morality and traditional families will disappear. Orthodox religions- especially Christianity and Judaism - are considered "separative" and
"obsolete"; in the New Age, they too will vanish.
HISTORY and SUPPORTERS of the NEW AGE MOVEMENT
In a better world, such teachers would have a following only among afew alienated misfits. The reality is otherwise. For the last 125years,New Age leaders worldwide have followed the false light of Theosophy;theynow whisper sweet lies into the itching ears of the powerful -politicians,media moguls, UN officials, foundation grant-makers, and Anglicanbishopsalike. As the West moves into a post-Christian era, the influence oftheNew Age movement spreads.
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky blended Eastern religion with Westernoccultism,establishing the Theosophical movement in 1875 in New York City.Theosophyhas influenced occult, spiritualist, "New Thought," and New Agemovementsaround the world since then. For Blavatsky, the LORD is not God;mankindis. She says, "Man is truly the manifested deity in both its aspects -good and evil." [1] Since mankind isgod, itfollows that "mankind will become freed from its false gods, and finditselffinally - SELF-REDEEMED." [2] Or rather,someof mankind - "the Aryan and other civilized nations"- is "god-informed"and capable of self-redemption. Others, "such human specimens as theBushmen,the Veddhas of Ceylon, and some African tribes" are "lower humancreatures,""inferior races" that are "now happily - owing to the wise adjustmentofnature which ever works in that direction - fast dying out. Verilymankindis 'of one blood,' but not of the same essence."[3]Part of Blavatsky's pantheon is the seven-headed "Serpent of Darkness"bearing the swastika on its crowns, an entity worshipped "in India,amongesoteric Buddhists, in Egypt, Chaldea, etc."[4 ]The Nazis borrowed the swastika symbol and ideas of Aryan racialsupremacyfrom the Thule Society and other German theosophists, and then madetheirown murderous adaptations to occultism.[5]
In the early 1900s, Alice A. Bailey carried forward the teachings ofTheosophy in the United States. She founded the Lucifer Publishing
Company in New York City in 1922, and renamed it the Lucis PublishingCompany in 1923. Between 1922 and 1949, Bailey published 24
books of "revelations" that she claimed to have channeled from theTibetan ascended "spiritual master" Djwhal Khul. All these books
remain in print, and are widely available.
The influence of Theosophy and Alice Bailey continues to grow ahalf-centuryafter her death. Robert Muller, a former assistant Secretary-General ofthe United Nations, won the UNESCO Prize for Peace Education in 1989forhis World Core Curriculum. He says, "The underlying philosophy uponwhichThe Robert Muller School is based will be found in the teachings setforthin the books of Alice A. Bailey by the Tibetan teacher, Djwhal Khul."[6]Like Robert Muller, Neale Donald Walsch praises Theosophy. He says thatSpiritual Politics, a popularization of Alice Bailey's teachings, is"oneof the most important books to appear in the marketplace of ideas in avery long time."[7] He also extols theWaldorfSchools and their founder Rudolf Steiner, a German theosophist. BarbaraMarx Hubbard, a New Age futurist, says that the goal of her newestbook,Conscious Evolution, "is that it serve the fulfillment of the plan.'MayLight and Love and Power restore the plan on Earth.' That is my prayer."[8] She doesn't mention the source of this prayer; it is thefinalverse of "The Great Invocation," a Theosophical prayer provided by theLucis Trust with each of Alice Bailey's books.[9]The third verse of the Great Invocation says, "From the centre wheretheWill of God is known Let purpose guide the little wills of men - Thepurposewhich the Masters know and serve."[10] NowonderBarbara Marx Hubbard did not quote the entire prayer! James ParksMorton,the Dean of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New YorkCity until his 1997 retirement, praises another Theosophist, DavidSpangler,as "a highly regarded advocate of spiritual empowerment" who is "bothdown-to-earthand a genuine mystic."[11]
Robert Muller, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Neale Donald Walsch, and JamesParks Morton's Temple of Understanding all actively support the
United Religions Initiative (URI), a well-funded venture in religioussyncretism led by Episcopal Bishop William Swing of San Francisco.
(Other Theosophists are lining up to support the URI. The RudolfSteinerFoundation has recently made a grant to the URI,[12]and the
Lucis Trust newsletter, World Goodwill, has praised the URI twice in1999.[13] ) Laurance S. Rockefeller andhisFund for the
Enhancement of the Human Spirit have financed Matthew Fox,[14] BishopSwing's Grace Cathedral,[ 15] and BarbaraMarxHubbard.[16]
Morton has friends in high places; he is on the Council of Advisersfor Global Green, USA (an affiliate of Gorbachev's Green Cross
International, an environmentalist organization), and has been aco-chairof UN conferences on the environment in 1992 and 1997.
Another of Gorbachev's organizations, the San Francisco-based Stateof the World Forum, draws funding from a galaxy of Establishment
corporations and foundations, ranging from Archer Daniels Midland,CNN, Hewlett-Packard, and Occidental Petroleum to the Carnegie
Corporation, the Kellogg Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.The State of the World Forum attracts almost 1,000 VIPs to San
Francisco each year, and encourages them to believe that they willbe the ones to shape the emerging "new civilization." Not all
participants are eggheads and political has-beens; the 1998 ForumincludedGeorges Berthoin, President of the Trilateral Commission[17]
, James Michel, the Chair of the Organization for Economic Cooperationand Development,[18] and other powerbrokers.Anglican
Archbishop Desmond Tutu is one of the 22 co-chairs of the Forum, alongwith Gorbachev, Ted Turner, Federico Mayor (Director General of
UNESCO), and other high UN officials.[19]Neither orthodox Christian nor Orthodox Jewish leaders have spoken atanyForum sessions
since it was founded in 1995. Instead, the assembled dignitaries haveheard New Age preaching from such people as Andrew Weil,
Michael Lerner, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Michael Murphy and Steven Donovan(leaders of the Esalen Institute), Fritjof Capra, Jean
Houston, Sam Keen, Ram Dass, Matthew Fox, Deepak Chopra, and TonyRobbins.
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is a consensus-building managementtechniquedeveloped by Dr. David Cooperrider, co-chair of the Center for SocialInnovationin Global Management (SIGMA) at the Case Western Reserve UniversitySchoolof Management. SIGMA staff members have used the AI process to manageURIsummit meetings and workshops since 1996. Other users of AI haveincludedProtestant agencies, Catholic agencies, and big business alike: theAdventistDevelopment and Relief Agency International, Lutheran World Relief, theSalesian Society, the Salvation Army World Service Office, World VisionRelief and Development,[20] United Way,[21]GTE, Johnson and Johnson, Sandia National Laboratories, SandozPharmaceuticals,and Smith Kline and Beecham.[22]Cooperrider'sTaos Institute works with the Benedictine University in Napierville,Illinoisto "explore the powerful potentials of the appreciative organization."[23]Currently, Cooperrider is training managers of UN-affiliated lobbyingandsocial action groups, known in UN parlance as "non-governmentalorganizations"(NGOs).[24] All are being taught aprocessthat, in Dr. Cooperrider's own words, views "realities as sociallyconstructed"and seeks to "affirm, compel, and accelerate anticipatory learning"withthe objective of "inspiring, mobilizing and sustaining human systemchange"among "larger and larger levels of collectivity."[25]Theagenda - post-modernist relativism and groupthink - could hardly beclearer.It's consistent with Blavatsky's view that "the only world of realityisthe subjective."[26]
The Wittenberg Center, a pro-URI interfaith seminary that hasconsultativestatus with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, requiresseminariansto take its course in "survival and empowerment for the 21st century."[27]The class includes "knowledge and survival skills for both thecontemporaryrural and urban shaman;"[28] much of theclasscovers "clairvoyance & intuitive training, energy and chakrabalancing,accessing past lives," and "crystal & etheric healing."[29]Readings for the seminary core program mix the Bible, the Koran, andtheBhagavad Gita with New Age and neo-pagan froth: Joseph Campbell's TheMasksof God, Jung's Man and His Symbols, Starhawk's Truth or Dare, MatthewFox'sbooks, Jane Robert's The Education of Oversoul 7, and Brian Swimme'sTheUniverse Is A Green Dragon.[30] Despite -orbecause of - its odd teachings, the Wittenberg Center has powerfulfriends.Amongthe members of its Board of Advisors are Dr. Jeffrey Sachs,[31]Director of the Harvard Institute for International Development and theformer economic adviser to Russia, and the aforementioned Rev. JamesParksMorton.
In short, promoters of New Age and theosophical ideals are notsocialoutcasts. Often enough, these followers of the Spirit of the Age getattentionand money from the rich and the powerful. (So much for the idea thattherich are smarter than the rest of us, and so much for the idea thatbusinessleaders are necessarily rational.)
SECTION 2 of 6
TEACHINGS of THE NEW AGE MOVEMENT
What, then, do the New Age prophets teach? Let Helena PetrovnaBlavatsky,Alice Bailey, Robert Muller, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Neale Donald Walsch,David Spangler, and Matthew Fox speak for themselves - and for themotleycrew of "spirit guides," "ascended masters," and "cosmic Christs" whomthey have served.
The avatars of the New Age say that humanity is God, and that thereis no death. Barbara Marx Hubbard states the creed of the Serpent
succinctly: "We are immortal. We are not bound by the limits of thebody."[32] "We can create new life formsandnew worlds. We are
gods!"[33] Neale Donald Walsch says thesame: "Trust God. Or if you wish, trust yourself, for Thou Art God."[34]His spirit guide denies
death, saying, "There is no 'death.' Life goes on forever and ever.Life Is. You simply change form."[35]AliceBailey said, "We are all
Gods, all the children of the One Father, as the latest of the Avatars,the Christ, has told us."[36] These NewAgeteachers repeat the lies
that the Devil told in Eden: "You will not die. For God knows thatwhen you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God,
knowing good and evil." (Gen. 3:4-5). Asa woman devotee of Walsch's recently told the Washington Post, "Wediscoveredthe God within
... That's why we need God. Because we are God."[37]
Since we are gods, there is no need for Christ to save us. Instead,as Barbara Marx Hubbard says, "Multitudes of self-saviors is what weare,for those who have eyes to see."[38] Howwillmankind perform this feat? David Spangler says that we "manifest ourheritageas gods in the making" by becoming "a spiritual materialist, ormaterialspiritualist;"[39] now "comes the time tobecomethe servants of evolution" and to "release the light, the love, thewisdomthat will bring our renunciation of spiritual estate to its fruition,inthe occult redemption of the world."[40]Inother words, we are asked to tell God non serviam, and to choose Hell.
New Age teachers invert Christian doctrine about sin, the Devil, andthe Fall. Barbara Marx Hubbard says, "The serpent symbolizes anirresistable[sic] energy that is leading us toward life ever-evolving. First theserpenttempted Eve to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Itattractedher beyond the animal/human world which knew no separation from theCreator.Then self-awareness came."[41] She adds,"Evil- the devil - is evolution's selection process that constantly weedsoutthe weaker from the stronger."[42] Aspiritthat identified itself to Barbara Marx Hubbard as "Jesus" told her to"loveSatan, my fallen brother," and to "forgive Satan for fearing God."[43]Walsch's ectoplasmic friend says that Adam and Eve "are said to havecommittedOriginal Sin. I tell you this: it was the Original Blessing. Forwithoutthis event, the partaking of the knowledge of good and evil, you wouldnot even know the two possibilities existed!"[44]Blavatsky spoke most plainly: "The Fall was the result of man'sknowledge,for his 'eyes were opened.' Indeed, he was taught Wisdom and the hiddenknowledge by the 'Fallen Angel."[45]
These New Age teachings lead inexorably to praise of the Darkness.Walsch'sstatement that God is "the Darkness that creates the Light, and makesitpossible"[46] mirrors Blavatsky's dictumthat"According to the tenets of Eastern Occultism, DARKNESS is the one trueactuality, the basis and the root of light ... Light is matter, andDARKNESS,pure Spirit."[47] Alice Bailey likewisesaysthat those who learn to meditate will see that "darkness is purespirit."[48]Followers of Bailey's New Age path will find that "each contact withtheInitiator leads the initiate closer to the centre of pure darkness ...a centre or point of such intense brilliance that everything fades outand at the place of tension, and at that darkest point, let the groupseea point of clear cold fire."[49] PerhapsDantewas right when he described the center of Hell as ice.
Theosophists make it clear that in the contest between God and theDevil,they side with the Devil. Blavatsky says, "It is but natural ... toviewSatan, the Serpent of Genesis, as the real creator and benefactor, theFather of Spiritual mankind. For it is he who was the 'Harbinger ofLight,'bright radiant Lucifer, who opened the eyes of the automaton created byJehovah."[50] According to Alice Bailey,therevolt of the angels against God was part of "the divine plan ofevolution;"the fallen angels "descended from their sinless and free state ofexistencein order to develop full divine awareness upon earth."[51]Spangler, like Blavatsky, praises Lucifer as "the angel of man'sevolution.He is the angel of man's inner light."[52]He says that "Lucifer comes to give us the final gift of wholeness,"[53]and "as we move into a new age", "each of us in some way is brought tothat point which I term the Luciferic initiation."[54]Spangler sees this as "an initiation into the New Age. It is aninitiationof leaving the past and moving into the new, shedding our guilts andfears... and becoming whole and at peace because we have recognized ourinnerlight and ... the light of God."[55] G.K.Chesterton warns those who wander after this will-o'-the-wisp: "Of allconceivable forms of enlightenment the worst is what these people callthe Inner Light. Of all the horrible religions the most horrible is theworship of the god within. ... That Jones shall worship the god withinhim turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones."[56]
The New Age prophets deny orthodox teaching about Christ. AliceBaileysays that "Christ taught also that the Kingdom of God is on
Earth and told us to seek that Kingdom first and let all things gofor its sake."[57] Jesus Christ saidotherwiseto Pilate while He was on
trial for his life: "My kingship is not of this world" (Jn.18:36) - a rebuke to utopians who seek to build a NewJerusalemon earth by human
action, and also to those who enrich themselves and abuse or dominateothers "in the name of God." Bailey denies hell and Christ's
atonement for man's sin; instead, "the concept of hell" will bereplacedby "an understanding of the law which makes each man work out
his salvation upon the physical plane, which leads him to right thewrongs which he may have perpetrated in his lives on Earth, and which
enables him eventually to 'clean his own slate'."[58] What a rotten deal Bailey offers! Instead of being savedandforgiven through Christ's
death and resurrection and being told like the good thief "Truly, Isay to you, today you will be with me in Paradise" (Lk.23:43), we are left
with the unforgiving law of karma and the requirement to right allthe wrongs of all our past lives ourselves.
For Barbara Marx Hubbard, the Second Coming will occur "when theChristwithin the people of Earth awakens simultaneously in a PlanetaryPentecost."[59]Robert Muller echoes his mentor Alice Bailey in saying that after theNewAge Christ "reappears," he will help mankind to set its affairs aright;he will then leave Earth again forever, saying "I have to turn My sightto other troubled and unfinished celestial bodies. I now pronounce youPlanet of God."[60] As might be expectedfroma man who has channeled "a disembodied entity" for 20 years,[61]Spangler says, "Christ is the perfect balance to Lucifer."[62]Like Matthew Fox, Spangler proposes to replace Jesus with the "cosmicChrist;""any old Christ will not do, not if we need to show that we havesomethingbetter than the mainstream Christian traditions. It must be a cosmicChrist,a universal Christ, a New Age Christ. ... The Christ is universal. Itiscosmic. It always has been."[63] Note thepronoun:Spangler calls Christ "it." The Christology of the New Age savantsearnsthis Scriptural rebuke: "Every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christhas come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit which does notconfessJesus is not of God. This is the spirit of antichrist, of which youheardthat it was coming, and now it is in the world already." (1 Jn. 4:2-3)
New Age writers follow the Gnostic tradition, denying that birth,life,and the body are good. Neale Donald Walsch says, "Birth itself is adeath,and death a birth. For in birth, the soul finds itself constrictedwithinthe awful limitations of a body, and at death escapes thoseconstrictionsagain."[64] This is, almost word forword,what the Theosophist Alice Bailey wrote: "Birth establishes the soul inthe true prison, and physical death is only the first step towardliberation."[65]
Denial of the goodness of the body leads to giving a "get out ofHellfree" card to Hitler. As Neale Donald Walsch says, "Hitler went toheaven."[66]"There is no hell, so there is no place else for him to go."[67]After all, according to Walsch's incubus, Hitler was doing his victimsa favor by killing them; his deeds were "mistakes," not crimes: "ThemistakesHitler made did no harm or damage to those whose deaths he caused.Thosesouls were released from their earthly bondage, like butterfliesemergingfrom a cocoon. ... When you see the utter perfection in everything -notjust in those things with which you agree, but (and perhaps especially)those things with which you disagree - you achieve mastery."[68]The price of "mastery" is to see "utter perfection" in Auschwitz andTreblinka.David Spangler's spirit friend, an entity named "John," likewise said,"We naturally do not identify life with the physical body,consequently,to us, the loss of your physical form is not a tragedy ... The death ofmillions of people in itself is not a tragedy for us, for it simplymeanstheir birth into our domains."[69]
Walsch's "God" says that Hitler does not deserve blame for his acts- but the rest of humanity is responsible for allowing them to happen;"The purpose of the Hitler Experience was to show humanity to itself."[70]Walsch's imp repeats what Alice Bailey said in September 1939, as WorldWar II began: "Blame not the personalities involved ... They are onlytheproduct of the past and the victims of the present. At the same time,theyare the agents of destiny, the creators of the new order and theinitiatorsof the new civilisation; they are the destroyers of what must bedestroyedbefore humanity can go forward along the Lighted Way. They are theembodimentof the personality of humanity. Blame yourselves, therefore, for whatistoday transpiring."[71] A similarargumenthas been common for a generation in American courtrooms: the criminalisnot accountable for his evil deeds; instead, "society" - everybody else- is guilty.
The New Age philosophers define evil as matter, selfishness, and therefusal to embrace change. Alice Bailey says, "The domination of
spirit (and its reflection, soul) by matter is what constitutes evil;"[72]at the human level, "the true nature of cosmic evil finds its major
expression" in "materialistic selfishness and the sense of isolatedseparativeness."[73] David Spangler has asimilardefinition of evil. It
"seeks a reductionist simplicity," "cannot abide change," "cannot abidecomplexity," is "fixated upon its sense of particularity," "is the
dimension of separation," and "abhors diversity and seeks conformityand sameness."[74] This is the same waythatsome liberals in
politics and the churches describe those who are not "PC." For Walsch'sgod, the basis of goodness is knowledge: "The mistake,
therefore, is not in choosing what is best for you, but rather, innot knowing what is best."[75] Thisbeliefmight explain why some
"progressives" see education as the panacea for all social ills.
For New Age teachers, spiritual growth is not the fruit of taking upthe Cross and following Christ. Instead, as Barbara Marx Hubbard says,"Your highest spiritual beings, even now, are telling you that each ofyou has access to an inner teacher ... They tell you that through aprocesscalled 'initiation,' you can transform yourself into an 'ascendedmaster'."[76](Perhaps "initiation" is more dangerous than Ms. Hubbard lets on; AliceBailey says, "each contact with the Initiator leads the initiate closerto the centre of pure darkness."[77] )Walsch'sgod does not favor obedience to God's will: "Obedience is not growth,andgrowth is what I desire."[78] Instead,thespook offers this alternative: "No kind of evolution ever took placethroughdenial. If you are to evolve, it will not be because you've been abletosuccessfully deny yourself things you know 'feel good,' but becauseyou'vegranted yourself these pleasures - and found something even greater.Forhow can you know that something is 'greater' if you've never tasted the'lesser'?"[79] Groovy! Do your own thing,man!Don't knock it if you haven't tried it!
In the same way that the New Age teachers invert theology, they alsoinvert morality. Walsch's celestial confidant told him that: "There'snosuch thing as the Ten Commandments. ... God's Law is No Law."[80]As a result, Walsch's god approves of sexual activity by children andteenagers,saying "In enlightened societies offspring are never discouraged,reprimanded,or 'corrected' when they begin to find early delight in the nature oftheirvery being. ... Sexual functions are also seen and treated as totallynatural,totally wonderful, and totally okay."[81]Walsch'sgoblin does not say whether the enlightened little ones are doing itsolo,with their friends, with their siblings, or with adults. Barbara MarxHubbardsays, "The break-up of the 20th century procreative family structure isa vital perturbation needed for the breakthrough of the 21st centurycocreativefamily structure."[82] For the sake oftheDivine Self, Neale Donald Walsch denounces fidelity and marriage vows:"Betrayal of yourself in order not to betray another is Betrayalnonetheless.It is the Highest Betrayal."[ 83] Indeed,familymembers who won't move into the New Age should be left behind. BarbaraMarx Hubbard says, "But if members of our family choose to remain wherethey are, we have no moral obligation to suppress our own potential ontheir behalf. In fact the suppression of potential is more 'immoral'thangrowing beyond our biological relationships."[84]Once our bodies, minds, and souls are drained dry by free sex andtraffickingwith the spirit world, we can - and ought to - choose to die. AsBarbaraMarx Hubbard says, "Those who have more to create choose to live onuntilthey are finished with their work. When we feel that our creativity hasrun its course, we gracefully choose to die. In fact, it seemsunethicaland foolish to live on."[85]
Both Barbara Marx Hubbard and Neale Donald Walsch would rewrite theLord's Prayer, making it a hymn to the Divine Self. Barbara MarxHubbard'sversion is: "Our Father/Mother God... Which Art In Heaven... HallowedBeOur Name... Our Kingdom Is Come... Our Will Is Done... Give Us This DayOur Daily Bread... Forgive Us Our Trespasses As We Forgive Those WhoTrespassAgainst Us... Leave Us Not In Temptation But Deliver Us From Evil...ForOurs Is The Kingdom, Ours The Power, Ours The Glory, For Ever And Ever.Amen."[86] Walsch's familiar spiritinvertsthe prayer in the same way, saying, "My Children, who art in Heaven,hallowedis your name. Your kingdom is come, and your will is done, on Earth asit is in Heaven. ... For thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and theGlory,forever."[87] Are these savants copyingeachother on the Earth-plane, or are their spirit guides holding conferencecalls to coordinate their messages to humankind?
SECTION 3 of 6
CHANGES REQUIRED TO ENTER THE NEW AGE - [A] Religious
For mankind to enter the New Age, we must abandon the traditionalreligions,especially the monotheistic faiths: Judaism, Christianity,
and Islam. Alice Bailey said, "Palestine should no longer be calledthe Holy Land; its sacred places are only the passing relics of three
dead and gone religions. ... Judaism is old, obsolete, and separativeand has no true message for the spiritually minded which cannot be
better given by the newer faiths; the Moslem faith has served itspurposeand all true Moslems await the coming of the Imam Mahdi who
will lead them to light and to spiritual victory; the Christian faithalso has served its purpose; its Founder seeks to bring a new Gospeland
a new message that will enlighten all men everywhere."[88]Bailey's "Christ" says "There is no need for any man to join theChristian
Church in order to be affiliated with Christ. The requirements areto love your fellowmen, lead a disciplined life, recognise the divinityin all
faiths and all beings, and rule your daily life with Love."[89]By contrast, the real Christ says to his disciples, "Go into all theworldand
preach the Gospel to the whole creation. He who believes and isbaptizedwill be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned."
(Mk. 16:15-16)
Bailey's call to "recognise the divinity in all faiths" is belied byher hatred for traditional religions. This avatar of New Age globalismwas willing to nuke the Vatican if necessary. In 1946, she wrote: "Theatomic bomb ... belongs to the United Nations for use (or let us ratherhope, simply for threatened use) when aggressive action on the part ofany nation rears its ugly head. It does not essentially matter whetherthat aggression is the gesture of any particular nation or group ofnationsor whether it is generated by the political groups of any powerfulreligiousorganisation, such as the Church of Rome, who are as yet unable toleavepolitics alone."[90]
Another of Bailey's targets - before, during, and after theHolocaust- was Judaism. Bailey wrote that the Jews' sufferings were "the workingout of the retributive aspect of the Law of Cause and Effect ... Thoughmuch that has happened to the Jews originated in their past history andin their pronounced attitude of separativeness and nonassimilability,andin their emphasis upon material good ... the agents who have broughttheevil karma upon them equally incur the retributive aspects of the samelaw."[91] When Bailey accuses Jews of"separativeness"and "emphasis upon material good," she is making - in her own terms -themost serious accusation possible, since she says "the true nature ofcosmicevil" is "the supreme evil of materialistic selfishness and the senseofisolated separativeness."[92] In January1939,two months after the Kristallnacht pogrom in Germany, Bailey wrote:"theJew ... must let go of his own separative tendencies and of his deepsenseof persecution. ... There must ... be a realisation by the Jew andGentileof equal responsibility and equal liability for the present worlddifficulty."[93]In 1948, Bailey said that "the Jewish people ... forget that millionsinthe world today have suffered as they have suffered and that - forinstance- there are eighty per cent of other people in the concentration campsof Europe and only twenty per cent Jews. The Jew, however, fought onlyfor himself, and largely ignored the sufferings of his fellowmen in theconcentration camps."[94]
In Western Europe and North America since 1945, any public figuresuspectedof anti-Semitism has been made a pariah. This sanction has not beenappliedto Alice Bailey, her teachings, and her Theosophist followers. On thecontrary.Betsy Stang, an "interfaith minister" at the Wittenberg Center and anactiveparticipant in the URI, said, "Some of Bailey's writing is reallyremarkable,very Gothic. You would put her with Blavatsky, Gurdjieff, and Steiner.She is historically very important. In my mind, Bailey has beautiful,poeticevocations in her books."[95]
Other New Age writers refrain from anti-Semitic rants. Instead,they spit hatred at orthodox Christians, whom they denounce as
"fundamentalists." Robert Muller said at the 1996 URI summit conferencethat the United Religions must tame "fundamentalism" and
profess faithfulness "only to the global spirituality and to the healthof this planet."[96] Recently, Mulleraddedan anti-Catholic twist: "Two
of the worst principles and words still used on planet Earth are:fundamentalismand infallibility."[97] Muller explained:"Lookat all the
religious wars we had during the Middle Ages. Killing in the name ofGod was the rule. Religion was discredited to the point that the
French Revolution abolished religions as troublemakers. Even today,many regard religions as troublemakers. This is why the common
values between all religions should be expressed. ... we can move,we must move ... to a global spirituality."[98]Muller poses two
alternatives for us: worship Gaia, or face the Jacobins' response toreligious "troublemakers." (Unfortunately, the crimes of many
Christians, hierarchs and laity alike, provided a basis forrevolutionaryhostility - in 1789, 1917, 1936, and other occasions.)
Dr. Jim Garrison, President of the State of the World Forum (SWF)anda self-described follower of "inclusive Buddhism," said in 1998 thatthedays of dogmatic religion are ending: "I think that Judaism andChristianityand Islam have done real damage to the planet because they have toomanyanswers. ... If my theology is an impediment I have to get rid of mytheology.... The conservative Jews and the conservative Christians and theconservativeImams they think what I'm saying is heresy, but I just say to thesepeople,your box is too small, get into a bigger box."[99]A coffin, perhaps? Garrison said that the SWF honors the mavericks andthe heretics; "during times of transition orthodoxies fall and thehereticsand the mavericks are the people creating the new orthodoxy."[100]Garrison to traditional monotheism: change or die; I'll be in chargesoon.Welcome to the New Religious Order, in which the only heresy will beorthodoxy.
Blavatsky hated orthodox Christianity, and her greatest fury wasdirectedat the Vatican. In 1877, she wrote that Isis Unveiled "is in
particular directed against theological Christianity, the chiefopponentof free thought. ... We cast our gauntlet at the dogmatic theologians
who would enslave both history and science; and especially at theVatican,whose despotic pretensions have become hateful to the
greater portion of enlightened Christendom."[101]Likewise, in 1888, she described "the Latin Church" as "intolerant,bigotedand cruel to
all who do not choose to be its slaves."[102]
Nature abhors a vacuum, and no throne long remains vacant. If theNewAge movement were to dethrone Christ the King, who would take Hisplace?If Mikhail Gorbachev has his way, the god of the New Religion will benature.He has said, "Nature is my god. To me, nature is sacred. Trees are mytemplesand forests are my cathedrals."[103]Mullerhas also hailed the Earth as God: "Hindus call our earth Brahma, orGod,for they rightly see no difference between our earth and the divine."[104]
Blavatsky expected the current world religions to disappear; the"religionof the ancients is the religion of the future."[105]The "religion of the ancients" was the worship of the Dragon and theSun;Blavatsky claimed that "there was a time when the four parts of theworldwere covered with temples sacred to the Sun and the Dragon."[106]The memory of this ancient religion was "the origin of the new Satanicmyth" of Christians.[107] The restoredworshipof the Dragon and the Sun is what Blavatsky expects to be the NewReligionof the future. In 1931, Hilaire Belloc warned about the emergence ofsucha Satanic, post-Christian religion: "When the gods of the New Paganismcome they will not be merely insufficient, as were the gods of Greece,nor merely false; they will be evil. One might put it in a sentence,andsay that the New Paganism, foolishly expecting satisfaction, will fall,before it knows where it is, into Satanism."[108]
New Age writers say that we will accept the New Religion when weunderstandthat all religions have the same source and the same end.
Alice Bailey said, "The day is dawning when all religions will beregardedas emanating from one great spiritual source; all will be seen as
unitedly providing the one root out of which the universal worldreligionwill inevitably emerge."[109] Likewise,EpiscopalBishop William
Swing believes that all religions "come together at the apex, in theDivine."[110] Knowingly or not, theiraffirmationof religious unity
echoes Blavatsky, who said that all religions have "been derived fromone primitive source," and that separate religions are "but shades of
human error and the signs of imperfection."[111]Blavatsky's turgid writings of 1877 have become the received truth forsome present-day
religious liberals.
In 1946, Bailey said that all of us must accept religious unity, or"humanity is headed towards a religious war which will make the pastwar
appear like child's play; antagonisms and hatreds will embroil entirepopulations and the politicians of all the nations will take full
advantage of the situation to precipitate a war which may well provethe end of humanity. There are no hatreds so great or so deep as
those fostered by religion."[112] BishopSwing's warning, "What is a bigger terrorist threat than religion intheworld today? There is
none,"[113] repeats Bailey's statement.(Thus, the New Age leaders lay a subtle spiritual trap. They warnaccurately of the dangers of
religious violence - and then propose a totalitarian spiritualcounterfeitas the means to avert this peril.)
Bailey expected the New Religion, which she called the "ChurchUniversal,"to emerge by the close of the twentieth century[114]- in other words, now. Bailey says that "Only those will remain asguidesand leaders of the human spirit who speak from living experience, andwhoknow no creedal barriers; they will recognise the onward march ofrevelationand the new emerging truths. These truths will be founded on theancientrealities but will be adapted to modern need and will manifestprogressivelythe revelation of the divine nature and quality."[115]Thus, liberal Protestants and heretical Catholics will have a happyplacein the New Religion. Bailey believed that the New Religion would workcloselywith the United Nations: "Thus the expressed aims and efforts of theUnitedNations will be eventually brought to fruition and a new church of God,gathered out of all religions and spiritual groups, will unitedly bringto an end the great heresy of separateness."[116]Robert Muller has gone further, proposing to deify the United Nations:"At the beginning the UN was only a hope. Today it is a politicalreality.Tomorrow it will be the world's religion."[117]
Bailey said that in the New Religion, there will be two levels ofreligiouspractice - one for the masses and one for the adepts of the New Age,thosewho "know the potency of formulas, mantrams and invocations and whoworkconsciously."[118] Fellow-theosophistDavidSpangler said, "The new spirituality may well have aspects thatresembleshamanism. It will have aspects drawn from all the great faithtraditions,but it will add something new, arising perhaps from a deeper experienceof our co-creative relationship with the Earth and with God."[119]Barbara Marx Hubbard called for a "meta-religio," a "new ground of thewhole" to be created by the United Religions: "We long not for a newreligion,but for the evolution of religion, such that we embody the qualities ofour master teachers and become conscious cocreators with the divineuniversalintelligence ourselves."[120]
With the New Religion, there will be spiritual totalitarianism. NewAge leaders agree that the last 2,000 years - the Age of Pisces - werea time for development of individual identity and personality. In thecomingAge of Aquarius, this will change. People will happily let go ofindividualismand merge their own goals and identity into that of the whole race. AsAlice Bailey said, "Selfishness, as we now understand it, willgraduallydisappear, for the will of the individual will voluntarily be blendedintothe group will."[121] After all, theexistenceof separate persons is an illusion; we are all really part of The One.David Spangler says, "We come into the age of the group again ... andnowin the next two thousand years or so man leans how to blend his divinecentre in wholeness."[122] Neale DonaldWalsch'sfamiliar spirit says, "Social evolution is demonstrated by movementtowardsunity, not separatism."[123]
In language that foreshadows Bishop Swing's blather about theemergenceof a "global soul,"[124] Teilhard deChardin,whom New Age writers now hail as a prophet, says, "The organization ofhuman energy ... is directed and pushes us towards the ultimateformation,over and above each personal element, of a common soul of humanity."[125](Did you know that you are a "personal element"?) The goal of humanevolution,for Teilhard, is that people must "acquire the consciousness, withoutlosingthemselves, of becoming one and the same person."[126]If we understand things rightly, we will "love the preordained forcesthatunite" us; "a natural union of affinity and sympathy will supersede theforces of compulsion."[127] As Orwellsaidof his protagonist, Winston, at the end of 1984, "He had won thevictoryover himself. He loved Big Brother."[128]
SECTION 4 of 6
CHANGES REQUIRED TO ENTER THE NEW AGE - [B] Political
The New Age avatars proclaim their commitment to democracy andtolerance.However, they propose totalitarian solutions to mankind's
urgent, undeniable problems. The sacrifice of freedom and theacceptanceof unlimited government power will - as always - be for our own
good; necessity will be the excuse of tyrants. The New Age movementuses the theory of evolution - a theory of inevitable and desirable
Progress - as a justification for whatever policies are needed to drivehumanity and the planet to the next great leap upward. (Can anything
good ever come from applying Darwinism to society?)
Alice Bailey and her followers at the Lucis Trust have repeatedlypraisedrevolutions and dictatorships, approving them as part of the workingsof"the Plan." In September 1939, she said, "The men who inspired theinitiatingFrench revolution; the great conqueror, Napoleon; Bismarck, creator ofa nation; Mussolini, the regenerator of his people; Hitler who lifted adistressed people upon his shoulders; Lenin, the idealist, Stalin andFranco"were "all expressions of the Shamballa force"[129]- a force which Bailey extolled. She viewed the dictatorships of hertimeas a positive part of human evolution, fostering humanity's "power toregardhimself as part of a whole."[130] AliceBaileycriticized the Stalinist regime in the USSR but said that "The truecommunisticplatform is sound; it is brotherhood in action and it does not - in itsoriginal platform - run counter to the spirit of Christ."[131]
Foster Bailey carried on Alice Bailey's work after her death in1949.In a 1972 book called Running God's Plan, he wrote that the RussianRevolutionhad been "an outstanding hierarchical success. It has been demonstratedthat hopeless, illiterate peasants when stimulated and given a chancebecomeindustrial workers."[132] Historiansdescribethese same events as forced industrialization, forced collectivization,and man-made famine. Bailey's "hierarchy" also approved of the ChineseCultural Revolution: "The cultural revolution in China was begun a fewshort years ago. This also is an hierarchical project. Amazing changeshave been achieved in that short period."[133]According to the Black Book of Communism, there were approximately 20millionvictims of Soviet Communism, and 65 million victims of the Chineseregime.Evidently, the Theosophists' spiritual Hierarchy condones massbloodshedto achieve its goals.
The implosion of the Soviet Empire has not dampened the enthusiasmoftoday's New Age writers for world government and socialism.
Robert Muller favors using the European Union as the basis for "WorldUnion," unless the UN is "rapidly transformed" into "an effective
world political union."[134] Then, "sinceRussia reaches into the North of Asia, the old dream of Eurasia can beimplemented. The plan of
Robert Schuman who dreamt of integrating the African countries intoEurafrica can be implemented ... In the meantime, the US can
organize the Americas from Alaska to the [sic] Tierra del Fuego andthe two unions can be integrated into a World Union."[135]This ought
to be interesting news for Latin Americans who cherish independencefrom the Yankees. Projects for the world government would include
global prohibition of alcohol,[136] aglobalID card for all,[137 ] global police andmilitaryforces under the control of "the Ministry of
Peace"[ 138] (the same term that Orwellused in 1984 for Big Brother's military force[139] ),a global secret service,[140] "worldpenal
legislation,"[141] a global propertyregistersimilar to "what the young French revolutionaries did for France,"[142]a global income
tax,[143] and a global computer databaseto house "all data on our planet, on its environment, and on humanity."[144]
If this sounds like world Communism, Muller says that might not bealtogetherbad: "We should ask an honest man like Mikhail Gorbachev to tell uswhatwas good in certain cases in communism and which would be useful forhumanity.Not everything is totally bad in any system. Even Hitler did somethingworthwhile, still existent today, when he asked for the building of theVolkswagen, the cheap, economic car for ordinary, low income people."[145](There were 150,000 advance-paid orders for the car by 1939; none wereever fulfilled.) To achieve his goals, Muller favors abolition of"nationalism"and of "the big, multinational companies"; this could be achievedeitherby a "people's revolution or a revolution of the scientists, thinkers,visionaries, prophets, globalists, futurologists and synthesizers ofthisplanet."[146]
Neale Donald Walsch's spirit guide also favors communism and worldgovernment.The god says that highly evolved beings - smart ETs -
practice pure communism: "They share everything. With everyone. ...All the natural resources of their world, of their environment, are
divided equally, and distributed to everyone."[147]Nations must disappear. Instead, there should be a worldgovernment,[148]backed up
with a World Court and a world "peacekeeping force."[149]Each nation would have two representatives in the Congress of Nations,and
"representation in direct proportion to a nation's population" in thePeople's Assembly.[150] Under this plan,theU.S. would have as many
votes in the Congress of Nations as the Sudan, where Christians aresold into slavery or executed. The U.S. would have about one-fourth
as many votes in the People's Assembly as the People's Republic ofChina, which persecutes Christians and enforces a one-child policy
on families. Would anyone care to guess how long our Constitutionalprotections of freedom of religion and freedom of speech (which are
already under seige) would survive?
Barbara Marx Hubbard has a similar vision of an earthly utopia: "Inthe past our glorious visions of the future - heaven, paradise, nirvana-
were thought to happen after death. The newer thought is that we donot have to die to get there! We are not speaking here of life after
death in some mythical heaven, but life more abundant in real timein history. We are speaking of the next stage of our social
evolution."[151]
Matthew Fox concluded The Coming of the Cosmic Christ with a visionof "Vatican III," to be called by Pope John XXIV to define the
doctrine of the Cosmic Christ as intrinsic to faith. The future Popehasreplaced the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith with a board
of grandmothers,[152] and has also dealtfirmly with dissenters: "Still another action taken by this pope hasbeento gather all the Opus
Dei bishops of the world on one island where, it is said, they areundergoing a two-year spiritual retreat that includes a critique of the
history of fascism and Christianity on the one hand and an inculcationof creation spirituality on the other. It is said these bishops do body
prayer three times daily and art as meditation four hours per day.The native people of the island are the instructors for the art as
meditation classes. Women have assumed the office of bishop in theirrespective diocesan sees."[153] In otherwords,the rightist
extremists are to be brainwashed.
There is literary precedent for sending undesirables to islands. InBrave New World those who do not fit into society are sent to islandsof
their choice [154]; World ControllerMustaphaMond leaves the misfits to their own devices and does not force them tochange. Thus,
Fox's utopia would treat its dissenters more harshly than Huxley'sdystopia.
David Spangler likewise points toward a totalitarian future. Hesays:"From the depths of the race a call is rising for the emergence of a
saviour, an avatar, a father-figure ... who can be for the race whatthe ancient priest-kings were in the dawn of human history."[155]The
priest-kings of Sodom, Egypt and Babylon will return to rule us.Spanglerdescribes "true democracy" in terms reminiscent of Rousseau's
"General Will": "All spiritual societies are hierarchical. They cannotfunction in any other way. ... It is not the will of the majority thatis
important. It is the will of the whole ... Democracy as we know itis a quantitative form of government. True democracy, however, is
qualitative, and that is what we must return to."[156]Such "true democracy" is to be our future, for Spangler says"theocraticdemocracy"
is "what we are moving towards for humankind."[157]("Theocratic democracy"? Quick, call the ACLU! Or does it only opposeChristian
theocracy?)
Spangler says that today's "new gurus" are "accepting their divinitywithout becoming inflated by it;" they are "givers of life, and theyareforming the basis for the government of the future. This will be agovernmentthat is authoritarian ... in the same way that the laws ofthermodynamicsor of gravity are authoritarian."[158]Theauthority of the New Regime will be as omnipresent and inexorable astheauthority of the laws of Nature; each subject will say, "I can onlyfollowthis rhythm, this pattern," for we will be "at one with the currents oflife."[159] (One might reply that theonlybeings that always move "at one with the currents" are dead.) Theregimethat Spangler describes as "government by the whole, the true democracy"[160]will be just as democratic as the German Democratic Republic.
Teilhard de Chardin explicitly and repeatedly favoredtotalitarianism.In March, 1939, Teilhard wrote that the time for "egotistical autonomy"had passed; "the modern totalitarian regimes, whatever their initialdefects,are neither heresies nor biological regressions: they are in line withthe essential trend of 'cosmic' movement."[161]In August 1941, Teilhard said, "the real divide, the real humanconflictof today, is not between democrats, fascists, communists, andChristians,but between those who do and do not believe that there is a Humanity tobe constructed over and above man."[162]Onanother occasion, he said, "A progressive democrat is not fundamentallydifferent from a really progressive totalitarian."[163]
The teachings of Alice Bailey, Teilhard de Chardin, Robert Muller,BarbaraMarx Hubbard, Neale Donald Walsch, and David Spangler provide thetheoryof totalitarian New Age government and economics; the programs ofGorbachev'sState of the World Forum and the Earth Charter Campaign describe theproposedpractice.
Forum President Garrison states the mission of the State of theWorldForum: to mobilize "creative minorities" who will set the agenda forthe"new phase of human development."[164]Gorbachevconsiders those who participate in the Forum to be members of a "globalbrain trust"[165] for a new civilization.Bothmen agree that world government is needed. In 1995, Garrison said that"Over the next 20 to 30 years, we are going to end up with worldgovernment... It's inevitable;"[166] he likenedopponentsto Confederate secessionists and the Oklahoma City bombers.
In his 1995 keynote speech to the Forum, Gorbachev said, "We shouldtake a sober and unprejudiced view of the strengths and weaknesses ofcollectivism,which is fraught with dictatorship. But what about the individualism ofWestern culture? At the very least, something will have to be doneaboutits purely consumerist orientation."[167]Tofurther his agenda for a "new civilization," Gorbachev would developnew"moral maxims," "values common to all humankind"; "it is not enough tosay 'Thou shalt not kill.' Ecological education implies, above all,respectand love for every living being. It is here that ecological cultureinterfaceswith religion. ... Honoring diversity and honoring the Earth create thebasis for genuine unity."[168] In the newmorality,"honoring diversity and honoring the Earth" will replace God.
To build the "new civilization," Forum speakers have offered all theprogressive nostrums that they can pull from the shelf: upholding
"indigenous cultures" as the ideal, reforming education to create the"new global citizen,"[169] legalizingmarijuana,[170]revising the
world's major religions to "produce more democratic, egalitarian, andindividual-friendly spirituality,"[171]rejectingthe idea of original sin,
redefining truth as "a way of knowing in which we learn to honor ourwoundedness and our dependency on others,"[172]and creating a
new "integral culture" in which "all roles and relationships will beredefined: inner spiritual values, intimate family relationships(between
men and women, and among adults, children, and elders); communities;nations, ethnic groups, and cultures; global institutions ... and
the relationship of humans with the natural world."[173](Not even the Bolsheviks went that far.) All will have to accept thenew,holistic
world view; the 1998 Forum session on "Our Common Enterprise" said,"The future thus belongs to those who can see interconnections,
who can appreciate the whole as well as the parts, and who can blendone aspect of life with another. To be authentic in the future will be
to be integrated."[174]
SECTION 5 of 6
THE EARTH CHARTER and REAL PHILOSOPHY of the NEW AGE MOVEMENT
The Earth Charter is the brainchild of Gorbachev (acting as chairmanof Green Cross International) and Maurice Strong, a wealthy proponentofworld government, a leader at UN environmental meetings, and an adviserto the World Bank.[175] (Ted Turner isalsoinvolved, as a member of the Green Cross International board.[176]) Gorbachev views the proposed Earth Charter as "a kind of TenCommandments,a 'Sermon on the Mount,' that provides a guide for human behaviortowardtheenvironment in the next century and beyond."[177]Maurice Strong says, "The real goal of the Earth Charter is that itwillin fact become like the Ten Commandments, like the UniversalDeclarationof Human Rights."[178] Gorbachev andStrongseem to view themselves as the lawgivers of the future, successors toMosesand Jesus.
Gorbachev and Strong wrote the Charter to correct what they saw astheexcessively "anthropocentric emphasis" of the Declaration on the
Environment produced at the 1992 UN conference in Rio de Janeiro.[179]They hope to gain UN adoption of the Earth Charter.[180] Once
adopted, the Charter would be the basis for new local, national, andglobal law. Steven Rockefeller, chairman of the Rockefeller Brothers
Fund, is coordinating the drafting of the Earth Charter,[181]and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund is supporting Earth Charteractivitiesin ten
Third World countries.[182] GlobalEducationAssociates, the Temple of Understanding, [183]and the URI also promote the Earth Charter.
The basis of the Earth Charter is the belief that "Earth, our home,is alive with a unique community of life." [184]The Charter states that
"A dramatic rise in population has increased the pressures onecologicalsystems and has overburdened social systems" [185]- the
"Population Bomb" argument. Charter writers want to promote "equitabledistribution of wealth" [186] and to"promotegender equality"
[187].
The Charter asks us to "treat all living beings with compassion andprotect them from cruelty and wanton destruction." [188](So far, so
good.) However, unborn children are excluded from thiscompassion;the Charter supports "universal access to health care that fosters
reproductive health and responsible reproduction." [189] (In UN circles, "reproductive health" includes artificialcontraception,abortion,
and sterilization.)
Another document on the Earth Charter web site, "The Green CrossEarthCharter Philosophy," is from Gorbachev's own organization; it takes ahardline about what the Earth Charter will mean for us. First comes thecallfor immediate "fundamental economic, social and cultural changes thatthataddress the root causes of poverty and environmental degradation."[190]Then comes the call for "Stabilization of the World's Population," and"Zero-Growth of Material Economy;" the needs of the world's poor willbemet by "reducing material over-consumption by the rich minority."[191]To enforce all this, there must be "Global Sovereignty" with totalpowerand universal jurisdiction: "The protection of the Biosphere, as theCommonInterest of Humanity, must not be subservient to the rules of statesovereignty,demands of the free market or individual rights. ... An internationalbodyfor the Sustainability of Human Life on the Earth ... must have theindependenceand power to facilitate agreement between all societal actors tosupportthe protection of the Biosphere as the Common Interest of Humanity."[192]Democratic institutions must not delay the Earth Charter revolution; atthe 1995 State of the World Forum, Maurice Strong said, "We shouldn'twaituntil political democracy paves the way. We must act now."[193]
When Maurice Strong says crazy things, we need to pay attention; hehas powerful friends. Strong, Chairman of the Earth Council, is on theboard of the World Economic Forum (WEF); Klaus Schwab, president andfounderof the WEF, is a member of the Earth Council.[194]The WEF, which meets annually in Davos, Switzerland, describes itselfas"the most significant global business summit bringing together close to2,000 business and political leaders, experts, academics, and membersofthe media, to set the global agenda for the coming year."[195]Top executives of billion-dollar companies pay fees and travel costs of$30,000 to $250,000 each year[196] fortheprivilege of schmoozing with presidents of many countries and of theworld'slargest corporations - including President Clinton, British PrimeMinisterTony Blair, Bill Gates, Kofi Annan (UN Secretary General), John Smith(CEOof General Motors), Peter Sutherland (Chairman of Goldman-Sachs), KimWoo-Choong(Chairman of Daewoo Corporation), Jürgen Schrempp (Chairman ofDaimler-Benz),[197]and George Soros.[198]
In their pride, the radical New Age teachers, the globalists, andtheirfinanciers plan for a planetary Utopia. The greater the pride of people
or movements, the greater their rage when they encounter opposition,and the greater their despair they feel when their grandiose visions
fail. Pride, rage, and despair are the spiritual precursors of crueltyand murder.
It might seem odd to accuse the New Age prophets of these things.Afterall, they and their followers appear to be nice, well-cultured
people who use the correct fork at the dinner table; they claim thattheir goal is the betterment of the human race and of the Earth.
Nevertheless, these radical New Age leaders believe that the two WorldWars were necessary for human evolution, and that the birth
pangs of the New Age began with the atomic explosions in 1945. Theyalso advocate sending those people who are unwilling to enter the
New Age into oblivion, and reducing world population to 2 billion -or less. Such is the blood lust of the "compassionate."
All of this flows from the Gnostic belief expressed by Alice Bailey:"Death is not a disaster to be feared; the work of the Destroyer is notreally cruel or undesirable."[199] TheNewAge avatars have embraced a brutal version of spiritual Darwinism. AsBarbaraMarx Hubbard says, "Nature is less concerned about individual survival,than with the evolution of the whole to ever higher degrees of freedom,union, and consciousness of God."[200]DavidSpangler's familiar spirit says that suffering is merely part of "aworldof form" that "has little meaning;" the spirit is "concerned with thatwhich is the eternal life of you, the Divine Presence which I nourishandembrace. If forms must be destroyed that this Presence be released,thenso be it."[201] This spirit speaks likesomeonein charge of targeting nuclear weapons.
From the start of World War II until her death in 1949, Alice Baileywrote that the war was necessary for the New Age to come. She believedthat the New Age would be preceded by a "destructive cycle, wherein theold order passes away" and "human civilization with its accompanyinginstitutions- is destroyed."[202] She gives credit tothe"Hierarchy" of ascended spiritual masters for "their decision, takenearlyin this century, which precipitated ... that major destructive agency,the world war (1914-1945)."[203] In April1943,Bailey said, "One of the purposes lying behind the present holocaust(WorldWar II) has been the necessity for the destruction of inadequate forms.... the Law of destruction was permitted to work through humanityitself,and men are now destroying the forms through which many masses of menarefunctioning."[204 ] ("Destroying forms"doesnot mean shredding IRS paperwork; it is the Theosophist code word fordeath.)After the war, Bailey wrote that "the Custodians of God's Plan" viewedWorld War II as a "major surgical operation" that had been "largelysuccessful"in removing "a violent streptococcic germ" that had "menaced the lifeofhumanity."[205] She warned that thiswouldbe only the beginning of sorrows: "The germ, to be sure, is noteradicatedand makes its presence felt in infected areas of the body of humanity.Another surgical operation may be necessary."[206]
Bailey viewed the atomic incineration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki asan"inevitable and desirable" manifestation of the "saving force," since"thewrecking and disappearance of that which is bad and undesirable musteverprecede the building of the good and desirable."[207]Barbara Marx Hubbard saw the nuclear explosions of 1945 as a turningpointfor humanity, "the beginning of our collective labor pains. It was thesignal that the Cosmic Child, humanity, could either kill itself byremainingin self-centered consciousness in the womb of Earth, or insteademancipateitself for universal consciousness."[208]DavidSpangler likewise hailed the discovery of atomic energy. He said thattheexplosion of atomic bombs in 1945, "plus subsequent research intonuclearenergy," was a sign that "man was beginning to discover, through hisexotericscience, the reality of the etheric plane."[209]A spirit that spoke to Spangler in "the transmissions of limitless loveand truth" said, "Should nuclear devices be used, the energies will bethe revelation of me. All that will remain is of what I am and all thatis not of me shall disappear, to follow another law and anotherdestiny."[210] (Perhaps the earth-plane manifestation of Spangler'sincubuswas Dr. Strangelove.) In September 1946, after the US nuclear tests inthe Pacific Ocean, Teilhard closed a paean to the Bomb by saying, "Forall their military trappings, the recent explosions at Bikini heraldthebirth into the world of a Mankind both inwardly and outwardly pacified.They proclaim the coming of the Spirit of the Earth."[211]Teilhard's proclamation of the spiritus mundi foreshadows BishopSwing'sannouncement at the 1997 summit meeting of the URI, that "If you havecomehere because a spirit of colossal energy is being born in the loins ofearth, then come here and be a midwife. Assist, in awe, at the birth ofnew hope."[212 ]
For the New Age soothsayers, the "end times" are now. Alice Bailey,Barbara Marx Hubbard, David Spangler, Neale Donald Walsch, and othershavepredicted that the transition to the New Age would happen between 2000and 2010. As Neale Donald Walsch's god said, "Yours is a raceawakening.Your time of fulfillment is at hand."[213]Gordon Davidson, the Theosophist author of Spiritual Politics whopraisedthe URI as an example of the emergence of the "Avatar of Synthesis,"[214]says that in the year 2000, humanity faces "the impending descent oftheShamballa energy."[215] This would not beanjoyful event; Davidson's mentor, Alice Bailey, had said that theEuropeandictators of the 1930s were "all expressions of the Shamballa force."[216]There's no reason for Christians to accept New Age writings as trueprophecies.Nevertheless, New Age fortune-tellers whose writings span the last 60yearsagree with each other about the imminent, apocalyptic arrival of theNewAge. We can expect New Age devotees to be busy with mischief, doingtheirutmost to fulfil their own prophecies.
Other New Age avatars don't set a date for the apocalypse. Instead,they view the possibility of human extinction with Earth-centered,
reptilian calm. Jean Houston, spiritual mentor of Lauren Artress[217](the Episcopal priest who runs the Labyrinth Project at Grace
Cathedral in San Francisco) announces the choice facing humanity: "Itcould be that the human race will end as a vast, failed experiment
within the next twenty-five years. And the planet will shake itsshoulders,let 'em slide off and the dolphins will inherit the earth."[218]
Barbara Marx Hubbard likewise offers the alternative: "We will eitherevolve or become extinct."[219] WilliamIrwinThompson, a New Age
associate of the Rev. James Parks Morton and David Spangler,[220]said: "We might even end it for human beings and not be able to
keep the experiment going, but the biosphere will not cease to evolve.If you're mystical, you don't necessarily identify just with a
momentary piece of meat called hominoids."[221]Robert Muller also thinks that we may become extinct: "The Earth willtakerevenge
against her most advanced species which has begun to destroy her. ...God will not allow us to destroy His Creation and to put an end to
the Earth's careful, miraculous evolution over billions of years. Heis more likely to let humanity be destroyed."[222]
SECTION 6 of 6
THE NEW AGE POPULATION SELECTION PROCESS
As part of the imminent global transformation, the radical New Ageleaderslook forward to a "selection" of the human race. The elect of
humanity will survive to enter the New Age. Many others will die -a prospect that these gurus view with cold equanimity.
Alice Bailey described World War II as "the broom of the Father ofall,sweeping away obstructions in the path of His returning Son."[223]
Since she saw war and mass murder as part of God's plan, it'sreasonableto ask whether other Theosophists and New Age leaders who
foretell a "selection process" intend to kill their opponents, if theycan.
For several decades, in books with titles such as Happy Birth Day,PlanetEarth, The Revelation: A Message of Hope for the New
Millennium, and The Book of Co-Creation, Barbara Marx Hubbard haspredicted"personal extinction"[224] for people whowillnot get with
the New Age program. "A Quantum Transformation is the time of selectionof what evolves from what devolves. The species known as
self-centered humanity will become extinct. The species known aswhole-centeredhumanity will evolve."[225] At the timeofthe quantum
transformation, "humans capable of cooperating to self-transcend willdo so"; "elements" who maintain "the illusion of separation will
become extinct ... just as Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal humans becameextinct."[226] In referring toundesirablepeople as "elements,"
she follows the example of the Nazis, the Communists, and others whodehumanize their opponents to justify destroying them. Barbara
Marx Hubbard warns that if the selection comes, it will be violent:"Either the good will prevail, connect, link, and magnetize themajorityof
humanity to act with love for life everlasting, or the violentselectionof the self-centered will begin."[227]Forher, Satan "is part of the
selection process ... that will bring forth the self-elected from theself-rejected, so that ... only those connected to the whole survive."[228]
Robert Muller says that persons "who hold contrary beliefs" to thosefavored in the "next phase of evolution" will disappear[229];
opponents of the UN and other "anti-evolutionary, blind, self-servingpeople" will have their souls "parked in a special corral of theuniverse
for having been retarding forces, true aberrations in the evolutionand ascent of humanity."[230] DavidSpanglersays that those who do
not enter the New Age "will lose, for the time being ... the abilityto control or influence the developments upon Earth. ... They will have
moved from an active state to a relatively passive one."[231]"Relatively passive" - like a corpse?
All the New Age soothsayers say that the extinction of theoppositionis for their own good, the beginning of their cosmic re-education.
David Spangler says that those not attuned to New Age energy "haveno place in the new world";[232] theywillbe sent "where the
patterns of the old still hold sway" for their "highest good."[233]Barbara Marx Hubbard says that those who are against the New Age "will
begin again within a different planetary system which will serve askindergarten for the transition from self-centered to whole-centered
being."[234] Nick Bunick, the self-styledreincarnation of the Apostle Paul, sets the date for the selection.Between2000 and 2010, "those
people who are not living according to the laws of God" will be "nolonger participating in our world".[235]Theresisters will be sent to "a
different vibrational plane"[236] - notas a punishment, but to improve their karma.[237]Barbara Marx Hubbard says that survivors of the
"selection" will go with the flow of evolution, will love "choice,diversity, flexibility, ambiguity, uncertainty, responsibility, and
response-ability," and will be able to "co-create, unite, synergizeand love everyone as a member of your body."[238]The inheritors of
Marx Hubbard's new kingdom will pass all the current tests forpoliticalcorrectness, and will be highly qualified to serve as bishops in the
Episcopal Church.
The leaders of the New Age movement argue that the earth isoverpopulated,and that radical measures are needed to defuse the "population bomb."Inthe 1940s - when world population was less than half what it is today -Alice Bailey said, "certain physical restrictions should be imposed,becauseit is now evident that beyond a certain point the planet cannot supporthumanity."[239] Matthew Fox has said,"Excessivehuman population is a grave danger ... it's one of the reasons I joinedthe Episcopal church, because of its open-minded and pragmatic view ofbirth control."[240] In 1997, Gorbachevsaid,"for a certain transitional period families should limit themselves toone child;" once the world's population is stabilized, the formerCommunistpremier would consider upping our ration to two children per family.[241]
Some of these "forward-thinking" people want to go further, andreduceEarth's population to 2 billion or less. In a November 1991 interview
with The UNESCO Courier, Jacques-Yves Cousteau said: "World populationmust be stabilized and to do that we must eliminate 350,000
people per day. This is so horrible to contemplate that we shouldn'teven say it. But the general situation in which we are involved is
lamentable."[242] That works out to127,750,000people per year, and 1.27 billion people to "eliminate" per decade.Mediamagnate Ted
Turner is more patient; he will allow 80 to 100 years to reduce thepopulation of the Earth from 6 billion to 2 billion by a global"voluntary"
one-child policy.[243] In an interviewwith the environmentalist E Magazine, he added, "I think the populationshould be closer to when we
had indigenous populations, back before the advent of farming. Fifteenthousand years ago, there was somewhere between 40 and 100
million people. But [population researchers] Paul and Anne Ehrlichhave convinced me that if we're going to have a modern infrastructure,
with commercial airlines and interstate highways around the world,we're going to need about two billion people to support it."[244]
The eco-feminist theologian Rosemary Radford Ruether has a similarlylow view of humanity. She told those who attended a May 1998
ecological conference that "We need to seek the most compassionateway of weeding out people. ... In place of the pro-life movement we
need to develop the 'spirituality of recycling' ... a spiritualitythat includes ourselves in the renewal of earth and self. We need tocompost
ourselves."[245] Several months later,Ruether told a national conference of Call To Action, a liberalCatholicorganization, how many
people must go onto the compost pile: "We must return to the populationlevel of 1930"[246] - about 2 billionpeople.What the supporters
of population reduction leave discreetly unannounced is how to getrid of the 4 billion "surplus" people.
Despite his deep involvement in New Age occultism, Spangler pointsoutsome dangers of the New Age worldview: "a desire for power, the tyrannyof the group over the individual," "an attachment to novelty for itsownsake," destruction of marriages due to pursuit of "self-development," amisguided pursuit of "limitlessness," losing awareness of thetranscendenceof God, and "unwillingness to say that anything is out of place orwrong."[247]He also warns, "The new age movement in North America has much incommonwith its counterpart in Europe between the world wars. The ecologicalspiritand desire for transcendence expressed at that time in Germany becamecorruptedand channeled into the Nazi movement, which had many roots inoccultism."[248]An orthodox Christian might also offer all of these criticisms. It isunfortunatethat Spangler did not use similar discernment in his other work.
Because the radical New Age adepts extol each other's writings,speakat the same workshops, and share board memberships in the
same organizations, it's fair to assess their teachings as a group.(If this is "guilt by association," it's an association that the NewAge
gurus have created themselves.)
Taken together, the works of Robert Muller, Barbara Marx Hubbard,NealeDonald Walsch, Alice Bailey, David Spangler, and Helena
Blavatsky are an anti-Catechism: a revival of the Gnostic heresy, acomprehensive anti-Gospel, and a point-by-point inversion of Christian
morality and doctrine. The problem is not a few "smoking gun" quotespulled from otherwise-innocent writings. The adepts of the New Age
have provided an arsenal full of smoking guns, all pointed in the samedirection. Those who can stand to read New Age and theosophical
books in detail will find that these writers make clear theirintentionsfor us all - just as Hitler did with Mein Kampf and as the Communists
have done since Marx and Lenin. This time, let us heed the warning!
Is the New Age movement a conspiracy? No. Conspiracies are usuallysecretiveassociations with illegal objectives. New Age leaders and
their utopian, globalist allies are open about their aims, and theiractivities are legal. The goals of the current crop of New Agers and
utopians match what radicals have sought since the French Revolution.Their project reveals the permanent vulnerability of mankind to
temptation and sin. Consider: God remains forever, and does not change.Human nature does not change, since mankind is created in
God's image. The devil does not change, and the temptations he offersmankind do not change. From the Garden of Eden to the séances
of the theosophists, the message is the same: you will not die, andyou will be a god. Human response to temptation does not change
either; apart from God's grace, we sin. Therefore, human rebellionagainst God will follow a consistent pattern. People who wish to rebel
against God will find collaborators and mentors to affirm them andto assist them in their plans. (Also, the religious andgovernmental
authorities, by their oft-repeated injustices and abuses, put the sametemptations, scandals, and stumbling blocks before their people,
again and yet again.) What some fevered observers see asmulti-generational,international conspiracies are really just successive groups
of fallen men following temptation to its logical conclusion. If NewAge and utopian movements show unity and consistent purpose
internationally or historically, it arises from the dark spirit theyfollow, rather than from human conspiratorial skill.
The Vatican has spoken against the false teachings of the New Agemovementand the globalist utopians. The Church rejects notions of a
man-made paradise on earth: "The Antichrist's deception already beginsto take shape in the world every time the claim is made to realize
within history that messianic hope which can be only realized beyondhistory through the eschatological judgment. The Church has
rejected even modified forms of this falsification of the kingdom tocome under the name of millenarianism, especially the 'intrinsically
perverse' political form of a secular messianism."[249]As for the spiritual practices that are common in the New Age movement,the
Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "All forms of divination areto be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead
or other practices falsely supposed to 'unveil' the future. Consultinghoroscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots,
the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceala desire for power over time, history, and in the last analysis, other
human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. Theycontradictthe honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God
alone."[250]
St. Paul foresaw the spreading influence of the false prophets oftheNew Age: "Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will
depart from the faith by giving heed to deceitful spirits and doctrinesof demons." (1 Tim. 4:1). The Apostlealsowarned: "For the time is
coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itchingears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own
likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wanderinto myths." (2 Tim. 4:3-4).
The deluded and spiritually starved souls who follow New Ageteachersare, each and all, people for whom Christ died and rose again. If
people are rushing heedlessly toward the edge of a spiritual cliff,it is a spiritual work of mercy to warn them loudly, even if this means
offending them. Christ loves those who have fallen into the New Agetrap; dare we, who are members of His Body, do otherwise?
The deluded and spiritually starved souls who follow New Age,globalist,and utopian teachers are, each and all, people for whom Christ
died and rose again. Christ desires that all be saved. It isa spiritual work of mercy to warn the people involved in thesemovementsthat
they are rushing heedlessly toward the edge of a spiritual cliff.
Christ loves those who have fallen into the New Age trap; dare we,whoare members of His Body, do otherwise?
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