Why The "New Age" Will Out Last Other Belief Syste

[SpeakerofTruth]

The “new age” movement launched its star via Theosophy and Madame Blavatsky. While Theosophy started in the 1800s, a host of other movements were derived from the movement. Anthroposophy and the “new thought” movement are derivatives of Theosophy.

Now, I will go about explaining why the “new age” movement will out last all other belief systems.

If there is any truth to the statement that “The truth never dies,” then the “new age” is the truest of the true. Many will say, “Hey, wait a minute!!” Wait a minute indeed. Ninety percent of what we call “new age” is not new at all. As a matter of fact, most of it pre-dates Christianity and certainly Islam.

Given the fact that so much of the “new age” is actually ancient knowledge, it is a given fact that it’s not going anywhere. The beliefs of the “new age” have been around for ages and will likely be around for ages to come.

Secondly, the “new age” belief system is actually a mixture of all belief systems. When one approaches the “new age” belief system, he/she is overwhelmed with a faith of all faiths. The “new age” has pagan, tenets;Christian; Jewish;Islamic;Hindu;Budhist; et cetera. There is no other belief system quite like it.

Thirdly, the “new age” faith is truly a faith of peace, love and light. While the three major religions of Christianity,Islam and Judaism continue their wars for global domination, “new agers” are seeking a world of peace, love and light. Anyone who argues otherwise are just denying the obvious.

To understand why the “new age” off ers the allure that it does, one has to understand what it offers. What does the “new age” offer? Hope. Not just hope for a select few who conform to the ways of some rigid doctrine, but hope for all people. “New Agers” believe in the God of Jesus, not the blood god of the Old Testament.

I am not suggesting that the Old Testament is false. actually, I believe that it is quite true; I just don’t believe that the god of the Old Testament is the same God of Jesus. For those who are familiar with Gnosticism, you will understand what I am saying.

Of course, Gnosticism is not exclusively “new age,” but it can certainly be considered an aspect of it. Gnosticism is a belief system that not even the mighty Church of Rome could extinguish!! Gnosticism is just one of the many ancient beliefs that exist within the “new age.”

Some argue that the “new age” is a bunch of “mumbo-jumbo” mysticism; however, if it is such “mumbo-jumbo,” why the longevity? Modern science certainly has not been able to conclusively disprove any of the “mumbo-jumbo.” Au contraire, if anything, via quantum physics it has confirmed some of the tenets of the “new age.”

It is imperative for everyone to understand that spirtuality is all important.In a world where the big three world religions are talking more about waging war than the spirit, people are going to turn to those speaking of the spirit. Who is speaking of the spirit,not of war? The “New Age” movement!!

[JennyHeart]

New age religion offers many an escape from the fear of Hell.

But new age religion is still a religion, and religion, a fantastic way of dealing with difficult realities, is losing ground to the more courageous non-denialistic method of simply facing difficult realities head-on.

Thus religion is on its way out.

Gone will be the fantasy of before/afterlife used to cope with exacerbated fear of the reality of one’s mortality.

Gone will be the myth of “soul” that is really merely the metaphor for the detached feeling side in the mentally centered who comprise the dwindling majority of the population, a detachment that causes the feeling side to be experienced as a “barely there zhephyr-like fairy spirit”.

Gone will be the delusion that one’s spirit is “sent to live” in the body. That delusion will be replaced by the reality that the body and its neurosystem, being an organism assembly of tens of trillions of living cells that, by its very nature of being life packed so closely together creates a new life – the spirit of our being, our “I am” base – at the next level, and that without the “body” there would be no spiritually manifested sense of being and self.

As people courageously face the reality of who and what they are, the fantasies of religion will be revealed for what they truly are: fantasies.

Along with facing the truth of the matter about the fantasy of “Santa Christ” and the like in traditional social religion will be the facing of the truth endemic to all religions, including new age religion: there is no religious “soul” or before/after life – all of these are fantasies used to cope with difficult realities we simply, “back then” weren’t ready to face.

Now, we are ready to face them.

As more and more needs are being met worldwide at the base of Maslow’s Hierarchy, the lack of such needs being met, which heretofore exacerbated the experience of the reality of one’s mortality beyond toleration and into religious coping, will disappear, and thus also will disappear the resultant lack-of-basic-needs-being-met coping itself: religion.

Along with progress in meeting material needs, voluntary reduction of population to reduce scarcity, and courageous enlightened heart-centered advancement in science, philosophy, socio-economics, etc., facing the truth of reality will be valued highly.

That means that fantasy-based delusions, like religion, will be devalued, eventually to be deposited on the scrapheap of human history.

Got courage?

[SpeakerofTruth]

Jennyheart, what you are saying is something science has been promulagating since its very inception. It hasn’t happened yet. Religion is still here and is likely to remain here. My argument is, that of all the beliefs, the “new age” belief system is the one most likely to survive any onslaught of secularism.

Secularism is a signification of part of what is wrong with today’s society. The belief in nothing seems to pervade even through some of our youth. I personally think that the picture you paint is a rather sad one… It’s certainly not the “utopia” that you are trying to paint it out to be.

[Faust]

The “New Age” is based upon, and stems from, rampant consumerism. It is a designer “religion”. Quite literally. You can now buy New Age artifacts to fit any decor, and you can do it at your local mall. The “New Age” doesn’t provide hope, unless the hope you are talking about is the complete freedom from psychic pain, or spiritual commitment.

The New Age is the big, comfortable La-Z-Boy of “religions”.

The attraction is not diminished by the fact that the newager can “experience” parts of different beliefs - the parts that they find pleasing, without making any commitment to any of them, and certainly without understanding any of them. Eastern religions have long held a fascination for those who have no idea what those religions mean culturally. Religion, any religion, excised form its societal milieu, is “religion lite”.

We like it “lite”. Just listen to New Age “music”. The elevator music of “heaven”.

[SpeakerofTruth]

Faust, you are not completely wrong in your analysis. One of the basic problems with “new agers” is that their beliefs are so convoluted,much like mine, that sometimes it’s hard to decipher exactly what they believe. They believe so many different thing and in so many different aspects of solitary things, that some people become quite confused trying to figure out what exactly some new agers believe.

I don’t suppose your criticism goes without warrant,faust. I don’t really think you necessarily intended it to be a criticism,but, being of a “new age” mentality, that is how I am taking it.

[JennyHeart]

@SpeakerofTruth

Jennyheart, what you are saying is something science has been promulagating since its very inception.

Facing the truth about the reality of one’s mortality isn’t so much about science as it is about socio-economics, which, when we meet human needs, eliminates the exacerbated fear of the reality of our mortality that we would otherwise face when we are too young to deal with it and cope with religion instead of truly dealing with it.

Once you defer fearfully facing the reality of one’s mortality until after (emotional) childhood, facing the reality of it is easier, and does not require the coping fantasy method of religion.

The truth is what it is, and facing the truth is always for the best.

@SpeakerofTruth

It hasn’t happened yet.

The drop in religious fantasy is inversely proportional to the world-wide rise in the standard of living.

As the world-wide standard of living has risen, religion has delined.

That is happening, right now, every day.

Religion is falling out of favor.

Facing the truth of reality head-on is now in favor.

@SpeakerofTruth

Religion is still here and is likely to remain here.

Religion is still here, but it is rapidly dwindling in favor.

It will be gone when we have a world where everyone’s material needs and desires are met.

@SpeakerofTruth

My argument is, that of all the beliefs, the “new age” belief system is the one most likely to survive

New age, which is basically a “write your own religion” belief paradigm, is merely a symptom of the dwindling of religion, period.

Soon, traditional religion will be anachronistic … and new age coping will subsequently vaporize, having little of substance on which to clingingly remain.

@SpeakerofTruth

any onslaught of secularism.

There is no “onslaught of secularism”.

There is the truth of reality, that there is no “soul” or before/after life, that these are coping fantasies for dealing with difficult realities.

The fantasies of religion will be dashed simply by summoning the courage to face difficult realities – like the reality of one’s mortality – head-on.

@SpeakerofTruth

Secularism is a signification of part of what is wrong with today’s society.

“Secularism” is not an issue.

The issue is coping with difficult realities via fantasy or via facing the truth of those difficult realities head-on.

That is the only issue here.

@SpeakerofTruth

The belief in nothing seems to pervade even through some of our youth.

Keep in mind that God is far from nothing.

A relationship with God is something that is very beneficial, something atheists don’t get and agnostics barely fathom and only with their “mind”.

Also, it is important to understand that God is not required in religion, new age being a case in point.

Only “soul” and before/after life is endemic to religion.

When you say “God”, you have simply not said “religion”.

A relationship with God does not require religion, and, indeed, religion often mentally “plays” with a mere fantasy image of God, without ever allowing its practitioners a real relationship with God.

The reality of our mortality is not at all incompatible with God or a relationship with God.

That is life.

@SpeakerofTruth

I personally think that the picture you paint is a rather sad one

A relationship with God is hardly sad, and in fact is just the opposite.

Facing the reality of our mortality may bring sadness, but it mostly brings fear, at first.

When we then trust God that such is the way God has obviously intended for all living beings of God, we boldly go into the future with couragageous hope for humanity and a greater respect for our one and only life.

This brings joyfully experienced effort to work to make this, our one and only life, the best it can possibly be, not only for one’s self, but for all.

It’s really a lot of fun!

And, when you are old and tired, you will be ready to rest … and to die.

What is sad is how children, like those in Iraq, must be constantly fearful about dying, being horrifically fearful about something they shouldn’t even have to face when they’re so little. That, the precursor to all religion, is what is truly sad.

Having to deal with the spectre of their death way too soon, before they are ready to face the reality of their mortality, is what causes them to “check out” mentally and addict to fantasy coping methods like religion.

Such addictions rob people of their zest for life, replacing that zest with a manufactured and unreasonable untrue fantasy-based facsimile at best.

And that is what is truly sad.

@SpeakerofTruth

It’s certainly not the “utopia” that you are trying to paint it out to be.

There is no such thing as “utopia”.

No matter where we are, we are likely to evolve into the desire for something better, which, with effort, we will then achieve, followed by evolving within it, followed by wanting somthing better … .

It is okay to heal and to grow and to thus change for the better.

It really is.

[SpeakerofTruth]

Okay,I’m confused. Jenny, you believe in a God but no soul? I’m baffled.

By the way,I am a “new ager” and I believe in God and a soul,so, how does what you are saying wash? I mean, really?

[SpeakerofTruth]

Jenny, some of your ideas really mystify me. They do;they do.

For one, you are speaking as if you believe in God but not in a soul. Now I suppose that is allowable. However, what good is believing in one if the other doesn’t,at least according to you, exist? Secondly, you state that one doesn’t have to believe in God in order to practice religion and then you cite the “new age” as an example. What branch of the “new age” are you referring to which doesn’t believe in a God? I don’t know of any “new age” theology that doesn’t at least have a belief in a creative force in the universe. Your assumptions seem quite odd to me and somewhat contradictory.

[Faust]

Speaker - I admit to vast generalisation here. New Ageism serves a purpose if it’s an introduction to various belief systems. Perhaps you could start a thread over on Religion about one or two that you have been exposed to. perhaps there are some here who may know a bit more, and help you with your journey.

Just a thought.

[JennyHeart]

@SpeakerofTruth

Okay,I’m confused.

Perhaps.

@SpeakerofTruth

you believe in a God but no soul?

My relationship with God is solid.

The soul is the right (in western culture) cerebral-limbic hemisphere, where we feel.

The “soul” is not some zephyr-like fairy entity that may have existed before one’s material life and may live on body-less thereafter. That is a fantasy of religion born about by the religious being, almost by definition, out of touch with their feelings.

Religion is a cousin to science – both are about understanding, explaining, predicting and controlling … and, like science, religion is of the mind.

@SpeakerofTruth

By the way,I am a “new ager”

That makes sense from your previous posts.

@SpeakerofTruth

and I believe in God and a soul,

Yes, you have strong thoughts that God exists and that there is a zephyr-like fairyness to you, an entity that will live on after you die.

@SpeakerofTruth

so, how does what you are saying wash?

What I am saying is the truth. That’s how it “washes”.

What you are saying is only partially true. You think that God exists, and indeed God does. But you think you have a part of you that will live on after you die, and that is false.

For each and every one of us, when our body dies, we die, end of story … and death, is forever.

@SpeakerofTruth

I mean, really?

Imagine for a moment that there is no afterlife, that your spirit will die when your body does.

Focus on that … and think it to be true.

Now, how does that thought affect your feelings?

Do you feel afraid?

Now imagine that you suddenly really believed that to be true, that death is forever.

Would you feel very afraid?

The religious cannot cope with that fear; they can’t sit with it.

They simply do not have a relationship with God.

So they imagine that there is an afterlife … and their dominant mind uses that thought to control their feelings (via the corpus callosum), to suppress their feelings, and such brain activity is called neuropsychological dysfunction.

Hopefully, one day, you will be fortunate enough to enjoy a relationship with God.

Then you won’t hide from the reality of your mortality.

I mean, really.

[JennyHeart]

@SpeakerofTruth

Jenny, some of your ideas really mystify me. They do;they do.

The truth always seems mystical to those caught in a mental paradigm, especially the mental paradigm of religion.

@SpeakerofTruth

For one, you are speaking as if you believe in God but not in a soul.

I have a relationship with God, and there is no part of me or anyone that will live after our body dies.

@SpeakerofTruth

Now I suppose that is allowable.

Well thank you so very much.

That’s certainly more than those religion addicts in Salem gave the witches … or those flat-earther’s gave Columbus … etc.

@SpeakerofTruth

However, what good is believing in one if the other doesn’t,at least according to you, exist?

As always, it is good to face the truth.

God is real, afterlife is a fantasy.

The good in facing the truth … will astound you.

The way you expressed your “what good is” phrase, you obviously only “think” God is real, just like you “think” afterlife is real. Though religion most certainly concocts the two in limited paradigmic fashion to serve a purpose , reality, simply is, whether it serves the purpose of the limited, the mentally centered, or not .

Indeed, you won’t get very far by using only a part of your brain to discern reality, the part that thinks.

There’s much more to your discernment ability than mere thinking.

@SpeakerofTruth

Secondly, you state that one doesn’t have to believe in God in order to practice religion and then you cite the “new age” as an example. What branch of the “new age” are you referring to which doesn’t believe in a God?

I have long ago read in The Encyclopedia of Religions of a number of religions that don’t have God as a tenet.

Some would be classified as new age.

Though the names escape me, the reality of their existence does not … but I recall one theosophy-like religion as being one of them.

And indeed, the world council of religions, that includes every religion, has encyclopedically defined religion to be a philosophy that contains both the tenets of “souls” and before/after life. A tenet of God was not required to make a philosophy a religion. Without the aforementioned two tenets, even with a truely believed and therefore relationship with God as a tenet, the philosophy is not a religion.

@SpeakerofTruth

I don’t know of any “new age” theology that doesn’t at least have a belief in a creative force in the universe.

Giving a passing reference to “The Force”, which many new age religions do, does not mean a reference to God.

God must be presented as being a person and referenced with a capital “G”, or the religion is merely mimicing “physics”.

Unless God is presented as being a person there can be no personal relationship with God from the perspective of that religion.

And, whether you “know of any” religions that don’t believe in God or not is, you understand, irrelevant to the truth of the matter.

@SpeakerofTruth

Your assumptions seem quite odd to me and somewhat contradictory.

Only you among the two of us are making assumptions.

I am telling you the truth, the truth that is commonly present in the heart of us all.

There, of course, is no contradiction in my presentation.

It seems “odd” to you because you are preconditioned by religiousity to link God and afterlife.

So, my question to you is, what ever gave you the ridiculously unreal thought that you would live on after your body died?

It certainly wasn’t God.

[Mastriani]

“There are no new ideas, I can only relate the father’s words in my way, in my time.”

(Paraphrased)
PtahHotep

[Gobbo]

But new age religion is still a religion, and religion, a fantastic way of dealing with difficult realities, is losing ground to the more courageous non-denialistic method of simply facing difficult realities head-on.

Thus religion is on its way out.

Gone will be the fantasy of before/afterlife used to cope with exacerbated fear of the reality of one’s mortality.

Gone will be the myth of “soul” that is really merely the metaphor for the detached feeling side in the mentally centered who comprise the dwindling majority of the population, a detachment that causes the feeling side to be experienced as a “barely there zhephyr-like fairy spirit”.

The new age ‘movement’, like any movement in recent history, is a consumerist cloud with an actual thought core at the base.

It’s funny that Jenny puts such a strong faith in science, when at one time religion once took the place of science. Well that time is coming back around again.

When new agers talk of ‘light’ and ‘hope’ these are to be viewed as thoughts that have an impact on the physical reality – because they do. Most of what the true core of the new age movement is about is waking up and realizing the true nature of our bodies; the nature that those in power do not want us to see. The nature they actively try to suppress. This is where our science will climax (or it will be redone in the public domain): the true nature of thought/belief/manifest triangle.

[Faust]

Gobbo - I just wonder how much of this is true. I supposed it’s better to be “addicted” to reiki than to take antibiotics every time you have a minor infection. And sitting on a grass mat, next to a crystal pyramid and a smelly candle, can’t really do much harm, I suppose. Unless you need to be doing something else instead. I wouldn’t try to cure cancer with it, although I wouldn’t try a lot of what the doctors would tell me to, either.

Hope is okay, too. As long as it’s directed at something. But “hope” alone is no better than some other empty abstraction. If the New Age really is directed at life, then it may do some good. I cannot help the impression I get that it’s really a substitute for Prosac. I can be dissuaded from this, but the New Agers I have known, which are surely not a representative sample, seem to have taken denial to new heights.

I would like nothing better than for Speaker, or anyone, to disillusion me about this.

[SpeakerofTruth]

@Old_Gobbo

The new age ‘movement’, like any movement in recent history, is a consumerist cloud with an actual thought core at the base.

It’s funny that Jenny puts such a strong faith in science, when at one time religion once took the place of science. Well that time is coming back around again.

When new agers talk of ‘light’ and ‘hope’ these are to be viewed as thoughts that have an impact on the physical reality – because they do. Most of what the true core of the new age movement is about is waking up and realizing the true nature of our bodies; the nature that those in power do not want us to see. The nature they actively try to suppress. This is where our science will climax (or it will be redone in the public domain): the true nature of thought/belief/manifest triangle.

=D> Gobbo,very true. Jenny, and those of her ilk, refer to a god with no true love for his creation. My God is the God of all gods and the Forgiver of the forgivers… Jenny, and her ilk,at least in my opinion, are no different than athiest who believe in no deity at all. For what loving God is going to put life here on this hellish planet just to die and that is it?

It’s true, the whole mission of the “new age” movement is to move people out of the lies and deception that has been fomented since 325 A.D. You are very true in you analysis,Gobbo. =D>

[SpeakerofTruth]

@faust

Hope is okay, too. As long as it’s directed at something. But “hope” alone is no better than some other empty abstraction. If the New Age really is directed at life, then it may do some good. I cannot help the impression I get that it’s really a substitute for Prosac. I can be dissuaded from this, but the New Agers I have known, which are surely not a representative sample, seem to have taken denial to new heights.

I would like nothing better than for Speaker, or anyone, to disillusion me about this.

Faust,I can understand your questions. I am not sure how some of this “airy” theology entered the “new age” movement. To me, the “new age” is more centered around Gnosticism,Theosophy and the teachings of the mystery schools rather than this “crystal therapy” and “pyramid power” stuff. To be honest, I don’t even know what those things are derived from, certainly not from Gnosticism or Theosophy.

[Faust]

Speaker - I see. Perhaps I am then the victim of my own stereotypical views. As I said, I would welcome being educated on this. Can you tell us what Theosophy means to you?

Actually, I would be interested in anything you might have to say about what may be a more accurate view of New Age philosophy than I am evidently aware of.

[SpeakerofTruth]

Well,Theosophy is one of those things that is metaphysical in nature.
Here I will give you some links to information on Theosophy,Gnosicism and the “mystery” schools. Read and study at your own leisure.

Theosophy

http://www.theosophy.org/

http://www.theosophy.com/index.html

Mystery Schools

http://www.theosociety.org/pasadena/mysterys/mystsch.htm

http://northernway.org/school.html

http://www.magickriver.net/FOL.htm

Gnosticism

http://www.gnosis.org/gnintro.htm

Link to the Nag Hammadi library:

http://www.gnosis.org/

I hope you enjoy the links,Faust. I will be glad to clarify any further questions that you may have.

[iis]

New Age, and it’s various related offshoots, are going to be the main succesors of religion in the postmodern, comsumerist era. They appeal to the psychological features that make religion attractive, without causing a clash with modern lifestyles or beliefs. They also allow one to incorporate a number of practices and philosophys wihtout worrying about fitting it all together under some overall ideology. Where New Ageism does clash with science/Western culture, they can claim that these are merely signs of a conflicted, unelightened mind.

[Xunzian]

I’m with Faust.

I’ve yet to meet a New Ager who can demonstrate a depth and grace that, gosh, almost any organized religion I can think of, can muster. It invariably boils down to some gnostic nonsense about esoteric experiences and the individual, and coupling those with a forgiving diety.

It takes the laziest elements of Buddhism, combines them with the laziest aspects of Christianity, and adorns it with the shallowest of Daoist metaphysics backed by pseudo-science.

I am hard-pressed to find a movement I like less . . .aside from the “I’ve only read (and misunderstood) the Daodejing, so I’m a Taoist”-strain of Daoism. In my experience, New Age takes a gross mis-representation of the afformentioned faiths and smushes them together in a very awkward way. Broad, but very, very, very shallow.

Edit:
Just to make my position clear: I think it is a vile and disgusting perversion. There, I said it.

I feel much better.