12 Elul 5761 / 31 Aug. 2001
For the past several decades, as a strategic exploitation by the Secular Humanist camp of the human tendency toward the spiritual, there has been a concerted propagation of a spirituality which denies G-D and His Law. This Modern Pagan Resurgence promoted by leading personalities including "former" Communists (e.g., Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela) is the so-called New Age Movement.
The essence of the NAM is Spirituality Without [Biblical] Morality. The NAM is a collection of movements that seeks to supplant the relatively monotheistic worldview of Western society with a modern version of the occultic, pre-Abrahamic pagan worldview. Shifting Paradigms, one name for the NAM, is correct, but vague. Back to Babel is more precise.
Herein this term includes (but is not necessarily limited to) classical idolatry, pantheism, neo-pantheism, and Eastern faiths (e.g., Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Yoga, Jainism, Shintoism, as well as numerous forms of occultism).
Generally refers to the deification of the entirety of being/nature.
Gaining prominence in the NAM, refers to the doctrine that imagines the deity as merely an intelligent force or Natural Law immanent within nature not separate from it that causes everything to exist and function.
Unlike classical pantheism, this view does not deify the physical world itself, but rather the Universal Life-force Energy they imagine animates it. In Eastern faiths, particularly in the healing arts and martial arts, this Universal Energy is known as Chi (China), Ki (Japan), and Prana (India); in English it is sometimes referred to as subtle energy, vital energy, or vital force.
Generally speaking, this includes a range of paranormal practices, often employing harmful spiritual forces and/or harmful Altered States of Consciousness [or fraud, in some cases]. This includes divination, sorcery/witchcraft/magic, spiritism (e.g., channeling spirits, communicating with the dead), etc.
Occult practices involve performing actions or obtaining information in paranormal ways. The Torah explicitly forbids to Jews an array of occultic practices . Furthermore, Occultism often involves actual paganism. For example, the modern Witchcraft faith, includes goddess worship and, apparently, actual Satan worship.
Many involved in the New Age Movement are unaware of the gross evils that lie at its core. Some of these are idealistic albeit misled and would leave in disgust if alerted to the repugnant essence of the movement.
Spiritual Humanism appeals to many secularists because it offers (although doesnt truly deliver) the benefits of spirituality without the restrictions of Biblical morality. This leads us to the next point:
The trend of Spiritual Humanism actually works in tandem with Secular Humanism. [This fact stands in contrast to insidious attempts to portray the two as in genuine conflict.] Secular Humanism has created a spiritual vacuum, and thus a thirst for spirituality, but it has also destroyed much of the receptivity of society to a Biblical code that asserts objective moral values. Consequently, immoral Spiritual Humanism is filling that spiritual vacuum. Thus, millions now seek the thrill of unholy spiritual experiences (many naively so), and reject the moral restraints of the Almighty.
Let us not be taken in. It is this type of spirituality that many former secularists have been promoting: spirituality without the Almighty. The NAM is merely an alternate strategy in the ongoing war against Him.
Composition of the NAM:
Many leading NAM activists were anti-moral, subversive radicals in the 60s era. A few examples are:
, founder of Lindesfarne Institute, prolific feminist New Age author and 'philosopher'. , a leader of the 'Jewish Renewal Movement', a deviation from Judaism more extreme than even the apostate Reform and Reconstructionist movements. , editor of Tikkun Magazine, activist in the 'Jewish Renewal Movement' and in the NAM in general, organizer of the 1996 NAM Summit on Ethics and Meaning at the White House.
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