Before we continue I want to ask a couple of things of you: Forget everything that you think that you know about Christianity and the Bible. Embrace the possibility that within Christianity there is room for more love, joy, vibrant bliss and ecstasy than you could possibly imagine or find anywhere else. That when Jesus said: “the truth shall set you free” he really meant this. Which implies that if we view the Bible as a boring rulebook that hinders us from doing what we really want to do, we have misunderstood it. Because yes, the Bible asks things of us, which other teachings don’t. It asks us to do some things and give up others. But it doesn’t ask anything of us that isn’t for our own good.
If we wish to bring some more clarity into what may be called “spiritual confusion”, we need to start by asking ourselves the right questions: “Does this really lead me where it promises to lead me?”, “How does this actually benefit me and those around me?”, “Where is this leading me?”, “How is it truly affecting me?”, “Does it lead to more clarity or more confusion?”, “What is the purpose of this particular practice that I’m engaged in?” and “Does it truly fulfill that purpose?”. Another question that also most definitely is important is: “Does this truly make me happy?”
I’m not pretending to know what your answers are to these questions. I only know what mine are, which I hope will become clear throughout this text.
One thing that I do know for a fact however, is that regardless of prior beliefs, God is not just some abstract creative force. God is deeply personal, has a will and communicates with us in different ways all the time. And this is a good thing, because this means that we have perfect guidance to rely on. That we’re not left to our own faulty reason when it comes to figuring our how to think, speak and act. Because even if we need to use our reason to the best of our ability, on our own we will inevitably be led astray. There are so many forces, both within ourselves and in the world that confuse and deceive us.
That God is personal, has a will and communicates with us I know as absolute truth. This I know from personal experience. I’m not asking you to take my word for it. What I’m asking is to try this way of viewing God out for yourself, pray about it, meditate on it and use it as the lense through which you view the world. Take it seriously and see where it leads you. For me, it also finally led me to Jesus and the Holy Spirit. These are now real to me. Not just abstract figures that I can read about in the Bible. And my relationship with them is growing every day.
Now comes the part where I might really lose you. Therefore I feel the need to explain what I’m saying before I say it. I believe that there is a reason behind why mainly Christians and New Agers are waking up to the state of the world. Because of this and other reasons, I’m not prepared to dismiss everything within the New Age, even though I firmly believe in the truth of the Bible.
Now, there is an awakening happening on the planet. One that is spiritual in nature. And I don’t think that anyone knows exactly what this awakening is. More and more people are awakening every day. We are awakening to the true state of the world and what powers are truly governing it. What powers are governing us. We are awakening to more and more spiritual aspects of our physical reality. And we are awakening to more and more aspects of what is going on inside ourselves. For many of us, this has become a lived, undeniable reality.
Furthermore, I firmly believe that everything that is true about this awakening is 100% biblical. This means that everything about it that is true must be compatible with the Bible. And everything that we ever need should fit into this framework. The only things that we need to discard, are empty things that don’t benefit us anyway. Things that just cause us pain and confusion. Again I urge you to ask yourself the right questions. Because it’s so easy to get lost in what sounds good on the surface, but does not keep its promises. And at least for me and my wife, it has been difficult to admit to ourselves that what we have invested much time and energy into, has not lead us where it promised. Where we hoped that it would lead us.
What exactly this means I have yet to figure out. Some people say that you should stay away from any spirituality that is not from the Bible or about the Bible. While I respect these beliefs and do not wish to dismiss them, I don’t feel that I, in good conscience, can accept them without thorough examination.
For example, I find nothing in the Bible that contradicts the idea that we need to cultivate a non-reactive mindset. When we learn to just feel the emotions that come up in different situation without reacting to them, we can begin to allow the emotions to guide our actions instead of controlling them. Just like we should often not act on the first thought that pops into our minds either. If we learn this, I believe that it will make us better Christians. We may even clear the path for the Holy Spirit to act through us.
I also know for a fact that suppressed emotional energy gets stored in the body as tensions, which authors that often get grouped within the New Age, such as David Hawkins, have pointed out.
And here we come to the crux of the matter. There is so much dead weight in the New Age. And what I believe is that the Bible will help us to understand what we need to shed and what can be kept. Here I find two questions helpful: “Does this have any demonstrable practical use?” and “Is it compatible with Biblical teachings?”
I have just shown two examples of what I believe can be useful. Now I’m going to give you an example of what I believe should not just be discarded, but shun like the plague: I believe you should stay far away from channelers. For those that don’t know, channeling is when someone allows their body to be taken over by a spiritual entity so that it can communicate through them.
The Bible is full of warnings concerning this type of activity. This is simply because we don’t know what these channeled entities are. And as far as I’m concerned the channelings that I’ve read about or listened to have not given me anything of practical value. It has mostly been either gibberish or ideas about the world that can neither be confirmed nor falsified. I believe that if these channeled entities really are higher beings, that are here to help us, they should be able to tell us things that are useful and not just feed us claims about how the world works. Claims that, again, cannot be confirmed or falsified.
Besides, the Bible clearly says that after Jesus left his earthly life, God sent us his Holy Spirit. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit is with us all the time and that it has the same power to help and guide us as Jesus. So why would you need to turn to other spirits for help?
In other words, my experience tell me that, with regards to channeling, the answer is “no” to both of the questions that I just posed.
I would furthermore advice anyone wishing to study authors labelled New Age to approach them with caution. It’s so easy to buy into a whole package when we see that it contains some truth and wisdom. Me and my wife have both been led astray by teachings within the New Age that we now can see are not sound.
In other words, I don’t believe that everything about the New Age is evil or satanic. But I do believe that most of it leads us astray. And I do believe that some of it would qualify as Satanic. At least when taken together.
I believe that just like we can check what is sound against the teachings of the Bible, we can actually check what is unsound against the teachings of the Satanic Bible by Anton Szandor Lavey. I believe that Lavey, in very clear language, has laid out satanic doctrine in exact detail, while promoting it as a common sense philosophy.
The idea that we are our own gods is the first satanic idea that comes to mind. Another one is that everything is relative. That there are no absolute truths. Together with this one comes also the trivialization of everything. That nothing is really serious and that we are mainly here to have fun and explore. And yeah, the idea mentioned in the beginning, of God as just an impersonal force, can actually also be found in the Satanic Bible. What I’ve noticed is that when we have no absolute truths to rely on, our perception of reality becomes distorted. When we take nothing seriously, we end up excusing all kinds of behavior by saying that “ultimately it doesn’t matter anyway”. And when we view God as just an impersonal force, we miss the whole point of religion and spirituality.
To conclude: Mine and my wife’s experience with New Age can be summed up as follows. We did find some usefulness in some authors often classified as New Age. The aforementioned David R. Hawkins is one of them. Two others that come to mind are Eckhart Tolle and Joe Dispenza. But for the most part, it sent us on a wild goose chase. We ended up seeking more and more knowledge, self-development and abilities, while in reality getting nowhere. We found that much within it that promises healing, power and knowledge actually breaks us, disempowers us and causes more and more confusion.
When we finally decided to embrace the message of the Bible and discard everything that was incompatible with it, we invited peace and healing into our lives. While that which on the surface seemed reasonable within the New Age didn’t hold up when tested against reality, the opposite proved to be true when it came to the Bible. What on the surface seemed unreasonable in the Bible, proved true when tested against reality. And the more we studied the Bible, the more we started to see the infinite depth that it contains. This while other teachings more and more revealed the shallowness behind their often many words. Which for us at least shows the truth in the saying of st. Paul, that “…the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God” (1 Corinthians 3:19).
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