New Age Spirituality: Falsehoods of Satan or Spiritual Enlightenment?

Dearly Beloved,

A growing popular movement in the world is the New Age Movement. It seeks neophyte pilgrims who are unaware of spiritual reality and those who tend towards prideful fantasies. However, there is nothing new in New Age Spirituality. New Age is Old Age, because it is based on the pride displayed by Satan at the time of his fall. The features of New Age Spirituality are, in sum, as follows:
  • Those that believe that God is a higher state of consciousness that the individual practitioner may reach.
  • Those who define God as the total realization of human potential.
  • Those that believe that all men and women are God.
  • Those who turn over control of their destiny to heavenly bodies: Astrology
  • Those who allow spirits or spiritual power to affect their life decisions: Tarot Cards, Mediumism, Sooth Sayers, etc.
  • Those who practice idolatry.

    • But what does the Nicene Creed tell us all in its opening line?
    "I believe in ONE God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and of ALL things visible and invisible.

    New Age Spirituality espouses humanism as being capable of being God and doing all those things that God does. The bankruptcy of the New Age Movement is that no creature of God can usurp the power or essence of God, nor can a creature assume the role that God occupies in His Creation. All creatures of God are limited to being just that: creatures. Creatures can never be made equal with God at any time. Even the Most Holy Theotokos is not equal with God and she is not deserving of our worship as if she is God, which she is not. As the most excellent creature of God, the Theotokos is deserving of being the object of our veneration. As the Most Excellent Servant of God, the Theotokos is deserving of being our prayerful intercessor before God on our behalf by her own prayers. The Theotokos, however, is NOT a fourth person of the Godhead. The Holy Trinity consists of Three Persons, Who are One in Essence, and Undivided: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

    Whenever a man or woman equates a creature, animate or inanimate, with God and worships it, then such a practice is called idolatry. It is a blasphemy against God to commit idolatry, since, it is disrespectful to elevate a creature to the status of being the object of divine worship. Whenever a man or woman equates a creature, animate or inanimate, with God, such is foolishness, since, the limitations of God's creatures are manifestly obvious when compared to the Glory of God Who bestows upon us His Agape, His Mercy, and His Rule. For example, the mind is a creature of God's that inhabits our body and has a limit of capability that is like what we encounter when we specify a computer for purchase by asking how much memory does it have? The computer is limited to tasks which do not exceed the amount of memory installed. For this reason, God cannot be defined as a higher state of consciousness. Moreover, since the totality of tasks required to demonstrate the total realization of our human potential is quantified by the achievement of perfection and totality of purpose, the limitations of the mind and body and spirit, contained in each of us, are such that God cannot be so limited in His essence to meet such a definition. Therefore, men and women can never be gods, although, they can, through prayer, fasting, and repentance, become like God, containing that property of being sanctified, or purified from the propensity to commit sin.

    The process of becoming like God is called Theosis and it is usually impossible for us to fully attain such a capability. Certainly, not by our own efforts, but ONLY by the Help of God can we attain Theosis. Satan suggests that Theosis can be obtained through our own efforts...New Age Spirituality is a self-study, self-made, and self-generated attempt at attaining Theosis. Such a self-effort, without God, is doomed to failure.

    Some ask, why is Astrology the object of such scorn? The answer is revealed when we study what it is that Astrology represents that it is. Astrology is the principle that gravitation of heavenly bodies affect how we act, how we feel, how we interact with others, how we conduct our relationships, how we conduct our love life, etc. But, if heavenly bodies can affect the destinies of our actions and choice of actions, then, our free will is usurped and we are not accountable to God, therefore, for our sins. So, Astrology is an attempt, by sinners, to escape the judgment of a righteous God. However, God is not mocked! God is all-knowing, all-seeing, present everywhere and thus...God will judge you and me and all others. The only possible truth to Astrology, as a science of bunk, is to say that the heavenlies can potentially affect us if we exercise no self constraint against these tendencies. The question is not what the stars have in store for us...the question is how do we live our life on Earth? Success or failure in giving agape to God and our neighbors is the ONLY standard that we work with all our life long.

    Flee, therefore, from all forms of New Age Spirituality, which, in sum, is the worship of false gods and our feeble attempts to elevate ourselves to be the God of the Universe and Creation. Such fanciful thoughts lead to destruction and failure. Therefore, come to the ONE saving Faith of Christ Jesus. Jesus Christ, our Lord is the Only Sinless One and the ONLY Perfect One, Alpha and Omega, God Incarnate, Who is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore. Therefore, we can count on Jesus Christ for everything and all things concerning our life because He created each of us. Glory to Christ, our Lord, Glory to Him!

    The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
    Created: October 20, 2008 at 12:30 PM UTC
    Author: Brother Petros Theodoros Presbeftes
    Monastery of St. Michael, San Ignacio, Belize.
    Copyright © 2008, by the Monastery of St. Michael and Petros Presbeftes. All Rights Reserved.