It’s a term we hear more about every day – “The New Age” but there is nothing new about it, it’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Read on to find out more.
New age practices come in many forms and all are promoted as an “alternative”. Alternative medicine, alternative beliefs etc. This encompasses so many things, some which may sound familiar and others which may not. Below is a non-exhaustive list.
- Yoga
- Tarot card reading
- Transcendental meditation
- Mediums & clairvoyants
- Healing with crystals (stones)
- Reading auras
- Fortune telling
- Divination
- Astrology
- Shamanism and goddess worship
- Astral projection
- Palmistry
- Numerology
- Feng shui
Not all new age practitioners subscribe to every area, but they do share common beliefs and have a very similar agenda. It’s primary teaching, (which is sometimes disguised) is all about us, the “self”. It promotes the idea that we are all gods in our own right. Take Yoga for instance, it has been an everyday word / practice for many years and a lot of people just see it as a form of exercise, but in fact it is a lot more than just exercise. Look at it this way, if you buy a car and have the owners manual in your hand, you are reading a book made by the people who created the car, they know all about the car, what it can and cannot do and what you should and should not do with it, we refer to manufacturers guides to let us know how we should interact with our products because the people who design them are giving us instructions and insights into them, and so it is with Yoga. The root meaning of the word Yoga from Sanskrit means to be yolked, but yolked to what?, well given that it’s a Hindu religious practice I’d say yolked to Hindu gods. Yoga as we’ve already said comes from Hinduism and Hindu yogi masters claim that yoga and Hinduism are inseparable, you can’t have one without the other, it is part and parcel of a religious practice. It strives to awaken spiritual forces within the body to become connected with the inner “self”. People are taught mantras (chants) and when they sit there chanting this stuff they are calling on Hindu “gods” which are in fact demonic entities just waiting to get a foothold into the person’s life and if that person is asking them to come by using mantras, then it’s an open invitation! People are deceived into thinking that they are striving for and achieving “enlightenment” when in actuality they are putting themselves into spiritual bondage under satan and ultimately under his control.
The New age teaches (one way or another) that all religions and religious teaching lead to God, but which God are they talking about? If they are talking about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob then they couldn’t be more wrong, but if they are talking about who they call god, the god of the new age; which is satan then certainly that is more close to the truth. Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father (God) except through me”, so that statement by Jesus immediately deals with the false precept that ALL paths lead to God.
Satan is all about counterfeit, he cant create anything so he has to rely on counterfeit deceit, this is why the Bible refers to him as “the father of lies”. New age practices are actually nothing new, it is merely a revival of old occult practices, re-branded and somewhat repackaged into “alternative” methods of dealing with life (instead of God) and it holds great appeal to those who deliberately want to avoid the one true living God. The devil knows this only too well and he is harnessing the allure of this to create more puppets to propagate this stuff daily, taking the focus off God and onto self. People enjoy sin, they do it as a matter of course, they don’t even think of it as sin because in the new age mentality there are no such things as sin and evil because the supreme being (The universe) is beyond all that (notice how this removes any personal accountability) so they happily lie, cheat, steal, enter into adulterous affairs etc without conscience.
It is not unusual to hear new age people use the name “Christ” or Jesus, but don’t be deceived, they are not talking exclusively about the one true Jesus, Son of God. The New Age portrays Christ as a reincarnated avatar, or messenger sent from the universe, or cosmic consciousness, to give the people on earth spiritually advanced revelation and information. The New Age teaches that Buddha, Mohammed, Confucius, Jesus, and many others were ‘Christ’ which lines up with what the Maitreya says about himself, consider this quote.
“I have not come to found a new religion,” “Lord” Maitreya says. “I have come to teach the art of Self-realization,” something which is neither an ideology nor a religion, but benefits people of all religions and those who have none. “I come to you ‘like a thief in the night'”, He tells us, “so that you will not become too excited. Slowly, as you become aware, you can ‘digest’ what is ‘eaten’. In awareness you will know Me.
In Matthew 24:5 (Amongst other places) Jesus warns us of false Christs who will come onto the world scene. “For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many.
And remembering what I said about the counterfeit deceit of satan. In the quote above Maitreya says “I come to you like a thief in the night” yet in the Bible, in several places it uses exactly that terminology. 1 Thessalonians 5:2 “For you know quite well that the day of the Lord’s return will come unexpectedly, like a thief in the night.
They further try to substantiate this avatar Christ story by claiming that Jesus spent 18 years in India studying under various mystics, sorcerers, Hindus and Buddha etc.
Now think about a buzz word which has been circulating the meeting table of many Church leaders for quite a long time now (especially state churches) “Ecumenicism”, that is, a version of “Christianity” which embraces all faiths. Now, don’t get me wrong here, I’m not against unity, but it must be unity in Christ. Jesus wanted His people to be one, to be unified, but if people have different beliefs which contradict the word of God then there is no unity of Spirit and we must Worship Him in Spirit and in truth!
So the ecumenical movement, mirrored by this new age “all roads lead to God” view indeed sounds like a recipe for disaster, which leads us to another Scripture. 1 Timothy 4:1 “The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.”
A lot of people are in danger because of this mass deception, and I use the word deception in the strongest terms because that’s exactly what it is. Sure, there are people involved in some aspects of the new age movement because they know and understand exactly what it is and they chose their own path, but there are also those who are lured into this stuff completely unaware of what it is they are getting themselves into, and then left wondering why things start to go badly wrong in their lives.
This has turned into rather a long post, and could probably grow to twice this size, but I hope from this you will get the idea that nothing good can come from involvement in the new age movement. It also worries me to see this stuff increasing at an alarming rate in Norway and the Church is not doing anything to take a stand against it, NOTHING!
On an end-note I’d just like to add my personal thoughts on what it is those people who get into transcendental meditation are dealing with. They say they make contact with “Ascended masters” on a higher plain of consciousness. I think that these so called ascended masters are actually demonic entities impersonating some guru and I also think that the same are tied in with the UFO phenomena (See my separate post on UFO’s). Check out this picture below which I preened from the Facebook page of a practicing Norwegian psychotherapist.
That picture was designed by someone who knows the truth about all of this, but worse still is enjoyed by people who think there is a shortcut to health and happiness outside God.
Be sure of this. The devil is out to deceive you but he has no power or authority over you when you are in Christ Jesus, the one true Jesus and NOT the Aquarian age jesus which these people teach.
If you have been roped into any of this stuff, I’d advise you to get out now, repent of it and ask God to cleanse you. If you need Prayer then please just leave a message and we will gladly Pray with you and do what it takes to get you delivered from this trap.
God Bless you.
As a final addendum I am including this talk by Bill Schnoebelen. A man who has probably been involved in more new age / occult stuff than most people we could mention. Bill who finally found the truth and gave his life to the Lord now shares about his experiences in so many of the areas which he was involved. The talk begins with a brief testimony from Bill before he gets down to the subject matter, so just stick with it and hopefully you may learn something that you didn’t know. I Pray the precious blood of Jesus over you as you listen that you would not be affected by anything revealed in the presentation. Amen.
Jesus Norway 