Posted on 01/19/2011 5:52:29 AM PST by spirited irish
More than eighty years ago, America began moving away from its' founding Biblical-based worldview to what President Calvin Coolidge identified as "pagan materialism." Fearing for the future of our Constitutional Republic he said in a speech delivered on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, July 5, 1926:
"Democracy is Christ's government in church and state," said Coolidge as he quoted John Wise (1710). "Here was the doctrine of equality, popular sovereignty, and the substance of the theory of inalienable rights....When we take all these circumstances into consideration, it is but natural that the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence should open with a reference to Nature's God and should close...with an appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world and an assertion of a firm reliance on Divine Providence...In its main feature the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man---these are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. " (Backfired: A Nation Born for Religious Tolerance No Longer Tolerates Religion, William J. Federer, pp. 270-271)
The "pagan materialism" Coolidge warned against is evolutionary materialist scientism, also known as Secular Humanism. Materialism is neither new nor scientific. In the main, it is ancient Epicurean Atomism revamped and dressed up as modern science.
Materialism teaches that all that exists is merely material or energy which is impersonal, totally neutral to any moral system or any interest in man as man. In this view, there is no basis for law, and no basis for man as unique and important.
Materialism is of the world view of monism which teaches that all that exists is "one self-creating, self-sufficient substance" which may be divine spirit (pantheism) or spiritless substance (materialism).
Monism is held in common by materialism, pantheism, and spiritualism and dates back to pagan antiquity and was or is taught by all non-biblical thought systems from Buddhism to Epicureanism, Gnosticism and today's New Age Cosmic Humanism.
Monism teaches that all things, including mankind, are merely diverse parts of the one-substance. God is acceptable to this monistic frame of mind only if He is not something outside of and superior to the one-substance but one with it. In other words, God must be dispersed throughout the whole substance.
In his book, "Utopia: The Perennial Heresy," Thomas Molnar explains that evolution, whether Darwinian or a spiritual conception such as Teilhard's idea, serves as an imaginary mechanism of perfection for both man and the one-substance:
"Through evolution the world substance becomes progressively pure, homogenous and perfect until the terminal point is reached..." (p.235) At that point, there is either a perfected non-spiritual substance (materialism) or a perfectly spiritualized substance (pantheism). For utopians this means a heaven on earth ruled by perfected god-men.
In that materialism excludes the transcendent Creator, angels, demons, heaven, and hell it must also explain away man's God-given individual spiritual endowments --soul, mind, free will, and conscience-- attributes defined by the Founders as self-evident truths, for it is self-evidently true that all men think, choose, and feel guilt. In short, in denying the existence of God the Father and man's supernaturally endowed attributes, materialist scientism abolishes our unalienable rights, thereby making worthless both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
It was for this reason that Coolidge warned against pagan materialism:
"Unless the faith of the American in these religious (Biblical) convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We cannot continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause." (ibid, p. 265; emphasis added)
Despite the valiant efforts of Pres. Coolidge and many other men of integrity to edify Americans, the consensus in contemporary America and the western world is no longer Biblical but pagan, that is, Cosmic Humanism (Eastern/Gnostic occult New Age) and Secular Humanism (materialist scientism).
In practical terms, this means that through the goetia (black magic) of Darwinian transformism "we the people" have been speculatively reduced to aggregates of matter, subsumed into the "one substance" and now have solidarity (oneness) with apes, rocks, trees, fish, tumblebugs, pond scum, and dirt. Individual salvation has become collective salvation, individual rights are now group rights, male-female created distinctions have been melted down into androgyny, and monogamous marriage has become a sexual free-for-all.
Law, foreign affairs, taxation, politics, immigration, morality and all other important decisions are now decided by a small group of "elites," many of whom are New Age spiritists led by spirit guides and Transcended Masters, and what they decide at any given moment is supposedly for the common good of society. These all-powerful individuals are America's Ruling Class, and in back of them, the U.N., NGOs, and other powerful global organizations.
The Return to Paganism
C.S. Lewis observed in The Abolition of Man (1947) that Cosmic and Secular Humanism appeared in Western history in the heart of Christendom during the Renaissance. The Renaissance reawakened a magic view of the world closely connected with pagan Gnostic sectarianism, Eastern pantheism as well as alchemical-scientism. Along with Eastern pantheism came spiritual evolution, reincarnation, karma and occultism, which means that evolutionary conceptions existed long before Darwin.
Early on Lewis understood that Cosmic and Secular Humanism were merely two sides of the same revival of pagan monism. Thus he argued, Cosmic and Secular Humanism are not enemies in principle but rather cooperating philosophies united against the transcendent Creator, Christianity and Christian-based civilization.
Brooks Alexander also identifies both Cosmic and Secular Humanism as the two sides of pagan monism. And because they are from the same root they tend to cross-pollinate and:
"mingle, producing a brood of offspring that exhibits the genetic heritage of its parents in a confused and confusing array. Soon it becomes impossible to say whether a given movement, trend or school of thought is a secular impulse that has absorbed Eastern/occult values, or an Eastern/occult teaching that has dressed itself in secular language." (The Rise of Cosmic Humanism: What is Religion?" Brooks Alexander, SCP Journal, 1981-82, p. 2)
"Ye Can Be As Gods"
The powerfully seductive Big Lie underlies both Cosmic and Secular Humanism. This thought is expressed openly in the teachings of Swami Vivekananda and Dr. Beverly Galyean, leading exponent of occult New Age confluent education:
"The Buddhists and the Jains do not depend on God; but the whole force of their religion is directed to the great central truth in every religion: to evolve a God out of man." (Inspired Talks, Ramakrishna Vivekananda Center, 1958, p. 218)
"Once we begin to see that we are all God, that we have the attributes of God, then, I think the whole purpose of human life is to reown the Godlikeness within us...So my whole view is very much based on that idea." (Galyean quoted by Francis Adeney, Educators Look East, Radix 12, No. 3, Nov-Dec. 1980, p. 21)
This same idea expressed in secular terms such as self-realization and self-actualization (a term coined by Abraham Maslow) underlies many contemporary psychotherapies.
In carefully couched terms, the "Humanist Manifesto" (1973) also declares autonomous man's godhood:
"We affirm that moral values derive their source from human experience. Ethics is autonomous and situational...life has meaning because we create and develop our futures."
The conclusion of both Cosmic and Secular Humanism is the same: human beings can be as God and invent their own "ten commandments."
Another key point at which Cosmic and Secular Humanism intersect is evolution. Secular Humanism adopted the Gnostic myth of biological (Darwinian) evolution as an explanation both for the origin and development of life as well as for the perfecting of the one substance and mankind. Cosmic Humanism springboards off of Darwinism into imaginary spiritual conceptions such as Teilhard de Chardins' idea. The apostate French Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) taught that God emerges from matter. According to him, this evolution of God from the world results in evolution becoming "conscious of itself" and ultimately, in the transformation of all matter into "Christ consciousness" or "pure spirit." He called this final stage the "Omega Point" or "the cosmic Christ."
New Age techniques to get in touch with the "Christ consciousness" include physical exercises, special diets (especially vegetarianism), biofeedback, chanting, psychodrama, consciousness-raising strategies, hypnosis and self-hypnosis, centering, body disciplines and therapies such as hatha yoga and aikido as well as sensitivity groups and encounter groups, Zen, Tibetan Buddhism and transcendental meditation and yoga. Former guru Rabindranath R. Maharaj, now a committed follower of Jesus Christ, describes his former transcendental meditation ritual and its' terrifying consequences:
"Nothing was more important than our daily transcendental meditation, the heart of Yoga, which Krishna advocated as the surest way to eternal Bliss. But it could also be dangerous. Frightening psychic experiences awaited the...meditator, similar to a bad trip on drugs. Demons described in the Vedas had been known to take possession of some Yogis. Kundalini power, said to be coiled like a serpent at the base of the spine, could produce ecstatic experiences when released in deep meditation--or...it could do great mental and bodily harm. The line between ecstasy and horror was very fine...During daily meditation I began to have visions of psychedelic colors, to hear unearthly music, and to visit exotic planets where the gods conversed with me, encouraging me to attain even higher states of consciousness. Sometimes in my trance I encountered the same horrible demonic creatures...depicted by the images in Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto, and other religious temples. It was a frightful experience, but the Brahmacharya explained that it was normal and urged me to pursue the quest for Self Realization. At times I experienced a sense of mystical unity with the universe. I was the universe, Lord of all, omnipotent, omnipresent. My instructors were excited at this. I was obviously a chosen vessel, destined for early success in the search for union with Brahman. The Forces that had guided my father were now guiding me." (Death of a Guru, Rabindranath R. Maharaj, pp. 56-57)
Dying Materialism Opens Door To Occult Forces
"Unless we are mistaken...the twentieth century...is to witness a gigantic conflict of spirits...More serious and fiercer than ever before, the conflict is between the old and the new worldview." Herman Bavinck, Christian theologian, 1901
Materialist scientism has always been utterly repugnant to more spiritually sensitive people. With its' nihilism, mindless mechanistic universe, reductionism, moral anarchy and irrationalism, it has generated its own crisis of credibility. However, as a universal alchemical-solvent that has broken down the West's Biblical-based worldview, it has served to throw wide the door to equally irrational but far more dangerous occult New Age Cosmic Humanism, which as a spiritual force began to emerge in the United States around 1965.
By the mid-1980s, a bright "new" spirituality began to seductively beckon demoralized, restless, narcissistic, consumerist Westerners. Promising personal "spiritual" power, peace, unending pleasure, and oneness with the Divine, it enticingly whispers, "you can become god."
In Marilyn Ferguson's book, "The Aquarian Conspiracy," she identifies the "new" spirituality as New Age and says that this movement of spirit is poised to radically transform our culture. Western society is at a pivotal point, said Ferguson in reference to what she called the "Emergent Culture" of New Age.
Ferguson called it the Aquarian Conspiracy for two reasons. First, astrology foretells the end of the Age of Pisces (the fish). Astrologically the fish symbolizes the Christian Age, which is finally giving way to the New Age of Aquarius. Second, she calls it a conspiracy in recognition of a spiritually-cohesive, vast interlocking-network of individuals, grassroots initiatives, and thousands upon thousands of formal New Age organizations at every level of society, from the lowest level to the highest global corridors of political, spiritual, and economic power that link this movement both nationally and internationally.
As occult spirituality moved with great speed and force over and across post-Christian America, mainstream media took note and reported:
"Neopaganism Growing Quickly: Numbers Roughly Double Every 18 Months in United States, Canada, and Europe." Denver Post, June 26, 2008 (How Evil Works: Understanding and Overcoming the Destructive Forces that are Transforming America, David Kupelian, p. 115)
"Sorcery Sells, and the Young are Buying" Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 10, 2007 (ibid)
"Wicca is Believed to be One of the Fastest-Growing Religions Among High School and College Students" National Public Radio, May 13, 2004 (ibid)
In his book, "America's Schools: The Battleground for Freedom," Allen Quist warns:
"New Age religion is now aggressively being taught in our nation's public schools." A model curriculum has been developed that "is clearly centered on pantheism." "Much of what passes for environmental education and multiculturalism is really indoctrination in pantheistic/New Age theology. The ACLU and other similar organizations have no objections to (pantheistic indoctrination). It is only Christianity that these organizations object to." (p. 51)
Tom DeWeese, President of the American Policy Center, has also been following the rise of occult pagan spirituality. In a work entitled, "Teachers, Preachers and Greens: The Unholy Alliance to Transform America," DeWeese reveals the existence of a well-funded yet covert effort to paganize American society through an assault on schools and churches. He reveals that the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City is the home of the enormously influential Gaia Institute as well as the Temple of Understanding--- a politically influential U.N. Non-Governmental Organization. DeWeese describes a pagan "church service" at St. John the Divine:
"As the congregation sit in their church pews in the great Cathedral of St. John, the Divine in New York City, the priest stands at the alter, ready to receive a procession of animals for the annual Feast of Saint Francis blessing. Down the aisle comes a procession of elephants, camels, donkeys, monkeys and birds. These are followed by members of the congregation carrying bowls of compost and worms. Next, to the sounds of music, come acrobats and jugglers. In the pulpit, former Vice President Al Gore delivers a sermon, saying, “God is not separate from the Earth.” (http://www.federalobserver.com/2010/11/14/teachers-preachers-and-greens-the-unholy-alliance-to-transform-america/)
Men Have Souls ...and Demons Exist
Today anthropologists, scientific psychiatrists, and other professionals from the counseling and medical field take very seriously the fact that something frightening and unexplainable by Western science is going on here in America and throughout the West. In their search for answers they are jettisoning as useless materialist explanations. A "new" consensus is emerging: Men have souls and demons exist:
"...we need to understand a number of different concepts in order to comprehend the worldwide phenomenon of possession and exorcism. On the psychological level, we have come to know the notion underlying all possession, namely, that the body is a shell, inhabited by a soul, and that this shell may on occasion be surrendered to an intrusive alien entity. " (How about Demons? Possession and Exorcism in the Modern World, Felicitas Goodman. IndianaUpress:1988)
"Dr Frank Lake in a talk on the demonic recalled the occasion when 'Hans Rudi Weber was giving a talk on Christ's Victory over the Demonic Powers to this large gathering of psychiatrists and theologians. It was quite amusing to see how uncomfortable the theologians were at this strange exhibition of what I think they regarded as Medievalism from a distinguished member of their own theological group. It was as if they were apologizing to the scientific psychiatrists present that a theologian had returned to the era of demons and evil possession. By contrast the psychiatrists were in fact leaning forward eagerly recognizing that the collective demonic is something with which they are continually dealing. As they said afterwards, 'Why didn't some theologian tell us about this before? We know what he's talking about, we live with it'" (But Deliver us From Evil: An Introduction to the Demonic Dimension in Pastoral Care, John Richards, London, Dartman, Longman and Todd,1974)
Possession takes two forms, communal and individual:
"...central possession is communal, strongly institutionalized, and ritualistically induced, but peripheral possession is more normally individual and spontaneous." (Demonic Possession: A Medical, Historical, Anthropological, and Theological Symposium, John Warwick Montgomery (ed.), Bethany,1976)
“In later life, Jung admitted that he was open to the ideas that all these metapsychic phenomena could be explained better by the theory of spirits ....in the long run (he said) I have to admit that the spirit hypothesis yields better results in practice than any other.” (The New Age Movement and the Biblical Worldview: Conflict and Dialogue, John P. Newport, Eerdmans,1998)
Dr. Carl Raschke also notes with alarm America's downward spiral into the madess of occult spirituality. He points out that the decadence, pornography, mass murders, criminality, the 'new religions,' and Satanism in American culture have certain social and spiritual ties that bind them together, revealing that they are part of a similar spiritual genus. In "Satanism and the Devolution of the 'New Religions,'" Raschke notes that Satanism is so widespread today that there are even U.S. military personnel who are members of secretive Satanist groups.
Raschke concludes that the "upsurge of Satanist practices...must be interpreted not as some kind of odd wrinkle...but as a culminating phase of the "New Age" movement...The Satanist mindset is not "religion" in the regular sense of the word, but a mystification of the most corrupt secular passions and values...Satanism is but the spiritual Frankenstein created by a social order that has attempted to sustain itself without God." (Satanism and Witchcraft: The Occult and the West--Part 6, Dr. John Ankerberg and Dr. John Weldon)
"All the gods of the pagans are demons" Psalm 96:5
New Age Cosmic Humanism has infused and spiritualized secular materialism, transforming it into an agency for the transmission of ultimate values and revelations from the unseen realm....from powers and principalities. As a result, in the space of a few short decades, occult pagan spirituality has made profound inroads. Its upsurge manifests itself in the form of everything from UFO channeling cults, ghost-hunting, necromancy, goddess worship, shamanism, light-bearers, spirit guides, goddess worship, transcendental meditation, contemplative prayer, labyrinth walking, yoga, Wicca, revitalized Norse paganism, the annual Burning Man Festival (now televised) and the proliferation of Satanic cults.
From England to Australia, from New Zealand to South America, Canada and the United States, occult New Age spirituality is quickly becoming the West's dominant orthodoxy.
The End of the West?
Evolutionary conceptions, monism, empiricism, reductionism, determinism, positivism, materialism, pantheism, socialism, and the 'new religions,' in the words of Calvin Coolidge, are not "elements which we can see and touch," but religious convictions, aspirations, ideals, and ideas in the minds of men. As the great apocalyptic prophet Fyodor Dostoevsky clearly understood, they are a madness-inducing "fire in the minds of men" that comes from the "unseen world."
This being the case, political fixes and Republicans in control will not cure what ails America because Americans, by and large, are spiritually diseased. This means that our primary battle is spiritual, for we are not "contending against flesh and blood, but against the (evil spirits)....against spiritual wickedness in the high places." (Eph. 6:12)
Occult spirituality always surfaces at the end of a civilization. It heralded the end of Babylon, Rome and the Aztec civilization. It came at the end of the medieval world and now it has come at the end of the post-Christian West..." a social order that has attempted to sustain itself without God."
During Rome's darkest, most evil hours, early Christians---thousands of whom were cut in half, used as human torches, and crucified upside-down---nevertheless successfully forced occult forces underground, thus allowing for Christendom and later on America to arise.
America is the West's last best hope. But do contemporary Christians and like-minded Americans possess the undying faith, unfaltering courage, love of Truth, rock-solid conviction, perseverance and will to engage this spiritual war?
copyright 2011 Linda Kimball
Additional Sources:
Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future, Fr. Seraphim Rose
Spirit Wars: Pagan Revival in Christian America, Peter Jones
"...is there evidence for the existence of "spirits" and some "spiritual dimension"? http://christianthinktank.com/eyesopen.html
Related Reading:
The Original Lie: Basis For America's Ruling Class Barbarians
Darwinism: Devilish Gnostic Myth Dressed Up As Science
Evolutionism: The Dying West's Science of Magic and Madness
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FYI ping
That’s funny. I was just going to click on the headline when I got your ping to it. :-)
Thanks.
There is much truth in this:
“This being the case, political fixes and Republicans in control will not cure what ails America because Americans, by and large, are spiritually diseased. This means that our primary battle is spiritual, for we are not “contending against flesh and blood, but against the (evil spirits)....against spiritual wickedness in the high places.” (Eph. 6:12)”
....and Americans are not the only ones thus affected. The entire world groans...
"You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." -- C.S. Lewis
“The Buddhists and the Jains do not depend on God; but the whole force of their religion is directed to the great central truth in every religion: to evolve a God out of man.” (Inspired Talks, Ramakrishna Vivekananda Center, 1958, p. 218)
- - - - - - - -
There is at least one group that many on FR consider ‘Christian’ that teach this same doctrine. That God was once a man, and that man can become a God (complete with own planet).
Just saying, it isn’t just the New Age and Occult.
That is most certainly the most important question.
Time will tell.
You got that correct.
Progression to godhood, their very foundation.
“Death of America and the West”...
kind of ethnocentric, ya think?
I believe the rise of pagan spirituality is one of the signs that this world is not going to be as it is for much longer.
I believe it’s going to be as God wishes it to be...whether we like it or not.
This means that our primary battle is spiritual, for we are not “contending against flesh and blood, but against the (evil spirits)....against spiritual wickedness in the high places.” (Eph. 6:12)”
That battle has been raging since the beginning. It will rage until the end. Prayer is our powerful tool to reach the ears of God and to move the mountains. God is still in control no matter what. It amazes me that those blinded human beings can believe in satan but despute God’s exhistance. Look around nature and see God - He is everywhere.
“I believe the rise of pagan spirituality is one of the signs that this world is not going to be as it is for much longer.”
I very much agree. The extent to which this has spread among those who call themselves ‘Christian’ is pretty astounding. The spirit of relativism (a sandpit to be sure) is its underlying foundation in the present culture.
+1 on that observation. They patrol the threads here too, so I’m surprised your observation survived. More than a few of mine haven’t.
And He knows how it will all end, right?
Oh, I have no fear of the end times,
because I have the assurance of faith,
the assurance of salvation,
and God’s Word to tell me what’s happening and how it will end.
You refer to the Apostate Church,
and they WILL be against “the remnant”.
Those who call themselves Christians and are really pagans will be the worst persecutors.
You will like this thread
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