Sure. It predates any New Agey stuff by 1,500 years.
Just because something sounds like x does not therefore make it y.
It is the core of Eastern Orthodoxy. The problem with Western Christianity is its profound rationalism, rather than a sense of abandonment to God.
Prove to me Mr. Marlowe that Hesychasm is New Age.
So does Hinduism. So Does Buddhism. So does Gnosticism. So does Baal. But new age is nothing new. It is Buddhism and Hinduism and Gnosticism and self absorbtion all rolled into one. I don't think the same can be said about the PDL Method. At worst the PDL method is superficial. It certainly does not approach hesychasm for being utterly and totally unscriptural and influenced by what is now known as new ageism, but was then known as eastern mysticism.
Prove to me Mr. Marlowe that Hesychasm is New Age.
Easy enough.
From this site:
Mount Athos is also a major center for the gnostic tradition of hesychasm, which is a Byzantine form of contemplative prayer directed toward ecstatic mystical experience. A practice akin to Zen Buddhism and Hindu Yoga, hesychasm involves striving for 'inner stillness' as a means to having visions of 'the divine light'.
"The monks of Mount Athos accepted Hesychasm. According to Gregory of Sinai, the founder of hesychia, monks could see the ‘uncreated light of God’, the light that shone about Christ at his Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, if they were virtuous and devoted themselves exclusively to prayer, seated from morn to eve in the same place, concentrating and repeating silently the prayer ‘Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me’. The hope that they could thus come close to God was perhaps a reaction to the ever increasing external dangers and the collapse of the Byzantine Empire." (1026)
The Philokalia is a five-volume collection of 'spiritual wisdom' in the Orthodox tradition that was written between the 4th and 15th centuries by the 'Holy Fathers' of the Orthodox tradition and preserved within Mount Athos monasteries. Co-edited by Bishop Kallistos Ware, Philokalia: The Complete Text is a source book for the Orthodox on the practices of Hesychasm, the Jesus Prayer, Nepsis or Inner Attention, Asceticism and Theosis, which is the deification of man doctrine embraced by the Greek Orthodox Church. A book review of The Philokalia reveals that the objective of repeating the Jesus Prayer is personal deification---the Satanically-inspired lie, 'ye shall be as gods':
"The goal is to repeat without ceasing the Jesus Prayer, whether aloud or not. Literally without ceasing. The prayer should revolve in the mind even while eating, speaking with others, or sleeping. Thus perpetual communion with God, the purpose of human existence, can be fulfilled. Theosis, deification, partaking of the divine nature, gaining the divinity that God has extended to us, is the purpose of practicing the Jesus Prayer in this way, just as it is the purpose of asceticism, hesychasm, and other practices."
And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. - Gen. 3:4-5
The founder of hesychasm, Gregory of Sinai, also invented the 'Jesus Prayer', a 'monologistic' prayer, which means praying ‘Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me’ repeatedly and contemplatively while seated in the same place. (In some Russian traditions the phrase “a sinner” is added at the end.) Repeating this prayer from morning to evening is supposed to fulfill Paul's command to 'pray without ceasing.' Bishop Kallistos Ware has written and lectured extensively on the practice of hesychasm, which originated at Mount Athos. His book, The Inner Kingdom, begins with a chapter on "Silence in Prayer: the Meaning of Hesychia". In the year 2002, Ware was also a presenter for the John Main Seminar, an annual event sponsored by the World Community for Christian Meditation. A promotional piece for Bishop Ware's seminar presents a word-for-word description of the hesychast technique: "Countless Christians over the centuries have found a way of entry through practicing the invocation of the Holy Name: in the West often through the repetition of the name 'Jesus' on its own; in the East more commonly through a longer phrase, such as 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me.'" (572) Apposite to Bishop Ware's leadership in the advocacy of hesychasm, one medieval Patriarch of Constantinople by the name of 'Callistus' created an uproar in the Greek Orthodox Church when he persecuted opponents of hesychasm:
"In the fourteenth century a pseudo-spiritualism akin to that of the ancient Euchites or Messalians, culminating in the famous Hesychast controversies (see HESYCHASM; PALAMAS), greatly disturbed the mutual harmony of Greek monasteries, especially those of Mount Athos, one of whose monks, Callistus, had become Patriarch of Constantinople (1350-54) and in that office exhibited great severity towards the opponents of Hesychasm. Racial and national discord between the Greeks and the Servians added fuel to the flames, and for a while the monks were again subjected to the immediate supervision of the Bishop of Hierissus." (548)
Literature. Before relocating to Mt. Athos to teach the monks the hesychast method of contemplation, Gregory of Sinai belonged to the Monastery of St. Katherine at Mt. Sinai. It was at this convent that the gnostic manuscript, Sinaiticus Aleph, was discovered by Constantin Tischendorf in the 19th century. The Sinaiticus Aleph along with infamous Vaticanus B were used by B.F. Westcott and F.J.A. Hort as the basis for their corrupt New Greek Text from which modern versions of the Bible are translated.
Mount Athos was ever a hotbed of gnostic occultism. James H. Sightler, author of A Testimony Founded Forever, sheds more light on the pivotal role of the Mount Athos monks in preserving the Corpus Hermeticum,. These were the core documents of the Hermetic tradition which were unavailable to the West in classical times but "rediscovered" in Athos during the Renaissance, and delivered to Europe where they were translated and disseminated. Dr. Sightler is of the opinion that the Vaticanus B was also preserved at Mount Athos, and there is evidence that the Codex Alexandrinus was found there as well.
"Frances Yates relates that a monk from Macedonia, Leonardo da Pistoria, working for Cosmo de Medici, brought the Corpus Hermeticum to Florence about 1460, where it was translated by Marsilio Ficino. Michael Psellus knew of this manuscript in his day in the eleventh century, and I believe that the Corpus Hermeticum actually came from Mount Athos, which is a peninsula of Macedonia. I say this because of the mystical and Hermetic influences in religious practice and art on Athos which we have just noted, and I am also convinced that Codex B was found there by Bessarion at just about the same time as the discovery of the Corpus Hermeticum."
"...It is interesting that F.H.A. Scrivener's book, A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament, shows in its index 30 references to Mount Athos covering 53 manuscripts which were found there. At the time of publication of this book in 1883 about 650 New Testament Manuscripts had been found. Therefore about eight per cent were from Athos. The index lists 5 ms. from Patmos, 20 from St. Saba in Jerusalem, 16 from the monastery of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, 20 from Jamina in Epirus, and 6 from St. Catherine on Mt. Sinai. For those manuscripts whose origin is known, Mount Athos is the most frequent source... Furthermore, Hatch's catalogue of uncials of 1939, cited previously, lists a total of 7 uncials from Athos, only 4 of which had been catalogued by Scrivener. Of these 6 are Byzantine and one, Codex Alexandrinus, is mixed. Scrivener states that Wetstein, on the authority of Matthew Muttis, a deacon attached to Cyril Lukar, believed that Cyril had obtained Codex A from Mount Athos... Foakes Jackson and Kirsopp Lake agree with Scrivener and point out that Cyril was on Mount Athos in 1612-1613. I believe that Codex B as well had been removed from Athos l 50 years before by Bessarion."...
"It is now no longer necessary to believe Tischendorf's claim that Codices B and Aleph were once located and used in Constantinople. Jackson and Lake give the opinion that Codex B 'was brought from Alexandria to Sicily by fugitives from the conquering Arabs, in the seventh century, and thence to Calabria. Nothing is known which suggests that it remained in the East until the fifteenth century and was then brought to Rome under the influence of the revival of letters.'...
"Both B and Aleph were written in Egypt. I believe that both were there, probably in Alexandria, in 640 A.D. when the Arabs under Amrou captured the city after a siege of fourteen months. I believe they were removed by Egyptian anchorites before the city fell and taken to the island of Crete to be kept, perhaps in the famous Labyrinth cave, known from antiquity, by the monks and their successors until 823 A.D. when the Saracens captured portions of the island. At that time Codex B was taken to Mount Athos, where the earliest monastic communities were just arising, or to Mistra. The Corpus Hermeticum could have been carried along with it as well. Aleph was taken by other monks to Mt. Sinai, where the monastery of St. Catherine had been built by Justinian in the eighth century. These codices then remained in their respective places until Bassarion took Codex B from Athos or Mistra in 1846 and Tischendorf retrieved Aleph in 1859...
"At the Council of Florence Cosimo de Medici met Bassarion and his mentor, Plethon, and was moved by them to back the establishment of a school at Florence for the study and dissemination of Neo-Platonic philiosphy. Bassarion and Plethon in 1442 founded the Academia Platonica at Florence. Cosimo provided funds for the acquisition of rare manuscripts, including copies of the Corpus Hermeticum, Plato, and Plutarch, as well a Biblical manuscripts. He later gave a villa at Careggi, near Florence, to a student and colleague of Plethon and Bassarion, Marsilio Ficino, who was the first to translate the Corpus, Plato and Platinus into Latin and carried on the work of the academy." (350:128-33)
According to Ian Paisley's European Institute of Protestant Studies (EIPS), "Mount Athos comes under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Patriarch of Constantinople, but enjoys the status of a semi-autonomous republic within Greece. Not only was this spelt out in the Greek constitution as recently as 1975, when Greece entered the European Union six years later the monasteries were specifically excluded from the jurisdiction of EU equality legislation." Unfortunately, the Mount Athos community has accepted "EU funds to help preserve both their treasures and the fabric of the monasteries"--a compromise having major consequences: On September 4, 2003 "A plenary session of the Euro-Parliament has passed a proposal-report demanding that the Greek government rescind the special protection the monks have enjoyed for a millennium."
This eventuality has the makings of an ecumenical uprising against the European Union and a groundswell of support for the poor monks of Mount Athos. Which is precisely what the social transformers have in mind to galvanize popular support for Joachim's mystical utopia---where "the world would be one vast monastery, in which all men would be contemplative monks rapt in mystical ecstasy..."
Excuse me John, but am i labouring under a misapprehension, or are you a Roman Catholic? While i am aware that you have quoted Eastern Orthodox Writings in your polemics on this forum, i was under the impression that your apologia was on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church. Can you clear up this issue? No argument, just curiousity.
As for your present posting, i believe that P-Marlowe has already addressed this issue, and i have quite enough "on my plate" at the moment.
*****Prove to me Mr. Marlowe that Hesychasm is New Age.*****
http://www.askmytutor.co.uk/c/ch/chakra.html
http://www.kheper.net/topics/christianmysticism/Hesych-centres.htm
http://www.swami-center.org/en/text/Questions_and_answers.html
http://swami-center.org/en/text/participate.html
http://www.anandamayi.org/devotees/jv/english/b1p3ch3.html
http://www.nepsis.com/phd/section%20one.html