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New Age Invasion - Is This Spirituality Replacing Catholic Faith?
San Diego News Notes ^ | May 2005 | Robert Kumpel

Posted on 05/08/2005 3:56:34 PM PDT by NYer

The First Commandment is "I am the Lord Thy God. Thou shalt not have strange gods before Me." But, according to one local convert from the New Age, San Diego Catholics who aspire to know their God better are sometimes presented with information on strange gods instead.

Moira Noonan, a resident of Encinitas, authored Ransomed From Darkness which tells the story of her conversion from New Age spirituality to the Catholic faith. Noonan believes most Catholics are being insidiously exposed to New Age ideas in the Church.

How long have you been a Catholic?

I finished RCIA about 10 years ago. Actually, I was baptized Catholic and attended Catholic school as a little kid. New Agers are constantly searching, always looking for something new. The first true — I hate to say it — 'enlightenment' which dawned on me was that I didn't want to be reincarnated. And I thought, "How do I get off this wheel of reincarnation?" I remembered something from when I was a [Catholic] kid about 'eternal life.' Yet I was constantly being bombarded with reincarnation in the New Age. I just said, 'I don't want to come back. If there is eternal life, or if any of those Sacred Heart nuns who taught me as a kid are in eternal life now, won't you pray for me right now?' It triggered something.

Reincarnation is one of the biggest demonic heresies in the world. When you consider how much of the world's population believes in reincarnation, it's scary. All New Agers believe it. And most of the people I knew in the New Age were fallen-away Catholics.

What do people mean when they say, "I'm not religious, but I'm very spiritual?"?

"Spiritual" seems to be one of the trendy catch words coming out of the New Age movement, because New Agers never say, "I'm of this faith" or "that faith". What they say is, "I'm spiritual" because the New Age movement came from the spiritualist movement. The spiritualist movement was a big movement in America around the turn of the century, with people like Madam Blavatsky. This all came from the time when people started believing in Darwinism. We didn't need God anymore. Now people are saying that they are "spiritual." We don't need any religious truth or religious facts, because we can make up our own gods again.

Is their any link between homosexuality's ascendancy and the New Age movement?

I don't recall seeing homosexuals in the New Age movement, or at least I never met any. They seem to prefer to stay in their own community. But apparently now the lesbian movement is huge in the New Age. This is what's happened to some women's religious orders. Many of them were feminists who turned to Wicca or white witchcraft. It's much more pervasive on the East Coast and, thankfully, I was never a part of any of that. I agree with our Church['s position] that it [homosexuality] is gravely disordered.

I used to go to confession at the Cathedral downtown. One time, when I walked in, I saw a book on the Enneagram (a New Age personality type test) sitting on the priest's chair. What's wrong with the Enneagram?

First off, the Enneagram is being used in almost every Catholic spiritual direction and retreat house in America. It's now the main tool for teaching people how to do spiritual direction. Its origins are occult, not Christian. Now why is this different than using traditional Catholic spiritual direction and counseling, such as St. Ignatius of Loyola's exercises to discern God's will? The Enneagram isn't about working with God's will or understanding it, it's all about personality. It's a personality exercise, not spiritual, and it's not based on God's will. It relies on the human spirit, rather than something divine."

So where is this New Age infiltration happening in the Church in San Diego?

I really don't want to mention these sisters by name, because some of them were very helpful in my conversion a long time ago. I can tell you that they are in a beach community where they operate a retreat house. They also use the Celestine Prophecy for spiritual direction. The Celestine Prophecy was a popular New Age novel which, like the Da Vinci Code, was taken as fact but in reality slanders the Catholic Church. It enjoyed a brief vogue in the 1990s. It's all about developing psychic powers. I was a former New Ager and I sure didn't need these nuns teaching me New Age stuff after leaving the New Age movement. After that experience, thank goodness, a priest from out of state got me to go to Prince of Peace Abbey for spiritual direction. And that is the only place I would recommend anyone in San Diego to go."

For some time now, the La Providencia retreat center in Alpine has been offering Reiki. It's been said that Reiki is just a type of massage therapy. Is that correct?

I don't know anything about La Providencia, but I can tell you about Reiki. Reiki is psychic healing. It is not reconcilable in any way, shape, or form with the Catholic Church, because it uses spirit guides. Spirit guides are fallen angels — not guardian angels but deceivers. It's not Swedish massage. It's occult massage. In order to do Reiki, you have to follow a master. It's like being consecrated to a guru or master. I can say that, because I was an advanced Reiki master healer.

Some photos posted on the internet from Cardinal Mahony's latest religious education congress, show people walking around through labyrinths.

They're using labyrinths in Christian churches and New Age churches. The big difference is that in the New Age churches, they are doing it to a mantra. If it's done in a Christian setting and with a Christian mindset, then I wouldn't have any objection to it.

Does the San Diego diocese contribute to this New Age contamination?

I can tell you that here in North County, there is a coastal parish where I just finished a basic catechist course — I really don't want to mention it by name -- that is so bad you cannot believe it. This is where they are training people to be religious education teachers in parishes. I was told by this instructor not to mention Mary, the rosary, statues, novenas or "any of that superstitious stuff." This is the director of religious education for that parish who teaches the class. It was so unbelievably awful. And, just as in the New Age, he told us that no stories in the Bible were literal events." He said that the Bible is, "nothing but stories, not an accurate account."


TOPICS: Activism; Apologetics; Catholic; Current Events; History; Religion & Culture; Worship
KEYWORDS: cults; enneagram
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To: A CA Guy
What a goofy article.

Yes, the author is just as nutty as the new agers.

Now, this article contains a sensibly analysis of New Age and what is wrong with it: Vatican Report on New Age.

New Age has a corrosive effect on all the world's traditional religions - that is - religions that have a long history. This includes not only Christianity, but Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Native religions. The Lakota have even declared war on New Agers. New Age is like an acid that dissolves religions into nothingness.

61 posted on 05/08/2005 9:23:24 PM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode
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To: A CA Guy; okokie
I haven't in any of my New York or California churches seen anything like the stuff in italics in that post you responded to

What I posted was in fact from the diocese of Rockville Centre in New York.

62 posted on 05/08/2005 9:24:17 PM PDT by murphE (The crown of victory is promised only to those who engage in the struggle. St. Augustine)
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To: GipperGal

It was an event, they called it a liturgy of different nations.

There appeared to be no dancing at all during the mass.

The closest I see to dancing was after a mass was over as a procession out of the event as an escort to the Cardinal.

I'm sure they all know not to do anything wrong during the mass.

Pope JJP2 had lots of children's days where they danced and there was mass during that as well. But I think then they also properly separated it also.

I think these dancing events happened like a show when the Cardinal came to watch and maybe after the mass conclusion from what I saw.

I see no dancing during the actual mass though.

We'd have to have been there to know at what time and with what context those pictures were taken.


63 posted on 05/08/2005 9:31:32 PM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: GipperGal

64 posted on 05/08/2005 9:31:59 PM PDT by murphE (The crown of victory is promised only to those who engage in the struggle. St. Augustine)
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To: murphE

I'll look into that a bit. I've got their site up now.
http://www.drvc.org/

I was in Brooklyn.
I sure hope if that was true that it is being reported to the Vatican.

Do you attend the church and did you report it?
How did you come across that?


65 posted on 05/08/2005 9:35:52 PM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: A CA Guy
It was an event, they called it a liturgy of different nations.

I beg your pardon, but when I originally saw the pictures on the diocesan website they were identified as "the Arena Mass".

I'm sure they all know not to do anything wrong during the mass.

Are you kidding me?

66 posted on 05/08/2005 9:36:44 PM PDT by murphE (The crown of victory is promised only to those who engage in the struggle. St. Augustine)
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To: murphE

LOL! Thanks. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one here who thinks the Mass shouldn't look like a production of "Chorus Line".


67 posted on 05/08/2005 9:37:02 PM PDT by GipperGal
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To: A CA Guy

I live in the diocese. I get the diocesan newspaper every week. And yes, this nonsense has been reported for years by many many people to no avail.


68 posted on 05/08/2005 9:38:38 PM PDT by murphE (The crown of victory is promised only to those who engage in the struggle. St. Augustine)
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To: murphE
Are you kidding me?

ROTFLMAO!! That's exactly what I was thinking too.

69 posted on 05/08/2005 9:38:42 PM PDT by GipperGal
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To: murphE; A CA Guy
I live in the diocese.

So do I. Anyone who lives here knows that the abuses to the liturgy in this diocese are shameful and sadly widespread.

70 posted on 05/08/2005 9:40:38 PM PDT by GipperGal
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To: murphE

Horrible, was this about events in your church or were these event's elsewhere?

I mean, it's bad enough if they were non-Catholic events being advertised in your paper, but if these are events happening on Catholic church grounds, I'd be pretty upset.

I don't blame you at all, and I would Email every conservative Cardinal in the country and Vatican you can.

The squeaky wheel gets oiled almost always.


71 posted on 05/08/2005 9:43:56 PM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: GipperGal

WOW, I would report your complaints weekly at least to an ever developing Email list of every conservative Cardinal in America you can get and also all the Vatican.


72 posted on 05/08/2005 9:45:17 PM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: murphE

Everything was held in that arena, including a mass at one point.
They had dancing at some point there.

I'm thinking there was an event for the Cardinal directly after the mass. The order of the pictures I saw seemed to show the mass and then after dancing.

But as I told the other person, we weren't there and I don't know if the webmaster mixed events, or has any order at all to the pictures.


73 posted on 05/08/2005 9:49:19 PM PDT by A CA Guy (God Bless America, God bless and keep safe our fighting men and women.)
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To: cyborg
The only reiki I've done is on myself. >>

can that be done? I thought you needed the energy from another person for it to work.
74 posted on 05/08/2005 9:49:23 PM PDT by Coleus (God gave us the right to life, property & self-preservation and the right to defend ourselves)
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To: NYer
Catholic Zen Retreats, Jersey City, NJ, conducted by a Jesuit Priest
 
Pro-Abortion Catholic Feminist to Speak at Jesuit-Run Retreat House at VOTF Meeting (Take Action)
 
Angela Bonavoglia (Catholic Feminist) Takes On the Men in Skirts

75 posted on 05/08/2005 9:52:25 PM PDT by Coleus (God gave us the right to life, property & self-preservation and the right to defend ourselves)
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To: Fast Ed97
Pic #1, I believe, is an improper vessel. The pitchers look like they are for kool aid drinkers (no disrespect intended toward the sacrament).

Pic #2, Under old canon law, electronic media like tv was not allowed in the church. Maybe they dropped that. I know it has been extensively used at outdoor papal masses.

Pic #3, looks like something you would expect to see in an old pagan temple, and is just plain weird-looking.

There may not be anything wrong with any of that now, but it all looks like more conditioning for mass disobedience. I wouldn't be comfortable at any of those masses. #1 I might not go forward for communion, doubting its validity, and #2 and #3 I would probably walk out, and feel justly exempt by heaven for my mass obligation.

I've been to a mass worse than any of the three pictures.

I thought about writing the Vatican about several of these issues, but figured it would be futile. No way can I see any of that kind of behavior by the women especially condoned in the early church.

I've read a lot of that occult and new age stuff in the past, and it's insidious, beguiling, you can derive an exhiliarating sense of power in some of it, and it is difficult to cleanse yourself from. As least it gave me some discernment. I don't know about catholic men, but I've talked to several catholic women who have gone to psychics and the like. I did, too, at one time (pre-catholic), and confessed it as a sin once I became catholic, realizing finally from some sensible protestants that Christians shouldn't do those things, and hope to heck I didn't forget any of it.

I've meekly confronted at least three priests about some of this sort of thing, and felt intimidated by their power over me (I already tend to be scrupulous, and felt like it was my problem, not theirs), so this is about the only forum in which I can talk to a few people who are as concerned as I am about some of it. None of us can reach common consensus as to just where the lines should be drawn, however.

I do see where clinging to my own cultural conditioning which was pretty western whether catholic or protestant could be considered an arrogant position in light of the multi-cultural nature of modern Christianity, especially catholicism.

It's late, and I hope this makes some sense, as some of it is difficult to express.

76 posted on 05/08/2005 10:04:23 PM PDT by Aliska
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To: murphE

That doesn't look good to be published in a Catholic newspaper. I'm afraid I would be writing to the editor.


77 posted on 05/08/2005 10:08:24 PM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: Aliska
Pic #1, I believe, is an improper vessel. The pitchers look like they are for kool aid drinkers (no disrespect intended toward the sacrament).

Did you happen to notice the large wicker basket? That's supposed to be the ciborium.

78 posted on 05/08/2005 10:08:43 PM PDT by murphE (The crown of victory is promised only to those who engage in the struggle. St. Augustine)
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To: Antioch

Thanks for the additional information.


79 posted on 05/08/2005 10:10:52 PM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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To: Antioch

**The teaching of the Enneagram Method cuts both God and his grace out of the loop.**

A warning to all.


80 posted on 05/08/2005 10:11:11 PM PDT by Salvation (†With God all things are possible.†)
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