[betty boop]

This article may strike some readers as totally bizarre. On the other hand, I know that there are not a few people who frequent the Religion Forum who are concerned about the phenomenon of "New Age Religion," but have scanty information about it. As a former student thereof, I thought I might be able to provide some further information.

Right off the top, additional information about Alice Bailey and Benjamin Creme seems to be in order.

It was Alice Bailey who first surfaced the doctrines of the "Hidden Masters of the Hierarchy" and "The Reappearance of the Lord Maitreya, the 'true' Christ." She claims that her direct source was just such a "hidden master," an adept spiritual personality sent "from Above" to dictate to Bailey the contents of her 22 books. As Bailey describes it, she was "channeling" a "risen" person who was, in his earthly life, a Tibetan monk by the name of Djwal Kuhl. What further can I say?

RE: Ben Creme. Unlike the case with Bailey (who died in 1949), I know this man personally. I absolutely certify him to you as a thorough-going British Socialist of the Fabian (read: progressivist) School.

Just some further "backgrounder" info for people who might actually be inclined to read this article.

[hinckley buzzard]

A waste of time. The details of this garbage are of no more value than the details of astrology or any other bogus scam.

[BwanaNdege]

Think of Benjamin Creme as the “spiritual” version of George Soros.

“Spiritual” as in evil spirits. A very strange and dangerous man.

[Matchett-PI]

Great, and accurate article in my estimation! bttt

[betty boop]

Well, I finally stopped "wrassling this bear." This is the best I can do. Thank you ever so much, my dearest sister in Christ, and my very dear Padre for your read of this piece, and especially for your advice. Of course, I alone am responsible for what I did with that advice!

From my heart, thank you dear ones!

[mnehring]

While one can’t deny that sometimes obscure mythology can influence political movements (eg the Völkisch > Thule-Gesellschaft > Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) where does one find the connection with this particular myth to current halls of power and how it specifically manifests?

[RJR_fan]

Thanks for the article. As a young seeker, I attended Lutheran services at the college chapel -- but was actually recruited there into an esoteric cult that took the works of Gurdjieff and P D Ospensky as their scriptures. Quite evil stuff -- more mind-bending than psychedelic drugs. Our spirits were made to connect with an external and eternal God, not to recursively seek internal truth internally.

The tragedy of pietism is -- it reduces Christianity to a set of internal "spiritual" experiences, a religion of "the heart." Historically, Christianity has been taught and practiced as a total world-view, that applied to all aspects of reality. An objective map of the real world, not just a tourist guide to one's own "inner light."

You can't trump a world view -- such as humanism, or Islam -- with a navel view. Besides, other players in the market can vend even more vivid experiences. To cite theologian Debby Boone, "How can it be wrong, when it feels so right? As I said, in the concluding paragraph of my dissertation,

Unless religious people today also address issues of corporate structure, objective ethics, public identity, and the transmission of their values to future generations, they will suffer the fate of the losers in Atatürk's culture wars. A transcendent “navel view,” a personal mystical piety, no matter how intense, will never suffice as a substitute for a full-orbed world view. If people are unable to provide their offspring with explanations for life that are at least as big and comprehensive as all of life, their more thoughtful children will jump ship and join forces with ideologies that do seem to offer answers.

It's happening now -- American evangelicals are losing most of their children.

[betty boop]

Hi guys!

Hopefully the "executive summary" at the top of this piece will enable you quickly to determine whether or not this rather "bizzare" article is worth your time to read through.

But if you stick around, I'd so love to hear from you!

[ronnyquest]

Islam is a perfect fit for the New World Order. It is a philosophy of control masquerading as religion with socialism built into it.

[ModelBreaker]

“The two spiritual/philosophical systems — East (Buddhism) and West (Christianity/classical philosophy) — are similar in their basic understanding of the structure of human psyche as a “three-bodied system” consisting of consciousness (rational intellect), unconsciousness (feeling), and organic instinct. They also agree the soul, psyche, is eternal.”

Betty, I don’t think this correctly characterizes the Christian perspective of Christ or the Apostles. After Christianity absorbed Hellenism, this notion of the soul is perhaps correct. But second temple Judaism (and therefore Christianity) believed that God created and maintain our bodies. We are our bodies and the bodies are God’s creation. Jesus resurrection and our later resurrections will be bodily resurrections but “glorified.” God created our bodies and who we are. I don’t see why the notion of a separate soul is necessary for the Creator to resurrect us. He spoke the universe into being. The importance of the body is demonstrated by the crucifixion as the fulfillment of the law and it’s central role in Christianity. The body (the Temple of God) was crucified and rebuilt in three days. Had Jesus not been made of real stuff and genuinely suffered, the whole thing falls apart.

I know there is some ambiguity in the New Testament on this issue. But I think it is dangerous to impose our modern notion of a “soul”, which is informed mainly by Greek thought, into first century Judaism or Christianity. Recall that Revelation ends in the creation of a new heaven and earth, where we will spend eternity. Paul and John are quite clear we will spend it there in glorified bodies, not as disembodied souls.

[BipolarBob]

bookmarked

[Quix]

END TIMES PING LIST PING.

There’s an executive summary at the top . . . poorly paragraphed of course. LOL.

[metmom]

Thanks for the ping. This is going to take some time to digest.

BFLR....

[metmom]

OK. For starters, I had never heard of Lucis Trust so I did a google search and found this nice summary...

(Sorry to pollute your thread with wiki)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucis_Trust

So, Lucis Trust is a new agey, spiritualism...

Hardly subtle with the name. They obviously don’t feel any need to hide the real source of their philosophy, do they?

It’s kind of like just coming out and announcing who youre working for.

And Beelzebub? Really?

[Elsie]

This article may strike some readers as totally bizarre.

Well; you may count ME as gobsmacked!

[Elsie]

She claims that her direct source was just such a "hidden master," an adept spiritual personality sent "from Above" to dictate to Bailey the contents of her 22 books.

Joseph Smith claimed 'direct access' as well.

[Cvengr]

Thanks for the post.

[Alamo-Girl]

Congratulations, dearest sister in Christ, on your splendid essay and these wonderful discussions, essays, testimonies and sidebars it provoked!

I’m so sorry it has taken this long to “come to the table” but as you know I’ve been caring for two elderly cousins these past two weeks or so – one eighty year old stroke survivor with no use of her left side and the other, her older sister, who underwent colorectal surgery and of course needed help throughout the pre-op, post-op and recovery.

Returning to your essay, I’m very glad you tackled the one world religion movement revealing its purpose, craft, risk and progress. From my view, the current preferential treatment of the NGOs by the United Nations may well herald the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.

The one to watch, in my view, is the teaching whereby Maitreya will present himself as the fulfillment of Islam’s Twelfth Imam, Judaism’s Messiah, Buddha and of course the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Such a “one-size-fits-all” magician will seek ideological/political submission of people of all faiths around the world.

And then if any man shall say to you, Lo, here [is] Christ; or, lo, [he is] there; believe [him] not: For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall shew signs and wonders, to seduce, if [it were] possible, even the elect. But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things. – Mark 13:21-23

And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.

And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by [the means of] those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number [is] Six hundred threescore [and] six. – Revelation 13:11-18

It is therefore perfectly appropriate to me that your outstanding essay should be followed on the same thread by the beautiful testimonies of Mind-numbed Robot at posts 56 and 272. Thank you oh so very much, dear brother in Christ!

Children leaving home for the first time need to read that testimony because if their beliefs are merely a learned veneer and not their own they may indeed be shaken.

And thank you, dear Matchett-PI, for the introduction to Gagdad Bob and all of the blog-essays! Except for family blogs, I don’t keep bookmarks for blogs – but I shall make an exception here because the commentary is timely and substantive.

There were many excellent essay-replies and sadly, my comments below are very late, nevertheless, if any of you are interested…

Physical Cosmologies

Since the 1960s forward measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation consistently agree that the universe is expanding. This means that space and time do not pre-exist but are created as the universe expands. It also means there was a beginning of real space and real time.

That was the most theological statement to ever come out of modern science (Jastrow) – “In the beginning, God created …” (Gen 1:1)

Thereafter, physical cosmologists went into high gear trying to obviate God the Creator evidently because methodological naturalism cannot allow for a Creator God.

But none of the theories – cyclic, ekpyrotic, multi-verse, multi-world, imaginary time, etc. – can avoid the problem that space and time do not pre-exist. In the absence of space, things cannot exist. In the absence of time, events cannot occur. Both are required for physical causation.

Chicken meet egg. One cannot have physical causation (energy, wave fluctuation, etc.) without pre-existing space/time.

By the way, Arno Penzias (born 1933) along with Robert Wilson first discovered the CMB (inadvertently) back in 1965. Penzias has changed disciplines so I doubt he is in the physical cosmology game to same degree as Steinhardt, Turok, etc.

Physical v. spiritual body, Old Testament and New:

The physical body seems first relevant to me in God’s covering Adam and Eve’s shame with coats made of skins:

And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where [art] thou? And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I [was] naked; and I hid myself. And he said, Who told thee that thou [wast] naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? – Genesis 3:9-11

Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them. – Genesis 3:21

And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission. – Hebrews 9:22

But the Jewish mystics also point to the Hebrew words nephesh, neshama and ruach to describe the soul/spirit. More specifically, nephesh is the ordinary soul which all living creatures have (Genesis 1) and is returned to the earth upon death. And neshama is the breath of God which Adam received in Genesis 2 whereby he became a living soul. Further, according to the mystics, the ruach is the soul pivot whereby the man chooses to be Godly-minded (neshama) or earthly-minded (nephesh.) That choosing parallels Romans 8.

For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded [is] death; but to be spiritually minded [is] life and peace. – Romans 8:5-6

Of course the big difference between the Old Testament and the New is ruach Elohim the Spirit of God (Genesis 1) Himself Who we Christians receive and Who guides us (Romans 8, John 15, I Cor 2, etc.)

For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, [and] hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. - Jer 2:13

He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet [given]; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.) - John 7:38-39

And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. – John 1:33

And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning. Then remembered I the word of the Lord, how that he said, John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost. Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as [he did] unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God? – Acts 11:15-17

God’s Name is I AM.

[D-fendr]

Thanks for posting this article; shame the thread got hijacked.

I’m pretty ignorant on the subject, so appreciate the background. A couple of quick thoughts:

The Buddhism in the US is more new agey in my experience, hard to compare it with more traditional practice.

New Age seems to consist partly of the old ideas of gnosticism and perfection of man philosophies and theologies.

Finally, it is at least encouraging that humans in our age still are spiritual creatures; discouraging that they are not being reached more effectively by the Church.

thanks again...

[ex-Texan]

Bohemian Grove is Where 2,500 Of Our Leaders Engage in Demonic Idol Worship

Want to learn more ______ ?

Hit this link and scroll down deep . . . Democrats and Republicans are all the same. They just lie and lie and lie and party like mad at secret drunken orgies in the woods or at closed elite bashes in DC

[SaraJohnson]

I have followed these kooks around the internet for the past few months and I can see how they will become the useful idiots of the leader of the New World Order. When the new agers moved to witch craft back in the 90’s, I was curious to see where they were today...

It’s not good.