"The New Age is not only a new way of viewing reality but also a new way of life dedicated to the realization of human potential through discovering the secrets that lie dormant in the human psyche. It embraces many seemingly divergent movements, both secular and religious, and is anchored in some respected philosophical traditions. Its doctrines are taught in many churches and cults and have given rise to various experiments in community life, education and holistic health care. The New Age is the tip of an iceberg that I choose to call 'the new spirituality,' which connotes the dawning of a mysticism of the earth that sharply challenges both classical Christian mysticism and biblical, prophetic religion. God in this new perspective is 'the total energy field of the universe' (Alan Watts), 'the flowing river of Nature' (Emerson), 'the Life-Force' (Bergson) or the 'infinite abyss' (Tillich). Those who hew closer to traditional Christian tenets make a place for the Holy Spirit, but he is now depicted as 'the Stream of Life,' 'the germinal power in nature,' 'the power of creativity' or 'the Fire of the Cosmos.' God is generally defined as spirit in the generic sense, since the Trinity is foreign to the greater part of the New Age movement. Jesus is esteemed not because he is the Word made flesh but because he is one of the prime manifestations of the Cosmic Christ--the bond of energy that ties all things together. The message of the new dispensation is that the Cosmic Christ or the Spirit of Life is waiting to be born within us.
The New Age signifies the convergence of the new science, modern pragmatism, American transcendentalism, German idealism and Eastern mysticism. It also shows traces of gnosticism and Platonism. Among the host of thinkers it draws upon are Ralph Waldo Emerson, William James, Henri Bergson, D. H. Lawrence, Nikos Kazantzakis, Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell, Aldous Huxley and Teilhard de Chardin. Theologians who have been attracted to New Age ideas include Matthew Fox, Sam Keen, Morton Kelsey, Geddes MacGregor, Miriam Simos (Starhawk), Charlene Spretnak, Margot Adler, Jay B. McDaniel, Ernest Larkin and Harmon Bro.
Although not a monolithic movement, the New Age generally holds to the affirmation of life in all its fullness but on the basis of the cultivation of occult powers that accelerate the evolution of the human species to a higher level of existence. New Agers see the world not as a machine but as a living organism. The universe is also sometimes depicted as 'a great thought.' New Age writers often lend support to the Eastern ideas of reincarnation and karma, though they tend to affirm that the law of karma can be overcome through the will to life and power. Whereas the older cult of Spiritualism taught communication with departed spirits, the New Age teaches communication with ascended masters, a higher order of beings, through shamans or channels. While many of the classical mystics envisage the world as a crucible in which we are tested and refined, New Age devotees consider the world filled with infinite possibilities and opportunities or christocentric perspective of biblical religion, New Age spirituality is biocentric (life centered) and holocentric (centered in the whole of reality). Its symbols include the rainbow, the globe, the pyramid, the lotus flower and the crystal.
This movement encompasses seminars and workshops on creative living, meditation centers, bookstores, retreat houses and religious communities. It also includes a number of cults, among them the I Am movement, the Church Universal and Triumphant, the Collegians International Church, Transcendental Meditation, the Unity School of Christianity, the Aquarian Light Church and the Light of Christ Community Church. A New Age ethos is also discernible in kindred cult movements such as Theosophy, Anthroposophy, New Thought, the Church of Illumination, the Holy Order of MANS, Foundation Faith of the Millennium, the Esalen Institute, Silva Mind Control, the Nirvana Foundation, Eckanker and Scientology. One can even detect convergences with Mormonism, the Unification Church and Swedenborgianism. Communities inspired by a New Age vision include Sparrow Hawk Village, the Findhorn Community, the Lama Foundation, the Tara Center, the Renaissance Community and the Institute in Culture and Creation Spirituality of Matthew Fox. In addition, New Age notions have penetrated spiritual renewal movements like Camps Farthest Out, the Disciplined Order of Christ and the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship. Hannah Hurnard, a Quaker mystic and frequent speaker at Camps Farthest Out for many years, endorses the gnostic idea of preexistent spirits who are struggling to return to unity with God through successive reincarnations. Albert Day, who stands much more forthrightly in the mainstream of Christianity, sees salvation and the kingdom of God as dependent on human effort and ingenuity: 'God needs our sympathy for others. His heart is athrob with loving concern for every troubled, anxious, breaking heart in the world. But what He wants to do for them cannot be done until some human heart offers itself for the deed.'
The New Age teaches neither creation by the will or decree of God nor emanation from the overflowing being of God but progression or evolution toward unity with God. It basically sees God and the world as inseparable. Its metaphysics can be called pantheistic, or better panentheistic, rather than theistic. The human spirit and the Spirit of God are continuous with one another rather than discontinuous. The Spirit no longer resides in the historical Christ or in the Bible but in the inner recesses of the human self. The Holy Spirit is not God in action in biblical history but the 'Slumbering Deep' within us waiting to be discovered. Sacraments are superfluous in this kind of spirituality, since the Spirit encounters us not through external means or signs but immediately, in the depths of our being. The baptism of the Spirit can only mean the alteration of consciousness through meditative techniques, including visualization. Empowerment by the Spirit is at the same time self-empowerment, since God or Spirit is the core of the soul."
- Donald G. Bloesch
from: http://www.amazon.com/Holy-Spirit-Works-Christian-Foundations/dp/0830827552/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364871008&sr=1-7&keywords=donald+bloesch
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