New Age Spirituality

So many people, Christian and non-Christian alike, know so little about the evils of New Age thinking. The advent of the nineteenth century brought with it a new stirring of occult power, and since that time, it has insidiously infected Western culture and theology. “In the late ’60s and early ’70s, Yogi Bhajan—who brought Kundalini Yoga to the West—began speaking about the Age of Aquarius, and said that the transition to the new era would begin in November 1991 and end on November 11, 2011. Then humankind would remain in the Aquarian Age for roughly 2,000 years.”

During the late 1950s and into the mid-1960s, New Age spirituality was like a great iceberg, nine-tenths below the surface. But in the 1960s, it began to grow bold—surfacing in full force by the 1980s. The Church by and large did not respond to it until the iceberg had surfaced, and even then we only halfheartedly attacked the problem.

Theosophy, the Unity School of Christianity, Christian Science, Spiritism, Baha’ism, and Rosicrucianism, all were spearheads of current New Age teachings, and as founder and director of Zondervan Publishing House’s Division of Cult Apologetics (1955–65), and founder and director of Christian Research Institute since 1960, I urged Christian publishers to distribute books and tracts on these cults and the occult, that were even then a growing threat to the Church. I delivered thousands of lectures, crisscrossing America and the world for more than 38 years trying to get the message across. Sometimes, I felt like a frustrated Paul Revere calling out, “The cults are coming, the cults are coming!” That sounded to many like a litany of impending disaster. But so it has proved to be.

The rise of the New Age Movement boomed with the Swamis of the Beatles, spreading worldwide their gospel of the second chance—reincarnation. Driven by a captivated media and a technology revolution, it resulted in a world so saturated with Hinduism that we are now living in the post-Christian era.

Today, though Christianity remains the largest religious group worldwide, hundreds of millions of people are involved in cults and New Age practices or occultic thinking. Over the last 60 years, national magazines, newspapers, and radio and television programs have proclaimed and trumpeted an ever-changing New Age cult or spirituality.

Dusty old occult bookstores and virtually unknown publishers have given way to Amazon, Target, Walmart, and countless online outlets—purveyors of everything occult. There can be little doubt now that in the wake of the Aquarian Age holocaust, we must act and we must be prepared to “give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15).

We have had enough of hearing, “Just be positive and preach the Gospel” and “Don’t offend people by defending your Christian faith or criticizing false teachings; God will protect the church.” Throughout history, every time the Church has failed to defend the faith, false doctrines and heretical teachings have plagued us. Only the church militant can become the church triumphant. The challenge is here; the time is now!

By Divine grace, we still have time to confront and evangelize those practicing New Age spirituality, for this is the world of occultic darkness and spiritual danger beyond belief.

 The World of the Occult and the New Age

The turbulent sixties provided the perfect atmosphere for the rebirth of what we now recognize as New Age Spirituality or the New Age Cult. The word occult is derived from the Latin and basically means “hidden/secret” things. The term is used to describe practices such as astrology, numerology, witchcraft, crystal gazing, necromancy (communication with the dead), magic, and palm reading, which according to the Bible are forbidden to man and cursed by God (Leviticus 20:6; Deuteronomy 18:9–11; Acts 19:19). These satanically energized methods of obtaining otherwise unobtainable knowledge comprise the very heart and soul of New Age spirituality because they are the primary means through which New Age teachings are proclaimed. They may have modern-sounding names (e.g., astral projection, psychometry, radiance therapy, channeling), but they are the same practices the church of Jesus Christ has been standing against for more than nineteen centuries.

The neoorthodox theologian Nels Ferré correctly predicted the influx of Eastern and Indian philosophy and theology that characterized the sixties and concluded that the imported ideas would be a major challenge to historic Christianity.

The great English apologist and writer C. S. Lewis saw the battle lines clearly drawn. He noted that in the final conflict between religions, Hinduism and Christianity would offer the only viable options because Hinduism absorbs all religious systems, and Christianity excludes all others, maintaining the supremacy of the claims of Jesus Christ.

 Occult Roots

To understand New Age spirituality, it is necessary that we recognize its ancient roots in the occult. The Bible forbids occultic practices, stating that they draw on satanic power. It describes several different dimensions or realms of reality such as heaven, hell, and the visible universe. And there is still another dimension that commands our attention. In Ephesians 2 and 6, the Apostle Paul speaks of this dimension as the realm of “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). He declares that the Christian is engaged in spiritual combat against the forces that dominate that realm. In Paul’s words, “our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:12 NIV). The apostle goes to great lengths in his writings to warn us against “the devil’s schemes” (Ephesians 6:11 NIV), echoing the words of Moses to the Israelites in the Old Testament. Moses communicated God’s extreme displeasure with the inhabitants of the land of Canaan, who practiced abominable things and were, in effect, Satan worshipers:

 When you enter the land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall not learn to imitate the detestable things of those nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who casts a spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For whoever does these things is detestable to the LORD; and because of these detestable things the LORD your God will drive them out before you. You shall be blameless before the LORD your God. For those nations, which you shall dispossess, listen to those who practice witchcraft and to diviners, but as for you, the LORD your God has not allowed you to do so. (Deuteronomy 18:9–14 NASB)

This glossary of the occult warned Israel of impending wrath if they followed in the footsteps of the inhabitants of the land that God had chosen to give them.

The occult might be called a substitute faith that is found throughout the history of world religions—including that of the Hebrews themselves—as seen in their esoteric and occultic book The Kabbalah. The Bible speaks repeatedly against all occultic practices, giving special attention to astrologers (Isaiah 47) and those who were called “sorcerers” or “magicians” as recorded in the book of Daniel. There can be little doubt after reading 2 Kings 21 that God’s judgment did come upon Israel for her failure to obey His commands concerning the occult. King Manassah violated all the prohibitions against the occult, bringing about the exile of the Jews, which eventually led to their repentance and restoration.

New Age spirituality is a revival of this ancient occultism. It holds historical ties to Sumerian, Indian, Egyptian, Chaldean, Babylonian, and Persian religious practices. New Age is a fresh title but, as Time magazine pointed out, the occult is nothing new: “So here we are in the New Age, a combination of spirituality and superstition, fad and farce, about which the only thing certain is that it is not new.”

 The Theosophical Connection

Martin, W., & Rische, J. M. (2020). The kingdom of the cults handbook: quick reference guide to alternative belief systems (pp. 375–379). Bethany House.