Table of Contents:
The New Age Movement
Education in The New Age – Interview with Benjamin Creme
‘New Age’ is a Dream Religion of the “Elites
The New Age movement is a Western ‘spiritual’ movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century.
Its central precepts have been described as
drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational psychology, holistic health, parapsychology, consciousness research and quantum physics.
The term New Age refers to the coming astrological Age of Aquarius.
The New Age Movement
The term New Age describes a broad movement of late twentieth century and contemporary Western culture, characterized by an individual eclectic approach to spiritual exploration.
Collectively, New Age has some attributes of an emergent religion, but is currently a loose network of spiritual:
- teachers
- healers
- seekers
The movement is most visible where its ideas are traded—for example in specialist bookshops, music stores, and New Age fairs.
The name “New Age” also refers to the market segment in which its goods and services are sold to people in the movement.
Contents
- Definitions
- History
- Beliefs
- Lifestyle
- Underlying assumptions
- Language
- Critiques of the New Age
- Medicine
- Music
- New Age communities
- References
Definitions
Though there are no formal or definitive boundaries for membership; those who are likely to sample many diverse teachings and practices (from both ’mainstream’ and ’fringe’ traditions) and to formulate their own beliefs and practices based on their experiences can be considered as New Age.’
Rather than follow the lead of an organized religion, “New Agers” typically construct their own spiritual journey based on material taken as needed from the mystical traditions of all or most world religions, including:
- shamanism
- neopaganism
- occultism
Most New Age practices and beliefs may be characterized as a form of alternative spirituality or alternative religion.
Even apparent exceptions, such as alternative medicine or traditional medicine practices, often have some spiritual dimension —such as a conceptual integration of:
- mind
- body
- spirit
Because the New Age term is generally limited to a Western context wherein the Judeo-Christian tradition and Positivism are dominant, the use of “alternative” (rel. religion and/or science) generally implies a contrast with the dominant beliefs.
Hence, many New Age ideas and practices contain either explicit or implied critiques of organized mainstream Christianity —emphasis on meditation suggests that simple prayer and faith is insufficient.
Belief in reincarnation (which not all New Age followers accept) challenges familiar Christian doctrines of the afterlife.
History
The name New Age was popularized by the American mass media during the late 1980s, to describe the alternative spiritual subculture interested in such things as:
- meditation
- channeling
- reincarnation
- crystals
- psychic experience
- holistic health
- environmentalism
other fields associated with pseudoscience, and various “unsolved mysteries” such as:
- UFOs
- Earth mysteries
- Crop circles
Typical activities of this subculture include participation in study or meditation groups, attendance at lectures and fairs; the purchase of books, music, and other products such as crystals or incense; patronage of:
- fortune-tellers
- healers
- spiritual counselors
The New Age subculture already existed in the 1970s, and arguably continued themes from the 1960s counterculture.
Earlier generations would have recognized some, but not all, of the New Age’s constituent elements under the practices of Spiritualism, Theosophy, or some forms of New Thought / the Metaphysical movement, all of which date back to the nineteenth century, as does alternative health.
These movements in turn have roots in:
- Transcendentalism
- Mesmerism
- Swedenborgianism
and various earlier Western esoteric or occult traditions, such as the Hermetic arts of:
- astrology
- magic
- alchemy
and cabbala.
In the English-speaking world, we should make special mention of study groups devoted to American trance-diagnostician Edgar Cayce, who inspired many of today’s channelers.
The British neo-Theosophist Alice Bailey’s writings may have supplied the term New Age (or New Era).
The Findhorn Foundation, an early New Age intentional community in northern Scotland founded in 1962 played a significant role.
The movement in Russia has been heavily influenced by the legacy of Nicholas Roerich and Helena Roerich, who taught in the Theosophical tradition.
Another former Theosophist, Rudolf Steiner and his anthroposophical movement, is a major influence, especially upon German-speaking New Agers.
In Brazil, followers of Spiritualist writer Allan Kardec blend with the Africanized folk traditions of Candomblé and Umbanda.
Key moments in raising public awareness of this subculture include the publication of Linda Goodman’s bestselling astrology books Sun Signs (1968) and Love Signs (1978), the Harmonic Convergence organized by Jose Arguelles in Sedona, Arizona in 1987; and the wave of interest in the broadcast of Shirley MacLaine’s television mini-series Out on a Limb (also 1987).
This was an autobiographical account of her mid-life spiritual exploration.
Also influential are the claims of channelers such as:
and
as well as revealed writings such as:
- A Course in Miracles (Helen Schucman)
- The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
- Mutant Message Down Under (Marlo Morgan)
and Conversations with God (Neale Donald Walsch).
The question of which contemporary cultural elements ought to be included under the name of “New Age” is quite vexed.
New Age channelers have many points of similarity with Spiritualist mediums.
Many spiritual movements, such as neo-paganism and transpersonal psychology partially overlap with it.
Many groups prefer to distance themselves from the possible negative connotations of the “New Age” name such as the media hoopla, commercialism, and perhaps hucksterism.
For example, key individuals in the New Thought movement, such as Ernest Holmes, have focused on a more scientific approach and do not share New Age beliefs in:
- reincarnation
- magic
- channeling
Major attempts to present the New Age as a values-based sociopolitical movement included:
- Mark Satin’s New Age Politics (orig. 1976)
- Theodore Roszak’s Person/Planet (1978)
- Marilyn Ferguson’s Aquarian Conspiracy (1980)
The New Age is a wide menu of ideas and activities, from which participants in the subculture select their own preferred streams to patronize or identify with.
Beliefs
The following are some common — though by no means universal — beliefs found among New Agers:
All humanity—indeed all life, everything in the universe—is spiritually interconnected, participating in the same energy.
“God” is one name for this energy.
Spiritual beings – e.g.:
- angels
- ascended masters
- elementals
- ghosts
and/or space aliens exist, and will guide us, if we open ourselves to their guidance.
The human mind has deep levels and vast powers, which are capable even of overriding physical reality.
You create your own reality.
Nevertheless, this is subject to certain spiritual laws, such as the principle of cause and effect (karma).
The individual has a purpose here on earth, in the present surroundings, because there is a lesson to learn.
The most important lesson is love.
Death is not the end.
There is only life in different forms.
What some refer to as an afterlife does not punish us but teaches us, perhaps through the mechanisms of reincarnation or near-death experiences.
Science and spirituality are ultimately harmonious.
New discoveries in science (evolution, quantum mechanics), rightly understood, point to spiritual principles.
It shares with many major world religions the idea that Intuition or “divine guidance” is a more appropriate guide than:
- rationalism
- skepticism
- the scientific method
Western science wrongly neglects such things as:
- parapsychology
- meditation
- holistic health
There exists a mystical core within all religions, Eastern and Western.
Dogma and religious identity are not so important.
The Bible is considered by some, but not all, to be a wise and holy book.
Many important truths are found in the Bible or are referred to only very obliquely.
Some say that Jesus was an Essene, or that he traveled to India in his youth to study Eastern religions.
Others say that Jesus was a later avatar of Buddha.
Feminine forms of spirituality, including feminine images of the divine, such as the female Aeon Sophia in Gnosticism, are viewed as having been:
- subordinated
- masked
- obliterated
by patriarchal movements that were widely practiced when sacred teachings were first committed to writing.
A renaissance of the feminine is particularly appropriate at this time.
Ancient civilizations such as Atlantis may truly have existed, leaving behind certain relics and monuments (the Great Pyramid, Stonehenge) whose true nature has not been discovered by mainstream historians.
There are no coincidences (see Synchronicity).
Everything around you has spiritual meaning, and spiritual lessons to teach you.
You are meant to be here and are always exactly where you need to be to learn from what confronts you.
The mind has hidden powers and abilities, which have a spiritual significance.
Dreams and psychic experiences are ways in which our souls express themselves.
Meditation, yoga, tai chi, and other Eastern practices are valuable and worthwhile.
The food you eat has an effect on your mind as well as your body.
It is generally preferable to eat fresh organic vegetarian food.
Ultimately every interpersonal relationship has the potential to be a helpful experience in terms of our own growth.
We learn about ourselves through our relationships with other people by getting to see what we need to work on ourselves and what strengths we bring to the other party in order to help them in their life.
All our relationships are destined to be repeated until they are healed, if necessary, over many lifetimes.
As Souls seeking wholeness, our goal is eventually to learn to love everyone we come in contact with.
An appeal to the language of nature, mathematics, as evidenced by numerology in Kabbala, Gnosticism etc., to discern the nature of God and/or to minimize the discrepancies inherent in this pursuit.
Naturally occurring irrational numbers such as Phi, Pi, and e might indicate a fundamental inability of nature to account for the extant universe and therefore imposes a limit to our corporeal understanding of God, or conversely, may be important clues to the attainment of said understanding.
Lifestyle
The following subjective description of a New Age lifestyle illuminates the sociological dimension of the New Age movement.
Note the references to the “inter-connectedness” of all things: “people feeling somehow, mysteriously, they have met before or known each other from a distant time” and an implicit cosmic goal “two people meet and sense there may be a hidden meaning, or reason why”.
Rather than reliance on social forms such as regular church attendance, New Agers “recognize” each other through their mutual perception of shared values, and the shibboleths of New Age terms and usages:
New Age lifestyles can be observed anywhere that people:
- meet
- congregate
- visit
To an outside observer, the eventful outcome of this meeting differs from other similar meetings she may have seen before, because something changes.
Something clicks in people’s behavior making them exchange information, almost always with everyone getting more out of the event than was individually put into it.
This often happens in New Age lifestyles, becoming so common one would think the new age has already left a mark on the mainstream!
At one time before the New Age lifestyle silently, without any fanfare, changed western society, the outcome of interaction was: someone wins and the other loses.
Although this is an overly simplistic view of social intercourse, it did exist in general, at large.
New Age introduced a think tank style of social interaction, which results in a synergy–all involved in a meaningful event are left with more clarity, higher and more focused than before.
Again, this is an overly simplistic view.
People may not even believe they are New Agers, though they fit the general pattern.
A typical conversation may begin in groups or in pairs, where the subject involves insights, deeply held truths, or even revelations, from a known or unknown origin.
The result of this interaction may bond the people involved who share similar visions or outlooks.
Feelings of déjà vu may occur, with people feeling somehow, mysteriously, they have met before or known each other from a distant time in history.
Shopping at a store dealing in herbal supplements, two people meet and sense there may be a hidden meaning, or reason why they just happened to be purchasing ginseng tea at that particular moment, in that particular place, at the same time.
Rather than overlooking the event, tucking it away as a mere coincidence, they talk, more often about themselves to each other, and interact, a key component of this lifestyle.
Underlying assumptions
Judging by its name, the New Age movement ought to involve millenarian claims, perhaps of a glorious future age which is about to begin.
As such it could theoretically be traced back to the time of Zoroaster, or to biblical apocalypticism.
While such expectations are encountered often enough—e.g., the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, pole shifts and paradigm shifts, the imminent end of the Mayan calendar—the predominant themes of the New Age are mystical rather than apocalyptic.
Hence the widespread interest within this subculture in the mystical traditions within the world’s various religions, especially:
- Vedanta
- Yoga
- Tibetan Buddhism
- Zen
- Sufism
- Taoism
- Shamanism
- Kabbalah
- Gnosticism
and mystical forms of Christianity.
Globalization was and still is an important social phenomenon of the 20th and early 21st centuries, with religious syncretism inevitably being one consequence.
New Age religious developments are eclectic, hence multifarious.
Some synthesize Christian ideas with beliefs involving many gods or goddesses, pantheism, include aliens, reincarnation, or the use of drugs, together with other spiritual beliefs from different parts of the world.
Likewise, the movement may incorporate differing beliefs about, or attempts to practice, magic.
Though many New Age terms are associated with Eastern religions, they should not be considered as being identical with the concepts and practices of those religions.
Ancient traditions such as:
- Hinduism
- Taoism
- Buddhism
can hardly be referred to as New Age religions.
It just so happens that the New Age movement has ’adopted’ many of the ideas of eastern religions, incorporated them into their own beliefs and practices.
The gnostic approach of experiential insight and revelation of truth may be closest to the New Age methodology of prayers and spirituality.
In keeping with a relativist stance, New Agers believe they do not contradict traditional belief systems, but rather some of them say that they are concerned with the ultimate truths contained within those systems, separating these truths from false tradition and dogma.
On the other hand, adherents of other religions often claim that the New Age movement has a vague or superficial understanding of these religious concepts, leaving out that which may seem “negative” or contradict contemporary Western values and that New Age attempts at religious syncretism are vague and self-contradictory.
Some people within the New Age movement claim a particular interest in:
- Buddhism
- Hinduism
- Sufism
and Taoism — however eclectic or in-depth such an interest may be depending arbitrarily upon each individual’s pursuit and focus.
New Age is syncretic in nature and has roots as a counter-cultural phenomenon.
Thus, New Age adherents tend to emphasize a relativist approach to truth, often referring to the Vedic statement of “one truth, but many paths,” the mainstay of Hinduism, which idea is also found in the later Zen Buddhist spiritual dictum of “many paths, one mountain”.
This belief is not only an assertion of personal choice in spiritual matters, but also an assertion that truth itself is defined by the individual and his or her experience of it.
This relativism is not merely a spiritual relativism, but also extends to physical theories.
Reality is considered largely from an experiential and subjective mode.
Many New Age phenomena are not expected to be repeatable in the scientific sense, since they are presumed to be apparent only to the receptive mind; for example, telepathy may not be achievable by a skeptical mind, since a skeptical mind is not pre-conditioned to expect the phenomenon to exist.
The New Age worldview typically involves a mysticism-based (rather than experiment-and-theory-based) view of describing and controlling the external world; for example, one might believe that tarot card reading works because of the “interconnectedness principle”, rather than regarding the success (or failure) of tarot card reading as evidence of the interconnectedness principle.
The various New Age vitalist theories of health and disease provide further examples.
Some New Age practices and beliefs could make use of what British anthropologist Sir James George Frazer termed magical thinking, in The Golden Bough (1890).
James George Frazer – Wikipedia
Common examples are the principle that objects once in contact maintain a practical link, or that objects that have similar properties exert an effect on each other.
In contrast to the scientific method, the failure of some practice to achieve expected results is not considered as a failure of the underlying theory, but as a lack of knowledge about (hidden) extenuating circumstances.
This stance has led some skeptics to pronounce the New Age movement to be primarily anti-intellectual in nature.
The emphasis on subjective knowledge and experience is a connection between New Age beliefs and postmodernism.
The shift to a feeling of control over one’s expression of spirituality reflects a trend towards personal responsibility, as well as personal empowerment. Its populist origins help characterize the New Age approach.
This emphasizes an individual’s choice in spiritual matters, the role of personal intuition and experience over societally sanctioned expert opinion and an experiential definition of reality.
Language
Many adherents of belief systems characterized as New Age rely heavily on the use of metaphors to describe experiences deemed to be beyond the empirical.
Consciously or unconsciously, New Agers tend to redefine vocabulary borrowed from various belief systems, which can cause some confusion as well as increase opposition from skeptics and the traditional religions.
In particular, the adoption of terms from the language of science such as “energy”, “energy fields”, and various terms borrowed from quantum physics and psychology but not then applied to any of their subject matter, have served to confuse the dialog between science and spirituality, leading to derisive labels such as pseudoscience and psychobabble.
This phenomenon is additionally compounded by the propensity of some New Agers to pretend to esoteric meanings for familiar terms; the New Age meaning of the esoteric term is typically quite different from the common use and is often described as intentionally inaccessible to those not sufficiently trained in the area of their use.
See the following list:
Stonehenge, Wiltshire, UK Forces.
It is commonly held that there exist certain forces, independent of spiritual beings or agencies, and also distinct from forces as defined by science (e.g., gravitation, electro-magnetism, etc.).
These forces are elemental in nature; and are held to operate in an automatic fashion as part of the natural order (for example, the force which causes seeds to sprout, grow, and bloom).
Power.
The “forces”, and everything else, are energized by a mystical power that exists in varying degrees in all things.
Power is transferable, through physical contact, sensory perception, or mere proximity.
Power may be accumulated or depleted in a person or object through a variety of mechanisms, including fate and esoteric practices.
This power is held to be physically observable as “auras” and “psi energy”; and when encountered in great concentration, may even be dangerous.
Energy.
In some belief systems, “forces” and “power” may seem to merge; e.g., in the concept of “vital force” that exists in so many traditional belief systems, and finds its expression in New Age concepts such as the alleged “energies” in Therapeutic Touch and Reiki, and ideas of flowing streams of power in Earth, like “leylines” in Britain and Europe and earth energies addressed in the Chinese geomantic system of feng shui.
The New Age use of the word “energy” should obviously not be confused with the scientific one.
Spirit.
All beings (particularly sentient beings) are accompanied by a specific, intentional “energy” which corresponds to their consciousness, but is in some way independent of their corporeal existence.
This energy typically is more primary than the physical entity, in the sense that it remains in some form after the physical death of that being.
Holism.
A coherent, interconnected cosmos.
Everything in the cosmos is actually or potentially interconnected, as if by invisible threads, not only in space but also across time.
Further, it is held that everything and every event that has happened, is happening, or will happen leaves a detectable record of itself in the cosmic “medium” such as the Akashic Records or the morphogenic field.
Cosmic goal.
There is typically a belief that all entities are (willingly or unwillingly) cooperating in some cosmic goal of achieving a “higher” or more complete coherence with a cosmic “consciousness” (or some other goal state of “goodness”), often described as an evolutionary process or simply to learn.
This underlying cosmic goal gives direction to all events, reducing the concept of coincidence to one of ignorance of hidden meaning.
Critiques of the New Age
Major critiques of the New Age have emerged from rational philosophical and scientific views that seek to understand the nature of New Age notions.
These often highlight the discrepancies between New Age’s seemingly irreconcilable mix of occultism and acceptance of the laws of physics.
Rather more extreme views have emerged from evangelical Christians who reject all forms of occultism; from skeptics suspicious of paranormal claims and woolly beliefs in general; and from New Agers themselves.
Some, including neo-pagans and particularly reconstructionist groups, who are frequently labeled as New Age, often find the term inappropriate since it appears to link them with beliefs and practices they do not espouse.
Others think that the classification of beliefs and movements under New Age has little added value due to the vagueness of the term.
Instead, they prefer to refer directly to the individual beliefs and movements.
Indeed, use by religious conservatives, scientists and others has caused the term “New Age” to sometimes have a derogatory connotation.
Many adherents of traditional disciplines from cultures such as India, China, and elsewhere; a number of orthodox schools of Yoga, Qigong, Chinese Medicine, and martial arts (the traditional Taijiquan families, for example), groups with histories reaching back many centuries in some cases, eschew the Western label New Age, seeing the movement it represents as either not fully understanding or deliberately trivializing their disciplines.
New Age detractors also say that a true understanding of reason and empiricism produces just as rich an experience as the New Agers claim for themselves, but with emotions and feelings based on thinking and logic instead of the other way around.
They also point out that the definition of empiricism is:
The view that experience, especially of the senses, is the only source of knowledge.
Much of the strongest criticism of New Age eclecticism has come from Native American writers and communities.
The Declaration of War Against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality [1] is one of the strongest statements of disapprobrium from traditional tribal religious leaders.
Other Natives who have issued statements against “white shamanism” include:
The Native argument is that New Age shamans profit from tribal beliefs in a way that is fundamentally inconsistent with those beliefs, while ignoring the communal aspects of tribal religious belief and practice.
Medicine
Many people with a New Age perspective also adopt complementary and alternative medicine.
Some rely on New Age treatments exclusively, while others use them in combination with conventional medicine.
This approach is regarded as completely compatible with a New Age belief in the unity of:
- mind
- body
- spirit
and the emphasis on things of a natural origin.
Some noteworthy New Age techniques are:
- herbal medicine
- Ayurveda
- acupuncture
- homeopathy
- iridology
- auras
and the use of crystals in healing therapy.
Some New Age writers have taken the belief that You create your own reality and applied it to disease with the conclusion that illnesses have a metaphysical origin and can be treated by a deep evaluation of long held negative emotional and spiritual attitudes.
This has a parallel in the Christian notion that
It is done unto you as you believe.
Notably, Louise Hay has published books containing lists of diseases and the associated negative belief, accompanied by the correcting positive belief.
A cure may be sought by repeating the correcting positive affirmation.
This approach has its origins in Christian Science.
It has been criticized as seeming to blame the sufferer for causing the condition.
Its supporters claim the intent is to enlighten the individual so that he or she can change the thinking that exacerbates the condition.
Some followers of New Age thought may also believe certain individuals have the ability to heal, in a similar way to the healing practices reported to have been used by Jesus of Nazareth in the New Testament.
It should be noted that, when considered purely as medical techniques, most of these systems of treatment are viewed with extreme skepticism and even as quackery by most scientific professionals.
When tested using the same types of regimens as those applied to pharmaceutical drugs and surgical techniques (for example, double blind clinical studies), these systems may not yield demonstrable improvements over standard techniques, and some may even produce harm.
However, one benefit of New Age medicine’s popularity, and its criticism of conventional medicine, has been to encourage many medical practitioners to pay closer attention to the entire patient’s needs rather than just her or his specific disease San Francisco Medical Library.
Such approaches, termed “holistic medicine”, are now becoming more popular.
Conventional medicine has recognized that a patient’s state of mind can be crucial in determining the outcome of many diseases, and this perception has helped recast the roles of doctor and patient as more egalitarian.
Critics of New Age medicine continue to point out that without some kind of testing procedure, there is no way of separating those techniques, medicinal herbs, and lifestyle changes which actually contribute to increased health from those which have no effect, or which are actually deleterious to one’s health.
The National Institutes of Health, in Bethesda, Maryland, USA, are in 2005 carrying out research on determining which of these practices may be useful in support of conventional medical practice.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) | Turning Discovery Into Health
Music
Although more rock than new age in genre, the 1967 successful musical Hair with its opening song “Aquarius” and the memorable line
This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius
brought the New Age concept to the attention of a huge worldwide audience.
The first actual mention of the term was by American rock and roll band The Velvet Underground in their not-so-optimistic 1969 song “New Age”.
A large percentage of music described as of New Age genre is instrumental, and electronic.
Arguably, this music has its roots in the 1970s with the works of such free-form jazz groups recording on the ECM label such as Oregon, the Paul Winter Group, and other pre-ambient bands; as well as ambient performers such as Brian Eno and easy listening artists like Solomon Keal.
Solomon Keal | Peace of Heaven Music
The Greek artist Yanni, one of the “superstars” of the New Age genre, relies heavily on synthesizers and instrumental “world music” sounds.
Vocal arrangements are also common.
Enya, although claiming her music is not of this genre, has won a New Age Grammy for her music which utilizes vocals in a variety of languages, including Latin.
Less well known is Medwyn Goodall, who relies mainly on electronic keyboard effects, and includes acoustic guitar as well.
Music labeled New Age often has a vision of a better future, expresses an appreciation of goodness and beauty, even an anticipation, relevant to some event.
Rarely does New Age music dwell on a problem with this world or its inhabitants; instead, it offers a peaceful vision of a better world.
Often the music is celestial, when the title names stars or deep space explorations.
Ennio Morricone wrote the entire score for the movie Mission to Mars, and while the credits flash we hear All the Friends, New Age orchestral style.
The titles of New Age music are often illuminating, because the words used by the artists attempt to convey their version of truth, in a few short words.
On listening to the music, one may understand the idea within the title.
Examples of titles:
Bond of Union
Sweet Wilderness
Shepherd Moons
Animus Anima
Other genres like psytrance/goa trance are not associated with New Age in their philosophies they can be called another New Age perspective.
Psytrance is especially biased towards:
- mysticism
- technology
- spiritualism
and a view that thoughts create reality.
New Age communities
Significant New Age communities exist in the following places:
- Arcosanti, Arizona, USA
- Auroville, Tamil Nadu, India
- Boulder, Colorado, USA
- Byron Bay, Australia
- Christiania, Copenhagen, Denmark
- Italy
- Dornach, Switzerland
- Esalen at Big Sur, California
- Findhorn, near Forres, Scotland
- Glastonbury, Somerset, England
- Monte Verità near Ascona, Switzerland
- Mount Shasta, California, USA
- Sedona, Arizona, USA
- Devon, England
- Ceredigion, Wales
References
- Academic study of the New Age
- Albanese, Catherine L. (1990) Nature Religion in America; From the Algonkian Indians to the New Age, University of Chicago Press, Chicago & London.
- Barna, George , (1996) The Index of Leading Spiritual Indicators, Word Publishing, Dallas TX.
- Bloch, Jon P., (1998) New Spirituality, Self, and Belonging: How New Agers and Neo-Pagans Talk About Themselves, Praeger, Westport, Connceticut & London.
- Drane, John, (1999) What is the New Age Still Saying to the Church? Marshall Pickering, London.
- Ferguson, Marilyn (1982) The Aquarian Conspiracy, Paladin, London.
- Godwin, Joscelyn, (1994) The Theosophical Enlightenment, State University of New York Press, New York.
- Hanegraaff, Wouter J., (1998) New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought, State University of New York Press, Albany, New York.
- Heelas, Paul, (1996) The New Age Movement, Blackwell, Oxford.
- Heelas, Paul and Linda Woodhead (2004) The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion is Giving Way to Spirituality, Blackwell, Oxford.
- Kemp, Daren, (2004) New Age: A Guide. Alternative Spiritualities from Aquarian Conspiracy to Next Age, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.
- Kohn, Rachael, (2003) The New Believers: Re-Imagining God, HarperCollins, Sydney.
- Langone, Michael D (1993). “What Is “New Age?””. Cult Observer 10 (1). Retrieved 26 August 2005
- Lewis, James R. and J. Gordon Melton (eds). (1992) Perspectives on the New Age, State University of New York Press, Albany, New York.
- Melton, J.Gordon , (1995) Whither the New Age? Chapter 35 of T. Miller’s , America’s Alternative Religions, SUNY Press, Albany, NY .
- Michael, June, (2000) Path to Truth: A Spiritual Guide to Higher Conciousness, Writers Club Press, New York.
- Naisbitt J. & Aburdene P., (1990) Megatrends 2000, William Morrow & Company, New York, NY.
- Pike, Sarah M., (2004) New Age and Neopagan Religions in America, Columbia University Press, New York.
- Roof, Wade Clark (1999) Spiritual Marketplace: Baby Boomers and the Remaking of American Religion, Princeton University Press, Princeton.
- Rothstein, Mikael (ed). (2001) New Age Religion and Globalization, Aarhus University Press, Aarhus, Denmark.
- Saliba, John A., (1999) Christian Responses to the New Age Movement: A Critical Assessment, Geoffrey Chapman, London.
- Sutcliffe, Steven & Marion Bowman (eds). (2000) Beyond New Age: Exploring Alternative Spirituality, Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh.
- Sutcliffe, Steven J., (2003) Children of the New Age: A History of Spiritual Practices, Routledge, London and New York.
- York, Michael, (1995) The Emerging Network: A Sociology of the New Age and Neo-Pagan Movements, Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland.
The Sauce:
The New Age Movement (bibliotecapleyades.net)
Education in The New Age – Interview with Benjamin Creme
by George Catlin Share International July/August 1997 issue from Share-International Website
An interview with author Benjamin Creme, highlighting improvements in education which are coming due to a new awareness of what education is and the Aquarian energies which are fueling a more positive, holistic view of what it means to be human.
Benjamin Creme, Maitreya, the Hierarchy of Ascended Masters and Lucifer (bibliotecapleyades.net)
Improving education will be one of the first priorities of the New Time.
- But what actually is true education?
- What is the relationship between the soul and consciousness?
- What part do the Rays play in this?
- What is the role of self-discipline and self-confidence?
- And what of the function of teachers and parents?
Educator George Catlin interviewed Benjamin Creme.
George Catlin: Our topic is education in the New Age, so perhaps the best place to begin is with some clarification of exactly what you mean by education.
What does that term mean to you?
Benjamin Creme: To me, education is every activity that fits a man, woman, or child for the fullest expression of their potential.
Coming into incarnation at a certain stage in development, carrying on from a previous life, we have a given potential in terms of soul expression, intelligence, and physical equipment – whatever that brings into this life.
Education is the preparation of a:
- man
- woman
- child
on:
- physical
- emotional
- mental
and spiritual planes, to bring out their potential in any given life.
GC: So you’re taking education quite broadly then.
Would you say that parents are educators?
BC: In the sense that every child imitates its parents from the word go, then indeed every parent is an educator, for good or ill.
If the behavior of the parent is restrictive, authoritarian, then it is bad education.
If the parent surrounds the child with love and patience and seeks to enhance its expression in any given area, then it is taking an essential part in the education of the child.
But most of us pass on to our children what we received from our own parents.
If that is full of holes, then that is what we pass on.
Most of us receive, and endow our children with, much harmful garbage.
I do not call that education but conditioning.
GC: Outside the home and formal schools, would you see places like the workplace as having a potential for education?
BC: Very much so.
In fact, I would see in the education of the future a closer relationship between formal schoolroom situations and the outer workplace and community in general.
And I would see, as part of education, a growing need to involve children at a young age in full-blown community activities so that they see themselves from the very beginning as part of a community, wider than the family and different from the school – not to replace the school, but to enhance what the school can bring to life.
GC: Given your mention of the future, and the potential for communities emerging in the child’s awareness, maybe this is a good time to get into the question of what the New Age is.
Could you explain that?
BC: The New Age is the result of the cyclic activity of certain great cosmic energies that impose themselves on the life of our solar system.
As it moves around the heavens, our system comes into direct energetic relationship with each constellation of the zodiac in turn.
These constellations embody powerful cosmic energies with particular qualities which dominate the life of the cycle for as long as it lasts – roughly 2,150 years per cycle.
We are emerging out of the Piscean experience and entering the new age in which the Aquarian energies, which are very different from those of Pisces, will create a new culture and civilization as we respond to them.
These energies embody certain great ideas which become our ideals; as we put the ideals into effect, so our culture and civilization grows.
GC: Does one age end at a particular moment and a new age begin?
BC: One ends, and one begins, but not at a particular moment.
There is a transitional phase of roughly 200-300 years.
For example, the energies of Pisces began to recede, as our sun moved away from their sphere of influence, around 1625.
The energies of Aquarius began to come in 50 years later, around 1675.
Every day since 1675 has seen the energies of Aquarius mounting in potency.
This they will do until they reach a zenith and then there will be a gradual declining as the sun moves away from their influence and enters that of Capricorn.
That will take roughly 2,350 years.
GC: To get some perspective on the challenges of education as we move into the Aquarian Age, I wonder if you would say something about the state of human consciousness at the dawn of the Piscean Age 2,000 years ago.
BC: It was dark.
We have a very clear example of this.
A great man, one of the greatest beings who has ever graced this Earth, namely Jesus, lived, worked and carried out a three-year mission in a little country called Palestine.
It is extraordinary that a man who exemplified in himself the quality of love, and to a degree that had never been shown in a man before, could be sent to his death – crucified.
The Crucifixion was a Fraud (bibliotecapleyades.net)
This happened because there was no education.
People were benighted.
There were a few individuals – in this case the priests – who could read and probably write.
They were the teachers, the rabbis, who controlled the others.
You can multiply that across the world.
A few people read and the rest were totally uneducated.
They were:
- peasants
- shepherds
- fishermen
- tool makers
and so on, with no education at all.
They simply did as they were told.
This relationship had gone on from the earliest times.
In the Atlantean civilizations, which are said to have ended about 95,000 years ago, there were a few:
- people
- priests
- kings
who could read, were educated.
The rest of the people simply obeyed, did what they were told.
The Master Djwhal Khul, writing through Alice A. Bailey, says that a scholar of the Middle Ages had a consciousness equal to that of a 14-year-old child of the present.
In every age, in every century, there have been those individuals who stood out; for instance, among the Greeks:
- Aristotle
- Pythagoras
- Plato
- Socrates
- Euclid
and all the other extraordinary minds who have given us the embryonic beginnings of the science and philosophy of today.
But they were the exception.
We have to remember, too, that the
glory that was Greece
was built on slave labor.
GC: The exceptions certainly dominate our sense of history, but at the time of Jesus, what was the average person, the man or woman in the street, able to do and think?
Can you describe their consciousness in any way?
BC: They could not think.
They could certainly be stimulated and made to act in a certain direction.
But it was purely an emotional reaction to excitement.
It was in no sense thinking for themselves.
Otherwise, for example, Jesus would not have been killed.
The populace was whipped up by the priests to get rid of Jesus.
How the Jesus Myth was created (bibliotecapleyades.net)
GC: Would you say that we can think now?
BC: We are beginning to think.
GC: Is that the result of the energies of Pisces?
BC: The energies of Pisces have brought out humanity’s individuality.
This is a great step forward in the evolution of the human race.
We have come out of the herd; we were really intelligent animals in the human herd.
Broadly speaking, people today are individual in a very real sense, quite distinct from what pertained 2,000 years ago.
This is the result of the energy of Pisces.
Also, the quality of idealism, the aspiration and vision so prevalent today, has been responsible for the growth of the ideologies and religions.
People are now ready to die for their beliefs.
This would have seemed unthinkable 2,000 years ago.
This is an extraordinary, self-sacrificing view of life, visionary, and fundamentally spiritual.
GC: Is it inevitable that we progress in a certain way as a result of the energies of a particular age?
BC: If we handle them correctly then we do progress.
Each energy gives to humanity the ability to unfold a further aspect of our potential, divine nature.
Individually, we can slip back, of course, but each age confers on humanity, in an upward spiral, the enhancement of the quality of its consciousness.
There is not an equal response by all people because we are not all at the same level of evolution.
In relation to our point in evolution, so will we respond to these energies, and they will enhance our ability to develop our fuller potential with each age.
GC: Is there choice involved in that?
Have we maximized the opportunity of Pisces?
Could things have developed differently?
Have we done all that we could have achieved through Pisces?
BC: I doubt it. Separateness, which has also been a result of the energies of Pisces, has hindered the development of humanity and created great negative karma, both personal and racial.
We have hindered ourselves tremendously.
Separation, of course, is the great hindrance to evolution.
There is no separation; this is the heresy of heresies.
We are souls in incarnation; there is no such thing as a separate soul.
The fundamental need of any new approach to education will be the understanding, the realization as a fact in life, of the soul.
GC: Given that soul realization would be the overall aim of evolution, what particular aspect will Aquarius draw forth?
What energies does Aquarius bring?
BC: Above all, the energy of synthesis.
You can already see the effect of the energy of synthesis if you look at almost anything in life, certainly education.
Synthesis has to do with relationships – for instance, the relationship of ideas.
Through philosophical investigation you can broaden the consciousness until what seemed the most distant can be seen as standing side by side.
Not only complementing and completing each other but throwing light on each other.
It is this ability to synthesize that inevitably broadens the consciousness of humanity and makes correct human relationships possible.
These energies of Aquarius, with their synthesizing quality, will broaden the individualistic consciousness until it can embrace the one humanity.
So that we can stand fully individual, unique, and at the same time as one part of this great group which we call humanity.
GC: Even in the abstract that sounds like a huge step forward for human consciousness.
How do you imagine that playing out in more concrete terms, in terms of institutions and forms of daily living?
BC: This is a difficult one because the forms are not yet there.
Experimentation is going on throughout the world, in some countries more than others.
It will make for a growing group consciousness.
People will see themselves more and more as part of a group.
In educational establishments, in business, in every aspect of life, you will find groups forming.
People who want to make their voices heard in the political field, for instance, form, or join, parties.
A party is simply a big group.
That group can make known its general ideology, beliefs, intentions, hopes and aspirations in a more powerful way than can the individual.
In this way the world gradually becomes more unified because we find that, although people are individual, they all need the same things.
Everybody needs enough:
- food
- shelter
- housing
- clothes
- health care
and education.
These requirements, which are common to every man, woman and child on the planet, will more and more become the accepted norm.
When they are seen to be the basic requirements for all, we will see global consciousness become a fact.
Unfortunately, up until now, education in most countries has been very nationalistic.
People have been taught the history of their nation, usually in a very biased form: everything that nation did was good, and everything other nations did was bad.
This has given a very jaundiced, and quite incorrect, vision of the world to the developing child.
I would say that education, in the first place, has to show the child that it is a member of a world family.
The synthesizing energy of Aquarius must be used to create this global consciousness.
Children need to be shown that we are not living alone in one large or small country, but in a world shared by 5.7 billion people.
The child, above all, should be taught that this is the fundamental position of his/her life on Earth: that they are one of a group, a family.
Just as a family shares the resources that come into the household, so the human family should share the resources that are given by Divine Providence for that purpose.
GC: It is hard for me to see consciousness, individuals, and education moving in that direction.
In the face of world need, people seem to be getting ever more individualistic.
BC: We have the expression, today, probably, of the greatest greed that we can imagine, although compared with what one knows about Atlantis, we do not know what greed is.
They had the greatest greed that has ever been; rich people who bathed in milk; kings who stored gold by the ton, and some castles which were actually made of gold.
Everyone else lived little better than animals: they thought like animals (if you could call it thinking) they emoted like animals, they obeyed like animals.
Those above them, the kings and chiefs who could think, completely dominated all life.
For most people, life was very brutish.
Today, we have growing wealth and growing greed around the world, as the mechanism for making money becomes more and more refined.
The techniques of making money are now so exquisite that people can make a life out of doing just that.
At the same time, more and more people are realizing the needs of the one humanity.
They realize that millions of people are starving to death, and countless millions more are living in utter poverty, degradation, misery and want.
That gap, the discrepancy between the rich and poor, is the real problem.
This cannot go on forever.
There is a growing awareness that things have to change.
The very speed of the advance of greed through market forces and competition is forcing us to the edge of a precipice.
This will suddenly bring us face to face with reality.
There are various portents of breakdown in our economic structure, collapse of the stock exchanges of the world.
When such events occur, they will transform the present economic system, probably forever.
GC: You have spent most of your recent life emphasizing that, soon, and potentially shortly after this kind of economic readjustment, the externalization of the Spiritual Hierarchy will complete itself and that the Masters will emerge into public view led by the Christ.
The New Age Religion – Brought To Us By The Ascended Masters (bibliotecapleyades.net)
How is that going to affect education?
BC: The fundamental purpose of education, as I see it, is to equip people to demonstrate their divine potential as souls in incarnation.
The externalization of the work of the Masters will have an enormous:
- physical
- emotional
- mental
and psychological impact on humanity.
We will come to realize that the soul really does exist.
They, the Masters, are the Kingdom of souls.
People like Jesus will be talking to the people daily.
He is alive and well and, if you can believe me, has been living in Rome for the last seven years.
The Master of all the Masters, the Lord Maitreya, has been living in London (although moving around the world at will) since 1977.
Maitreya – The Most Holy Maitreya & His Beloved Barker, Brother Benjamin (bibliotecapleyades.net)
If these are facts, then the fact of the Hierarchy will also demonstrate the fact of the soul.
People will say:
That was Saint John
or
That was Saint Peter.
But today he is the Master Koot Humi or the Master Morya.
It will become clear that reincarnation is a fact of life.
This will transform human thinking about the reason for our being on the Earth.
We will come to know the answers to the age-old questions:
Why are we here? Who are we? What is the purpose of life? Where are we going to?
It will become clear that we are here for a certain purpose: the evolution of the soul in incarnation, carrying out the evolutionary process.
Every soul comes into incarnation with a given set of purposes.
Each person’s education should be geared to facilitate that process, the working out of the soul’s purpose in life.
This means that teachers, the educators, whether in school or out of school, must know the point in evolution of any given child.
They must know the focus of their consciousness, what really commands their greatest attention – the polarization, as it is called, of their consciousness.
Is it on the physical plane? (I do not think any human being is polarized on the physical plane today.)
Is it on:
- the astral
- the mental
- the spiritual
plane?
Astral Plane – Library of Rickandria
With the vast majority of people, it will be found that their polarization, the seat of their consciousness, is the astral/emotional plane.
That being so, the point of education for these people will be to lift their consciousness onto the mental plane.
If they are mentally polarized, then the educational aim will be the raising of consciousness from the mental to the spiritual level, so that they become spiritually polarized.
GC: How will teachers be able to assess that? Is that something that one can be trained to perceive?
BC: With the Masters working openly in the world, they will train Their disciples.
Today we have schoolteachers.
A schoolteacher is trained to teach children to read, write, do arithmetic, and so on.
It is a very limited range of ideas which a teacher is called upon to evoke from the pupil.
In most cases it is not even that; it is a limited set of ideas which the teacher is instructed to teach the child by rote to adhere to and accept.
That, to my mind, is not education at all.
Education should be the evocation of the potential – whether emotional, mental, or spiritual, of each individual child.
Teachers need to be equipped with the new psychology, which is soul psychology.
They have to know the point in evolution of the child.
They have to know the seat of consciousness, where the child is polarized.
And they have to know the governing energies, or rays, of each individual child.
Every individual is governed on all levels –
- soul
- personality
- mental
- emotional
and physical – by certain rays, streams of energy, seven in number.
The Number Seven – Library of Rickandria
You can have one of each of these rays or just a few.
The personality, mental, astral/emotional and physical rays can change from life to life while the soul ray remains the same for a world cycle, which is an immeasurably long period of time.
When these rays are known, the propensities, the lines of greater or lesser resistance for any individual child will be known.
This will help the educator to teach the child the best way to proceed to bring out its talents – to go along the line of least resistance when that is the right thing to do, or to tackle a line of greater resistance when that might evoke a trait which is trying hard to express itself and finding it difficult.
GC: It is one thing to understand the rays in the abstract, but it is quite another to be able to assess that in an individual.
Will that be the result of specific training that teachers will receive?
BC: Yes.
People will have specific training.
It is not so very difficult to recognize the rays.
If you really study them and make it a daily habit of mind – looking at people and visualizing them in terms of their rays – it is relatively easy for intelligent people who are interested in the subject to become pretty accurate in the delineation of a person’s ray structure.
This will move education out of the classroom.
When we think of teachers, we usually think of one teacher in the class.
I do not see any reason why a much richer kind of education could not be given.
Instead of one teacher, they could have a series of teachers from outside, who are educators.
They might be:
- artists
- scientists
- esotericists
- policemen
- doctors
who will give them the benefit of their life experience, which is what students need.
They do not need simply specific teaching, as it is given today, along a subject line only.
They need that too, of course.
But you can broaden the consciousness of a child.
Most children find that what they later think of as their best education came from inspiring parents, uncles, teachers, friends – people who have caught their imagination in life.
If the community really took education seriously, which I am sure it will eventually do, days could be set aside for meetings with philosophers, scientists, and so on, who will donate a day, a week, or whatever, to come into colleges and schools and give the benefit of their experience along their own line of work.
In this way the gifts of unusual, and unusually gifted, people can be better put at the service of the growing population.
GC: Earlier you mentioned
lines of least and greater resistance.
Could you expand on that a little bit?
What is a line of least resistance and why shouldn’t one just follow it wherever it leads?
BC: It is sometimes better to do what is hardest for us.
That brings out qualities of self-discipline that are very necessary.
I am not talking about discipline imposed, but self-discipline, which is probably the most important thing we can do, as long as it is correctly managed.
Just to discipline oneself for no reason, as many ascetics do, especially religious ascetics who beat themselves, does nothing but harden the nature and turn one against the world and life.
If your line of least resistance is to be rather lazy, take life easy, not try very hard, it could well be an impediment to progress from the soul’s point of view in that life.
You may well need to tackle the things you do not like doing, the things that are difficult.
If you can do that, discipline yourself in these ways, you can become more disciplined in the bigger ways, the ways that really matter.
I think this is what education is also about: the disciplining of the individual in the management of his or her life, and his or her potential, given by the rays.
Anybody with a 3rd-ray mind has a very active mind, creative, lively, full of ideas.
They could, however, be overactive and manipulative, never learning to sit still, to look inwards and find the meaning of life.
Then there are other rays, like the 6th, which is very idealistic and yearning for the higher vision and the higher inner life.
People dominated by the 6th ray can be often very unpractical on the outer physical plane.
The same is true of the 2nd ray, which is very interned.
It finds that the way into the soul is very easy – a line of no resistance.
But the way outward, in relation to the outer physical world and all its demands, is something which is often very difficult for the 2nd-ray personality.
If you can discipline yourself and use your qualities intelligently (which is not easy to do) you can strengthen your weak points and modify your strong points so that – although they will still dominate – they need not obliterate the other aspects of yourself.
You strengthen the weak points in the beginning in small ways by little disciplines, until they add up to a strong disciplining will.
That is education – self-education – in terms of handling your ray structure, which is really handling life.
GC: Inherent in what you just said is the idea that the problems come in two directions, essentially.
One is handling life on the outer plane and knowing how to cope with the external world, and the other is this inner movement toward the soul.
BC: This is the crux of the matter.
Up until a certain point in evolution, you are either one or the other: either introverted or extroverted in any given life.
That is the path of discipleship, in which you are learning to handle these energies which are driving you inward to soul life and also outward to personality life, sequentially.
A whole life can be introverted to the soul or extroverted to the outer world.
The individual in each case has an inner unhappiness because he realizes this, but he really cannot do much about it.
When a certain balance has been reached, and when the person has integrated the:
- physical
- emotional
- mental
vehicles, he or she becomes initiate.
The sign of the initiate is that he/she can go inward, be introverted at will, but also go out and relate perfectly easily to the outer world, at will.
GC: It would seem that our present education is mostly geared toward relating to the outer world.
We are primarily taught skills designed to help one fit into society.
What about the developments that might come in the future toward the inner side?
BC: Today, most education, for what it is worth, is education for jobs.
People are simply fitted to make their living in the outer commercial world under the whip of competition.
This will change.
Competition has to give way to cooperation.
Above all, it is competition, which is based on greed and fear, that holds humanity back in its most important expression of its oneness, its sense of being part of one group.
This has to change.
When it does, people will realize, and the Masters will exemplify, the fact of the soul.
People will realize that they are souls and will turn to the soul.
Then the education for the life of the soul, and the psychology of the soul, will become more and more the norm in our educational system.
I do not mean that we will have only religious education. I am not talking about religion at all.
The religious path, as seen by the Masters, is only one of many paths to the demonstration of our innate divinity.
God does not reside in the religion, although the religion might help you to realize that divinity.
Every aspect of life –
- politics
- economics
- religion
- art
- culture
- science
- education
– can be lived in such a way that what we call God can be known and expressed.
The divine becomes a moment-to-moment experience.
That is in fact what it is.
It is not a man with a beard sitting up in the sky watching that you are not:
- stealing
- lying
- cheating
It is inside you; it is your sense of the divine inside that gradually changes you from:
- lying
- cheating
- stealing
to not doing these things.
Not because somebody is telling you that it is bad, but because you instinctively know that that is not the right way to live with your fellow human beings.
Whatever injures or harms another person is intuitively, instinctively, wrong.
A change in behavior comes about by self-observation and self-determination.
These things fall away as you become more aware of, and imbued with, the quality of the soul.
That will happen on a wider and wider scale as humanity ceases to compete and learns to cooperate – in the family, in the community, nationally and internationally.
GC: In regard to getting to the state of being able to cooperate and beginning to sense the soul and its values and mission, the World Teacher, the Lord Maitreya, has been quoted as saying that without self-esteem nothing can be done. Is this a first step in that direction?
Is that something:
- parents
- teachers
- schools
should be thinking about?
BC: Very much so.
One of the saddening things about present education is the way children are put down, told that they are wrong, told not to do that, that is naughty.
This inhibition of the child that goes on all the time has nothing to do with naughtiness.
The child has no concept of naughtiness.
The child has only desires, instincts, and a looking for adventure.
If they were allowed to do that without always being told that they are naughty and wrong, they would grow up without these inhibitions, this lack of self-esteem.
They would feel loved, feel that their parents really cared about them, had patience for them, were ready to listen to them, speak with them, and so on.
That would give an inner confidence which reflects itself in an ability to make the best of any opportunity presented by life.
What holds most people back is a lack of confidence.
That is mainly the result of continual nagging by parents, putting the child down.
You’re only a child.
or
How could you know?
Everything a child says is sneered at and belittled.
I do not mean in every family, but in many.
Even among otherwise intelligent and educated people you will find the same kind of down-putting, derision of their children.
Children should never, ever, be derided.
It is only a convenience for parents to inhibit the child so that they can keep them under moderate control.
People are so overworked and tired, their nervous systems so taut, that they cannot bear the presence and demands of their own children.
That is a tragedy for them, for the children and for society as a whole.
Self-esteem is a fundamental need in every human being.
The lack of it is what drives people to crime, drug-taking, all the abuses, even suicide.
All of that is a direct result of the inability of many parents to inculcate a sense of love and understanding, to treat them with a warm, patient, readiness to help, to listen and relate to the child, and give them that essential confidence.
GC: It seems at present that most teachers spend about 50 per cent of their time and energy in school trying just to cope with the problem of discipline, trying to keep children within bounds, in some sense.
Are you saying that if the child is well-parented, given this love, that won’t be such a problem?
BC: Absolutely.
My Master has written for our magazine Share International that it really is not a problem of discipline at all.
Share International (share-international.org)
It is a question of freedom. It is a matter of seeing the validity of the child, the need of the child for self-expression.
Each child, at whatever level it comes into incarnation, comes into the world with its own set of purposes.
A main purpose is to learn to live in peace and harmony with the rest of us, all the people with whom he or she comes into relationship.
The actual possibility to do this is rare today. You are a very exceptional individual if you come into life in a family, a school situation, a national community, where everything you need to work out your life purposes as a soul is available to you.
We need to recognize that all young people are unique.
They are sons of God evolving towards the manifestation of that divinity and sonship.
How many people see an individual child in that way?
Many parents love their child, but you can love a child and not respect it.
To say that you really respect its uniqueness and validity at every turn, I think is a huge claim.
Not many people meet that need of the child.
We have the Year of the Child, but that is playing at the game, this giving respect to the child.
The very fact that we have the Year of the Child, however, even if it is only a non-active slogan, means that we are beginning to see the validity of the child and the need to respect it.
A child at any point of evolution comes into incarnation with all its past achievements.
There is a wonderful child today, aged 11, who paints pictures that are said to be like Picasso, Matisse, or Chagall – obviously a tremendously gifted child.
She is Romanian, living in America, and already fantastically successful.
This child is allowed to paint.
She is a genius and is allowed to be a genius.
And she does it.
Instead of going out to play, she paints these great big canvases and covers them with the most interesting and beautiful ideas.
Children should be introduced to all that they need to further their talents.
This is to do with respecting the child as a soul.
If you respect each child as a soul and see that they have all of that behind them, give them the scope in which that can come out, marvels of creativity will come forth.
GC: Do you imagine special kinds of schools for special kinds of development?
BC: I see special kinds of education for specially gifted children – not necessarily special schools.
It can be in the same school.
But there have to be different departments that will accommodate, enhance and develop the gifts of specially gifted children.
Otherwise, the race will suffer.
Today, if you are a specially gifted child, usually sooner or later these gifts show themselves, whatever the circumstances.
But a tremendous amount of time may be lost in the process.
Some demonstrate only a fragment of their potential because it was not noted when the person most needed it.
That will mean training teachers at higher and higher levels.
As far as education is concerned, it will only be as good as the quality of the teachers.
Training of teachers, I would say, is the fundamental first step in all new educational needs.
GC: There’s some writing, particularly by the Master DK, about the possibility of schools starting to become focused more on the problem of reaching beyond the mind to the soul.
Do you envision that happening?
BC: Yes, absolutely.
Obviously, you need to discipline the instincts.
You need to enhance and develop the intellect, the mind and the brain.
And you need to evoke the intuition.
These are higher and higher steps.
The more advanced the individual, the more the intuition will play a role.
The bridge to it, the antahkarana which is created by meditation and service, will become known as a definite part of the educational curriculum.
The Science of the Antahkarana (bibliotecapleyades.net)
You have to build the bridge.
Meditation, therefore, at a certain point in the educational system, will have to come in as the way, par excellence, to create the bridge to the soul.
GC: It is interesting you mention meditation and service.
Many schools are already instituting service components of their education.
Many colleges have that as part of their requirements for a degree.
It is nice to think that is already happening.
BC: Yes.
The more the child is related to the community at an early age, the more service will become normal and natural.
GC: In that same vein, are you suggesting that meditation will be taught in our schools or colleges?
BC: Yes.
It should never be imposed at an early stage.
I do not believe in making young children meditate, but the beginnings of meditation are beneficial.
We discussed the problems of discipline.
If the children were to start the day by just sitting quietly for five minutes and taking a few deep breaths, just quietly thinking about themselves and maybe what they are going to do for the rest of the day, just letting these breaths quiet them down, you could have a completely different atmosphere in the school.
GC: And then for older children the more technical training in meditation?
BC: Indeed, the beginnings of meditation, or light meditation, in which the concentration is focused.
You have to learn to concentrate, to use the mind, and to meditate and build the bridge to the soul.
There are times for doing this. I am not going to set down ages because children vary enormously depending on their point in evolution.
Those who are more evolved can start at an earlier age than those less evolved.
GC: I have one last topic that you might address: television and its effect on children.
BC: I would say that television has one of the greatest negative effects on children.
It is not the fault of the children but of the type of television.
I have found that meditators in America, for example, have very little concentration.
Their attention span is very limited.
I think it is largely due to the breakup of attention from a very early age, through watching commercial television.
It is convenient to let you go and get a cup of coffee, or whatever, but it breaks up the attention in the middle of any program.
Your interest is held for a certain point and then suddenly you have a break, which goes on for almost longer than the preceding episode of the program you were watching.
That is terrible for the concentration.
If it is bad for adults, it is also very bad for children.
Children’s television is no better in that respect.
They have their own set of nasty advertisements telling them to get their parents to buy this, that and the other.
This is a social thing. It is to do with competition, greed, the wrong economic systems in the world, which will change when cooperation and sharing replace the present competitive system.
Children have to be taught to concentrate. It does not always come naturally.
With some it does:
the more evolved, of course, can usually concentrate.
Yet there are many gifted children who cannot concentrate at all.
GC: Do you imagine television eventually playing a more positive role?
BC: Yes, indeed.
Television will become the great teacher in the world, but it will have to change dramatically in its content, its substance.
Non-Lethal Weapons: “Psychotronics” & “Silent Sound” (basecamp.com)
You can imagine television screens in every home, where the children can be taught about history in the real sense – global history, not nationalistic, chauvinistic history, but the history of humankind throughout the ages – and relate themselves to it.
The Masters can project onto the television screens a view of life in the far, far distant past, in Atlantean days, and forward into the future, showing visions of what can be.
There will be wonderful programs for children projected onto the screens by the Masters.
Television will be the key tool by which Maitreya and the Masters teach humanity.
The Sauce:
Education in The New Age – Interview With Benjamin Creme (bibliotecapleyades.net)
‘New Age’ is a Dream Religion of the “Elites
by Adam Hisle October 22, 2018, from Minds Website
Throughout the ages, countless:
- philosophers
- scientists
- explorers of the mind
have attempted to discover the properties and principles of an objective, “substantial reality”.
It is immediately apparent to any other sentient being’s perspective that we most likely live together in a single world of matter and physics.
Certain principles of this “substantial reality” seem to be completely static for everyone under certain conditions, and work 100% of the time.
Examples of principles we know are,
gravity and thermodynamics…
The ability of these principles and their effects to be demonstrated over and over, gives humanity faith in them to create freedom for everyone in the forms of:
- airplanes
- refrigerators
- cures to disease
We can already see the connection between true knowledge of principles and the creation of human freedom through technology in these examples.
Perspective vs. Truth
Humans have a set of sensory organs that input a very small amount of information from our environment into our brain.
This is why, each person is said to have a perspective, or a lens with which they are viewing reality.
True Nature of Reality – Library of Rickandria
The truth or the objective substantial reality can be depicted as a straight line which does not move.
Our perspectives on the other hand are limited and usually based on belief, which causes them to vary wildly from the truth like a wave.
The very best that we can do, is attempt to align our individual perspectives with the truth.
Requirements exist in reality.
If you want something to be different than its default condition, requirement exists.
To build a computer, you must first have all of the correct components and assemble them.
To build a house, you must first clear the land, and build a strong foundation.
If what we are creating as humanity is continually the opposite of what we want, then logically we either do not know the requirements or they are being ignored by an extremely large majority of people.
I think that ignorance of the truth is the main cause to the problems humanity has created for itself.
In its most accurate definition, the truth can be defined as,
That which is.
It is everything that has happened in the past, and everything happening right now.
The nature of our position in space time is that the truth cannot be changed.
We can see the effects of our actions which have echoed off the principles of the universe into what we have created here.
The question is,
Is this what we want to create?
What do you say that you want for the world and all the people in it?
Most people say they want peace, health, and happiness for the world.
However, in current human societies we are stuck in cycles of slavery, war, and genocide.
We are creating the opposite of what we say we want.
Lies and Deception are the enemy of the Truth.
They are put forward into the minds and hearts of the people of Earth by those who rage against what is.
They are spoken, propagated and acted upon by those with a vested interest in keeping the understanding of the Truth from reaching the Consciousness of each individual.
Lies and deception are insidious, for once they have been believed and accepted by well-meaning individuals, these individuals, in their ignorance, become agents for the spread of these falsehoods.
This is how lies and propaganda are spread from generation to generation.
A parent is indoctrinated into the lie, and then the parent indoctrinates their children, who in turn indoctrinate their children, and so on, down through the generations…
The main function of these cultural lies is to leave a person not knowing anything about themselves or the world they live in, so they unknowingly consent to become a slave…
Here are some of the core illusions the slave masters use to keep humanity ignorant of its true identity and therefore its true power:
Five senses / Materialism illusion
Many people fall into this category of identifying with their experiences or their “stuff”.
We are not what we can:
- see
- touch
- taste
and hear, and we are not our possessions.
You can spot someone who is suffering from materialistic identification from how they act when they lose something that is important to them (not usually people).
If you think that money and material wealth is the road to happiness, success or enlightenment, you have bought a bill of goods from men who have lied to you to keep you giving away your energy to purchase their crap.
Dogmatic Belief Systems
Religion is the main belief system that people readily identify as fooling people into believing lies… It’s easy for someone to gain enough knowledge of the truth to easily dispel the old astrotheological control cults of the,
- Christians (sun)
- Islamic (moon)
- Jewish (star)
Gods & Religions on Planet Earth (basecamp.com)
…communities, but there are other religions that you may have missed.
Government as it currently exists is a belief system of slavery in which a group called “authority” makes commands and the public is under the obligation to obey those commands, or else get:
- harassed
- robbed
- caged
or murdered.
Democracy is not a system to be hailed and spread throughout the globe.
The forefathers knew that we should keep the republic they gave us, and they knew the damage democracy would do.
Democracy is,
nothing more than a system in which everyone is a slave and master of slaves…
There is no true majority, everyone will have the taste of choosing to enforce their way through voting and the violence of the state and having other’s ways enforced on them through the same voting box.
In this way, slavery is perfected.
As a democracy goes on, it’s final form shows a society where the most morally incorrect and therefore most harmful actions of theft and murder are legalized.
The United States shows us this by legally allowing an oligarchy of criminals to:
- control our currency.
- tax and enslave a nation.
- use its military defense as a murderous offense.
American “Empire” – Library of Rickandria
The belief in the legitimacy of government, is the belief in the legitimacy of slavery…
New Age religion is another popular belief system that is taking the place of the old astrotheological ones.
I refer to ‘New Age’ as “new solipsism”…
Solipsism is what you could possibly consider the very first lie of authority, that there is no truth, as you can never be sure that anything outside of yourself even exists.
Solipsism’s definition from Wikipedia is:
from Latin solus, meaning ‘alone’, and ipse, meaning ‘self’, …is the philosophical idea that only one’s own mind is sure to exist.
As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one’s own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind.
As a metaphysical position, solipsism goes further to the conclusion that the world and other minds do not exist.
With enough research, you can find that this religion has ancient roots, and has been used by slave masters in the past for a very specific reason. In short, the ‘New Age’ belief system is designed to remove the action oriented or masculine element from our consciousness.
This religion states the lie that when you give attention to bad things, it causes more bad things to happen.
They say that the only way to attain a positive happy problem-free environment is to ignore the negative.
Imagine an entire society of people who simply meditate and ignore the fact that you are putting them into covert concentration camps.
‘New Age’ is a controllers dream ‘religion’, because the only thing that can stop them is people exposing their lies and misdeeds.
If a majority of people simply ignore tyranny it gets its freedom and consent to grow and grow, the truth is, much like ignored cancer, anything that creates a problem only gets worse when its ignored.
Ego based identification
This barrier is a difficult one to get over, because it involves discovering that we are not what we think we are... People grow up learning to attach labels to themselves like,
- human
- engineer
- caretaker
- mom
- hero
…and a billion other identities we can make up for ourselves.
As we grow, we become more knowledgeable of our own likes and dislikes, so these labels change as we change what we think about ourselves.
Culture can use this against you.
There are ideas and sayings that are becoming very prevalent in our culture at the moment having mostly to do with animalizing human beings.
You can see women wearing shorts that say, “head of the pack”, or the new “furry” craze with people dressing up and acting like animals.
This all adds up to a single extremely deceptive phrase that has been used for a long time to keep humans at a very low frequency of ego identification.
I’m sure you’ve even heard this phrase and have maybe even said it, many times.
What is this ancient evil core idea that keeps people from realizing they are actually infinitely powerful supreme beings?
It’s that we’re “Only Human”…
Left Brain Prison
Mind control is a largely undiscovered science by the masses. Using the two sides of the brain, a psychological controller is able to make one hemisphere dominant over the over, and therefore create a “tilted” worldview within that individual.
“Left Brain Prison” refers to when a person is working mostly with the left hemisphere which corresponds with mostly logic and math.
David Icke says,
The intellect, left to itself, is a prison of the mind. If you look around you at most of what we call ‘society’, it has been created by intellect. Not heart, not higher consciousness – intellect.
The education system worships the intellect and seeks out through examinations the sharpest intellects to run the institutions of government, finance, business, science, education, media and military in the next generation.
What do they all, or at least the vast majority, have in common?
They are prisoners of the intellect, and that’s why we have a society founded on, and created by, intellect – one of the lowest expressions of consciousness.
David Icke & Consciousness (basecamp.com)
I think an example of a highly intellectual yet not very intelligent person who is affected by the left-brain prison is Stephen Hawkings.
Like most hardcore left brain imbalanced people, Hawkings states that human free will is an ‘illusion’ and the universe is simply a predestined dead mechanized clockwork.
In conclusion,
the truth, is perhaps the most important, and most powerful idea that currently exists for us to solve our problems.
Dare I say that, aligning our perceptions with the truth may be the purpose to our entire existence.
The key to busting out of this prison of deception we are all in, is to be very careful with our sources of information.
Do not believe anyone when it comes anything.
Start to exercise your intuition and try to believe and trust in yourself to test and determine what is true and what is false.
Once you gain this ability to think critically on your own, most forms of mind control that effect most everyone will no longer work on you, and you will be free to think outside the box to solve problems.
Keeping it simple, the standard way to gain true knowledge is to:
- Create a theory.
- Prove it false.
- Repeat…
Ancient societies even understood how our reality is built on knowledge (or lack of) of the truth.
They called this information the “Trivium” or “Quadrivium“.
This basic information on how our reality is built has been hidden from the minds and educations of an extremely large majority of people in our societies today for the purpose of control.
Masters over slaves in the past knew that knowledge of the truth made men unfit to be slaves.
This is not all they knew…
Mystics at the Oracle of Delphi once inscribed that basically the only knowledge worth knowing is self-knowledge:
Heed these words, you who wish to probe the depths of nature:
If you do not find within yourself that which you seek, neither will you find it outside.
In you is hidden the treasure of treasures.
True Nature of Reality – Library of Rickandria
Global Elite: The Transnational Capitalist Class (basecamp.com)
The Sauce:
‘New Age’ is a Dream Religion of the “Elites” XXX (bibliotecapleyades.net)
CONTENTS:
Alice A. Bailey – Mother of the New Age or the New World Order? (bibliotecapleyades.net)
Fundamentalists are Slandering New Age Groups (bibliotecapleyades.net)
Illuminati Hell or Aquarian Heaven? (bibliotecapleyades.net)
Lucifer Rising (bibliotecapleyades.net)
New-Age Paradoxes and Confusions (bibliotecapleyades.net)
The Georgia Guidestones – Do they contain the Ten Commandments of the Anti-Christ? (bibliotecapleyades.net)
The New Age Movement and Service to The Plan (bibliotecapleyades.net)
The New Age Religion – Brought To Us By The Ascended Masters (bibliotecapleyades.net)
The Roots of The New Age (bibliotecapleyades.net)
What “New Age” Really is About (bibliotecapleyades.net)
White (Solar) Brotherhood (basecamp.com) – Main File
Why America No Longer Needs New Age Charlatans, But A True Revolution (bibliotecapleyades.net)
Additional Information
The Deepest Secret (basecamp.com)
Extraterrestrial Contact and Integral Theory (bibliotecapleyades.net)
False Teachers – The Masks are Coming Off (bibliotecapleyades.net)
Fragmentary Aquarian Chronology (bibliotecapleyades.net)
Lucis (Lucifer) Trust (basecamp.com) – Main File
New World Order or Occult Secret Destiny? (bibliotecapleyades.net)
Sensitivity International – Network for World Control (bibliotecapleyades.net)
United Nations & Spirituality – Conspiracy Theories with Coffee and Pot
The Aquarian Conspiracy – Fact or Fiction? (bibliotecapleyades.net)
Antichrist – Library of Rickandria – Main File
The Coming of Ages (bibliotecapleyades.net)
The Master File – Cosmic Awareness (bibliotecapleyades.net) with Paul Shockley as the Interpreter – Main File
True Reality Creation (basecamp.com)
Age of Aquarius (basecamp.com)
Related Reports
Buddhism and The Kalachakra System (bibliotecapleyades.net) – Main File
The Georgia Guidestones (bibliotecapleyades.net) – Main File
The Ashtar Command (bibliotecapleyades.net) – Main File
The First Earth Battalion – Dare to Think the Unthinkable, Ideas and Ideals for Soldiers Everywhere (bibliotecapleyades.net)
United Nations: The Ultimate Delusion – Conspiracy Theories with Coffee and Pot – Main File
Global Religion (bibliotecapleyades.net)
New World Order – Novus Ordo Mundi (basecamp.com)