Has the New Age movement failed you

[Tab]

Hey, good call on the part of the early Christians. I decided a long time ago that the greatest evil is ignorance.

[Beth]

Tab,

If the world really knew what the "earliest Christians" were really talking about, then the regular members of this board would have A WHOLE LOT in common with them!!  

Christianity has changed SO MUCH since those early years...originally, it was still a message of hope and salvation--but "through individual transformation."  The church assumed the power for the "Collective Transformation" but this is where everything got messed up.  

The original plan was that a "collective transformation" would occur ONLY AFTER the members of that collective were "transformed individually."  They would then all join "together" as "A Transformed Group."  Transformation needed to be individually attained--groups of individuals did not transform "into anything" except a group of people that "agreed."

More specifically, in the early days of the "christian" message, everyone who participated "wanted to become a christ."  Becoming a "christ" was "being transformed"--just like Jesus was--and that was the hope of every early Christian. Unfortunately, at some point, someone got the idea that Jesus was the ONLY Christ, and well...the rest is history (YES, now THIS is REAL HISTORY!)  

So, until the original message is offered on a much wider scale, and until more people realize that they can and should be "transformed" for the betterment of their own individual "salvation" as well as the "salvation" of the planet...we will continue to go back and forth with this very backward and very tiresome argument.

Peace,
Beth

[Mustardseed]

Dear Beth and Wisp and all you others
Well I am finally back from a holiday. My daughter that I have not seen for 11 years is visiting and we are having a wonderful time. Astral Pulse activity comes in at a very distant 2nd place. Ha Well I am trying to catch up and it is almost impossible. This forum seems to morph every 7 days or so, but since the thread I started is still here and some one asked for my new age experience I will be glad to oblige. In a way I feel a bit awkward as I do not wanna vent nor do I want to “spout off Christian propaganda” so it will be a walk on a razors edge. Ha. Bear with me!!

First let it be said that my main problem seem to be with people and the way they USE New Age teachings to further their own course and fill their own pockets, making their gifts and knowledge a business and source of income. As for the doctrines I find them reaI and spiritual but mostly selfish. I grew up with every intention to find the truth. Always stood out from the crowd and was a bit of a nuisance to my teachers but a searching spirit never the less. I started my first OBEs at 4 and remember them well, though they never were anything special at that time. At 16 I started having sleeping paralysis and went on 3 memorable OBE trips to another level. I still haven’t got the faintest clue where. It so gave me a desire for the spiritual that I hitchhiked to India at the age of 18 and lived there for 2 years meditating at a ashram as well as a Buddhist monastery on the border to Tibet. Throughout my travels I did some drugs, dropped 3 shots of acid but soon realized that the truth had to be found without drugs and stopped it altogether. I met every kind of new age doctrine available in those days from TM to Rajneesh. I did Tarot, meditated under the direction of very enlightened teachers, and  read as much as I could. I soon realized that all these things were avenues of contact to the spiritual. I had several encounters with Demons and Angels as well. At one point I was invited to a meditation by Buddhist monks in a temple adjacent to the abode of the “living God”, in Kathmandu and after incantations and singing and the traditional calling of the Spirits . I was confronted by a entity covering the entire room in a lawyer of green sulphur smoke. The entity sought abode in me but I left the meeting rejecting the proposition. I walked home to my hotel to find on my door a giant 10 inch emperor moth. I read a lot of Castaneda in those days. My frustration was immense. I knew that the truth was somewhere and that the spiritual was real. It was only a choice to decide which path to follow. Well to make a long story short I finally met a girl who was a Christian. I never considered that even a remote choice. I was brought up socialist,. But this girl had something in her eyes that I had seen nowhere. She really loved me. I could feel it. She told me I could ask God (Jesus) into my heart by asking him to forgive my sin (missing the mark ) and I did and since then have been a Missionary trying my best to live the truth I read in the Bible. I never went to church, personally I feel I have nothing in common with 99% of Christians. I feel more at home with folks like you and still continue to have OBEs to this day. My beef with New Age is that of making merchandize of mens souls. Of hiding things, and covering up, making it a personal power trip.  Robert talked about wizards using their trainees to envoke different entities and I have seen it with my own eyes. New age seems to me to have become a good source of income. Well that was all I could think of I hope it is not offensive to anyone.
Gods Peace to you all
Regards Mustardseed

[Tayesin]

Dear Mustardseed,
Just read your last post on this thread and I have to say it was one of the best I have read, so honest and open !

I agree with your wrap up on the new-age movement too.  For a few years I have been wondering why it went down the standard road of human endeavour, meaning, the pursuit of Personal Wealth.  That really saddens me.  I had hoped many years ago, as it was slowly gaining momentum, that it would be the avenue for everyone to find spiritual growth.  It has done that in a smaller way than I had hoped, as it is aimed mainly at the top end of the market so the poor are unable to get the things from these people that can help them.

Personally, I am trying to provide services to help people and do so at no charge because I figure if it is ever going to change it has to start somewhere!  But, you would not believe the opposition I am facing from doing this, mostly from the ingrained New-agers too.  They use terminology like, "You have a lack consciousness and that is why you don't want to be wealthy",  all the while ignoring me saying that I know the Creator provides all my needs.

Well, if it is going to change then each of us need to be involved in making it change, so you can count me in.

Love Always.[]

[James S]

Hi Mustardseed,

Great post, loved it! Not only have you given us a good insight into where you're coming from, you've really pinned down the "rampant comercialism" aspect of New Age.

Recently I was trying to get more of a handle on the whole deal with the Pleiadians. Now that I have a guide that has told me she's Pleiadian, I wanted to do a bit of research and find out what I could about her lot. Well, it seems that anybody that has anything to do with them, the first thing that have to do is go and publish a book about it. Couldn't find out anything about the Pleiadians unless I was willing to part with hard earned cash to read some questionable literature about them.

In just about every shopping centre around here are Living Energy stores, that sell lots of little crystal trinkets for hideously marked up prices, have the obligatory Dalai Lama books staring at you, and genuine Native American dream catchers, that have genuine tags on them saying "Made in Taiwan". You're likely to be greeted in one of these shops by a shop assistant who looks like a reject from the local Fashionably Hip Witches coven. She will talk to you in a serene if not vapid manner when trying to sell you something that compliments your aura, just before she goes into the back room and swears her face off at the clumsy junior assistant who just put the plastic Sri-Lanken artifacts on the wrong shelf.

James.

[Tayesin]

James,
I hope your post was meant to be Satirical, because I laughed my butt off.

Thanks []

Love Always.[]

[Mustardseed]

Yeah that just about summs it up James. Seen too much of that stuf. Another aspect that I maybe did not cover and that is the more problematic aspect is, that allthough much of the New Age stuf (I realise it is like putting it all in the same basket but nevertheless) well , it seems real BUT, I still believe it is potentially dangerous, and should be treated with care. My experience has taught me that there is good and bad. there are two poles, night and day male and female and so on. I found out through my searching that there exists a personified evil. Not just ignorance or sort of generalised "evil attitudes". I believe I have been shown that evil is like a current that you can tap into. A negative force if you will. I learned about that long long before I came to understand the nature of God. He/She/It is a positive lifegiving force and it is also possible to tap into that. In essence God exists and the Devil exists too, and this is where most of us seem to part ways. I find that most NA life views negates this personified evil and attributes it to "self". Well I wont go into it too much you all know basically what I believe, but this is a aspect of NA that I am very frustrated with, and feel is very negative, a leading astray if one could call it that, saying that sharks are basically harmless and only eat fish. I think this misinformation could encourage some to make some very bad desisions.[]
Regards Mustardseed

[wisp]

Beth, what you said about karma rings true to me. Thanks. I guess I didn't see the same thing in the other thread.

What I've come to learn about my two bad experiences may have been karma. I didn't understand it back then.

What I have come to know from this is a little frightening.
My sister is my mother, and my aunt is my father (for now, anyway).
My mother is living, and so is my sister.
My aunt is alive, but my father has since died.
I can only learn how my sister and aunt are doing through someone else. I pay attention to who brings them up.
My mother brings up my sister fairly often. I haven't heard how my aunt is for many years, but my father knows.

I have to pay attention to my father(at various levels in various ways). This is my religion. I can't say or know how anyone else sees it, or understands it.

Now I know the above may sound psychotic (not understood), but it makes sense to me. I think many people cannot understand what is not given to them to understand. But I also think many people can understand if not blocked by barriors.

The "psychosis" represents not understanding.
I can make many uses of this symbol. I can also replace the word with evil.

The unfolding of reality happens this way for me. If psychosis didn't have such a bad reputation [], maybe it could be used or understood more. I think I was projecting my lack of understanding onto my aunt. My sister was projecting her lack of understanding on me. And it ends up working two ways, hopefully to the good of all.

I see misunderstandings in society. I definitely see the seemingly influence and imbalance of money and wealth.
I think it's many people working and living at different levels. Balancing of family needs and work can get real crazy.

I sometimes try to think of ways to solve the world's problems. I find living my life gets in the way of that. []
I sometimes think religion isn't the priority, society wise. I wonder if on this level, it shouldn't be, focusing on home vs work issues?
 

[kakkarot]

from what i've seen of stuff that claims to be new age, new age is: part ancient truth modified to "fit the times" + WHOLE LOT O' FLUFF = not useful except by those people who have low self-esteem and need something to boost it.

i like the really old stuff better.[|)]

~kakkarot

[Tony M.]

Why does everything have to have a name? I am spiritual but I don't call myself a member of some sort of movement. I just read a lot and the things that really make sense to me are integrated in my view. I don't have a name for it and I'm very flexible in this. I don't say this is the truth and that's that. I'm always open for other stuff and like to integrate that.

[Moonburn33]

chocolate/carob chip cookies work so much better than crystals at "stablizing your aura"

[need]

My two cents,

fortunately new age is too weak to really be of value to anybody, false stuff with some truth mixed in, this leads to dangerous situations and wasteful curiosity. They take advantage of people's  intentions , give them intentions they never had ,and when you get into a problem, no-one has the key because they don't have it. Rarely will there be any good information 95% flakely stuff and 5% something possibly real. The new age is full of quasi-gimmickery, everything is supposed to heal you for a charge few places work for free. Books sell emptiness, only we do not have the eyes to see. Emptiness leads to emptiness, something radical is the only way out of that trap. We know how to buy emptiness, we never suspect we are getting not much.

Support systems in the entire world are almost non-existent in many different areas, need support from the new age? forget it , it comes with a charge and it doesn't work. They don't give you a key, they give you a maze. Complicate rather than simplify. Talk to new agers ad most with these belisfs and if you have anything differnt to their conformity, they will never comfirm your findings, the new age is not as free thinking as so many think it is, it drains you, confuses you and gives you more unpeace not less. There has to be another way.

Notice more and more psychics give readings in closed environment, wise psychics who want the money lock you into the room, can't leave until money is on the table, this is more and more common. They sell emptiness, we don't intuit our truth and they won't tell you, they are draining you. The New Age is a new movement to easily invasive hooking itself into lives and taking a lot out of people. There needs to be a new wave of New Age.

On the positive side there is a wealth of new avenues opening up to us and can be set out in a more helpful manner instead of dictating the way it seems to be, would actually need to be more exploratory in nature and confirmatory result wise.New Age encourages in contradiction to most spirituality all the traps that do not indicate spiritual wisdom. In it's current phase the New Age is a mind trip with not much validation to life on the ground, the complete opposite infact. It's a brainwash but isn't it fascinating trying to sort the wheat from the chaff. This is my cynical thought but despite all this there is still some sort of value there

[Tony M.]

The New Age movement may be a "threat" to dumb people, who follow what others say and don't think for themselves.

The New Age movement hasn't failed me, because I'm not part of a movement. I just follow my own path and don't take excrement from some book. I am the one who decides what is true for me. Just use common sense and intuition and not much can go wrong if you ask me. New Age books have changed my life and didn't make it more complicated. If you get lost in everything that the New Age movement proclaims, it's your own fault. Don't search outside yourself when something goes wrong, search your inside.

[Mustardseed]

I am interested in asking this question not so much as a reaction to Beths thread about the church and their failings but more as to examine if, what fails people, is individuals and their behaviour rather than religious organisations and teachings. I was the first to post on the thread about the church failing me and vented quite a bit. I thought it was a great idea. However since posting I thought a lot about it and decided not to make a spectacle of myself and I deleted it. It was some quite private things.So anyone out there.