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New
Thought and New Age
New
Thought and New Age both believe in a direct
relationship with the Ultimate, however conceived.
Neither movement favors hierarchical organizations,
and both groups treat women and men as partners, with
many women in leadership roles. Many people in both
groups believe in reincarnation, because they feel
that we can't learn all we need to learn in one
lifetime.
New Age, like New Thought, is strongly optimistic,
largely because most people in both groups believe in
a good God, and that all people are part of God or
have at least a spark of the divine. New Agers are
full of hope for the transformation of society and the
planet. New Thought accepts, as does New Age, the old
Hermetic teaching, "As above, so below,"
which appears in an early version of the Lord's Prayer
as "As in heaven, so on earth" (Luke 11:2).
Heaven, in a New Thought interpretation, alludes to
one's state of mind, and earth is the manifestation of
that state. As in mind, so in manifestation.
Symbolically interpreted, Heaven is the uplifted state
of consciousness, the wonderful, peaceful sense of
universal oneness that the mystic seeks. Charles
Fillmore defines it as "a state of consciousness
in which the soul and the body are in harmony with
Divine Mind." All of Jesus' metaphors about
heaven are attempts to explain the necessity for
disciplining our thoughts, weeding out the negative
ones and treasuring the positive ones; e.g., the pearl
of great price, tares growing with the wheat, seeds
falling in various places with various results. New
Age shares New Thought's interest in metaphor, and the
late Joseph Campbell, the preeminent authority on myth
and metaphor, is a popular New Age author. . . .
Like New
Thought, New Age also emphasizes the value of meditation.
Much of this interest springs from the influence of
Eastern religions on both movements, as well as the
importance given to the power of the mind and the
necessity for disciplining or training the mind.
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New
age spirituality when viewed in greater depth can be
seen and understood as ancient wisdom teachings that
are being brought to a new light. It is becoming
increasingly understood and accepted that these
teachings, whether old or new, transcend time and
space and can be realised or 'accessed' by the higher
mind working in the spiritual realm - the realm that
sustains dense physical reality. One of the underlying
principles behind these teachings is the idea that
everything is connected at some level and that each
divine aspect or facet is working to bring greater
illumination and expansion of consciousness throughout
the whole unit of creation. Like a magnificent jigsaw
puzzle each piece is bringing and adding its own
unique creativity to enhance the final picture.
Expanding the mind deeper into these teachings we can
begin to imagine the whole of creation being sustained
by an underlying pulse or stream of pure radiating
light energy organised or 'glued together' by divine
intelligence or 'conscious love force'. This conscious
energy flowing throughout all the realms of creation,
where the dense physical is the lowest vibration. At
this point the energy is then transmuted back to a
higher vibration - back into the Source (God/Goddess
or whatever you can relate to) of 'All That Is'. Like
some wondrous electrical circuit, creation is
continually renewing itself within this pulse of
divine, radiating light energy. These ideas and
concepts have been alluded to and described in
different ways by many of the worlds religions,
especially and more clearly so by the eastern
traditions.
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New
Age promotes the development of the person's own power
or divinity. When referring to God, a follower of New
Age is not talking about a transcendent, personal God
who created the universe, but is referring to a higher
consciousness within themselves.
A person in New Age would see themselves as God, the
cosmos, the universe. In fact, everything that the
person sees, hears, feels or imagines is to be
considered divine.
Highly eclectic, New Age presents itself as a
collection of ancient spiritual traditions. It
acknowledges many gods and goddesses, as in Hinduism.
The Earth is viewed as the source of all spirituality,
and has its own intelligence, emotions and deity. But
superseding all is self. Self is the originator,
controller and God of all. There is no reality outside
of what the person determines.
New Age teaches a wide array of eastern mysticism and
spiritual, metaphysical and psychic techniques, such
as breathing exercises, chanting, drumming, meditating
...to develop an altered consciousness and one's own
divinity.
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