Jesus Christ, The Bearer of the Water of Life: A Christian Reflection on the New Age

Dajjal, thanks for pointing out that they included Kuhn in the section on New Age books. That is definitely problematic. Just because the New Agers use the term paradigm does not make Kuhn a new age theorist. I did not look at the book list...

Scupoli, you say you can run a truck through some of the holes in the document. Well, ABC News reports: It is not considered to be the Vatican's final word on the New Age issue. A definitive document will be issued once the Vatican receives feedback from diocese to the provisional one issued Monday, papal spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said.

If you think you can run a truck through the holes, why don't you point out all, or at least the biggest, holes and submit what you think to the Congregation. Perhaps the final document will be better off for your having done so. I will certainly be writing to urge that Kuhn be taken off the book list.

Also, let us remember that the aims of the Congregation in producing the document are not always the aims that the reader has. The Congregation is trying to give a general guideline for discernment to Bishops, not produce a treatise on New Age thinking that gives academically precise refutations in all of the technical details. That job is up to experts among the faithful...

The criticisms that both of you raised remind me of the criticisms that were raised against Pascendi when it first came out. Pascendi was roundly criticized for not accurately representing the views of the modernists. But really, Pius X was not trying to give an academic treatise. He was out to summarize a movement, in a general way for the faithful, and resist the basic thrust. When it comes to Modernism and the New Age movement, the devil is not in the details.

As for the idea that the Church has no credibility right now because of all the scandals, I am not sure what to say. Do you think that the Vatican should stop issuing documents because the American Bishops are messed up? To say that the Church lacks credibility and therefore should not issue any documents is a view that, if acted upon, would ensure that the Church remains stuck without credibility. If they do nothing until the world first decides the Church is credible, then credibility will never be recovered, for people who do nothing lack credibility.

The Congregation is trying to give a general guideline for discernment to Bishops, not produce a treatise on New Age thinking that gives academically precise refutations in all of the technical details.

Then they should have mailed it to them personally. The fact that they held a news conference and released it publicly says it is intended for the general public. It also tells me they are putting a canary down to test the mine.

That job is up to experts among the faithful

That's the troubling part. Leaders should lead, and if they can't then they shouldn't be leading or issuing documents. By their positions it behooves them to be educated on this subject. If people are wondering and looking for guidance, this provides none but reasserts that "yes, you should wonder and look for guidance." That doesn't help.

No, I don't think the Church should stop issuing documents or writing encyclicals. I do think they need to better educate themselves and clean up the House before throwing condemnations around. The world doesn't have to decree the Church credible again, but looking inside the glass house it is awful dirty. It doesn't inspire anyone to put their own house in order nor does it offer any guidance as to what a clean and orderly home should look like.

I do think they need to better educate themselves and clean up the House

I agree. But is this document not part of the housecleaning? Why else, in section 6.2, do they say that the retreat centers will have to stop promoting this garbage? And issuing the document publicly, with Navarro-Valls telling the press that it is provisional, will help them get the reaction necessary to write an even better document. If you think you can educate Rome about a thing or two, and perhaps you can on this matter, I honestly think you should submit what you think to the Congregation (and the CDF too).

Also, section four says more than "get guidance". It lists several questions which, if applied in practice, will help the person to eliminate virtualy all of the New Age theory out there, will it not? Of course, the whole movement is essentially idiosyncratic--each individual sort of making up his own concoction of religious views as he goes. So individuals might be able to spin things differently, but does the section not give easiy applied ways of ruling out alot of garbage?

As I see it, this document, coming on the heels of the CDF's Note on politicians, the recent move to banish transsexuals from the religious life and priesthood (a first step),and the forthcoming document on gays in the priesthood, all these signs spell that Rome is slowly, perhaps even imperceptibly slowly, cleaning house...

Well, the Church doesn't care what the laity think and they certainly don't care what I think. But, had I been writing this article I would have started with two major points: the notion of 'Christ consciousness' and the New Age belief that Jesus was merely one of many avatars or wise men as opposed to being the Messiah. Also, I would address the concept of 'channeling' and its well known dangers to the psyche and spirit.

They need to streamline this document. New Age is a pan-spirituality which believes "I'm okay, you're okay", there is no 'sin' but all is learning. There's another point to hit. In this document they tried to cover too much territory. New Age actually encompasses some very old teachings which are not new at all. It is very much a cafeteria type spirituality. If the Vatican wants to take issue with other pieces then that needs to be done in separate documents. The things I mentioned are hallmarks of New Age though.

What I forgot to add is I think they need to show how New Age beliefs are incompatible with Christianity and Catholicism in particular. They need to delve deeper into the 'how' and 'why' of it. They need to make their case from the perspective of Tradition and Scripture.

Love and Honor God and Not Mother Earth, the sun or moon, yes thank him for those gifts to us, but only worship and put your faith and trust in God.

III. "YOU SHALL HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME"

2110 The first commandment forbids honoring gods other than the one Lord who has revealed himself to his people. It proscribes superstition and irreligion. Superstition in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion; irreligion is the vice contrary by defect to the virtue of religion.

Superstition

2111 Superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition.41

Idolatry

2112 The first commandment condemns polytheism. It requires man neither to believe in, nor to venerate, other divinities than the one true God. Scripture constantly recalls this rejection of "idols, [of] silver and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths, but do not speak; eyes, but do not see." These empty idols make their worshippers empty: "Those who make them are like them; so are all who trust in them."42 God, however, is the "living God"43 who gives life and intervenes in history.

2113 Idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship. It remains a constant temptation to faith. Idolatry consists in divinizing what is not God. Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example, satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money, etc. Jesus says, "You cannot serve God and mammon."44 Many martyrs died for not adoring "the Beast"45 refusing even to simulate such worship. Idolatry rejects the unique Lordship of God; it is therefore incompatible with communion with God.46

2114 Human life finds its unity in the adoration of the one God. The commandment to worship the Lord alone integrates man and saves him from an endless disintegration. Idolatry is a perversion of man's innate religious sense. An idolater is someone who "transfers his indestructible notion of God to anything other than God."47

Divination and magic

2115 God can reveal the future to his prophets or to other saints. Still, a sound Christian attitude consists in putting oneself confidently into the hands of Providence for whatever concerns the future, and giving up all unhealthy curiosity about it. Improvidence, however, can constitute a lack of responsibility.

2116 All forms of divination are to be rejected: recourse to Satan or demons, conjuring up the dead or other practices falsely supposed to "unveil" the future.48 Consulting horoscopes, astrology, palm reading, interpretation of omens and lots, the phenomena of clairvoyance, and recourse to mediums all conceal a desire for power over time, history, and, in the last analysis, other human beings, as well as a wish to conciliate hidden powers. They contradict the honor, respect, and loving fear that we owe to God alone.

2117 All practices of magic or sorcery, by which one attempts to tame occult powers, so as to place them at one's service and have a supernatural power over others - even if this were for the sake of restoring their health - are gravely contrary to the virtue of religion. These practices are even more to be condemned when accompanied by the intention of harming someone, or when they have recourse to the intervention of demons. Wearing charms is also reprehensible. Spiritism often implies divination or magical practices; the Church for her part warns the faithful against it. Recourse to so-called traditional cures does not justify either the invocation of evil powers or the exploitation of another's credulity.
_________________________

Deuteronomy Chapter 18: 9-14

9 "When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations. 10 There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, 11 or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead.

12 For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you. 13 You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. 14 For these nations which you will dispossess listened to soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not appointed such for you.

The New World Religion! Satanism, New Ageism and Luciferism
Ushering One-World Religion, CBN News
Child Sex Book Given out at UN Summit

UN Wants to Replace the 10 Commandments!
CHRISTIANITY UNDER SIEGE, TOWARD A ONE WORLD RELIGION
POPE COULD FACE CHARGES UNDER INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT
Did Communists Infiltrate the Catholic Church?
Teaching God's children to worship "Divine Nature" The Earth Charter

The Earth Charter--Index of Information

UNESCO: A Budding Global School Board

The New World Religion

"Ark of Hope" Comes to Rockford

THE NEW AMERICAN: The Earth Charter

The Catholic Church is against Communism and Socialism, Make sure the socialists do not take over; they are working from within the church and are part of the media and will stop at nothing from destroying the Church.

QUOD APOSTOLICI MUNERIS
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE LEO Xlll ON SOCIALISM
DECEMBER 28, 1878
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo13/l13apost.htm

NOSTIS ET NOBISCUM

ON THE CHURCH IN THE PONTIFICAL STATES
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS IX
DECEMBER 8, 1849
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius09/p9nostis.htm

QUADRAGESIMO ANNO
ON RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SOCIAL ORDER
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE PIUS Xl MAY 15, 1931
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius11/P11QUADR.HTM

GRAVES DE COMMUNI RE
Encyclical of Pope leo XIII on Christian Democracy
January 18, 1901
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo13/l13grcom.htm

MATER ET MAGISTRA
ENCYCLICAL OF POPE JOHN XXIII ON MAY 15, 1961
http://www.papalencyclicals.net/John23/j23mater.htm

Part of the 45 Goals of Communism

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
__________________________________________

Lucis Trust - The Spiritual Foundation of the United Nations

33 Segments surrounded by sprigs of acacia
'Welcome to the United Nations. It's your World'...

By, Atrayu

The Spiritual Foundation of the United Nations

The Lucis Trust

UN Meditation Room The Lucis Trust is the Publishing House which prints and disseminates United Nations material. It is a devastating indictment of the New Age and Pagan nature of the UN. Lucis Trust was established in 1922 as Lucifer Trust by Alice Bailey as the publishing company to disseminate the books of Bailey and Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society. The title page of Alice Bailey's book, 'Initiation, Human and Solar' was originally printed in 1922, and clearly shows the publishing house as 'Lucifer Publishing CoIn 1923. Bailey changed the name to Lucis Trust, because Lucifer Trust revealed the true nature of the New Age Movement too clearly. (Constance Cumbey, The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow, p. 49). A quick trip to any New Age bookstore will reveal that many of the hard-core New Age books are published by Lucis Trust.

At one time, the Lucis Trust office in New York was located at 866 United Nations Plaza and is a member of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations under a slick program called "World Goodwill". In an Alice Bailey book called "Education for a New Age"; she suggests that in the new age "World Citizenship should be the goal of the enlightened, with a world federation and a world brain." In other words - a One World Government New World Order.

Luci's Trust is sponsored by among others Robert McNamara, former minister of Defence in the USA, president of the World Bank, member of the Rockefeller Foundation, and Thomas Watson (IBM, former ambassador in Moscow). Luci's Trust sponsors among others the following organizations: UN, Greenpeace Int., Greenpeace USA, Amnesty Int. and UNICEF.

The United Nations has long been one of the foremost world harbingers for the "New Spirituality" and the gathering "New World Order" based on ancient occult and freemasonic principles. Seven years after the birth of the UN, a book was published by the theosophist and founder of the Lucis Trust, Alice Bailey, claiming that "Evidence of the growth of the human intellect along the needed receptive lines [for the preparation of the New Age] can be seen in the "planning" of various nations and in the efforts of the United Nations to formulate a world plan... From the very start of this unfoldment, three occult factors have governed the development of all these plans". [Alice B. Bailey, Discipleship in the New Age (Lucis Press, 1955), Vol. II, p.35.]

Although she did not spell out clearly the identity of these 'three occult factors', she did reveal to her students that "Within the United Nations is the germ and seed of a great international and meditating, reflective group - a group of thinking and informed men and women in whose hands lies the destiny of humanity. This is largely under the control of many fourth ray disciples, if you could but realise it, and their point of meditative focus is the intuitional or Buddhic plane - the plane upon which all hierarchical activity is today to be found'. [Ibid. p.220.]

To this end, the Lucis Trust, under the leadership of Foster and Alice Bailey, started a group called 'World Goodwill' - an official non-governmental organization within the United Nations. The stated aim of this group is "to cooperate in the world of preparation for the reappearance of the Christ" [One Earth, the magazine of the Findhorn Foundation, October/November 1986, Vol. 6, Issue 6, p.24.]

But the esoteric work inside the UN does not stop with such recognized occult groupings. Much of the impetus for this process was initiated through the officership of two Secretary-Generals of the UN, Dag Hammarskjöld (held office: 1953-1961) and U Thant (held office: 1961-1971) who succeeded him, and one Assistant Secretary-general, Dr. Robert Muller. In a book written to celebrate the philosophy of Teilhard de Chardin (and edited by Robert Muller), it is revealed "Dag Hammarskjöld, the rational Nordic economist, had ended up as a mystic. He too held at the end of his life that spirituality was the ultimate key to our earthly fate in time and space". [Robert Muller (ed.), The Desire to be Human: A Global Reconnaissance of Human Perspectives in an Age of Transformation (Miranana, 1983), p.304.]

Sri Chinmoy, the New Age guru, meditation leader at the UN, wrote: "the United Nations is the chosen instrument of God; to be a chosen instrument means to be a divine messenger carrying the banner of God's inner vision and outer manifestation."

William Jasper, author of "A New World Religion" describes the religion of the UN: "...a weird and diabolical convergence of New Age mysticism, pantheism, aboriginal animism atheism, communism, socialism, Luciferian occultism, apostate Christianity, Islam, Taoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism".

http://www.lucistrust.org

You can find out much more about them and how they're involved with the work of the United Nations by following their link "World Goodwill" at the top of their home page.

The Aquarian Age Community

http://www.aquaac.org/

This Website is sponsored by the United Nations and the whole NWO philosophy is there. The page which explains the work of the Aquarian Age Community, as they call themselves, has this proud quote at the header of their page at http://www.aquaac.org/about/about.html

Such a grandeur is ahead!
Such a great step awaits a fiery affirmation.
Our teaching and the affirmation of the Higher
Principles will reveal so much that is great to humanity!
A great period is drawing near: Thus we do create together.
Fiery World
Vol. III, par. 149

Amongst the many 'enlightening' pages in this website, you can easily find 'fascinating' articles entitled:

"The New World Order and the Work of the UN" http://www.aquaac.org/un/nwo.html

"The World Spiritual Teacher, the Esoteric Community and the United Nations" http://www.aquaac.org/meetings/rttop.html

Preparing the Way for the Reappearance of the World Spiritual Teacher, the Work of the United Nations and the World-Wide Esoteric Community

http://www.aquaac.org/meetings/RT2001.html and many more articles.

This is not Christian theology but New Age paganism. You can also read the NWO quotes I posted, further down this page. Here's another by Curtis Dall, FD Roosevelt's son in law as quoted in his book, My Exploited Father in Law:

"For a long time I felt that FDR had developed many thoughts and ideas that were his own to benefit this country, the United States. But, he didn't. Most of his thoughts, his political ammunition, as it were, were carefully manufactured for him in advanced by the Council on Foreign Relations One World Money group... Brilliantly, with great gusto, like a fine piece of artillery, he exploded that prepared "ammunition" in the middle of an unsuspecting target, the American people, and thus paid off and returned his internationalist political support.
The UN is but a long range, international banking apparatus nearly set up for financial and economic profit by a small group of powerful One World Revolutionaries, hungry for profit and power.
The depression was the calculated 'shearing' of the public by the World Money powers, triggered by the planned sudden shortage of supply of call money in the New York money market... The One World Government leaders and their ever close bankers have now acquired full control of the money and credit machinery of the U.S. via the creation of the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank."

Under the U.N. Gavel
By Sen. Larry E. Craig, R-ID

At its founding, the mission of the United Nations, as stated in its charter, was "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war." It made no claim to supersede the sovereignty of its member states. Article 2 says that the United Nations "is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members," and it may not "intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state."

Since then, the United Nations has turned the principle of national sovereignty on its head. Through a host of conventions, treaties and conferences, it has intruded into regulation of resources and the economy (for example, treaties on "biological diversity," marine resources and climate change) and family life (hyping phoney liberalism while masculinity is scorned and western manhood is amputated - causing untold grief to the family unit) (conventions on parent-child relations and women in society). It has demanded that countries institute racial quotas and laws against hate crimes and speech (while the U.N. itself can jail someone for 30 years without trial). Recently the United Nations tried to undermine Americans' constitutional right to keep and bear arms (with proposed restrictions on the international sale of small arms).

Fortunately, many of these have been dead on arrival in the U.S. Senate, successive presidents have refused to endorse others, and in any case the United Nations had little power of enforcement. But in 1998, one mechanism of global government (there it is in the Washington Post folks) came to life with the so-called "Rome Statute" establishing a permanent International Criminal Court (and abolishing the Magna Carta in Britain). Once this treaty is ratified by 60 countries, the United Nations will wield judicial power over every individual human being -- even over citizens of countries that haven't joined the court.

While the court's stated mission is dealing with war crimes and crimes against humanity (what about their own crimes against humanity when they committed widespread genocide in the Balkans and East Timor? Dare I say they are hypocrites?) -- which, because there is no appeal from its decisions, only the court will have the right to define -- its mandate could be broadened later. Based on existing U.N. tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda, which are models for the International Criminal Court, defendants will have none of the due process rights afforded by the U.S. Constitution, such as trial by jury, confrontation of witnesses or a speedy and public trial (that's a communist court system!).

President Clinton signed the Rome treaty last year, citing U.S. support for existing U.N. war crimes tribunals. Many suppose the court will target only a Slobodan Milosevic or the perpetrators of massacres in Rwanda, or dictators like Iraq's Saddam Hussein. But who knows? To some people, Augusto Pinochet is the man who saved Chile from communism; to others he is a murderer. Who should judge him -- the United Nations or the Chilean people?

In dozens of countries, governments use brutal force against insurgents. Should the United Nations decide whether leaders in Turkey or India should be put in the defendants' dock, and then commit the United States to bring them there? How about Russia's Vladimir Putin, for Chechnya? Or Israel's Ariel Sharon? Can we trust the United Nations with that decision (the more evil these premieres are - the more the U.N. loves them)?

The court's critics rightly cite the danger to U.S. military personnel deployed abroad. Since even one death can be a war crime, a U.S. soldier could be indicted just for doing his duty. But the International Criminal Court also would apply to acts "committed" by any American here at home. The European Union and U.S. domestic opponents consider the death penalty "discriminatory" and "inhumane." Could an American governor face indictment by the court for "crimes against humanity" for signing a death warrant?

Milosevic was delivered to a U.N. court (largely at U.S. insistence) for offences occurring entirely within his own country. Some say the Milosevic precedent doesn't threaten Americans, because the U.S. Constitution protects them. But for Milosevic, we demanded that the Yugoslav Constitution be trashed and the United Nations' authority prevail. Why should the International Criminal Court treat our Constitution any better (they're already destroying the 2nd amendment with their gun grab and the 1st with their phoney 'hate crime' nonsense)?

Instead of trying to "fix" the Rome treaty, the United States must recognize that it is a fundamental threat to American sovereignty. The State Department's participation in the court's preparatory commission is counterproductive. We need to make it clear that we consider the court an illegitimate body, that the United States will never join it and that we will never accept its "jurisdiction" over any U.S. citizen or help to impose it on other countries.

The UN's Earth Charter

The Earth Charter Index

UNESCO: A Budding Global School Board
Get the US out of UNESCO

The New World Religion!

The New Ark of the Covenant in the UN

The Earth Charter Index
The UN Wants to Take Your Gun
The UN Wants to Decide if YOUR Baby Lives!
The UN Wants Control of YOUR Child

UN Wants to Replace the 10 Commandments!
UNICEF and the WAR on the Family
UNICEF-Guilty As Charged.pdf 15 pages
Your UNICEF dollars at work The New World Religion
What's UNESCO Good For?
UNICEF--United Nations International Children's Fund, The War on America's Family!!
UNICEF and Halloween--Vatican Halts Payment

PLANNED PARENTHOOD SAYS POPE GUILTY OF "WAR" AGAINST WOMEN
The New World Religion! Satanism, New Ageism and Luciferism
Ushering One-World Religion, CBN News
Child Sex Book Given out at UN Summit
Bush Says YES to UNESCO
UN WANTS POPULATION CONTROL IN ETHIOPIA and ATTEMPTS TO SKIRT PROCEDURES TO RATIFY FEMINIST DOCUMENT (CEDAW)
The UN Wants Population Control in Ethiopia, CEDAW Passed, Appointed 3 Pro-Abortion Judges to the International Court
UN Treaty on Women - ACTION ALERT
CHRISTIANITY UNDER SIEGE, TOWARD A ONE WORLD RELIGION
The UN is EVIL!
What the UN Doesn't Want You to Know
Population Research Institute, Get the TRUTH Here About Population Control!!

i must wonder if this information is getting out to those people who work with our Catholic youth.

I think I will copy it off and take it to our youth minister.

thanks for those references from the Catechism of the Catholic Church!

Sure any time.

A CHRISTmas to Remember
Defender of the Decalogue Interview of Chief Justice Roy Moore by Thomas R. Eddlem
Feeding the God of War
Teaching God's children to worship "Divine Nature"
Homosexuality and the Church of England
Rebutting Rockefeller and the New World Religion
The Apostle of Perversion
Divine Design
Unmentionable Vice "GAY" Goes Mainstream
Focus on Population Control Red Star over the Christ Child
Quotes on Christmas
Quotes on God and Country
Quotes on Religion
Quotes Worth Repeating
The EU's Stealth Attack on Religion
The New World Religion
Focus on Homosexuality
Do Public Schools Have a Prayer?
Parents' Rights and the Decay of the American Family
The UN's BIG Green Machine
A World Without the UN
God, Man and the Government
One Nation Under the State?