new age

Friday, 19 October 2018 01:53

Review: Kundalini Warning

Simon Pease reviews ‘Kundalini Warning’ by Andrew Strom (2015, Revival School Publications).

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Friday, 21 April 2017 04:45

BH VIII: Guarding Against Deception

How rediscovering the Hebraic roots of our faith can help protect us.

Published in Teaching Articles

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Friday, 07 August 2015 13:05

A Tangled Web

What do we learn from the current investigation into the hidden life of our former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath?

Sins of the Nation

It is interesting first to note our initial reactions, even before police enquiries are complete. Most of us are not at all surprised! We are getting used to exposure after exposure of the sinful hidden lives of those who should be trusted in the nation.

Already the well-known entertainers Rolf Harris, Stuart Hall and Jimmy Saville have been exposed as having dark sides to their lives: whilst having an acceptable public profile they were also involved in sinful acts that should not exist in a righteous nation. The recent conviction of Tom Hayes in the Libor banking fraud illustrates that the sins of our nation extend into other areas as well as child abuse. Now we wait to see if the accusations levelled against a former Prime Minister will reveal further dark secrets.

On the one hand we can be reassured that we still have a legal system that will bring justice relating to serious crimes. Our nation, despite all, may not have slipped beyond recovery. On the other hand we may be witnessing the tip of the iceberg of sin in our nation. Could it be that the Lord God himself is uncovering these sins to show us the danger that our nation is in, before he acts in further judgement?

Layer Upon Layer

During the 1990s, we carried out some research on the New Age Movement for Prophecy Today. In doing so, we discovered deep and demonic darkness taking footholds in the nation. Satan's lies usually start with harmless-looking temptations: after all he is called lucifer, the angel of light. His traps are subtle and what seems like 'fun' or even beneficial in some ways can gradually be a luring of a person into utter darkness and sin. Such sin is then kept in the secret recesses of a person's life – a trap.

That is how even a prominent leader can be drawn into ritual abuse of children and even into satanic rituals. That is how a banker can be tempted to exploit the wealth of the nation for personal gain. That is how any of us can turn from the ways of God to the ways of sin and evil. The thin end of the wedge of sin is very narrow, but the wedge thickens as sin deepens, sometimes imperceptibly to the one caught up in it.

Satanic lies usually start with harmless-looking temptations, but gradually and subtly lure people into utter darkness and sin. Such sin is then kept in the secret recesses of a person's life."

Consider, for example, the way the so-called 'New Age Movement' attracts a person through subtle means. Doorways include the lie that all religions lead to the one god, promises of healing through alternative therapies such as with crystals and counterfeit meditation, and a lie that "we are all gods" with no such thing as sin. Step by step, one can then be trapped, with the potential of believing ever deepening lies of satan.

A Tangled Web

When we carried out our research on the New Age Movement, one of the things we did was to draw a diagram linking together various organisations and activities. If we found something in common, such as a particular group of people who belonged to two seemingly separate organisations, we would draw a line to link the organisations together. By studying these links one could understand how a person involved in one activity would meet others belonging to another, thus enabling a person in one area of interest to move to another, and move deeper and deeper into areas of deception. On this basis we were also able to warn others of the traps that should be avoided.

In our research on the New Age Movement, we often found hidden links between seemingly unrelated organisations, groups and activities. We traced connections between apparently useful, innocuous activities and others of great concern."

This process of tracking potential links often showed up connections between seemingly useful, innocuous activities and others of great concern. A person, for example, could start with an interest in ecology, or some modern evolutionary science, or alternative medicine, and wander into other areas through personal contact with others or through widely circulated written material. A person could experiment with something relatively harmless and move on to other things, including false religions and even witchcraft and satanism. Of course this is not inevitable - but the potential is there.

The 'spirit of the age' is one of relativism and experimentation. Is it any wonder that some people end up in the deepest darkness when their guard is down and when they are personally vulnerable, and mix in circles that can mislead them?

Satan's Cleverest Trick?

One of Satan's cleverest tricks is to blind the eyes of people to his very existence. Then he can get away with almost anything, degree by degree. James had the weakness of men in mind and also the schemes of satan when he wrote:

...each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. (James 1:14-15)

Our Response

Whilst those being seduced may be blinded by satan to the consequences of their sins, even thinking the sins to be pleasurable, those who set up opposition enter an unrelenting spiritual battle. Those who sin may go into the dark depths quite unaware, whilst others fight a battle, knowing how dark these depths are.

The Lord Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by satan (Matt 4). By contrast he taught us to pray: "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one" (Matt 6:13). Jesus disarmed satan for those who live by faith, so that the injunction of Paul might also be fulfilled:

...brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy – meditate on these things. (Phil 4:8)

For this reason, having sent our warnings out in Prophecy Today we have also turned to a positive response to the wickedness of the age in which we live, wickedness found even in our own nation. We will keep on warning but will also promote deeper Bible study and the ministry of prayer. Many may go astray in our nation but we must be stronger in the things of God. With many revelations of wickedness coming to the surface - even accusations concerning a past Prime Minister - repentance across the nation is still possible. Let us pray for the things of darkness to be exposed, as God has started to do. Let us also be strong in the Lord and ready to serve, as we are called to in this age of growing deception.

Published in Society & Politics

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Saturday, 04 April 2015 02:00

Peace in a Frantic World? The Challenge of Mindfulness

There is a new well-being fad taking the Western world by storm. Though it has been part of mainstream psychological practice since the late 1970s, it has recently enjoyed a remarkable surge of popularity, sweeping into boardrooms, prisons, hospitals and schools all around the UK, the US and Europe. Yet, it remains poorly understood by most people. The trend is mindfulness.

The mindfulness tide

Mindfulness is a meditation practice which, instead of focusing on emptying the mind, encourages people to focus on ‘the present moment’.¹ It is being extolled as a scientifically provable pathway² to health and well-being, acting to soothe stress and restore peace to busy lives.

Unlike many alternative well-being practices, mindfulness is not merely the domain of specialist health shops. Since being exported to the USA in the 1960s and 1970s through the immigration of Buddhist monks, proponents like Jon Kabat-Zinn have helped to mainstream mindfulness in medical and academic spheres.³ From here it has been promoted to a mass audience and popularised across a variety of sectors, with the help of the internet as well as top-down endorsement from business executives, celebrities and government officials.

In the USA, a pro-mindfulness business culture is spreading thanks to its promotion by giants like Apple and Google, with immense pressure on employees to participate.⁴ This year at Davos, the six mindfulness seminars laid on for global economic leaders were “packed to capacity”.⁵

Nearer home, mindfulness is being promoted everywhere from Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council⁶, to the NHS⁷ and HM prisons⁸. It is being embraced by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the Home Office and Transport for London,⁹ whilst the University of Oxford has its own Mindfulness Centre. Enthusiastic independent schools (e.g. Tonbridge, Hampton, Charterhouse) are installing mindfulness programmes and there is currently a campaign for its adoption into the national curriculum.¹⁰

Celebrities are endorsing it (e.g. Ruby Wax, Goldie Hawn, Oprah Winfrey), investigative journalists are raving about it¹¹, mindfulness mobile apps have gone viral, and courses, retreats and themed holidays are widely available. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find an untouched sector or region in the UK.

Finally, an All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on mindfulness launched in May 2014 and is currently investigating the possibilities of rolling mindfulness out across “a range of policy areas”¹², with a report on its legislative efficacy due out in June 2015¹³.

Despite all this recent popularity, and freely available information, few ordinary people are really aware of what it is, or where it comes from.

Being mindful: the realities behind the practice

To the unwary, mindfulness seems harmless and uncontroversial. The very name connotes care and thoughtfulness, and it is often couched in descriptive terms like 'clarity', 'awareness', 'acceptance' and 'compassion'. Beneath these comforting descriptions, mindfulness is a deeply spiritual activity: it is actually a Buddhist practice of trying to attain nirvana, or spiritual enlightenment and liberation.

"Beneath these comforting descriptions, mindfulness is a deeply spiritual activity: it is actually a Buddhist practice of trying to attain nirvana, or spiritual enlightenment and liberation."

Despite claims of the easy removal of its religious strings, most mindfulness practitioners openly acknowledge its Buddhist core and its built-in sense of spiritual progression. Mindfulness is often intertwined with practices such as yoga, Tai-chi and Zen, and the more involved you become in mindfulness circles, the more overtly religious it becomes.

However, mindfulness is being carefully dressed and presented in secular clothing to appease Western mind-sets. This is not the hippie-driven New Age of the 1970s and 1980s, but a more subtle, palatable, postmodern update, appearing as one option among many to satisfy 21st century self-help consumers. The result, according to Melanie McDonagh of The Spectator, is a “wildly popular pseudo-religion; a religion tailor-made for the secular West”, encouraging self-centred navel-gazing and introspection.¹⁴ In her view, mindfulness is potentially dangerous because it encourages people to face the darkness of their own souls, without offering any hope of redemption.

The practical, political reality of mindfulness is that it is not a solution to the endemic problems facing UK society; it seems to be more of a narcissistic sticking plaster which appeals to a stressed-out, self-absorbed i-culture. It has nothing to say about injustice or the root causes of mental health problems.

"The message of mindfulness is that the remedy for suffering and evil lies inside yourself, not in the goodness and intervention of God. It erases the need for the Cross."

The message of mindfulness is that the remedy for suffering and evil lies inside yourself, not in the goodness and intervention of God. It erases the need for redemption from the brokenness and sinfulness of human nature (and therefore erases the need for the Cross) and encourages people to look inward, not upward.

Mindfulness should not, therefore, be an option for Bible-believing Christians, despite all that you’ll hear about courses and resources with no Buddhist elements. Whilst the Bible encourages meditation on the rich truths of God's word and character under the leading of the Holy Spirit, this should never be mixed with meditation practices derived from, and rooted in, Eastern religion. God has always made it very clear that he views such mixture as spiritual idolatry, deeply hurtful to him and dangerous for us.

If you are unconvinced about the spiritual dangers of practices like mindfulness, look at some more in-depth coverage of 'alternative' therapies from a Biblical perspective, such as The Dangers of Alternative Ways to Healing by David Cross and John Berry.¹⁵ As living temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19), we should be jealously protecting the spiritual purity of his chosen and beloved dwelling-places, not grieving him by engaging in a spiritual pic-n-mix.

Looking up and out, not in

It should be a cause for deep concern amongst Christians that in an era of global uncertainty, so many are seeking peace, self-control and direction from Buddhist meditation. In business, it represents an earnest search for release from the frenzy of modern Western culture. In the NHS, it represents a subtle recognition that our best medical professionals cannot address endemic problems of depression, anxiety and fear. In Parliament, it is an acknowledgement that our uppermost echelons of leadership lack peace and direction.

Driving the popularity of mindfulness practices are spiritual cries for salvation and freedom: this should be a heart-breaking wake-up call for the Church! Christians should be pointing people to the Solution for whom they are searching: Jesus Christ, who sets the captives free (Luke 4:18) and promises to lovingly shepherd us (John 10:11) and guard us with his divine peace (Phil 4:7), if only we accept him as Lord and Saviour.

Sadly, the mindfulness phenomenon simply highlights that the majority of people in Britain are searching elsewhere to have their psychological and spiritual needs met. This is a terrible indictment of the Church's ineffectualness in offering solutions to modern pressures and problems (if the Church leaves a vacuum, something else will always move to fill it). Christianity is no longer considered even a viable option for personal healing, wholeness and freedom, let alone the only way.

"The mindfulness phenomenon simply highlights that the majority of people in Britain are searching elsewhere to have their psychological and spiritual needs met. Christianity is no longer considered even a viable option."

The Church should also beware the stealth and speed with which mindfulness practices are spreading across the nation. It could easily mean the further incursion of Eastern religious practices into church territory, as groups ask to meet on church premises. We need to equip and support Christian professionals to refuse to participate in company mindfulness sessions, as well as Christian schools that refuse to force children and teachers into daily meditations.

Perhaps the Christian response to mindfulness, therefore, should be watchfulness: instead of focusing inward, we should be looking outward to discern the signs of the times. “It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes” (Luke 12:37).