A free for all?

[methylatedghosts]

I don't really mean to pick on you, suraj, but let me just say a little more

This often becomes nature worship in new-age religion. It harks back to a primitive religion with primitive rituals, sometimes including things like animal sacrifice and free love.

Far as I know animal sacrifice doesn't feature in new-age beliefs, and free love as I understand it, is perfectly fine, but I'm not sure you and I understand it to mean the same thing.

This also leads to a lot of people claiming they were Napolian, Marie Antoineete and Jesus in their past life. While some claim to be ascended masters.

Another danger are the many charlatans who claim to be past-life regression therapists and make believers believe they lived particular past lives, when actually they just implant false memories and make them believe in all kinds of crap like past-lives in Lemuria, Atlantis. I asked one of these experts once their method, and the response was very disappointing, "I know from intuition" and when I said "how can you be sure" I got another disappointing response, "it does not matter, what matters is whether my patient is helped with his problem" Thus promoting blind faith.

People making such claims as having been famous people in past lives must always be taken with much skepticism, however there's an ever so slight possibility that it's the truth.

And about past-life regression, see if you can find a book, Many Lives, Many Masters by Dr. Brian Weiss who is a clinical psy..chiatrist or chologist... I forget which of the two, but it was a journey of discovery for both himself and his patient - a great read whether you choose to believe it or not. He may have the slightly more detailed answers that you're looking for in this aspect.

The flip-side of this is most new-age people want to develop psychic powers and spend millions on useless psychic development books, crystals, pseudoscience. Which just makes a lot of people gullible and gives them a false sense of spiritual progress. Every other new-ager then starts to think they are spiritually advancing, starts to channel, hold psychic readings etc

I would suggest that it doesn't make people more gullible, that people are in fact a bit gullible to begin with. But remember you can't know another's experience, and you can't know whether or not other people have had revelations/realisations of their own, and it's equally likely that they are as "right" as you are about your worldview

I had a friend who was majorly into new-age. She was so into this all religions is one thing, she would try every religion, every sect, every cult. She had a new one every month. Sometimes she would be doing them simutaneously. It reflected in her behaviour though. She was completely indecisive, could not pay attention to anything or stick to anything. Basically new-age had made her very impressionable. I have seen the same result with most new-age people I have encountered.

I would suggest that maybe she was indecisive and impressionable by herself. Chopping and changing religions so frequently suggests that this is her nature.

Yep, and associated with all of this is the 2012 and asecending into the 5th dimension nonsense. I have seen two types of new-agers. The doomsday type that tell us the Illumanti are conspiring to set-up a new world order and we stop them by educating everybody about them and by raising our vibrations to fight them. The other type is a golden age of humanity is dawning, utopia is coming.

Another thing I have noticed which is very pervaisve with many new-age people is the idea that they don't have to be proactive, that simply by being there in the world, they are helping it ascend.

I'd agree that sitting around waiting for something to happen won't make it happen - and I'd suggest to those who expect a utopian society to come forth should be bringing it's existence forth, rather than waiting for it to appear so they can move in ^_^

 

[Surya Deva]

In the spirit of discussion, not debate:

While I understand that new-age religion has many positive aspects, and not everybody who is new age is necessarily the stereotypical newage believer, I still think it is important to recognise the common characteristics of new age religion and the implications of its beliefs and attitudes, which has turned into a parody today.

Meditation:

The TM group, which was another new-age religion, came under a lot of allegations of teaching dangerous techniques. After people who were practicing its meditation techniques found that the technique lead to reawakening past traumas and the group had not taught them how to deal with this or that this could occurr. Gopi Kishan, famous for his book, "Living with Kundalini" learned a meditation technique published in a book, and later found he had prematurely awakened his Kundalini which lead to great suffering. This has been called in Psychology today a Spiritual Emergency or the Kundalini Syndrome, where new-agers practicing Eastern meditation techniques have suffered negative results.

Yoga has long warned that using Pranayama techniques can be dangerous and in the Yoga tradition they not been taught to Sadhikas(adherents) until much later. These techniques are today rather irresponsibly published in new age books, usually without any kind of warning.

Of course the problems in meditation are mostly of a spiritual nature. It is very easy to fall in this path. Most of us fall the moment we start, we meditate, then go out for a pint. This is a case of taking one step forward and two steps back. Some of us fall later and fall even harder.
This is why a teacher is considered essential on this path.

If one does not have a teacher, then at least a good understanding of the theory and practice of meditation. New-age approaches these practices, which were esoteric in the past, with an unrealistic and populist look, many times as a means to an end, stress relief, psychic powers, altered states.

Meditation is a serious and scientific tool developed by the ancients to explore consciousness. It is only for those who are serious about this.

Plausible Deniability:

All of the new-age beliefs could be true. Perhaps all the Indigo children are Indigo children, perhaps reptile aliens are controlling our minds, perhaps buying a hyperdimensional ki generator will indeed make you more succesfull. Perhaps everybody is challeling some entity and eveybody has psychic powers. But how can we know for certain? Well, most of the time new-age people don't need to know, they just believe. They justify this with attacks on logic, claiming that they know from a higher source - intuition. In actuality most of these people are deluding themselves and his kind of believing in anything and everything can become very dangerous. As we saw with the Heavens Gate cult. Most new-age cults feed of their believers gullibility.

Thus it could be argued rather than new-age being the evolution of humans, it is the opposite.

 

[Azakel]

I will say I have fallen into anything New-Age thing and it turn out bad after awhile. You have to weigh and judge this things. Hell, I believe in things like Psychic powers and all. But to how much I believe is some what small, or at lest to the number of people who all was clam they have these powers.
I think it's ok to believe New-Age stuff, as long as you don't let it over take your life and know when to step back and say, ok this isn't a good idea, I should stop.

 

[methylatedghosts]

All of the new-age beliefs could be true. Perhaps all the Indigo children are Indigo children, perhaps reptile aliens are controlling our minds, perhaps buying a hyperdimensional ki generator will indeed make you more succesfull. Perhaps everybody is challeling some entity and eveybody has psychic powers. But how can we know for certain? Well, most of the time new-age people don't need to know, they just believe. They justify this with attacks on logic, claiming that they know from a higher source - intuition. In actuality most of these people are deluding themselves and his kind of believing in anything and everything can become very dangerous. As we saw with the Heavens Gate cult. Most new-age cults feed of their believers gullibility.

Many, many cults have that in similarity.

But I will say, that the beliefs themselves are rather harmless - positive thinking sounds like a good idea, and hey - if crystal healing works, go nuts, it'd just be silly to not look at what's known to cure cancer, rather than relying on crystals to remove the brain tumour alone.

And still.. logic isn't the be all and end all when talking about spiritual matters - it's ignoring much of the dynamics of which makes us human - perhaps even ignoring or setting aside real spiritual experiences that don't make logical sense (in the beginning at least)


I guess what I'm saying is, that the beliefs, like any beliefs, are rather harmless, and I disagree that they are dangerous ideas. I also disagree that meditation requires a teacher, and that one can move forward just as well in indivdual pursuit in this regard.

umm....

I think that's it...
I've lost my train of thought

 

[Surya Deva]

A man who presents lectures on Hinduism, which are braodcasted on the Aastha channel on Sky, makes a point which sums up what I want to say in response. He said, "Do not believe in anything I say to you, if it does not make sense, as soon as you start believing blindly in something, you destroy yourself" He goes onto describe how blind belief ends up infecting our psychological structure, weakening our intelligence and undermining our integrity. This was based on a talk celebrating Swami Vivekananda atheism in his college years. He was known to be a very feirce atheist, and he never believed in what anybody was telling him about god. He would put it very bluntly to the believers, "Have any one of you seen god, yes or no" and he would get in response muddled replies like, "I have felt him, my prayers come true" When he found out about a man called Swami Ramakrishna, a saint of the highest order that could answer his questions on god, he went to him and in the same intensity fired his question, "Have you seen god, yes or no" and Ramakrishna responded, "I see god more clearly than I see you" this startled Vivekananda. How can Ramakrishna see god more clearly than him! But Vivekananda was a true skeptic, he did not dismiss Ramakrishna's claims, because dismissing something without investigation is not skepticism. He started visiting Ramakrishna to see just how valid was this man.

This is what is lacking very strongly in new age religion. Countless new-agers are duped everyday by people claiming to be psychic or mediums, giving them readings, selling them snake-oil. Some of these so-called psychics charge exorbiant amounts of money to give readings, anything to £100-200 per reading. In cults the credibility manifests as blind acceptance of everything that is being said and worship of the leader.

I think we should pay very close attention to what this lecturer was saying. Is it true that blind faith actually infects us and gradually destroys us? Just look at the history of religion and you may realise that there is definitely some truth in this proposition. How is a positive and loving religion like that of Christianity become a cause for Crusades, Inquisitions? How does an enlightened religion like Hinduism give rise to such rampant superstiton which has been prevalent in India since the last millenia? How can there be such thing as Buddhist terrorists? It is because of blind faith. One who believes blindly actually lays the seeds of destruction.

I gave the example of Heaven's gate cult to demonstrate just what blind belief can lead to. It is dangerous. I know that most religions in the world encourage blind belief, but new age religion takes it to extremes. You could argue that new-agers find solace in his belif beliefs, after all what wrong does it do for them to believe they are communicating with their dead relatives, it gives them comfort. The danger that accepting such a comfort comes at the price of intelligence. We undermine our intelligence everytime we accept such false comforts. When intelligence is undermined we further distance ourselves from reality and awareness and enter deeper into ignorance.

 

[Azakel]

I see what you're saying and agree with it for the most part. But would you agree that not everyone who is a New-Ager has fallen into the dangerous part of it.

 

[methylatedghosts]

The danger that accepting such a comfort comes at the price of intelligence. We undermine our intelligence everytime we accept such false comforts. When intelligence is undermined we further distance ourselves from reality and awareness and enter deeper into ignorance

So.... someone who believes that these things are perhaps possible are somehow unintelligent?

 

[Surya Deva]

Azakel,

Yes definitely, not all new-agers are like this. I own many books by new-agers, who I respect and admire greatly. My criticism is directed more at the religion as a whole and the implications of its philosophy.

Methylatedspirits, anything could be possible, but if we started accepting everything that could be possible, we would be in chaos. There is blind belief and reasoned belief, blind belief is accepting a claim without any investigation and evidence/proof, and reasoned beleif is accepting a claim based on investigation and evidence/proof.

Somebody on this forum claimed they were psychic and highly spiritually evolved in a very arrogant manner. I can either accept that this person really is psychic and highly spiritually evolved without investigation, or ask them to produce evidence. I asked them for evidence; they did not respond. I similarly encourage new-agers to stop accepting these claims without evidence.

 

[methylatedghosts]

Azakel,

Yes definitely, not all new-agers are like this. I own many books by new-agers, who I respect and admire greatly. My criticism is directed more at the religion as a whole and the implications of its philosophy.

Methylatedspirits, anything could be possible, but if we started accepting everything that could be possible, we would be in chaos. There is blind belief and reasoned belief, blind belief is accepting a claim without any investigation and evidence/proof, and reasoned beleif is accepting a claim based on investigation and evidence/proof.

Somebody on this forum claimed they were psychic and highly spiritually evolved in a very arrogant manner. I can either accept that this person really is psychic and highly spiritually evolved without investigation, or ask them to produce evidence. I asked them for evidence; they did not respond. I similarly encourage new-agers to stop accepting these claims without evidence.

The difficulty of course being, is that you're asking for evidence for things that by their nature are highly subjective. It's very difficult to provide evidence of a personal inner spiritual experience, for example. There are some things where perhaps you simply have to take their word for it, assume they're telling the truth, and see what you can make of it. "Assuming that this person is completely truthful about this, and does indeed have these experiences, what does it mean for me?". Likewise, "Assuming that this person is completely truthful, but in fact the experiences themselves are imprints from something else, what does it mean for me?" and "Assuming that this person is simply making it up, what does it mean for me?"

Psychic phenomenon for example, are difficult to produce evidence for. For some people, it is simply a feeling or somehow knowing something, usually from a person close to them. It's difficult to ask a person such as this "What am I thinking about?" and expect a correct answer. Ok, probably a weak example, but hopefully you see the point I'm trying to make. You can't really peer inside another's brain to see what they see, to feel what they feel and experience what they do. In fact, many court cases are done simply by one person's word against another's, with very little evidence otherwise.

So to sum up what I'm really saying here, is that the nature of the thing you want evidence for, is of itself rather difficult. Evidence rarely comes into it for personal experience. One can merely ask "what if x" and "what if not-x" and "what if x, but y" and find out what it means for one's self.

 

[Surya Deva]

So to sum up what I'm really saying here, is that the nature of the thing you want evidence for, is of itself rather difficult. Evidence rarely comes into it for personal experience. One can merely ask "what if x" and "what if not-x" and "what if x, but y" and find out what it means for one's self.

I understand what you are saying, but nonetheless, accepting something without evidence, even if it is ultimately true, is still exercising blind faith. How can you be certain that what you believe is true? As long as doubt remains one should not accept any position to be true.

My religion says that we are a bundle of error, and we keep adding to it. The more we add to it the deeper we plunge ourselves into ignorance. This is why it is essential that one uses their intellectual discrimination to separate truth from falsehood.

The claim that one has psychic powers, for example, is not entirely subjective. It is a positive claim and thus also is objective. Such a person should demonstrate their psychic powers, and if they cannot, they should not be making such claims. Likewise, if one says they were Napolian in their past life, they should give details to prove it, or keep their silence.

We should believe only in what we have evidence for, even if what we believe is ultimately true. This truth will be realised in the end anyway by growing up into it, but if you just blindly believe from the outset, you will never realise it. Skepticism is absolutely essential for a healthy spiritual development.

 

[methylatedghosts]

I understand what you are saying, but nonetheless, accepting something without evidence, even if it is ultimately true, is still exercising blind faith. How can you be certain that what you believe is true? As long as doubt remains one should not accept any position to be true.

As long as doubt remains, one should also not assume it to be false

My religion says that we are a bundle of error, and we keep adding to it. The more we add to it the deeper we plunge ourselves into ignorance. This is why it is essential that one uses their intellectual discrimination to separate truth from falsehood.

I prefer the stance of "If it's true, then for me this means such-and-such" and "If this is not true, then for me it means this and that"

The claim that one has psychic powers, for example, is not entirely subjective. It is a positive claim and thus also is objective. Such a person should demonstrate their psychic powers, and if they cannot, they should not be making such claims. Likewise, if one says they were Napolian in their past life, they should give details to prove it, or keep their silence.

How do you propose that someone give evidence that they were Napoleon in a past life? There's alot of writing about his life, and if this person says something that isn't known it could easily be claimed they're making it up!

Similar with psychic abilities. I personally have been known to sense things from others halfway around the world. But I can't give evidence for it. You either can take my word for it, or not. All I have is my own experience, beyond any chance of coincidence, and I feel that's a strong enough base. It's not to say I then believe every person's claims of psychic ability.

We should believe only in what we have evidence for, even if what we believe is ultimately true. This truth will be realised in the end anyway by growing up into it, but if you just blindly believe from the outset, you will never realise it. Skepticism is absolutely essential for a healthy spiritual development.

Like I said, if you're going only by what you have evidence for, you're missing alot of the dynamics of the human experience. Skepticism IS a healthy stance to take, but also you shouldn't too quickly dismiss a thing simply because you see no evidence, at least, not if you want to take in all facets of what it is to be human, which DOES involve things that don't make complete sense.

Basically, it's a middle road stance - don't leap into every thing, or dismiss everything.

And to tie this back into New-Age beliefs, that's the stance I try to take. I take on board the possibility that there's a possibility that these claims are true, that these claims are false-truths (as in - occur, but not necessarily have a spiritual or super-natural cause) or are simply people misleading people.

I believe there's an aspect to the whole thing that is, at least currently, beyond the ability we have to gather evidence about it. But I wouldn't trade chemotherapy for crystals any time soon

 

[kai]

Is new age religion just a free-for-all, pix and mix kind of pseudo-religion, where people just believe in whatever they want - fairies and santa clause, and hyperdimensional crystals etc, or is it more substantial and meaningful than that?

well all religions were new once!"

 

[methylatedghosts]

Also, Suraj, thanks for this most pleasant exchange thus far.

My opinion of you has improved rather significantly (which is of course, a very good thing )

 

[blackout]

Some people make their own lives.

Some poeple let other's make it for them.

Some people construct their own beliefs.

Some people let other's construct their "beliefs" for them.

I personally am a do it myselfer.
Oooh! Look! an elf!