- Image by terriem via Flickr
Much has been written far more eloquently than I could ever on this topic, so I am not writing this to provide a comprehensive view of the topic of the “New Age.” However I do feel that there are some hidden dangers basic to many practices which we do not consider a “big deal.”
For a lot of you this will be learning yet another side to me–most of you know I took a long journey back to the Roman Catholic Church after much floundering and wandering in the desert for around 35 years. Some of you know I was involved in homosexuality on an active level. Lots of you know I was a married Assemblies of God minister for 12 years.
However until now I just have not felt free or ready to share another part of me–that of my involvement in the occult/New Age. For 7 years of my life or thereabouts, I took classes on Tarot, astrology, and I Ching (a Chinese method of divination) as well as even obtaining some certification in Tarot particularly and in did a fair amount of dabbling in this whole realm of spirituality.
The first thing people think of, when the term “occult” is used, is demon worship or the movie “The Exorcist.” I cannot say that those things do not happen. But for me, and for most of us, particularly who were practicing Christians while yet using these methods of spiritual misadventures on the side, the most serious danger is actually far more simple and yet very insidious indeed.
John Salza, an expert in Freemasonry and devoted Catholic Christian who, while within the Church, moved high and quickly on the ladder of the Masonic Lodge, uses in his books and website (www.scripturecatholic.com) a term I had never heard before but which explains it quite well–indifferentism. Indifferentism is the idea that “all religions are the same” essentially. Yet we as Christians and particularly as Catholics know this is not the case.
I do not wish to leave this post as a “teaser,” but I must…I will write much more later, but suffice it to say that my former involvements in this arena are much of what temporarily “derailed” my connection to the Church just over a year ago, and which lasted for several months.
No demon “jumped into me” when I once again picked up Tarot and other such practices–they did not have to. Satan already had me where he wanted me, by causing me to see the glittering pull of Tarot (built very strongly on Freemasonry as I was later to realize) until I finally no longer was sure of Rome. And with that, I then could re-think my views on everything from LGBT “rights” to the Papacy. And it took me some more-than-mild spiritual battles to return fully in Lent of last year. Much more later…
DISCLAIMER/WARNING–the links below have NOT been reviewed by me, and I post them only to show the varieties of thinking which have emerged in our society and even the Church. I do not implicitly or explicitly endorse them. Read with care.
Cover via Amazon
Related articles
- New Age Anonymous (lifeofafemalebiblewarrior.wordpress.com)
- Fundamentalist View of “New Agers” (stevebeckow.com)
- How to Phrase My Question (crystalhealingshop.wordpress.com)
