Illustration: Gustave Dore
My latest video (below) is intended as a relatively short (thirty minute) introduction to the key themes of the New Age Movement.
Unsurprisingly, as readers of my books and blogs will readily appreciate, the message here is that New Age-ism represents a menace to the Christian principles that built Western civilisation.
And I say this as a Christian convert, who was once heavily involved in the New Age subculture for close to twenty years. Indeed, I was a New Age activist for at least half that time. And for close to three years, I also lived at the Findhorn community in the far north of Scotland and Findhorn is probably the most well-known New Age community in the world. Indeed, according to the Vatican document Jesus Christ The Bearer Of The Water Of Life, the New Age Movement owes its development to two major sources of formative inspiration:
The two centres which were the initial power-houses of the New Age, and to a certain extent still are, were the Garden community at Findhorn in North-East Scotland, and the Centre for the development of human potential at Esalen in Big Sur, California, in the United States of America.
Thus, I speak here as someone who was a something of a “New Age insider” for many years. Another dubious claim to “fame” here is that I also knew, at least a little, several of the key founding figures of the movement, at least those active in Britain, including David Spangler and Findhorn’s founders Peter and Eileen Caddy.
All this, then, equips me to make this little introduction to many of the key New Age themes and ideas and also of the extraordinary rise of New Age thinking over the last forty years, since I first encountered it as a teenager, back in in 1979. I hope the latter fact also gives me a certain long-range perspective, as I knew the movement in its relatively early days when it was hardly the well-known juggernaut it has become in the last forty years or so.
Now, although the video naturally comes from a traditional Catholic perspective, I pray this intimate, first-hand experience as a “New Age insider” for nearly twenty years may also be illumining to Christians of all persuasions including Evangelicals, other Protestants and simply Conservatives who are rightly concerned that New Age-ism is a progressive and liberal movement rapidly eroding Western Christian tradition.
I will not say much more. The purpose of this little post, naturally, is to direct you to the video. For those who want more detail, however, I point out that this website contains a whole slew of posts dedicated to the New Age, so-called “holistic” spirituality or what have you at this archive of New Age posts here.
Finally, I have two books out dealing with the New Age. First up is a big one: Cor Jesu Sacratissimum: From Secularism and the New Age to Christendom Renewed which details the New Age extensively. There I speak much more of Findhorn, my conversion to Christianity and also discuss some of the key New Age texts, beginning with the Nineteenth Century Theosophy of Helena Blavatsky and, later on, Alice Bailey and continuing through A Course in Miracles and the works of people like Eckhart Tolle today. Second, there is my much smaller first book, The Gentle Traditionalist which also deals with the New Age but in a lighter, much more easily accessible way.
And here at last is the promised video!
One Comment
Dear Mr. Buck: I have listened to two of the videos on your site, “A Little Video Guide to the New Age Movement”, and “A Video of My Life at Findhorn and Other Things”. In them, one of the statements I think I hear you make is that among strong Catholic populations there is little or no abandonment of the faith to go into Gnosticism/the New Age movement as opposed to that occurrence being more typical among evangelical and fundamentalist populations. It further appears (?) that you are also laying a great deal of fault for abandonment to and the growth of the Gnostic/New Age movement at the feet of evangelicalism and fundamentalism. I am very interested to learn perhaps some bullet points (typical American here) or summaries about evangelicalism/fundamentalism that provide the conclusion you appear to have drawn. As well, please forgive me if I am misinterpreting what it sounds like you are saying. Perhaps one of your other videos goes into more detail than I found in the two I watched, but it would be difficult at best for me to go through every video in search of the one that provides a clearer explanation of and basis for your findings. I look forward to learning some precise information that supports what I think is your conclusion, and am grateful for your time.