New Age and Satanism

Satanism is not New Age, and is in most areas very much incompatible with traditional New Age thought. However book stores will invariably put LaVey's books in the Mind-Body-Spirit section, through ignorance and innocence. LaVey's texts clearly should be in philosophy or religion, probably the latter. This page does not include an introduction to what the New Age is. Steve Bruce in his "Religion in the Modern World" [info & quotes] has a good chapter on the New Age that covers the basics plus sociology & indicative statistics on the New Age.

Contents:

1. Comparison of Satanism and New Age
2. History of the New Age movement
3. Criticism of New Age Spirituality
4. To oppose or support the New Age movement?

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1. Comparison of Satanism and New Age

New Age is also known as "Self-Spirituality", "Mind-Body-Spirit", "Age of Aquarius" and has been historically known as the "Mind-Cure" movement, "New Thought" movement, the "Religion of Healthy-Mindedness" and "Mental Science".

While the roots of modern New Age are very much white light and Christian, I would guess that many elements are a survival of similar ancient mystical and spiritualist practices that have existed for thousands of years. The difference is the approach: Such practices are no longer lifelong commitments to particular disciplines, modern new age approaches all religions and paths as things that can be pilfered from and used ad hoc, with each person forming their own semi-coherent set of practices and beliefs. Hence it is completely individualistic and not centralized.

Satanism and New Age therefore do have some things in common:

• Belief that spiritual, natural or supernatural forces, where they exist, can be used for practical purposes according to how the self sees fit in accordance with rules of cause and affect

• Belief that belief systems are individual, free, that consolidation of beliefs (i.e., becoming an organized religion with dogmatic beliefs) is a historical error leading to closed minded stagnation i.e., as most world religions become

• Belief in self-help and self-empowerment

• Break from organized religious structures

• Both have gone through, and are going through, processes of emerging from being "underground" and are now able of being open and direct via internet and bookshops in a way never before possible. This is because oppressive Christian/white light powers are no longer in general control of our culture.

However, there are far more areas in which Satanism and New Age disagree:

• New Age is infused with concepts of karma and white light concepts of "good" behaviour

• The white light terminology and good-guy-badge approach of much of the new age is frequently shunned by Satanists

• The religious and quasi-godly talk is abhorrent to Satanists, the New Ages' roots in theistic mysticism clouds the balance of the entire genre of thought

2. History of the New Age movement

1960s
The OCRT describe the modern movement now known as New Age as becoming popular in the 1970s, and state:

"Its roots are traceable to many sources: Astrology, Channeling, Hinduism, Gnostic traditions, Spiritualism, Taosim, Theosophy, Wicca and other Neo-pagan traditions, etc. The movement started in England in the 1960's where many of these elements were well established. Small groups, such as the Findhorn Community in Inverness and the Wrekin Trust formed. The movement quickly became international. Early New Age mileposts in North America were a "New Age Seminar" ran by the Association for Research and Enlightenment, and the establishment of the East-West Journal in 1971."

www.religioustolerance.org/newage.htm

Pre-1900s
However it is identifiable as a noticeable and significant movement at least seventy years before then. William James' lectures in 1900/1901 compiled as "The Varieties of Religious Experience" describe the new age movement as a wave sweeping America. If it was already a wave by 1901, it must have been gaining momentum even before then, too.

William James [p106-107] clearly describes the early movement that we now know as "New Age", calling it the "New Thought" and "Mind cure" movement. He describes it as a flood that is sweeping America. "It has reached the stage, for example, when the demand for its literature is great enough for insincere stuff, mechanically produced for the market, to be to a certain extent provided by publishers - a phenomenon never observed, I imagine, until a religion got well past its earliest insecure beginnings". He lists its influences as being:

• The four Christian Gospels

• Emersonianism or New England transcendentalism

• Berkeleyan idealism

• Spiritism

• Hinduism

Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803-1882)'s secretary wrote Walden, a significant "hippy" book, and Emerson was influenced like many other groups of the period, by Eastern religious thought.

Alan Anderson lists some important figures and groups in the formation of the new age movement:

"... New Thought [began] in the nineteenth century [...]. It is the outgrowth of the healing theory and practice of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, whose influence was spread by his former patients, the most prominent of whom were: Warren Felt Evans, who wrote the first books in what would be called New Thought; Mary Baker Eddy, who established Christian Science; and Julius and Annetta Dresser, who, with their son Horatio, spread the word about Quimby. Former Eddy associate Emma Curtis Hopkins taught her own version of healing idealism, indebted indirectly to Quimby and directly to her own explorations and to Eddy. Hopkins, the "teacher of teachers," taught founders of Divine Science, Unity, and Religious Science. These groups, along with Religious Science-influenced Seich-No-Ie, are the best-known groups in the New Thought movement.

The name New Thought was taken in the 1890s, generally replacing such names as Mind Cure and Mental Science. William James dealt with the movement in Lectures IV and V of "The Varieties of Religious Experience" under the name "The Religion of Healthy-Mindedness." [...] Some studies of the New Thought movement by Charles S. Braden, Horatio W. Dresser, Stillson J. Judah, and others are given in the bibliography of the most recent survey of the field, "New Thought: A Practical American Spirituality" "

Alan Anderson, on the New Age

I would also add that major influences have been Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky (the Fourth Way), Westernized versions of Buddhist and Hindu belief (the Theosophists), confusing modern science (Quantum mechanics and the surrounding philosophers and science fiction writers) and various other age-old superstitions and spiritual beliefs that have all been lumped together haphazardly to form a loose background of rationalisation and inspiration for the New Age movement. (And indeed some of these influences are important across the occult world in general).

The New Age & Christianity
"Although the disciples of the mind-cure often use Christian terminology, one sees from such quotations how widely their notion of the fall of man diverges from that of ordinary Christians" [James p111]. William James' notes and many Christians and New Agers would concur, that there is something a little non-Christian but I think that early Christianity would have been much closer to the New Age, but that modern Christianity became increasingly sterile and homogenous so that now the New Age vitality and freshness seems opposite to it.

3. Criticism of New Age Spirituality

Scientific journals and journals such as the Skeptical Inquirer are filled with articles that despair at the scientific nonsense that is peddled on the New Age shelves of bookstores. Sam Harris summarizes:

“The New Age has [...] made spiritual life seem generally synonymous with the forfeiture of brain cells. Most of the beliefs and practices that have been designated as "spiritual," in this New Age or in any other, have arisen and thrive in a perfect vacuum of critical intelligence. Indeed, many New Age ideas are so ridiculous as to produce terror in otherwise dispassionate men.”

"The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason" by Sam Harris (2006)₁

Amongst Satanists there is spite and distrust of the New Age movement. Anton LaVey hated it and talked of maze-making, obfuscation and misguided convoluted practices based on delusional white-light style ideas, and much of the New Age is considered, by Satanists, to be a refuge for sheep who are taken up on anti-Christian waves but who are unable to drop spiritualistic trappings, so they merely tag along with the New Age without ever having opened their minds.

“Pop occultism is fodder for nincompoops, and its only merit is that it detracts from established religious mores.”

"The Devil's Notebook" by Anton LaVey, p44

4. To oppose or support the New Age movement?

Is Satanism inherently opposed to the New Age? On the one hand, it is not. This is because there is a cross over, some Satanists' are well versed in New Age concepts and practices through the mutual study of Hindu or other religious beliefs that individuals interested in New Age and Left Hand Path might read up on. Many Satanists' have been, or are, actively interested in various new age shops, people, events, practices and theory.

The "worth" of New Age is that it still freshens some peoples' minds, it forces the world to accept different ideas and fights stagnation. But disadvantages are that it may well foster and cultivate gullible stupidity and it certainly is a refuge for sheep who fail to question the whys and hows (of both the practices themselves and the practitioners who take their money). Depending on what a Satanist thinks the greater evil (organized religion... or stupidity?) and whether they grant the logic of the various branches of the new age in general any credit will determine whether (s)he opposes or supports (or ignores!) the New Age.