The New Age & Devil Worship

- By Thomas Horn     -  RNU News Sr. Reporter

Do those who practice paganism worship "devils?"

RNU.com – (Raiders News Update) - A few years ago during the Christmas
season my wife and I walked through a local mall. As we perused the
different shops, we came across a New Age bookstore conducting a "Grand
Opening". In a derisive tone I said to my wife, "Can you believe some
people's lack of intelligence?"

Casually, I strolled into the store, and without hesitation snatched a
book from the shelf and began offering a sarcastic commentary as I read
from the pages. I noticed my wife growing uncomfortable and so I placed
the book back on the shelf, and proceeded out of the store.

Suddenly, a dull sensation hit me. It began in my stomach and shot
upward through my head, impacting my equilibrium. As I stepped outside,
into the main mall walkway, my head started to spin, my hands started
shaking. I felt as if I was going to faint. It was literally as if an
invisible terror had "jumped" on me, and was somehow injecting powerful
feelings of nausea and anxiety throughout my entire body. I tried
shaking it off, but couldn't. I attempted to walk it off and failed. At
last, feigning interest in something, I moved away from my wife and
began to pray. I asked the Lord to forgive me for my sarcastic attitude,
my lack of caution, and for my want of concern for the lost. I prayed
for deliverance from evil and for healing of the body and mind. After
several hours of such walking and praying, I was finally restored.

I discovered a valuable lesson that day: while a Christian may not be
demon-possessed, it's equally true that the "princes" of this world are
powerful, and we should enter their arena only after prayer, and at the
prompting of the Lord.

I also learned the mystical forces of the New Age movement are genuine
(and willing to protect their territory!), and that much of what is
currently published under the guise of New Age "enlightenment", is
nothing less than Old Age doctrines of nefarious invisible hosts.

As in antiquity, so in modern times, those who practice paganism are
guilty of worshipping "devils" (Rev. 9:20). The dogmas which were once
embraced (and still are through the New Age Movement) as the wisdom of
the gods, are defined in the scriptures as the "doctrines of devils".
The Apostle Paul declared: "the things which the Gentiles sacrifice,
they sacrifice to devils" (1 Cor. 10:20). In Acts 7:41-42 (Jerusalem
Bible), we find that those who worship idols are joined to the "army of
heaven" [stratos, the "fallen angel army"], and Psalm 96:5 concludes
that "all the gods of the nations are idols" (elilim, LXX daimonia
[demons]). Thus, pagan images, such as represented the ancient gods and
goddesses, were elilim (empty, nothing, vanity), but behind the empty
idols were the living dynamics of idolatry, and spiritual objects of
heathen adoration, the daimonia (demons) of the Bible.

Since the Bible clearly defines idolatry as the worship of demons, and
since demons are eternal personalities which desire the worship of men,
it is fair to conclude the characterization of such deities as "Zeus,"
"Amun-Ra," "Demeter," and "Isis," were simply the classical names
attributed to specific fallen spirits. In other words, Apollo was a real
personality; Osiris was a genuine underworld fiend; Hecate actually
lived, and still does!

One also concludes that the images of the gods (falcon headed statues,
animal forms, etc) served the purposes of such spirits by providing a
point of focus, and by revealing the "nature" of the particular spirit
existing within the god. The iconographies, myths and rituals of each
deity exhibited the specific characteristics (nature, gender, underworld
authority, etc) of that particular entity. Thus, the myths and images of
Zeus, according to such theory, were the physical manifestations of a
literal demon of air, while statues of the goddess Demeter represented
an earth spirit.

Today, it is my assertion and the claim of my book THE GODS WHO WALK
AMONG US, that the same spirits of antiquity, including Zeus, Athene,
Dionysus, and others, continue to express themselves within modern
paganism. My coauthor, Dr. Jones agrees, asserting that the connection
between the New Age Movement and the gods of mythology is strong.

"Nothing has changed in Satan's game plan," says Jones, "just the names
of the players, and, in some instances, even the names are the same."

Paganism in America is exploding as we enter the new millennium.
Throughout Hollywood, government, cyberspace, and even the church, the
masses are embracing the religious philosophies of the New Age of Aquarius.

As a modernistic process by which the old gods are worshipped, the New
Age Movement emerged in the United States during the 1960s, and has
experienced a steady growth ever since. The broad appeal of the New Age
Movement as a Western phenomenon can be explained to some degree as the
result of a changing culture. Americans have gradually abandoned the
fundamental precepts of Christianity (prayer in school, Bible in courts,
etc) which provided the cornerstone of civil life and jurisprudence in
American society for more than 200 years. As a generation of
baby-boomers has focused on human potential and the "god within us all",
Eastern philosophies of Monism, Pantheism, Hinduism, and Self
Realization are providing Americans and even some Christians with an
alluring opportunity to throw off the "outdated ideas" of fundamental
Christianity and to espouse a more "enlightened" worldview of God and
reality.

Some notable celebrities have joined the political ambitions of the New
Age Movement (goals include a United Nation's sponsored Environmental
Sabbath for the Goddess Earth), including Shirly MacLaine, Dick Gregory,
Lindsay Wagner, Dennis Weaver, Dirk Benedict, Cloris Leachman, Richard
Gere, Ally Sheedy, and the late John Denver. Many mainstream "Christian"
denominations have also annexed the New Age ideas, and believers who
once held strong doctrinal positions of the supremacy of Christ, have
abandoned those views in exchange for a New Age universal philosophy.
Examples include a witch who teaches principles of Goddess worship at a
Roman Catholic college in California, and United Methodist pastors who
propose replacing the name of Jesus with Sophia (Goddess of Wisdom) when
reading about the crucifixion. Such persons claim we should join the
efforts of New Agers and be sympathetic to "Goddess-minded Christians."

Former New Age devotee, Judy Vorfeld re-discovered the real Jesus after
embracing such ideas. She became involved in freelance writing as a
result of experiencing the dangers involved in participating in the New
Age Movement. For many years she actively avoided anything to do with
the Christianity of her childhood. When she was in her early forties, a
neighborhood minister said he was starting a new church, and she thought
the time might be right to look at Christianity again. Judy writes:

'For a time I was involved in a fellowship that worshipped a different
deity than the God of the Bible....I joined a church that evolved from
ecumenism to religious syncretism....Six months after I became part of
the fellowship, fundamental Christianity was retired in favor of a
universal religious system, one designed to be inoffensive to people of
any theological persuasion. The fellowship then put together a creed
that would be acceptable for any visitors coming to worship with us.
Jews, Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists were welcome, as were Theosophists,
Rosicrucians, and Hare Krishnas....Our minister brought a popular
seminar, advertised as a self-improvement course, into our church. Most
of us were impressed with the professional manner of the leaders and
their sophisticated system of teaching self-realization....The
organization's format, we were told, held the answers to all our
problems....Church leadership eagerly blended the organization's ideas
into an agenda that became a part of our church curriculum. Eastern
meditation, physic healing, and guided imagery were all practiced.'

Judy Vorfeld is a friend of mine and has provided me with guidance on
the New Age Movement. In a recent correspondence she described modern
Druids, and spoke of their methods of magic healing through
"visualization." She confessed: "Tom.... When we were involved in Silva
Mind Control [through her local church!], we did the same thing
[visualized healing]. At that time, I thought God was behind all this
stuff. I "saw" people in my mind's eye who had various diseases, and I
sent energy to heal them. In groups like this, the leader often has a
list of people who are sick. This gives them a way to follow through and
see who was healed. I have no doubt some people were healed, but since
we were invoking a power other than that of the real God, what were we
doing?"

What indeed.

An amazing component of the New Age Movement (as verified by such
examples as my friend, Judy) is its capacity to adapt to a variety of
religious, even Christian ideas. Consequently, many of the popular
"Christian" doctrines advocated today are nothing more than the cultic
propositions of Eastern mysticism and ancient paganism. These include
concepts of psychic healing, self-realization, emotional experiences,
rules of success, breathing techniques, positive confession, name it and
claim it, environmental theology, the ecumenical movement,
visualization, hypnosis by clergy, mind manipulation, and so on.

At times, and I say this with caution, even the activity within the
"fundamental" church, including certain physical phenomena we sometimes
embrace as the miraculous evidence of "revival," is a modern form of
magic and opens the door for "old gods" and their mysticism to invade
the church. The line between a true manifestation of God, and human
orchestration, is often blurred. Sincere people, in a quest to
experience God, frequently mimic the doctrinal and physical activity of
others. Some physical phenomena known as Delirium and Glossalialia
(crawling on the church floor and making animal sounds, etc) is
extra-biblical in nature (not everything that is extra-biblical is
un-biblical, however) and therefore undefined by New Testament teachings.

As a result, some Christians have been drawn after mystical experiences
rather than concentrating on God and His Word. Even sermons preached by
well-meaning ministers have tempted Christians to pursue "supernatural"
encounters with "God", rather than instructing them to live by faith.
The danger of such undisciplined sincerity is that human nature rarely
limits its opportunity for experience. If the Bible has no clear
guidlines of conduct and order, and the activity is being promoted by
church authorities as a way of experiencing God, then the person seeking
the "experience" may have trouble defining what is, and what isn't
acceptable, and thus go too far. For emotional people the "experience"
may be expressed by a physical reaction, while academics tend to
interpret mystical "experiences" with God as divine revelations or
imparted knowledge. The dangerous consequences of such conduct often
leads to religious behavior more reminiscent of Dionysus or Apollo
worship than of New Testament Christianity. As a result, people like
Judy Vorfeld start out in a Christian church and wind up in the New Age
movement.

The dangers of mysticism, such as those inherent with emphasizing
experiences over doctrine, were soundly illustrated in a recent report
by Samantha Smith. She writes:

*Delirium*

'I became strongly concerned about this movement after observing a
"service" at a south Denver Vineyard church....[a woman] stood in the
middle of a group of people who ran their hands over her body (within an
inch or so of the clothing), then kept swooshing some invisible thing
toward her heart area. Saddened, I walked toward the door, where a
church member said, "You should come back on Sunday night. That's when
they levitate."...[another group] in Seattle...sit in circles, clucking,
flapping their tucked arms and visualizing themselves hatching the "Man
Child Company," a heretical Manifested Sons of God concept. In Kansas
City, a pastor watched in horror as men and women lay on the floor with
their knees up and legs spread apart, trying to birth the same
thing....I tape-recorded a group of Episcopalians howling at the moon,
like wolves—giving a "Howl-le-lu-ia Chorus" for Earth Day. It gets
worse. There are reports of "holy vomiting" (seance ectoplasm?) and of
Christians becoming demonized by being "slain in the spirit." How can
this be?'

I echo Samantha Smith's concerns.

PANDEMONIUM!—THE PAGAN GOSPEL OF THE NEW AGE GOD-KING

The gospel according to the New Age Movement is an expansive idea
centered around the birth of a new world "consciousness." As a religion
of monism (all is one), New Agers hope to accomplish what the builders
of the Tower of Babel failed to do—unify the masses of the world under a
single religious umbrella, and, at the macro level, harmonically
converge the world's energies with the power of Gaia. To promote such
goals, New Agers claim that God is pantheistic (God is all and all is
God) and that humans are divine members of the whole "that God is."
According to New Ageism, Jesus came to reveal this pantheistic nature of
God and to teach humanity the gospel of Self-Realization. After
illustrating the divine principle of "God within us all," Jesus ascended
to a place of distinction to live among the Masters of the Spiritual
Hierarchy—Buddha and Krishna. Jesus promised that the essence of God
would be revealed from time to time, and thus New Agers look for the
imminent appearing of a World Teacher who will, as Jesus did, illustrate
the divine human potential. In this way, New Age theology prepares the
world for the coming of the False Prophet and the Antichrist.

Pagans claim such a religion of Self-realization—a belief that will be
championed by the Antichrist—is older than Christianity.

That's true.

The gospel according to the New Age Movement—a gospel of "becoming god"—
is as old as the fall of man. It began when the serpent said to the
woman "ye shall be as gods" (Gen. 3:5), and it will zenith during the
reign of the Tribulation god-king. The New Age movement provides the
perfect creed for implementing such an end-time religion. It unifies the
religions of the world. It consecrates the forces of nature. It provides
for human divinity, and it is vogue, post modern, and politically correct.

Tal Brooke—former New Age disciple of Hindu holy man, Sai Baba, confirms
that "the New Age movement, and its progeny, Gaia, are spiritually
correct for a new world order. Christianity is not."

Thus, history repeats itself, and the ancient Egyptian gospel of men
becoming "gods" is fashionable again!

Consequently, New Age celebrities such as Shirley MacLaine represent
themselves as "I AM that I AM" at human potential symposiums around the
world, and the former Vice President of the United States, Al Gore, describes
God in terms of "a constant and holy spiritual presence in all people,
all life, and all things" [emphasis added]. The Ex-president's wife, Hillary
Clinton, channels the spirits of the dead, and members of the House of
Representatives warn Congress of "increasing evidence of a
government-sponsored religion in America...[a] cloudy mixture of New Age
mysticism, Native American folklore and primitive earth worship."

For many years Christians wondered how the Antichrist would deceive the
earth's masses. How does one convince millions of people, especially in
countries where Christianity exists, to exchange their souls for
temporary earthly benefits? Then the New Age Movement came along with
its focus on human-potential and self-empowerment and successfully drew
many Christians away from Christ-exalting doctrines. Old-fashioned
gospel preaching was replaced with positive thinking, self-realization,
and pop psychology, and mystical experiences which tantalize the flesh
were sanctioned as "the last great revival." As a result, celebrity
preachers advance sermons focusing on "the inner self," and Sunday
morning services begin with shouts of "Are you ready for God to do great
things!?" The implication that God will meet with believers and grant
their many requests is touted as dynamic Christianity. The days of
unconditional Christian devotion are threatened as contemporary
congregations expect God to "manifest" Himself and please the whims of
the audience. Although Jesus warned of an "evil and adulterous
generation [that] seeketh after a sign," physical and mystical "thrills"
and Delirum have become the benchmark of many popular Christian
gathering places. The result is a growing superficiality among some
Christians who are preoccupied with mysticism and "me-ism."

As a businessman and ministry leader I've tasted the bitter results of
the "new age" segment of Christianity. Too often these believers fall,
flop, quiver, shake, and gyrate on Sunday, but can't get out of bed and
go to work Monday morning. Among such employees, I've found
insignificant character differences between religious groups, and
"Christians" have been just as likely as non-believers to lie, cheat,
and steal at my place of business. Perhaps I've been unlucky, or maybe,
as I believe the case to be, twenty years of popular New Age
metaphysical focusing on "self" has so impacted this generation that
many "Christians" are willing to dilute their character to acquire what
pleases them.

Either way, an inward-focusing generation of "religious people" willing
to trade their soul for whatever makes them happy is exactly what is
necessary for the appearance of Antichrist. "You can stamp my hand if
you'l give me what I want" is the required attitude. While many
Christians and New Age devotees are sincere, giving people, the lasting
result of the New Age Movement is nevertheless demonic, self-absorbed,
and paves the way for the coming of paganism's preeminent
materialization—the god-king of the coming Great Tribulation.