by Ray Yungen
Those involved in the New Age movement do not work by accident or coincidence. Rather, they have a mission to accomplish and receive inner guidance to show them where, when, and how that work must be done.
A woman I am acquainted with told me about a situation that happened to her. One evening a stranger began chatting with her. She had never met him, yet he told her things about her early life that he had no possible way of knowing. The accuracy of his information about her past greatly disturbed her. The man then explained why he had approached her. He said he had been “sent to save” her and that he was guided to her by a “central source of wisdom,” and told her that she, too, could get in touch with that same source. He promised her that once she had connected with it she could have anything she wanted in life. Greatly unnerved, she quickly departed from his company.
New Age writer David Spangler makes it clear who or what this “central source of wisdom” is and what it wants to accomplish. Referring to his own spirit guide, “John,” he writes:
Over the years it has been evident that John’s main interest is the emergence of a new age and a new culture, and he identifies himself as one of those on the spiritual side of life whose work is specifically to empower that emergence.1
We must conclude then that the New Age movement does not have any real leaders, only followers. I heard one writer/channeler put it very plainly when he revealed:
Everyone anywhere who tunes into the Higher Self becomes part of the transformation. Their lives then become orchestrated from other realms.2
This aspect must be understood in order to fully grasp the significance of the New Age movement.
It may appear on the surface that all of these groups and individuals are not connected, but the following quote sheds light on the real situation. One New Age writer confirmed:
Soon it also became apparent that those of us experiencing this inner contact were instinctively (and spontaneously) drawing together, forming a network. In the many years since, I have watched this network grow and widen to literally encompass the globe. What was once a rare experience–that of meeting another person who admitted to a similar superconscious presence in his or her life–has now become a common, even frequent, event … what I once saw as a personal (and individual) transformation I now see as part of a massive and collective human movement (emphasis mine).3
In his extremely revealing and insightful 1980s book, The Emerging New Age, sociologist J. L. Simmons disclosed that “tens of thousands” of metaphysical teachers and counselors existed in America who were in the process of training and guiding “hundreds of thousands” of students and clients. In addition to these, “millions” had “a sporadic but real interest” in metaphysics. Simmons observed:
Each of these circles is growing in numbers. And there is a steady progression of people inward: an uncommitted person moves into the active, part-time circle, and so on.4
Simmons concluded that because of this swell of interest the movement was “doubling in size every three to five years.”5 The Ancient Wisdom wasn’t just for cave-dwelling mystics anymore! This prediction has been backed up by some very respectable and knowledgeable scholars. One is Professor James Herrick, who wrote an in-depth book on this subject. From Herrick’s astute vantage point there has been an:
…enormous effort to replace society’s spiritual base with a wholly new one … [that by] dismantling the old view … and fashioning a new and presumably better one in its place.6
This process of dismantling the old and fashioning the new is what For Many Shall Come In My Name is all about. As Professor Herrick points out in his book, this shift is not mere speculation, it is a fact!
An October 2006 Time magazine article on what America believes, reveals that fourteen percent of the U.S. population sees God as “a Higher Power or Cosmic Force.”7 This would confirm the number that Eckhart Tolle spoke of (thirty million New Agers). How would any movement achieve such an enormous following so quickly? What is it that drives such rapid growth? The answer to this question cannot be ignored or dismissed as irrelevant. (from For Many Shall Come in My Name, chapter 2)
Notes:
1. David Spangler, Emergence: The Rebirth of the Sacred (New York, NY: Dell Publishing Company, 1984), p. 67.
2. Talk by Ken Carey at Whole Life Expo (Los Angeles: February, 1987).
3. Kathleen Vande Kieft, Innersource: Channeling Your Unlimited Self (New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1989), p. 38.
4. J. L. Simmons, The Emerging New Age (Santa Fe, NM: Bear and Co., 1990), p. 211.
5. Ibid., p. 13.
6. James A. Herrick, The Making of the New Spirituality (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), p. 16.
7. Nancy Gibbs, “An In-Depth View of America by the Numbers” (Time magazine, October 22, 2006).
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