Ransomed From Darkness: The New Age, Christian Faith and the Battle for the Souls. 2005.

This is an interview with the author, Moira Noonan, former accomplished clairvoyant and psychic healer for 30 years.

It's 25 minutes long for those who have time.

The interviewer talks way too much, but the author does relay some important points about how the New Age movement is a kind of neo-paganism of our culture, how she got sucked into deceptive teachings, and how she found her way back home to the Church.

"I was fascinated by this whole self-mastery, self-enlightenment movement...that we can be masters of our own souls...you learn you are your own savior."


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRr5sn0mprk

Moira was heavily involved in the "Course in Miracles." This thing is accepted in some Christian churches and communities. The Course "openly declares it is the dictated message of a spiritual entity [a god in classical times was an opponent of Christianity and was known for healing miracles]. This thing claims to reveal the true teachings of Jesus, whose message has been distorted by generations of misguided transcribers and corrupt interpretations...according to this entity, we are all equal to God."

I think Ken Wilber, Eckart Tolle, et al. would agree.

The Course teachings capture a lot of false beliefs that are reflected in the self-realization and enlightenment movement. From her book, these include:

"God lives in heaven, and all of God's children-- you, I, his Son-- all live there with him right now. We are asleep and our bad dream is that we are separated from God. In this dream we collectively create our world, which is fundamentally an illusion. When we wake up we will discover that we have been in Heaven all along, and our true essence is Love...we just need to wake up...each of us is exactly and entirely the way God created us to be: sinless and wholly innocent.

Jesus Christ didn't die for our redemption. He died to demonstrate to us that we are not truly flesh...

The Course in Miracles completely denies the existence of Satan. Utterly rejected are the ideas of spiritual warfare, the battle for souls and the need for salvation."


"Jesus became what all of you must be. Is he the Christ? O yes, along with you... He waits for your acceptance of Him as yourself."

"My mind is part of God. I am very holy."

"My holiness envelopes everything I see."

"My holiness blesses the world."

"There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

"I have given everything I see all the meaning that it has for me."

"Innocence is wisdom because it is unaware of evil, and evil does not exist."

"Holding no one prisoner to guilt, we become free."

quote:

Originally posted by Shasha:
we can be masters of our own souls...you learn you are your own savior.

Fantasies of infantile omnipotence, wouldn't you say?

I read her book some time ago. Her own story is quite interesting, but her encyclopedia of the New Age is very sketchy. You'd be better off with Wikipedia. I think it was from that book, though, that I learned that Fr. Benedict Groeschel from EWTN actually knew Helen Schucman, author of ACIM, back in the day.

quote:

Originally posted by Derek:

quote:

Originally posted by Shasha:
we can be masters of our own souls...you learn you are your own savior.

Fantasies of infantile omnipotence, wouldn't you say?
...

Hee hee, yes, I would say so, thanks to my psychoanalytic training.

But those fantasies may only be one of the various developmental determinants of why so many are sucked into such teachings and cults. The biologically-based need to separate from our parents/authority is another place ripe for dysfunction, and so many leave good teachings because they are associated with poor parenting, or pastors, etc.

The wide-spread abuse and neglect of children makes for some very brittle, adult egos who are eager to make peace with intolerable levels pain, self-loathing and helplessness. And these beliefs and cults lure and soothe them with superficial ideas of "I'm OK, you're OK." And of course, the bliss of energy, rainbow spinning chakras, and psychic abilities.

And Moira's point is that there really are spiritual enemies of God who are happy to support those wish fulfillment fantasies through false teachings. We could never, never! overcome the deep entanglement of personal sin and the "powers and principalities of darkness in high places."

That's what Christ Jesus has accomplished for us. The Word became flesh and declared war with the Prince of this world, the ruler of this world. Mankind's fall from God was a HUGE separation from our only true source of happiness. So fantasies of omnipotence seem a natural consequence of our wretched helplessness to govern ourselves in peace. On our own steam and power, we were goners! Just sayin'.