Cynics Unlimited

One evening in October, I went out with a friend and left my daughter in the care of a babysitter, a nice Hungarian woman in her early fifties. When I returned, the babysitter told me excitedly that the next day she was planning to attend the psychic fair. While she didn’t specifically invite me along with her, she obviously felt news about the event was worth spreading (I didn’t go, by the way).

Indeed, the Toronto annual psychic fair has been an attraction for some time now. This year’s features include demonstrations and seminars on astrology, palmistry, clairvoyance, numerology and healing crystals among other things. But one need not go to the psychic fair to witness Torontonians’ fascination with the paranormal. Almost every daily newspaper contains a horoscope section. Psychics set up shop in storefronts, promising to solve prospective clients’ life problems. Books like James Van Praagh’s Talking to Heaven, which describes how to get in contact with dead loved ones, and Shirley MacLaine’s Out on a Limb, in which the actress discusses her purported past lives, make the bestseller lists. It seems that all the city – and all the nation, for that matter – is in the thralls of the New Age movement.

My own reaction to such activities is one of scepticism and amusement. I mean who could not laugh at the image of Shirley MacLaine running around on a beach shouting out “I am God”? I tend to see things like tea leaves and tarot cards as silly but harmless. In time, however, some new questions have emerged in my mind. How should I as a practising Christian (Lutheran, to be more specific) approach the New Age movement? Is it the path to enlightenment or the road to hell?

The Christian community’s reaction to the New Age movement has been mixed. On one hand are those who consider it the work of the devil. Calgary Sun columnist Licia Corbella once objected to covering a psychic fair on religious grounds – though she ended up going, on her boss’ orders, and exposing a palm reader there as a fraud. At the other end of the spectrum are Christians who embrace psychic phenomena, not seeing any contradiction between them and their religious faith. Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King was a devout Presbyterian but consulted with fortune tellers and claimed to communicate with the spirit of his dead dog. Sometimes entire denominations have incorporated New Age tenets into their theology. The Christian Spiritualist Church, for example, emphasizes contact with the deceased as one of its core beliefs.

Some Christian authorities have adopted a different outlook towards the New Age movement. Anglican priest and journalist Tom Harpur, for instance, wrote a column in the Toronto Star in which he expressed doubts about most of the movement’s doctrines but stated that for some people it fulfilled a spiritual need that was not being met by traditional religion. A similar view was taken by Lutheran theologian Ted Peters in his book The Cosmic Self.

I agree with Harpur that some individuals may turn to the New Age movement because they feel alienated by traditional faiths. Why then, one might ask, do they reject mainstream religion? Perhaps they are tired of the focus on sin and guilt by some organized religions. For example, a friend of mine remembers a teacher at her parochial (not Lutheran, by the way) high school informing the class that they were selfish and “thought the world revolved around themselves.” Nor does the hypocrisy of certain religious leaders, like televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, help the cause of Christianity as a whole.

The other side of the coin is the accusation that the New Age movement offers its followers the benefits of traditional religion – inner peace, enlightenment – without the demands, such as self-sacrifice and humility. This charge has been made not only by Christian critics of the movement but by secular ones as well, like Canadian journalist Donna Laframboise. I would add, however, that not all traditional religionists are humble or altruistic people and that many secular movements, such as the drug culture (which, like New Age, emerged in full force in the 1960s), also focus on the self to the exclusion of others.

Finally, how should a Christian approach the New Age movement? Obviously some New Age doctrines are incompatible with Christianity, such as Shirley MacLaine’s view that we ourselves are God. Similarly, the portrayal by some New Age proponents of Jesus as an “ascended Master” is surely at odds with his status as the Son of God. While things like astrology and clairvoyance don’t strike me as particularly nefarious, I might wonder why someone with a great faith in Jesus Christ would resort to them in an effort to, say, resolve personal problems. One means of countering any New Age influence is to ensure as a church that the true message of Christ and the gospel of hope reach all people.