CSLI Resources-Single-The New Age Movement-Art Lindsley

[00:00:05] Speaker A: The following is a legacy recording from the archives of the C.S. lewis Institute. While the audio quality of these recordings may vary, the content remains vital to the mission of the Institute to develop disciples who can articulate, defend and live faith in Christ through personal and public life. [00:00:24] Speaker B: It's good to be here with you tonight and be able to speak to this issue of the New Age. It's a very complex subject and one that involves a lot of interest testified by the crowd here. Partly because it's spectacular, partly because it's bizarre, partly because it's a threat in some ways to the church or in the way that people have reacted to it. It's become a real phenomena within the Christian community. So we want to try to get a perspective on it. And I think it's important that we start out our time with a word of prayer. Let's do that. Well, we do thank you for this opportunity of coming together this evening. We do thank you for this opportunity to be here and to talk about the New Age movement. We pray for your spirit to be present and to guide us, to give us insight. And we pray that as we approach this complex and diverse movement that we might not only be able to discern the truth, but whenever we encounter people from the New Age, that we might speak the truth in love and compassion and be able to listen and deal with the real concerns of people that are involved with the movement. We ask this in Christ's name, Amen. I think that it's easy for us in a lot of ways to take many things in life for granted. I know I worked at a place called the Ligonier Valley Study Center. You can see I'm going to have problems with this all night. I worked at a place called the Ligonier Valley Study Center. It was a place up in the mountains of Pennsylvania. And one of the things at Ligonier that they brought in all kinds of people from all over the country, different groups. And one of the groups they brought in were inmates from different federal prisons around the country. And I know it really opened up my view on life and helped me to see things that I had never seen before. Like the first group that we had that came to Ligonier was a guy from the MCC in Chicago, which is a 20 some story building in the middle of Chicago. It's a prison. And he spent most of his time within the concrete and steel. The first thing he did when he got to Ligonier, the purpose was for them to come for a week to Ligonier, this beautiful place up in the mountains of Pennsylvania, and then to come down here to Washington, D.C. area and talk in churches and be part of the community down here, and then go back to prison to more effectively disciple others. In any case, this guy from Chicago, when he arrived at Ligonier, the first thing he did was he was on the porch outside the dining hall, and there was great lush grass, beautiful rolling hills. And he jumped off the porch and he started rolling with his face in the grass because it was so great for him to be out of prison and to be free and to be able to touch rich, green grass that he hadn't been able to be around very much. One of the last groups we had at Ligonier was a guy from Boron, California, a prison there out in the middle of Death Valley. They often put prisons out in the middle of nowhere. Yet he'd come from the north, where there are all kinds of trees. And so the first thing he did when he got to Ligonier, totally sane man, I assure you, walked up and he hugged a tree. And three or four more times during that week, he went up and he passionately hugged a tree. I wish I had a camera. It was beautiful and dramatic. Or to be around kids. One of the hidden sentences of prison is often divorce and separation from kids. About 85, 90% of people that go to prison end up getting divorced. And there's also not only separation from the wife often, but from the family. And so it was a delight for them to be around kids. I could tell you all kinds of stories. Just one that was really striking. We're sitting around in the living room talking about vocation, and a little child of one of the families that we were having the meeting in their house started to cry. And of course, the first thought of a mother is to remove the distraction. So Dodie Wellock came in and picked up Amy and took her out of the room. And as she was doing that, one of the men said, wow, it's great to hear that sound. And I thought, I don't think I've ever heard that before. It's a thing that we. Baby crying that we would perhaps like to get away from if we're around it so much. And I never really thought of what it would be like to never be able to hear a baby cry or to be around food when they got to Ligonier. I know I've eaten in some federal state prisons, and often the food is something to be desired. So it's real interesting to see the guys get there to Ligonier. And they would do some serious eating. I think the all time record is that one guy gained 17 pounds in two weeks piling it on. Or we would take them out to order something. We take them out and they go buy McDonald's and Wendy's. And they'd seen the ads on TV, but they hadn't been able to go in and order anything for themselves for a long period of time. And then. Or we would take them to a pizza place where they could order pizza, their pizza with anything on it. And I remember the first group we took in there, a very diverse looking group, black, white, Hispanic, old and young. And we set up a table with about 15 people. And the waitress was trying to figure out what this diverse group, who they could be and who are you guys? And tried to make all kinds of guesses. And they didn't have the heart to tell our group of federal inmates still in prison. They thought it would totally freak her out. But in any case, she treated everybody in a very friendly way. And they treated her in a very friendly way. And at the very end of the time, one of the men up at the end of the table said. And everybody was laughing and talking and he said, ma'. Am. And he said it just loud enough that everybody stopped talking. He said, ma', am, I want to let you know this, that this is the best service we've had in years. Certainly true, we can take a lot of things in life for granted. We can take for granted grass and trees and babies crying and food and service. But how much more if we take for granted, say, God's truth, take for granted who Christ is, take for granted God's grace, take for granted reality itself and our own individuality. And in a lot of ways, the New Age movement speaks to some of these issues. And we need to sit down and look at some of the things that perhaps we might take for granted. Very foundational concepts, very, very foundational things that we just take for granted in our life, like our sense perception being accurate. All of that is up for grabs as we look at Eastern philosophy, or at least in many forms of Eastern philosophy. Well, what I want to do tonight is to start out giving you a very, very simple, maybe even somewhat simplistic overview and then go more and more complex. I mean, the danger is that the New Age movement is an extremely diverse movement. In fact, as I hear New Age people, they talk about all the differences and all the diversity of it, and it certainly is diverse. But I think underlying that diversity there is a basic unity, maybe even things that they would take for granted. And I want to start out with some basic, very basic concepts and become more and more specific as we go along. First illustration would be, say that the difference between the ending goals of three different kind of religious perspectives. We're going to look at the Hindu perspective and the Buddhist perspective. And then the Christian perspective and we're looking at a picture for each one of these in the end and goal of life as perceived by each one of these movements now within Hinduism. I mean there are many, many diverse movements within Hinduism so it's impossible to totally generalize about all the different movements, perhaps three basic strains, but under that many, many diversity of say, denominations of Hinduism. But we're going to look particularly at Shankara Hinduism here and there are many, many types of Buddhism as well. But we're just going to look at one particular type of Buddhism. Well, in the Shankara variety of Hinduism the basic teaching is that all is one. And the central problem is that we perceive things as being not one, as being separate, as being distinct, as being divided. And the whole end and purpose of this worldview is to overcome that illusion, this illusion of separateness or of distinction in the world. And we go through all kinds of cycles of reincarnation and we end up with becoming absorbed back into the great ocean of being. And so the picture that Shankara used for the ending goal of life is to become absorbed like a drop in the ocean. Prior to that we have this illusion of our individuality like a drop. And the end and goal of going through all the process of meditation and reincarnation is ultimately to become absorbed like this drop, becoming absorbed in the ocean. So the picture would be the ocean and the end would be absorption like a drop in the ocean. All right, say central form of Buddhism, the ending goal of life would be extinction. And the picture might be a candle and a flame. For the Buddhist perspective, or at least some Buddhists, some Buddhist sects would maintain that the real problem in life is that of desire, that it's because we desire things that we experience pain and suffering so that if we can get rid of desire then we get rid of all pain and suffering. And nirvana literally means in the Indian language a blowing out. Or it's like the picture of extinguishing a candle. It's like if I had a flame up here it's to blow out that candle, to extinguish desire and to extinguish life. There are some forms of Buddhism that talk about a life after death, but many forms of Buddhism would have the idea that there is no substantial self and that the ending goal would be to extinguish all life so that there would be no life after death, so that the end and goal of this type of Buddhism would be extinction. And the picture would be the candle and the flame. Now, there are many different pictures that we could use for the Christian perspective, but one that I've chosen is a picture might be the prodigal son. And the ending goal of life, I would say, would be eternal relationship. The picture of the prodigal son, you have a son going away to a far country and taking the inheritance and squandering this inheritance in a riotous kind of living. And then the son comes to his senses and goes back with a repentant and sorrowful spirit and the Father runs out and throws his arms around his repentant son. This idea of a restoration of a relationship of the Son with the Father, alright, that's a picture of a restored personal relationship. And that's what the Christian looks forward to, a restored personal relationship with God for all eternity and with other people who are individuals. That we remain in a fellowship with other individual people. And we have the idea of the resurrection of the body and the idea of an eternal relationship with God. And within the context of a new heavens and a new earth, a renewed heavens and a renewed earth of some kind. We don't know exactly what that will be. In any case, the idea of a restored relationship and the picture of the prodigal son. Now, one of the main things within the American context is relativism, that all truths are basically relative to the person who is involved, that all truths can be ultimately put together. It doesn't make any difference what you believe, that all religions can be equally true or equally the same. Well, at least maintain this, that say, at this point and at other points also, it cannot be true that all of these are true. Let's look at it for just a second. Can it be true that the end and goal of life is both absorption and eternal relationship at the same time? Can the end and goal of life be both absorption and eternal relationship at the same time? Can we both not exist as an individual or lose our individuality or merge that individuality totally with a one, so that we don't remain as an individual and remain as an individual at the same time and in the same relationship? I think not. Can we be extinct and cease to exist and exist at the same time and in the same relationship? So at least in this case it seems like you either continue to exist as an individual or you do not continue to exist as an individual after death. It doesn't sense. Those would seem to cover the universal affirmative and the universal negative. It would seem like one of those two would have to be true. You either continue to exist after you die as an individual or you do not. So it doesn't seem like both of these can be true. Although in other respects you could have all of them in parts, theoretically speaking, be false. But at least at this point, it would seem like either one of these would be true. And you don't cease to exist as individual, that you don't continue to exist as an individual or you do within this worldview. So we're talking about many issues like this, where the whole issue of truth is at stake. And it doesn't seem like both of them can really be true. I know being at a conference, a dialogue, with a number of top New Age leaders. One of the most helpful things in this whole dialogue was when one of the professors from Denver Theological Seminary said this. And it rang bells all over the place for the people in the New Age. He said that one of the main motifs or drives of the New Age movement is that of synthesis. And by that he means putting all things together, merging worldviews, combining Hinduism and Buddhism and Christianity and Islam and having them all mesh together. It's like putting a little bit of carrots and potatoes and tomatoes in a beef stew and stirring it all up together, synthesizing everything, mixing everything up together. And one of the things that he pointed out was that Francis Schaeffer, and usually Orthodox or classical Christianity, has insisted upon antithesis. That there is if something is true, its opposite must be false. Or if there is light, then there's darkness, there's good, then there's evil. And that's one of the most difficult things to grasp. Because not only does the New Age try to do this, but we live in a very pluralistic, relativistic culture where we're endlessly open to everything. There's a book by Alan Bloom called Closing of the American Mind. And one of the things that that book argues is that because in our American universities, the main value taught often is openness, people are continually open to values. But the problem with that is that they remain endlessly open. And they never come to close their mind on truth, so that the openness actually leads to a closeness. They're endlessly open, but never close their mind on any truth. And thus the closing of the American mind to the possibility of finding something that's really True. That's not only true within the culture, but that's also true within the New Age. That there tends to be. The whole motif or drive is synthesis. I've talked a number of times to New Age people and they'll always try to find a way to reconcile anything that seems to be opposite. They're always trying to find a way to. To merge them all together. And one of the central differences is between synthesis on the part of the New Age and antithesis on the part of the classical Christian worldview. Well, let me talk about some of the main assumptions of the New Age view and I'll try to illustrate it from. I brought a lot of show and tell articles here and a lot of books that we can look at. Okay. Four basic assumptions of the New Age. Now, as I say, the New Age is a very diverse movement, but I think four basic assumptions tend to underlie it. Hope that's not too confused. All right. All is one. You are divine. The purpose of life is to alter consciousness. And if you do, that will lead to incredible psychospiritual power. Let's deal with each one of these and try to illustrate it. First of all, the basic assumption is all is one. The problem is that we. This is the New Age perspective, that we perceive things as being distinct or separate. Marilyn Ferguson, who is one of the advocates for the New Age movement, has written a somewhat classic book called the Aquarian Conspiracy, in which she tries to describe the overall perspective for the New Age movement. And she says that the New Age holds absolutely to the principle of non distinction. That there are no real distinctions in the world. There are no real distinctions between you and me, or between me and the floor, or between me and the pews. That that's all part of illusion. Or Maya. And then the question would arise, why is there really an illusion? I mean, if really all is one, why did we have the illusion of separateness or distinctness? Now, often there aren't a lot of answers that would be forthcoming about that, but one answer would be that of Lilah. That's the answer. That there is something that happens within God, that God plays. That's the meaning of Lilah. That there's an imbalance within the being of God, that God is really one. But there are some vibrations that go out for some reason, an imbalance, and some vibrations go out, and that's the nature of diversity. And those vibrations go out like ripples. And then they will eventually, over all the cycles of reincarnation, come back in and everything will all be one. Again, but the idea here is that there is this diversity and there is this separateness because of, say, an imbalance in God. I've heard some people even talk about it in terms of kind of divine insanity where God is playing somehow, where anyway there's this imbalance in the world. And that's the reason for the illusion of separateness and distinctness that we have. In any case, all is one. But nevertheless, the problem is that we perceive things as being distinct or separate. Let me illustrate some of the implications for this and how they would try to overcome this illusion of separateness. I did some study, and there's a guy by the name of George Leonard who wrote a book on the transformation, which, like Marilyn Ferguson, is a New Age summary book of the overall worldview. And here's what he. Here are some myths that must be eliminated if there's to be a new consciousness in the west, an essentially Eastern consciousness, a New Age consciousness. Here are some of the myths that we have to eliminate the myth of the separate species. He says that separation and classification of living organisms is only one way of looking at reality. Making these distinctions impedes an even more important vision. In a very real sense, there's only one species on this planet, and its name is life on Earth. Okay, did you get that? In a real sense, there's only one species on this planet, and its name is life on Earth. Another myth is the myth of the separate ego. Says in Western civilization, the idea of the separate individual has been greatly emphasized. However, as there's been more contact with Eastern religion, this idea of the separate ego has eroded. The old way of seeing things in terms of separateness still has its advocates, but he says it's increasingly clear that consciousness has no skin. Consciousness has no skin. Another myth that he talks about is the myth of matter, time and space. There really is no such thing as matter. There really is no such thing as time. It's separate. There really is no such thing as space. The idea that matter, time and space are discrete and fixed entities is false and misleading. He also talks about the myth of illusion that we need to get rid of our myth of illusion. That's kind of a strange concept. What he means is this, that what we call illusion, like dreamlike states or hallucinatory states, states of altered states of consciousness might be, as a matter of fact, more real than waking consciousness. So that if you go back in the 60s, for instance, which is where some of the roots of the New Age are. In the 60s, the method was to use LSD or some Other method to have hallucinations, because it was thought that these hallucinations in getting us away from this illusory world of separateness, might get us back towards ultimate reality. Or if you saw the film Altered States, the man in the film Altered States gets into its sensory deprivation tank and floats with a weightless kind of sensation. And if you do that for long enough, you'll hallucinate. The idea is, is this illusion, hallucination, more real than what we see? So that the idea is these altered states of consciousness could take us back, not away from reality, but towards reality. So he wants to do away with the myth of illusion. He has a number of others. But he wants to also do away with the myth of old age and death. Leonard foresees a time when death will have lost its function where human evolution is concerned, realizing and questioning its utility. We should not be caught by surprise when we find that aging can be greatly slowed or even stopped. The idea here is that if all this separate world is really illusory, and if it's all consciousness and we can't alter our consciousness, then anything is possible. And we'll get to some more illustrations of that in just a minute. Those are just a few illustrations of the implications of this all is one kind of perspective. The second implication would be, you are divine. Since you are part of this one being, and this one being is, so to speak, God, then you are part of God. You are part of this divine being. You are divine. Now, there's a real radical difference of emphasis in New Age circles as to how they talk about deity or us being gods. Some people play that down because if you're just like a drop in the middle of the ocean, that's not perhaps all that impressive. But on the other hand, you might be tempted to think that because you are divine, that means that you're a very unique individual and have all kinds of powers. So Shirley MacLaine, for instance, in her series out on a Limb, at one point she's on the beach and she's there with her teacher. And the teacher finally tries to get her to say, I am in touch with divinity, or divinity is within. And by gradually down the road, she gets, I am divine. And finally, I am God. And at the very end of that scene, she and her teacher are standing up with arms outraised and shouting at the top of their lungs, I am God. I am God. That's the end of the scene. Now, not all advocates would be would have that kind of emphasis. In fact, I've talked to A number that would really want to flee from that kind of emphasis within the New Age movement. But nevertheless, there are some, like Sherlyn MacLaine and others that would speak very strongly about this and not downplay this and make that the main element. I mean, it might seem like a supreme compliment to feel that you are divine or you are part of divinity. And we'll come back and look at that in just a little bit. All right. The third point is that the purpose of life then is to alter your consciousness to get away from this illusion of separateness and back towards what is reality. They would say that you're one, that you are, that all is one, and that you are divine. Now, there are many, many methods for altering consciousness. I usually hand around because I often have smaller groups of people where everybody can look. But I've got a couple New Age directories that I picked up when I was out in Berkeley for Spiritual Counterfeits Project. And I'll have these up here. You can come up and look at them afterwards. But there are within here hundreds of methodologies for altering consciousness. And there's a tremendous diversity into the ways that people do it. Everything from a sensory deprivation tank, as you see in Altered States, to biofeedback, hypnosis, various kinds of Eastern meditation, Silva, Mind control S Lifespring, Erica theosophy, Science of mind, a Course in miracles, yoga, Rolfing, bioenergetics, kinesiology are some of the ones that Marilyn Ferguson lists in her list of what she calls psychotechnologies. These are technologies or techniques, some of which involve equipment like sensory deprivation tank, technologies for altering the psyche, thus psycho technologies, technologies for altering consciousness. Now, there may be a wide diversity of methods, but they all tend to have the same end or goal. That is to alter my consciousness so that I perceive things as they are, so that I get away from this perception that I have and perceive things in terms of the basic unity of all things and see myself as being divine. Okay, the fourth basic point here is that all is one. You are divine. The purpose of life is to alter consciousness. And if you do, that will lead to incredible psycho spiritual power. Here's just a few things about the potential. Not only could you overcome old age and death, Leonard says, but he says that by questioning these and other assumptions, these myths that I just mentioned, an untapped human potential will be released. And this is one of the main emphases of the New Age movement, the untapped human potential that will be untapped by altering consciousness. An example he uses is the use of astral projection as a means of intergalactic travel. He says, along with jet and rocket flight. We can seek to fly, as Edgar Mitchell and Charles Lindbergh have suggested, by something akin to astral projection. Mitchell says that astral projection would be a lot safer probably than space flight, unquote. So that the idea that we could do anything. Often in New Age literature there's a book that would be a novel that's a symbol for that. Arthur Clark, who also wrote 2001 Space Odyssey. Has written a book called Childhood's End. And in that book you have children, one child in particular that begins to have these strange new powers. And after a while, one by one, some of the other children do. And they end up having these incredible powers to do anything that they want to do. I'm not going to go through all the details of the story, but that's kind of the vision or the picture that there's. Humankind is on the brink of realizing its potential of unlocking the powers of consciousness. And then anything will be possible to those who have an altered consciousness. So the idea of the human potential here all is one. You are divine. Purpose of life is to alter consciousness. And if you do, that will lead to incredible psycho spiritual power. Now, perhaps in ordinary Hinduism and Hindu religion, you might just speak about that like this. You might just follow it down logically. But I think that within the New Age, the tendency is to get people into the New Age movement at this level, at the level of techniques for altering consciousness. They'll say, do you want an experience? Do you want something that will blow your mind? Do you want something that will really affect you? Something that really works? And they'll take you to a seminar or take you to one of these psycho technologies. And they will produce experiences. If you float in a sensory deprivation tank long enough, you will hallucinate. If you follow some of these other methodologies. It will have physiological effects and mental effects on you. If you follow these techniques. And then the interpretation comes. Now, the experience doesn't necessarily follow the interpretation. I mean, the experience doesn't necessarily demand the particular interpretation that is given. But nevertheless, the interpretation is given that you're experiencing this kind of experience. And this is an experience that's more real than waking consciousness itself. This is an experience of getting in touch with the universe. Or maybe of losing your own individuality and merging with the one. And so that's the interpretation that's given of the experience. The New Age is very experientially centered. The main thing that testifies to it is that you go through one of these psycho technologies that alter your consciousness. And that's the evidence for it. The experience. I've had an experience. Then the interpretation comes. This is why you've had the experience, because all is one and you are divine. And if you learn to untap or to develop the potential for altering your consciousness through these kind of techniques, this will lead to incredible kinds of power. But this is where the New Age comes in. By using these kind of psycho technologies, by using these seminars and techniques for changing your consciousness. Now there is even a relationship, and we'll try to show that as we go along here, between the New Age view and the Hindu view and also occult worldviews. Some of the occult worldviews fundamentally start down here with the idea of power. We're going to look in a little bit at Neo paganism, the new paganism or the new witchcraft. And they will start with a basic appeal to psycho spiritual power. You want to have power to deal with your life. We'll show you how to get it. You alter your consciousness, and as you do that, you'll see that you are divine. And then you'll see also that the universe is a seamless web. And that as we do things with our rights and rituals down here, we can affect the whole universe in a kind of ripple effect by doing our rites and rituals down here. So that many of the occult practices fit in in an interesting way with these basic assumptions. They just approach it from different angles. Hindu, maybe more logically. New Age, starting with the psycho technologies of altering consciousness in the occult Neo pagan worldview, starting with psychospiritual power and working its way back up through the all is one kind of perspective. Let me give you some illustrations of some New Age type groups. This is a fairly recent magazine article. December 7, 1987, front cover of Time magazine om the New Age. Starling Shirley MacLaine. Faith healers, channelers, space travelers and crystals galore. Got Shirley MacLaine and a bunch of crystals down here symbolizing the New Age. We want to talk about spirit channeling in just a little bit, which is one of these phenomena. But you know, when Time magazine deals with it, it's really becoming a cultural phenomenon. But actually this has been around for quite a while. In actuality, of course, it goes back to ancient Hinduism, But I think in more recent history in America, as far as a popular movement, it goes back to the 60s, and in some ways it has its roots before that with theosophy and other movements. In America. But in the 60s you saw a return to Eastern religion that was very anti materialistic, very anti possessions, anti having things sort of fleeing from the world. Well, the New Age movement, if you want to say that that's what it was in the 60s, has changed quite a bit since then. And it's moved from being very anti materialistic so to. One of the main elements in this article is that it's quite materialistic. To be involved in a lot of these techniques and psychotechnologies costs a fair amount of money. It's a more middle and upper class phenomena rather than a lower class phenomena. It takes a lot of money to be involved with a lot of these New Age type techniques. All right, so that there's been a. Its roots are in the 60s, but a lot of the development has continued on and has changed in character to where it really does fit the mainline culture in a lot of ways. And thus it really has become a more popular kind of phenomenon. One of the things that also shows its popularity is the whole phenomena of reincarnation being talked about. Here's an illustration of one Guy Atmananda. This is a whole magazine devoted to testimonials from people about Atmananda. Meditate with Atmananda and it gives down here his resume. His resume is from 1531 to 1575, a Zen master in Kyoto, Japan, 1602 to 1671, head of a Zen order in Kyoto, Japan. 1725, 1804, master of a monastery in Tibet, 1834 to 1905, yoga master in India, 1912, 1945, Tibetan Lama, head of a monastic order in Tibet, 1950 to the present. Self realized spiritual teacher and director of spiritual communities in Los Angeles and San Francisco. All right, now, reincarnation is a growing belief. A lot of the surveys say that between 23 to 25% of people in America believe in reincarnation. Now, I have no way of checking those figures, although I've seen it in more than one place. That doesn't necessarily prove that it's reliable, but that's a striking thing. And it seems to be that those figures are also similar in Europe, in Western Europe, that there's a real growth in belief in reincarnation. Now, that doesn't mean that everybody who believes in reincarnation is in the in quotes, New Age movement. All right. But nevertheless, there's a real growth in that kind of Eastern perspective on things as shown in the belief in reincarnation. Here's something that has caused a real stir. I saw this in January in the USA Today and there were a number series of articles, a series of these one page ads back about four or five years ago. It's put out by the Terra center in Hollywood and talks about the different problems in society. Drugs, aids, poverty, crime, terrorism. Is there a solution? The Christ is in the world. A great world teacher for people of every religion and no religion. A practical man with solutions to our problems. He loves all humanity. And what is he saying? And he goes on to give quotes from the Christ. When will we see Him? Christ is here, my friends. Your brother walks among you. Now, I heard the person who behind these ads, Benjamin Cream, speak over at American University a couple months ago and he maintains that the Christ is living in London, a Pakistani, and that he will soon reveal himself and do it on national TV in a way that everybody will know who he is and there will be all kinds of miraculous things that accompany it. Now I'm not saying that everybody within, not everybody within the in quotes, New Age movement is into this kind of thing. In fact, many people would oppose this kind of thing. But nevertheless, these are some of the kinds of things that you see within the New Age. Some of them are a lot more popular. You have some that are much more sophisticated. Like here's a magazine, New Age journal called Revision. I believe it's published in Boston. And the subtitle is A Journal of Consciousness Change. And it said the subtitle is Consciousness Design and the Spirit of Architecture. So the whole journal is top writers writing from a New Age or Eastern perspective on the nature of architecture. That there's a very sophisticated and intellectual dimension to the movement as well as the more popularized and crass, infringe elements to the movement. So it's very diverse and on many different levels. Don't equate Shirley MacLaine with everybody in the movement. Some very sophisticated work here, like in Marilyn Ferguson's book the Aquarian Conspiracy, she covers really a whole worldview, comprehensive worldview. She not only covers all the areas of personal change, but she covers many, many areas of social change as well. The subtitle of her book the Aquarian Conspiracy is Personal and Social transformation in the 1980s. And she deals with such things as power. There's a whole chapter on power and politics, whole chapter on healing ourselves on holistic health. And by the way, there's a lot in terms of holistic health that is permeated with New Age or Eastern kind of methods. Now that's not to say that there aren't many, many good things about holistic health. About dealing with people as whole people. And it certainly is true that there is a profound relationship between your mind and your body. And we could talk about that maybe when we deal with some kinds of questions. But it's another thing altogether to say what Marilyn Ferguson says at the beginning of her chapter on holistic health, where she says, we can have it as we imagine and as we will. We can have it as we imagine and as we will. In other words, if you can picture yourself as being well or imagine yourself being well or alter your consciousness enough, you never have to have disease and you never have to die. It's essentially the same kinds of assumptions that Christian Science has held for quite a while. All right? That you can have it as you imagine and as you will, not only in the area of health, but. But in any and every area. All right? So, but anyway, that's the extreme to which they go to it. I mean, the mind has the ultimate power over the body because there is no such thing ultimately as matter. It's all consciousness. All right. There's other chapters on education, new ways of learning, and we do need alternative styles of education. So many of these are very appealing. Two people, the whole thing. On transformation of values and vocation, there's a lot on ecology. One of the central issues of the New Age is dealing with nature and dealing with the creation. As I've been around a lot of the top New Age leaders, one of the things that is a real passionate concern is that they have a sense of the beauty and the goodness of the world around them, that sense of mystery in the world. They sense God being close to the world. And there's a profound way in which God is close to the world. And so there's that sense of God being close to the world. And they have this sense of mystery about the world, and they want to preserve the creation. And so ecology is very important. And it's often because I think in a lot of these areas, Christians within the church have not spoken to these issues. They've not provided a whole worldview that was compelling, that was well researched and well written and covered things holistically. All right, Shown the whole dimensions of things, that this gets its appeal. I mean, there's a statement that I often hear, it's spiritual counterfeits project cults of the unpaid bills of the church. And I think I'm not calling New Age a cult. That's a matter of definition here. But I think the New Age is the unpaid bills of the church. It's because many of the different dimensions that appeal to people within the New Age have not been dealt with within the church. The whole matter of intuition, the whole matter of meditation, a sense of mystery in dealing with God, a sense that being spontaneous, a sense of playfulness in the world, a sense of joy, a sense of freedom. Those are the kinds of things that appeal to people within the New Age and that are not inconsistent with a biblical worldview. However, all too often in the way that it's been worked out, it has been in reality inconsistent with what has happened in many of our churches. In many cases too, you find people that have been radically turned off from any kind of Christian or church option. Right. They've reacted against it, and I know it. In talking to them, I've heard story after story after story that were tragic about how they've been treated within churches. Not only before they were in the New Age by other Christians, by other believers within the church, but after they professed some kind of belief in the New Age movement. They've been often viciously attacked and caused all kinds of names. And that's because there's all kinds of fear associated with the New Age movement and all kinds of hostility that's been generated towards people in the movement. And you might be able to understand some of that. But that's in many ways the opposite of the Spirit of Christ in dealing with people. That it should be manifesting love and compassion and speaking the truth. Yes, and discussing truth. Yes. But doing it in a loving spirit, not in a way that attacks or puts down people, but in a way that engages them and draws them to Christ. And that all too often has not been the case. I went to a conference up in Colorado where we were dialoguing with a lot of the top New Age leaders. And I can remember one of the Christian leaders that was present there apologizing to one of the guys from the New Age for what other Christians had done to him. And it's tragic. My heart, as well as many others that were there, our hearts sank at the way that they've been treated by believers. Just let me cover a little bit more here about the New Spiritism. And then we're going to take a break in just a little bit and come back and pick it up. There's a whole phenomena called the New Spiritism or channeling. It's rather spectacular. If you watch on a lot of talk shows, you'll find the latest channeler on the show. And I have here a write up from a New Age bookstore in Los Angeles that has a whole article on all the material that's available on channeling might be of interest to some of you, if you're interested in the topic, to come up and see that it talks about the difference between channeling and mediumship medium. You know, back in the last century there was this whole thing of spirit mediums and getting back to people, getting in touch with people beyond the grave. Alright, but there's a real difference with the new spiritism and the new channeling in that what the spirits in quotes are saying is pretty much all is one, you are divine, the purpose of life is to alter consciousness and you have unlimited psychospiritual power. I mean, it's basically a new age worldview that's being taught by these supposed channelers. So that's a radical difference between the old sense of medium and the new channeling. Well, there's a whole list here at the back of all the different spirits and who channels them. Let me just read a couple of them. Bashar, channeled by Darrell Anka, is an extraterrestrial from, I don't know if I can say it, Essaysani, meaning living light. A civilization roughly 300 years in a future timeline. His service is the reflection of our evolutionary process from fear and separation to unity and love. Alright. Enid, as channeled by Iris Belhus, was last incarnated in the 1840s and speaks in an earthly manner with the Irish brogue. Iris has created three nutrition books and recently published a book on spirit guides. Contact Spirit speaks for information. Lazarus, as channeled by Jack Purcell, is a non physical energy that has never experienced physicality. His perspective, techniques and love have helped thousands move beyond limitations into the joy of growing. Mafu, as channeled by Penny Torres, was last incarnated in 79 AD as a leper in Pompeii. Mahfu conducts many seminars and lectures nationally. Ramtha is perhaps one of the more famous ones. Jay Z. Knight has gotten an awful lot of publicity. Ramtha, as channeled by Jay Z. Knight is a 35,000 year old Hindu warrior who stresses God I am and God we all are. His teachings are known worldwide through videos and published works. I'm just picking a few of these. Saint Germain is channeled by Azina Ramonda is the Ascended Master of the Seventh Ray. He is a reminder that joy and harmony can be lived here and now in loving acceptance of what we truly are. Divine expressions of all that is. Then there's Seth, as channeled originally by Jane Roberts. We could go on and on. I mean those are just selected versions and we have all the books and. And tapes on some of these different spirits. If you want to look at that, here's some things from Berkeley on spirit channeling, spirit communication. You come up and look at these. There's a real phenomena called A Course in Miracles. Two big volumes in a study guide that were supposedly spirit dictated or dictated to a woman by the name of Helen Shookman. She kept hearing a voice. I won't go into the whole story, but she kept hearing a voice that was coming to her in her mind. And the voice kept saying, this is A Course in Miracles. Please take notes. And she lived with that voice for a while. She was a doctor. She didn't know what to do. She went to a doctor friend and said, well, what shall I do? And he said, well, take notes. So she started to write down what this voice in her head told her. And she got these massive volumes. And the philosophy is pretty much like this, very much like Christian Science. There is no such thing as guilt or evil or sin, that kind of thing. But she says that the voice is the voice of Jesus. The voice is the voice of Jesus. And there are Christian churches where this is being studied. Esalen. I don't know if you've ever heard of esalen. In the 60s and 70s, it was a human potential center, at least. In somewhat recent days, there's been a seminar. One of the scholars in residence, you might say, of Esalen is Jenny o', Connor, who channels the nine. This is a paranormal kind of intelligence of nine beings that are channeled, that enter in to facilitate the gestalt process rather than telling your fortune. They provide an energized means to find and make your own. So you can have whole seminars on the nine and gestalt practice. That's the course there. Here's a whole magazine devoted to spiritism called Spirit Guide. And then one of the articles is Interview with the Light Beings Channeled by Janet Fried. Here's a thing, Michael. Educational fun. Michael, in quotes, is a name used by a group of 10,050 individuals who lived on this planet and now teach from a higher spiritual plane. We have agreed to present Michael and his teaching to the public. All right, Here's a kind of interesting one. Elizabeth Clare, Prophet. There's a book. There's a movement called Church Universal and Triumphant that's a mix between Christianity and Eastern religion and spiritism. This was found at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Elizabeth Clare, the Inner Workshops, the Teachings of the Ascended Masters. And the first workshop is on the Control of the Human Aura. And then there's one on the lost years of Jesus and one on karma and reincarnation. And finally, the last workshop is on Saint Germain and Elizabeth Clare. Prophet supposedly gets her messages from two ascended spirits or ascended masters, Saint Germain and El Morya, who give her the teaching. She writes books on them and communicates this teaching. And this is in 60 major cities in the United States. I came from Pittsburgh and I knew parents and I met people that were involved in the Church Universal and Triumphant in Pittsburgh. And it's in a lot of the major cities. A major and growing movement. She was just recently here in Washington D.C. and found these all over Capitol Hill. Enter the Aquarian Age through the teachings of the Ascended Masters. She was in Washington D.C. nov. 25, 29th, at the Capitol Hilton for several days and all kinds of work workshops. And you might be interested in seeing this. So you can see that there's a lot of things going on with the New Spiritism. There's a book, a classic book that much like the Aquarian Conspiracy for the New Age movement, would sum up the Neo Pagan movement. The book is called Drawing down the Moon. Subtitle is Witches, Druids, Goddess Worshipers and Other Pagans in America Today. And it's written by Margot Adler, who I believe is with npr, National Public Radio. And she's the daughter, I believe, of Alfred Adler, the psychiatrist. A very brilliantly written book, well researched. She traveled all over the world to research it and has done all her homework on it. She is involved in the movement herself. So as kind of an advocate for the movement, a growing movement. Maybe just one aspect here. It's growing. I have a bibliography that I really don't want to share with you too much. I'll just let you know I have it as evidence. The sorcery iceberg in America. It's on animism, druidism, Goddess worshipers, paganism, shamanism, witchcraft. A computer List of 1100 groups and individuals who practice sorcery in America. This is just the tip of the iceberg. 1100 groups that are into sorcery and witchcraft. And you'll see many different. Just a random sampling of the different types. Hellenic paganism, Egyptian witchcraft, worship of Isis, Gnostic and Hermetic traditions. That's just one page of many pages on these 1100 groups that are basically into neo paganism. And the whole assumption of neopaganism is basically the psycho spiritual power and we alter consciousness. And that would lead you to a sense that you are divine and that all is one. The occult principle, one of the central principles in any kind of occult practice is as above, so below, or as below, so above. Basic idea here is that the universe is a seamless web. And that as we do rites and rituals, such as the ritual that's quoted in Adler's book, the ritual of drawing down the moon, that that actually has reverberations and impact on the whole universe. Because the universe is one being. It's a seamless web. And so what we do here has reverberations everywhere. But the occult principle is as above, so below, or as below, so above. That's because so what we do here has effects everywhere. I've got here a conference called the Pagan Spirit Alliance. They have a regular conference in Madison, Wisconsin. That's one of the centers for witchcraft. And they would have here a lot of the top names in the witchcraft circles. Margot Adler is one of the top speakers. A lot of neo pagan groups, some of the other witches, Z Budapest and Starhawk, and some other big names within the neo pagan groups. Here's a pledge to pagan spirituality. It's a neo pagan creed. Let me just read a couple elements from it to illustrate how similar in its overall worldview, even though of course there are differences. And not everybody's New Age is into this, but it's a similar kind of worldview. All right. I am a pagan, and I devote myself to channeling the spirit energy of my inner self to help and to heal others. I know that I am a part of the whole of nature. May I always grow an understanding of the unity of all nature. May I use the force psychic power wisely and never use it for aggression or malevolent purposes. May I always remember that whatever is sent out always returns magnified to the sender. May the forces of karma move swiftly to remind me of these spiritual commitments when I've begun to falter from them. And may I use this karmic feedback to help myself grow more and more in tune to my inner pagan spiritual. May I always be mindful that the Goddess and God in all their forms dwell within me. And this divinity is reflected through my own inner self, my pagan spirit. Just some of the ideas that would indicate this all is one and the divinity and the use of the word karma, all of those kinds of principles that are very similar to Eastern religion in those ways. So neo paganism is another movement that's a growing movement. Let me just give you a few thoughts, first of all biblically, and then a little bit more some critiques of the New Age movement. And then we can get into some discussion where maybe I can give you more. There's no way I can go into an exhaustive study. There are many philosophical discussions that would be quite heavy. And I don't think it's really appropriate for me to go into all the philosophical criticism critiques that somebody like Frederick Copleston would make in a book called A Religion and the One. If you want a philosophical discussion of it, read that book by Frederick Copleston, who wrote that great history of philosophy, wrote a book called Religion and the One. It's a critique of Eastern philosophy. There a couple passages biblically that might relate to the new age would be Romans 1 where it talks about the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness. Because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen being understood through what has been made so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks. But they became futile in their speculations and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four footed animals and crawling creatures. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator who is blessed forever. The basic idea here is that one of the fundamental sins in the world as it was in Genesis. You remember the temptation of the tempter in the garden was you shall be as gods, that you set yourself up as God over against God. It's ultimate autonomy or self law. That's the meaning of autonomy. Self auto nomos law. Autonomy means self law in every decision. We can either set ourselves up as the standard or as the law and make myself the law. Or we can choose to submit ourselves to God's law. That would be a kind of theonomy where God's law is the law. And I believe in every choice that we make. We either follow what God's law is or we follow our own self law. And whenever we follow our own self law, we're essentially setting ourselves up as God over against God. We're involved in a kind of cosmic treason, willing the overthrow of God, saying that I know what to do better than God knows what to do. It's a Kind of deifying of ourselves. It's at the root of really any sin. But that was the fundamental temptation in the garden is you shall be as gods. In Romans 1, you also see the idea that one of the fundamental sins of people is idolatry. The people worship and serve the creature or some aspect of the creation rather than the Creator, that they form and they shape idols. Now, one of the things that in idol worship in the Old Testament, that much of it was this kind of pantheistic kind of worldview. It wasn't that the idol was thought to be God itself. It wasn't as if when you fixed the wood, that you sat down after you had shaped the wood and thought that that wood was God. But in some ways, that wood participated or was a symbol for the God of nature, the God that was in all nature. So this idea of animism or a kind of pantheism was part of the whole ancient religious practice there. So even idolatry goes back to that in many forms. But one of the fundamental things that people do is worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator. They confuse the Creator with the creation, in other words. And that goes on all the time. The fundamental Christian responses to this philosophy would be along these lines. All is one is what the New Age says. The Christian view, the classical Christian worldview, the biblical worldview says it says that creation is real and good. See, at the very beginning of the Scriptures that creation is good and the creation of people as individuals is very good. Male and female, that's very good. The idea of individuality, the idea of creation is a good thing, and it's also real. And one of the fundamental distinctions all throughout the Bible is the distinction between the creator and. And the creature. So the fundamental distinction right at this level is that the New Age says all is one. The biblical classical Christian worldview says that creation is real and good. The New Age says that this idea of separateness or diversity is the problem. This illusion that things are distinct is really the problem. The classical Christian worldview says no sin and moral evil is the problem, and that sin distorts God's good creation. That's the biblical alternative to the idea of illusion. It's not a matter of ignorance that we need to overcome. It's a matter of moral evil that we need to overcome by the redemption of Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. The New Age says that how do we overcome, how do we achieve redemption, this kind of redemption? Get back to this idea. Well, we alter our consciousness. The Christian worldview says no. We alter our experience from participating in that which is evil and turn around and follow that which is good. And it leads to the redemption of all of life, redemption of us individually and the whole creation participating in redemption. Let me talk a little bit about the evaluation of the New Age perspective. Now, a lot of the evidence say that Marilyn Ferguson uses in her book the Aquarian Conspiracy is drawn from science and the new science and the new physics. But it's kind of strange that when you really look at it, the whole Eastern worldview undermines if taken consistently. And people are not always consistent. But if taken consistently, it would undermine the basis for science. If all is one and there are no real distinctions in the world, what does science study? Well, one of the things that science does is classify and distinguish between things. Why would you have a motive to classify or distinguish illusion? So if you're consistent from an Eastern worldview, you wouldn't even want to pursue science at that level. Science also pursues testing and relationship between cause and effect, doing experiments. Well, within Marilyn Ferguson's book, she denies the reality of causality. So why would you want to do science if you're consistent? Again, now people are by no means not always people are not always consistent. But if they are consistent, it would undermine all the evidence that's normally used in the New Age movement. They use a lot of western scientific evidence, but their very assumptions would undermine the evidence that they use. The subtitle from Marilyn Ferguson's book is Personal and Social transformation in the 80s. And in my chapter in the New Age Rage, I'll give you a very simplified form of it. What I basically argue is that even though they have great desires for personal transformation and for social transformation and for a hopeful, optimistic view of the future, that the New Age assumptions actually undermine every single element of that, the personal and social transformation and even the 80s. Let me spell that out for you. Now, on the one hand, it might seem like the supreme compliment to say that you are divine or that you are God. But if the only way that you can achieve personal transformation is ultimately to become absorbed like a drop in the ocean of being, then the only way that you can achieve your personal potential or your personal transformation is the death of personality. See that you cease to exist as an individual. Now what kind of personal realization or fulfillment is that that leads to the loss of your personality becoming absorbed like the drop in the ocean or in Buddhism becoming extinguished? So on the one hand, it starts out with seems like it has potential on the surface for giving you a Positive self image. But when you see that your individuality is really the problem, then how can you be satisfied with yourself as an individual? Now, people again, are not always consistent and there's a lot of inconsistency, a lot of mix between east and west in the New Age movement. But if they're consistent with the Eastern assumptions, I think the very things that they desire, such as personal fulfillment, are really undermined. So that the only way they can achieve personal transformation is by thinking themselves out of existence, altering their consciousness so that they no longer exist and they're part of the 1. Or by the death of personality, the absorption of personality into the One. The second thing is social transformation. We certainly know that there's a wide diversity of social issues and very complex problems. And we got to make thousands and thousands of distinctions and analyses in order to solve social problems. But if things are really non distinct, things are really not separate and not distinct, how can you take seriously social transformation? Why would you want to reorganize illusion? All right, so it undermines the very motive for social transformation. Now again, people are not always consistent and that's the reason why they pursue these things. But when you see where Eastern religion has been most consistently held, you don't see the development of science and you don't see social transformation happening in any large scale. So they desire personal transformation, they desire social transformation. And what I try to argue is the biblical worldview provides it. We'll get to that in a minute. The last thing is personal and social transformation. In the 80s. They want a very optimistic view of the future. Secularism is a pretty barren alternative. It doesn't provide a lot of hope for anything. So they want a sense of hope and optimism for the future. I mean, that's the whole idea of the New Age, that there's a coming New Age that we can look forward to and be excited and, and anticipate. But think about it as I mentioned, that they say that there is no such thing as matter, time and space. And in many of the New Age perspectives they deny the reality of linear time. In fact, if you go back to ancient philosophy, you'll see that there are two basic perspectives on time. This thing is incredible. Two basic perspectives on time. One is the linear view where God creates the world and then you have history moving in a particular direction. God rules over history. God is taking history to a particular direction. After the Fall, history moves towards Christ and the coming of Christ and his death on the cross. And then we now look back to that time as we believe In Christ we receive forgiveness and we not only look back to what Christ has done, we look forward to his coming again and for life with him, for all eternity after that. This will be second coming. But history is going somewhere. So there's a meaning and purpose to things that you can't have meaning unless you see that there's a direction to things. Then if you know where things fit in an overall context, then you can have a sense of meaning in life. But if there's no direction to things, how can you have meaning? The Eastern worldview is a very circular idea that history is not really going anywhere. There is no such thing. Marilyn Ferguson and George Leonard argue as linear time. That's all part of the illusion. That's part of the myth to be overcome is this idea of linear time, of past and present and future. That's all part of the myth. So we have to do away with it and see all things as simultaneous and eternal. That's some of the kind of language that's used in their studies. All things are simultaneous and eternal. But if that's true, then there can be nothing really new. You get that if all things are simultaneous and eternal and there's no real future, that's part of the illusion, then how can there be a new age? There really can't be consistently. Now, again, people are not always consistent, but there can consistently be a new age. And some of the people in the new age are futurists and they value the future. They want to see the future move forward. They value that which is new and they want to be optimistic. And what I try to say is that the idea of something really new is part of the Christian assumption of history. The idea of progress in history going somewhere is part of the Christian worldview. That's sometimes borrowed without the Christian assumptions. But the idea of the Christian worldview, the history is going somewhere. That's a Christian assumption, a biblical assumption that comes out of the biblical worldview. Biblical view of time, of linear time. So what I say is that if they want personal and social transformation in the 80s, the biblical worldview provides much more in that terms. Because the biblical worldview has a tremendous place for the individual and for the personal. Because people are created in God's image and so they have. Individuality is good. And part of the purpose of us as people is to, as image bearers of God, exercise dominion over the whole creation, develop the potential of the whole creation, exercise creativity over the creation. That's the calling of people at the very beginning, to develop the potential of the creation, now the fall, has certainly affected that. And in redemption we see not only us restored, but we see us more able to exercise our creativity, more able to exercise dominion and rulership, self control over ourselves and develop the potential of the world around us and do more what we were created to do. So the idea of individual human potential and the ability to realize it is an assumption in our Western culture that comes right out of the biblical worldview. The idea of the development of human potential and the call to do that is rooted right in the biblical kind of framework and worldview, the idea of social transformation. Now, Christians have not always been and at the forefront of social transformation, but there are times where they have been. People. You look at some tremendous examples, like William Wilberforce, or you look at the foundation of many of the early hospitals, and you go on and on. The tremendous social reforms that have happened where believers in Christ have been involved in the forefront of politics and economics and all kinds of other areas. To exercise dominion, to develop the potential over the whole creation is enough task for society so that there's a whole social worldview that's there. And the idea of something being really new, the idea of having a kind of optimism, of knowing where history is going, no matter what the suffering that we encounter is, what is this present suffering compared to the glory that will be revealed to us? That idea of hope, a sure and certain hope that's an anchor for the soul, that kind of optimism about the future, no matter what you're going through, those are things we take for granted about the biblical worldview. They become maybe assumptions even in the Western culture. In a post Christian society, we take them for granted, but those are rooted in the biblical worldview. So what I basically try to show people is that they have certain longings for things that they don't see within the churches. And I try to show that the biblical worldview is much more satisfying for what they really want than their own worldview. In fact, their own worldview tends to prevent the very things they desire or undermine it or work against it. So that's one of my. The central things that I try to do. The other thing that you're up against in dealing with the Eastern worldview is that you have to fly totally in the face of reality. You have to go totally against everything you see and everything you take for granted. Now, I suppose it's theoretically possible, that's so. But it also seems amazingly perverse too, to deny everything that you think and everything that you see. It's basically. It's either an amazing truth or the utter lie that takes you away from reality. And I think it's the latter. That that which is clearly evident to us at every level is denied. That which we see in front of us is denied. And it's denied in the name of not reason or all kinds of evidences. It's denied in and because of experience. Because people have experiences of say, merging their identity with the identity of the one. That's how they interpret it. Because they have an experience that's supposed to tell them about the nature of this philosophy. I think we need to distinguish, as I've already said before, between the experience and the interpretation of the experience. Experiences are not self interpreting. And unless you have something, a revelation that will allow you to interpret the meaning of that experience, on what basis can you say that this experience you've had is a merging of your identity with that other one? How do you know that it's not just an experience with yourself? How do you know that you're not just going outwards but going inwards and you're touching the bottom of your own personality rather than the nature of the one? I mean, there's a lot of research that shows that you can produce those kind of experiences of alpha wave states in your mind without using Eastern techniques by putting say ping pong balls. You cut ping pong balls in half and put them over your eyes and you experience that stimulation long enough, you'll produce alpha waves just like people that are meditating will do, but without the Eastern experience. Now is that an experience with a one? I think not. The real question is how do you interpret the experience? And you got to separate the experience from the interpretation of the experience. You have that many of you have gotten that whole worldview chart and I think it'd be worth going down and looking carefully at a lot of the different elements of that worldview chart. I think it would be very helpful for you to do that. [01:18:05] Speaker A: The proceeding was a presentation of the C.S. lewis Institute. In the legacy of C.S. lewis, the institute endeavors to develop disciples who can articulate, defend and live faith in Christ through personal and public life. For more information please please visit our website at www.cslewisinstitute.org. thank. You.