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“New Age or Perennial Wisdom?”
by Dr. Mark
Pitstick
There often is
nothing new about New Age topics. A more
appropriate label might be Higher Thought since
great teachers from antiquity have sought to share
wisdom uncommon in our world. Aldous Huxley termed
these loftier spiritual understandings as the
perennial wisdom.
Such subjects
include reincarnation, souls, universal salvation,
interconnection with all of life, panentheism or God
being everywhere always, and other metaphysical
ideas. Some label these New Age or New Thought but
they really have been echoed across many cultures
throughout history.
Ancient
philosophers contributed to spiritual wisdom
traditions that resonate with many people today.
For example, Epictetus, the Greek Stoic philosopher,
stated: “You have a distinct portion of the essence
of God in yourself. Why, then, are you ignorant of
your noble birth? Why do you not consider whence
you came? Why do you not remember, when you are
eating, who you are who eat and whom you feed: do
you not know that it is the divine you feed; the
divine you exercise? You carry a God about with
you.”
More succinctly,
the sixth century B.C. Greek philosopher and
mathematician Pythagoras said, “Take courage; the
human race is divine.” “Know Thyself” is an ancient
aphorism over the temple at Delphi
in Greece.
This admonition addressed the importance of
realizing ones unending nature.
These themes are
echoed in popular xe "New Age "Higher
Thought/Transcendental philosophies today. Such
ideas are not kooky nor do they stem from the
occult. A study of history and literature reveals
there is nothing new or demonic about xe "New
Thought" such ideas. Religious historian Karen
Armstrong says that the philosophers Platoxe
"Plato", Plotinusxe "Plotinus" and Socrates also
encouraged metaphysicalxe "metaphysical" studies
without orthodox religious involvement for
enlightenment.
The third century
Roman philosopher Plotinus described the goal of our
spiritual quest: “We here, for our part, must put
aside all else and be set on this alone. . . to
embrace God with all our being, that there may be no
part of us that does not cling to God. There we may
see God and our self as by law revealed: our self in
splendor, filling with the light of Intellect, or
rather, light itself, pure, buoyant, aerial,
become—in truth, being—a god.”
This vision of
Plotinus has been echoed in faiths like the Quakers
who teach that everyone has an “Inner Light” that,
once discovered and nurtured, leads the way to
salvation and peace on earth. One medieval
denomination, the Brethren of the Free Spirit, was
based on the philosophy of Plotinus and held: “God
is all that is, god is in every stone and in each
limb of the human body, every created thing is
divine. The divine essence is my essence and my
essence is the divine essence. Everything that
existed yearned to return to its divine Source and
would eventually be reabsorbed into God.”
Joseph Campbell
says that certain themes, some of which are
pre-Biblical, are present in widely different
cultures that were separated by time and distance.
Such motifs include saviors of virgin birth,
catastrophic floods, saviors who taught morality and
who carried and/or were killed on a cross, and
saviors who reappeared after dying. Another
recurrent topic is that believers tend to elevate
their great leaders into deities.
With this
information, we can better understand the underlying
spiritual themes of each person’s great potential.
A wealth of spiritual and religious views and
listening to your inner wisdom is perhaps the best
path to deciding what seems most true for you.
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