Spiritual Barbecue

The awareness of New Age should be the basis in the education of any established religion. In his article, Kether scrutinizes the Church’s exposition on what it believed to be as ‘New Age.’ By Kether W.

I just finished reading the entire 60-page exposition of the new Primer to hit in town! I was referring to the infamous Primer on New Age which was release early last year. Too bad, I never had the time to review this on a much earlier stage but then again as the saying goes “…better late than never!” Anyways, after reading the first few pages of the Primer, I cannot help but get confused with the primary intentions of the Catholic Church towards the publication of this material. And it seems that after painstakingly reading the whole 60-page Primer, I still get this feeling of vagueness on the subject matter. I suggest to the readers that they add this Primer to their collection because this is by so far…how should I say this... the friendliest approach towards anything that is non-Christian, or non-Catholic Christian that is.

I spoke with some of my peers sometime a year ago, and we were actually on each other’s necks while debating the contents of the Primer. As you can see, I was the only one who studies occult in our circle. Anyways, I was really really excited with the content because for one thing, after the publication of this material, it is very unlikely that almost all books on occult and new age had been wiped clean on shelves of major bookstores “manila-wide” (I’m not sure with other provinces…tsk tsk!). Paranoia? I don’t think so! But who cares anyway, I just want the damn content and somehow I just want to come up with good stories about the disappearing of New Age books in downtown...I’m just kidding! I’m quite a conspiracy theorist you know! I just got this thing in my head that what may have caused the decline of these books may be related to this Primer. Hmmm…smells really a good story! But of course it was just sarcasm!

Seriously speaking, I truly respect the calling of the Catholic Church towards Christian faith, and so do with the rest of the religions of the modern world. Somehow I cannot deny the fact that most of the contents of this material is a bit an “understatement” in my opinion. I can’t help myself to notice the bibliographical entry of this Primer, I just can’t believe that most of the materials from which this Primer was carefully been “drafted” were merely materials already been published by the Catholic Christian authors themselves. For me, there is less of an immersion of the subject matter “New Age” to finally arrive with this Primer. Not that I discern the veracity of authors, but I thought that it could have been impartial if the Catholic Church immersed their study on books, magazines, journals or other forms of media that directly solicit the idea of New Age. But there is just only one in the entry, and I’m not even sure if it is indeed a New Age publication.

Perhaps, there is so much in New Age that is still misunderstood. Well actually I do not know how I am going to argue New Age, because the definition of New Age in the context presented by the Primer speaks more of quacks rather than New Age. Most of the time the authors of the Primer would describe solicitations, fraud, and intimidations to describe most of the aspects of New Age. Though I cannot deny the existence of such groups but I think we are missing a great deal of argument in here especially now that the Primer explicitly defined New Age on a greater scale. But then I guess society has a great role as to why the proliferation of New Age came so rapidly among Filipinos. Sadly, people took the higher power unto yet another level of power, which is of greed and deceit. Though I can’t deny issues such as these, I thought this is unfair to those who have dedicated their lives to live as New Agers or Occult practitioners and yet never had any involvement to any fraud or intimidation of people. Pardon me, but if the Church can defend their doctrines, it will only be reasonable for me to act the same. Justification is the thing that divides the argument of the Catholic Church

There have been a lot of definitions which in my opinion is a Spiritual Barbecue, each belief system taking a piece out of each other, put them all together and call it New Age. Then the next thing you’ll know, everybody gets the blame for his or her own contribution. It is just very alarming that the campaign for awareness for New Age leaves more confusion than total awareness of the subject matter. I believe that awareness of New Age or Occult or whatever it’s called, should be the basis in the education of Christianity, Islam, or whatever religion. It should show with no bias aspects of faith that sets apart from each other, not in a way that is damaging to the faith or to the dignity of others. In this way, people will build understanding while still maintaining compassion towards other people of different faith. The only problem I see in this Primer is the fact that it is indeed a call to understand New Age but had failed itself to even understand New Age from its own point of view. Perhaps the church was blindfolded while they wrote this Primer.

It is just sad that with everything that has been done for almost three decades of hard work among the community of Occult Practitioners, Esoteric and New Age writers as a campaign for awareness, people are just too busy to know. If people are drawn to New Age, or Occult, or any other schools of faith, and if they should practice New Age or occult on a darker scale, it is beyond the idea of New Age or Occult. Everybody has to seek its center, the truth, and for over centuries people quested for meaning of existence, and if Occult or New Age came about it is because people desired to put meaning to a lot of things. It is never intended to harm or to mislead.


About the Author: Famous for his opinionated articles and commentaries, KETHER is a vowed follower of the Hermetic Order of Golden Dawn tradition. A tarot reader, healer and a human rights and environmental activist, he involves himself in projects of Haribon and Sagip Kalikasan Foundations.

© 2006 Manggagaway E-magazine. Articles may be distributed freely on the condition that all accreditation is acknowledged, no part is altered and this notice is attached and the website: http://manggagaway-central.blogspot.com is included. ~ Thank you