Vatican on New Age and Spirits' response - Part I

Your Vatican has graciously issued an open invitation to dialogue on New Age issues. Please refer to Items No. 1 and 6.2. We at Inner Quest are pleased to accept. We only hope that our acceptance and sharing of information will be viewed by those of you here in the same spirit of brotherhood and cooperation in which they are given. Although everyone of us may believe and interpret the divine teachings differently, nevertheless, we all know in our hearts that there is only One God, One Truth and One Brotherhood.

Because of the length and detail of the Vatican document, our response is likewise necessarily detailed and involved for clarity and completeness, as possible within the space provided. This response has been serialized in 5 sections posted one after the other so as not to break the trend of thought of the Vatican presentation.

However, the thoughts and ideas that are in the Vatican document and those that we have included in our response are all open to subsequent discussion. All views and opinions for or against are welcome.

Vatican on New Age
Teachings of the Spirits of Truth

An invitation to dialogue





Foreword - The study is a provisional report. It is the fruit of the common reflection of the Working Group on New Religious Movements, composed of staff members of different dicasteries of the Holy See: the Pontifical Councils for Culture and for Interreligious Dialogue (which are the principal redactors for this project), the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

These reflections are offered primarily to those engaged in pastoral work so that they might be able to explain how the New Age movement differs from the Christian faith.
The following explanations are here offered in the hope that they can contribute towards everyone obtaining to a better understanding of the New Age Movement and the New Divine Teachings.

While they may appear at first to digress and conflict with traditional Christian teachings in the view of some, they are nevertheless the introductory phases in the unfolding of that body of knowledge that Christ alludes to when he told us, "There is so much more I want to tell you."

The age-old conceptions are now in the process of upgrading in recognition of our increased capacity to understand the Higher Truths. These are the Teachings of the Holy Spirit(s).

1 It (This document) is an invitation to understand the New Age and to engage in a genuine dialogue with those who are influenced by New Age thought. The document guides those involved in pastoral work in their understanding and response to New Age spirituality, both illustrating the points where this spirituality contrasts with the Catholic faith and refuting the positions espoused by New Age thinkers in opposition to Christian faith. What is indeed required of Christians is, first and foremost, a solid grounding in their faith.
Everyone should remain open-minded and be encouraged to try and understand new teachings. No one being perfect, therefore everyone has much to learn, still. To learning, there is no end.

Knowledge and Truth are not to be feared. All new information are to be embraced or rejected only after we have conducted a diligent study and evaluation, not opposed or refuted beforehand. Everyone should continue to seek in order to learn and comprehend the deeper Truths.

And where necessary, everyone should stand ready to let go of their mistaken beliefs, break down their old belief patterns and build anew.

1.3 When one examines many New Age traditions, it soon becomes clear that there is, in fact, little in the New Age that is new. The name seems to have gained currency through Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, at the time of the French and American Revolutions, but the reality it denotes is a contemporary variant of Western esotericism. This dates back to Gnostic groups which grew up in the early days of Christianity, and gained momentum at the time of the Reformation in Europe. It has grown in parallel with scientific world-views, and acquired a rational justification through the eighteenth and ninetenth centuries.
Spiritual instruction is progressive but necessary builds and expands on what were taught before.

Gnostic teachings and all old conceptions are today clarified and upgraded. Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism having been established centuries earlier are technically not part of the New Age Movement.

Only the more recent developments during the last 200 years should be considered as parts of the NAM, but only to introduce it and prepare the world for its imminent arrival in force. In fact, they provide the incontrovertible and scientific proofs that will validate the New Teachings. They are the initiatives taken by God's Holy Spirits and the Great White Brotherhood working together to prepare for the coming of the New Age and the return of Christ.

It has involved a progressive rejection of a personal God and a focus on other entities which would often figure as intermediaries between God and humanity in traditional Christianity, with more and more original adaptations of these or additional ones.
God is too far divorced from earthly conditions. His true nature cannot be fully appreciated until we can become more like Him, perfect as Jesus intimated. Instead, He sends His Holy Spirits, our ascended brothers, to whom He has delegated the work of guiding us so we too may become holy like them.

Due recognition is given to other advanced entities that are tasked by God to guide us in our development. They act much like bishops, priests and pastors. They are our Divine Guides and Teachers, only that they are far more highly evolved and competent in the performance of this work.

A powerful trend in modern Western culture which has given space to New Age ideas is the general acceptance of Darwinist evolutionary theory; this, alongside a focus on hidden spiritual powers or forces in nature, has been the backbone of much of what is now recognised as New Age theory.
Spirit evolution and physical evolution are separate and different things and processes.

God, being Spirit, created us spirits, in His image and likeness. However, we were in the beginning, innocent and ignorant, but endowed with every potentiality to attain to perfection through our own efforts. And we are destined to attain perfection, in the end, after we undergo life after life after life (reincarnation), learning from our own personal experiences. Jesus knowing this affirmed, "You must be perfect as the Father in heaven is perfect."

Spiritual faculties or psychic powers are inherent but latent properties of every spirit entity. However, these powers are now fully explained and they can be developed by everyone, if we should so choose.

Darwin's theories should properly be understood to refer only to physical things or bodies (forms) and not to the spirit self. Moreover, Theosophy in fact proposes a different theory, altogether. Here, the introduction of new improvements and faculties attaching to physical bodies or vehicles are designed by Higher Intelligences. Succeeding spirit-students can then avail of these new "life-forms" when they manifest in the physical worlds.

1.5 There is also a call in all of this to come closer to Jesus Christ and to be ready to follow Him, since He is the real way to happiness, the truth about God and the fulness of life for every man and woman who is prepared to respond to his love.
Similarly, the Spirits of Truth enjoin everyone to live according to Christ's ethical teachings. God's heaven is reserved only for the righteous who actually do His will in their everyday life.

Basic Teachings


2 Christians in many Western societies, and increasingly also in other parts of the world, frequently come into contact with different aspects of the phenomenon known as New Age. Many of them feel the need to understand how they can best approach something which is at once so alluring, complex, elusive and, at times, disturbing. These reflections are an attempt to help Christians do two things:

- to identify elements of the developing New Age tradition;

- to indicate those elements which are inconsistent with the Christian revelation.

Nevertheless, given the underlying vision of New Age religiosity, it is on the whole difficult to reconcile it with Christian doctrine and spirituality.

Through the guidance of the Spirits of Truth, the old truths are made plain and the New Teachings are advanced for our consideration. The most important principles are the following:

1.. The existence of God

God may be defined as Infinite Intelligence. Imperfect as we are and still greatly influenced by matter, we are unable to completely understand the true exact nature of God. Finite minds cannot comprehend the infinite. In addition, our vocabulary is so poor that we are unable to more satisfactorily define God. While we may attribute to God certain very desirable and positive characteristics, we should never feel that God is confined to such attributes. To do so would be to limit God, Who is unlimited. However, we will be able to know and comprehend God more fully just as soon as we become totally freed from earthly influences and approach the righteousness that is God according to His ethical teachings.

2.. The existence of the Spirit

God created us spirit beings in His image. However, at our creation, we were created perfect seeds, innocent and ignorant, but endowed with every potentiality to grow and develop to full maturity or perfection through our own exertions.

3.. The reality of the Spirit World

There are other dimensions of being, other worlds apart from the physical worlds and the earth in which we live at the moment. There are "many mansions" in the Kingdom of God. We leave these more spiritual worlds temporarily when we are born to earth, and we return to them at physical death. And there, we will live for all eternity as soon as we prove ourselves worthy.

4.. Oneness and brotherhood of all creation

At this earthly stage of our development, most humans are just beginning to curb their selfishness and selfish interests in favor of the common good. We are only now considering our planet as a single spaceship or boat in the vast sea of space. We are only now learning not to rock the boat lest we sink the ship and drown all of us, together. But, eventually, gradually, we will come to learn that all are one.

5.. Reincarnation

In order to further develop spiritually, we spirit beings repeatedly come to earth and other physical worlds by motivating physical bodies which will enable us to undergo all the necessary experiences that afford learning until such time that we are able to arrive at a certain prescribed standard of spiritual perfection.

6.. The Law of Karma

This is the Law of Harmony that provides for the restoration of balance to all things. This is also the law of cause and effect and sowing and reaping. Relative to ethical matters, the law was not intended to punish offenders as much as to teach us right from wrong and good and evil.

7.. Infinite progression of the Spirit entity

No one will be committed to suffer forever in hell. All who are not yet fully developed or perfected will continue to be given every opportunity to improve himself in the Lower Worlds. This process continues until we are able to attain to the perfection that God intended. We are destined to come live with Him in His Kingdom after we have completed our earthly studies.

8.. Personal responsibility and salvation through individual effort

Having been given free will, we alone have the right to decide regarding personal matters. "We are the captain of our soul, the master of our fate." We only need to learn the divine laws and their consequences and abide by them in order to ensure for ourselves the kind of life we desire. It follows that God won't and Jesus cannot save us because this is in direct contravention of His divine will. Instead, Jesus having shown us the Way, we now need to save ourselves through our own personal efforts.

9.. Mediumship as a means of communication with the Spirit World

By developing our higher faculties, we are able to break through the barriers between this world and the Higher Worlds thereby obtaining undeniable proofs and further divine instruction.

10.. Love and service as the Way

Emphasis is given to righteousness, which is love in action, and active service to our fellowmen as the Way to obtain release from the necessity of further incarnations and the attainment of eternal life in the Spirit World, the World of Reality.
All other attendant and more worldly concepts and teachings are only corollary or supportive of these main spiritual teachings, of which there are infinite levels and aspects. Each corresponds to a specific stage in the order of evolution. Everything in its rightful place.

Emergence of Spiritism and Theosophy


2.1 The Age of Aquarius has such a high profile in the New Age movement largely because of the influence of theosophy, spiritualism and anthroposophy, and their esoteric antecedents.
At about 1850, to call our attention to the more spiritual aspects of our being and commence the necessary preparations for the coming new age, two important major movements drawing extensively from supernatural sources were initiated, one by the Great White Brotherhood, the other by the Spirits of Truth. Eastern and Western, they constitute two seemingly different approaches, but each complements the other and both are working for the same goals. There is only One God and one Truth.

By 1875, the great libraries had all been razed to the ground or ravaged by war and almost all of the old sacred books and records were destroyed. To reintroduce the Wisdom Teachings of the ancients, the Great White Brotherhood commissioned the services of their "chela," Madame Helena P. Blavatsky. With the use of her spiritual faculties highly developed from past incarnations, she clairvoyantly accessed the lost information from the Akashic Records and compiled them all in 'The Secret Doctrine.' She also founded the Theosophical Society to oversee the dissemination of these ancient teachings and prepare candidates for "chelahood," a state where candidates have qualified for acceptance as a student of the Masters, henceforth meriting direct and personalized guidance and instruction. Theosophical studies cover the origin and development of the cosmos and human development in all the planes of being from its beginning to its end.

Following in this tradition a century later, the Tibetan lama, Lobsang Rampa, was tasked to further simplify, clarify and upgrade the Eastern teachings. Adept at soul traveling, highly clairvoyant and telepathic, he recounts his experiences and provides us with startling revelations relating to the Unseen World. Highly evolved himself, he understands the divine teachings more completely and he teaches and explains them in his books which became bestsellers.

As early as 1850, the Spirits of Truth with the spirit guides and guardian angels had already initiated their own work in the Christian context. Their primary objective then was to provide proofs of the survival of the spirit. Countless Spiritualist mediums in Europe and America now began to manifest all sorts of magical and highly entertaining phenomena. Tables rapped messages, so did ouija boards convey information from beyond. Ghosts and apparitions regaled and frightened. Objects flying all over the place appeared and disappeared from view. Much of these manifestations were subsequently proven to be false, but enough of the genuine articles convinced those with open minds that there is a greater reality, another world beyond ours.

After the more thoughtful among the people got over their fascination and wonder, they began to question why all the fuss, what does it all mean. This time, the Spirits chose a Frenchman, Leon-Denizarth-Hippolyte Rivail, a member of several learned societies and a scientist-researcher well known in scientific circles to disseminate their explanations and teachings. Through various mediums and countless seances, a special team of Spirit teachers, among them the Apostle John and St. Augustine, communicated to Rivail the beginning basis of the promised revelations, the All Truth referred to by Jesus, the many things kept hidden since the foundation of the world, which in Jesus' time, the people would not have been able to understand.

Rivail included all these revelations in his books, 'The Spirits' Book' and others under the penname of Allan Kardec, according to the instructions of the Guides. They later formed the underlying teachings of Spiritism, which term simply means guidance by the Holy Spirit. In the Philippines and in Brazil in the mid-1900s, psychic surgeons belonging to this school performed their barehanded and painless operations and attracted large followings.

In the United States today, Channeling has taken over from Spiritualism. Each addition to the series brings in new insights and reveals deeper aspects of the same eternal Truths.