Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,
In these confessions, I have been sharing how, for many years I was convinced the New Age movement offered great hope for humanity - and how Christianity remained utterly opaque to me.
Now for years, I would hear Christians criticise the holistic movement, because of what they called ‘pick and mix’ or ‘cafeteria spirituality’. There was this insistent refrain – which irritated me - about why one shouldn’t just pick and choose from a tradition, but honour the whole of it.
I was very suspicious: **Why** on earth was this such a big deal to these Christians?
And strangely enough, even though I become ever more traditional, I am **still** suspicious, when I hear certain Christians bemoan ‘pick and mix’ …
And why? I confess it is because I cannot help but feel that many do not really know **why** they are critical of ‘pick and mix’. It is something they regurgitate reflexively, but they are not always able to give a good REASON for their concern.
At least, in all my New Age years of listening to Christians lament ‘pick and mix’, I never heard a reason which spoke to me. I simply did not get it.
And now that I **do** get it – it seems to me essential that traditionalists find ways to clearly articulate **why** tradition matters and **why** ‘cafeteria religion’ has its pitfalls. (To say the least).
Here then, is only one such attempt to articulate why I am now concerned about ‘pick and mix’ – the New Age smorgasbord …
I am concerned that without honouring the tradition, vital qualities for the development of human spirituality and human evolution are being LOST.
Now it will take the rest of these confessions for me to explain what I mean by these ‘vital qualities for the development of human spirituality and human evolution’ …
But today, I will just say that although New Age thinking appears to be a vast, sprawling, highly diversified and heterogeneous movement - again, embracing a wide spectrum from from wacky phenomena to rich psychological insight – I believe that there is more uniformity to it than is often supposed.
I believe that the New Age smorgasbord of ‘pick and mix’ does not necessarily offer the vast range of diversified options, which many would claim it does.
And that in fact, its options are limited by an often subtle and elusive, but definitely positive disregard for many elements of the Judaeo-Christian tradition.
This is also to do with what I meant two days ago by ‘Common Factors … relativised, dismissed or not very present in' much New Age thought.
These common factors I will say now, have much to do with what the Tradition tells us about the Fall, the nature of Evil and sin, universal tragedy, the Redemption ...
Yes, these things in my experience are not much on offer in the New Age smorgasbord. For definite reasons, I think.
Such that in my experience, even when I am speaking to highly educated and deeply thoughtful people of a holistic persuasion who deeply impress me (and there are many such people), the fact that I express such ideas often seems radical, startling, foreign to them.
They simply have not come across these ideas in their often-long journeys through a movement that is supposedly holistic and all-embracing. As I had not come across them, in my nearly twenty years of imbibing all kinds of holistic thinking, so-called.
And yet for reasons which I hope to make clearer, it is hardly without consequence for the West, that the holistic and New Age approach may perhaps be its dominant form of spirituality now – at least in much of Europe.
This is why I confess I struggle with these issues, every day of my life. Because I believe there are indeed very significant consequences to the rise of the New Age cafeteria. And the consequences may be, as I stress again, of vital import, not only for human evolution, but for preserving a truly human and humane culture.
I struggle, I struggle and why I struggle, I hope to make clearer as we proceed.
7 comments:
Thank you, mama pelican.
The issue of freedom you raise is among the most profound and vital, one can raise.
Without freedom, there is neither faith nor love.
And the result is entirely mechanical and **superficial** in the extreme. No 'depth' as you so aptly say.
And 'Doing what one is told' certainly connotes lack of freedom.
And I am certainly not wanting to advocate a Catholicism of non-freedom or fear. Which we all know has definitely existed in terrible ways in the past - and that the spectre of that is still with us.
Yes, I think we would agree that there are terrible problems with a superficial, enforced Catholic menu and with the New Age option ...
But there is a third way beyond these, I believe.
What I am trying to say is that we have a choice, that need not manifest as the cafeteria/pick and mix approach.
I have had a choice in my life. I had the choice of the pick and mix of the New Age cafeteria - in which I now feel so much went missing.
Or I have the choice of trying to sincerely honour the whole of the Catholic tradition.
Acknowledging that two thousand years of visionaries, mystics, philosophers have contributed to it.
And that the whole of this tradition represents a colective wisdom that merits profound respect.
It is respect I am advocating. Deep respect for the tradition - and not a careless dismissal of parts of it that happens in what I call the New Age cafeteria ...
I have come to deeply honour the Catholic tradition.
Nonetheless this position is different from 'doing what you're told' inasmuch as
1) My respect is a voluntary choice to overcome the danger of the cafeteria
2) Despite my profound respect, I actively struggle to find the truth. You might have seen my posts in November (?) for example where I cannot say yes to hell understood as eternity.
My conscience here forbids me following what is still the majority Catholic tradition. Tragically I feel.
Yet traditionalists such as Newman and von Balthasar challenged eternal hell as well.
It is their kind of traditionalism that I aspire to.
Hope that clarifies a bit what I'm trying to say. I'm pretty weary - so please forgive me if it lacks ...
And **thank you** again for your returning with your valuable input on these profound issues.
A funny thing about this post is that catholic and holistic have the same root word, holos, which means whole.
One dimension of Catholicism often overlooked by those Catholics speaking against "the cafeteria" is the hierarchy of truths, which in many ways is more of a way of looking at things rather than a precise hierarchy. In thinking about hierarchy, the analogy of a body is quite useful. To lose my pinky would be traumatic but to lose my thumb could be quite disruptive.
Single cells may seem more free than cells in higher organisms, but the obedience of the cells in an embryo to their DNA makes the self-awareness and freedom of the human person possible.
The organizing principle in Christian life is the encounter with Jesus (and the commitment to Jesus). The rules and dogmas exist to safeguard this meeting and to close off sterile mistakes. The church does not exist to burden its members with rules, but to invite them to keep encountering Christ and enabling others to meet Him as well.
The Christian method is only conducive of freedom IF Jesus is the incarnation of my destiny. In Jesus, my unique constellation of talents and desires is fulfilled.
I want to address the menu analogy a bit more directly in a second comment.
Mama Pelican is onto something in (her) menu analogy, especially regarding the transmission of Christianity.
As modern rationalists, we are accustomed to thinking of belief as first something that is rationally understood and then implemented. Germs cause disease, so we wash our hands. The traditional way of transmitting culture, however, is through gestures. I teach my children to wash their hands first and explain why secondarily. They need to wash their hands whether they believe in germs or not. It is reasonable to teach a 3-year old to wash her hands because it is the right thing to do. It is also reasonable to teach a 6-year old to wash his hands to get rid of germs. It is reasonable to persist in teaching a 17-year old to wash his hands so that he doesn't get sick and make others sick.
Another example: I know rationally that eating too much is bad for me. This knowledge is much less effective at keeping me thin than the traditional diet of the Japanese or others.
The natural, human way to transmit values is holistically first and to understand the reasons second. Knowing reasons is not usually sufficient to change behavior.
In understanding culture, a sociology textbook from my Lifespan Development class has been very helpful ("Developing Cross-Cultural Competence" by Lynch and Hanson). By the age of five, children have internalized an entire system of cultural values, which is based on that of their parents and other significant adults. The value of any single gesture depends on its place within the whole system. So, using a kleenex is a sign of cleanliness in the US, but considered filthy in certain other places.
When Christianity arrived, it did not eliminate this basic dynamic of culture. Instead, it was like the discovery of a new fact of existence: like germs. But Christianity is not the discovery of some fact or another. Christianity is the encounter with a human presence who also happens to be the meaning of everything. This encounter changes everything in life and in culture. Pretzels, plant names, Easter eggs, Christmas trees, etc. all form some of the inumerable gestures that this new awareness has been expressed in culture. Many have noted how Easter eggs, Christmas trees, etc, were originally pagan gestures, but their meaning took on a new meaning with the arrival of Christianity.
Some Christian parents teach their children to pray the rosary, while others do social work. Without claiming that these activities are equivalent, let me stress that their value lies in how well they communicate an awareness of Christ present and remind people to seek Him in everything.
As an adult (and earlier), I beg Jesus to change me, to help me to seek Him more faithfully in the culture that I live in. Insofar as my children find these habits and gestures useful, they will imitate them in their own lives.
I would say that a Sardinian diet and an Okinowan diet both promote health. But a cafeteria diet of arbitrarily selected items (an American diet) may not be as healthy, even if it contains items that contribute to health in one of those diets.
The cafeteria of religion and spirituality is the modern expression of freedom to choose. It is in reaction to traditionally abusive dominance. People want respect, not threats about their doom to conform.
Because Christianity quite often does not do a good job at communicating wisdom effectively to a broad range of congregants, the shadows of our oppressive pre-modern age linger in their suspicions of Christian motives. This is seen in both attitudes to the authority of the pope and the Moral Majority.
The danger in the New Age movement is not that it is not centered on Christ, or cognizant of the depth of tradition. It is its connection to God.
The craving is for an actual spiritual experience to give form and justify longings not satisfied by traditional methods. The Church is very good with its internal logic. But science has undermined it authority with questions the Church cannot answer, and science is better at providing a reasonable facsimile of heaven-on-earth as Jesus demanded, than 2000 years of prayers have.
Our society is built on healing the sick, peaceful tolerance, and fighting poverty of the masses with capitalist abundance and comfort. Business, unlike kingly power, cannot survive by 'selling' pain. It must sell pain relief, even if it has to create the need to fulfill it.
I think Jesus would be happy that He would not find the material neglect or harsh attitudes that He found by the healing pool of His day. Power cannot survive without money, and it needs the prosperity of the masses to sustain their position.
Just like business and Church, the New Age is 'selling' pain relief, to fulfill a need. The wisdom in most religions is very deep and profound, and maintains a commonality with other faiths.
The danger in the New Age movement, is just like the dangers that exist in all religions. If the wisdom is not tied to the active living God, it will be converted to knowledge and used for our mind's agenda.
Christianity suffers from an anaemia of spiritual wisdom outside of the human-to-God pipeline. Outside of this spiritual pipe no other spiritual reality is acknowledged.
The craving of spiritual seekers today is to understand beyond this pipeline, to connect with a greater spirituality that submission to Jesus, Church and theology does not satisfy.
The spirit world is more rich and diverse than we can ever imagine. It can be tapped into by the spiritually knowledgeable. But once again, if that knowledge is not tied to the wisdom of God, it will be subject to the same dangers as the religious who mistake their knowledge of religion for the wisdom of God.
God is not obvious. That is why Jesus is fundamental in our spiritually bleak wasteland, to connect us to God in a reliable way.
But there are many traditions in the cafeteria of belief that are also paths to God. If you dig deep enough, you will find Jesus the most satisfying venue to provide God's wisdom in the situation that civilized humans the world over are in. The spiritual reality of Jesus relieves so many of the burdens of living in a mind-dominated reality. But He does not let us escape this condition of perception. He was only sent to help us through it.
People now want more. They do not have the physical threats that we once had with disease, poverty, oppression and death. Now they are asking 'what is outside of this pipeline that I am yearning for?'
God is now willing to connect spiritually through those who seek Him within other traditions with the same satisfaction as Jesus provided in the contricted lives of our forebears. The decline of the Church in the last forty years is the easiest evidence to begin that discussion. It got out of the way for these yearning to rise to the surface.
But the New Age must connect with God first. Without Him they are as lost in spiritual reality as worshippers of consumerism are today.
The New Age includes not just weird crystal lover and pyramid afficionados. It includes Eastern religions as well, that provide hints of a spiritual reality beyond the Christian spiritual pipe.
And it all leads back to Jesus in the end. It is all there, but we cannot see it now because we are stuck within our confined, rich palace of theology.
What was the reality that Jesus existed in? Why can't we figure Him out to our mind's satisfaction? Why is He so confusing?
The soothing balm that the Church has applied to this sore increasingly does not suffice anymore. People still demand a satisfactory answer on the mind's terms, in an experiential way. They want out of the pipe.
The only problem is, we do not understand our own predicament in a way we can comprehend. 'What do they know of England, if all they know is England?'
Until a language is developed to bore through the pipe, God will remain a distant light at the far end of a tunnel.
This is the danger of our new spiritual times.
Thank you for time reading this post.
Blessing upon you,
Sun Warrior
After midnight here and have only just noticed these two posts from Fred and Sun Warrior.
Though weary, want to make an *initial* response to both
(and I may add more tomorrow)
It seems to me that Truth, Profound Truth ...
can be and is conveyed in ways that are neither
a) reason - which as Fred says, often lacks power to change our lives
b) what can be reduced to what Sun Warrior calls 'traditionally abusive dominance ... threats about ... doom to conform'.
As this discussion has begun with Catholicism, I will note that the Catholic Church has **convinced** me through *neither* of the above ...
But it has convinced me (not co-erced me) with an **experience** ...
and interestingly enough, for me, it has convinced me through an experience I have had as I have become ever more traditional.
Now Sun Warrior speaks of
'an actual spiritual experience to give form and justify longings not satisfied by traditional methods.'
So Sun Warrior is asserting the need of an experience not satisfied by tradition
and yet by contrast, my own experience is of having life-long longings that were never met -
**except** by my walking the path of tradition
For example, walking the path of tradition to the point of humbling myself (or at least sincerely attempting to, for I am ever filled with pride) and saying
'Bless me father for I have sinned'
Trying to be **really** honest about my failings
and receiving absolution, what Benedict XVI once referred to as the 'scandal' of having one man say to another, you are absolved of your sins ...
And feeling this sacramental absolution to be a spiritual experience of incredible import to my life that I personally ONLY found through becoming ever more traditional.
I feel a similar joy and cleansing in the Sacrament of Holy Communion.
Too tired for more here - so simply want to say, for now, that I agree with Fred and Sun Warrior on different points
... but that my own experience is, that entered into sincerely ... not through conformist pressure ... the Tradition can **speak** in way that is neither rationalist, nor co-ercive and disrespectful ...
And I certainly know that the Catholic Church has indeed done far, far too much under the heading of what Sun Warrior identifies as'traditionally abusive dominance' ...
But without denying that, I simply maintain that it has **also** been doing something else for those who sincerely enter into its tradition ...
A selection of what I should ideally like to say in response. There is much more in these rich posts I may respond to when I am refreshed ...
May ... at the moment, I can't promise. But I do appreciate many other aspects of these posts very much. Thank you, friends.
Roger,
let me say, thank you for the attentive, substantial response to both these comments and those on the thread above.
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