by Texe Marrs
Benjamin Creme is the promoter of a New Age “Christ” whom he names as the Lord Maitreya. It is interesting that Buddhism claims that after his death, the god-consciousness of Buddha was transmitted into a spirit entity known as the “Maitreya” in the spirit world. Supposedly, this Lord Maitreya is to return again to the world to become the New Age Christ and show man the way to godhood and perfection. As one expert, M. Williams, states in Buddhism (page 181):
At the moment of his attaining Buddhahood, he (Gautama Buddha) had transferred the divine essence to Maitreya, the loving and compassionate one... Maitreya watches over, promotes the interest of the Buddhist faith, while awaiting the time he is to appear on the earth as the Maitreya, or the fifth Buddha of the present age.
The Major Teachings of Buddhism
Once we understand that Buddhism proceeded from and is simply another form of Hinduism with minor modifications, we then begin to realize why the teachings of the Buddhists are so prevalent today in the New Age. Buddhism is a flexible religion that greatly accommodates even the most bizarre and far out teachings and doctrines. So it is a natural to be used as a cornerstone of the eclectic and syncretic New Age World Religion.
Listed below is a brief description of some of the major concepts and teachings of Buddhism:
The Eight-fold Path: Those who would themselves become little Buddhas are said to tread the eight-fold path, which includes right understanding, right thoughts, right speech, right action, right means of earning a living, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. All of these are thought to lead to singleness of mind, wisdom, and finally to nirvana, a state of heavenly bliss.
The Four Noble Truths: When the Buddha became enlightened, he supposedly perceived four truths about the state of humanity. The first is the truth that man suffers through sickness, old age, etc. A second truth is that this suffering is caused by man’s inadequacies; for example, his lust and greed. Third, man, through his will and through certain spiritual techniques and knowledge, can break through this suffering. Fourth, by undertaking the eight-fold path, man may finally put an end to his suffering and achieve nirvana, or union with the divine “all that is.”
Karma: Buddhism teaches that negative karma results from man’s thoughts and acts. This karma is carried over to the next life as is the good karma collected. In other words, man accumulates certain types of energy forces which mold and shape his future existences on the path to nirvana.
Samsara: Samsara is simply a synonym for reincarnation, the repeated process and cycles of birthing and death. Unlike the truth of the Bible (see Hebrews 9:27) where we find that man is appointed once to die and then to face God Almighty in judgment, Buddhism, as does other New Age religions and cults, says that man is destined to be born over and over and over again. An individual must live many lifetimes. During these lifecycles he may alternatively progress through incarnations as a lowly insect, an animal, a human, or he may become an insatiable ghost or even a demon.
Enlightenment: Buddhism says that man can become enlightened. He can become a Buddha himself, though this may require many lifetimes. It is claimed that one of the wisest and most effective ways to achieve enlightenment, especially as taught by New Agers today, is to contact the spiritual beings that exist in the other spiritual realms so they can be way-showers and guide a person along the eight-fold path.
Goddess worship: Though not every Buddhist practices goddess worship, many do. In the far East, the most popular feminine deity is the Chinese River Goddess, Qwan Yin, often called the Goddess of Mercy. She is also popular among New Agers in the West. Qwan (or Kwan) Yin is called on by people who have everyday problems, and it is claimed that she is able to help them understand how to be happy and joyful, how to recognize the beauty within, and finally, how to succeed in attaining the paradise state of nirvana.
The Buddhists have a collection of scriptures which are called the Tripitaka, which means “three baskets.” It is called three baskets because it really constitutes three major divisions. The first tells one how to live, the second discusses the basic ideals and teachings of Buddha, and finally, there is the Dharmapada which sums up all the teachings of Buddhism in a concise and easy way to learn. Other scriptures are known as the Sutras. These are especially taught in the New Age.
The Art of Meditation
The philosophy called Zen Buddhism is widely popular in the New Age today. Emphasizing meditation, Zen Buddhists chant using a mantra, a word or phrase that is recited over and over again in the belief that much recitation will somehow cause the spiritual world to intervene or the physical plane (the material world) to be changed. The syllable “om” (or “aum”) is most used as a mantra, but any type of word will do. A number of those who have studied Hinduism use the names of Hindu goddesses and gods as mantras.
Also in Zen Buddhism there is the mandala, a diagram or drawing which contains circles within larger circles and is also sometimes composed of triangles and other occultic symbols. The mandala is thought to be a spiritual diagram, or rendering of the universe—a sort of labyrinth to help people find salvation. Many mandalas are colorful. Worshippers usually visualize, centering in on and focusing on a mandala. They literally achieve a trance-like state. Such occult techniques as meditation, the chanting of mantras, and centering on a mandala produce self-hypnotism and make the individual vulnerable to demonic influences and susceptible to warped psychological feelings and intuitions.
Popularity Among New Agers
It is undeniable that Buddhism is increasingly finding support in the New Age. In fact, it is almost inseparable from the New Age. For example, in People magazine recently was an article about the booming Japanese Buddhist sect of Nichiren Shoshu (Soka Gokkai). According to the article, thousands of Americans now daily retire to a secluded place in their home where they have set up an altar for the Buddha, complete with candles, water bowls (which make a ringing sound), and other artifacts of a spiritual nature. Families then commence to chant as they kneel quietly and clasp their hands together in a praying mode. Rosaries may be used, as rosary beads are extremely popular among Buddhists and Hindus alike.
Though the Bible warns against vain repetition, to the devotees of Nichiren Shoshu chanting is magical; what they are doing is worshipping a scroll called the Ghonson, which is behind the doors of the altar. The common chant is: “nammyoho-nenge-kiyo,” which means “I bow to,” or worship, “the lotus satra.”
There are hundreds of thousands of Nichiren Shoshu members today; the sect is especially influential among Japanese-Americans, but increasingly it is finding favor among others looking for a new spirituality. Although most sect members reside in Los Angeles and elsewhere in Southern California, there is also a temple in Houston and other centers in Chicago and other cities.
Many prominent Americans have expressed a belief in Buddhism, particularly Zen Buddhism. Among them: California governor Jerry Brown, actors Richard Gere, Patrick Duffy and John Travolta, and singer Tina Turner. Positive articles on Zen Buddhism are constantly found in such magazines as Life, Time, Newsweek, and even Reader’s Digest, not to mention the various women’s magazines.
Zen Buddhism: Inroads into Christian Churches
Zen Buddhism has also found its way into many Christian churches. M. Scott Peck, bestselling author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Road Less Traveled, is a promoter of Zen Buddhism. Sadly, a number of Protestant and Catholic churches frequently invite Peck to speak to their congregations. Even Southern Baptist churches have done so; yet, he does not attempt to hide his New Age orientation.
Also, my ministry continually receives reports about Zen Buddhist instruction given by nuns, priests, and laymen at Catholic retreats. Zen Buddhism has also gained support among Methodist and Episcopal pastors and priests, and it is not uncommon at all to find occult forms of Zen Buddhist meditation being taught in these churches. Christian psychiatrists and counselors, regrettably, are often among the biggest promoters of Zen Buddhist me
ditation though they rarely call their recommended therapy by that name.
Buddhism is most definitely unholy and unbiblical. The core teaching of Buddhism is that man must attain his own salvation through works, doing so through a series of incarnations. In contrast, Christianity teaches that man is saved by grace alone through the atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ. Moreover, in I Corinthians 2:5, Paul wisely taught: “That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” Thus man cannot work his way to self-empowerment. We see also the clear Bible teaching that Jesus Christ is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” and that no person can come to the Father but by Him.
In sum, Buddhism teaches that there is no one personal God and that man is responsible for his own salvation. There is also no Father in Heaven who has provided a way through the atonement of Christ on the cross for us to be saved. Buddhism does not lead to enlightenment as it boasts, but is instead only one of many religions which, in fact, lead men into pervasive darkness.
Chapter 15: THE CENTER FOR DANCES OF UNIVERSAL PEACE
The Center For Dances of Universal Peace, located in Fairfax, Virginia, and connected with the Sufi Moslems, is an organization whose goal is to promote mystical holy dancing throughout the world. According to the organization’s statement of purpose, “The Center’s programs seek to mine the resources of deep mystical understanding and practices that are found in all the sacred religions of the Earth.” The group was founded by American mystic Samuel L. Lewis in 1964 under the inspiration of two of his spiritual teachers, the Sufi leader Hazrat Inayat Khan and American sacred dance pioneer Ruth St. Denis. Lewis passed away in 1971 and currently, Neil Douglas-Klotz is the leader.
The Sufis encourage a circular form of dancing called the dervish. The Center For Dances of Universal Peace believes that by teaching all peoples to practice a form of sacred dance in which they circle around and around in concentric circles, this will help lead to world peace and a oneness of all mankind. The dance is finding popularity among members of Buddhist, Hindu, and Sufi Moslem groups alike as well as various New Age and peace-oriented organizations.
The center combines its dances with mystical music, combining Zoroastrian, Christian, Catholic, Celtic, Jewish, and other traditions. As they dance, there are fables and storytelling going on in the traditions of the goddess and other Eastern teachings. The Center conducts retreats and workshops around the world and has established small groups in Germany, Japan, the United States, Holland, Canada, France, and even inside the Soviet Union.
Though The Center for Dances of Universal Peace claims that it favors no religions or ideologies, in fact, it is exclusively mystical in nature and its publications are filled with images of the mother goddess in her various incarnations, whether as Isis in Egypt, Mary for the Catholics, the sorceress of the ancient pagans, as an unnamed, beautiful blond woman with a flowing white gown holding up a flame, or even as the Statue of Liberty. It should also be noted that Neil Douglas-Klotz has published a new esoteric version of the Lord’s Prayer which reinterprets the model prayer given by Jesus in the New Testament to fit the desired goals of New Age mysticism.
Chapter 16: CHINOOK LEARNING CENTER
Fritz Hull, who with his wife, Vivienne, founded the Chinook Center in 1972, insists that his center is not involved with the “New Age.” It is instead, he recently told a newspaper reporter, “A place that integrates living and understanding, teaching people to live in harmony with the earth.” Nonsense. The Chinook Center, believe me, is most definitely classic New Age. Housed on scenic Whidbey Island outside of greater Seattle, Washington, Chinook occupies some 64 acres of what was once an old Finnish farm house. This is a tranquil, woodsy setting where the group produces organic crops and educates its youngsters in its own Waldorf School (see section on Anthroposophy).
The learning program that Chinook offers three to four thousand New Agers from around the country each year leaves no doubt about the New Age direction of the group. For example, there is a seminar called “The Gateway Experience” in which participants are invited to “follow our bliss” and work for “the dream of the earth.” Chinook has also conducted workshops on Sacred Dance and seminars on Mending the Sacred Hoops, Sexuality of the Earth, and the Cosmic Dance.
Fritz Hull, Chinook’s founder, is a Presbyterian minister who each Sunday morning offers a “universal communion” during his services in downtown Clinton, Washington. Another official of Chinook is a man named Wes Veatch, a minister with the Disciples of Christ denomination. Hull and Veatch are sure that a new cycle is before us. In a newsletter (The Chinook Letter, Fall 1987), Hull wrote: “Ahead is a new cycle of history... A new‘tough love.’” He remarked that a shift is taking place on the earth. This shift involves, “The waning influence of conservative and fundamentalist religions.” According to Hull, the Christian fundamentalist is putting out a lot of loud rhetoric, but biblical (fundamentalist) Christians do not “foster a compassionate society.” At the same time, he insists that the new shift in society opens the way for the mystical movement “to emerge with greater power than ever before.”
According to its own claims, there are over 800 Chinook Associate and Covenant members and over 5,000 on the Center’s mailing list. One of the most notable members is a man named David Spangler, widely known throughout the New Age for his books. Spangler once stated that Lucifer has come to bring man to wholeness in the New Age. He is a channeler of a number of spirit beings, including an entity who calls himself “Limitless Love and Truth.” Spangler and other New Agers are greatly desirous of merging Christianity with the New Age, thus their campaign to de-emphasize the term “New Age” which is obviously a thinly veiled attempt at doublespeak.
Chapter 17: THE CHRIST FOUNDATION
Are these the actual words of Jesus?:
I come to be one with you. This is Jesus speaking. I speak to you through the pages of this book and tell you of the wisdom of the ages. I come to tell you of love, and of love between man and woman. I come to teach you and to show you a better way, one that will give you the ecstasy and the fulfillment for which you long, one that will lead you to the outermost reaches of Who You are. I am Jesus, come again. Read Me.
A gross and disgusting example of the New Age attempt to pervert true Christianity is the New Age book, A Spiritual Sex Manual. Published by an obscure group in Washington state that calls itself “The Christ Foundation,” the book is a sex manual that gives detailed instructions. Only a foul demon spirit could have inspired the human authors and publishers to print this despicable book.
No doubt many with a New Age worldview and others who are skeptics of Biblical Christianity will love this book because it comes packaged with beautiful prose and messages of “love,” “peace,” and “wholeness.” It is an expensively and spectacularly produced book, with romantically pink paper, beautiful illustrations of roses and so forth. Moreover—and this is the startling news—the publisher claims the book is personally written by Jesus himself. “Jesus” supposedly even signed the foreword of the book. The living woman who is the one to whom “Jesus” transmitted this book says in it that she is the reincarnated Mary Magdalene who once was Jesus’lover.
In A Spiritual Sex Manual, “Jesus” gives a glowing and approving account of his sexual affair with Mary Magdalene (they supposedly slipped away from the disciples into the nearby fields outside of Jerusalem). Then “he” goes on to detail various sex rituals and acts readers can practice and master for their physical enjoyment and spiritual growth.
This “Jesus” talks vaguely about “God’s Plan for the Salvation of the World.” He seems to be a wonderful teacher who simply wants men and women to enjoy sex as a loving and holy act, in or out of marriage. If a person has not discovered the real Jesus—the Jesus revealed in the Holy Bible—he or she could well be suckered in by this sex instructor imitation.
The Holy Bible warns us about the imitation Jesuses to come, for example, we read:
For if h
e that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit... ye might well bear with him (2 Cor. 11:4).
But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed (Gal. 1:8).
Chapter 18: CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
If you are interested in a religion whose founder wrote: “The sick through their own beliefs have induced their own conditions,” who also taught that evil is an illusion, that the term “Christ” refers merely to a principle, and that God is simply Mind, then Christian Science is for you. Christian Science, formally named the Church of Christ, Scientist, was incorporated in 1879 by Mary Baker Eddy.
Eddy asserted that her teachings were the “final revelation of God for mankind.” She also insisted that her book, Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures, was equal to the Bible in authority. But since Mrs. Eddy wrote that she had found hundreds of errors in the Bible, it can be assumed that she believed that her works superior to the Bible. Today, in the meeting halls and churches of Christian Science, her books receive equal credence with the Bible at worship services.
Mary Baker Eddy first came to learn of what she called Christian Science from a man by the name of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. In 1860 she suffered from a spinal problem and visited Quimby seeking a cure. She had heard that Quimby was advocating something that he called “Christian Science,” a healing through one’s own mind power. So impressed was Mrs. Eddy (then Mrs. Patterson) that she began to research this area herself. Eventually, she published her book, Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures, the first edition of which was riddled with grammatical and other errors. The book’s contents were apparently plagiarized heavily from the works of Quimby and other authors and especially a man named Frances Leber, a German-American philosopher who had written a manuscript entitled “The Metaphysical Religion of Hegel.”
