New Age Cults and Religions

by Texe Marrs

  The worship services conducted by Elizabeth Clare Prophet and broadcast nationally on television are prime examples of weird religious theatre. As Prophet speaks in a hypnotic, monotonal voice, behind her on one side of the altar is a small statue of Buddha. On the other side of the altar is a miniature replica of the Statue of Liberty. Hanging on the left side of the wall above the altar is a picture of a bearded, long-haired Jesus who appears to be blonde-haired and blue-eyed. To the right is a picture of what the New Agers believe Count St. Germain looks like. Between these two pictures is a print of a prototypical god-man being illuminated by beings from an effervescent sun.

  Prophet calls her spirit guides the Lords of the Flame. It is to these Lords that her audience chants incessantly, in a process the church calls decreeing. This chanting, repeating verses and stanzas repeatedly, easily puts the congregation in a hypnotic state of altered consciousness, leaving them highly susceptible to suggestions by their leader, the Mother, Elizabeth Clare Prophet. At the conclusion of this chanting, Guru Ma, as she is called, often conducts healing services, laying hands on the foreheads and brows of worshippers who come forward to be healed. Sometimes the audience sings Amazing Grace and other Christian or pseudochristian hymns. The whole atmosphere seems like something out of a strange, mystical, and esoteric novel, but it is all for real.

  The Dangers of CUT

  The dangers of the New Age become vividly clear when we review the operations of the Church Universal and Triumphant. Hundreds of families have been broken up by this cult. Many wives and husbands flee their homes, coming to Montana from all parts of the United States in order to be there personally at the scenic community ranch in the Teton Mountains near Yellowstone. It is reported that some have given Prophet and the church tens of thousands of dollars, even their entire life savings, all in a vain attempt to achieve a higher state of Cosmic Consciousness.

  In 1985, Randall King, an ex-husband of Elizabeth Clare Prophet, alleged that Prophet and the church use devious tactics to get people’s money. As King explained it to People magazine:

  You wanted to get them hooked into the organization’s belief system... you wanted to get them decreeing, which was the programming technique. You get a little bit more control over these people by having them repeat these things (hypnotic chants) over and over.

  They would be so caught up that, well, they would give us all their money, sell their houses, hock their jewelry, sell everything. They would give us a hundred thousand dollars and then wind up on our doorsteps in their sleeping bags and be willing to sleep on the floor, if we would just show them “the way.”

  Prophet has denied King’s allegations but does preach that she has “the way.” The Ascended Masters, says Prophet, constantly talk to her, guide her ministry, and help her perform healing and other miracles. Randall King believes that Prophet, his ex-wife, is in touch with these spirits and that the Mystery Teachings she reveals result from extra-worldly transmissions.

  Whether or not Prophet’s messages come from the spirit world or from her own vivid and potent imagination, the fact is that these teachings do indeed come from hellish originations. One thing that Prophet tells her followers is that the Jesus of the traditional Christian church is a lie. Prophet’s group has even published books, under the imprint of her Summit University Press, that purport to be “the lost teachings of Jesus.” Like Edgar Cayce and other New Age teachers, Prophet maintains that Jesus traveled to Tibet and other Asian countries and became a Master through an initiation process. So it is that she denies the true God of the Bible and reveals the true source of her revelations.

  Chapter 22: DALAI LAMA

  At the age of five the man whom New Agers and Buddhists alike venerate as “His Holiness, the Dalai Lama,” was proclaimed Dalai Lama by the Buddhist monks who controlled his nation of Tibet in the mountainous regions to the north of China and India. The word “dalai” comes from the Mongolian word for “ocean,” signifying broad knowledge, while the word “lama” refers to a spiritual teacher. According to Tibetan Buddhism, the Dalai Lama is a literal incarnation on earth of their master, Buddha.

  At the age of 16, the Dalai Lama was forced to flee Tibet over the Himalayas with some 100,000 followers when his native land of Tibet was invaded and conquered by the Red Chinese. That was in 1959; in the intervening years, the Dalai Lama has lived in India and spent a great part of his life in the United States as well, promoting Tibetan Buddhism, but more than that, working tirelessly for the establishment of a unified One World Religion.

  In the United States, in New York City, the Dalai Lama’s organization, Tibet House, was established in 1987. Ostensibly, its purpose is to exhibit Tibetan fine arts and promote cultural programs; but its true interests lie beyond the cultural. This is an educational and political institution under the patronage of the Dalai Lama. Its major goal is to promote Tibetan Buddhism as a major force in the United States and the world. Its dominant theme is a one world culture and a one world community.

  A Nobel Peace Prize for the Dalai Lama

  The Dalai Lama is one of the premier spiritual leaders of the New Age. He has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize and been invited to Amherst College in Massachusetts where a large group of medical researchers and college professors sat rapturously as the Dalai Lama patiently taught them that Buddhist psychology and spirituality were examples of science and equally as valid as the scientific understanding of the West. In his newspaper, Wisdom, the Dalai Lama offers for sale such books as Christianity Meets Buddhism, by Catholic priest Heinrich Dumoulin, a Jesuit. Priest Dumoulin writes in this book that the differences between Christianity and Buddhism have been greatly exaggerated and misunderstood. In essence, he promotes an eclectic blending of the two.

  Also, the Dalai Lama has been invited to be the principal speaker at a number of high level New Age conferences and meetings. For example, on October 2-7, 1989, in Newport Beach, California, he spoke on the subject of “Awakening the Compassionate Heart” and the “Transformation of Consciousness” for the East-West Foundation’s Harmonia Mundi Congress. Also at the Congress were Mother Theresa, the famed Catholic missionary, and priest Thomas Keating, an apologist for the Catholic faith. Keating was billed as “one of the foremost teachers of contemplation (meditation) within the Roman Catholic Church.”

  The Dalai Lama, in an interview for Quest magazine (Autumn 1988), advocated the Buddhist holy sexual practice called the “Tantras.” When he was asked why the Buddhist scriptures are scientifically inaccurate, for example, why they claim that the moon is only 100 miles above the earth, etc., the Dalai Lama showed great flexibility. “If upon investigation,” he answered, “you find that there is reason and truth in Western science, it is important to accept the fact, the real situation....” But at the same time the Dalai Lama accorded a courtesy to the Buddhist literalists when he added, “If there are teachers who still hold to the literal meaning, then that is their own business. There is no need to argue with them. You can see things according to your own interpretation, and they can see things as they see fit.”

  This flexible attitude in terms of spiritual doctrines and teachings is common in the Dalai Lama’s speeches and interviews. For instance, he has admitted that he believes in spirit entities who inhabit places and sometimes communicate with human beings; but if you or I do not believe in these entities, the Dalai Lama simply smiles and says, “Fine.”

  “World peace,” he teaches, “is achieved based only on a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood.” According to the Dalai Lama, man’s salvation does not even depend on a belief in God for, as he has stated, “Whether we believe in God or not does not matter, but that we live peacefully, with a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood.”

  The Dalai Lama’s religious views are greatly admired in the New Age because of their pragmatic and all-encompassing nature. In 1982 he told an interviewer: “I generally believe that every major religion has a potential of giving any human being good advice... Hence, we look an
d study, and we find a teaching that is most suitable to our own tastes.” This is simply a restatement of the core teaching of the New Age that God is simply the deity of our own choice. We pick and choose our deities much like a customer makes selections at the counter of a cafeteria. “God as you understand him” is the keynote of the New Age World Religion.

  Chapter 23: DRUIDS

  When Julius Caesar conquered Britain in 60 AD., he was astonished and shocked at the perverse and grotesque nature of the religious system practiced by the conquered peoples. He and his soldiers discovered blood-stained rows of trees; howling, black-clad priests; screaming and violent women. Later, Caesar himself wrote of seeing mass burnings of human and animal victims in huge wicker cages. He told of the human sacrifices that were common to these pagans who worshipped the sun god, Hu, and the goddess Ceridwen. The religion that Caesar found so appalling was that of the Druids, also called the Druidic Order.

  The Druids held sway in Great Britain in the pre-Christian era. The mysterious circular network of stones in the ruins of Stonehenge are one of the few remains of this unholy religion, whose god, Hu, was symbolized by the serpent and his goddess by the egg. Like the worshippers of Hu and Ceridwen in ancient days, there are today Druidic sects and orders in Great Britain, in the United States, and on the continent of Europe which continue many of the ungodly traditions of their ancient predecessors.

  In today’s Freemasonry there are also connections with Druidism. Albert Pike, former Grand Sovereign Master of Freemasonry, once said that the “Lost Word of Masonry” is concealed in the name of the Druid god Hu (see Manly P. Hall’s The Secret Teachings of All Ages).

  The popular fantasy stories about Merlin the Magician, King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, the bard Taliesin, and fair maidens, in their mythical and legendary land of Camelot are, in fact, legends that emanated from the days when Great Britain was dominated by the Druidic priesthood. This is why it ,is quite incredible that one Christian publisher, Crossway Books, today publishes a number of novels by a man named Stephen Lawhead with such titles as Arthur, Merlin, and Taliesin. In these novels Lawhead attempts somehow to connect this ancient evil with Christianity.

  It is Lawhead’s assertion that Taliesin, Arthur, and others have factual, historical origins and that it was they who helped to convert Britain to Christianity. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. For example, in Glastonbury, England in 1987, it was reported that modern Druidic followers and their Spirit Teacher communicated with the spirit world and were told that the new era would be brought in by “the reawakening of Arthur the King.” It is also been reported that Merlin the Magician’s spirit (actually, a demon) has been appearing to many occultists and spirit channelers, both in England and in the United States. Therefore, although Lawhead and Crossway Books may attempt to claim that their motives are altruistic in writing and publishing such books, theirs is simply the promotion of another gospel—an accursed gospel (see Galatians 1 and 2 Corinthians 11:4).

  Devil Worshippers

  Many of today’s Druids are closely related to the witchcraft sects in their beliefs and religious practices and rituals. They believe that good and evil are simply flip sides of the same coin; many believe in transmigration and almost all believe in reincarnation and karma, two primary New Age teachings. They also believe that it is man’s destiny to achieve unity with the gods and they particularly emphasize goddess worship and the powers of the earth and nature. Theirs is a fertility cult and a worship of occult medicine, the celestial bodies, black magic, feast days, and most of all, the veneration of their deity, the sun god.

  Some Druidic groups, particularly in the United States, express a belief in nature spirits such as fairies, gnomes, and undines, little creatures of the forests and rivers to whom offerings are made. Some recognize and worship the goddess by many different names, such as Caillech, the Crone, or as Kali. A number of Druidic groups meet deep in the forest near the major cities. There among a grove of trees they conduct their strange fire rituals; yet, the following Monday morning, they put on their business suits, or their doctors’ or nurses’ smocks, and head for the everyday workworld.

  Chapter 24: ECKANKAR

  Who is “the god-man of the age?” Who is “omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, all-wise, and is in all places simultaneously?” If your answer is Jesus, then you are not a disciple of the New Age religion known as Eckankar. In the book The Precepts of Eckankar, by founder Paul Twitchell, it is claimed that Eckankar is the highest of all religions and that “the Mahanta, the living ECK Master who presides over this religious system, is a god like no others.” Indeed, the living head of this cult is said to be:

  Changeless and Self-Luminous.

  The Master, the Ruler of the Whole World.

  A peer of Krishna, Buddha, Vishnu... “He is Zeus to the Greeks; Jupiter to the Romans;... Jehovah to the old Judean;... Jesus to the Christian; Allah to the Mohammedans.”

  The secret force behind world historical events.

  The key to the whole universal scheme of life.

  God-made flesh on earth.

  It can plainly be seen, then, that the ECK Master is no ordinary human person like the rest of us. He is claimed to be God of all. As Twitchell summarizes, “this sounds very strange but it is true.”

  It does indeed sound strange, especially in light of the fact that the founder of Eckankar, the late Paul Twitchell, once stated that his was “a one man cult, with myself as founder, president, and disciple.” That was, however, before this bizarre religion caught on with thousands of New Age seekers who have now made Eckankar an international movement of at least 75,000 active members. In addition, as many as a million persons have studied the works of Twitchell or participated in Eckankar in one way or another.

  Soaring into Heavenly Realms Through Astral Travel

  American Paul Twitchell began Eckankar around 1965, proclaiming he had been given the mantle of ECK Master by the former ECK Master, Rabazar Tarz, a Tibetan. Twitchell said that he was the 971st ECK Master in a long line of such human gods. According to Twitchell, it was Tarz who taught him the principles of soul (or astral) travel. Through soul travel, an individual is supposedly able to soar into heavenly realms and eventually achieve union with the great God SUGMAD (referred to as IT), whose secret name is Hu.

  Eckankar’s literature presents Twitchell’s unique formulation and mosaic of Hindu, Druid, Buddhist, Scientology, and distinctly Western-flavored New Age doctrines. One primary teaching is that the soul must reincarnate millions of times unless a disciple masters the “science of soul travel” taught by Eckankar. In that case, a disciple (called a chela) can become a god right now, in this very incarnation.

  Eckankar’s soul travel technique involves the use of visualization, chants, and meditation, music and other means to attain an altered state of consciousness, a hypnotic state, in which the person is led to believe his spirit has left his body.

  Eckankar’s teachings certainly are at odds with those in the Bible, as a review of John 1:1; 3:16; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3 and 9:27 will easily prove. The quotes below taken from Paul Twitchell’s Precepts of Eckankar will enlighten the reader to some of the more “advanced” doctrines of Eckankar:

  The state of being god enlightened... comes by the practice of ECKANKAR, the Ancient Science of Soul Travel... ECK is the mainstream of life out of which all other doctrines flow. It is the basic teachings of religious beliefs, philosophy, and other doctrines in the fulfillment of life... The revelation of ECK will be a shock when it strikes the individual. It upsets one’s faith and cherished beliefs.

  Eckankar... will lead... the traveler on the path of Truth... to the true teacher, the Sat Guru, who will lead him out of darkness into the heavenly light of the Highest Kingdom. Thus he will gain freedom and his knowledge will be the greatest of all wisdom, not gained from studies of books but from contacts with God (SUGMAD) Itself.

  Anyone can reach the Kingdom of Heaven by
the trial and error method, but it will take millions of reincarnations to do so. No amount of prayer or any religious faith will bring about freedom from the uncertainties of life, not until one has the good fortune to meet and be accepted by the (ECK) Master.

  (Through soul travel) the chela (disciple) enters the regions of pure spirit and becomes a god.

  ECK says that through its own system of spiritual exercises, it can offer individual well-being (godhood) within this lifetime.

  The exercises, or techniques concerning Soul Travel are most important to the chela (disciple) on a path of ECK. It is found that they have been also the foundation of those prophets, saints, and founders of religions such as Buddha, Krishna, Christ, Plato, Rabazar Tarz, and many others.

  Complete surrender to the ECK Master is the only path to total freedom. This means that we must trust our higher interest in the hands of the Sat Guru. By giving the Master everything that one possesses, he in turn will give the chela (disciple) all he has. One can only gain by giving everything.

  Complete Surrender Required

  As the quote immediately above indicates, Eckankar requires its disciples to surrender completely to the ECK Master, the human being alive today who supposedly is chosen by the spirits to be leader of Eckankar and god of this world. It is interesting that upon founder Paul Twitchell’s death, his wife, Gail, arranged for a man named Darwin Gross to become the successor and the new ECK Master. However, a number of higher initiates of Eckankar were not at all pleased and they began to foment trouble and cause strife within the organization. Finally, Gross was deposed in favor of a man named Darrel Klemp, who has his headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It would seem to be stretching things a bit to require that its members surrender everything they possess to the living ECK Master when the elite of Eckankar do not seem to be quite sure of who the real living ECK Master is today.