Vol. 6, No. 9, 1989

Articles on the New Age

Tom Forehand

In the 1950's and early 1960's, Nashville witnessed fast growth as the Country Music capital of the world and as one of the major music centers in the nation. Its full-scale model of the Parthenon in Centennial Park and its dozen or more college and universities had given Nashville the nickname of "The Athens of the South." Its Vanderbilt University, more recently "unnoted" for its football program, was at that time basking in the notoriety of the Bill Wade era. To boot, Nashville was pumping out tons of religious literature published by the Methodists and Baptists.

However, now a "New Age" has hit Country Music City U.S.A. -- that is, according to the publication Nashville Scene (July 13, 1989, Bruce Dobie, editor).

The New Age Movement is nothing more than pagan eastern philosophy (Hindu - Buddhist for the most part) come to America in a myriad of different expressions. Its central tenants are the beliefs that:

1. "God" is everything (or inseparable from everything). Sometimes the New Age god is called "Love" or "Principle" or simple a "force".

2. One is god or part of god.

3. One lives multiple lives (reincarnations in later lives) to help work off a sin debt ("karma").

4. One needs to concentrate (or meditate) on the "force" that is all around him and thus come to the realization that he is truly "god."

According to New Agers (who believe that this earth has entered into a new age for its evolutionary cycle), there is a need for "crystals" to help one draw on that supposed invisible "force" for power or to help one to learn more about himself. "Channellers" are needed to help one to realize that he has been in so-called past lives, and thus to help him to chart his future course in this life. Also, there are a thousand other items, schemes and methods (hardly ever free) to help one come to his own personal "god realization" and thus to help him to achieve... whatever!

According to Dobie: "In Nashville, New Agers are bouncing in Ippi sweat lodges, banging on drums, and indulging in channeling, Tarot, numerology, far Eastern religions, Native American philosophies, holotropic breathing, animal spirit readings, herbal medicine, color interpretation, energy flows, aural readings, hand-healing, faith healing, EST, ISA, Alaya, Shamanism, UFO's and past lives," (p. 9).

Also, according to Dobie, certain local bulletin boards such as Market Street Emporium, Dragonfly Books, the Slice of Life, the Magic Journey Bookstore and others post New Age happenings. There are, in addition, several New Age periodicals spread around Music City entitled, Trans... Thought Trends... (and) Andy Hewitt's Sacred Earth News," (p. 8).

However, one of the most unusual New Age ventures on which Dobie reports is found in nearby Pegram.

Pegram, which in yesteryear was noted for its men's baseball teams, has become the home of Gary Adler's seat lodge (Gary is a graduate of a New Age cult group, EST -- Erhard Seminar Training). Only a few miles away, high schoolers are religiously suffering and sweating out two-a-day football sessions for Montgomery Bell Academy (preparing to beat its arch rival Father Ryan) while Gary is teaching people to sweat for good ol' Mother Earth. He is quoted concerning his sweating method, "You suffer a little bit," (p. 10).

However, the saddest part of Dobie's article is: "The longer I researched the New Age scene, the more the fun wore off. What I can only describe as a feeling of sadness set it. Many New Agers are spiritually hungry people. It seems to be a never ending process of replacing one passing spiritual movement with another," (p. 10).

How sad! How true! In the fifties and early sixties, many would have simply laughed off most New Agers as faddish Bohemians or beat-niks. But today, it looks like the Nashville New Age is here to stay.

Nashville New Agers need the only, truly personal God who has come to this earth -- the God who created it, the Lord Jesus Christ and His shed blood for the forgiveness of their sins. Jesus Christ's substitutionary doing and dying, unlike the fads associated with the New Age, will never come and go. Jesus is the only One who can give the true and everlasting peace that even Nashville New Agers are looking for. They need His resurrection and not an imaginary reincarnation; they need His mediation and not their spiritually ineffective meditation.