The central concepts in the view of the Modern Age on the world are monism and pantheism. Monism asserts that everything is one. In the thinking of the Modern Age, this means that there is only a visible difference between what we perceive with our eyes and what actually is. The only difference between the material and immaterial worlds is our perception of them. Therefore, the monistic advocate of the New Age will say that everything is one, we are all part of each other, we are all part of the same, and there is a spirit that sustains and permeates all matter. Pantheism goes a step further than monism by saying that God is a spiritual unity in everything. God is everywhere. Pantheism explains the world as follows: the world is a slow vibration of God's matter. They say that God is the highest vibration of spirit, and matter is the lowest vibration of spirit. Benjamin Cream, a writer of the Modern Age, formulates the pantheistic view inherent in many Eastern religions as follows: "You are God. I am God. This microphone is God. This table is God. Everything is God" ("The Reappearance of Christ and the Masters of Wisdom", London: Tara Press, 1980, p. 116). God is faceless and immoral. From a monistic or pantheistic point of view, no one can truly comprehend a loving God. Supporters of the New Age will often bring personal shades to their idea of God. Faceless creatures cannot love, create, give life or communicate. The New Age advocates like to say, "God is love," but at the same time they have not yet found the strength to say that a rock or a table (if it is a god) is also love. Perhaps these difficulties are the reason why some of Mr. Krim's writings seem to contradict his other statements about God: "Strictly speaking, there is no such being as God, God does not exist. But on the other hand, there is nothing but God - only God exists... everything is God. And since everything is God, there is no God" (ibid., p. 110). Since the monistic view of the world states that everything is one, good and evil are considered as different aspects of one unity. Moreover, they are seen only as relating to our existence on earth, and therefore devoid of real meaning and significance. The modernist Fridtjof Capra explains how all things are absorbed by this unity: "All boundaries and dualism are destroyed, and all individuality is dissolved in a universal indistinguishable unity" (The Turningpoint, p. Because God is seen as a universal spirit, He becomes impersonal and immoral. The world is not real. Both views of the world - monistic and pantheistic - imply that the world itself is an illusion, not a reality. Hindus call this "maya". Matter is real, but it disappears when everything becomes one. This conception of Eastern doctrine is often difficult for Western thinkers to accept. When the New Age advocates say that the world is not reality, they are not saying that it does not exist. They believe that the ultimate reality is not the world, but the spirit or unity that permeates the world. The world and all material existence are only the lower vibration of the spiritual essence that is God. Most New Age proponents would say that God created the world out of Himself, in fact, as part of His essence, as we saw earlier in the quote from Benjamin Crick. The writer of the Modern Age, Jane Roberts, who considered herself a channel for the dissemination of the ideas of her spiritual guide Seth and recorded (like an automatic recorder) his messages, said: "He is not one person, but energy... This energy is so incredible that it really shapes all universes; and because this energy is within and beyond all universes, systems, and spheres, it does know every falling sparrow, for it is every falling sparrow" ("The Seth Material," Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1970, pp. 237-238).

The Source of Knowledge of the New Age

The source of knowledge for the adherents of the New Age was subjective knowledge of oneself. They say this: if you have experienced it, then it must be true. Teachers of the New Age avoid objective tests for their experiments. The truth is within and you are divine. The New Age advocates teach their followers that the truth is within them, but the word "truth" is used in a different sense. By "truth" was meant the subjective experience of cognition, so later the result of any experience of the Modern Age was called "truth". The teachers of the Movement also convince their subjects that they are divine, i.e. gods within. From this they conclude that your knowledge cannot be false, because you are gods. In support of the idea of the deification of the human race, actress Shirley MacLaine writes: "Each soul is its own god. You should not worship anyone or anything other than yourself. Because you are 6og" ("Dancing in the Light", p. 358). She also advocates knowledge as truth: "My own out-of-body experience... served to obtain answers to many questions, the most accurate knowledge is obtained from the experiments of cognition" (ibid., p. 35).

Human Nature in the Modern Age

On the question of human nature, there are three points between most groups of the Modern Age on which they all converge. First, in complete contradiction to the Bible, modern believers deny the sinful nature of mankind and claim that man is "basically virtuous." Secondly, the supporters of the Modern Age believe that man is divine. This statement is taken from Eastern religions: "I am not this body." When the supporters of the New Age speak of the spiritual nature of man, his immaterial essence, they explain it by the fact that he is a part of God. In the literature of the Modern Age one can often read that you are divine and you are a god. Thirdly, based on the fact that man is divine and fundamentally good, the supporters of the New Age draw the conclusion that he creates his own existence. By this they mean that you have caused and can cause events that occur in your life against your will. This is not just a desire to live well, but actually the creation of things and circumstances. Benjamin Cream went so far on this issue that he said that we should "pray to the god within us. He will prefer that you should not pray to him, but to the god within you, who is also within him" ("The Reappearance of the Christ," p. 135). Shirley MacLaine said: "I created everything I saw, heard, touched, tasted and smelled; everything I loved, hated, respected, or abhorred... I was my own universe" (New York: Bantam Books, 1985, p. 192). The modern view of human nature destroys the biblical understanding of Jesus Christ. They deny the true divinity of Jesus and that He alone is God and no one else can be God. The Modern Age also denies the purpose of Christ dying on the cross for the sins of the world, since it teaches that man is already a god or that he is essentially virtuous. The teachings of the Modern Age copy the first-century Gnosticism that separated Jesus from Christ. They believed that "Christ" was the spiritual principle that descended upon Jesus at His baptism or birth. Benjamin Cream holds this view, showing that Gnosticism is still widespread in the teachings of the Modern Age: "Christ took possession of the body of Jesus and manifested himself through it in the last three years" (The Reappearance of the Christ, p. 53). And again he says, "When I say 'the coming of Christ,' I don't mean the coming of God... Christ is the Lord of all masters, but not God, and has never affirmed this" (ibid., p. 115). Modern Age supporter Emmett Fax wrote of Jesus:

"His teaching is completely metaphysical... Worthy people have built a very inconsistent legend about original sin, blood atonement for another's guilt, unlimited punishment for limited sins. The Bible does not teach anything of the kind. The "Plan of Salvation" is as unknown to the Bible as it is to the Koran" ("The Sermon on the Mount," New York: Harper Brothers, 1934, p. 5).

Benjamin Cream tries to convince that all spiritual leaders are the same person:

"At the center of the 'Spiritual Hierarchy' stands the Universal Teacher, the Lord, known to Christians as the Christ... the Jews are waiting for the Messiah, the Buddhists are waiting for the fifth Buddha, the Muslims are waiting for Imam Mahli, and the Hindus are waiting for Krishna. All these are the names of one person" (Advertisment, Taga Center, April 25, 1982).

While some New Age proponents identify with Christ in some way, most do not distinguish between Him and other "religious figures."

Moral Conclusions of the Modern Age

All belief systems that recognize evil and sin in one way or another must deal with the moral consequences of actions committed by the human race. The supporters of the Modern Age borrowed from Eastern philosophies the law of karma and reincarnation. The law of karma is the sum total of one's actions and deeds during the form of existence given to him. The reincarnation theorists, who believe in the movement of the soul from a lower life to a higher state of existence and a possible return to a lower one, define the law of karma as the decisive factor in the state of life into which the soul enters. They believe that the soul can only pass from one human state to another, and that the law of karma determines where and under what conditions a person will re-enter the world. If the karma was bad, then a new entry will take place in an undeveloped poor country and perhaps into the poorest class of that country. If the karma was good, a person can be born in a prosperous country and in a wealthy family. Shirley MacLaine tells her readers, "If you are doing well and you are true to your struggles in this life, the next life will be easier" (Out on a Limb, p. 45). And the writer Alice Bailey said: