Is New Age Occult? Mystery, Gnosis, and Spiritual Discernment: Part Two: Christianity and the Hidden

 

This is part two of a 7-part series. You can start with the Introduction here.

In the Introduction to this series, I suggested that we cannot meaningfully ask whether New Age spirituality is “occult” until we define the word. Historically, occult refers first to what is hidden, concealed, or beyond ordinary perception. It does not automatically refer to something that is evil.

That creates an immediate complication for Christianity. Christianity itself is filled with the hidden. The biblical tradition includes dreams, visions, prophecy, angels, healing, mystical encounters, symbolic actions, and experiences of divine presence that cannot be reduced to ordinary sensory perception.

The Christian tradition that followed is no less mysterious. It includes contemplatives and visionaries, stories of divine encounter, practices of discernment, sacramental theology, and centuries of reflection on experiences that resist easy explanation. If the mere presence of unseen spiritual realities makes something “occult,” Christianity would have difficulty exempting itself.

Mystical experience itself cannot be the dividing line. Christianity has a rich mystical tradition. Its mystics have spoken of union with God, divine presence, sacred darkness, interior transformation, visions, silence, and experiences for which ordinary language seems inadequate. Mysticism is not an alien intrusion into Christianity. It is part of Christianity's history.

The same is true of ritual. Christianity is profoundly ritualistic. Water, bread, wine, oil, candles, incense, sacred words, gestures, seasons, fasting, feasting, pilgrimage, laying on of hands, and communal prayer all embody spiritual meaning. Ritual engages more than intellect. It involves the body, imagination, memory, community, symbol, and place. It creates a space in which meaning is not merely explained but enacted.

This matters when Christians encounter rituals from outside their own tradition. A ritual does not become spiritually suspect merely because it involves candles, circles, chanting, sacred objects, symbolic gestures, or attention to particular times and seasons. Christianity has its own versions of many of these things.

The relevant question is not simply: Is this ritual? The more useful questions are:

What does this ritual mean? What kinds of relationships does it cultivate? What understanding of reality does it embody? What does it do to and for the people who participate in it?

This is where I find a distinction between mysticism and manipulation useful.

Mysticism, at its healthiest, involves openness to a reality greater than oneself. It tends toward receptivity, humility, transformation, and an awareness that the mystery encountered cannot be completely possessed or controlled.

Manipulation moves in another direction. It seeks control, certainty, power over others, or guaranteed spiritual outcomes. It may create dependency on a teacher, leader, institution, or system. It may discourage questions. It may use fear to maintain authority.

But here again, Christianity cannot use this distinction only to judge others. Christian communities can also become manipulative. Christian leaders can claim unquestionable spiritual authority. Christian institutions can exploit fear. Christian practices can become superstitious. Christian language can be used to control rather than liberate. A Christian label is therefore no guarantee of spiritual health, just as an “occult,” “pagan,” or “New Age” label is not proof of spiritual danger.

Perhaps the more useful distinctions lie elsewhere: Contemplation or control? Receptivity or manipulation? Humility or spiritual superiority? Freedom or dependency? Love or fear?

These questions do not eliminate theological differences. Different traditions make genuinely different claims about God, humanity, revelation, salvation, and the nature of spiritual reality. But labels alone cannot do the work of discernment. If Christianity wishes to speak meaningfully about “the occult,” it must first acknowledge its own relationship with mystery. It must distinguish the mysterious from the sinister and the unseen from the evil. It must also ask how we decide what is spiritually trustworthy.

For me, that question begins not with Wicca, Theosophy, paganism, or New Age spirituality. It begins much earlier in my spiritual experience. It begins in childhood, within the Wesleyan stream of Christianity.

Next in the series

My spiritual journey did not begin outside Christianity. Its foundation was laid within Methodism.

In Part Three, I will explore how that foundation still shapes my approach to spiritual discernment and how Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience provide a framework for remaining both rooted and open.

Is New Age Occult? Mystery, Gnosis, and Spiritual Discernment: Part One: What Do We Mean by “Occult”?

Books pictured: Reiki for Beginners by Victor Archuleta, Linda Goodman's Star Signs, Meditations on the Tarot, A Journey into Christian Hermeticism by Anonymous, The Golden Bough by James Frazer, and The Tibetan Book of the Dead, with commentary by C.G. Jung;  also a set of Mythic Tarot Cards, a set of Chi balls, a sheathed dagger, and a sitting Buddha candle holder with candle

This is part one of a 7-part series. You can read the Introduction here.

The word “occult” comes with a lot of baggage. In popular Christian usage, “occult” is often treated as synonymous with evil, demonic, forbidden, or spiritually dangerous. As a result, once the word is applied to something, the discussion may effectively be over. The label itself becomes the judgment.

Historically, however, the word has had a broader, more neutral meaning. Derived from the Latin occultus, it refers to that which is hidden, concealed, or not immediately visible. In the history of spirituality and esoteric thought, “the occult” has generally concerned hidden dimensions of reality, unseen forces, and forms of knowledge not readily accessible through ordinary perception. This is the understanding of the term that I am most comfortable with.

Because of my varied spiritual background, I am familiar with “occult” in this older, more traditional sense. I do not automatically hear the word as a synonym for evil. That does not mean I regard every practice described as occult as wise, harmless, or spiritually beneficial. It means only that the word itself does not settle the question.

This matters because several different meanings are often collapsed into one. Something may be occult in the historical sense because it concerns hidden or esoteric knowledge. Something may be considered forbidden within a particular theological tradition. Something may be judged harmful, manipulative, or destructive. These categories can overlap, but they are not identical.

Esoteric does not automatically mean forbidden. Forbidden does not automatically mean evil. Unfamiliar does not automatically mean dangerous.

If we fail to make these distinctions, “occult” becomes less a useful description than a container for religious anxiety. This is particularly important when discussing something as broad as “New Age spirituality.” New Age is not a single religion with a single creed, authority, or set of practices. It draws from Western esotericism, Eastern religious traditions, alternative healing, psychology, metaphysics, mysticism, indigenous traditions (sometimes respectfully and sometimes problematically), and modern self-development culture.

Some New Age practices have clear historical connections to traditions commonly described as occult. Astrology, divination, channeling, energy work, and various forms of esoteric teaching may reasonably be placed within that history.

Saying that something has an occult or esoteric history tells us what kind of tradition we are discussing. It does not yet tell us whether that tradition is true, false, wise, foolish, liberating, exploitative, spiritually nourishing, or harmful. Those are different questions.

The question “Is New Age occult?” might be too broad to be particularly useful. We might instead ask: What particular belief or practice are we discussing? What does it claim about reality? What kind of spiritual authority does it claim? What is the practitioner required to do? What are its fruits?

That last might be one of the more important questions. Before we can answer those questions, however, we must be willing to examine Christianity itself. If “occult” simply means hidden, mysterious, or concerned with realities beyond ordinary perception, then Christianity itself presents us with an interesting complication.

The Bible is filled with dreams, visions, angels, prophecy, healing, symbolic actions, and encounters with divine mystery. Christianity has its own long tradition of mystics, contemplatives, visionaries, and sacramental practices.

So where, exactly, is the boundary?

Next in the series

If Christianity itself makes room for mystery, unseen realities, ritual, and direct encounters with the Divine, then perhaps the dividing line is not simply between the “Christian” and the “occult.”

In Part Two, I will explore Christianity and the hidden and ask whether the more useful distinction may be not between mysticism and the occult, but between mystery and danger, contemplation and control, spiritual encounter, and spiritual manipulation.

Series Introduction: Is New Age Occult?

 

Books pictured: Reiki for Beginners by Victor Archuleta, Linda Goodman's Star Signs, Meditations on the Tarot, A Journey into Christian Hermeticism by Anonymous, The Golden Bough by James Frazer, and The Tibetan Book of the Dead, with commentary by C.G. Jung;  also a set of Mythic Tarot Cards, a set of Chi balls, a sheathed dagger, and a sitting Buddha candle holder with candle

The question “Is New Age occult?” came up recently in a group discussion. It sounds like a relatively simple question, but the more I considered it, the more I realized that almost every word in the question requires examination.

For instance, what do we mean by New Age? What do we mean by occult? Are we using “occult” in its older sense of hidden or esoteric knowledge, or as a synonym for something forbidden, dangerous, or even…evil? Finally, by what standards are we making that judgment?

My own perspective on these questions has been shaped by a spiritual journey that crosses several traditions. My foundational Christian formation was Methodist, arising from the broader Anglican tradition. That foundation continues to influence me, particularly its concern with grace, transformation, lived faith, and the fruits of spiritual life.

Over time, my perspective has become broadly progressive, drawing upon scripture, tradition, reason, and experience as resources for discernment. I remain engaged with the teachings of Jesus and also acknowledge a genuine place for mysticism and direct experience of the sacred.

I majored in Religious Studies with a minor in Anthropology before earning my Master of Divinity. My spiritual studies have also included Theosophy, Celtic and Norse Neo-Paganism, Wicca, and Druidic traditions, as well as some study in Eastern traditions.

I understand the Divine in broadly panentheistic terms: all things exist within “God,” and “God” is present in and through creation yet remains infinitely more than creation. I find ritual meaningful, earth-centered spirituality important, and Goddess spirituality useful and empowering as part of an expanded language and imagination for the Divine. I might equally refer to “God,” “Goddess,” or “Gods,” meaning that which is in and around All That Is. In some ways, I see “God” in the idea of quantum physics. I see spirituality as a process rather than a finite thing.

Because of this background, I do not approach the word occult as synonymous with evil. I understand it first in its older sense: that which is hidden, concealed, esoteric, or concerned with dimensions of reality not immediately available to ordinary perception.

At the same time, I do not believe that spiritual knowledge, or gnosis, ultimately belongs to a chosen few. Preparation, study, initiation, tradition, and community all have value, but no institution, priesthood, lineage, or esoteric circle owns access to the Divine.

This leads to an important distinction that will run throughout this series: Mystery is not the same thing as secrecy. Something may be available to everyone and still remain inexhaustibly mysterious.

This series is not an attempt to declare everything called New Age spiritually good, nor is it an attempt to dismiss Christian concerns about spiritual discernment. It is an invitation to examine the categories themselves.

Over the course of these articles, I will explore the older meaning of “occult,” Christianity's own relationship with mystery and the unseen, my own framework for discernment, panentheism, ritual, Goddess spirituality, gnosis, and the question of who, if anyone, gets to claim ownership of spiritual truth.

Ultimately, I am less interested in deciding which label makes a spirituality safe or dangerous than in asking what its fruits are.

Does it deepen love, compassion, justice, humility, freedom, and connection? Does it awaken us to the sacredness of one another and the Earth? Does it encourage discernment or demand unquestioning certainty? Does it empower, or does it create dependency? Does it open us more deeply to mystery, or claim to possess it?

Perhaps the question “Is New Age occult?” is not a question that needs a simple yes or no. Let’s look at it as a doorway into a much larger conversation. This series is my attempt to enter that conversation.

 

What is Maturity?

What is it that differentiates the man-child or woman-child from the grown man or woman? Is it how they behave or how they dress? Is it what they do for a living or what kind of car they drive? I have been pondering this question as I enter into a time of my life where I finally realize I’ve not known what it really meant to be a “grown-up.” I ponder it as I watch my children grow from teenagers into young adults.

There are a lot of woman/man-children in the world. Perhaps there always have been; certainly it seems that it’s the result of human nature. We are a selfish, self-centered lot. We seek to serve ourselves first, often to the detriment of those around us. When we are children, this behavior is expected. Some of the first words we speak as children are “no” “mine” or “me,” until we begin to be aware of others around us. We are taught to share, yet we continue to first serve ourselves.

As we mature, we come to recognize the needs and desires of others. That’s where we begin the process of becoming men and women. It’s also about the time we are in complete control of our response to outside influences. Yet, it becomes continuously more difficult to do. Advertising comes at us full-force, telling us what we are supposed to look like, what we’re supposed to do, and how we are supposed to live. We seek to become what we believe society expects of us.

Our influences come from the advertising, our upbringing, and our peers. Some of us get caught up in the outer means of reflecting who we are, and we expect others to do the same. We think that as we grow up we need to give up certain behaviors, certain fashions, certain hobbies and take on new, often more expensive ones. At the same time, we forget that there are more important indicators of maturity.

It is not the games we play, the clothes we wear, or the company we keep that make us “grown-up.” It’s the way we respond to the world. It’s how we take responsibility for ourselves and our own decisions. It’s how we share with others when others are in need.

In her book, One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are, Ann Voskamp points out that we have “response” “abilities.” We need to use our abilities to respond to life appropriately. We need to do things like pick up after ourselves, acknowledge the help we get from others (and accept that help gracefully), be respectful of others and their way of looking at the world, and we need to be responsible for those who count on us. That includes being responsible for ourselves. As men and women, we are to use our “abilities” for appropriate “response” to what happens in our lives.

People who reach a certain age might think that they’re men or women simply because they have celebrated a magic numbered birthday. They might do “grown-up” things like a regular job, go out for dancing and drinks, read books, or watch “adult” television (as opposed to animated television). They might eschew Pokémon or Batman and the like as “childish.” These life activities have nothing to do with their status as men/women-children.

Man-children and woman-children expect others to take care of everything for them. When things go wrong, it’s always someone else’s fault. They seek self-satisfaction in all they do, without regard for the feelings of those who are affected by their behavior. When someone responds to their behavior negatively, they throw tantrums or whine that nobody understands them, the world is out to get them, and by golly, they’re going to do (or buy) something fun to make themselves feel better.  Even when they know that something they do affects others negatively, they continue the behavior because it makes them feel better.

Grown women and men might be into watching things like Dr. Who, reading fantasy books by authors like Neil Gaiman, and playing games like Dragon Age. They might enjoy going to the Renaissance Festival or Comic-Con. They might even like spending time of Facebook. They also pick up and wash their dirty dishes. They love, take care of, and support their children, if they have any. They interact with others with respect, even if the other disagrees with them about…well, anything. They say “please” and “thank you” and they do their best to be the best kind of person they can think of. They try to curtail negative behavior because they don't want the people they love to be hurt by what they do. They use their “response-abilities” to respond appropriately to what happens in their lives.

I’m doing my best to be a woman instead of a woman-child. It takes some doing. It’s easier to feel sorry for myself and wait for others to give me what I need, even when I am able to do for myself. Lots of people do it. I give thanks every day that I am empowered by the feeling I get from doing for myself, so I can be available to do for others who are unable to do for themselves. I know a lot of man-children and woman-children. For them, I hope that one day soon they become aware of their situation, and learn to stand on their own two feet. When they do, may they reach out to others and find the power of giving.

Though men and women do for themselves, they don’t do it all alone. They just do their part. When everyone does their own part, the world is a much easier place to navigate.

~~~

This article was originally published on Practicing Perfection. While it's a few years old, I sometimes find myself considering what it means to be a mature, spiritual person in this world. I always come back to this -- maturity has very little to do with what we enjoy doing for fun and much to do with how we respond to the world around us. Blessed Be!

Druidess: My Interspiritual Priestess Path Leads Me To Druidry

I am an Interspiritual priestess, which means I honor wisdom wherever it flows, whether it be through Jesus’ teachings of compassion, John Wesley’s vision of prevenient grace, the Avalonian mysteries reclaimed by Jhenah Telyndru and the Sisters of Avalon, the mythic landscapes illuminated by Caitlín and John Matthews, or the prophetic spiritual imagination of Matthew Fox. Each voice, these and many others, contributes to the tapestry of my life, helping me navigate a sacred path that is both grounded and expansive.

What I see at the heart of Druidry is also at the heart of my priestesshood. It is Awen, the flowing spirit of inspiration. In Druidic tradition, Awen is the creative current that animates the universe, carrying poetry, ritual, and sacred knowing. It is the same Spirit that Evelyn Underhill explored in her writings on contemplative prayer. It is a presence that invites the soul into direct experience of the Divine. Awen is also the life force that Starhawk evokes in her rituals, grounding spirituality in practical engagement with the world and its cycles. It is the living thread that connects creativity, ethics, and reverence for all beings.

Seth, the entity revealed in the book Seth Speaks by Jane Roberts, taught me that we co-create our consciousness and reality through our intentions, our awareness, and our connection to the unseen. In Awen, I recognize that same intelligence: a responsive, generative Spirit that flows through human imagination, ritual, and our daily acts of care. This is not unlike the idea of Process Theology, influenced by the metaphysical process philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. Process Theologian Marjorie Suchock said that “God works with the world; God’s plans are necessarily responsive to the world.” In other words, each decision we make influences what happens next. In this way, we co-create with the Divine and with one another.

Druidry is a practical spirituality: the altar, the grove, and the seasonal cycle are not only symbols, but they are also laboratories for living in alignment with Awen, with Spirit, and with the sacredness of the earth itself. In this laboratory of life, I experiment with the effects of my actions, my thoughts, and my relationship with All That Is.

Science, too, mirrors these truths. Quantum physics shows that all matter is interwoven, entangled across space and time, vibrating with energy and potential. Awen feels like the spiritual name for this energetic interconnection, the breath that moves through trees, stars, and human hearts alike. Ritual, for me, becomes a way of aligning consciousness with that current: lighting a candle, telling a story, offering gratitude at a well or a cauldron, or blessing the land. Each practice is both a symbolic acknowledgment of the sacred and a tangible participation in the intelligence that flows through all things.

Druidry, as an Interspiritual practice, does not demand exclusivity. I do not leave behind Jesus’ compassion, Wesley’s theology, Matthew Fox’s cosmic Christ, Evelyn Underhill’s contemplative wisdom, Starhawk’s activist magic, or the guidance of Telyndru and the Matthews. Instead, I carry them into the grove, weaving them together with the voice of Awen and the rhythms of the earth. Each voice is a note in a living symphony, each teaching a thread in a tapestry of ritual, spirituality, and practical life.

For me, Druidry is not a detour from Interspirituality. It is its flowering. It deepens what I already know: that Spirit moves through all creation, that human consciousness is a co-creative force, and that ritual and ethical action are inseparable. In the circle of Druidry, with Awen flowing through it, I find a space where all these threads—mythic, contemplative, visionary, and practical—meet and resonate, inviting me to live fully, spiritually, and responsibly in a world that is itself holy.

“There But For…Go I”

One of the phrases I hate the most, and why

When people say or write the phrase, “There but for the grace of God go I,” I think they’re trying to be empathetic to someone else’s pain and suffering. I’ve said it in the past myself, but somewhere along the line, I began to question what it really meant.

I was beginning to hear in that little phrase a sort of conceit not uncommon in modern Christianity. Used as a platitude in an effort to somehow connect oneself to another’s suffering, to say “there but for the grace of God go I” sounds to me a lot like sayiang “because I have the grace of God, I am not like that person,” therefore, “that person doesn’t have the grace of God.”

A little research tells me that the phrase probably comes from something written by 16th-century Protestant reformer, John Bradford. What he said was, “There but for the grace of God goes John Bradford.” He was likely paraphrasing from the Pauline letter to the Corinthians recorded as 1 Corinthians 15:10:

10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I but the grace of God that is with me.*

This is pulled out of context, of course, from a letter in which Paul is proclaiming not that he has some special grace that no one else has, but that the grace given him by God has changed him, and his recognition of this gave him strength. He continues to write about the resurrection stories about Jesus and of the dead, which does not interest me in this particular conversation, as it doesn’t apply to the modern-day platitude I’m addressing.

Though I am no longer a United Methodist, or even a Christian in the current interpretation of that moniker, I follow John Wesley’s train of thought on “grace,” though perhaps not with the detailed verbiage he applied to it.

Grace, to me, is the Presence of the Divine that is always available to us. It is Energy, Breath, Life.

It is Being.

We draw on it as a matter of course. We can intentionally draw on it through prayer and meditative practices. Through ritual. Through faith. By which I mean, not belief, but the unmitigated understanding that all will be well, even when all does not seem to be well.

This grace, to me, is the grace of God/Spirit/Universe/All that Is. It is not something to be tightly grasped as something we possess and others don’t have.

“There but for the grace of God go I” is a fallacy that people tell themselves to make themselves feel better. There is no empathy in it. It’s not biblical.

The closest biblical reference I can think of comes from a parable recorded as having been told by Jesus in Luke 18:9–14:

10‘Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax-collector. 11The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. 12I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.” 13But the tax-collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” 14I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.’ *

In this case, the “there but for the grace of God” character does not come out looking so good.

***

*Scripture from the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

God Is Meditation

Often when I walk the labyrinth in my yard, I practice a form of walking meditation in which I breathe in on a word or saying and breathe out another. One of my favorites is "God Is/Goddess." Much of the time, I only breathe in "God Is" and out "Goddess." 

Yesterday as I walked beneath the setting sun, I found myself walking to an extended version. I wanted to share it with you, so I created a short video to guide you.

On the first slide, prepare yourself. Then:

Breathe in: God Is

Breathe out: Goddess

Breathe in: God Is

Breathe out: Quantum

Breathe in: God Is

Breathe out: Being

Return to normal breathing on the last slide.