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.

"The Goddess is Alive and Magic is Afoot"

The world is in turmoil once again. In the United States, rights that were hard fought for have been taken away, and we seem to be headed to a day when women, people of color, and immigrants face exclusion from all they had seemed to gain.

Sadly, many who claim to love God believe that this is right--U.S. leadership is doing the right thing. They are wrong, and I'm not afraid to say so. 

Just yesterday, Saturday, June 21, 2025, the U.S. President ordered that three bombs be dropped on Iran in an effort to destroy Iranian nuclear sites. These attacks were "successful." Juxtaposed against this news was that of a White House renovation project in which the traditional rose garden--where press meetings have been held since 1913-- has been razed to give way to pavement and flagpoles.

The bulldozing of the garden seems symbolic of the demolition of our democratic way of life, when presidents sweep away freedoms and lives with the stroke of a pen. Further research, however, tells me that the roses are still there; what is not there is the grass, which will be replaced by pavement. It's not as bad as it seems, but is it a good use of taxpayer money as they spend more on the military and military parades while simultaneously shutting down perfectly good programs across the nation?

Lately on social media, I have noticed an increase in posts about feminine spirituality. I don't mean the plethora of cute "witchy vibe" products and the uptick in videos touting the "goth aesthetic." I mean solid goddess spirituality and Craft-related videos and information.

I believe that this preponderance of warmongering, the resurgence of racial tensions, and the normalization of pushing women back into second-class status is reawakening the Goddess. I think that the things that are happening for women and others these days are stirring the cauldron and second-wave style feminism may be about ready to strike again.

The Divine Feminine is present in the air. She is moving. She is speaking. Are we listening?

She is calling us to action.

She calls the wind

In unknown tongues

Melodies dance resonant

Molecular

Quantum invisible

Mysteries weave ancient fury

Whirlwind wild

Drums beat thunderous

Goddess wakes!

©2025 Suzy Jacobson Cherry

The New Background Image

It's difficult to see the background image in whole. Because of this, I thought I would share it in a post so you can see it better. The image is meant to convey a feeling of peace in a desert space. The base photo is of my yard, with the labyrinth, small bridge, and trees. I've added the well, two humans meditating, and a number of desert flora and fauna. These creatures, among others, have wandered through the yard at some point in the almost twenty years I've lived here.