Is New Age Occult? Mystery, Gnosis, and Spiritual Discernment, Part Eight: What kind of person does a practitioner become?

This is the last part of an 8-part series. You can start with the Introduction here.

We began this series with a seemingly simple question: Is New Age occult? Along the way, that question opened into much larger ones that we’ve been exploring. What does “occult” actually mean? How does Christianity understand its own relationship with mystery and unseen reality? How do my roots and my Wesleyan understanding of what Methodists call the Quadrilateral of scripture, tradition, reason, and experience shape spiritual discernment?

What happens when we understand creation panentheistically, as existing within the presence of God, as I do? What can ritual, earth-centered spirituality, and Goddess imagery contribute to our spiritual imagination? And, if gnosis means direct experiential knowledge of the sacred, who gets access to it? As I wrote in the previous part, one thing has become especially important to note: Mystery is not the same thing as secrecy. The Divine is available to everyone and cannot be possessed by anyone.

With that in mind, we can return to the original question. Is New Age spirituality occult?

In the older historical sense of the word, some of it certainly is. Some New Age practices draw directly or indirectly from traditions historically described as occult or esoteric. Astrology, divination, channeling, energy work, and various forms of metaphysical teaching all have connections with the history of Western esotericism and other spiritual traditions concerned with unseen dimensions of reality. But “New Age” and “occult” are not identical categories.

One thing I feel is important is understanding that even when a practice can accurately be described as occult, that description alone does not tell us whether it is spiritually healthy. It does not tell us whether it is true or false, whether it is liberating or harmful. All it tells us is something about the kind of practice or tradition we are discussing.

It still must be evaluated in order to answer those questions. The evaluation leads to discernment. My spiritual background gives me useful resources for that task. I can ask what scripture contributes to the conversation without pretending that a single verse necessarily ends it. By scripture, I mean the Holy writings of various belief systems. I can listen to the traditions of those who practice a spiritual path without assuming that every inherited judgment is beyond reconsideration. I can use reason to examine spiritual claims critically. I can take experience seriously without assuming that every interpretation of an experience must be correct.

In the end, I can ask about the fruits. What kind of person does the practice develop? Do they deepen love, compassion, justice, humility, responsibility, and freedom? Do they have greater reverence for other people and for the Earth? Do they take time for thoughtful discernment, or do they demand unquestioning belief?

Does the practice empower people, or create dependency? Does it cultivate humility before mystery, or spiritual grandiosity? Does it invite exploration, or does it use fear to prevent questions? Does it deepen the practitioners capacity to love?

These questions can be asked of New Age spirituality. They can be asked of Theosophy, Wicca, paganism, Druidry, esoteric traditions, and Goddess spirituality. They must also be asked of Christianity.

Something does not become spiritually healthy merely because it is labeled Christian. History gives us far too much evidence to make that assumption. Likewise, something does not become spiritually dangerous merely because it is labeled pagan, occult, mystical, or New Age.

I do not believe mystery belongs only to Christianity, nor does gnosis belong only to initiates of a particular practice. I do not believe the Divine is confined to the boundaries human beings draw around religious traditions, and I do not believe openness requires abandoning discernment.

The deeper question beneath “Is New Age occult?” is not whether we can place New Age spirituality safely inside or outside a particular religious boundary. The deeper questions are these: What do we mean by “occult”? Why has the word become so strongly associated with fear? What is the difference between mystery and secrecy? Who, if anyone, owns spiritual knowledge? By what criteria do we discern whether a spiritual path or practice is genuinely life-giving?

If the occult is simply “that which is hidden,” perhaps the task of spiritual life is not to possess hidden knowledge but to become more attentive to the mystery that has been present all along.

The sacred may be hidden not because it has been withheld from us,
but because we are still learning how to see.

Is New Age Occult? Mystery, Gnosis, and Spiritual Discernment: Part Seven: Gnosis — Who Owns Spiritual Knowledge?

 

This is part seven of an 8-part series. You can start with the Introduction here.

Throughout this series, I have been exploring what happens when we recover the older meaning of “occult” as hidden or esoteric rather than simply using it as a synonym for evil.

As you know by now, my own journey has led me through Methodist Christianity, a broadly Anglican framework of discernment, panentheism, and studies of Theosophy, Wicca, neo-paganism, and Druidic traditions. Along the way, I have come to value ritual, earth-centered spirituality, and feminine imagery of the Divine. There are aspects of esotericism in all of these spiritual pathways. The concept of esoteric traditions raise another important question:

Who gets access to spiritual knowledge?

The word gnosis generally refers to direct or experiential knowledge, particularly knowledge of spiritual reality. Historically, many esoteric traditions have distinguished between teachings available publicly and teachings reserved for initiates.

I understand some of the reasons for this. Certain teachings require context and some practices require preparation. Spiritual experiences can be misunderstood. Symbols may carry layers of meaning that are difficult to communicate without deep study. Responsibility and maturity matter. Community can matter.

However, I do not believe that genuine access to the Divine is ultimately the property of a chosen few. My panentheistic understanding leads me in another direction. If all things exist within God, and if divine presence permeates creation while also exceeding it, then the possibility of encountering the sacred is woven into existence itself.

Gnosis may be cultivated and deepened. It may need interpretation. It may need to be tested through reason, community, tradition, experience, and attention to its fruits. No priesthood, institution, lineage, guru, initiated circle, or spiritual elite owns the Divine.

This leads me to a clarification that I find important: Mystery is not the same thing as secrecy. Something may be hidden because someone has deliberately concealed it, but something may also be hidden because it is profound, subtle, difficult to perceive, or impossible to exhaust. A mystery does not necessarily cease to be a mystery when it becomes available to everyone. The ocean is available to everyone, but no one possesses the ocean. Love is available to everyone, but no definition exhausts it. The natural world surrounds us yet remains filled with realities we are still discovering. The Divine may be universally present and still remain infinitely mysterious.

Perhaps, then, gnosis need not mean possession of secret information that makes one spiritually superior to others. Gnosis can mean awakening to a reality that has always been present. In that sense, the spiritual journey is not necessarily about gaining admission to an exclusive circle. It may be more about learning to perceive.

This does not mean that every spiritual claim is equally true. It does not mean that teachers are unnecessary or that traditions have nothing to teach us. It does not mean that preparation, discipline, study, or initiation can have no value. It means only that these things should serve awakening rather than create spiritual monopolies.

There is a significant difference between saying: “This takes time to understand.” and saying: “Only people like us are permitted to know.” There is a difference between guiding someone into deeper understanding and creating dependency upon those who claim exclusive access to truth. This is where esoteric traditions and Christian traditions must both be willing to examine themselves.

Christianity has also claimed exclusive spiritual authority and churches have also controlled access. Clergy have also positioned themselves as necessary intermediaries. Institutions have also confused stewardship of a tradition with ownership of the Divine. The temptation to become gatekeepers of mystery is not unique to occult or esoteric traditions.

I propose that the healthiest spiritual traditions are those that offer maps without claiming to own the territory. They teach practices, preserve wisdom, provide community, and help people interpret experience. They also recognize that the mystery itself remains greater than the tradition. If that is true, then the original question, “Is New Age occult?” begins to look different. Perhaps the most critical issue is not whether a practice can be placed inside or outside the category of “occult.”

Maybe the question is what we do with mystery once we encounter it.

Next in the series

If mystery is not the same thing as secrecy, and if no tradition owns access to the Divine, then labels alone cannot tell us whether a particular spiritual practice is trustworthy.

In the final article, I will return to the original question, “Is New Age occult?” and suggest that the deeper task is not labeling but discernment: asking what a spiritual path produces in human lives and in our relationships with one another, the Earth, and the sacred.

Is New Age Occult? Mystery, Gnosis, and Spiritual Discernment, Part Six: Ritual, Goddess, and an Expanded Spiritual Imagination

This is part six of an 8-part series. You can start with the Introduction here.

In the previous article, I described my understanding of the Divine as broadly panentheistic: everything exists within God, while God remains infinitely more than everything that exists. From that perspective, creation can be encountered as sacred. Nature, body, symbol, season, and material reality need not be obstacles to spiritual life. They can become ways of encountering and responding to the Divine.

This understanding has shaped my appreciation for ritual. My studies of Theosophy, Wicca, neo-paganism, and Druidic traditions have given me an increased appreciation for symbolism, sacred space, the rhythms of nature, seasonal observance, and embodied spiritual practice.

Ritual itself was not foreign to my Christian background. Christianity is deeply ritualistic. For instance, baptism uses water. Communion uses bread and wine. Churches use candles, vestments, music, sacred words, gestures, seasons, and symbolic spaces. Christians kneel, stand, sing, pray, fast, feast, process, anoint, bless, and lay on hands. Ritual is one of the ways human beings embody meaning. It brings together body, imagination, memory, community, place, and intention.

For that reason, I do not regard any spiritual practice as suspicious simply because it is ritualistic. What matters is what the ritual expresses and what it cultivates. Does it deepen attentiveness, create connection, encourage reverence? Does it help embody values that might otherwise remain abstract? On the other hand, does it foster fear, manipulation, dependency, or claims of power over others? The same questions should be asked of Christian ritual and non-Christian ritual alike.

My encounters with Goddess spirituality have similarly expanded my spiritual imagination. I find Goddess spirituality useful and empowering. For me, this does not necessarily mean replacing a male God with a competing female deity. Rather, it means recognizing that religious language shapes the way we imagine the Divine and therefore shapes the way we imagine ourselves and the world.

When masculine imagery for God becomes so dominant that it is mistaken for the actual gender of God, our spiritual imagination becomes unnecessarily narrow. If the Divine ultimately transcends human gender, then masculine language cannot exhaust the reality of the Divine. Feminine and maternal images can reveal dimensions of sacred reality that exclusively masculine language may obscure.

Goddess spirituality has helped me engage questions of embodiment, creativity, relationship, nature, power, gender, and sacred presence in ways I find meaningful. It has also reminded me that symbols are not merely decorations added to theology. Symbols help shape consciousness.

The images through which we imagine the Divine influence what kinds of authority we regard as sacred, what bodies we value, how we understand power, and where we expect to encounter holiness. This does not mean that every use of Goddess imagery is theologically identical or that every form of Goddess spirituality makes the same claims.

It means that I am willing to engage those images as spiritually meaningful.

My framework for discernment gives me room to ask what such imagery reveals, how it relates to scripture and tradition, whether it withstands reasoned reflection, and what I experience through engaging it. My panentheistic perspective gives me room to encounter the Divine through more than one symbolic vocabulary.

My Wesleyan roots continue to bring me back to the question of fruits. I ask, what kind of life does this spirituality cultivate? Does it enlarge love, deepen compassion, empower people without teaching them to dominate others? Does it increase reverence for the Earth and for embodied life? For me, these questions are more useful than simply asking whether a symbol or ritual originated inside or outside Christianity.

My studies of esoteric traditions also introduced another question. If “occult” refers to hidden knowledge, who has access to that knowledge? Must spiritual knowledge remain the possession of initiates? Is direct experience of the sacred reserved for a chosen few?

Or, is mystery something else entirely?

Next in the series

Esoteric traditions have often distinguished between public teachings and knowledge reserved for initiates. I understand some of the reasons for that distinction, but I do not believe the Divine ultimately belongs to a spiritual elite.

In Part Seven, I will explore gnosis, initiation, and the difference between mystery and secrecy.

Is New Age Occult? Mystery, Gnosis, and Spiritual Discernment, Part Five: A Panentheistic World, Finding the Sacred Within Creation

This is part five of an 8-part series. You can start with the Introduction here.

In the previous articles, I have explored the older meaning of “occult,” Christianity's own relationship with mystery, and the Wesleyan framework that continues to shape my spiritual discernment. That framework of bringing Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience into conversation has led me toward an understanding of the Divine that is broadly panentheistic.

By panentheism, I mean that all things exist within God and God is present in and through creation, while also being infinitely more than creation. This is not quite the same as saying, “Everything is God.” Creation is not the totality of God. God cannot be reduced to the universe. But neither is God absent from the universe. Nothing exists outside the sustaining presence of the Divine. For me, this changes the way I encounter the world.

Nature is not merely a backdrop for human "salvation." The body is not merely a temporary container for the soul. Matter and spirit are not necessarily enemies. The Earth is not simply a collection of resources placed here for human use. Creation can be encountered as sacred, not because every part of creation is identical with God, but because all creation exists within and participates in divine presence.

This understanding resonates with the sacramental imagination I find within Christianity. A sacramental worldview recognizes that material things can communicate spiritual meaning. Water can become more than water without ceasing to be water. Bread and wine can carry layers of meaning that exceed their ordinary use. Oil, touch, words, music, silence, architecture, seasons, and shared meals can become ways of encountering grace.

Panentheism extends that intuition. If God is present throughout creation, then the possibility of encounter is not confined to officially designated sacred spaces. A forest may become a place of prayer. The turning of the seasons may become a spiritual teacher. The body may become a site of wisdom rather than an obstacle to spirituality. Earth herself may call us into reverence and responsibility.

This does not mean that every spiritual impression is automatically divine or that discernment becomes unnecessary. Quite the opposite. If the sacred can be encountered throughout life, discernment becomes a continual practice. My panentheistic understanding also shapes the way I understand Jesus.

Jesus remains central to my spiritual life, but I do not understand his centrality as requiring me to believe that God is absent everywhere else. I encounter in Jesus a profound revelation of divine love: love expressed through compassion, healing, justice, inclusion, liberation, relationship, and self-giving. Following Jesus, for me, means learning to perceive and participate in that love.

It does not require me to believe that wisdom, grace, beauty, or genuine encounter with the sacred can occur only within explicitly Christian settings. This is one reason I have been able to learn from Theosophy, Wicca, neo-paganism, Druidic traditions, and other forms of spirituality without feeling that I must simply exchange one identity for another.

Different traditions offer different symbolic languages. They make different claims, and those differences matter. But difference does not necessarily mean that no genuine insight can cross a boundary.

My studies of earth-centered traditions have deepened my awareness of season, place, embodiment, and the living world. They have encouraged me to notice dimensions of spiritual life that Christianity has sometimes neglected or subordinated. This has not led me away from the sacred. In many cases, it has helped me see the sacred more widely. Once creation itself can be encountered as existing within divine presence, ritual begins to look different as well.

So do feminine images of the Divine.

Next in the series

My encounters with Wicca, neo-paganism, Druidry, and Goddess spirituality did not simply give me additional beliefs. They gave me new symbolic languages and new ways of attending to body, Earth, season, ritual, and the Divine.

In Part Six, I will explore ritual and Goddess spirituality, and why I find them useful and empowering without necessarily experiencing them as a rejection of my Christian roots.

Is New Age Occult? Mystery, Gnosis, and Spiritual Discernment: Part Four: My Roots and a Way of Discernment

 

This is part four of an 8-part series. You can start with the Introduction here.

So far in this series, I have argued that “occult” is a more complicated word than popular usage often suggests. Historically, it refers to what is hidden or concealed, not automatically to what is evil. I have also suggested that Christianity itself contains a deep engagement with mystery, unseen reality, ritual, and mystical experience.

The question therefore becomes not simply what is “occult,” but how we discern among spiritual claims, practices, and experiences.

My own approach begins with my Christian formation. My foundational Christian teaching from childhood was Methodist, the Wesleyan expression of the Anglican tradition. That formation remains an important part of me, even as my spiritual life has expanded into other areas of study and experience. Methodism gave me a Christianity concerned not only with what one believes, but with how faith is lived.

During my childhood, I learned that believing about God is different from believing in God. As an adult returning to church for a while after decades studying other traditions, I came to understand more fully that grace matters. Transformation, compassion, and community matter. As a spiritual individual, I know that the fruits of spiritual life matter.

My understanding of Jesus' teachings is broad and progressive. I find value in an approach that brings scripture, tradition, reason, and experience into conversation with one another. I do not see these as four simple boxes to check, nor do I imagine that they always agree.

Scripture matters, but scripture must be interpreted. We encounter it through language, history, culture, translation, and our own assumptions. I can speak of the scriptures of Christianity, but as Paul referenced in Acts 17:28 and later Christian philosophers built upon, there are universal truths to be found in the scriptures of many traditions.

Tradition carries accumulated wisdom. It gives us the voices of those who have wrestled with questions of faith before us. But tradition also bears the limitations of history. It can preserve profound insight and prejudice, as well as structures of power.

Reason allows us to question, examine, compare, and remain intellectually responsible. A spiritual claim does not become true merely because someone experiences it intensely or attributes it to God.

Experience also matters. Faith is not merely a set of propositions inherited from others. It is lived. It is encountered in bodies, relationships, communities, suffering, beauty, nature, ritual, prayer, and moments that may resist easy explanation. Experience, however, must also be interpreted. A profound experience may be real without our first explanation of it being correct.

That principle applies equally to visions, mystical experiences, charismatic phenomena, dreams, channeling, divination, intuition, and encounters described in other spiritual traditions. For me, this creates a framework of discernment rather than a system of automatic answers.

I can ask what Scripture contributes to a question without pretending that a verse ends every discussion. I can listen to tradition without assuming that every inherited judgment is beyond reconsideration. I can use reason without reducing all reality to what can presently be measured. I can honor experience without making every subjective impression self-authenticating. This approach gives me room to remain rooted in the teachings of Jesus while also being open to mystery.

Jesus remains central to my spiritual discernment. I encounter in his life and teachings a call to radical love, compassion, healing, justice, liberation, inclusion, and awareness of God's presence. For me, following Jesus does not require fear of every spiritual vocabulary that developed outside Christianity. It does require discernment.

This is likely where my Wesleyan formation continues to speak most clearly: What are the fruits? What kind of person am I becoming? What kind of community does a specific spiritual practice create? Does it deepen compassion? Does it encourage justice? Does it enlarge love? Does it foster humility? Does it free people, or make them dependent? Does it help us become more attentive to the sacredness of others?

These questions do not solve every theological problem. But they prevent spiritual discernment from becoming merely an exercise in labeling. My own use of this framework eventually led me toward a larger question.

What if all creation exists within the presence of God? In the aforementioned scripture, Acts 17, Paul quotes pagan philosophers Epimenides (For in him we live and move and have our being) and Aratus (For we are indeed his offspring).

What if God is not simply present at particular times, in particular buildings, or through particular religious traditions? That question led me toward panentheism.

Next in the series

My Wesleyan roots and Anglican framework give me a way to remain grounded while continuing to explore. But my understanding of God has increasingly become panentheistic: everything exists within God, while God remains infinitely more than everything that exists.

In Part Four, I will explore what that means for creation, nature, embodiment, and the possibility of encountering the sacred beyond conventional religious boundaries.

 

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

This is the first part of an 8-part series.

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.