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Bona fide esotericism starts with a belief in gnomes, or that colors affect you. A discussion about Mother Earth in the world in which you befriend with gnomes appears more logical if compared to speaking about career achievements in you Tarot studies. Do you know that fortunetellers or magicians often deceive you? Before you let them invite you to their New Age land of miracles, ask them: "Can you truly foresee the future? Then tell me the winning numbers of the upcoming lottery! If I win, I will pay you much more, but only after winning the money." What do you think would happen after confronting a fortuneteller with such a question? What is New Age? New Age is a hybrid of all spirituality that appeared throughout history of the humankind and is hidden under veils of things like "Meditation", "Reiki", "tantra", etc. Its teachings got far beyond the central pillars of the above traditional techniques. New Age practitioners are "spiritual grave thieves", as they make great profits from spiritual treasures of aboriginal people and deform their teachings. If you look, for example, at "meditation" websites in Google, you will see that promoters of the New Age ideas, often "therapists", mix up everything into one soup - Tantra, meditation, UFO, Reiki, amazing health, success, etc. New Age abuses sacramentality of old values of the humankind. Look into history and study a bit the reasons why meditation or Tantra was used - Tantra is secret, so the point One is that it cannot go public; the point Two is that meditation, yoga or Tantra were not originally a tool for profits; the point Three is that these old techniques served as the gate to spiritual knowledge always without thinking of things like "amazing health", or "electrifying sexual experience". Quality spiritual knowledge ultimately includes a service for humanity, helping the poor, doing charity, etc., which is the core of all religions. The greatest criticism of New Age comes from the indigenous Indians. Lakota people have "Declaration of War Against Exploiters of Lakota Spirituality". Among critics of the "white witchdoctors" are Leslie Marmon Silko (Laguna Indian tribe) and Wendy Rose (the Hopi tribe), but many others, too. The declaration mentioned above contains statements like this: WHEREAS sacrilegious "sundances" for non-Indians are being conducted by charlatans and cult leaders who promote abominable and obscene imitations of our sacred Lakota sundance rites; and WHEREAS academic disciplines have sprung up at colleges and universities institutionalizing the sacrilegious imitation of our spiritual practices by students and instructors under the guise of educational programs in "shamanism;" and… René Guénon, a famous French mystic, says that our universe is not a random or evolutionary manifestation. Traditional creation concepts of the world are not products of "clairvoyants", but are based on the cosmological context which Hindus call the Mahayuga (four Yugas). Guénon thinks the Hindu cycle is the most complex one. It is important to distinguish the following things: 1) religious metaphysics and esotericism, and 2) magic and New Age occultism. All forms of God may exist and may work as one body that springs from One Source for the good. Things that are not good deserve their proper name. Things that are good should be kept on places where they have developed as good, because the thing that makes them superior is the environment they are an inseparable part of. If people take these goodies out of their place it is like trying to grow bananas in parts of the world where it is not possible. Dingo, the wild dog inhabiting Australia, is a true shaman. You, too, can be like a Dingo - of course, not by going to shamanic courses but to the woods instead and without paying for it. The author's website at www.freebsd.nfo.sk
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New Age, lakota, spirituality, tantra, meditation,
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