Spirituality 1 - The New Age in our Village
I've been thinking about 'spirituality' and new age a lot recently. There seems to be quite a lot of new age interest in our village. There's the 'David Andrew Sanctuary', which meets every Sunday evening in the village hall. I'm not really sure what they do but it seems to include some clairvoyance, mediumship and other stuff. Then there are the weekly classes in clairvoyance, readings, et al at one of the chalet parks here and there are also occasional clairvoyance evenings as, for instance, a fundraiser for the playgroup.
You could see all this as an evil perversion (and in some ways I must admit that I do) but Paul's approach in Athens seems more authentic and missional ("I see you are in every way very religious" he said after being shocked at the number of idols) . So I prefer to think of new age stuff as an attempt to walk the same journey as I am walking; as a sign of a longing for meaning and an apprehension of the divine.
The really sad thing is that they do not see the church as having a role to play in their journey. In part it's because we do not speak their language (and I don't just mean words; we don't use their symbols or rituals). In part it's because we don't listen or try to get alongside.
So, I wonder - what can we do; what can I do? I did try something last weekend and I'll write a little about it in part 2. But here I just want to set out my current concern: should I, and possibly others from our church, go to the David Andrew Sanctuary? Could I face it? I went to a Spiritualist Church a few times when I was younger just out of curiousity's sake and it was excruciating. So phony, I thought in my young arrogance, so many sad and desperate people being manipulated by charlatans.
Would I find the same here? Would my presence be seen as legitimising their activities. What would other people in the village think? What would my rector think? What would the bishop think? But if we don't go, how can we come alongside; how can we be authentic; how can we have the kinds of conversation which might lead to change? It's a real puzzle to me. I don't know of anyone else who is doing this kind of work but I'm sure there must be.
Any thoughts would be most welcome.
posted by richardseel @ 10:04 pm
1 comments
1 Comments:
Hi Richard,
Interesting entry. I'm heartened to see that, although you are not a Spiritualist and are not enamoured with the "New Age movement" you're interested to try and work out why it is that so many people - especially young people - are exploring their spirituality in non-traditional ways.
I couldn't agree with you more about the reality that there is a lot of commercial charlatanism and (sometimes well-meaning) downright nonsense out there today. As someone who is just becoming interested in Spiritualism, I can confirm that a certain amount of this exists in our movement as well, and that some of our churches are plagued by silly internal politics and mediums who do anything other than prove the survival of the human soul after death.
To me, though what you have to remember is that where there is nonsense and opportunism, there is often a nugget of golden truth somewhere, and I really believe this is the case with Spiritualism. There is a side to the movement which is much more positive than the stereotype, and rather than being obsessed with receiving "messages" all the time, genuinely wants to help people lead better lives by showing them that there is an afterlife.
By the way, you might be interested to know that despite the massive increase in interest in the "New Age" movement over the last thirty years or so, from what I can tell, Spiritualist Churches have not tended to grow very much - if anything, I hear attendances have dropped. I think this shows, perhaps, that the serious and true message to Spiritualism is not followed so easily or blindly as some of the New Age mania.
God bless,
Harquin
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