Why is occult spirituality now acceptable?
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| English: Stamp of Moldova; Mircea Eliade (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Once ever so secularly humanist, moderns now find orgiastic sexuality and occult spirituality quite acceptable. Who or what produced this massive change in Western culture?
Many influential sources can be named: Darwin, spiritualized by Teilhard de Chardin; the goddess worship of radical feminism; the occultism of theosophist Madame Blavatsky; the political radicalism of Gramsci, Marcuse and Saul Alinski; and the “sexology” of Alfred Kinsey and Hugh Hefner.
However, we can single out two thinkers: Carl Jung (1875–1961), the psychologist, and Mircea Eliade (1907–1986), the scholar.
Both played a decisive role in what the soul of our society has become. As colleagues, they saw themselves as “architects of a new humanism” and were the most widely read popularizers of pagan myths in the twentieth century. One scholar commented: “Both were pioneers who changed, respectively, the theoretical landscapes of psychology and comparative religion.” They altered the way the modern world thinks about both religion and personal soul care.
Eliade was the editor of the Encyclopedia of Religion, sixteen folio-sized volumes detailing all the world’s myths and spiritualities. As the East began to come West, Eliade encouraged Westerners to drop their narrow self-understanding as Christian possessors and missionaries of truth, and to integrate the “exotic” One-ist myths of Eastern religions, witchcraft and indigenous animism, for a fuller appreciation of spirituality. He stated: “It is not impossible that our age may go down to posterity as the first to rediscover those diffuse [non-Christian] religious experiences which were destroyed by the triumph of Christianity.” He was right!
Jung created Transpersonal Psychology based on his own experiences of the occult and on these recently-available pagan traditions. In a once Christian culture, Jung associated pagan occultism with psychological health, available to all. The “subconscious” was the spiritual depth of the human being, where fantasies were mystical experiences of the real spirit world. It caught on. Today the “subconscious” trumps every other authority. A six-foot-four hairy man claims the right to use the women’s bathroom because his subconscious tells him he is a woman. This is why I believe it is right to see the recent massive changes in the once “Christian” West as its conversion to religious paganism.
For Jung the subconscious is guided by the pagan idea of the “joining of the opposites.” Good and evil are relative, male and female are non-exclusive options for whatever fits your fancy. Such joining brings “healing” from guilt, eliminates God, and breaks the malevolent chains of heterosexual monogamous marriage. An original member of Jung’s circle expressed Jung’s vision as “free love will save the world”—the battle cry of the later Sixties sexual revolution. Interestingly, rejecting biblical sexuality as a psychological sickness, Jung also prophesied that yoga would be an essential part of future health.
Jung and Eliade intended to change the world. Jung said: “We must…infiltrate into people from many centers….2000 years of Christianity can only be replaced by…an irresistible mass movement.” What is more irresistible to the masses than the liberation of sexuality for psychological and spiritual health?
Jungian spirituality has seduced the masses. Jung’s personal practice of occultism and sexual freedom, presented as a “scientific” method, gave vast authority to the subconscious. People today justify all kinds of pagan spiritualities and sexual fantasies in the name of self-expression and spiritual health. Not the Bible but my subconscious “tells me so.” This corresponds with the Sixties Jungian mantra, “If it moves, fondle it, if it feels good, just do it.” This last phrase became a Nike commercial!
Hear, young church! This culture is not that of the Founding Fathers or that of the 1950s, which some would like to recover. It is a culture radically transformed by the recent invasion and adoption of pagan religions and infused by Jungian psychology, which is purposefully and specifically committed to the destruction of biblical faith. Approval from this culture is thus no criterion of biblical faithfulness. Don’t be surprised if the beauty of Christ you so highly treasure is now considered an ugly wart on the face of society. But we must stand firm. One day all self-worship and indulgent behavior will be blown away in the wind of God’s righteous judgment. But there is still time to show the glorious beauty of Christ, which alone can save us.
Both played a decisive role in what the soul of our society has become. As colleagues, they saw themselves as “architects of a new humanism” and were the most widely read popularizers of pagan myths in the twentieth century. One scholar commented: “Both were pioneers who changed, respectively, the theoretical landscapes of psychology and comparative religion.” They altered the way the modern world thinks about both religion and personal soul care.
Eliade was the editor of the Encyclopedia of Religion, sixteen folio-sized volumes detailing all the world’s myths and spiritualities. As the East began to come West, Eliade encouraged Westerners to drop their narrow self-understanding as Christian possessors and missionaries of truth, and to integrate the “exotic” One-ist myths of Eastern religions, witchcraft and indigenous animism, for a fuller appreciation of spirituality. He stated: “It is not impossible that our age may go down to posterity as the first to rediscover those diffuse [non-Christian] religious experiences which were destroyed by the triumph of Christianity.” He was right!
Jung created Transpersonal Psychology based on his own experiences of the occult and on these recently-available pagan traditions. In a once Christian culture, Jung associated pagan occultism with psychological health, available to all. The “subconscious” was the spiritual depth of the human being, where fantasies were mystical experiences of the real spirit world. It caught on. Today the “subconscious” trumps every other authority. A six-foot-four hairy man claims the right to use the women’s bathroom because his subconscious tells him he is a woman. This is why I believe it is right to see the recent massive changes in the once “Christian” West as its conversion to religious paganism.
For Jung the subconscious is guided by the pagan idea of the “joining of the opposites.” Good and evil are relative, male and female are non-exclusive options for whatever fits your fancy. Such joining brings “healing” from guilt, eliminates God, and breaks the malevolent chains of heterosexual monogamous marriage. An original member of Jung’s circle expressed Jung’s vision as “free love will save the world”—the battle cry of the later Sixties sexual revolution. Interestingly, rejecting biblical sexuality as a psychological sickness, Jung also prophesied that yoga would be an essential part of future health.
Jung and Eliade intended to change the world. Jung said: “We must…infiltrate into people from many centers….2000 years of Christianity can only be replaced by…an irresistible mass movement.” What is more irresistible to the masses than the liberation of sexuality for psychological and spiritual health?
Jungian spirituality has seduced the masses. Jung’s personal practice of occultism and sexual freedom, presented as a “scientific” method, gave vast authority to the subconscious. People today justify all kinds of pagan spiritualities and sexual fantasies in the name of self-expression and spiritual health. Not the Bible but my subconscious “tells me so.” This corresponds with the Sixties Jungian mantra, “If it moves, fondle it, if it feels good, just do it.” This last phrase became a Nike commercial!
Hear, young church! This culture is not that of the Founding Fathers or that of the 1950s, which some would like to recover. It is a culture radically transformed by the recent invasion and adoption of pagan religions and infused by Jungian psychology, which is purposefully and specifically committed to the destruction of biblical faith. Approval from this culture is thus no criterion of biblical faithfulness. Don’t be surprised if the beauty of Christ you so highly treasure is now considered an ugly wart on the face of society. But we must stand firm. One day all self-worship and indulgent behavior will be blown away in the wind of God’s righteous judgment. But there is still time to show the glorious beauty of Christ, which alone can save us.
