Paganism in the Shadows

There are many religions out there opposed to Christianity, but they all have a common theme.

This is the theme of the pay is absolutely everywhere. The uniting of opposites. The uniting of the soul with God of the macrocosm with the microcosm of the female with the mail of the ego with the non-ego reasons that I guess teacher today believes that there are only Christianity and paganism today on Renewing Your Mind, Dr. Peter Jones explains how we come to the conclusion by surveying the fundamental religious convictions that drive modern culture at the outset, you're going to hear and refer to Swiss psychologist Carl June whose work is had a profound impact on the way our society thinks is the question.

In this lecture, what is the evidence for the truth of the biography of John who said the young succeeded where Julian the apostate Emperor failed. That's what I want to look at what was the impact of your own on modern Western culture that men David Miller, whom I mentioned spoke about the death of God as the liberation of the West from the tyrannical imperialism of monotheism, opening up our culture to new dimensions of spirituality and human life. What's the evidence for that actually taking place in what I would call the triumph of pagan one is in one's Christian culture. I asked myself was young. An innovator or one among many in the answer is obviously yes and no, he wasn't innovator in tying the arising interest in the spirituality paganism to a new psychological methodology and that he was creatively unique.

No, and that what he was proposing was actually paganism, which is as old as the hills, and even though our progressives talk about their new vision. It's really as old as the hills so don't buy that framing of the issue. It is not true, then we have become so modern-day Athens where culture is full of idols only entering uncharted territory. The human race is not seen before. Does this kind of spirituality which we now see emerge from nowhere, or is it the reappearance of ancient pagan traditions that have been known throughout human history might say from the fall on along these lines. Researchers of contemporary spirituality the University of Nottingham, UK, state, we suspect these are researchers that the spiritual awareness. We are uncovering has always been there but is only now coming to light what is happening you see is the spirituality that was on the cover. Esoteric is now coming onto the surface and we are beginning to see it and were beginning to see that what was somewhat secretive and esoteric is now becoming quite public and I began to discover a number of ways of referring to this pagan spirituality that I hadn't noticed before and it was as our culture changes that this became clear. The 19th century British playwright George Bernard Shaw, who was oddly enough, a pro-Stalinist socialist who hated Christianity argue that there is only one religion, but there are hundreds of versions of it. Only one religion. What is that religion well what Young discovered and promised to us is healing actually was the power of classic pagan spirituality young himself was an expert in Gnosticism and Hinduism and Buddhism. He dabbled in medieval alchemy and occult German mysticism. If you read books about them.

It is amazing what this man didn't know about them. Breach of pagan spirituality for many centuries. This kind of thinking was driven underground by the early triumph of Christianity. The memory reference Julian the apostate who tried to bring that back into the powerful expression in the Roman Empire and failed, but from that time on paganism was driven on the ground mostly known by its initiates with a series of coded terms which should really show that this material will looking at now is as ancient as the hills turns out that the syncretistic belief system of the new spirituality that we are facing is hoary with a and underlines my basic thesis that I'm sort of defending before you that there are only two religion is certainly there are hundreds of variations of this one religion but the essential commitments of it are shared by the mall which means that we are looking at the face-off of two radically opposed ways of looking at the world as the apostle Paul said so clearly in Romans 125 in the second century A.D. worshipers of the pagan goddess Isis spoke of quote the true religion that should be veiled in deep silence the second century Gnostic so-called Christians who sought to worship Isis did so in order to understand quote the great mystery. These were Gnostic Christians who attended the mystery religions and cults in order to get beyond Christianity and understand the great mystery, which of course the great mystery is the mystery of God within and those gnostics held the belief that all religions are co-witnesses to the secret principal which was present at the beginning of the world.

The omnipresence of the divine principle and the power of gnosis. Gnosis means knowledge and knowledge of the self as divine longer but you find other phrases. The Freemasons cherish the sacred secret all the ageless wisdom, defining it as quote the religion in which all men agree. You see this one religion shows up in many expressions. They also call it the true religion of mankind. The ancient universal mysteries is so much agreement when you begin to just scratch the surface of these various expressions of this kind of thinking Mme. Blavatsky at the end of the 19th century was the founder of the Theosophical Society, which is a highly intellectual or cultic movement. The does very well today spoke about and wrote about the secret teaching of all the agents.

The secret doctrine have immediate successor Alice Bailey also Theosophy first spoke of the mystery of the ages, which is been hidden from the beginning. You see that same theme, but somewhere deep down there is this essential religious knowledge that the initiates no to which they point. Many consider the holy Grail as the same kind of reference. The wickedness that is modern-day witches speak of the old wisdom and that old wisdom is encapsulated in the phrase as above so below. That's a very interesting phrase. It's a very one mystic kind of phrase that the above and the below of the same joining if you like of the opposites into one and that phrase that's used by modern-day Wiccans and also in Freemasonry. By the way also was used in the ancient world in Gnosticism so-called Christian Gnosticism, the Gospel of Philip has Jesus say, I came to make the things below like the things above, and in this phrase as above so below is to be found in the ancient hermetic religion in the form of Gnosticism coming from the second century A.D. that same phrase can be found and I found it in the other the places I was asked by the Christian Science Monitor to write a review of that best-selling popular book by Rhonda Byrne entitled the secret you ever hear of that in the front of this book, she speaks of the Emerald tablet from 3000 BC on which is attached. The phrase as above so below is just incredible to see the connections of all these things going throughout the ages you find this among modern sophists. The Russian occultist George grew the F employed the occult principal as above so below so you can see that these phrases really seem to be relating to the same material. Other phrases include the forgotten truth or the primordial tradition that goes back to the Tower of Babel. This was said by Houston Smith. The history religion scholar who was seeing this relationship. The internal script is another phrase the internal writing internal script, the Buddhist speak of the great enlightenment young himself spoke of the collective unconscious.

Some of you probably heard of that these mythic archetypes are all brought together and expressed as the collective unconscious, into which we all plug our own psyches to get the wisdom to do exactly what we want to do. Thank you very much a Jungian scholar speaks about the mono myth the soul myth and the primordial wholeness interesting one used by June Singer whom I mentioned earlier, who was a disciple of young all this can be joined to the Arcanum okay no room to mystery of mysteries, the ultimate secret that lies behind all astrology, alchemy, magic in all forms of the occult, otherwise known as the old religion. One phrase that I came across that intrigue me was the phrase the great work and it's known in a number of ways, but in particular it's the term open sophists you heard of the term opens the workbook pianist or musician and you find it in the medieval alchemy there great Oaks is to join the human and the divine and the call young himself wrote for the alchemists. The one primarily in need of redemption is not man but the deity who was lost and sleeping in matter man takes upon himself the duty of carrying out the redeeming opus. This great work.

That's the challenge place before pagan thinking is described as the great work, but I came across this particular phrase seemingly innocuously expressed in a work by and environmentalists and ecologists not your run-of-the-mill though kind this was Thomas Berry an apostate Roman Catholic theologian who died a couple years ago who called himself another theologian with a geolocation. He was a spokesman for the Geo the earth.

He had ditched the notion of God and was now worshiping the earth, but his book is a bestseller and it's all about ecology.

It's entitled the great work our way into the future. Published in 1999. So this is a call. You see for the saving the planet and he describes the historical mission or the great work of our time get this is to reinvent the human at the species level by means of shared dream experiences you see the appeal that the mysticism dream experiences into your own, but the very humorous of thinking that we can reinvent the human being at the species level indicates the goal where this opus wants to take us the work he refers to any claims, is that done in ancient shamanic times and believes that all contemporary calling is to carry on. Quote the great work of the first people. The American Indians, so the classic example for us in our time is to follow the traditions and the spirituality of the American Indians. Those who first inhabited this continent. I don't know how Thomas Berry by the way he's looked all over the place, especially in United Nations is a real favorite among those globalists who celebrate his work, but certainly that term the great work he's picking up from the cultic philosophers Alice Bailey in the 40s of the last century says there is a great and glorious unfolding plan for the destiny of the nations which he sees in the goal of the United Nations, God's plan for the evolution of humanity in the preparation of teachers to guide a plan called within the esoteric traditions the great work.

So this phrase is not just that in any old term to talk about the challenge that somebody might have, but it finds its origin. She says in the esoteric traditions of the great work and it's true that the Rosicrucians, the spiritual alchemists in the Middle Ages, all use this term later on cultic traditions of this hermetic variety used it.

For instance NFS leave the 1810s and 1875, one of the leaders of a very occult movement called the hermetic order of the Golden Dawn, I'm sorry that is a very sort of unknown groups, but they have tremendous power states the great work is before all things, the creation of man by himself. That is to say the full and entire conquest of his faculties and his future, especially the perfect emancipation of his will to see that changing the human being at the species level it's appearing already in this and entire conquest of his faculties describing said by young as could a further definition given by the occultist Satanist Aleister Crowley, a member of the same hermetic order. I was aware of this until some of the folks I was working with last week indicated to me that Aleister Crowley who was this satanic occultist of this hermetic movement appears on the cover of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper and actually John cites the famous phrase of Aleister Crowley.

I sold my soul to the devil and this morning I was looking at something and came across the name bafflement which is the name of St. going over this.

It was the satanic group that want to put the statue definite in the Oklahoma State capital right next to the 10 Commandments. This is equality folks joining of good and evil, I suppose, and bafflement is the picture of Satan that Aleister Crowley was worshiping the androgynous God and it's a figure who was both male and female, while Aleister Crowley says the great work is the uniting of opposites through what I told you this is the theme of the peers absolutely everywhere.

The uniting of opposites. The uniting of the soul with God of the macrocosm with the microcosm of the female with the mail of the ego with the non-ego. Needless to say, this term is also used by young the great work.

He says it no longer to be a Christian but to seek a new ordering of human affairs. So is very much into that tradition of the great work.

I have one final category of this terminology and I'm not sure you've heard of it. It's called the perennial philosophy philosophy of patroness at universalists the perennial philosophy.

This is a further coded term commonly used by those in the inner circle of these esoteric move one of the most famous adherence of this perennial philosophy is my own future king Prince Charles. He is the patron of the terminal's Academy which is dedicated to the central ideas of the perennial philosophy of course knowing when I'm telling you the perennial philosophy is indeed the fundamental notion that nature is divine right now. What does Charles say in his speech recently in 2006 actually only this great tradition that sacralization of nature will solve the environmental crisis of the 21st century. So this tradition is that by any means. This is our only hope for the future. Apparently this term is believed to have been crying in the 17th and 18th century, but it surely has an ear that goes back to the mists of time.

A scholar I was reading speaks about the perennial philosophy as that fundamental agreement of all these different religions on this one point.

Quote him. It's a book entitled the joy of sects and trying to pronounce that exactly the way it's written sects under and through each of the great traditions runs a stream.

A single stream that feeds each of these traditions from a single source, the perennial philosophy Philip Goldberg whom I mentioned who describes the Hindu ionization of America says that Eastern Hinduism and Western perennial listen the same at the depth of being though they seem different.

The domain associated with mysticism where the individual soul meets the all-encompassing divine men and women of every spiritual orientation have encountered oneness and remarkable similar ways.

I have one minute left to tell you that the man who is considered the continuing author of young in our time.

Stanislav Graaf GR OF who practices this transpersonal psychology also identifies himself with the perennial philosophy as does the Gnostic Bishop of Los Angeles Stephen Heller who argues that the perennial philosophy is another term for Gnosticism.

So here we have a whole series of terms that suggest that what we're seeing today while you knew how to present the to the modern world goes deep into the time as an expression of you might say kindness is amazing, isn't it. It seems like there are many religions out there when in reality they're simply the latest manifestations of ancient pagan traditions those aged philosophy sure the same essential commitments as their modern counterparts. Dr. Peter Jones has been our teacher today here on Renewing Your Mind. He is a teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America and the executive director of truth exchange this series only to religions is a thorough examination of the buried religious convictions that we see around us and his conclusions help us see that in the end, there can be only Christianity and paganism would like for you to have this 12 are teaching series on two DVDs. We will send them to you for your donation of any about to regular ministries. You can reach us by phone at 800-435-4343. You can also give your gift online@renewingyourmind.org understanding world religions is an important part of our theological study we come in contact with people from different parts of the world who have different worldviews.

It allows us to introduce the gospel to them in ways they can understand what the table talk magazine.com and did a quick word search paganism and found nearly 70 articles available. You can continue your own study there at the website and subscribe to our monthly Bible study magazine. The website again is table talk magazine.com in the 1960s there was an explosion of interest in Eastern religions, Christianity's influence faded during that time in alternative spiritualities fill the void tomorrow. Dr. Jones returns with a message titled paganism in the spotlight Thursday here on Renewing Your Mind