ISRAEL AND THE NEW AGE (UNABRIDGED)
Give
me neither poverty or riches,
Grant
me only my share of bread to eat,
For
fear that surrounded by plenty, I should fall away
And
say, Jahweh – who is Jahweh?
(Proverbs
30:8-9)
When
volunteers were needed in 1994 to work with pilgrims in the Holy Land, I jumped
at the opportunity. The ‘peace process’
was leading to a big increase in the numbers visiting Christian shrines in the
Holy Land, and help was needed to cater for all these pilgrims.
I
had never had a chance to visit the Holy Land before, so this was my
opportunity. Besides, having been
involved in investigating the detrimental effects of the New Age Movement (NAM)
in the churches since 1978, I was tired of this weird metaphysical system and
was delighted to have this break to get back to the roots of our Biblical
spirituality. It was good to be able to
put all this material away and just to concentrate now on reading and studying
the Bible in the Holy Land where it was largely inspired. But I was in for a big surprise.
NAZARETH
My
first assignment was to the Nazareth area.
I used to meet a lot of local Arab youth who liked to practice their
English with me. One youth told me of
his fascination with Buddhism and psychic powers. He was introduced to this by one of his
Jewish school friends. I was amazed that
anyone living in the Holy Land, where some of the greatest religious geniuses
in the world were born, should chase after another religion like Buddhism. However, I dismissed this as just an isolated
case.
But
as time went by and I became more accustomed to Israeli society, I saw that
Buddhism, Hinduism and the New Age Movement were no strangers there. This New Age is syncretistic amalgam of
pantheism, the esoteric and the occult, of myths and magic about the secrets of
life mixed in with ideas from astrology, astro-physics and pop psychology,
borrowing from all religions
and under obedience to none.
Some papers like the Jerusalem
Post had articles about, and lots of adverts for, NAM materials. Hardly a day went by without some new NAM
book being advertised.
ENNEAGRAM
I
was amazed to see the notorious enneagram, from the Esalen Institute in
California, which is creating such havoc in religious communities in America,
being advertised again and again. It was
listed as a popular Miriam Adahan addition to the Jerusalem Post “Judaism Library”! This vicious
little piece of occultism, first brought to light by Gurdjieff, a “charlatan
and a swindler who was into Gnosticism” according to Professor M. Pacwa, and he
supposedly got it from the Sufis who used it for fortune telling! Pacwa says it is “theological nonsense,
suffused with Gnostic ideas. For
instance, the nine points of the enneagram are called the ‘nine faces of God’,
which become nine demons turned upside down”.
Secondly, Pacwa says it is a psychological system that hasn’t been
tested by professional psychologists, so it is irresponsible to pass this off
as true. (1) The enneagram was revised
by Oscar Ichazo, another occultist, and finally cosmetically disguised for the
Jewish market. The advert stated that it
would help people “to accomplish tikkun”
and grow “spiritually closer to Hashem”! (2)
ALTERNATIVE
MEDICINE
Occasionally
papers produced supplements for alternative medicine, but alternative religion
would probably have been a better term. Here
we would find adverts for yoga, zen, healing through past-life therapy,
channelling and NAM crystals (“try the influence of black tourmaline against
the evil eye”)! Most of this was
available from the Reidman Centre for Complementary Medicine in Tel Aviv, which
even has its own rabbi. Some alternative
healers claimed they used ‘psychic energy’ to ease back pain and cure ear
infections. (3)
I
was not surprised to read that there was a move to bar ads by alternative
healers initiated by the Israeli Medical Association and the Health Ministry.
(4) But Tirzah Agassi maintained that
“spiritual healing, complementary medicine and all sorts of alternatives and
occult practices are becoming increasingly fashionable in Israel” and this is
due to the “daunting reality” that people have to face. (5)
I
noticed that Tel Aviv featured again and again in NAM adverts. The Post
stated that there was an “explosion of interest in esoteric” since the dawning
of the “Age of Aquarius” especially among the youth. (6) Astrologers were interviewed about their
divining powers. One said that they do
not rely totally on the zodiac, but can also read coffee cups, palms, crystals
or Tarot cards. Astrologer Herzl
Lifschitz’s forecasts for 1995 were given.
With the benefit of hindsight, some of these predictions badly missed
the mark, e.g. President Hafez Assad “will not survive the year” and for Prime
Minister Rabin, “the rest of the year his position will be more secure”. Of course, Mr Rabin was dead before the year
end. There was, of course, not a single
reference to the many Biblical injunctions against dabbling in this stuff. For example, Deut. 18:10-12; Lev. 19:26,31;
20:6,27; 2 Kings 17:17,21:6; Chron. 10:13; 1 Sam 28:3; Is. 47:12-13. The incident of Moses and the magicians (Ex.
7:10f) illustrates the difference between apparently identical acts. Moses and
Aaron perform miracles at the command of God who changes the laws of nature in
order to bring about the miracle. The
Bible thus accepts miracles, but “not such as are performed with the aid of
occult science”. (7)
In
the Bible witchcraft and divination are identified with rebellion (1 Sam.
15:23). Divination is enumerated among
the sins for which Yahweh destroyed the kingdom of Israel (2 Kings 17:17) and
among the sins of Manasseh (2 Kings 21:6) and among the practices rooted out by
the reform of Josiah (2 Kings 23:24).
YOGIS,
WITCHES ETC.
In
February ’95 the media reported that yogis from all around the world came to
Israel for a week-long “Yoga for Peace” conference organized by the Israeli
Yoga Teachers’ Association.
Disappointment was expressed at the poor Arab turnout as apparently
“Islam is not really open to yoga”. Nobody
bothered to mention that the Hebrew Bible is not really open to yoga either! The purpose of sitting in the lotus position
is to facilitate the serpent power of kundalini
at the base of the spine that it may climb upwards and illuminate the brain so
as to develop occult or psychic powers which are vigorously condemned in the
Torah (see above). Anyway, the “Yoga for
Peace” carried on. Hindu chants mixed
with Hebrew prayer as rabbis, priests, ministers and sheiks held hands and
chanted OM for peace.
Later
in the year a convention on witches took place at Tel Aviv. Though witches are generally associated with
the cultural past, witchcraft (or wicca) is a growing trend today. Today’s witches come together in covens to
cast the circle, raise the cone of power and invoke the Goddess within. Books on witchcraft are very popular in NAM
bookshops because they have a lot in common.
Part of the Tel Aviv witch convention’s function was seemingly to
address witchphobia!
It
was reported that “all seven witch stories published last year in Hebrew
feature children overcoming their fear of witches and learning that these women
are just regular, if quirky, folks”.
(8) Change agents at work? Or are the witches preparing to come out of
the closet?
Not
long after this convention, Starhawk, America’s best known witch and associate
of ex priest Matthew Fox, flew in (presumably by El Al) from California, the
cultural bellwether for the rest of the world. One can understand President
Ezer Weizmann’s strictures on American culture destroying the Israeli one when
Starhawk was invited over to give workshops on how to “potentialise magic and
get in contact with Asherah the Hebrew Goddess”. Dancing, drumming, chanting and trances were
also thrown in for good measure!
June
’95 saw articles in the papers on the growth of Satanic cults. The Lev
Le’Chai animal welfare group reckoned there were some 50 to 60
suspected Satanic groups in the country with about 10 members in each group and
“usually from well-off families”. (9) Though not all Satanic cults are interested
in the NAM, yet the latter has certainly helped to make Satanism better
known. One of the main sources of the
NAM teachings is Helena Blavatsky’s ‘The
Secret Doctrine’. She quotes
Kabbalists as saying that ‘the true name of Satan is that of Jehovah upside
down’. He is the ‘light of truth’, ‘the
Devil is .... Creative Force, for Good as for Evil’. (10)
NAM
CHALLENGED
However,
not all these activities or this infatuation with esoteric religion went
unchallenged. The author, Dr Michael
Kaufman, responded to a Tirzah Agassi piece entitled This Passage to
India Reveals Heaven on Earth.
This article was in praise of Hinduism which was extolled for its
“universal tolerance” and she argued it had received a “bad rap” from
Christians. Ayodha was not mentioned where
intolerant Hindus razed a Muslim shrine to the ground!
But
Kaufman argued that Hinduism encompasses a “group of monstrous deities
associated with killing and immorality” and that some of the mightiest deities
in the Hindu pantheon are associated with death and ritual murder, human
sacrifices, ritual cannibalism and the sacrificial killing of the firstborn
were common practices, he said, up to the 19th century. “Social fallout of Hindu goddess worship can
be seen from the fact that throughout Hindu India .... it is common for women
to murder their infant daughters”.
Kaufman maintained that this practice is extremely rare in the
monotheistic Moslem areas where there is no worship of Hindu gods. The Kaufman article was entitled
appropriately enough “Hardly Heaven”.
(11)
Popular
NAM writers like Tirzah Agassi, are a bit naive, I think, about Hinduism, but
of course it could be argued that the fact that the NAM borrows from Hindus,
and Hinduism sanctions some gory customs, does not mean that the NAM sanctions
gory customs! Or does it? Alice Bailey, one of the formative influences
on the NAM today, and a leading Theosophist, lists the Churches and religions
under the heading of ‘negative groups’ which must be dealt with. (12)
The
‘spirit entity’, the Tibetan D.K. dictating this text, is quite sure that both
Christianity and Judaism must be eliminated.
D.K. talks of the ‘evils of Judaism’ (13) and the need for the “Gradual
Dissolution of Orthodox Judaism”. (14) Benjamin Créme wrote of the “sword of
cleavage” that awaits all who refuse to accept Maitreya the Christ”. Maitreya will seek to make the New World
Religion mandatory! (15)
Now
since the NAM shares many Hindu ideas like all is illusion, there is no good or
evil, killing is illusion and so is not really killing, then certainly there is
nothing to prevent ‘gory customs’ being repeated. The American expert on Hinduism, Tal Brooke,
shows that the amoral attitudes of the Hindu gods has led to the spread of a
terrifying antinomianism in India, and this is exemplified in his studies on
some of the most renowned and vastly influential gurus ever to arise in India,
e.g. Sai Baba, Muktananda, and Rajneesh. (16)
Since NAM ideas were very popular in Nazi circles before the Holocaust,
perhaps they contributed to it. But more
on this later.
Kaufman’s
critique seemed to have been substantiated to some extent when the Israeli
media revealed to the horrified public the monstrous exploits of the Japanese
Aum Shinri Kyo sect. This cult described
itself as Buddhist, but it incorporates a variety of beliefs from Hinduism with
a great devotion to Shiva, the Hindu god of creation and destruction.
Alternative
medicine and other fringe activities were also challenged in the Jerusalem Post
in
July ’95, in an article The Danger of
Voodoo Science. Biofield
therapeutics came in for a bit of a bashing for its claims to manipulate the
patient’s ‘aura’ by scooping off any negative energy. The article mentioned that in one hospital in
the U.S.A. a patient complained after a careless biofield practitioner, working
on someone in the next bed, scooped some negative energy onto him! (17)
Another
challenge to the astrologers and diviners came from Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, who
quoted Torah and Talmud to show that these things are idolatrous and magical
practices and stressing that the nation of Israel is not ruled by the stars,
but only by God. He cited Deuteronomy
18:14 “For these nations which you shall dispossess listen to astrologers and
diviners. But as for you the Lord your
God has not permitted you to do so”.
(18)
ORIENTAL
FASCINATION
Jeff
Green, in his column Reading from
Right to Left, looks at Israel infatuation with the Far East and
especially with Buddhism, and concluded the “Buddhism seems to be made to order
for an age of shifting definitions”.
Perhaps he should have said an age of relativism, for the NAM zeitgeist
is monistic and claims to be beyond good and evil. Green said that in the past Israelis, though
living on the Western rim of Asia, regarded Middle Eastern and Oriental culture
as “Levantine”, but now increasingly they are looking to the East and to its
religions and cultures. Though Green did
not mention it, it seems to have become the custom for young Israelis when they
finish national service to disappear for a year or two into the mystic East.
(19)
TEL
AVIV
When
I was sent to work in Tel Aviv/Jaffa, I had a good opportunity to visit the many
NAM shops for myself. My Israeli taxi
driver gave me a good taste of what was to come as he talked eloquently to me
about the prophecies of Nostradamus! The
latter is very popular in NAM circles because of his fascination with astrology
and magic and was a channel for a spirit entity that dictated to him the prophecies
that made him famous. (20)
I
expected the bookstores in Tel Aviv to be stocked with Californian material
since it is the home of the NAM and a paradise of prosperity. But no, it was
nearly all locally printed and published in Hebrew. It was a bit strange to see such material
printed in what many regard as the almost sacred Hebrew alphabet – material at
such variance with the Hebrew Bible.
In
the areas around Dizengoff Street and Allenby Road there are lots of NAM shops
with some specializing only in crystals.
Nearly every Steimatsky bookshop had a considerable NAM section.
The
famous White gallery opposite the Mann Auditorium is one of the best known NAM
stores in the country – it even gets a mention in the Lonely Planet Guide Book to Israel. Nearby was a Ron Hubbard Dianetics /
Scientology Centre. In the White Gallery there were at least eight NAM
magazines published in Tel Aviv alone – five in English and three in
Hebrew. The Israeli Theosophical Society
even had its own magazine with a logo of the Star of David and the Crux Ansata
with the motto “There is no religion higher than Truth”!
This
magazine contained the “Great Invocation” of Alice Bailey who believed Lucifer
is the “Ruler of Humanity”, and she it was who founded the Lucifer Publishing
Company (now Lucis Trust) after getting messages from a ‘spiritual guide’
called Djwhal Khul or ‘the Tibetan’.
Lucis Trust sponsors World Goodwill, a political lobby group
headquartered on the United Nations Plaza in New York. Bailey’s books give specific instructions for
implementing ‘the Plan’ – a one world government and a one world religion. (21)
The
‘Plan’ for a one world religion is basically the teachings of Theosophy founded
by Helena Blavatsky in 1875, and which is a blend of occultism and the Eastern
mysticism of Hinduism and Buddhism. At
the core of this planned New World Religion is the initiation (act of
consecration), openly termed as ‘Luciferic’ by Blavatsky and Alice Bailey. According to the latter, Lucifer is the
“Ruler of Humanity”. (22) Seemingly the ‘tyrant’ God of the Old
Testament has not been fair to Lucifer, who will be rehabilitated! (23)
Theosophical
literature proclaims the coming of a world-wide religious teacher and attempted
to usher in a new Messiah or Christ in 1929.
However, this wako society found to its dismay, that a young Indian man,
Krishnamurti, secretly groomed for the job, rejected his status as the next
incarnation of the Lord Maitreya (or Christ) and told his followers more or
less to get lost and repudiated Theosophy altogether! (24)
But
this silly organization did not give up ‘the Plan’ so easily, and in April 1982
the second phase of the ‘Plan’ went into action: full page adverts in the world press informed
the earth that the Messiah had now finally arrived and would announce his
identity in two months through worldwide radio and TV. Perhaps, like Krishnamjurti,
he changed his mind, or had a sense of humour, or got cold feet, for he did not
show!
To
see a whole magazine in the Holy Land devoted to this purile stuff is
surprising. I am reminded of Psalm 2
where the rebels speak of rebellion against God and his Messiah. Verse 4 says “The One whose throne is in
Heaven laughs, he laughs them to scorn”.
Nevertheless,
the spirit of Tibet seems to exercise a great fascination for the Israelis and
even for Jewish people in other parts of the world, as Tibetan Buddhism is now
the rage. The Jewish writer, Rodger
Kamenetz, has written a whole book about it, entitled The Jew in the Lotus published in 1994. The Jerusalem
Post called it “one of the most urgent and compelling critiques of the
condition of North American Jewry that we have”. (25)
DHARAMSALA
Kamenetz,
an English professor in Louisiana, writes about a delegation representing the
main currents of North American Jewry:
Orthodox, Reform,. Reconstructionist and Secular, who were invited to
meet the now exiled Dalai Lama in India at Dharamsala. The Dalai Lama was intrigued to know how the
Jews had kept their culture whilst they were in exile for over 2000 years and
probably why so many had lost their religion and espoused Buddhism. Fortunately the secular Kamenetz rediscovers
his Jewish roots amongst the Buddhists, but was alarmed to discover how many
Jews did not, but became “Jubus” or Jewish Buddhists. On returning to America he is determined to
investigate and this book is the result of his research.
Kamenetz
says that “in the past 20 years Jubus have played a significant and
disproportionate role in the development of ... American Buddhism. Various surveys show Jewish participation in
such groups ranging from 6 to 30 percent.
This is up to twelve times the Jewish proportion of the American
population which is two-and-a-half percent.
In these same twenty years, American Jews have founded Buddhist
meditation centres and acted as administrators, publishers, translators and interpreters.
They have been particularly prominent teachers and publicizers”. (26) For example Jubu Sam Bercholz founded
Shambala Books, the first major publisher of Tibetan books in the USA. Ram Dass, a.k.a. Richard Alpert, yet another
American Jew and leading teacher of Hinduism, told Kamenetz that the percentage
of Jews involved in the early boom phase of Buddhism was ‘inordinate’ and
‘outlandish’. Like the NAM, Buddhism and
Hinduism in the USA accept what they want and reject what they do not.
ASSIMILATION
AND ITS DISCONTENTS
Kamenetz
explores the reasons for so many Jews leaving Judaism. First of all, most Jewish Buddhists came from
secular backgrounds. Kamenetz mentions
the fact that fewer than 5% of American Jews define themselves at all
religiously. (27) The Judaism that these
secular Jews were exposed to “was primarily exoteric, preoccupied with social
and political issues and often embarrassed by expressions of spirituality”. Man is a religious animal and secularization
creates a great vacuum that yearns to be filled. Hence the attraction of the ‘mystic’ East.
Secondly,
the Jewish emphasis on ethnic pride, and preserving Jewish identity at all
costs seemed to go against the prevailing spirit of the age which stresses
universalism. But it also seemed to
contradict the very universalistic prophetic messages that Judaism also
teaches”. (28)
Thirdly,
“Jews tend to be affluent and ‘dharma is a rich man’s game”. (29) Kamenetz does not mention it, but the Book of
Proverbs warns of the danger of affluence in chapter 30 verses 8/9. “Give me neither poverty or riches, grant me
only my share of bread to eat, for fear that, surrounded by plenty, I should
fall away and say Yahweh – who is Yahweh?” The Satanic groups mentioned above
are not poor people, but come “usually from well-off families”’ With affluence
such a danger, it’s surprising how many seek it like nothing else matters! I think Tolstoy was right when he observed
that moral goodness, healthy living and a sensible acceptance of mortality all
seem to fly out of the window the moment anyone acquires a modicum of
education, wealth and sophistication. (cf. Hosea 10:1-2)
I
suspect that Barry Rubin, in his highly perceptive book Assimilation and its Discontents would agree with Kamenetz’s
reasons why so many Jews change their religion.
Rubin wrote that the psyche abhors a vacuum. “If religion seemed a desirable way to cope
with personal problems or to find meaning”, Rubin says “then Jewish
intellectuals in America, as in Europe, so ignorant or at odds with their own
faith, were most likely to seek emotional or spiritual encounters
elsewhere. They flocked to every fringe
group, cult, ideology, guru, drug, Marxist sect, Eastern religion or self
improvement system”. (30)
What
the rabbi Daniel Lapin said of intellectuals and the permissive society, is
probably also relevant here. He quoted
Aldous Huxley as saying “For me, as it undoubtedly was for most of my
generation, the philosophy of meaningless was an instrument of liberation from
a certain moral system. We were opposed
to morality because it interfered with our freedom”. Lapin adds “or as the Talmud puts it,
whenever the children of Israel were attracted to idolatry, it was in order to
permit themselves licence”. (31)
LIBERALS
AND ORTHODOX
Most
of Kamenetz’s American companions are enthusiasts and syncretism seems to be no
problem for them. For example, when they
meet the Dalai Lama’s kuten, or
oracle, they suggested that they investigate how they can train a Jewish oracle
like the kuten. When the latter is possessed by the god Dorje
Drakden, his eyes bulge, cheeks swell out and his lips hiss violently as he is
filled with the “volcanic energy of the deity”.
In this possessed state he makes oracular statements. Some of the Jews with Kamenetz are delighted and
enthuse as to how they can get one too!
But
there is one notable exception : the Orthodox Rabbi Irving Greenberg, who talks
of “superstitious practices”. (32) All
through the book his comments are wise and consistent with the Biblical
worldview. No wonder Kamenetz says that
most American Jews, who are not Orthodox, tend to feel that the Orthodox are
the real Jews. (33) Personally, I have
found that the Orthodox with their large families tend to be very strong on
family values, personal holiness and morality, but have no time for strangers
at all, and would not give one the time of day!
But secular Jews, like those in Tel Aviv, are very approachable,
friendly, helpful and usually have passion for justice, but are poor on family
values, morality and holiness. Of course
the Bible stresses the need for both justice and personal holiness.
Rabbi
Greenberg is closely involved in interfaith dialogue, for he believes strongly
that if one cannot propagate his religion without using stereotypes and
negative images of others then “all religions will go down the tubes – and good
riddance – because we’re a source of hatred and demolition of other people”.
(34) Greenberg quoted Rav Kook, the
great chief rabbi of Israel, who said “that every hateful or negative image of
other traditions that’s in our own should now be seen as a mountain we have to
climb over as we try to reach God”. (35)
Of
course it could be said that something of Rabbi Greenberg’s quotation might
apply to this article! Yes we must
respect other religions, but the NAM is not really in this category, as it
borrows from all religions, distorts them all and is faithful to none!
SECULARS
AND ULTRAS
What
I found so surprising in Kamenetz’s book is how much the Ultra Orthodox and
secular Jews have in common when they seem poles apart – a fascination with the
Kabbalah – that body of esoteric doctrines which contains the heart of the
Jewish mystical traditions and shows definite Gnostic influence. The Ultras are fascinated because it is part
of their mystical tradition, and the seculars, having given up on religion,
find a great spiritual vacuum in their lives which they try to fill with New
Age religion which, of course, includes the Kabbalah, since it has ‘become a
pivotal point of the entire Western esoteric tradition”. (36) Madame Blavatsky’s books, which are important
texts in the NAM, often quote the ‘cabbalists’.
What was once very closely guarded esoteric doctrine has now become
common currency with NAM shops well stocked with materials. In the past a man had to be married, and
Maimonides taught that one had to be thirty years of age first, before entering
the perilous world of Kabbalah mysticism. (37)
It
was no accident, I think, that the New Age shops, like the White Gallery in Tel
Aviv, have prominent pictures of the Ultra Orthodox rabbi Menachem
Schneerson. A book review of The Wisdom of Rabbi Schneerson
asks if “the wisdom so lucidly expressed here could not have come from the pen
of any other inspired, selfless spiritual leader – Sufi, Christian, Tibetan,
Buddhist!” The reviewer, speaking subjectively of course, says that the
language of the rabbi is “New Age, even hip”.
(38)
KABBALAH
In
the Kamenetz book the enthusiasts try to show that Judaism and Tibetan Buddhism
have a great amount in common, e.g. the concept of reincarnation. They obviously were referring to Kabbalah as
nowhere in Biblical Judaism is this concept to be found. Rabbi Greenberg quietly interjects that
“kabbalah is no more than a minority report”. (39)
So
it would be more accurate to say that Tibetan Buddhism and Kabbalah,not Judaism
so much, have a great deal in common.
Certainly the Kabbalah is prominent in New Age circles because they both
seem to go back to a common source : Gnosticism. Kamenetz shows remarkable parallels in
Chapter 16 of his book entitled Tantra
and Kabbalah.
GNOSTICISM
Gnosticism
was a pantheist movement claiming to know the mysteries of the universe,
antedating the Christian era and lasting to fifth century A.D. and borrowing
the formulas of various religions including the language and images of the
Bible, but the essence of the Bible is totally ignored. It was an antinomian libertinism.
Kamenetz
admits in his book that “Jewish Gnosticism is one acknowledged source for the
later developments of Kabbalah”. (40)
What Gedaliahu Stroumsa says of Gnosticism I think can also be said of the New Age Movement. Stroumsa says that “there can be no
Gnosticism without a revolt against the Jewish God”. (41) In some cases Stroumsa says “a violent
rejection of the Jewish God, or of Judaism, seems to stand at the basis of
these (newly published Gnostic) texts”.
In fact, there is a diabolizing of the Jewish God in Jewish Gnosticism. Incidentally, Pope John Paul II, in his book Crossing the Threshold of Hope,
in a chapter on the Buddha, has referred to “the return of ancient Gnostic
ideas under the guise of the so-called New Age”. (42)
Kamenetz
claims that scholars have speculated that Buddhist concepts infiltrated Jewish
Gnostic circles in the first century perhaps via Alexandria, as it was a highly
cosmopolitan port with a settlement of resident Hindus and frequent
visitors. In the 3rd century
B.C., the Indian Emperor, Ashoka, a committed Buddhist, sent missionaries to
Syria and Egypt to teach Buddhist dharma. (43)
The Jewish colony in Elephantine on the Nile had a heterodox form of
worship, perhaps influenced by these Hindu and Buddhist missionaries. There seem to be Hindu influences in the
Zohar, a central text of the Kabbalah, for it departed substantially from
orthodox Judaism in that it taught the ultimate godhead to be Ain Soph, a
limitless, undifferentiated ‘being’ beyond all description or speculation – a
concept not unlike the Brahman of the Hindus, the undifferentiated background
state from which all manifestation has sprung and to which it must one day
return. (44)
No
wonder Rabbi Yihya Kafah lamented “Woe unto us!
Because of this deceptive book, The Zohar, we have become like the pagan
nations, the Hindus, Persians and other pagan faiths”.
Professor
Yeshayahu Leibowitz was scathing in his critique of the Kabbalah which has
spread throughout a large part of the orthodox Jewish world. He said that “Kabbalah, in its entirety, is a
collection of pagan superstitions which have penetrated into the world of
Jewish faith, and which cannot be reconciled with ‘..... the Lord our God, the
Lord is One’ and “Zohar is definitely a
pagan work”. Kabbalistic customs, he dismissed as ‘rubbish’. (Shlomo Mallin,
Idol Worship www)
David
Guttmann. In his blog, states: “I consider Kabbalah dangerous theologically ...
how insidiously this superstition has penetrated our praxis”. He believes that it should be a great service
to Judaism if someone “would have the courage to uncover these infestations and
expunge them, allowing us to return to the pure worship of our pre-Kabbalah
forebears”’ Responding to Guttmann’s blog “Jewishskeptic”says of R.C. Vital,
the greatest pupil of Isaac Luria, the Kabbalist of Sefat, “that he and
Kabbalah are so popular with the New Age Movement. They love his mumbo jumbo”.
The
NAM seems to be a Promethean rebellion against the God revealed in the
Bible. Its greatest advocates, for
example Madame Blavatsky, Annie Besant, Alice Bailey and other theosophists
were rebels prepared to travel to the ends of the earth to find a religion that
seemed the complete antithesis of Biblical religion. They seemed to have found it in the Far
Eastern religions like Hinduism and Buddhism from which Gnosticism seems to
have sprung.
WORLDVIEWS
: JUDAEO – CHRISTIAN v. MYSTICAL
A
brief examination of the Biblical and Hindu / Buddhist worldviews shows this
antithetical character. Generally
speaking, whereas the Bible stresses ethical monotheism, the Creator and the
Creation, judgement after death, the dangers of occultism, the duty of
alleviating suffering, the Hindu / Buddhist worldview tends to stress
antinomian polytheism, monism and maya (all creation as illusion), karma and
reincarnation, cultivating occultic powers, ignoring suffering so that the
pitiless law of karma can grind on. One
cannot imagine a greater antithesis than this so it is strange that Kamenetz’s
enthusiastic companions stress that many of these things, including
reincarnation, are also features of Jewish religion – Kabbalah perhaps, but
Biblical religion certainly not. The
Talmud gives the mainstream view of the esoteric as “often leading .... to
apostasy, madness and death”. (45)
The
rabbi Greenberg casts a cold eye on a lot of the eagerness of his fellow
travellers and their delight in all things Buddhist, and suggests to the Dalai
Lama and his followers that they need to be more realistic and socially
conscious if they want to end the Chinese occupation of their country,
Tibet.(46) Judaism, unlike Buddhism, is
not a fuga mundi religion.
To
conclude this brief look at the New Age and similar movements in Israel, I
would like to make some final observations.
NAZIS
AND THE NAM
It
is well known that the Nazis were deeply into what is called the New Age
Movement today. The New Age is not new
as we have seen. It is as old as
Gnosticism. The distinctive Nazi symbol,
the swastika, was also a popular Buddhist symbol. The Nazis saw themselves as being beyond good
and evil, and so carried out their liquidation of the untermenschen
without batting an eyelid. Is Israel to
follow their example? Are the gods of
the Nazis to become the gods of the Israelis?
The famous Tibetan Buddhist teacher, Chogyam Trungpa, mentioned by
Kamenetz, seemed to act as if he were beyond good and evil, as he was notorious
for his public drunkenness, sexual; promiscuity and violence.
Trungpa
probably did not see himself as a bad man – he was just being true to his
religious background. Probably like
Arjuna in the Bhagavad-Gita he
resolved his moral dilemmas by attaining a state of consciousness which
dissolves morality. The “enlightened” or
consummate Buddhist (or Hindu) is beyond good and evil. His is not a moral stand, but a stand outside
morality.
Nazism
flourished in a society that was infatuated with Oriental religion. Perhaps this infatuation began with
Schopenhauer’s translation of the Upanishads for with this “the nihilist
current of the pessimistic religions of Hinduism and Buddhism entered the
mainstream of contemporary Western philosophy”. (47)
The
German philosopher, Hegel, does not seem to have had much influence at this
time for he rejected Hindu systems of philosophy as no philosophy at all.
(48) This was probably because Hinduism,
being monistic, denies the principle of contradiction which states that a thing
cannot be and not be at the same time.
The denial of this principle and the discounting of reason and logic
could easily lead to chaos.
By
the 1870’s German scholars were producing magnificent editions and translations
of the Hindu Vedas and major
Buddhist texts.
In
1895, the German Kaiser, Wilhelm II, had a dream that “an Oriental religion”
was coming to overtake Europe. In 1921
Herman Hesse, the famous German novelist of works like Siddharta the Buddha said that he hoped the “spiritual wave
from India” would offer his culture “a corrective refreshment”. Germany is of course, like many other Western
countries, no longer a Christian nation sharing the Biblical worldview. This “spiritual wave from India” included
works like the Bhagavad-Gita. Professor Arthur Danto said of the two heroes
of the Gita – Arjuna and
Krishna, slaying their way dispassionately across the field of conflict, as
though they were cutting their ways with scythes through a field of wheat –
that this is not a pretty picture. “It
is a picture”, he says, “however, of a self that has located itself beyond good
and evil. That is a dangerous
space. It has been occupied by
Nietzsche’s superman and by those who thought of themselves as supermen”. (49)
The
well known Indian sociologist and prolific writer, Agahananda Bharati, says
that these dangerous ideas may have influenced the Nazis. “With the phony mysticism that floated around
the Nazi fortresses, the top leaders may have vaguely absorbed these
teachings. It is not impossible that
they got hold of some translations, and seeing themselves as Arjunas and
Krishnas acted the new Aryan heroes who made their own rules, and who believed
that murdering might not b e murdering after all, and that they, as superior
hierophants, were doing what Krishna had suggested. This sounds monstrous when said in the West,
but I have heard it dozens of times enunciated by gentle Hindu scholars who
would not kill a single fly or eat a single fish”. (50)
HOLOCAUST
OR BAD KARMA
“Murdering
might not be murdering after all” Bharati said.
If “all is one”, then there is no good or evil and death is just an
illusion. So the popular spirit guide
“Emmanuel” who channels through the American Pat Rodegast, teaches that “the
six million Jews who perished in the Holocaust really chose to be murdered in
order to grow spiritually. Thus,
“Emmanuel” says that Hitler and Stalin should not be condemned too severely,
for they also are part of God”. (51)
In
Dharamsala, Kamenetz asked for the Buddhist explanation of the Holocaust and
was told that “the Holocaust itself is a result of bad karma. These people were not necessarily Jews in
their past lives when they created the actions that they reaped in that
form. But when your karma ripens there
is nothing that can protect you”. (52)
So
from this it would appear that the Jews, not the Nazis, caused the
Holocaust! Since there has been “a flood
of Israelis in Dharamsala in the past few years” according to Kamenetz, (53)
eager to learn more of Buddhism, is this to be the new revisionist view of the
Holocaust? Is Israel set to adopt a new
metaphysics and a new non Biblical worldview?
Is ethical monotheism to be replaced by non ethical polytheism? Because according to Rabbi Shlomo Riskin,
what “is uniquely characteristic of the land of Israel is that it does not
tolerate unethical and immoral people on its soil. Whoever sins is sent into exile. The rabbi says that “our ability to remain on
Israeli soil – and not to be exiled – depends upon our fealty to traditional
Jewish teaching, the continuity of our ethical, moral and ritual conduct which
links us to our glorious past”.
This
“traditional Jewish teaching” includes, of course, the Biblical injunctions
about avoiding occultism. G.K.
Chesterton once said that he was not quite sure of the origin of
occultism. Whether it was produced by
some subconscious but still human force, or by some powers good, bad or
indifferent, which are external to humanity, he could not decide but the only
thing he was sure of was that it “tells lies”. (55) And dangerous lies at that.
A
lying spirit seems to have possessed the infamous Houston Chamberlain,
son-in-law of the composer Wagner.
William Shirer, in his monumental book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich says that Chamberlain
admitted he felt himself “goaded by demons” and was “often unable to recognize
his own work”.
Sometimes
he said the presence of these demons became so forceful that he was compelled
to write feverishly often for days on end.
His Foundation of the 19th
Century, the longest chapter of which was on the Jews, “provided the
Nazis with their racial aberrations” and “a good deal of the ‘philosophical’
basis of Nazi anti-Semitism”. Hitler
acknowledged his indebtedness to Chamberlain in his Mein Kampf, and his books which were extraordinary
bestsellers in Germany, poisoned the minds of thousands. (56) So no wonder the Bible warns of the dangers
of ‘spirit guides’ and other occult manifestations.
These
occult forces seem to be anti-life and harbingers of death. I think it was no accident that Annie Besant,
another channeller and successor to Helena Blavatsky, was devoted to Planned
Parenthood which did so much to make abortion acceptable today. Today’s defining issue for all Jews and
Christians is life. “Choose life” the
Bible exhorts us (Deut. 30:19) and the perennial Jewish toast was to life – L’Chaim not to ‘madness and
death’ as the Talmud warns in regards to occultism.
How
fortunate we are in having the Judaeo-Christian Revelation in the Bible – all
of it inspired by God (2 Tim. 3:15).
Both the Torah and the Gospels are “God’s message and not some human
thinking” (1 Thes. 2:13). Here we find no amorality, but the highest standard
of ethical behaviour.
C.S.
Lewis, in his beautiful book Reflections
on the Psalms, describes the psalmist poring over God’s Holy Word as “a
man ravished by a moral beauty” for the Law of God was beautiful compared to
the awful immorality of surrounding nations. (57) We too need to delight in God’s Word if we
value our faith and the Biblical worldview as well as the Judaeo-Christian
cosmology as opposed to a Gnostic oriental one.
CONCLUSION
I
have travelled a number of times by ship to Haifa in Israel. I noticed that as the ship comes closer to
the Holy Land, Mount Carmel appears on the horizon, the place where Elijah
strove so valiantly to preserve the purity of the religion of Israel. Truly he lived up to his name – “My God is
Yahweh”.
Drawing
nearer to land one sees that the most prominent feature now on Mount Carmel is
the golden dome of the Baha’i Temple and the gardens that reach from top to
bottom of the sacred hill. Baha’i is, of
course, a syncretistic religion, even though many of its followers are nice
people. Is this place symbolic of the
way Israel is going? Exchanging the God
of the Bible for syncretism?
In
August 2000, Rabbi Ovadiah Yossef, one of the most highly esteemed rabbinical
figures in Israel, blamed the Holocaust on bad karma! Holocaust-victims, he astonishingly claimed
were reincarnations of people from earlier generations who had sinned and had
come back to this world to suffer their just punishment. He was utilizing the kabbalistic concept of
reincarnation, gilgul neshamot.
(58)
The
London Tablet once reported
that an ancient Russian icon of the prophet Elijah, holding the Torah, has been
shedding tears for some time in a London art gallery. Perhaps he is weeping for Israel. (59)
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4. J.P.
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5. J.P.
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6. J.P.
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7. cf.
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8. Sue
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9. J.P.
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10. Irish
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11. J.P.
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12. I.T.C. A New Age ..., p.28.
13. Ibid.
P.28
14. Alice
Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy, Lucis Press, 1957, p.551.
15. M.
Basilea Schlink, New Age from a Biblical Viewpoint, 1988, p.20.
16. Tal
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17. J.P.
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18. J.P.
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19. J.P.
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20. Eileen
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21. J.S.
Benkovic, The New Age Counterfeit, LHLA, Clearwater, Florida, 1993, p.27.
22. M.B.
Schlink, op.cit., p.15.
23. cf.
Blavatsky’s Anthropogenesis, v.2, pp. 506-18.
24. Campbell
& Brennan, op.cit., p.174.
25. J.P.
Magazine, 20-2-95.
26. Rodger
Kamenetz, The Jew in the Lotus : a Poet’s Rediscovery of Jewish Identity in
Buddhist India,
Harper/Collins,
1994, p.7f.
27. Kamenetz,
op.cit., p.227.
28. loc.
cit. p.150.
29. loc.
cit. p.227.
30. Jerusalem
Post Magazine, Homeless in the World, by Barry Rubin, April ’95.
31. Crisis
Magazine, April ’93, p.11.
32. Kamenetz,
p.181.
33. Ibid.
p.283.
34. Ibid.
p.110.
35. Ibid.
p.111.
36. Campbell
& Brennan, p.230.
37. cf. E.
Wiesel, Night, Fontana, 1972, p.13.
38. J.P.
Magazine, 22-9-95.
39. Kamenetz,
cf. Pp.105,155.
40. Ibid.
p.274.
41. G.C.
Stroumsa, Gnosis, in Paul Mendes-Flohr, Contemporary Jewish Thought..., p.289.
42. Pope
John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, Cape, London, ’94, p.90.
43. Kamenetz,
p.273.
44. Campbell
& Brennan, p.229.
45. Kamenetz,
p.174.
46. Ibid.
p.277.
47. Archbishop
J.F. Stafford, L’Osservatore Romano, 27-1-93, p.10.
48. R.H.
Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, cf. Pp.253/137.
49. A.C.
Danto, Mysticism and Morality, Penguin, 1976, p.98f.
50. A.
Bharati, The Light at the Center, Ross-Erikson, Santa Barbara, 1976, p.200.
51. J.
Ankerberg & J. Weldon, The Facts of the New Age Movement, Harvest House,
USA, 1988, p.33.
52. Kamenetz,
p.122.
53. Ibid.
p.129.
54. J.P.
7-10-94.
55. G.K.
Chesterton, Autobiography, p.82.
56. W.
Shirer, The Rise & Fall of the Third Reich, p.104.
57. C.S.
Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms, p.53.
58. Jewish
Chronicle (London), 11-8-2000, p.23.
59. The
Tablet, 23-3-96, p.401.
.
