The underlying theme of occult philosophy (occult comes from the Latin, occultus, meaning “hidden” or “concealed;” it is untapped powers within mankind that will allow one to discover that which is hidden in the material world) is being promoted in a subtle way at every level of culture.  Humanism is fundamentally identical to the occultism associated with eastern religious practices, such as, meditation, visualization, and yoga.  Many believe that the only hope for human survival is a revival of Eastern Mysticism.  Ecologists and others believe the only formidable enemy of this pagan revival is Christianity with its narrow minded and out-dated beliefs as recorded in the Holy Bible and the fact that salvation is by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.  Mankind is encouraged to embrace the New Age, or dawning of the Age of Aquarius.  However, history demonstrates that the New Age movement is not new at all.  It is the same old lie of the serpent in the Garden of Eden (cf. Gen. 3:1-5) that is only being repackaged for contemporary culture.

Esoteric disciplines as alchemy, astrology, Kabbalism, Taoism, yoga, witchcraft, and Zen are penetrating the Western society through Eastern Mysticism.  It is simply staggering that a society largely unified around the experience of the “divine spark within” is not limited to the philosophy of eastern religions alone.  Eastern Mysticism has become mainstream, rather than a fanaticism beyond the concern of the evangelical community.  Truly, the East has seduced the West!  The practices of Eastern Mysticism are indeed being aggressively promoted for the proselytizing of a transformation in human consciousness that will serve as an initiation for every cultural institution.

The common experiences of mysticism are not intellectual; rather they are focused on a cosmic totality.  German philosopher, Johann Gottlieb Fichte had a profound influence on philosophers, Schelling and Hegel.  It was Hegel’s influence that almost made pantheism the agreed philosophy of even the highly educated.  Fichte believed that the mind is the fundamental nature of the universe.  In other words, man’s thoughts are not the result of experiences that take place within the material world, rather, thought is part of the one universal mind.  Self-consciousness is the principal metaphysical reality whereby one finds the road to cosmic totality, which is “the Absolute.”  Hence, morality is the principal quality of the self, and it also acts as the activating rule of the material world.  One goal of the New Age movement then is to clarify self-consciousness.  The highest degree of self-consciousness is achieved when one recognizes that “Mind” or “Spirit” is the fundamental principle of reality.

In Hinduism, there exists a partial experience of multiple forms of God.  For instance, each Hindu deity is part of a complex.  If “the Absolute” is to be located at all, then it is within a complex and not one or another of its own members.  In this sense “all the gods are merely forms of Brahman.”  This belief is a vision of cosmic totality, that is, a related consciousness of a larger whole that manifest on different fractal-like levels.  The fractal-like nature proves that the experiences are false, since all reduce to Satan’s lie in Genesis 3.  The synergetic principle of the universal mind is for all individuals to identify their separate experiences within the cosmic totality.  Eastern Mysticism seeks to reinterpret human experience as a need for personal and social transformation.  Though there are innumerable initiations within Eastern Mysticism, all involve a direct link to the demonic.  The person undergoes a spiritual transformation with the prince of this world (that is, the arch-enemy of mankind who is none other than the devil, Satan himself) through powerful experiences of bliss, joy, and love.  All the experiences seem to confirm the profound spiritual growth toward enlightenment.  The same takes place in many so-called Christian revival meetings wherein doctrine is discarded and the common experience unites mankind around a pantheistic savior who is immanent in all things, but not the transcendent God of the Holy Bible.

The main idea of Eastern Mysticism is that all mankind is divine and possesses unlimited potential.  Mankind only needs to become aware of his potential through mind-altering experiences, which would include any form of occultism to bring this about.  Once mankind realizes his unlimited potential, it is believed that he can create a new world of peace, prosperity, and harmony.  Eastern Mysticism seeks to reinterpret common experiences into related systems of thought such as “all is one,” “man is god,” “the need for enlightenment,” and “self-realization.”

The “all is one” declaration seeks to explain experiences that result in an altered state of consciousness.  The idea is dissolution of any distinctions between the individual and the experience.  Since only one Reality is believed to exist, then any good or evil manifestations all belong to the same Reality.  Hence, the belief in an all-encompassing Reality.  “All roads lead to Rome,” since there is one ultimate Reality, or true consciousness. Hinduism refers to this as satchitananda, which is “a state (sat) of consciousness (chit) in bliss (ananda)."

The next proposition that “man is god” assumes the inevitable based on "a state of consciousness in bliss." Since there is one single Reality, all of humanity is an emanation of the one Reality; therefore, man only needs to realize that he is god.  Man’s own consciousness provides the inevitable link.  The Harmonic Convergence tries to mobilize people all over the world to come together in order to meditate and visualize peace in order that the consciousness of the planet will be raised and thereby the Apocalypse will have been averted.  One way of doing this is by thinking positively, and hence, connecting with the ultimate Reality underlying the universe.  This is also the idea of monism, that is, everything (God, man, and nature) is all one single Reality.

Enlightenment is what helps raise one’s awareness of the interrelation to everything.  This denies the distinction that God created each thing after its own kind (Gen. 1-2).  Eastern religions are stating that everything is one and everything is really God, and man is actually a god who possesses unlimited potential thereby.  Man is responsible for his actions, but then he is accountable only to himself.  Eastern Mysticism does not sing “glory be to God,” rather it is “glory be to me.”  Salvation in eastern philosophy does not mean that man is accountable to God as his Creator and Savior, rather it is the realization of the one true Reality.  Through hidden knowledge (gnosis) one experiences “at-one-ment.” 

Interestingly, Eastern Mysticism is believed to be scientific rather than religious.  By trying to explain its beliefs in scientific terms, Eastern Mysticism seeks to gain credibility.  For instance, New Age evangelist, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, introduced his transcendental meditation to the West in 1959 using religious terms, but it was excluded by the government as a religious practice.  Therefore, he simply renamed the practice as “The Science of Creative Intelligence” which would then offer respectability.  The underlying premise is that man needs to be united with the divine principles through enlightenment and the use of meditative techniques, but regardless of the terminology it is religion.

The advancement along the path of gnosis (“knowledge”) reveals increasing familiarity with the one Reality and the illusion of the realm of the material.  The material relationship to the divine One is a manifestation that, in a sense, denies the reality of matter.  The monistic idea that all is one and God is all, leads to the conclusion that spirit is the only life.  Therefore, everything that is not part of God is an illusion.  Hence, it is due to a faulty consciousness that man does not understand this reality.

Through further enlightenment and utilization of spiritual laws, man becomes capable of creating his own reality by manipulating the progress of his own evolution toward Godhood.  Anything real is composed of consciousness, therefore, man learns to control and master reality by deepening his consciousness.  This is one of the reasons why positive thinking is so important since negative thinking is the result of faulty consciousness.  Clement Stone, author of Success through a Positive Mental Attitude (co-authored by Napoleon Hill), stressed the power of the mind and tried to make a science out of faith.  Hill was not the only one who ran with this concept.  Robert Schuller’s “possibility thinking,” Norman Vincent Peale’s “positive thinking,” Clement Stone’s “positive mental attitude,” Charles Capps’ “positive confession,” and Oral Roberts’ “seed-faith” principles all teach the same thing:  the power of faith as a force that can change one’s environment, and even God.

Possibility thinking is nothing short of humanistic psychology that stresses the power of the mind.  Faith is a force that Christians and even non-Christians can utilize to manipulate reality.  By following the techniques of possibility thinking, one is able to become a co-creator with God.  Simply put, “possibility thinking” is the same as Eastern practioners.[1]  Christian faith does not work miracles by “the operation of spiritually scientific laws,” and prayer is not a force that is underlying the universe.[2]  Mankind is believed to posses a power within himself which is the continuous flow of energy in the mind.  Positive thinking is believed to unlock man’s unlimited potential and allow the mind power to flow through him.[3]  Negative thoughts would not exist apart from the unenlightened.  They are the ones who create negativity by developing harmful patterns of thinking.  At this point, mysticism merges into magic.  Man now possesses unlimited potential that is reminiscent of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:6).[4]

The influence of Eastern Mysticism in society is attested by the rise in the belief that man is god.  Among mystics, God is not the personal Creator of the Bible.  Mysticism states that there is an impersonal god-force (as in Star Wars)—the “force” or “god within.”  This impersonal god-force was nothing more than a sleeping mass of energy that exploded into billions and billions of individualized parts of consciousness.  All these points of consciousness had become souls that entered the material world, but they themselves are not material.  By entering the astral plane, immaterial souls are able to come to the understanding that all is illusory.  Metaphysical ignorance results from believing that man is not god.  Hence, sin is non-existent; it is metaphysical ignorance. 

However, the presence of sin is evidenced by death in the world so “that all have sinned” (Rom. 5:12) and “it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment [of God]” (Heb. 9:27).  Although mankind is indeed running around on earth like little gods, the true God has said, “ye shall die like men” (Ps. 82:7).  To possess the mind of Christ has to do with the “self-emptying” of Jesus as a suffering servant (Phil. 2:5-11); it is the result of humble self-renunciation to follow God’s will.  Eastern mysticism in any form is incompatible with true biblical faith.  Though mysticism embraces the lie that there is one ultimate Reality in existence, and that all points of consciousness belong to that same reality, Jesus insisted that there is only one Truth.  It is the lie that takes many forms.  The broad road has many paths leading to destruction and the narrow road has one way that leads to eternal life, Jesus Christ.