Randy England - The Unicorn In The Sanctuary: The Impact of the New Age Movement on the Catholic Church

THE
UNICORN
IN THE
SANCTUARY

THE IMPACT OF
THE NEW AGE MOVEMENT
ON THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

By
Randy England

Originally published in 1990 by Trinity Communications, Manassas, Virginia. Copyright 1990 by Trinity Communications. Revised edition published by TAN Books and Publishers, Inc. in 1991.

This edition Copyright 1991 by TAN Books and Publishers, Inc. (transfer of original copyright, plus copyright on new material).

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Brief quotations may be excerpted without permission.

Permission for use of material from Sadhana, A Way to God: Christian Exercises in Eastern Form, by Anthony de Mello (Sixth printing, 1984), granted by Institute of Jesuit Sources, St. Louis, Missouri.

Library of Congress Catalog Card No.: 91-66615

ISBN: 0-89555-451-8

TAN Books
Charlotte, North Carolina
www.TANBooks.com

1991

TO MY WIFE

THE UNICORN

One of the most common symbols that New
Agers use as an identifying device is the unicorn.
The unicorn is a symbol of New Age transformation:
a symbol of destruction and renewal. This
mythical animal has often been associated
in literature with both Christ (wrongly)
and with Lucifer. It is not the cute
and gentle creature popularly
portrayed... but a symbol
of tearing and trampling,
of breaking and crushing.

Table of Contents

Foreword

When C. S. Lewis wrote of the distasteful task of writing his popular book The Screwtape Letters, he described the job of getting inside the devil's head as "all dust, grit, thirst, and itch. It almost smothered me before I was done." Any survey of the New Age Movement is likewise "dust, grit, thirst, and itch," but with a difference: the corruption is masked by a welcoming veneer. The material is at once revolting and enticing, blasphemous and seductive.

To live is to know sorrow. Intolerable poverty and starvation, cruelty, murder and war are widespread now, as always. This sick world screams for an answer, a leader, a solution to its predicament. "For we know that every creature groaneth and travaileth in pain, even until now." (Rom. 8:22). The New Age Movement promises hope for peace. Hope for a better life. It appeals to man's sensuality, for in the New Age Movement there is no sin as we know itand more important, no guilt. Finally, and even more energizing than appeals to sensuality, the New Age Movement entices the proud with promises of power and of godhood.

The New Age Movement holds out all these things, but at a price, a price that Our Lord warns us is no bargain: "For what doth it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and suffer loss of his own soul? Or what exchange shall a man give for his soul?" (Matt. 16:26).

As recently as 1980, few had even heard of the New Age Movement. Now nearly everyone has. Related movements or labels are: Human Potential Movement, Modernism, New Thought, Globalism, and the Aquarian Conspiracy. Parts of it include Mind Control classes, the Holistic Health Movement, Transcendental Meditation, Humanistic Psychology, Positive Confession, Feminist Spirituality, Positive Mental Attitude, the New Physics, and numerous political organizations, as well as various esoteric, environmental and animal rights movements.

I had heard of many of these before, but in 1983 I first learned from a radio program how they were tied together into a single whole. Author Constance Cumbey, who has since produced two books on the New Age Movement, was speaking about her research on the Movement. The story was, to me, incredible, but at the same time seemed to fit the facts. Soon after, I found the book Peace, Prosperity and the Coming Holocaust by cult expert Dave Hunt and read it through the same night. In finishing, I was both electrified and skeptical. It was all too big, too encompassing and too unbelievable, so I resolved to be vigilant as to its influencebut to avoid the awkwardness of sharing with anyone else that which I had barely begun to believe myself. My resolve lasted not twenty-four hours.

The next evening, I sat down to dinner with a friend and soon found myself regurgitating all that I had read. I told him about how occult teachings had been incorporated into the fabric of our institutions; into politics, into the churches, into business and sports. I told him about courses that teach people how to control their minds so as to control every aspect of their lives; how these teachings were strikingly similar to Nazism; how they are anti-Semitic, anti-God and anti-Christian. I told him how most of the writings of the Movement had been produced through automatic writing by which spirits allegedly speak through the authors. I even explained that many New Agers actually had spirit guides with whom they had frequent contact while in altered states of consciousness and that these "guides" ruled their lives.

My friend became quieter as I talked on for at least an hour. Finally becoming convinced that he thought me mad, I stopped and waited for some response. He had asked no questions and now looked at me grimly.

He said, "You haven't told me anything I don't already know." I restrained my surprise as I waited for him to go on.

"Last week," he began, "my mother filed for divorce from my father. She belongs to a group connected with our church. Each person in the group has two spirit guides which come to them while they meditate. The guides supposedly give you advice and help you with problems. One of my mother's guides is Jesus. Her guides had been wanting her to get my father involved with the group but he is not interested, so they ordered Mom to leave him. That's how I know about the New Age Movement."

From that point on, I began to research the Movement and quickly found that many individuals in my own church had deep involvement, both in the present and in the past. In showing the avenues that the Movement has paved into the Church, I have tried to follow the evidence wherever it would lead. If the reader finds a personal hero or two entangled in New Age concepts, this should not be taken as a personal judgment of those individuals. Rather, it is an indication of how far this influence has spread and has been taken into the daily life of the Church. I can only hope that truth has not been sustained at the expense of charity.

In attempting to discern errors, one runsof coursethe risk of finding them, and in finding and exposing them one commits the supreme "sin" of intolerance. Western culture, which can seemingly stomach any perversity, is quite intolerant about one thing: intolerance. We live in a society that values, perhaps above all, tolerance. Tolerance of other viewpoints, especially religious viewpoints, is demanded.