“New Age or Perennial Wisdom?”

                     by Dr. Mark Pitstick

There often is nothing new about New Age topics.  A more appropriate label might be Higher Thought since great teachers from antiquity have sought to share wisdom uncommon in our world.  Aldous Huxley termed these loftier spiritual understandings as the perennial wisdom. 

Such subjects include reincarnation, souls, universal salvation, interconnection with all of life, panentheism or God being everywhere always, and other metaphysical ideas.  Some label these New Age or New Thought but they really have been echoed across many cultures throughout history. 

Ancient philosophers contributed to spiritual wisdom traditions that resonate with many people today.  For example, Epictetus, the Greek Stoic philosopher, stated: “You have a distinct portion of the essence of God in yourself.  Why, then, are you ignorant of your noble birth?  Why do you not consider whence you came?  Why do you not remember, when you are eating, who you are who eat and whom you feed: do you not know that it is the divine you feed; the divine you exercise?  You carry a God about with you.”   

More succinctly, the sixth century B.C. Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras said, “Take courage; the human race is divine.”  “Know Thyself” is an ancient aphorism over the temple at Delphi in Greece.  This admonition addressed the importance of realizing ones unending nature. 

These themes are echoed in popular xe "New Age "Higher Thought/Transcendental philosophies today.  Such ideas are not kooky nor do they stem from the occult.  A study of history and literature reveals there is nothing new or demonic about xe "New Thought" such ideas.  Religious historian Karen Armstrong says that the philosophers Platoxe "Plato", Plotinusxe "Plotinus" and Socrates also encouraged metaphysicalxe "metaphysical" studies without orthodox religious involvement for enlightenment. 

The third century Roman philosopher Plotinus described the goal of our spiritual quest: “We here, for our part, must put aside all else and be set on this alone. . . to embrace God with all our being, that there may be no part of us that does not cling to God.  There we may see God and our self as by law revealed: our self in splendor, filling with the light of Intellect, or rather, light itself, pure, buoyant, aerial, become—in truth, being—a god.” 

This vision of Plotinus has been echoed in faiths like the Quakers who teach that everyone has an “Inner Light” that, once discovered and nurtured, leads the way to salvation and peace on earth.  One medieval denomination, the Brethren of the Free Spirit, was based on the philosophy of Plotinus and held: “God is all that is, god is in every stone and in each limb of the human body, every created thing is divine.  The divine essence is my essence and my essence is the divine essence.  Everything that existed yearned to return to its divine Source and would eventually be reabsorbed into God.”   

Joseph Campbell says that certain themes, some of which are pre-Biblical, are present in widely different cultures that were separated by time and distance.  Such motifs include saviors of virgin birth, catastrophic floods, saviors who taught morality and who carried and/or were killed on a cross, and saviors who reappeared after dying.  Another recurrent topic is that believers tend to elevate their great leaders into deities.  

With this information, we can better understand the underlying spiritual themes of each person’s great potential.  A wealth of spiritual and religious views and listening to your inner wisdom is perhaps the best path to deciding what seems most true for you.