New Age Movement/ Postmodernism

Worldviews Test

PR:

“Whatever” defined by self. The conscious-center of the human (self-God, you are the determiner of everything).

-”I am Prime Reality”

ER:

Visible universe ; operates on laws of nature.

-Cause&Effect/ observed through 5 senses and scientific method

Invisible universe ; accessible through “doors of perception” (drugs, medication, trance)

Humans:

Atman- consciousness

-”creator” of external reality, a spiritual being, living in the physical world.

Death:

BODY: vessels of our consciousness, vessel “dies”, but consciousness lives on

COSMIS CONSCIOUSNESS: As creator of all, my intuition tells me I will not fear death.

ANOTHER STAGE: Proven through visions of previous reincarnations.

Knowledge

Pick and choose what you want to be.

PERCEPTION: God - consciousness, gives you knowledge directly. No rational argument. “I experience therefore it is”

RELIGIOUS TEACHERS:

1) Palestinans New Testement

2) Church

3) God - consciousness

The third Jesus by Chopra; Jesus asked his followers to see themselves as souls.

Morality

There is no distinction between good and evil. Evil is an illusion. Cosmic consciousness moves a person beyond morality—goodness flows from you.

Human History

Record of History is not significant as cosmic history which ends with dedification of humanity—the self.

1- The Big Bang

2- Life emerges (gain consciousness)

3- New Age of man and woman (beyond knowledge and morality)

Who are the 3 Big Thinkers?

Taylor, Reiff, Maclntyre

Taylor

social imaginary, “A Secular Age” (communities come together to try and make sense of the world)

MIMESIS (MIMETIC)- world (reality) has order..humans discover (find your own place in the world/conform to structure)

POIESIS (POETIC)- Raw material, found by acting out our iner feelings (crafting our own reality), “expressive individualism” and “culture of authenticity”. Tell the world who you are (self-consciousness)

-We want to express, but also want community to reconsgize us (our need to be apart of the larger group).

Rieff

3 Cultural Frames of reference in sacred order/social order

1) 1st World (Myths/Fate/Forces)

2) 2nd World (Bible/sacred texts/religion/faith)

3) 3rd World (No order/pragmatic/justifies itself in reference to itself)

-Can exist simultaniously in any given society

-”The triumpth of the therapeutic”; defined by what is forbids, directing individuals outward toward community

)Political man: civic life/duty, like Plato and Aristotle

)Relgious man: Liturgical calendar

)Economic man: occupation, what can you DO

— Shift of “formation” to “performing”

)Psycholgical man: inner quest for happiness/identity

Maclntyre

“After virtue”

Shift—after englightendment brings competing rival ideologies (shaeffer circles in sand)

-advanced modern soceity operaties on “emotivism”, “it feels right” or “I know in my heart it’s a good thing” (unifying absolute lost- my truth is my truth, your truth is your truth)

1) no real debates (no agree/disagree=just feelings)

2) I use my feelings to judge morality and move people to think like me, those who disagree are immoral (cancel culture?)

All 3 agree on

A poetic world, without natural order, we create our own meaning, as a psycholgical man searches inside self and emotes preferences and beliefs in the context of others. No obj. truth/reality.

New Age view of science

Respects science, BUT … we are capable of reordering the world (open system) using the Mind at Large.

New Age alternate reality

Explanations of Reality

1) Occult:

-trances, crystal balls, ouija boards- help a person consult with the spiritual side. You can see, react,, receive power, control in the 5th dimension. (demonic spritis)

-If you dont receive “rights” to the occult, endure a wrath of the spirit. Contradicts the idea that the self is the universe and its maker. Those who control are at risk of being controlled.

2) Psychedelic:

-Different state of mind, see world differently because you have an altered mind state.

-(drugs/meditation)

-Reality perceived under different states is a result of the self, self-generated reality. One can create a new reality to perceive.

-Heaven and hell are inner constructs, so as a creator of your own visions, you can perecive things around you in a harmful way and end up hurting yourself.

3) Conceptual Relativism:

(make it yourself)

-Reality is what it is, we describe it differently making it subjective. You decide your reality which decides tehn how you feel or react.

-No true model of reality exists

How New Age Movement is like Pantheistic Monism

Like Pantheistic Monism … the new consciousness focuses on mystical experiences that transcend time, space and morality

-Atman- consciousness?

The PR: “Whatever” defined by Self, 

the consciousness-center of the human

borrows heavily from Hinduism’s Advaita Vedanta: ATMAN is Brahman with a Western twist

How the New Age movement views religions

1. Religions are mutually incompatible

2. Religions then can be harmful

3. Humanity can reach the furthest reaches of human life without religion

How do you do that?  

Understand consciousness

Why 8 WV questions fall apart for Postmodernism

PR: Reality is not fixed or knowable in an objective sense. What we think is real is filtered through language, culture, and perception. There’s skepticism about the very idea of a single, knowable “real.

-No universal truth just perspectives

8 Presuppositions of Post modernism and be able to apply them to examples of postmodernism

Many postmodernists hold one or more of the following views: 

(1) there is no objective reality; 

(2) there is no scientific or historical truth (objective truth); 

(3) science and technology (and even reason and logic) are not vehicles of human progress but suspect instruments of established power; 

(4) reason and logic are not universally valid; 

(5) there is no such thing as human nature (human behavior and psychology are socially determined or constructed); 

(6) language does not refer to a reality outside itself; 

(7) there is no certain knowledge; and 

(8) no general theory of the natural or social world can be valid or true (all are illegitimate “metanarratives”).

Premodernn (Shifts in thinking)

Before 17th Century

Being (theism)

-Concern for a just societ based on revelation of God

-Primacy of God who creates and reveals

-Thomas Aquinas

-God comes first

-too clear view of human depravity

Modern (Shifts in thinking)

17th century to 19th century

-Knowing. (enlightenment,naturaism)

-Man comes first

-Universal reason as a guide to justice

-Descartes (HOW more important than what one knows), wanted to be complelety certain what he thought was true.

-Autonomy of human reason- have the ability to find our way to the truth

1) David Hume (cause and effect as obj. reality)

2) Kant ( “self” creating reality, know things in themselves)

3) Hegel (exalted human self)

Postmodern (Shifts in thinking)

last quarter of 19th century

-Constructing meaning

-despair from any universal standard for justice.

-Neitzche (what we think we know, we really do know)

-Derrida

Key Terms for Post modernism

1. Poststructuralism -- “This is not a Pipe”

2. Deconstruction -- Dissecting a burger

3. Social Construct -- The “Burger”