
Fr. Pacwa probes the reasons why Catholics are dabbling in the New Age Movement. He shares his experiences and disillusionment with Jungian psychology, the enneagram and astrology. He aslo covers crystals and channelling.
5 Stars What Every Catholic Should Know
Because of our "accept anything society" today, most Catholics are unaware of the insidious influence of the New Age culture. Fr.Pacwa writes from experience and with great clarity, the traps that things like ouija boards, yoga and eastern meditation can be for us and our children.
5 Stars Educational
This is very educational for me. A great read on heresies in these modern times.
5 Stars A starter book for anyone interested in combating New Age foolishness
I bought this book back in 1992 because I was about to attend a workshop Fr. Pacwa was doing on the subject. Back then, to most people New Age was just something cute that Shirley MacLaine did, I don't think most grass roots Catholics realized how widespread New Age was and how it was slowly creeping into our culture. Fr. Pacwa was one of the first to warn of it's dangers.
This book, although somewhat dated would be a good primer for anyone begining to research the subject.
5 Stars Very important
This is an incredibly important book for Catholics to read. For some reason I cannot explain, many Catholics, including my parents when I was growing up, were and are deeply interested in the occult and new age spirituality. It is VERY dangerous stuff.
My parents bought me my first set of runes, and my first Ouija board. I do not think they were being willfully evil. They were just VERY ignorant regarding Catholic truth, and also regarding the dangers of the New Age.
Luckily, when I was in my late 20s, I met a wonderful and faithful priest who also went though a period of experimentation with "crystals" and "runes" and other garbage when he was a teenager. He walked me through the dangers and pitfalls such approaches to "spirituality" present. The interesting thing was, in my heart of hearts, I always knew that my parents and I were offending Jesus with the actions we were taking. I just KNEW I was doing something wrong, despite my parents' tacit approval and even encouragement. All Father had to do was bring out of me the answers I already had on my heart. He gently led me to repentance, and then forgiveness in Christ Jesus.
Still, until recently, I had never known anyone whose life was ruined because the New Age. However, I can now say that the New Age is destroying people in my family. I have several family members hopelessly fascinated with this stuff. Some have had tragedies in their lives and are unable to really heal and deal with the ramifications of such deep personal loss because they are holding on to their loved ones with seances and other inappropriate forms of spiritualism and communication with the dead. Rather than find comfort in faith and prayer (the Catholic Church is a wonderful place to be, for we teach we can still pray for people, even though they are gone) they turned to psychics and the New Age. I see pain linger and grow in them. By contrast, faithfully Catholic and Christian friends who have experienced similar tragedies have fared much better.
If I were not a person of faith, I would conclude from my experience that the New Age is psychologically unhealthy and dangerous for mental health. As a person of faith I believe that this is certainly true, but, more importantly, I believe that dabbling in the New Age can cause real and spiritual trauma to the soul of the individual involved. It opens the door to the Devil and his minions.
This book is SO important. If it convinces one Catholic to flee sin, flee the New Age, flee Satan and his army of Demons and seek the rock of Jesus Christ, then it has had positive effects that will echo in eternity.
Thank God for faithful Catholics like Father Mitch Pacwa.
4 Stars Even better on the second read
I'm reading this for the second time. The book is fair, circumspect, and respectful. It contains clear, interesting descriptions of some New Age practices and thoughts. Fr. Pacwa is not on a search-and-destroy mission. He shines the light of Truth on astrology, enneagram, creation-centered spirituality (Matthew Fox), and others.
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