Visions of one

“you will all one day melt into the Oneness” 

By Carl Teichrib

To consider oneself part of a grand synthesis, a transformed species, may have seemed like a fringe idea to many Christians back in 1997. Such thinking, however, was already evident in the spiritual landscape. Now, the seeds of oneness are deeply planted in the soil of our culture. 

This article is an excerpt from my book, Game of Gods: The Temple of Man in the Age of Re-Enchantment.

“The supreme motivating concept of the future is synergy: men and women of all nations coming together under leaders of great vision, who see that the pursuit of a common ideal, one world, one Earth, one people, is the reason for all existence.” – Desmond E. Berghofer.[1]

“…you will all one day melt into the Oneness.” – Neale D. Walsch.[2]

“Welcome, global citizens!”

Those energetic words of unity and affirmation were given on the threshold of the one-thousandth day before the dawning of the New Millennium. Excitement was in the air, for this greeting-of-oneness resonated with those who had come to envision a new world. The event was the Global Citizenship 2000 Youth Congress, held in the mountain-framed city of Vancouver, British Columbia, April 1997. It was a time for dreaming, for anticipating, for visioneering.[3] It was a call to embed a planetary philosophy, as expressed through the World Core Curriculum, into Canada’s education system and thus shape a generation of “global citizens.”

We came to assert Oneness.

With some trepidation I found myself attending this unique gathering. Granted, I had been studying global unity concepts for a number of years prior, but embedding oneself into a paradigm-shifting event is something different. Physically stepping into the operational environment of one world is not the same as academic book study, with its comfortable distance between the reader and the action. I was entering new territory.

The opening ceremony, held in the Coliseum-styled promenade of Vancouver’s Public Library, grandly proclaimed our oneness through music and a parade of thematic banners. We are interconnected was the message; to the Earth, to the energy of the universe, to each other.

As an expression of this unity we each received a symbolic Global Citizenship passport, inspired by the work of famed world-government advocate, Garry Davis.[4] The words on the inside back-page encapsulated the purpose of our Congress: “A good inhabitant of the planet Earth, a member of the great human family… You are the Earth become conscious of herself… Unite, global citizens, to save and heal planet Earth.”[5]

The following day was about putting oneness into practice as we considered global citizenship and the role of education. Teams comprised of school children and teachers, university students, and community organizers brainstormed a better world. Urging us to “always think of the Earth” was the grandfatherly figure, Robert Muller, who as former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General had been a confidant to world leaders.[6]

As the author of the World Core Curriculum and one who had a personal hand in the creation of eleven UN agencies, Muller was in an unparalleled position to motivate planetary action. Our task, inspired by Muller’s enthusiasm and life story, was to flesh out tangible expressions of unity as we focused on his Curriculum,

“A new world morality and world ethics… global management… [to] become again what we were always meant to be: universal, total beings… [a] vast synthesis… to make each human being proud to be a member of a transformed species.“[7]

Selling A Feeling

To consider oneself part of a grand synthesis, a transformed species, may have seemed like a fringe idea to many Christians back in 1997. Such thinking, however, was firmly embedded in the soil of our culture. Of course, the seed of ideas come from somewhere, and we should have noticed the new flowers scattered across the social and spiritual landscape. Eleven years later, an Oprah event revealed the intensity of the bloom.

The public response to the 10-part webcast hosted by Oprah Winfrey and Eckhart Tolle, Oprah and Eckhart: A New Earth, was nothing short of astonishing. In the initial minutes of the first broadcast, Oprah announced that 139 nations were represented; people from around the world had joined the online seminar based on Tolle’s book, A New Earth. On the third week 11 million had logged in,[8] and by the fall of 2009 the series had been accessed 35 million times.[9] It has been called “one of the ten largest spiritual ‘gatherings’ in recorded history.”[10] Book sales skyrocketed.

But Tolle was doing more than selling merchandise. He was an evangelist, spreading the message of human potential through your personal awakening to non-separation. It was an enticing vision of oneness and transformation.

“A new species is arising on the planet,” Tolle concluded in his bestseller. “It is arising now, and you are it!”[11]

Oprah had embraced the message, and the world was buying: We are interdependent, we are in the timelessness of Now – and we feel it. As Tolle explained in his previous, Oprah-endorsed bestseller, The Power of Now, to be enlightened is “simply your natural state of felt oneness with Being.”[12]

Call it a transformative sensation; this feeling is a palpable impression that re-orients a person’s inner placement, a state of consciousness that produces a change of consciousness. Words such as connection and synchronicity, expansion, and transcendental have been used to describe it. The numinous and “the sublime kairos” are other ways this inner shift has been referenced.[13] The ancient Greeks identified its full flowering as ekstasis or ecstasy, to be “standing outside of oneself.”[14] Within the Islamic mystical tradition of Sufism it is considered the annihilation of the individual ego, an “inner dimension of experience,” altering the mind and bringing new action.[15] Psychedelic and soundscape explorer, James Jesso, described the experience as the “self and social awareness of oneness.”[16]

Analyzing variants of the phenomena, performance entrepreneurs Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal noticed that four qualities often manifest: the feelings of selflessness, timelessness, perceptional richness, and effortlessness.[17] These four facets, the duo discovered, are primarily triggered by neurochemical responses to sensory stimulation, often resulting in a changed psychological frame of reference. The saying, “it’s all in your head,” has some merit.

An array of activities can induce non-ordinary states: contemplative spiritual practices and postures, extreme sports or combat action, and in the taking of psychedelic substances. Communitas – the energy of community flow – can arise through the structured orchestration of group emotions, or when structure gives way to organic movement and freeing creativity. Both can invoke feelings of collective deep meaning; the “Utopia of We.”[18] Sensory overload and overwhelming awe can induce sensations of unity and wholeness; this can be encountered in the pulsing energy of a rave, or in the visual grandeur of a panoramic sunset. Virtual reality with its disembodying properties has the ability to stimulate non-ordinary states. Manipulated sexual activity is another route.

The dopamine spike from a favorable check of your social media is but a miniscule reflection of the feel.

The quest to “get out of our skin” is big business. In calculating the financial side of the “Altered States Economy,” broadly interpreted and categorized under “drugs, therapy, media and recreation,” Kotler and Wheal estimated that $4 trillion annually goes to the “Church of the Ecstatic.”[19] We are willing to pay handsomely for temporary bliss, often incurring costs that go far beyond the monetary.

However, we are far more than just biology and chemical reactions. We are creatures of flesh and spirit. We are also creatures of emotion and logic, incapable of living on either alone. Belief, creativity, compassion, sacrifice, and forgiveness – these are attributes and values that point to something other than pure, materialistic existence. The question, “what is consciousness?” remains a question. We are integrated beings: mind, body, and soul.

While mystical sensations may be conjured by manipulating neurobiology through breathwork and body movement[20] – or psychedelic drugs[21] – a spiritual dimension is also acknowledged. Transpersonal psychiatrist Stanislav Grof describes this as first form spirituality,

“A person having this form of spiritual experience sees people, animals, and inanimate objects in the environment as radiant manifestations of a unified field of cosmic creative energy and realizes that the boundaries between them are illusory and unreal. This is a direct experience of nature as god…”[22]

Outer and inner merges, boundaries liquefy, and the universal becomes sacred: Grof is portraying a spirituality based on the blurring of distinctions.

It is Oneness.

In a similar way, Franciscan mystic Richard Rohr talks about the Divine Flow: “We’ll begin to experience God almost like a force field… And we’re all already inside this force field, whether we know it or not, alongside Hindus and Buddhists and every race and nationality.”[23]

This is more than selling a feeling: Grof and Rohr and Tolle are pointing to a cosmological paradigm, a claim on reality. Beliefs and values change in correspondence to the paradigm, and we cross the bridge into the realm of worldview. “Oneness” thus becomes capitalized as a central concept – a core principle – shaping philosophy and ideology, religion, and culture. The feeling is now secondary to the worldview.

Is there a danger in taking a concept like Oneness and engaging in a type of general reductionism? Absolutely. To claim that it alone provides the total substance of a complex ideology, religion, movement or idea would be inaccurate. A better perspective would be to see it as a foundation upon which complex structures are built. Like most foundations, it remains assumed and seldom considered after the edifice is finished. But the planners and architects; they remember and refer to it.

How important is this foundation? Upon it are claims of divinity, the meaning of being human, and future salvation.

Robert Muller[24] brings this together,

“We must feel part of all space and time, of the greatness and wonders of the universe… We must stand in awe before the beauty and miracle of creation. Perhaps this will be the new spiritual ideology which will bind the human race. We must lift again our spirits and hearts into the infinite bliss and mystery of the universe… We are too heavy, too earthbound. We must elevate ourselves again as light, cosmic beings in deep communion with the universe and eternity. We must re-establish the unity of our planet and of our beings with the universe and divinity.“[25]

Global Oneness

Becoming “universal, total beings” – a unity of collective divinity – is the heartbeat of Oneness. In one branch of Hindu cosmology this is expressed as Advaita, literally “non-secondness” or “not-two,” and is contextually placed as the “Planetary Experience.”[26] Advaita thus assigns cosmic unity to diversity: “On the basis of our common experience we can infer that the diversity of the world as a whole is reducible to a unity… being dependent upon universal consciousness for its revelation.”[27]

When considering the broad theme of Oneness, it is important to note that this is not about an imposed cultural sameness or the crushing of expression or creativity. Tolerance and openness exists for cultural, ethnic, social, personal, sexual and religious identities. Diversity is encouraged, so long as divisive exclusivity – “separateness” or two-ness – does not threaten the fabric of anticipated harmony. In fact, distinctive cultural sensitivities and personal tastes are respected so long as they remain within the mosaic.

Unity in diversity is celebrated, recognizing stylistic uniqueness while consciously feeling the sense of union. Everyone participates in the cosmic script of transformation; we are all just colorful images in the universe’s movie.

Noted emergence thinker Barbara Marx Hubbard calls this synergy, the energy of “conscious evolution,”[28] subsuming the parts in its whole. That is, a grand synthesis is taking place and once a critical mass is achieved to that end, this shared experience will birth a new planetary reality. We will move beyond individual humanity and, as a group united in a vision of ascension, expand ourselves and awaken the cosmos. The famed personal-growth motivator, Ken Keys, Jr., described this as a tipping point that unleashes our “collective conscious.”[29] Human potential guru Willis Harman coined it as a “global mind change.”[30] The Temple of Understanding, an organization dedicated to inter-spirituality, couched this as “interdependence” and “communion” – humanity reaching for “an ever expanding realization of Divinity.”[31]

The Urantia Book, a text claiming to be scribed by celestial beings, says something similar: To accept “cosmic citizenship” through an “awareness of the interdependence of evolutionary man and evolving Deity… the birth of cosmic morality and the dawning of universal duty.”[32]

Mystic philosopher and practitioner, David Spangler of the Findhorn Foundation, simply said: “We are one. Wholeness is our oneness in action.”[33]

New York Times bestselling author, Neale Donald Walsch, a celebrated modern prophet of Oneness, describes this as the New Spirituality and the awakening of “Tomorrow’s God.” It is “perhaps the single most important message”[34] – All is God and God is All. Everything is divine. Our conception of “Yesterday’s God” was couched in destructive separateness, an exclusivist deity standing outside of creation. Tomorrow’s evolutionary-oriented God will emerge through a revolution in spiritual and social interconnection. Like a sleeper jolted from the shadows of dreams and illusions, we will open our eyes to Ultimate Reality and rise as One. This is the heartbeat of the quasi-official Global Oneness Day – GOD – celebrated at the same time as United Nations Day on October 24.[35]

This is the message of Oneness: nature is God, we are God, the energy of the universe is God. It is the rootstock of the New Age movement, and finds expression in a multitude of terms and labels, as former New Ager and now Christian author, Warren Smith, reminded me in a recent conversation.[36] Phrases like New Paradigm, New Worldview, New Consciousness, New Gospel and New Spirituality punctuate the culture.

Christian apologist and social historian, Dr. Peter Jones, critically expressed this worldview as a spiritual-oriented ideology: “One-ism.”

“In One-ism, everything shares the same essence,” Dr. Jones writes. “In a word, everything is a piece of the divine.”[37]

The Biblical view, as Jones explains in his study of the topic, is categorically different: Two-ism – the God who is separate, and then everything else.

Although advocates of world unity tout this revolutionary shift as a “new paradigm,” it is anything but. Peter Jones asserts that the One-ist worldview “eagerly resuscitates the ancient worlds of pagan philosophies and priests.”[38]

The use of pagan is provocative, causing us to ask: What is paganism?

The word pagan is rooted within the ancient Roman concept of pagus, a tract of agricultural land with familial guardianship and attached spiritual meaning.[39] Pagus also carries a communal flavor. One British Druid defines pagus this way: “a village community, one that was reliant upon the cycles of nature for its wealth and well-being.”[40] A modern relational perspective may look like this: A human reflection of immanence[41] with Nature, placed within a shared spiritual experience.

In the past, paganism has also been associated with anyone outside of the Christian framework, including philosophers and thinkers and cultural elites who espoused views antithetical to Christianity. This association was derived from ancient times when Roman soldiers disparaged non-combatants. Comparatively, early Christians referred to those outside the faith as “stay-at- homes, pagani.”[42] This definition, unfortunately, lent itself to a dismissive or derogatory posture. This has been a mistake, for in adopting these characteristics, Christians risked denigrating neighbors and becoming blinded to the seriousness of what paganism is.

For the purpose of this book, paganism with a small-p is a general worldview that affirms interconnection and interdependence in essence. Immanence is therefore experienced through a communion of Nature and spirit, group and self, emotion and action, will and power. The pagan assertion can be articulated this way: The idea of a transcendent God is illusionary and alienating, whereas the pagan expression of deity is discovered in what is tangible, organic, and unifying. Paganism with a large-P refers to the religious expression of the pagan ideal, and those who fall under that category as representatives of this spiritual tradition.

The general and religious meaning allows for a range of diversity. Digging into the core of the ancient mythic cults with their anthropomorphic deities to the present context of Cosmic Humanism, the essence of what paganism is was succinctly expressed by Professor of Old Testament, John N. Oswalt, in his consideration of the meaning of myth – continuity,

“This is the idea that all things that exist are part of each other. Thus, there are no fundamental distinctions between the three realms: humanity, nature and the divine… all things that exist are physically and spiritually part of one another.”[43]

Famous New Age author, Marilyn Ferguson, described this in the telling of a young boy who watched his little sister drink milk. “All of a sudden I saw that she was God and the milk was God. I mean… all she was doing was pouring God into God.”[44] This is continuity, also known as monism: All is contained in the One. It is the grand mythos of unity.

Oneness is thus paganism in practical belief, and myth is its communicable representation – a personified connection to the All. Wicca, the tradition of witchcraft, falls under this Pagan umbrella as a religion of deified creation.

“That perhaps is at the core of Wicca – it is joyous union with nature,” explained Scott Cunningham in his hugely popular book, Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. “The Earth is a manifestation of divine energy… When we lose touch with our blessed planet, we lose touch with Deity.”[45]

Recounting prayer in Living Wicca, Cunningham wove myth and continuity within meditative contemplation,

“O Goddess Within, O God Within… Wiccan prayer, then, isn’t addressed to some distant deities who reside in alien cloud palaces. We needn’t use a bullhorn to call to the Goddess and God. Rather, we need only become newly aware of Them within us. This is the secret.”[46]

One Pagan who established a nature-spiritual community in the virtual world of Second Life put it this way, “I see nature (including all things within it, us too) as connected, we are all part of the greater spirit. We each perceive in our own ways, and use Gods and Goddesses to focus on it, but ultimately we are all one.” Robert M. Geraci, author of Virtually Sacred, reminds us that “pantheistic nature religions… have become commonplace in twentieth- and twenty-first-century life.”[47]

In considering myth, whether ancient or fashioned in today’s New Spirituality, what we are witnessing is not simply a cultural “bedtime story,” religious folklore or fantasy, but an observable “ancient-future” worldview. The nuances may be complex, wrapped in differing experiences and customs and techniques, but a common paradigm unfolds, even as a multitude of labels are attached to it. Humanity’s impending perfection and ascension, it is hoped, will be realized when we actualize the vision of one.

Myth as a meta-narrative of continuity has been the clothing of ancient Paganism, and it acts as the backdrop for the general worldview, threaded into the compelling ideas of nature and community, security, progress and order – our experiential story of one world. The fact remains that as the garments of Christianity are culturally discarded, a new wardrobe is being fashioned from an ancient loom. Professor John Oswalt explains,

“…when we talk about the common worldview of myth, we are not talking about a quaint, outgrown idea without relevance to the present. Myth is not the thought of primitives who cannot think of reality in abstract terms. It is simply a way of thinking about reality different from the one that shaped Western thought… this understanding of reality is increasingly common in the modern, technological world. We dress it differently, but beneath the new clothes, it is the same body as that which has existed for thousands of years.”[48]

Capturing the Whole

From the murky past to the glittering present, continuity – Oneness – is the paradigm framing our world.

If this analysis is correct, then our era will be marked by the culturally accepted resurrection of Paganism and the embracement of Oneness in practical application and celebration. Furthermore, because this “revolution of consciousness” is about wholeness, this thread must weave through every facet of life, including politics and education. Lewis Mumford, the famed American sociologist and historian, preached this very thing in his 1951 book, The Conduct of Life,

“…there must be a change in values, and further a change so central that all the other activities that rotate around this axis will be affected by it… The new philosophy will treat every part of the human experience, from the enduring structure of the physical world to the briefest incarnation of divinity, as an aspect of an inter-related and progressively integrating whole.”[49]

Not long after Mumford penned those telling words, the West was rocked by waves of cultural insurrection.

The splash of the 1960s was more than just Apollo 11 returning to Earth, it was the change-over from Modernity to Postmodernism, and with it, the emerging acceptance of Eastern spirituality in the West. A generation eager to drop their parent’s “square thinking” and embrace enticing dreams of wholeness was animated: The New Left’s hip-Marxism raised its fist in the spirit of solidarity; “world peace” became the battle-hymn for social integration; the “sacrament of LSD”[50] tuned-in the self to a larger unity; Hindu gurus won hearts and minds as Maharishi Mahesh Yogi flew in on the wings of The Beatles; and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness introduced the “ideals of spiritual communism… the oneness of the entire society, nay, of the entire energy of living beings.”[51]

Western society was being re-wired by cultural shock and Eastern awe. It created a soul-level dissonance that now, roughly half a century later, is being accepted as an evolutionary finality.

“The true aftermath of that earthquake wasn’t experienced at the time,” penned Roger B. Neill in his autobiography. “We are experiencing it now.” Neill, a former Marxist of that era who had a revolutionary heart change, reminds us that in the 1960s, “a revolution had indeed taken place – a revolution in mind and praxis – that changed the course of modern history.”[52]

By the 1980s, the upward swell of a worldview tsunami could be discerned. Mumford’s hope of a “progressively integrated whole” was clearly visible. A new way of thinking was cresting on the shores of Western thought and soon every aspect of life, from business and education to healthcare and Hollywood, was swimming in the new consciousness.

Douglas Groothuis, a Christian philosopher, described this “revolution of consciousness” as a meta-movement; “the One.” Groothuis’ words, written in 1986, compelled Christians to understand the shift already taking place,

“A new world view is in the offing; a revolution in consciousness beckons. All is one – both good and evil. We are all god – and our first-graders should know it. The mind controls all – if we only use it. These are ideas – potent ideas – that have consequences for the whole of life.”[53]

Groothuis wrote, “The whole society must be brought into harmony with the One as the New Consciousness produces the New Age.”[54]

Oneness must capture all spheres of human activity – politics, economics, religious sentiment, cultural expressions, and technological development – for greater interconnectivity. All must work to bend the arc of history and advance the “Age of One.” It must shape our self image and lodge itself in the framework of our collective thinking; moreover, it must energize the emotional will of the masses. In this arousal of emotional will,[55] realized in group-generated experiences, there is an undeniable appeal; we feel ourselves becoming part of something larger. We grope for and seek a new reality, and in working towards it, we affirm our greatness and boast in our empowerment. Collective community compels us, shapes our identity and ethos, and presents a higher purpose: “Welcome, global citizens.”

——————–

Endnotes: 

[1] Desmond E. Berghofer, The Visioneers: A Courage Story about Belief in the Future (Creating Learning International Press, 1992), p.289.

[2] Neal Donald Walsch, Communion With God (Berkley Books, 2000), p.165.

[3] “Visioneering” was the word used by Desmond Berghofer, an organizer of the Global Citizenship 2000 Youth Congress. Visioneering is the task of dreaming potential futures.

[4] Garry Davis was the founder of the World Service Authority, which issues “world citizen” passports. Applicants have to sign an Affirmation: “As a World Citizen, I affirm my planetary civic commitment to WORLD GOVERNMENT, founded on three universal principles of One Absolute Value, One World, and One Humanity…” (capitals in original).

[5] The quote comes from Robert Muller’s poem, “Decide to be a Global Citizen,” reprinted inside the Global Citizenship 2000 Youth Congress Passport.

[6] Muller was the United Nations Director of Budget and UN Assistant Secretary-General. Upon retirement he became Chancellor of the UN University of Peace in Costa Rica. In 1989 his World Core Curriculum earned him the UNESCO Peace Education Prize.

[7] A copy of the World Core Curriculum is on file with the author.

[8] Ether Walker, “Eckhart Tolle: This man could change your life,” Independent, Friday, 20 June 2008, online edition [www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/eckhart-tolle- this-man-could-change-your-life-850872.html].

[9] Ken MacQueen, “Eckhart Tolle vs. God,” Maclean’s, October 22, 2009, online edition [www.macleans.ca/culture/eckhart-tolle-vs-god].

[10] Steven Kotler and Jamie Wheal, Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work (Dey St., 2017), p.75.

[11] Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (Plume, 2006), p.309.

[12] Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (Hodder Australia, 2004), p.12, italics in original.

[13] For “sublime kairos,” see Tom Wolf, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (Picador, 1968/2008), p.231, italics in original. Rudolf Otto was an early user of the word; see his book, The Idea of the Holy: An Inquiry into the Non-Rational Factor in the Idea of the Divine, and its Relation to the Rational (Oxford University Press, 1923).

[14] See Theodor H. Gaster’s note #152 in James George Frazer’s The New Golden Bough: A New Abridgment of the Classic Work (Criterion Books, 1959), p.215, in “Part II: Taboo and the Perils of the Soul.”

[15] Carl W. Ernst, Sufism: An Introduction to the Mystical Tradition of Islam (Shambhala Publications, 2011), pp.114-119.

[16] James W. Jesso, Soundscapes and Psychedelics: Exploring Electronic Mind Expansion (SoulsLantern Publishing, 2014), p.41.

[17] Kotler and Wheal, Stealing Fire, 37-46.

[18] Ibid., p.69.

[19] Ibid., p.31. See also note 28, running from pages 238-243.

[20] Ibid., pp.95-114.

[21] In 1962, twenty Protestant seminary students took part in the Good Friday Experiment. Ten of the volunteer subjects were given psilocybin, and the other ten were administered a placebo. The purpose: to see if mystical states could be reproduced in a controlled setting. Walter Pahnke, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School – with Timothy Leary acting as academic advisor – conducted the experiment at Boston University’s Marsh Chapel. The findings ignited a controversy over “authentic” spirituality versus chemical imitation or “instant” mysticism. See Rick Doblin, “Pahnke’s ‘Good Friday Experiment’: A Long-Term Follow-up and Methodological Critique,” The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 1991, Vol. 23, No. 1, pp.2-28. See also, Martin A. Lee and Bruce Shlain, Acid Dream: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, The Sixties, and Beyond (Grove Press, 1992), pp.76-77, and Kotler and Wheal, Stealing Fire, 58-59.

[22] Stanislav Grof, Psychology of the Future: Lessons from Modern Consciousness Research (State University of New York Press, 2000), p.210.

[23] Richard Rohr and Mike Morrell, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation (Whitaker House, 2016), p.111, italics in original. Note: This book sells an alternative spirituality, another version of Oneness.

[24] Robert Muller – raised Roman Catholic – was spiritually influenced as an adult by the quiet Buddhism of UN Secretary-General, U Thant, and the writings of Catholic mystic, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. For more on the role of Chardin’s ideas and Thant’s influence on Muller, see Robert Muller, New Genesis: Shaping a Global Spirituality (World Happiness and Cooperation, 1989, originally published in 1982), pp.159-171.

[25] Robert Muller, New Genesis: Shaping a Global Spirituality (World Happiness and Cooperation, 1989, originally published in 1992), p.37.

[26] Preceptors of Advaita (Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Sankara Mandir, 1968), p.xi.

[27] Ibid., p.209.

[28] See Barbara M. Hubbard, Conscious Evolution: Awakening the Power of Our Social Potential (New World Library, 1998).

[29] Ken Keyes, Jr. was a personal growth instructor and teacher of New Age consciousness. His books were popular during the 1970s and 1980s, with his Handbook to Higher Consciousness selling over one million copies. His tipping point concept was described as the “Hundredth Monkey” effect.

[30] See Willis Harman, Global Mind Change: The Promise of the Last Years of the Twentieth Century (Knowledge Systems/Institute of Noetic Sciences, 1988).

[31] Temple of Understanding, www.templeofunderstanding.org/wwa_Faith_Ecology.html. Note: the website has changed. This text comes from a July 25, 2009 screenshot.

[32] The Urantia Book (Urantia Foundation, 2010 edition), Paper 110: Section 3, p.1206.

[33] David Spangler, Reflections on the Christ (Findhorn Foundation, 1977), pp.127-128.

[34] Neale Donald Walsch, Tomorrow’s God: Our Greatest Spiritual Challenge (Atria Books, 2004), p.34.

[35] In 2008, Walsch and his organization – Humanity’s Team – went to the UN with 50,000 signatures and requested the formation of “Global Oneness Day.” Humanity’s Team was encouraged to proceed before the UN came to a consensus.

[36] Warren Smith is the author of The Light That Was Dark: From the New Age to Amazing Grace (Mountain Stream Press, 2006), Deceived on Purpose: The New Age Implications of the Purpose-Driven Church (Mountain Stream Press, 2006), A Wonderful Deception (Mountain Stream Press, 2011), False Christs Coming: Does Anybody Care? (Mountain Stream Press, 2011), and Another Jesus Calling (Lighthouse Trails Publishing, 2013).

[37] Peter Jones, One or Two: Seeing a World of Difference (Main Entry Editions, 2010), p.17.

[38] Ibid., p.13.

[39] Prudence Jones and Nigel Pennick, A History of Pagan Europe (Routledge, 1995), p.33-34.

[40] Emma Restall Orr, “The Ethics of Paganism: The Value and Power of Sacred Relationship,” Pagan Visions for a Sustainable Future (Llewellyn Publishing, 2005), p.10.

[41] Immanence refers to a staying-within or indwelling. Pagan immanence places the sacred within creation: soil, trees, mountains, rivers, blood, etc.

[42] Jones and Pennick, A History of Pagan Europe, p.1, italics in original.

[43] John N. Oswalt, The Bible Among the Myths (Zondervan, 2009), pp.48,49.

[44] The boy in the story was J.D. Salinger. Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s (J.P. Tarcher, 1980), p.382.

[45] Scott Cunningham, Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner (One Spirit, 2003, reprint edition), p.6.

[46] Scott Cunningham, Living Wicca: A Further Guide to the Solitary Practitioner (Llewellyn, 2001), p.55, italics in original.

[47] Robert M. Geraci, Virtually Sacred: Myth and Meaning in World of Warcraft and Second Life (Oxford University Press, 2014), p.122.

[48] Oswalt, The Bible Among the Myths, p.47.

[49] Lewis Mumford, The Conduct of Life (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1951), p.226.

[50] Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD). For an interesting, first-hand narrative of the LSD counter-culture of the 1960s, see Charles W. Slack, Timothy Leary, the Madness of the Sixties and Me (Peter H. Wyden, 1974).

[51] A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Srimad Bhagavatam, First Canto – Creation (International Society for Krishna Consciousness/Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, 1972), p.xv.

[52] Roger Brian Neill, Revolution in Mind: An Autobiography (Word Alive Press, 2014), p.xi.

[53] Douglas R. Groothuis, Unmasking the New Age (Inter-Varsity Press, 1986), pp.15-16.

[54] Ibid., p.111.

[55] An almost forgotten book propagating the idea of “emotional will” for collective integration is The Science of Power, by Benjamin Kidd (Methuen & Co., 1918). Note: Kidd used the concept of “pagan” in its reversed form – the individual and the State whose standards do not extend past self interests, and advises that this must bend to the Universal.