Why New Age Spirituality Is Not as Harmless as It Looks — an Orthodox Critique

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• − opinion#56 ♥ 71

  The Greek word pharmakeia, rendered as sorcery or witchcraft in scripture, referred largely to using substances to alter consciousness — it's the root of 'pharmaceutical.' All magic works with spirits, and psychedelics are far from harmless. Plenty of people, me included, came to God after being freed from these substances — that shows God's mercy, not that the drugs are valid spiritual tools. They expose you to spiritual deception and manipulation, and Christians should stay away from them.
• − opinion#55 ♥ 50

  I'm an atheist/agnostic myself, but I've never once been tempted to try a ouija board. I believe most of us carry a gut-level sense that there might be something real behind it.
• − opinion#58 ♥ 14

  Smudging isn't inherently evil — it genuinely helps 'clear' a space of negative energy, much like how churches and Catholics use incense. But if a house or person is actually plagued by a demon, only God and His Church can drive it out; smudging alone won't cut it. Also, a daily reminder: never touch tarot or ouija boards, not even jokingly. Playing with those things genuinely invites demons into your life.
• − opinion#57 ♥ 13

  Psychedelics aren't New Age at all — they're Old Age. And a lot of recent research points to their capacity to heal the mind.
• − opinion#61 ♥ 9

  Nature worship isn't 'New Age' — it has always existed, and every culture, especially here in Europe, has holidays rooted in it, including pagan ones. In my region the best known is Focul lui Sumedru, a huge bonfire in October marking the biological end of the year and honoring the dead ancestors.
• − opinion#59 ♥ 6

  Esoteric and occult practices are neutral by nature — neither good nor bad. They become dangerous when approached from ego. That's why building your moral character first matters before engaging with them. Calling ancient traditions like astrology, chakras, meditation, or Hindu/Buddhist and Daoist metaphysics 'new age' makes no sense — though I get that the term refers to blending them into one modern movement. As with everything, what determines good or bad is why you turn to them. And I don't mean intentions: even noble ones, like seeking truth and meaning, paired with unexamined beliefs and a broken relationship with one's own soul, can end in disaster. Don't judge what you don't understand.
• − opinion#62 ♥ 5

  Maybe new age spirituality isn't actually growing. It was booming around 2013 when I got pulled into it, along with all my friends and everyone near my age. It has a life cycle: it recruits people, makes them feel alive and energized, then as they go deeper it drains so much from them so fast that most burn out and settle into semi-sober 'normie' life — forever nostalgic about burning man culture but never returning to it. The new age does have its own priest class, and like other belief systems it's passed down hierarchically, but it can also be self-taught and self-declared. Unlike Orthodoxy, it has no guardrails against prelest or delusion, so its self-ordained priests — or those initiated by whoever claims to be 'keepers of knowledge' — slide, consciously or not, into charlatanism. It's a broken worldview, and most people in it are just seekers who eventually conclude there are truths, joys, and pleasures above ecstatic carnal states — joys with an echo of the eternal, carrying the weight of the soul and the pain of our sin. The new age is deeply problematic; for everyone but its 'priests' it anchors nothing, wastes people's energy, promises at every turn what it can't deliver, and in many cases ends up leading seekers to a profound encounter with Christ himself. The parish I attend has no shortage of former occultists and new agers, and apparently that's typical here in…
• − opinion#73 ♥ 5

  A little clarification: 2 Corinthians 6:14 isn't actually about avoiding marriage with non-Christians (though I'd say you shouldn't do that anyway). It's really about syncretism and having only a partial commitment to Christ.
• − opinion#77 ♥ 5

  Even some self-described Christians have picked up new age beliefs. By the way, new age is really a blend of Buddhism and Hinduism, possibly with other religions mixed in too.
• − opinion#60 ♥ 2

  What's striking about this interview is that the second half contradicts the first. The host opens by explaining how dangerous it is to trust subjective feelings, coincidences, and dramatic personal experiences — people deceive themselves, chasing signs leads to delusion. Then the guest tells a conversion story built entirely on what was just warned against: a wakeboard head injury, internet forums connecting trauma to awakening, pop books on synchronicity, tracking coincidences as messages from the universe. When that collapsed into depression, he fell into rabbit holes about secret societies and banking cabals. When he finally began praying, he didn't drop that mindset — he says outright he kept reading random life patterns as direct signs from God. Even his first visit to an Orthodox church was pure emotion: a Russian parish in Vienna where he understood nothing, yet he declared it ultimate truth because the atmosphere felt solemn and otherworldly. He never outgrew pop spirituality — he still relies on hunches, pattern-seeking, and emotional highs. The only change is that instead of crystals and energy fields, he now projects those feelings onto incense, choir music, and an old calendar. If gut feelings and coincidences lead someone into eastern meditation, it's called delusion; if the same guesswork leads them into your church, it's called providence. You can't condemn…
• − opinion#63 ♥ 1

  The Bible itself has people reading the stars — Matthew 2:1-12 and Daniel 2:2-11. And the Farmers' Almanac dates back roughly to the founding of the United States. As for yoga, it's just slow movement aimed at physical health.
• − opinion#64 ♥ 1

  I don't let horoscopes run my life, but I'm definitely not buying the idea that I must kneel before an all-powerful God or be tortured forever for a finite number of sins.
• − opinion#68 ♥ 1

  Aren't we sure that new age philosophy urges people to find the divine within themselves so they become worthy to receive God's divine spirit? If all these belief systems are alternatives or analogs of the search for God, doesn't that mean all roads lead to him? There's the saying that God helps those who help themselves — I don't see how this is any different, as long as your intentions ultimately aim at union with the true divine power.
• − opinion#69 ♥ 1

  I can't stand New Age nonsense, but the fact is UFOs appear to people regardless of what they believe. Taking an unscientific stance on this is like insisting the Earth is flat and the center of the universe. Staying medieval about it won't change reality.
• − opinion#75 ♥ 1

  "And the belief that the divine is somehow within everything" — twenty seconds into the video, and you use this to belittle someone else's beliefs? Weren't we taught that God is all around us, inside each of us, reflected in the world and throughout all His creation? Have you never sat quietly in a field, felt the wind, embraced the peace, and felt closer to God — even without kneeling in a church building? Honestly, it feels like you're just being a hater, cherry-picking how someone else connects with God because it doesn't match your narrative. The world is huge, with countless religions and paths to God. Stop insisting yours is the only way — that spreads hate, the exact opposite of what you preach. God is far bigger than all people and religions combined. Remember how small you are. Lift each other up, spread real love. That's the only way forward for humanity. Amen.
• − opinion#65

  But consider: if the human being is God's creation, effectively God's artwork, and artists typically leave something of themselves imprinted in their art, wouldn't that mean reality itself is also in some sense divine — even if not divine the way Yahweh is? Also, many of these new age practices actually do encourage discernment when engaging with the spirit world.
• − opinion#66

  One thing I'd push back on: framing the new age as coming from Hinduism or Buddhism. Those are ancient spiritual philosophies — flawed, since they lack the Son, but they don't teach some impersonal God. Buddhists believe in no god at all, and in Hinduism the common belief is one God with a thousand manifestations and expressions — they don't worship separate deities like a Greek pantheon; it's one God.
• − opinion#67

  Kyle, what if the deeper problem isn't New Age itself but the very need to seek? A hidden source, a higher consciousness within the Self, or an external God we must find, accept, and belong to? Honestly, isn't the same seeker operating in both cases — hunting for that special thing that will finally complete life? I don't care whether you practice Christianity or New Age; I'm just asking: what if the searching itself is what blinds us to what's already here? If we condemn one form of seeking as superstition while claiming we've found the truth, we've already missed both — mistaking the finger for what it points at.
• − opinion#70

  LSD can be absolutely horrifying, especially if you unknowingly take three times a normal dose. About 8 years ago I had what I'm convinced was a demonic experience during a bad trip, and I've never touched the stuff since. And this happened well before I had any interest in Christ.
• − opinion#71

  Sometimes I struggle to relate to God as a personal being, because He can seem kind of absent during our suffering. It gets frustrating when people describe having a two-way conversation with Him, since from my perspective it looks like talking to yourself. I wonder if that's a major reason people struggle to come to Jesus. Could anyone explain what it's actually like? I've been wrestling with a lot of doubt lately, and I'm starting to find myself drawn a bit toward new age ideas.
• − opinion#72

  Honestly, not really. Once you connect with spirits, your journey truly starts. But at that point you stop seeking validation from other people — something Christians disapprove of. You start validating yourself, which is exactly what the spirits want. Your journey is between you and the spirits alone, nobody else.
• − opinion#74

  I think you've misunderstood what "I am God" means. It doesn't mean the body is God, nor that my mind or my ego is God. It's a teaching that the "I" is the root connecting all of us to God — that essence belongs to God. Our bodies are earthly flesh, but our spirit was sent from God and will return to Him. And there's comfort in that: when someone dies, knowing that whenever you show kindness to another person, stranger or family, you're being kind to the one face behind all the masks.
• − opinion#76

  Honestly, that's just your opinion. Yoga is just stretching, dude. Paul literally said an idol is nothing — 1 Corinthians 8:4-8 says there's no other God but one, that food doesn't commend us to God, and eating or not eating makes no difference. Just because some ancient hippies turned it into worship of their fake gods doesn't mean I can't honor God by stretching and strengthening my body. I train six days a week as the Lord intended and do martial arts, so I need to stretch. And don't say Pilates — same poses. As for frequencies and music: God let David play the harp to soothe Saul's distressing spirit. Sound affects water, and we're mostly water — even church bells use this. And what's wrong with meditation? Read your Bible; meditation is mentioned constantly. I agree with some of the rest, but not everything is black and white. "Do everything unto the Lord" — but of course someone like you always has to be right, like only your way is correct?