A Critique On A Caryl Productions Video About The New Age

by Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer


This article presents my critique on a popular Caryl Matrisciana video about the New Age. Having spent many years of research on this topic, I found that the leading Christian opponents of the New Age radically distort the truth concerning what the New Age is about, and do so, so that they can equate the New Age with a particular Bible scripture.

Caryl Matrisciana (1947-2016) was one of the leading Christian opponent of the New Age. She authored a best-selling book titled "Gods of the New Age." There is a popular Caryl Productions video about the New Age. It is titled "Yoga Uncoiled - Christ Centered Yoga False Christianity - Documentary."

This video is about the New Age, which is based on Hinduism. One of the video's narrators states that Hindus believe that the "creator is the creation, and the creation is the creator, there is no distinction between the creator and creation." Another narrator states that "the goal of yoga meditation is to become one with God. Which God? Brahma (the creator and the creation), the Hindu God." Christians who have watched this video and believe what it teaches incorrectly believe that Hindus and New Agers worship the creation as God.

Another narrator in the video says Hinduism's "main tenants are pantheism, that God is all, and panentheism, that God's presents is in all." Here, in the video, it is not mentioned that panentheism views God as being, both, immanent and transcendent-or exists beyond the creation and is Infinite.

In another segment of the video a narrator does state that the Hindus and New Agers believe that God is not only immanent, but also transcendent-or exists beyond the creation and is Infinite, but here in the video the narrator does not mention that becoming One with the Infinite is the goal of Hindu and New Age meditation, in fact, the narrator in another segment of the video incorrectly says that "the goal of meditation is to become one with the universe." So, the video incorrectly portrays the Hindu and New Age view on the transcendence of God as being relatively insignificant in comparison to the importance they place on the creation.

Because Christians believe that the infinite transcendent God beyond the creation is the creator, the Christians who have watched this video and believe what it teaches incorrectly believe that Hindus and New Agers "worship the creation [the finite universe] more than the creator [the infinite transcendent God],"- Romans 1:25. The leading Christian opponents of the New Age often use this scripture to incorrectly describe who Hindus and New Agers are.

Hindus and New Agers believe that (1.) Spirit (the Infinite supreme God) emanated a Divine God who manifested as an essentially undifferentiated mass of light or as a spiritual universe made of light, and (2.) this emanated Divine God when sinned, which caused Him to also become manifest as a god, or as a corrupted and illusory expression of Himself-who was less than divine, a god who "created," or rather [became] the material universe or creation. A Hindu scripture says that Spirit told Brahma (the creator and the creation) that he would "never be worshiped."

When a spiritually advanced Hindu or New Ager can perceive the universe or creation as the emanated God-manifest as an essentially undifferentiated mass of light they will become one with It or Him. (The goal of meditation is to first become One with the emanated God, and then go through Him-to become One with Spirit.) The emanated God does not manifest as matter. The corrupted expression of the emanated God is the god who manifest as this less-than-divine material universe. The goal of Hindus and New Agers is to become one with Spirit, and not one with the creation or universe, as this video incorrectly states.

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More on this topic:

In a popular Carly Productions video titled "Yoga Uncoiled - Christ Centered Yoga False Christianity - Documentary" Caryl Matrisciana (1947-2016) said: "Classical Hinduism and yoga, which are synonymous, asserts that this universe that we live in, and are a part of, is a manifestation of Brahma, the Infinite all embracing ever blissful supreme Begin, that is a consciousness."

Wikipedia says:

"Brahman is a metaphysical concept of Hinduism referring to the ultimate reality. Brahman in the Hindu thought is the uncreated, eternal, infinite, transcendent, the cause, the foundation, the source and the goal of all existence."

"Brahma: He is a mortal like all gods and goddesses, and dissolves into the abstract immortal Brahman when the universe ends. [Brahma comes to an end, and is, therefore, not "the Infinite all embracing ever blissful supreme Being"].

The New World Encyclopedia says:

No longer widely worshiped in modern Hinduism, Brahma [a mortal god, who New Agers do not worship-but honor, nor do we worship his manifestations, the universe and the earth] is still important in Hindu mythology, and two temples in India continue to honor him today.

David Spangler, one of the founding figures of the modern New Age movement, wrote: The world soul is usually conceived as a "formative force," an active, intelligent, purposeful spiritual presence at work in the material world to guide and guard the course of planetary evolution. It is generally not accorded the status of being the ultimate source, or Creator [Brahman, or Shiva and Vishnu who are One], but might be looked upon as a great angelic or archangelic being [Brahma] presiding over the well being of the world, or as the gestalt, the wholeness of all the lives and patterns that manifest upon, and as, the earth [Gaia].

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A related article of mine is located here.