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The New Age movement - a new approach to science?

Fr. Dan Bdulescu From the materialistic-atheistic view to the new age "science". The origin of natural science has to be found in ancient Greece, namely to the philosophers from the 5th and 6th centuries BC, more precisely in the schools of Ionian Miletus. These philosophers called also hylosoics - "those who believe that the matter is alive," an organicistmonistic conception which did not distinguish between spirit and matter. Heraclitus of Ephesus used for this unit the term logos, a term that was later adopted by St. John the Evangelist with the well-known Christian theological significance. Back in ancient times, the Eleatic school introduced a henotheistic principle promoting a cosmology in the materialistic rationalism way, a consequence of dualistic vision spirit - matter. The last field being accessible to the senses, was intended to answer the existential questions on the occurrence of the cosmos from chaos, multiplicity and variety of aspects of the origin and natural phenomena were investigated causes of movement and change, the relationship between form and matter. Matter () as such was considered to be universal, eternal and uncreated. The methods used by these philosophers were both direct empirical observation of natural phenomena and the widespread use of general and specific assumptions, aiming at the development of movement theories of metaphysical and mathematical nature. From this need to explain the antithesis unity-diversity observed in nature was born and developed in 6th-3rd centuries the atomistic theory "supported by Leucippus, Democritus and Epicurus. In essence, this theory assumes that the material ground is build upon indivisible particles (-), identical, eternal and indestructible. Material organization was considered to be discontinuous, being composed of solids, liquids and gases. Those atoms are moving freely in a space that contains elements of "vacuum" type. This theory was refuted in the same period by the Stoics Zeno, Chrysippus and later Posidonius of Apameia. They underlined the continuous character of nature developing the "pneumatical" concept that stands that space and matter is a continuum passed through and unified by a kind of aerial spirit which they called , a word so familiar in meaning later to the Greek speaking Christians. The Natural Sciences being an area subject to fluctuations and arbitrariness, subjectivity and limited possibilities of wisdom () inherent to the human mind received a new personality that overturned both concepts: the great Aristotle. He was concerned primarily with the philosophical problem of constant movement, which has a constant cause that occurs in an environment of resistance. From this he deduced the impossibility of vacuum existence, which is known as a medium of zero resistance. In Aristotle's physics cosmos was divided into two areas, one celestial and one terrestrial, governed by laws of different quality.

2 In the next century we note the outstanding work and contribution of Archimedes, who applied mathematical and geometrical solutions to physics, following in this regard the advanced knowledge of the Egyptians applied in the building of pyramids, taken as known by Pythagoras and thus into the Hellenistic space. From Archimedes we got his law of the balance of the hydrostatic forces. The last important representative of the Greek antiquity (Hellenistic period) is Ptolemy in the second century AD, whose astrophysics conception remained normative in Europe for over 1500 years. So far on what will be called later Europe we find a division of North-South latitudinal type. Thus we refer to concerns specific to the Mediterranean, space which becomes known as a mare internum of the Roman Empire. In the following centuries of the Christian era will appear this cultural "fault", this time longitudinal east-west, the empire will be divided in two. The Roman world takes two centers of power, the old and the new Rome, and the two sides will be "Latinized" in the West and, "Hellenized" (Graecized) in the east. From the standpoint of natural science there is a stagnation throughout the millennial period (500-1500) called by the scholars of the eighteenth century Enlightenment "the dark Middle Ages". This stagnation is explained by the advent of Christianity, the gradual Christianization of Europe share increasingly larger Universal Church (Catholic-Orthodox), and therefore the concepts about the supreme life taught by her. The focus moves to the life and eternal happiness, the salvation, sanctification, ensuring that the ultimate purpose deification () is required for other efforts, another knowledge, and far less scientific research. But these spiritual concerns proved to be too high for the peoples of the Western half of the empire, especially as they were recently christened Franks and Germans (Saxons), Normans, Long bards and others. Their weight began to overwhelm the West, and after the year 800 dominated by the personality of Charlemagne, the spiritual interests in the area gradually decreased, giving place instead to worldly interests, competition with the more civilized and learned Eastern. In turn this one has had two strong shocks: the emergence of Islam with its lightning rise and losing in only 200-300 years of the half of the population, territory and resources. The second shock was closely associated with it, the iconoclasm, finally defeated in the Ninth Century. After the schism of 1054, the two parts of Europe will have a separate and often strewn path of conflict. The Islamic peoples took skillfully advantage of this situation, first the Arabs, who have spread their caliphate up to the Iberian peninsula threatening to invade France. The contact of the Western Christianity with the Eastern one occurred during the Crusades, but as it is known, with negative results which have deepened the previous rupture. Westerners came in twelfth and thirteenth centuries, however, in direct contact with the Arabs, both those in Spain and those in the East. This is when we are interested in the further development of physics. If the Arab role in the spread of Aristotelianism in medieval Western (Iberian Peninsula) since 1000 is well known, we find that currently missing from the previous link current cultural perspective: namely, how could get the Arabs to Aristotle? Living under Arab occupation (6th-7th centuries), some Syrian thinkers, mastering Greek language (as it was the example of St. John of Damascus of Mansour family) were first translated into Syriac the work of Stagirite and then in Arabic. Following the expansion and peak of the Arab Caliphate in Baghdad and later those in Spain Alhambra, Cordoba - we have completed this chain link unmentioned: the Eastern Monophysite

3 Christians. So in this intricate way the West gets the Greek heritage that will build the foundation of granite of his theology, philosophy and finally science: the scholasticism. We are in the western area where from now on will develop sciences of nature, and physics so, at an unprecedented rate. The explanation of this phenomenon is the role assigned to knowledge. A German adage says: "knowledge is power", perhaps inspired by the scripturistical 'A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength' (Proverbs 24, 5). The luciferian temptation of Eden, the forbidden fruit of knowledge of this kind, is strongly manifested in this culture leading to a magical mentality, Faustic. Above we have shown that through knowledge is achieved power, but the specific focus of this way of thinking is based on an output of domination over something, someone, a practical emphasis. Knowledge is going to something lower so that can be analyzed, disassembled, controlled. The motto of science and Western mentality today is: "How does it work?", unlike the Aristotelian "why?". This lower area which can be so well known is the phenomenal world, the immanent, material cosmos. Knowing God and His kingdom becomes increasingly distant from the concerns of this world. Taking as the basis the Aristotelian physics, medieval scholars began to develop first the mechanics, especially the movement of bodies through a medium and the forces involved in this phenomenon. Precursors of these concerns were John Filippon of Alexandria in the sixth century, and in the eleventh century Avicenna and Abu al Barakat al-Baghdadi. Over time the Arabic influence that has made its decisive mark in the al-chemy, and al-gebra which developed mainly by Arab scholars, gradually decreased, the scientists in scholastic Western European universities are grouped supporting further research in the field. At the end of the Middle Ages in the thirteenth century the theologians have notified the university of Paris as unacceptable the idea of eternity of matter, which can not, in terms of dogma, be coeternal with the Christian God, a Creator God and not a Platonic demiurge of gnosticist type. It is known that during this period Aristotle's authority in the Roman Catholic Church was equal to that of the Holy Scriptures, both being present on the holy altar. In 1227, the height of scholars, Pope John XXI sanctioned a total of 219 sentences, mostly issued by Aristotle and his successor, Doctor Ecclesiae, Thomas Aquinas1. Among these sentences are the one which says: "that the first cause (God) could not made more worlds." The first article of the Creed says, "...Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible." What is the incriminated sentence refers to? If it takes into account the physical (visible) position supporting the uniqueness2 we rally to this. We speak today about parallel universes, antimatter and black holes through which it could pass from one universe to another, multidimensional universes, simple enough even scientifically unsubstantiated speculation, not to mention theological. Extrapolating, of course, nothing scriptural entitles us to assume the existence of other physical worlds, possibly inhabited by other beings of superior intelligence to us. From here to the new UFO mythology is only one step that we can not theological accept in any case, even as a working hypothesis (we will see later how this problem was treated in the new age). This method of scientific investigation in theology is very dangerous and can lead to serious heresy, as was the case of the erudite Origen, sentenced forever at two ecumenical councils, despite recent attempts of his "rehabilitation", some of these coming, surprisingly, even in the Orthodox theological realm. With the fall of Constantinople in 1453 the Middle Ages comes to an end, and a part of Byzantium "intelligentsia" led by Gemistus Pletho refuge in Italy, where these Byzantine intellectuals of neo-Platonic Gnostic mind will lay the foundations of what was called over centuries, "renaissance". It is
1 2

Cf. Encyclopaedia Britannica 1996 Therefore we have the latin uni-verse, there is nothing like multi-verse.

4 not explicitly said that it was a revival of pagan pantheistic spirit, of astrology and magic practices, of alchemy. In what interests us, science becomes an unprecedented boom, tend to become autonomous, that is free from the tutelage of the church. We are from now on in the Western Area in which prevailed, as it is known, the Aristotelian scholasticism, of which the Renaissance scholars decide to move away gradually, but they also "emancipated" from the doctrine and Christian revelation in general, including the Orthodox, using more and more exclusively the limited resources of the human intellect, arbitrary, imperfect and fallible so. From this follows the well-known road of scientific hypotheses and theories, some with claims of absolute and eternal truth, but whose time had not exceeded 200-300 years, after which they were refuted by new hypotheses and theories and so on. The predominant character of these Science is one rationalistic, quantitative and mechanistic. Universe described by classical physics is deterministic and infinite with fixed laws. Scholars of this period, among whom shone Galileo Galilei abandoned the ptolemeo-aristotelian system with the earth as a fixed center in a static universe with natural laws of motion. Under the influence of Copernicus physics takes an important leap in that the center of the universe is the sun and the earth performs a circular motion (which in the ptolemaic system was reserved for planets). On March 24, 1616 in Rome the theological commission under the leadership of Cardinal Bellarmino fought the following sentences of Galilei: ,,1. The sun is at the center of the world and hence immobile in regards to local motion. Censorship: All agreed that this proposition is foolish and absurd in philosophy and is formally heretical, because it explicitly contradicts sentences found in many places in Sacred Scripture according to the proper [literal] meaning of the words and according to the common interpretation and understanding of the Holy Fathers and of learned theologians. 2. The Earth is not the center of the world and is not immobile, but moves according to the whole of itself, and also with diurnal motion. Censorship: They all said that this sentence deserves censure identical one, in terms of philosophy: if analyzed theologically, it is wrong at least in terms of how it relates to faith. "(Emphasis added) On 5th March the following issue edict condemning the work of Copernicus. Galileo's abjuration was followed in 1633, and for "free thinkers" apologetics, was born a "martyr" or at least, "confessor" of truth on the altar of science, "persecuted for righteousness". To make it even more impressive, the scientific "hagiography" put in the mouth of Galileo the famous words: Eppur si muove. What we can say beyond pure scientifically aspect and of the freedom of thought3, it should be considered the effect on the spiritual plane of these findings, namely the gradual cancellation of the importance of the earth as the spiritual center of the universe also (besides the physical!)- here is life, here was created man, the image of God, master of the universe and crown of creation, on this earth was incarnate Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the God Man. The confusion of plans typical for Western spirituality in this period went up today to the conflict between science and theology with consequences that have not yet healed, but on the contrary, have been "exported" to other areas due to power and world domination exercised over the last 200-300 years by Western European nations. It is true that discovery of the law free fall is due to Galileo's, where the distance s varies after the square of time t, the finding of a parabolic trajectory of a projectile using the principle of inertia, with applications that have led Western
Galileo and Giordano Bruno figures are used as typical anti-clerical and antieclesial arguments of atheists and free thinkers of secular Enlightenment type, together with habitual "believe and do not question". This commandment could be somehow indirectly found in Scripture regarding the forbidden taste of the tree of knowledge. In the Orthodox area, it would approach the recommendation of St. Basil the Great and John Chrysostom on stopping to sift some mystery beyond thought and feeling. Likewise expressed and St. Gregory of Nyssa, 'For though we believe that the birth of any bodily or spiritual beings has its origin in the unbodily and uncreated nature, we do not investigate where and how there is." (Emphasis added). Quote from the Great Catechetical word.
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5 technology to the heights, from ballistic to interplanetary flights today. But perhaps a greater extent even than Galileo, physics was influenced hundreds of years by the great French mathematician and philosopher Ren Descartes, concerned in the seventeenth century to solve the problems of matter and motion creating the mechanical philosophy. Contrary to ancient atomists, Descartes rejected the existence of gaps in the universe (of vacuum in modern terms) re-entering thus the aether notion. The end of this golden century which meant for physics what was the patristic theology in the fourth century, was crowned by the figure of Newton (1643-1727) with his concerns of the integral and differential calculus, the mass, strength and inertia in his famous work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687). In this treaty were founded the three laws of classical mechanics that will govern the physics for 300 years. Not only that, but Newton exceeded the Cartesian and Galilee limits by postulating a force of gravity, whose propagation remains to this day a mystery unexplained satisfactory by science. Also in the seventeenth century physics fell concerns and calculations on the speed of light, which then remained single point of support, constant in relativity einsteniene system. In the next century we are witnessing the culmination of the Enlightenment, in which mathematicians separate themselves from physicists and astronomers, these branches of knowledge now becoming independent. Mathematics is oriented towards increasing abstraction, with a kind of substitution role of philosophy and Pythagorean type theology, but no ancient mystical number. Now classical mechanics perfected, leading through Euler and d'Alembert, in Trait de dynamique 1743, to the rational mechanics of the natural philosophy. Since 1738 France manifests itself in intensive concerns related to light rays and universal attraction, fields that had over 170 years a decisive role in Einstein's relativistic mechanics. Also developed heat-related research as a first feeble beginning, electricity and magnetism. In the eighteenth century we continue to have an uniform and fixed pre-relativistic Euclidean space-time. From theological point of view, the Christian doctrine has suffered first from the philosophers and then the scientists the attack of Deism. Occurred primarily in England as a rationalist philosophy, Deism sought to promote the so called rational 'natural religion' opposing the wonders, mysteries, supernatural revelation and teachings (dogmas) of any church. As we know and dogmatic theology recognizes the existence of a "natural revelation", and apologetics, or fundamental theology, sought to argue faith disputes with philosophical and even scientific methods. But Western scholars determined to win their independence at any price range were increasingly distant from the Church first, and over a hundred years of God, even falling into atheism. For now we are in the eighteenth century when Montesquieu wrote, 'God is in relation to the universe as the Creator and his Keeper4: the laws upon which He created universe are the same which those which keep it... He knows the rules because He is the one who made them and because they are in relation to His wisdom and power." We see in these words the continuation of Cartesian line of dualism in which is made difference and separation between subject and object, content and contended, between rational knowledge and revelation, and it is denied in an agnostic way the possibility of global insights. We will see later that the New Age physics just stood against this "paradigm" replacing it with new holistic paradigm. There is here nothing but failure of the medieval scholastic, heirs in this case of Nestorianism, unable to receive and unifying Catholic definition of Chalcedon. For Enlightenment philosophers and scientists the universe was fragmented in separate "phenomena" and can be studied and known in turn, without any hinder, censure. 1. From the materialistic-atheistic concept to the new age "science". In the new age movement reference physics and cosmology plays an important role. This is because the "theological" foundation so fragile of the movement needs in the world that has emerged 4

Providence (n.n.)

6 the Euro-Atlantic - the type coverage and scientist support, that one in which believes with the greatest strength the secular man of this area and this time. Thus, modern physics has emerged in the nineteenth century as a synthesis of several natural sciences studying various aspects of energy forms. But before we investigate the impact of what is called "the new physics" upon New Age concepts, let us see the short history of physics in philosophical-religious context. At the end of the Middle Ages, in the thirteenth century the university of Paris theologians have notified as unacceptable the idea of eternity of matter, it can not, in terms of dogma, to be coeternal with the Christian God, a Creator God and not Platonic demiurge of gnosticist type. It is known that during this period Aristotle's authority in the Roman Catholic Church was almost equal to that of the Holy Scriptures, both being present on the holy table. We consider necessary to stop us on the concept of "energy" because this will play a leading role both in the new relativistic physics and in the broader New Age. The term comes from the Greek that made meaning, work, activity, action. In physics energy means the capacity of a physical system to provide a work or action. The matter produces energy as a result of movement or position in relation to active forces that are the mechanical energy. In addition there are many other forms of energy among which bioenergy is an area with great emphasis in New Age. From a scientific point of view bioenergetics is the study of the processes that living cells use, stores and releases energy. Here is also the photosynthesis process. But in the new scientistic new age mythology bioenergy has a somewhat different content, defined in the Asian philosophy as that of Chinese qi or Hindu prana. As noted in the nineteenth century that the various forms of energy can turn to one another, the scientists Sadi Carnot, Rudolf Julius Emanuel Clausius and Lord Kelvin have made the law of conservation of energy, in which the most important is the second law of thermodynamics (1850) that in an isolated system internal components of different temperatures will tend always to a single uniform temperature balance. The consistent logic application at the Universe scale (regarded as a closed and isolated system) of the principle called by Clausius entropy, which shows the state of thermal equilibrium, leading to so-called theory of the "heat death of the universe", the ceasing of all possible thermal processes. It was noted that this law would apply only in the macroscopic, microscopic it is not valid, thus foresee future discoveries of quantum mechanics and theory of relativity. Scientists of the nineteenth century were based on empirical observations of course, no light of divine revelation. They ascertaining the continuing need for maintenance of solar energy for the earthly life, but this energy was also created, and in turn, necessarily finite. What lacked the medieval Roman Catholic theologians, the uncreated energies through which works the providence of God, lacked any more to the secular and quasi-atheistic scientists of the 19th century. So their view was that energy is transformed, but can not be created or destroyed, which necessarily leads us directly to the characteristics of divine energy. A leading personality in the world of science that is claimed by the New Age movement was French anthropologist and Jesuit Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955). From his work it was accepted idea that the world is a whole in which everything is connected together and are interdependent, i.e. keep everything together. As the scientific training biologist, Teilhard saw all beings as a warp woven in a wireless universal process. Trying to reconcile biology with theology the Jesuit scientist came to a evolutionism in original form, from the first simple and seemingly lifeless form to form increasingly more complicated with a conscience ever higher. In this way he slipped scientistic evolutionary heresy disguised in Christian language. T. d. Chardin opens the perspective of the human development to a higher form of life, instead of deification and spiritual ascent, proving ultimately a materialist. The element in the cosmos continually evolving gaining increasing degrees of complexity is consciousness. In this way the universe is evolving all the time by its own power and will.

7 No wonder that through his naturalist pantheist views Teilhard came into conflict with church teaching. His confession of faith get more subjective forms, seeing Christ as the crown of the world and as an expression of the "world soul." The world renowned scientist Erwin Schrdinger, who with de Broglie, Bohr and Heisenberg was one of the founders of quantum theory wrote in his work My View of the World the following: "No matter how inconceivable it may seem to ordinary thinking, you and all beings conscious as such, are all in all. Because this, the life you live is not just a fragment of the whole existence, it is in a sense, everything." We chose this name because in his views Schrdinger appears as a precursor to new age scientists physicists D. Bohm and F. Capra (b. 1939). Like those later, this new ager avant la lettre, has the revelation of his scientific observations correspondence with Indian tradition, Thomas Aquinas, Meister Eckhart, and other Western mystics. In his work Christ and karma the French theologian Franois Brune makes a small anthology of the new metaphysics starting with quotations from Michael Talbot, Mysticism et physique moderne (Mercure de France, Le Mail, 1984) namely that each particle affects all others, that the structure material can not be independent of consciousness, that human psyche is interfering with all aspects of the universe, that is not present distinction between subject and object, and reality is one and omnijective. Thus, almost imperceptibly, the author introduces us to the world of the new world concepts: the paradigm of hologram. Realizing that as theologian, F. Brune prevents us that these are not new age insights, but scientific. Arriving at one of the authors cited above, English physicist D. Bohm, it is said that the whole world is a hologram, each of us is a point hologram that reflects the entire universe in a static and dynamic balance. According to Bohm, '... the great hologram called Creation, which is The Ego of each of us." The British physicist David Bohm (1917-1992) is one of the most competent researchers usually quoted by the New Age scientism. He outlined his ideas in his work Wholeness and the Implicate Order, published in 1980. Bohm argues that all things seem to be part of a great whole, inseparable, in which everything floats and mix organic with everything else, such as movement of a stream. Meanwhile hazard is of course excluded. Bohm introduces the concept of implicate order, which means somehow an order built a priori, rational order and unseen that is manifested in the world of our experience that Bohm calls explicit order, or apparent order. In the new age physics area, a leading role is played by the American theoretical physicist Fritjof Capra (b. 1939). His main book is called The Tao of Physics and appeared as popularized science in 1975. The name is due to the parallels found by the author between modern physics and eastern Chinese mystic. What struck Capra on is that both physical and mystical intuitive rational scientific reached similar conceptions of reality, that the matter itself does not exist. The material world is an illusion (maya), the reality is spiritual, non-material. Capra falls in contemporary scientific and philosophical current trying to overcome fragmentation of classical science and to unify the concepts to give rise to a holistic picture of reality. Unfortunately, following exclusively the Oriental mysticism, line, he comes like those not to think the divine as a power that created and runs the world from the outside, but as a leading power within. Thus God is in all and actually working inside becoming our immortal soul, which is a serious pantheistic heresy. In his approach, Capra rightly stresses the intuitive and religious thinking superiority over rational thought Enlightenment scientistic type. This value of intuition was referred to in

8 a masterly way by Fr. Stniloae, and in this case, that it would apply in science can only be a welcome and necessary thing. However, the American physicist found with accuracy a rational element in mysticism. According to the latest discoveries of modern physics, at the subatomic level is not any solid material, but only empty space and energy fields, opportunities, trends and statistical probabilities. Reality appears as a complex fabric of relationships between different parts of a whole, an important part of reality is just the observer influencing what they observe. Capra says that: "In atomic physics we can never speak about nature without at the same time talking about ourselves." But Fritjof Capra had not limited to the approach of Taoist concepts, but continued its parallels with Hindu philosophy, reaching ultimate reality called Brahman concept, which is reckoned to be the seed of all things, the soul world, infinite, eternal and can not be grasped by the mind of man. His correspondent of the human soul is, according to Vedanta philosophy, Atman. Buddhism too maintains that the world is one. Capra himself adheres to the notion of T. Kuhn, of holistic vision of the world that leads to change the old paradigm. The theoretical support for this new vision comes from physics and mysticism, so from this Tao physics. In support of its allegations, Fritjof Capra brings the theory of Nobel Prize winner Ilya Prigogine, that the living organisms are self-organized system, an aberrant deviation from those plasticized reasons repeated in contemporary Orthodox theology by Fr Stniloae after St. Maximus the Confessor. With this theory is toppled the fundament of Darwin's theory of evolution. Fighting the distinction operated by Descartes in matter and consciousness as two different categories, Capra sees consciousness as the very dynamic, creative force behind the self organization of the living organisms. To describe the mental forces of some inferior living organisms he uses the term mentation. More connected human consciousness form the macro consciousness, i.e. the social and ecological system, and this in turn is included into the mind of the planet, which in turn must be included in a universal cosmic consciousness. All these elements together inevitably lead to that holistic vision that we mentioned earlier. Since the New Age movement has emerged and developed in an environment permeated by scientism in which as we have shown the scientists represented the supreme authority until the second World War, it was understood that among the concerns of the new spirituality will include and those related to science. According to astrological vision, the age of Pisces was characterized among others by a separation of religion from science, which after the Middle Ages came even into open conflict. Hence the new age of Aquarius will make conciliatory and the reconciliation of the two divergent fields. This was described among others by Marilyn Fergusson in her work The Aquarian Conspiracy published in 1980 in the chapter about Psi: the unknown in physics and parapsychology5. The Greek term psi" () means here the unknown in the Theoretical physics and parapsychology. According to the latest research in physics the matte has only "a tend to exist", the particles are "quantum leaps" and the universe is a "scattering matrix". These statements are based on the work of scholars like Swiss J. S. Bell, author of the theorem that bears his name (1964) and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox. Another reference work in the new age related to new physics is The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav. He brings into question the theory of complementarity among others set out by the Dane Niels Bohr, and Englishman Paul Diracs statement that claims that "the matter is created out of nothing". As Fritjof Capra, G. Zukav found everywhere obvious analogies between new discoveries in physics and Taoist and Eastern mysticism. Combining science and psychology has led to the assertion of so-called field of "paranormal" in which phenomena such as synchronicity proposed by Wolfgang Pauli and C. G. Jung can not be subjected to experiment. Among the famous researchers concerned with "psi" are quoted J. J. Thomson, William James, Alexis Carrel, Max Planck, the two Curie, Schrdinger, Einstein, C. G. Jung, Wolfgang Pauli, Pierre Janet, and Thomas Edison.

Tharcer, LA p. 170

9 2. The new Scientist myth: The Aliens UFOs became in the last decades the most popular religion in America. This statement was made among others by researcher John Whitmore in the study Religious Dimensions of the UFO Abductee Experience6. We agree with American author, who claims that the descriptions of cases of abduction (abductee) have strong religious connotations. A serious research of UFO abduction cases showed that the important stages of descriptions and contact with extraterrestrial intelligences have a religious charge7. Here are described this gradual experiences and to each moment are found religious parallels. The most religious revelations have the same symbolism of light, to designate the divine being. The religious man feels powerless and small before the glory of God. It could make a parallel with Jahve the God of the Old Testament, Who is described as burning bush.8 What is essential in shamanistic and cosmological conceptions of contemporary UFO technology is a process of initiation that transforms the ignorant or that person who aspires after spiritual knowledge, and who gradually led to a qualitative transformation of the old ego in an altered consciousness. The initiation in the supernatural world is painful and incomprehensible at first, but once it is integrated cultural topic in its context becomes intelligible and operational. Since the religious content of the UFO phenomena is an unquestioned reality, there are consequently a number of ufolatric sectarian groups, of which perhaps the most representative is the "Raelians". Their name comes from cult founder, Rael, alias Frenchman Claude Vorilhon (b. 1946). His "revelations" claim the foundation of a future generation led by a "geniocraty" carefully monitored by advanced aliens. Echoes of these elitist ideas of SF were taken from us by Alexandru Mironov. In parallel with these aspects of the sectarian phenomenon, the UFO field was approached by researchers of such franc-Masonic secret organizations, as was the one who signed under the penname Jan van Helsing9. After a documented and valid statement on the worldwide conspiracy orchestrated by various secret organizations, the author addresses the subject of UFOs alien life on accreditation position. According to the paper, the official recognition of the phenomenon may lead among others that: "All religions would be forced to change their dogmas. Nobody wants that." It further states the theories of the The VRIL Gesselschaft founded in Germany in 1919, that the aliens come from the solar system Aldebaran. An anti UFO apologetic is presented too by the French author Marc Dem in his Antichrist 666, Cap. 20, entitled "The time of blasphemy and alien missionaries." When asked if UFOs have any connection with Satanism, researcher J. M. Lesage gives an affirmative answer in his study entitled Le diabolique secret des O.V.N.I10, which states among others that the witness of these events: "loses touch with present reality suddenly and found himself instantly in another "reality" which does not exist, being in the realm of magic."

In The Gods Have Landed New Religions From Other Worlds, edited by James R. Lewis, New York 1995, p. 74 7 J. Whitmore, Religious Dimensions pp. 65-84. 8 Erland Sandqvist, Spkflygarna 46 dagens UFO-fenomen forntidens nglabesk., Stockholm, 1987 pp. 329370 9 Geheimgesellschaften und ihre Macht im 20. Jahrhundert, 1995, ISBN 3-89478-069-X 10 The diabolical secret of the UFOs
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10 A relevant Orthodox analysis of the phenomenon was made by Hieromonk Seraphim Rose11. Thus, according to Father Seraphim, SF philosophy could be summarized as follows: What then, is the meaning of the UFO phenomena of our time? Why have they appeared at just this time in history? To what future do they point? First, UFO phenomena are but one part of an astonishing outpouring of paranormal events---what just a few years ago most people would have considered as miracles. Dr. Vallee, in The Invisible College, expresses the secular appreciation of this fact: Observations of unusual events suddenly loom into our environment by the thousands (p. 87), causing a general shifting of mans belief patterns, his entire relationship of the invisible (p. 114), Something is happening to human consciousness (p. 34); the same powerful force [that] has influenced the human race in the past is again influencing it now (p. 14). In Christian language this means: a new demonic outpouring is being loosed upon mankind. In the Christian apocalyptic view (see the end of this book), we can see that the power which until now has restrained the final and most terrible manifestation of demonic activity on earth has been taken away (II Thess. 2:7), Orthodox Christian government and public order (Whose chief representative on earth was the Orthodox emperor) and the Orthodox Christian world view no longer exists as a whole, and satan has been loosed out of his prison, where he was kept by grace of the Church of Christ, in order to deceive the nations (Apoc. 20:7-8) and prepare them to worship antichrist at the end of the age. Perhaps never since the beginning of the Christian era have demons appeared so openly and extensively as today. The visitors from outer space theory is but one of the many pretexts they are using to gain acceptance for the idea that higher beings are now to take charge of the destiny of mankind. Second, UFOs are but the newest of the mediumistic techniques by which the devil gains initiates into his occult realm. They are a terrible sign that man has become susceptible to demonic influence as never before in the Christian era. In the 19th century it was usually necessary to seek out dark sance rooms in order to enter into contact with demons, but now one need only look into the sky (usually at night, it is true). Mankind has lost what remained of basic Christian understanding up to now, and now passively places itself at the disposal of whatever powers may descend from the sky. The new film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, is a shocking revelation of how superstitious post-Christian man has come ready in an instant and unquestioningly to believe and follow hardly-disguised demons wherever they might lead. Third, the message of the UFOs is: prepare for anti-christ; the savior of the apostate world is coming to rule it. Perhaps he himself will come in the air, in order to complete his impersonation of Christ ( Matt. 24:30; Acts 1:11); perhaps only the visitors from outer space will land to offer cosmic worship of their master; perhaps the fire from heaven (Apoc. 13:13) will be only part of the great demonic spectacles of the last times. At any rate, the message for contemporary mankind is: expect deliverance, not from the Christian revelation and faith in an unseen God, but from vehicles from the sky. (Pages 106 111) The conclusions drawn by Hieromonk Seraphim Rose place the full UFO and SF spectrum under the sign of the accelerated spiritual fallacies of our time. The III degree appearances and meetings may be due to direct actions of the devil, who take their appearance according to the appropriate expectations of the age and cultural place.
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In Orthodoxy and religion of the future

11 3. Physical elements in the teaching of the Church Fathers and contemporary Orthodox theology. In face of these attempts are the works of the Fathers Church that are kept and maintained by the great contemporary Orthodox theologians among which stands prominently Father Stniloae, who in his Orthodox Dogmatic Theology in paragraph entitled "5. The world, rational work of God, as the continuous progress of human reason to ever higher meanings of it" takes on St. Maximus the Confessor, showing that all things have their reasons in the divine Logos or Supreme Reason. This rationality of nature has its purpose and meaning precisely in human service. The reasons (logos) of things are strict and they are eternal and have their meanings (noema), being contained in the divine Reason, the Logos, the Word of God. This understanding of the meaning (noesis) of things is given to man by the synthetic and direct knowing act called intuition. Here is a fair implementation of this quality light cognitive invoked so often by new agers. For Orthodox theology of Father Stniloae the world is a inexhaustible "light". Unlike intuition, the analytical reasoning is only a partial reason, point of view that can only be embraced by the new agers. Although man is composed of body and soul, there is something higher in his composition that escapes to the analysis, namely the uncreated grace, constituent element, and not that created grace of the Western scholastic theology, nor the acquired grace in the Holy Baptism. Although the world is distinguished from God (contrary to the pantheistic-monistic New Age claims), it is not separated from Him either in its existence or in its meaning. Finally, when God will be all in all, He will be united with creation after the formulation of Chalcedon: no mixing (asinkitos), no change (atreptos), not divided into two categories (adiairetos), without separation (achoristos) thus realizing the deification of nature, of creation. The New Age thinkers felt completely wrong that this stage has been reached, the human having only to realize this (Hindu gnosticism). It is nevertheless true also to the Orthodox theology that analytic reasoning can not reach the final explanation, as it strives and hopes to do sooner or later science. Since in the creation everything is rational in things and in the energy component, man has the duty to God to know it. As we have shown the world is for human rationality and culminates in human terms as opposed to new age ecology of pancosmist type. This knowledge process requires necessary an human effort, which seems to not appeal to New Agers, that will to find all sorts of quasi-magical procedures to remove just the suffering and human effort, in a word: The Cross.