Dossier, Volume 14 #2

Intimations of Spiritual Renaissance

Since the mid-1980s we've become familiar with the term New Age to describe the increasing phenomenon of those seeking the spiritual in their lives. I'm often asked, "Is the New Age just a cyclical wave of spiritual craving or is it really the dawn of a completely new mode of life?" I believe it is the latter--that we are entering a huge spiritual renaissance. Apart from the more erratic aspects of this New Age, like the dangerous play of the occult and the psychic, there is a more serious element that combines revolutionary thought, radical religious beliefs and a far-reaching psychological philosophy.

There is much evidence to show that it is not all "dancing in the light" as we undergo the changes necessary to undo the old models of being. The late Christian/Buddhist teacher and writer, Alan Watts, described the age in which we live as the "Age of Anxiety." This anxiety, which encompasses the stress of managing change and growing concern for the environment and world population, seems to be appeased only in the search for a meaningful life, a life with perspective and clarity. This search invariably leads to a renewed interest in divinity where seeking God and Truth becomes a more vital concern. People's chosen professions, relationships, pastimes and ways of devotion and worship all show evidence of this growing interest. A lot of spiritual practice is being pursued independent of institutions and the old churches.

In compiling my recent anthology of contemporary spiritual writing, God in All Worlds, I had the opportunity to look back over the last fifty years and discover the preparatory signs of this spiritual renaissance. Since 1945 we have become increasingly interested in eastern religions, and have witnessed the movement of teachers from Asia to North America and Europe and the popularization of yoga, tai chi and meditation. We have radically changed the balance--or imbalance--between the sexes through the women's movement, from which came the acceptance of nonsexist vernacular and a clear feminist as well as ecological theology.

The brilliance of Freud and Jung is at the base of the groundbreaking work achieved in the understanding of the human mind, the psyche and archetypal references. Another way of understanding our powers as human beings has emerged through the works of Wilhelm Reich, who discovered orgone energy and therapeutic touch. We have explored the use of drugs and other therapeutic and nontherapeutic means to expand our consciousness and further our discourse on the mystical experience. Through scientific discoveries and technological advance, we communicate at speed and with consistency, and have unprecedented understanding of the universe. And we have grown together in promoting peace in a still violent and unhappy world.

One way of seeing the process to which all these developments are contributing was offered by Bede Griffiths, the late Catholic monk who explored Christian principles through the philosophy of the Vedanta. Griffiths believed that the New Age is offering an alternative model in our world. In his book A New Vision of Reality, he suggested that we are moving from the old basic principles of materialistic philosophy, where reductionism to the material along with logic and practicality governed our attitudes and behaviour, to an organic model where the principle is oneness in mind, body and spirit, in nature, and among all peoples and religions. He suggested that people will return to the perennial philosophy--"the ancient wisdom under which lies all religion from the earliest times." This includes the wisdom evident in the continued interest in shamanism, Taoism, Confucianism, Hinduism and Buddhism.

It's interesting to note, at least in evolutionary terms, that as we move towards the third millennium we are looking back to the first millennium before Christ to discover ways of finding how the spirit is moving and guiding us today. And it is vital too that the Semitic religions openly explore the ways of true ecumenical discourse and religious interrelatedness and interdependence, to put an end to the disunity of exclusivity. Hans Küng, the eminent liberal Swiss theologian, speaks of this necessity of finding peace in our world, which he says will not happen until there is peace among religions. In the Parliament of the World's Religions held in Chicago in September 1993, a Declaration Toward a Global Ethic was agreed on. Under Küng's tutelage, it is slowly being explored in practice--in education, in business and among countries.

In his book The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, Matthew Fox, once a Roman Catholic priest and since silenced by the Vatican for his views of Christ, forecasts our spiritual future as a paradigm shift:

Fox points out that the pattern that connects--creativity, compassion, panentheism--provides a "new wineskin" which is a "connecting wineskin." In this era of connection-making, we are truly guided by the Cosmic Christ. To understand the Cosmic Christ, Fox writes that he "is the divine pattern that connects in the person of Jesus Christ (but by no means is limited to that person)."

As a Catholic, born in 1949, who has, as an adult, found Christ anew at a deeper level through embracing the practices of the East in yoga and meditation, I believe that Fox is right--that Christ is leading us to His New Age, perhaps a forecast of the Second Coming. I'm excited and challenged by the opportunities. However, as I read about the fear and doubt flung at us every day through the secular press, I am reminded of Bede Griffiths's forecast of the general catastrophe we'll first experience in the coming New Age as economic, social and political structures break down before our eyes.

To fathom God's purpose in all this is inconceivable. Alan Watts suggested that we need to give up "any belief in the idea of God. By the same law of reversed effort, we discover the `infinite' and the `absolute' not by straining to escape from the finite and relative world, but by the most complete acceptance of its limitations. Paradox as it may seem, we likewise find life meaningful only when we have seen that it is without purpose, and know the `mystery of the universe' only when we are convinced that we know nothing about it at all." The answer for the individual Christian seems to be that, as Christ has always taught us, we need to surrender to God, to accept, to trust, to have faith, and to love one another.

Lucinda Vardey is editor of the recently published God in All Worlds: An Anthology of Contemporary Spirituality. She compiled the bestselling A Simple Path with Mother Teresa (1995) and published Belonging: A Book for the Questioning Catholic Today (1988).