A fourth major belief, in one form or another, is reincarnation.
Toward the end of A New Earth, Tolle writes, “When the lion tears apart the body of the zebra, the consciousness that incarnated into the zebra-form detaches itself from the dissolving form and for a brief moment awakens to its essential immortal nature as consciousness; and then immediately falls back into sleep and reincarnates into another form.”
This worldview is far from unique to Oprah.
Star Wars, one of the most celebrated film series in history, was wrapped around many of those very same New Age ideas. So perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that a census of the Czech Republic found that more than 15,000 citizens listed their religion as Knights of the Jedi. They’re not alone; New Zealand and Great Britain had already listed the Jedi Church amongst the formal religion options. Indeed, more than 390,000 Britons said they practiced the religion in 2001 alone. As the Church of the Jedi says on its website, Star Wars helped created the religion’s terminology, but it did not create the faith itself.
And as mentioned at the beginning, the latest figures confirm its place as the seventh largest religion of any kind.
The intangible energy of the “Force” is, of course, a very appealing view of God. It is a god based on autonomous individualism. To be “autonomous” is to be independent. The value of “autonomous individualism” maintains each person is independent in terms of destiny and accountability. Ultimate moral authority is self-generated. In the end, we answer to no one but ourselves, for we are truly on our own. Our choices are solely ours, determined by our personal pleasure and not by any higher moral authority.
It reminds me of something a professor at one of the Claremont colleges in California said to me about autonomy’s central place in our world’s mind. He quipped it has produced a new argument against the existence of God: “It is a two-step proof,” he suggested. “One, I am not living in a way that would honor a God, were he to exist. Two, therefore he does not exist.”
Of course, there is nothing new about New Age thinking. It dates back farther than Hinduism. Indeed, it can be found in the opening chapters of Genesis, for it was the heart of Satan’s temptation of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:1-5).
He challenged the idea of there being right or wrong.
“Now did God really say you shouldn’t do that?”
He said death was an illusion.
“You will not surely die.”
He said they could become divine.
“You will be like God.”
He said the way they would become like God is through enlightenment.
“You will know good from evil.”
This is the unofficial folk religion of America as we begin the 21st century. We have eaten the forbidden fruit, only this time, it didn’t come in the form of an apple.
It came on a screen.
