So You've Found Jesus

What Christian Fanaticism, New Age Credos, and Midwifery Have in Common

I have seen many examples in my circles (especially over the past couple of years) of incredibly earnest, well-meaning individuals who have “found Jesus” or God, or Christianity (this often seems to happen in the context of a conversion to Christianity) and who have subsequently renounced astrology, tarot, crystals, yoga, Pilates, and other so-called “new age” practices as “the work of the Devil.” 

To my mind, this is an example of simply transferring one’s desperation and externalization of authority from one unyielding doctrine to another—“new-age” credos, after all, can be just as fundamentalist as Christian ones.

This trend reveals just how confused, insecure, and terrified so many people are in this time of ongoing radical winnowing and clarification.

For the undifferentiated, un-individuated person, adhering to rigid, dogmatic, isolating regulations and belief structures can feel very comforting, as is the sense of self-righteousness that allows them to feel as though they are somehow exceptional; that their “formula” sets them apart, or offers them some sort of special protection from evil, when in fact, the only safeguard we have against corruption (and the only true form of connection with God) lies in the realm of self-responsibility and self-ownership. 

Evil *is* real. “Satanism” (the inversion of holiness) is certainly real.

And dark energy can be (and often is) invoked and spread with what we can all fool ourselves into believing are the best of intentions, and even in the name of Jesus, or under the banner of the church or of some other seemingly virtuous organization or religion. 

I’m sure too, that yoga, like anything else, can be used to perpetuate “false light,” and contorted perspectives (though my observation is that most people who practice yoga do so either with genuinely positive spiritual intentions, or without much spiritual intention at all, and simply as a way of supporting physical health).

Yet yoga, in my view, is no more inherently “demonic” than any other practice, spiritual or otherwise, nor are astrology, psychic readings, or an interest in crystals inherently satanic. 

Frankly, I find fanaticism from any direction incredibly tiresome not to mention truly pitiful. I don’t mean that as an insult, but simply as an observation: it is a sign of spiritual immaturity. Fanaticism and authoritarianism go hand-in-hand.

The fact that everything and anything can be twisted to the point of toxicity, or bent to serve nefarious intentions is precisely why “the problem of evil” is so compelling, so ever-present, and so complex.

The simplest act of eating food can be nourishing for the body and soul, or self-abusive and harmful.

Sex can either be divine or dark and hateful.

“Attachment parenting” can be manipulative and dysfunctional, or a profound expression of parental devotion, balance, and love. 

Birth can be a pilgrimage; a ceremony; a form of worship; a reverential rite of passage.

Birth can also be (and, sadly, most often is) the very apex of satanic ritual abuse. 

Midwifery, too, can be presented, offered, and practiced in the spirit of freedom and openness, and wisdom, or contorted by fear, scarcity, lack, defensiveness, and territorialism. 

There are so many pendulums (as Vadim Zeland, in his book, “Reality Transurfing” has put it)—o many vortices of temptation and influence.

I find myself continuously saddened and dismayed by the extremism and lack of discernment and wisdom rampant in every realm of human interaction…but also ever-hopeful that the general trajectory—the comprehensive arc of human evolution (spiritual evolution, that is)— is upwards.

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