The lost world of new age religion
Gather together and come; assemble, you fugitives from the nations. Ignorant are those who carry about idols of wood, who pray to gods that cannot save. (Isaiah 45:20)
Over the past two weeks, I’ve lived, worked, and traveled the mountains of western North Carolina to support twelve visitors, eight staff, seven group dinners, eight lunches, an offsite team event, daily house cleanings, constant dishwashing, vacuuming, shopping, grocery and lunch pick-ups accounting to hundreds of miles on the road (not including an 8-hour round-trip drive to the site from VA Beach) – all detailed in a twelve-page, ever-changing itinerary. In week one, I worked 96 hours. In week two, I put in 58. To say I’m exhausted – mentally, physically, and spiritually – is an understatement.
More challenging than the hours, though, is the struggle I’ve felt in realizing how deeply embedded my new org is in the lost world of New Age religion. While I was promised that my company is “non-denominational,” and even though they are incorporating themselves as an “educational network,” their spiritual components take center stage in everything they do.
Over the past six weeks, I’ve learned that they are:
- Building a temple
- Walking barefoot in the woods to commune with nature and experience “her” energy
- Facilitating New Age practices – including sound baths, yoga, and guided meditation sessions
- Talking about the communal “Divine” and bringing one’s “divine self” into and out of one’s body
- Instituting pagan practices such as “requesting permission to cross the ‘threshold’ before entering the woods.”
- Placing giant (6-8 ton) amethyst and obsidian stones around the 100-acre campus to “protect” the land and provide energy to the Center
- Seeking to “create a new world” together (a direct quote by the CEO)
While I do my job well in supporting the administrative components of their events, activities, and meals that welcome and care for guests visiting their land, I cannot embrace their culture. I’m walking a thin line in performing my job even as I strive behind the scenes to return to my former role or find a new one elsewhere.
In a nutshell, the mission playing out in front of me is blasphemous. It hurts my spirit, and I can’t be a part of or support it. Apart from quitting outright, I now know that my time here is temporary, and I trust my Savior to show me where He wants me to go next. I can’t give up my mind, body, and spirit for this job – which is what I now see they want and need from me. Thank you for praying with me as I strive to move elsewhere.
In the meantime, I’ve glimpsed more of what’s happening behind the curtain than I ever could have imagined. I now see that this world’s lost and hurting souls will seek anything and everything to find peace, contentment, and love.
As one who has found the “peace that passes understanding,” it shocks me to see the absurdity of those who believe that their practices can ever provide the same. They can’t.
Even worse, I know that “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end, it leads to death.” (Proverbs 13:12) What my new employer is promoting is not global love and understanding. It is, in fact, eternal damnation and separation from our Heavenly Father.
Don’t get me wrong: my boss and everyone who works at my new company have beautiful hearts and loving spirits and are completely sincere in their ideals. After all, you can be a “good person” and still be completely lost.
Before I accepted this role, I spoke to a former missionary, Mark, to better understand whether I could take such a position as a Christian. Mark told me he’s known the billionaire philanthrope for thirteen years. Mark’s current manufacturing work is now wholly supported by this same generosity. After learning that fact, I considered Mark’s sanction a sign from God that it was okay to move forward. I now wonder if his financial well-being may have prejudiced his endorsement.
While my eyes were open to the ideals of this org, I believed my boss’s assertion that I’d never have to participate in any of their events and could manage her schedule from afar. That all went out the window when she needed me to support their efforts on-site for the past two weeks. What I’ve seen and heard about now leads me to pray daily for everyone I work with.
Last weekend, my boss joined our CEO/founder and another senior leadership team member to visit Indiana for a guided weekend with the Researchers of Truth (ROT) leadership team. When I first heard this group’s name, I began investigating it. I discovered that this religion is commonly referred to as a form of Christian mysticism – something I’d never heard of before but now believe to be a misnomer. A genuine Christian can never believe in mysticism.
Per the ROT website, this group seeks to “free ourselves from illusions, to find our Real Self and express it, to remember who and what we are.” This ideology translates into an irreverent reinterpretation of Holy Scripture that blends the mystical, spiritual, and ethereal into a “Methodical Teaching System that will lead you to know more about Yourself, about Reality and about the Universal Intelligence we call ‘God.'”
This statement alone discounts everything Christianity stands for. Our Heavenly Father is not a “Universal Intelligence” called God. God the Father, Jesus Christ His Son, and the Holy Spirit are our triune God. Any other description is heresy.
When I first heard the group described as “followers of Daskalos,” I had no idea their founder believed in reincarnation. According to their website, Stylianos Atteshlis – also known as Daskalos, the Greek word for “teacher” – began their religion in 1919, at the age of 7 years of age. As the author of several books, Daskalos wrote about the life of Jesus, even quoting from the Gospels in his works. He also retold some of Christ’s parables in another of his books – further distorting Jesus’ ministry and blurring the lines between mysticism and truth.
Daskalos believed he descended to earth “as an already spiritually developed person about 3,500 years ago from another world.” In his teachings, this guru, who didn’t like to be referred to as such, detailed three reincarnations during the life of Christ: one as a young boy named “Jason” who he claimed the Apostle John brought to Jesus; a second iteration at the age of 10, studying in a temple to become a rabbi; with a final claim of incarnation in Christ’s lifetime at age 17 – when Atteshlis claims to have encountered Jesus carrying His cross to Golgotha. Altogether, Daskalos detailed 12 separate lives he experienced over centuries.
Although Atteshlis died in 1995 at age 83, the Researchers of Truth still feature him in the “Meet the Team” section of the ROT website – as if he is an actively participating board member.
In their founder’s account, Daskalos is described as one with a profound ability to heal “so-called ‘incurable’ diseases, such as deadly cancers.” Their description of him continues by saying, “[Atteshlis’s extraordinary skills empowered by Spirit also enabled the ‘permanently’ lame and disabled to walk freely again. Stylianos not only treated physical illnesses but also those whose hearts carried deep and persistent emotional wounds found relief under his loving care. Those who walked in mental darkness, negativity, and confusion were led out of the shadows and back into the light by him. Of course, Daskalos never claimed he healed anyone and stated, ‘no person ever healed another person. The Holy Spirit does any healing that takes place.'”
Assuredly, we, as Christians, know that to be true. The fact that this group attaches these supernatural healings to this mortal man further chronicles their cultic beliefs.
After returning from her Indiana weekend with the ROT team leaders – Daniel and Aki – my boss gushed over her elucidations in a mailing she copied me on, inviting these leaders to visit the Center soon. “I’m delighted that we will be traveling this path of collaboration and co-creation,” she wrote them – ending with, “I’m excited to build on this beautiful energy and momentum!”
In response, Daniel affirmed that he, too, is “very enthusiastic about the movement of our collaboration.” He further explained that he is “already getting inspirations about presentations at your amazing Center in North Carolina.”
While their visit dates have not yet been determined, my boss assured Daniel and Aki, “We will most certainly make it happen in divine timing.”
With God’s timing, I thought, I will no longer be present to be subjected to the same.
Later that same evening, our CEO posted a group photo taken with the ROT team. Some team members claimed the photo was positively “beaming with light.” Our CEO also shared a picture of the “adorable [ROT] temple, all hand-built by Daniel Joseph.” I saw the same as a foreshadowing of things yet to come on the Center’s land. Again, I hope never to see such a thing.
As further blasphemy, the ROT descriptions detail Daniel’s first encounter with Daskalos on Cypress. During that first meeting, he learned from Daskalos about the “spiritual pearl of the greatest value – Self Realization.”
Conversely, God’s Word tells us about Christ’s parable of the pearl of great price. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” (Matthew 13:45-46)
Equating self-realization to the undeserved gift of eternal life bestowed on humanity by Jesus Christ is further evidence of the demonic reinterpretation of God’s amazing grace. Such an ideal is horrifying to me.
In addition to Daniel, Akiko Toshimitsu (Aki) rounds out the current leadership team of the ROT. Per her bio, Aki describes her “current incarnation” as a “highly advanced spiritual healer…who serves as creator and presenter of meditations.” Her description further entails another blasphemous reference to biblical theology. Aki delights in being “a pure fountain of the Living Water of Truth [as she shares] the beauty of the teachings of Daskalos and the Researchers of Truth with the world.”
Lest anyone doubt, Christ Jesus is the only “Living Water” anyone can partake of. To proclaim anything else is sacrilegious.
“Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.” (John 7: 37-39)
In my presence last week, one of our guests referred to her boss as someone who showed her “the way, truth, and the life.” I immediately recoiled at this statement, knowing full well that the only one who can ever do so is Jesus – my Lord and Savior.
Scripture tells us in John 14:6 that “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.'”
And so, my sorrow over these lost souls continues. I can only dispute their distortions once I’m prepared to walk out the door. Until that day comes, I will remain as far apart from them as possible. Their lost souls hurt my heart. I cannot and will never partake in their practices.
If push comes to shove, I will end my journey on that note and walk away.
I pray that God reopens the door with my former employer – or elsewhere. While I remain where I am, I will continue to shine God’s light in this place of spiritual darkness. My greatest challenge is staying immune to the oppression these ideals and practices are attempting to impose upon me.
Thank you for your prayers.