Vol. 9, No. 1, 1992

Articles on the New Age

by Craig Branch

It's everywhere. What used to be confined to a small lunatic fringe, is now boldly and loudly challenging the mainstream, conventional, medical establishment.

There are constant articles in popular publications like Parade magazine, Better Homes and Gardens, local newspapers, and even the cover stories of U.S. News & World Report (23 September 1991) and Time magazine (4 November 1991).

A number one best seller for over a year was by the president of the American Holistic Health Association, Bernie Siegel's book Love, Medicine, And Miracles. In it he promotes the use of meditation, spirit guides, yoga, seances and spiritism to combat terminal illness.

As the Time story reported, "alternative therapies ranging from the believable to the bizarreis now a $27 billion-a-year industry" (4 November 1991, p. 68). A recent CNN/Time poll discovered that 30% of the U.S. population "have tried some form of unconventional therapy," half of them within the past year (Ibid.).

The "believable to the bizarre" ranges from cautionary practices of biofeedback, acupuncture, and herbology, to the Occultic and/or disproven practice of reflexology, iridiology, Applied Kinesiology, bioenergetics, aroma therapy, meditation, autogenics, neuro-linguistic programming, color therapy, therapeutic touch, crystals, and macrobiotics, just to name a few.

There are textbooks (Holistic Nursing: A Handbook for Practitioners, Dossey et. al., 1988) and major articles in nursing magazines, as well as courses in nursing schools that are New Age inroads into the nursing profession. Prevention magazine is almost totally devoted to New Age health care. Books on New Age approaches to health dominate the self-help and medical shelves in most secular bookstores.

BILL MOYERS

One of the most seductive of provocateurs of the New Age in medicine has been the well known "reporter" Bill Moyers. The word seductive is used because Moyers has gained a reputation over the years as a respected journalist and a Southern Baptist, having graduated from the conservative Southwestern Theological Seminary.

However, what is less known is that Moyers has taken a significant turn to the left. In fact, he has embraced New Age ideology over and against the Christian faith and scientific empiricism.

Moyers has also changed his membership from Southern Baptist to the liberal United Church of Christ.

Moyers has just produced a five part series on PBS (22-24 February 1993) entitled "Healing and The Mind," as well as a companion book with the same title. What makes Moyers seductive is the fact that he presents himself a skeptical inquirer, an investigative journalist. This impression serves to disarm the average viewer or reader. They feel safe traveling along with Moyers, looking over his shoulder, as he "investigates" the subject.

Moyers has demonstrated his allegiance to a New Age world-view. Not only has he hosted several programs specifically attacking and undermining the evangelical faith and issues, but he collaborated with New Age mythologist, Joseph Campbell to produce one of the most successful and respected series, "The Power of Myth." This series "subjected the viewer to heavy and extended "doses" of New Age indoctrination" (A Crash Course on The New Age Movement, Elliot Miller, p. 185).

This current series "Healing and The Mind" was funded by the "strategic power" of the blatant New Age organization, Institute of Noetic Sciences (letter to associate members from Noetic Science President, Willis Harman). In a large promotional "article" in USA Today, Moyers promotes the unfounded belief in the Occultic chi energy flows, and eastern meditation. (21 January 1993, p. 7D).

Moyers claims that his material is "not an advocacy for alternative medicine, but rather only an inquiry" (Ibid). However, his lack of presenting current scientific refutation studies and consistently reporting many of these beliefs and practices, betrays his real agenda.

Unremarkably, Moyers' book and series are promoted in the Noetic Sciences Review (Spring 1993) and in the New Age Journal (January/February 1993).

The reviewer in the New Age Journal regularly remarks that New Age readers may find the PBS program "too conservative, but should realize that this program will help gain a wider appreciation of ideas still finding their way into the mainstream" (p. 47).

Yes, many people are growing tired of much of the conventional ways of treatment - drugs and surgery - and are looking for more proven ways of healthy preventative living, but people should not fall into medieval superstition and quackery. This month's Watchman Expositor surveys some of the questionable claims and practices associated with New Age alternative health care.