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Truth Seeker - A New Age Journey to God

Truth Seeker - A New Age Journey to God
By Mark Phillips
IVP. 185 pages. £4.99
ISBN 0 85110 894 6

For years, the author of this book was magnetised by the attractive fruit of spiritual power and heavenly reality offered by the New Age's many forms.
It would be all too easy to read it with the glib self-satisfied attitude of someone who has found the Truth, the Life and the Way. But the wonderful thing is that Phillips does not allow this to happen, not least because the conversion experience at the culmination of the book brilliantly demonstrates the grace of God experienced by every believer. Phillips discovers the Truth who found him. It did not happen the other way around. 'There are no immunities from difficulties on this planet. Things can get so dark so quickly, and so often. History has proven that to be the nature of this world, just as the Bible describes it. However, there can be a personal peace that surpasses all understanding, though it is grounded in a reasonable belief. I sincerely and diligently searched for it and now I am found' (p.176)
In those words, Phillips sums up many of the vital elements of his testimony. The most fundamental is clearly his sincerity. It is very easy to deny non-Christians this sincerity. Throughout his life, he desperately wanted to know what living was all about, even to the detriment of his closest relationships. As someone who clearly had scientific ability from early on, he was desperately concerned to understand something of the relationship between science and religion, because he was convinced that there had to be something more than 'the simple material world' (p.32). He was also concerned to find a way to come to terms with the appalling suffering in the world (p.26). Tragically, he assumed the answer was not to be found in the Christianity he had been brought up in, no doubt as the result of being put on to the New Age track first by a trainee 'Christian' pastor. Consequently, he progressed from new experience to new insight, in his constant quest for truth. But each time, the promised satisfaction of having found it always seemed just beyond his reach. Not only that, he felt increasing fear and oppression the deeper his involvement. In retrospect, Phillips, of course, has no illusions as to what caused this and he later echoes Paul's words: '. . . Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.' (2 Corinthians 11.14).
New Age is powerfully exposed as a deception by this book. The enemy has many weapons in his armoury, but two are particularly prominent in this account. Perhaps the more chilling is the use of Christian language and even the Bible as the snare for those with Christian backgrounds, and that was certainly what caught Mark Phillips. The most explicit parallel in the UK recently has been the American ex-Catholic monk Matthew Fox (who has close links with St. James' Piccadilly, London, and was caught up in the Sheffield Nine o'clock Service). The danger is that to the untaught, undiscerning or disenchanted Christian, this seems no more than an alternative, (but valid), interpretation of the Christian gospel. But the reality is that it is nothing less than a full-blown denial of the gospel.
The other device in the enemy's strategy which hooked this author when a teenager in the early 1970s, was the increasing power of the visual media. The increasingly sophisticated genre of science fiction films and series in the USA had a great impact on generations. Phillips was no exception. This is not of course to say that all are New Age, but Phillips points out (as a result of a brief involvement in the entertainment industry as a Steve Martin lookalike!) that many people involved in Hollywood have close links with the New Age. Shirley MacLaine is not alone. The most explicit example described here is Star Wars, the 1977 blockbuster, which (after reading this book) seems even less innocent a film than I had previously appreciated.
As Phillips gradually wakes up to the reality of how he has been deceived, his description is chilling: 'I felt like I had been sleeping in a one-room cabin, only to discover a huge nest of rattlesnakes right next to my bed' (p.151).
The great irony of his obsessed search was that the answers to all his questions were to be found in the very place he should never have left - in the real Jesus of the Bible. The answers to the relationship of science to religion, he realised, could only be found through the existence of a creator, personal God. Furthermore, he found that only his Christian friends managed to avoid being glib about the world's suffering.
This is a captivating book - highly recommended.

Mark Meynell
Students' Curate
Christ Church, Fulwood