Mormonism and New Age Parallels

I’ve been fighting a pretty nasty head cold all week and finally went to the doctor yesterday to get some drugs, so bear with me if I make little sense. However, I wanted to discuss the quote I shared in the previous post. As Aaron discovered (by being a good internet sleuth), this was a quote from the book Psychic Children by New York Times #1 Bestselling author, Sylvia Browne (a self-proclaimed psychic, master hypnotist, past life regressionist, and spiritual teacher) who starts the book by talking about her Spirit Guide, Francine, who tells her spiritual truths.

She gives advice for children who are afraid of their psychic gifts such as clairvoyance, or their encounters with spirits and ghosts. She proclaims that God is the Source of these gifts and “He’s the One to turn to for guidance when and if it becomes overwhelming.” She says children should be encouraged to pray for God’s divine guidance so that their “potentially scary psychic talent” can be turned into “a happy, comforting and informative source of messages from Home” (pp. 23-25).

She states that she grew up in a psychic family and had her first psychic experience as a young child: “I was seven years old, alone in my bedroom, playing with my flashlight one night as usual, when, with no warning, the glow from the flashlight began to grow and intensify until it filled the room with almost blinding white light. I was gaping at it, too mesmerized and frightened to move, when from what seemed to be the center of the light a woman’s high-pitched chirping voice said, with a clarity I’d never experienced before from the spirit world, ‘Don’t be afraid, Sylvia. I come from God'” (p. 38). She later states “I was in regular communication with Francine from that night on” (p. 39).

She does not find any contradiction between her involvement with spirits and her “God-centered” life. Rather, she believes she has “lived in God’s service by putting my psychic gifts to His best possible purpose” (p. 31).

When she receives letters or emails from thousands of parents who are concerned that their children’s psychic abilities seem evil or godless, she uses her own self-proclaimed authority to pronounce that “nothing could be further from the truth.”  How does she know this?  She knows it “from the core of my soul” (p. 29).  She further proclaims, “God is our foundation, our essence, our inspiration, our motivation, the Source from which our gifts and yours were given.”

Now I don’t want to draw more out of this connection than is reasonable.  However, I find it interesting that one of the revelations Sylvia Browne has received (as quoted in the previous post) parallels one of the unique, distinctive teachings in Mormonism that sets it apart from classical Christianity–namely, the teaching that human spirits are eternal.

Sylvia Browne: “Our spirits, like the infinite universe we inhabit, always have been and always will be.”

Joseph Smith: “”[T]he soul—the mind of man—the immortal spirit. Where did it come from? All learned men and doctors of divinity say that God created it in the beginning; but it is not so: the very idea lessens man in my estimation…. We say that God himself is a self-existent being…. Man does exist upon the same principles…. The mind or the intelligence which man possesses is co-equal with God himself…. Is it logical to say that the intelligence of spirits is immortal, and yet that it had a beginning? The intelligence of spirits had not beginning, neither will it have an end. That is good logic. That which has a beginning may have an end. There never was a time when there were not spirits; for they are co-equal [co-eternal] with our Father in heaven”” (King Follett Sermon).

So I am pondering on the possible reasons for this parallel. As I see it, these are the possibilities that exist. Let me know if you think of any others.

1)  Modern revelation is available to all people due to the Mormon teaching of the Light of Christ in everyone. Therefore, Sylvia Browne is able to receive modern revelation from her Spirit Guide that parallels the revelations given to Joseph Smith. These teachings are leading people in the New Age movement closer to the truth about who we are, where we came from, and why we are here.

2)  Joseph Smith received revelation from a similar source as Sylvia Browne and this is a false teaching that is causing people to be deceived about who they are, where they came from, and why they are here.

What other possibilities am I leaving out?

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