Here is what Canadian author Jeff Brown writes, in different passages, about the New Age Movement, which he calls The New Cage Movement and matters related to it like the gurus or spiritual masters, the positivity and calmness addiction, the ‘everything happens for a reason’ mantra, the repression of anger and so forth. Jeff Brown was also part of such a movement until he realised its deceit and left.
“The gurus didn’t go to sit in the meditation cave to enlighten their consciousness. They went there to bypass their issues with the world. They didn’t turn to silence to extinguish the monkey mind. They turned to silence to turn down the volume on their pain (the monkey heart). They didn’t nestle into stillness because stillness is THE royal road to the kingdom of God. They nestled into stillness because movement ignited their triggers and traumas. They didn’t dissolve the ego because the ego is the enemy of the sacred. They (allegedly) dissolved the ego because it reminded them of their unresolved humanness. They didn’t purify the body because the body is something less than the Divine. They purified the body in an effort to escape their emotional toxicity. They didn’t strive for transcendence because there is a kingdom up there for us. They strove for transcendence because they lacked the courage to live on Mother Earth. They didn’t seek formlessness because it is our most awakened state of being. They sought formlessness because their form hurt too much. They didn’t shun anger because anger is a sub-standard emotion. They shunned anger because it uncovered their mountains of grief. They didn’t practice non-attachment because non-attachment is the essence of self-realization. They practiced it so they could hide from the challenges of human relationship. They didn’t fixate on forgiveness because forgiveness is necessary for a life well-lived. They fixated on forgiveness in order to repress the unforgivable. They didn’t preach non-judgment because they aren’t actually judgmental. They preached non-judgement so that they could get away with anything. Friend, we have been fooled for centuries. The patriarchy went to a lot of trouble to cloak and camouflage their personal issues behind a wall of faux awakening. A whole spiritual lineage was birthed from their self-avoidance. And it is now time to call it all out. It is now time to bury patriarchal spirituality in a graveyard of its own making, and to co-create a spirituality that is grounded in our humanness, our bodies, our feelings, our relationships with each other and Mother Earth. This is the only way to save our species.”
“I am not sure where we got the idea that spirituality must be softly toffee gentle and never include anger. This is a perversion of real spirituality, yet another recipe for repression, denial and destruction. This is not to say that all anger is good anger – my spirituality doesn’t include unhealthy anger, attacks on innocents, arbitrary judgments, passive aggression. But it does include healthy anger, justified anger, transformational anger, spiritual activism. In fact, I am certain that we will not create the world of divine possibility that many spiritualists long for, unless we get angry about the injustices that many of us face. There is needless conflict, and there is healthy conflict. The distinction lies in its intentions. It’s time to raise healthy anger to the rafters of acceptability in the spiritual community. If you feel that a consciousness model is doing damage to humanity, get angry about it. If you feel that a guru is abusing his authority, get angry about it. If you feel that corporate structures are destroying our planet, get angry about it. There is nothing evolved about repressed expression. Spirituality without conflict isn’t spirituality at all. It’s a flight from reality. The spiritual activist understands what has to be done and s/he does it. It is no surprise that spiritual bypassers are some of the angriest and harshest gaslighters out there. They don’t do any real work on themselves. Self-avoidance that masquerades as enlightenment always has a toxic underbelly.”
“New Cage Movement: A term to describe the more ungrounded, dangerous and simplistic elements of the New Age movement, including but not limited to: wishful thinking mantras, spiritual bypass and premature forgiveness practices, superficial healing techniques, the perpetual denial of common sense realities, and the insistence on inflated, fantastical perspectives – ‘Everything is an illusion,’ ‘It’s all perfect,’ ‘There are no victims’, ‘Anger is a substandard emotion’, ‘Everything that happens is meant-to-be,’ ‘All judgments are bad,’ ‘You chose your every experience and circumstance,’ ‘Your personal identifications are inherently false,’ ‘Just ask the universe for what you want….’ ‘Everything you see and feel is a reflection of you,’ ‘There is no one to blame,’ ‘The ego is the enemy’, etc. These perspectives have their place in certain circumstances, but taken too far – as they often are – become a prison of their own making, locking humanity in with its unresolved pain, obstructed from doing the real work by their addictive flights of fancy. On a relational level, New Cage connections are often woundmates, priding themselves in their seeming spirituality, but actually falling apart at the seams – unboundaried, ungrounded and controlled by all the unresolved emotional material that they have sought to avoid. In their determined efforts to float above the fray, they actually perpetuate and deepen their own suffering, and miss the opportunity to do the real work to become conscious together. The key to escaping New Cage prison is developing a willingness to do the real work to ground, embody and heal in authentic terms. There are no substitutes for genuine, grounded, hard-earned transformation.”
“In a mad dash to react away from the perils of anger, we went too far and lost a key piece of the emotional integrity and expression cycle. This is particularly true in the spiritual community, where peacefulness has been characterised as a symbol of awakening, even if it is inauthentic and a bypass of the unresolved anger still brewing below the surface (‘The calmness bypass’). It’s important to remember that anger is a legitimate emotion that signals that a person has been violated. It is also a necessary emotion if we are going to do the work of sacred activism and challenge existing paradigms that cause suffering. Calm alone will not make the world a better place at this stage. By discouraging and shaming anger, we actually disrupt natural emotional rhythms and encourage inauthentic ways of being. In addition, repressing the emotions simply keeps the anger alive. The negativity goes underground, manifesting in a myriad of destructive forms, including passive aggressiveness, self-destructive behaviour and all manner of disease. It is one thing to discourage the inappropriate expression of anger, but let us not throw the whole process out with the bath water. There is place for healthy anger in an evolving world.”
Author Jeff Brown on the New Age Movement – part one
Here is what Canadian author Jeff Brown writes, in different passages, about the New Age Movement, which he calls The New Cage Movement and matters related to it like the gurus or spiritual masters, the positivity and calmness addiction, the ‘everything happens for a reason’ mantra, the repression of anger and so forth. Jeff Brown was also part of such a movement until he realised its deceit and left.
“The gurus didn’t go to sit in the meditation cave to enlighten their consciousness. They went there to bypass their issues with the world. They didn’t turn to silence to extinguish the monkey mind. They turned to silence to turn down the volume on their pain (the monkey heart). They didn’t nestle into stillness because stillness is THE royal road to the kingdom of God. They nestled into stillness because movement ignited their triggers and traumas. They didn’t dissolve the ego because the ego is the enemy of the sacred. They (allegedly) dissolved the ego because it reminded them of their unresolved humanness. They didn’t purify the body because the body is something less than the Divine. They purified the body in an effort to escape their emotional toxicity. They didn’t strive for transcendence because there is a kingdom up there for us. They strove for transcendence because they lacked the courage to live on Mother Earth. They didn’t seek formlessness because it is our most awakened state of being. They sought formlessness because their form hurt too much. They didn’t shun anger because anger is a sub-standard emotion. They shunned anger because it uncovered their mountains of grief. They didn’t practice non-attachment because non-attachment is the essence of self-realization. They practiced it so they could hide from the challenges of human relationship. They didn’t fixate on forgiveness because forgiveness is necessary for a life well-lived. They fixated on forgiveness in order to repress the unforgivable. They didn’t preach non-judgment because they aren’t actually judgmental. They preached non-judgement so that they could get away with anything. Friend, we have been fooled for centuries. The patriarchy went to a lot of trouble to cloak and camouflage their personal issues behind a wall of faux awakening. A whole spiritual lineage was birthed from their self-avoidance. And it is now time to call it all out. It is now time to bury patriarchal spirituality in a graveyard of its own making, and to co-create a spirituality that is grounded in our humanness, our bodies, our feelings, our relationships with each other and Mother Earth. This is the only way to save our species.”
“I am not sure where we got the idea that spirituality must be softly toffee gentle and never include anger. This is a perversion of real spirituality, yet another recipe for repression, denial and destruction. This is not to say that all anger is good anger – my spirituality doesn’t include unhealthy anger, attacks on innocents, arbitrary judgments, passive aggression. But it does include healthy anger, justified anger, transformational anger, spiritual activism. In fact, I am certain that we will not create the world of divine possibility that many spiritualists long for, unless we get angry about the injustices that many of us face. There is needless conflict, and there is healthy conflict. The distinction lies in its intentions. It’s time to raise healthy anger to the rafters of acceptability in the spiritual community. If you feel that a consciousness model is doing damage to humanity, get angry about it. If you feel that a guru is abusing his authority, get angry about it. If you feel that corporate structures are destroying our planet, get angry about it. There is nothing evolved about repressed expression. Spirituality without conflict isn’t spirituality at all. It’s a flight from reality. The spiritual activist understands what has to be done and s/he does it. It is no surprise that spiritual bypassers are some of the angriest and harshest gaslighters out there. They don’t do any real work on themselves. Self-avoidance that masquerades as enlightenment always has a toxic underbelly.”
“New Cage Movement: A term to describe the more ungrounded, dangerous and simplistic elements of the New Age movement, including but not limited to: wishful thinking mantras, spiritual bypass and premature forgiveness practices, superficial healing techniques, the perpetual denial of common sense realities, and the insistence on inflated, fantastical perspectives – ‘Everything is an illusion,’ ‘It’s all perfect,’ ‘There are no victims’, ‘Anger is a substandard emotion’, ‘Everything that happens is meant-to-be,’ ‘All judgments are bad,’ ‘You chose your every experience and circumstance,’ ‘Your personal identifications are inherently false,’ ‘Just ask the universe for what you want….’ ‘Everything you see and feel is a reflection of you,’ ‘There is no one to blame,’ ‘The ego is the enemy’, etc. These perspectives have their place in certain circumstances, but taken too far – as they often are – become a prison of their own making, locking humanity in with its unresolved pain, obstructed from doing the real work by their addictive flights of fancy. On a relational level, New Cage connections are often woundmates, priding themselves in their seeming spirituality, but actually falling apart at the seams – unboundaried, ungrounded and controlled by all the unresolved emotional material that they have sought to avoid. In their determined efforts to float above the fray, they actually perpetuate and deepen their own suffering, and miss the opportunity to do the real work to become conscious together. The key to escaping New Cage prison is developing a willingness to do the real work to ground, embody and heal in authentic terms. There are no substitutes for genuine, grounded, hard-earned transformation.”
“In a mad dash to react away from the perils of anger, we went too far and lost a key piece of the emotional integrity and expression cycle. This is particularly true in the spiritual community, where peacefulness has been characterised as a symbol of awakening, even if it is inauthentic and a bypass of the unresolved anger still brewing below the surface (‘The calmness bypass’). It’s important to remember that anger is a legitimate emotion that signals that a person has been violated. It is also a necessary emotion if we are going to do the work of sacred activism and challenge existing paradigms that cause suffering. Calm alone will not make the world a better place at this stage. By discouraging and shaming anger, we actually disrupt natural emotional rhythms and encourage inauthentic ways of being. In addition, repressing the emotions simply keeps the anger alive. The negativity goes underground, manifesting in a myriad of destructive forms, including passive aggressiveness, self-destructive behaviour and all manner of disease. It is one thing to discourage the inappropriate expression of anger, but let us not throw the whole process out with the bath water. There is place for healthy anger in an evolving world.”