Was Jesus A New Age Guru?

 Estimated read time | 5 min

It is the common notion that ‘to have faith’ is to ‘believe’, to believe in a religious figure or the godhead itself? to ‘believe’ on a particular interpretation of ancient scriptures by a few selected individuals? 

As we can see the more we delve into this, obvious logical questions arise, in the past the very doubt of these ‘interpretations’ could have had severe consequences which led these doubts to be swept under the rug.

In modern times these are strikingly basic questions which have been leading to the decline of dogmatic Christianity since the post WWII era emerged, a step into the right direction with new airs of secularity and an aim to unify societies based on truth, science and progress.

Immersed in this post-dogmatic, scientifically oriented world we have tools that millennia of religious theorists lacked in the past, like direct access to the scriptures in their original languages which is a quick and definitive way to quell those basic questions but more than that it is a good way to realize that there might be more to them than dogma and incoherence.

Did He Really Say That?

It is while going through these ancient texts in their original languages that we can see that Jesus never said anything along the lines of ‘Believe in me or you’ll be doomed to hell’ as it is commonly understood by even today’s standards of religious dogmatic beliefs.

Having said this, Jesus often spoke about perhaps a more pragmatic form of ‘Belief’, In many instances Jesus spoke about the core concept of belief, belief as a process, as a present action, as a tool for providence.

Likewise lost in grammatical rules, it is very likely that the phrase and the idea of 'believe in me' and 'believe what I'm saying', (the message that I'm sharing) might've gotten mixed together creating a lot of confusion.

Belief As A Tool For Manifestation

"Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."  Mark 11

The context of this passage relates to people asking Jesus about providence, their concern was about how they were going to feed themselves and their family if they left everything to follow Jesus.

Here we can see that he is not speaking about whether he is the ‘Son of God’ or not or whether ‘God’ can provide or not but rather he’s simply speaking about some kind of mental exercise, a not so unfamiliar concept to us related to new age ideas of manifestation, visualization and even NLP.

 “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.” Mark 9

The context of this passage appears in one of the healings where it is brought to the attention of Jesus that his disciples couldn’t heal a boy who seemed to suffer from epileptic seizures, he goes on to speak about them being an ‘unbelieving generation’ and reinforcing this concept of belief.

But was this Jesus's belief in himself as the ‘Son of God’ and him performing the ‘miracle’? The assumption of the whole dialogue is that the disciples should’ve been able to produce the healing, were they these unique ‘Sons of God’ as well or perhaps they did not apply the same kind of ‘belief’ as they did in other healings?

“How long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.” Mark 9

The assumption is that he is not needed for the miracle, it is the ‘unbelief’ which makes him have to ‘put up with them’.

“But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart.  I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.” Mark 11

Again with the ‘New Age’ tone, this passage comes after Jesus ‘cursed’ a fig tree and it withered, allegedly, like an act of magic, he explained to them that if they told a mountain to throw itself into the sea and they believed it would happen, it would be done.

He’s not speaking about them believing he was the ‘Son of God’ or believing in what the priests conjured later during the middle ages according to their interpretation, he’s speaking about the very act of believing in the fact, ‘pray for -anything-‘ he said.

 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” Matthew 14

This passage comes from Jesus when he was -walking on water- and Peter too… it is as if Peter’s concentration or ‘belief’ that he could walk on water was shattered by his doubt, was this doubt that Jesus was the saviour, that we have to worship him for dying for our ‘sins’? No, it was the fear of the wind on the lake and the -doubt- that he could walk on water.

A Larger Reality

Whether Jesus actually performed supernatural acts like walking on water or ‘moving mountains’ is not the question in this article, however we can see by going straight into the scriptures that he was most likely speaking about the -action of believing-, the thought process rather than latter interpretations of churches which applied their own agendas and translations to the scriptures.

This action of ‘belief’ is present in most recorded healing where he always asks the subjects if they believe he could heal them, as if them believing in the process was an intrinsic part of it (an aspect sometimes present in current studies on ‘energy healing’) and often finishing by saying something along the lines of ‘it is by your ‘faith’ that you’ve been healed’.

Sometimes Jesus sounds as if he had been some sort of ‘New Age’ guru, like if he was part of ‘The Secret’s’ entourage preaching for people to manifest and make declarations about what they want in life with their thoughts, after all it isn’t uncommon for people to ‘pray’ for passing a test or getting a new job, could this be just a focus on intent, an attitude to life like the best seller ‘Think and Grow Rich’ by Napoleon Hill suggests? a winners attitude mixed in with a dose of mystical to make things happen or could it be that there’s a larger force at hand which ties into the idea that we live in a Holographic Universe and that as the scientists in the 1900’s realized, our thoughts can literally affect the outcome of our perceived realities?

More on the 'New Age' teachings of Jesus...