Unfinished
The New Age faith of Arianna Huffington
- contender for California's
governorship in the current recall election -
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Although her book, The Fourth
Instinct, was published in 1994, Arianna now promotes it on her
website with these two comments:
The Fourth Instinct: The Call of the Soul: The Fourth Instinct
is an exploration of mankind's forgotten instinct -- the most neglected and
least understood part of human nature. It is the instinct that compels us to go
beyond survival, beyond sexuality, and beyond status and power to find spiritual
fulfillment and meaning in our lives."
"The Fourth Instinct is a wonderful
discovery, reminding each of us of all that we were meant to be -- and can still
become. Caring, sensitive, profoundly insightful, it is a book that can change
the way we live our lives." -- Deepak Chopra, M.D.
We reviewed her book and
included some of our comments in
Chapter 10 of A Twist of
Faith. Here is an excerpt from that chapter:
You may have heard of Arianna Huffington, one of the fast-rising
female stars in conservative political circles and Washington society. The title
of her latest book, The Fourth Instinct,
refers to a spiritual force with "power to transform ourselves and our world."
[10]
You know she is not talking about God when she calls it "the bridge to this next
stage in man's evolution and the voice calling us to cross over."[11]
"Even those who are not looking for 'a new heaven and a new
earth'. . . recognize that what the millennium requires from us above all else
is a psychological shift, a spiritual breakthrough,"
[12]
she says. The Fourth Instinct "is an evolutionary spiral based on a different
set of imperatives -- for now the survival of the fittest will be the survival
of the wisest."[13]
The wisest? According to whom?
Not to Christians who are still "clinging to the old"[14]
world-view or paradigm which offers only "the bankrupt solutions of yesterday." They know all too well that "the wisdom of this world is foolishness with
God," for "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile." (1
Corinthians 3:19-20)
Instead, Ms. Huffington urges her flock to follow a "universal
force that will lead us beyond the last horizon of our known self toward a wiser,
more loving, more luminous state of being."[15]
That brings us back to Barbara
Marx Hubbard. "To be wise now, is to . . . . take the evolutionary perspective
and see the world in process of transformation,"[16]
she says. "Wisdom is to see reality, not as a static set of things, but as a .
. . process leading toward godhood
for humanity."[17]
Strange and mystical, isn't it? So
is James Redfield's top-selling thriller,
The Celestine Prophecy. It's huge readership proves the appeal of
this occult message. Like Mrs. Hubbard and Mrs. Huffington, Redfield urges humanity
to practice the psychic skills needed to produce a "critical" mass in order to
speed our evolution. That means rejecting church leaders who block the new awareness.
When a local United Methodist church
announced a weekly discussion group on the
Celestine Prophecy, I decided
to check it out. On my first visit, I found a group of about twenty men and women
sharing their strange "coincidences", angelic visitations,
[18]
and other mystical experiences which supposedly led to a "conscious evolution"—
the focus of Barbara Marx Hubbard's message. Perhaps they believed, as Redfield
promised, that they would one day transform into "pure light" and simply "walk
into heaven."[19]
In spite of the church setting, no one ever mentioned the likely possibility of
counterfeit spirits. Apparently, the group viewed
all kinds of spiritual feelings and experiences as good. Redfield's
lie had become more belivable!
"For half a century now, a new
consciousness has been entering the human world, a new awareness that can only
be called transcendent, spiritual . . . .
"Once we understand. . . how to engage
this allusive process and maximize its occurrence in our lives, human society
will take a quantum leap into a whole new way of life . . . .
"All
that any of us have to do is suspend our doubts and distractions just long enough
. . . and miraculously, this reality can be our own.
[20]
During the last Celestine Prophecy
session, the teacher told us that we were close to becoming the "critical mass"
of evolving minds that would catapult us into the next stage of "our" spiritual
evolution. There we would accelerate
the pace of our evolution and voluntarily limit reproduction and consumption.
"Whole groups of people who have reached a certain level [would] become invisible,
and the barrier between this life and the other world" would begin to crumble.
"Would we still have criminals?"
asked a woman.
"There would be no need to
steal, for all have the same values," answered the teacher. "We're moving toward
heaven, a state of being where people are valued for their essence. . . .
Fundamentalist people live . . .
in a state of fear. . . .
But someone who is truly spiritual, is serene. She lives in a state of grace."
"My sister-in law is like that,"
said another women. "She is wonderful. Always in that state of serenity, even
when things get really hard."
"What does she believe?" asked
the leader.
"In God. In Jesus Christ. She
hurts a lot, but she has perfect peace."
The leader changed the subject.
To see this excerpt in context -- and for a broader comparison between
Arianna Huffington and Globalist leader Barbara Marx Hubbard -- read
Chapter 10 in A Twist of
Faith, then "find" her name in
Chapter 6.
The following links give more background
information:
What they believe - A quick look at Davis and major recall candidates:
"Arianna Huffington.
- Religion: Greek Orthodox
- Church: Declined to state
- Quote: "In 1987, after we
lost the baby, I had a deeply religious experience.... which made my
relationship with Jesus Christ the center of my faith," she told the Los
Angeles Times in 1994.
- Tidbit: "In 1994, she
receive heavy publicity for her involvement in the church of the Movement of
Spiritual Inner Awareness, which the Doonesbury comic strip dubbed "a cult."
- Huffington told the Los
Angeles Times she had a casual relationship with the group.
- On abortion: Pro-choice On
gay marriage: Supports gay marriage."
Arianna Huffington's anarchy for the USA: "She wants to overthrow the
government. She wants people to take to the streets in acts of civil
disobedience and organise boycotts of big corporations. She thinks the war on
drugs is a waste of time and money. Her heroes are the demonstrators who brought
the World Trade Organisation to a standstill in Seattle. Her enemies are the
Republican party establishment. She reckons poor people and black people in
America should rise up and demand their rights. She's angry as hell. This is not
some fugitive member of an urban guerrilla group issuing her manifesto. This
is Arianna Stassinopolous Huffington, once the queen-pin of the Republican
establishment."
How to Overthrow The Government: "When, in the course of human
events, it becomes necessary for a people to rise up in protest... When a
handful of corporate profiteers amass vast fortunes while 35 million citizens
languish in poverty... ...When a majority of registered voters no longer have
enough faith in our fat-cat "leaders" and their obsolete parties even to show up
at the polls to replace them... When these truths become self-evident... Then
the time has come to overthrow the government."
http://www.ariannaonline.com/books/overthrow.html
More quotes from Arianna Huffington's book, The Fourth Instinct (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994):
"In the Gods of Greece I revisited the myths of my childhood and found in the
gods and goddesses guides to forgotten dimensions of ourselves. Personifying the
contending forces in us as gods and goddesses acknowledges their emotional power
over us and the need to give them conscious recognition -- because if we do not,
they will rise up and take their revenge." 18
“Everything is connected to everything else; every thing, every molecule, every
rock, every living form, is infused by the same source. To say this is to put
the lie to a million false dualities, to all the forced separations between
spirit and mind, soul and body, 'God and man. 'God is the sky and God is in the
trees! God is in you and God is in me!'"
“To speak about this universal force that will lead us beyond the last horizon
of our known self toward a wiser, more loving, more luminous state of being, we
do not need to invent a new language. But we do need to learn to listen to the
old, the ancient one....“ (page 20)
“There is, however, a fundamental difference between today and other historic
times of spiritual renewal. Ours does not revolve around any one concept of God
or require that we believe in any one set of dogmas... any one recipe for
redemption.” 21
"The Fourth Instinct as the force within us that urges us on beyond faith to
understanding, knowledge and the actual experience of its power to transform
ourselves and our world when it is translated into values, priorities and
behavior." 21
"Even those who are not looking for 'a new heaven and anew earth,' a new messiah.
. . recognize that what the millennium requires from us above all else is a
psychological shift, a spiritual breakthrough, a new readiness to rediscover
what it is to be human...." 27-28
"Like all turning points, this is a time of great tensions. Conventional answers
no longer satisfy ancient questions now being asked with new urgency. There is
grave danger in our discontent, but also great opportunity . . . If we see these
tensions in an evolutionary framework, as the natural pain of leaving what we
know to venture into he less familiar, we will uncover guidelines for our
choices and we will not be left to face today's /growing problems armed only
with the bankrupt solutions of yesterday. Instead of avoiding the changes by
clinging to the old, we will embrace them with anticipation.” 28-29
Do we focus on what is dying or on what is being born? 19
“In our seeking -- from India's shrines to the Vatican, from the mountains of
Peru to the deserts of Arizona -- we prove the universality of the human drive
to find meaning a purpose in our lives, to find God. It is the drive of the
Fourth Instinct." 39
“When Christ proclaimed that these things that I do, you too shall do and even
greater, he was giving voice to a very important law of our evolution..." 45
“The Fourth Instinct is both the bridge to this next stage in man's evolution
and the voice calling us to cross over -- from competition to cooperation and
community... It is an evolutionary spiral based on a different set of
imperatives -- for now the survival of the fittest will be the survival of the
wisest." 47
"The second instinct is the will to power... mastering nature..." 50 "...the pursuit
of wealth... to accumulate." 77
"The Fourth Instinct impels us on a journey to become who we really are." 75
Labyrinth 91-93 spiral , silver cord, 91,
Chopra 101
"...an active relationship with the divine." 132
"'Falsehood is never so false as when it is very nearly true,' said Chesterton...".
40
"I was talking with Jonas Salk about evolution. He began speaking of evolution
in spiritual terms. 'The evolutionary instinct compels us to bring out the best
in ourselves and in others, to recognize our interconnectedness with everyone
else.'" 198
"My hope based on my own experience -- is for a more natural seeking, perhaps at
times intense and painful, but always prodded by the voice of our Fourth
Instinct which encourages us to choose, at every moment, our own path to
meaning." 199
"'Myth is the foundation of life,' wrote Thomas Mann." 241
Critical Mass 240
"Science... unity of all things...." 221
"'Every transformation of man,' wrote Lewis Mufmord, 'has rested on ... a new
picture of the cosmos and the nature of man.'" 248
[x]Arianna Huffington
The Fourth Instinct (New York: Simon
& Schuster, 1994), 21.
[xviii]Some of those angelic helpers
could have been God's true ministering angels. But, when people are oblivious
to God's warnings and as ready for any spiritual experience as this circle of seekers was, their chances
of meeting the counterfeit grows. Some experiences sounded ominously occult.
[xix]Redfield,
240, 241, 242.
[xx]Redfield,
"Author's Note" opposite page 1.