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America, the Sorcerer's New Apprentice: The Rise of New Age Shamanism
Reincarnation, Eastern mysticism, channeling, psychic phenomena. Is America at the threshold of a glorious new age of enlightenment? Or have we, in our search for higher levels of human potential, opened a spiritual Pandora's Box? Who is right? The authors' conclusions are nothing less than staggering.
284 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1988
3 people are currently reading
49 people want to read
About the author
Dave Hunt
192 books59 followersLibrarian’s note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Dave Hunt was an American Christian apologist, speaker, radio commentator and author. He was in full-time ministry from 1973 until his death. A prolific best-selling author, international lecturer, and Bible teacher, his writings have been translated into at least 50 languages. More than four million copies of Dave’s books have been sold. For nearly a decade, Dave also co-hosted a weekly radio program, Search the Scriptures Daily, broadcast on over 400 stations in the U.S. and worldwide.
Dave Hunt was an American Christian apologist, speaker, radio commentator and author. He was in full-time ministry from 1973 until his death. A prolific best-selling author, international lecturer, and Bible teacher, his writings have been translated into at least 50 languages. More than four million copies of Dave’s books have been sold. For nearly a decade, Dave also co-hosted a weekly radio program, Search the Scriptures Daily, broadcast on over 400 stations in the U.S. and worldwide.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 8, 2020
Written around the time of the Satanic Panic (but it is not hampered by weaknesses in that phenomenon's flawed methodology).
A Turning Point?
sorcery: secret techniques to contact spirit-entities in order to gain supernatural knowledge and power (Hunt & McMahon 18, hereafter HM).
doctrine of the soul: physical brain run by a spiritual entity (19).
Sorcery: The New Paradigm
Age of Aquarius: replacing drugs with Transc. Med., cosmic consciousness, and the like (31). The monsters/spirits/gods one meets on “meditation” are very similar to what people met on drugs.
Let the Buyer Beware
Demonic parallels on p. 49ff.
Popularizing Spirituality
Criticisms
*The book is heavy on “stats” and quotations. That makes it a useful reference guide but it is light on analysis. In fact, some chapters seem to be a collection of newspaper clippings.
*Some quotes, moreover, don’t add anything to the discussion and could have been left out.
Maurice Friedman and religion (59).
*HM do a fine job documenting numerous parallels with the demonic (49, ), but they never call it that. In fact, “demons” are rarely mentioned, if at all. The Christian tradition has long had this category for evaluating false practices. Why do not H and M make use of it? To be fair, in passing they note parallels between voodoo, shamanism, and the demonic (56). It seems, rather, that they call “sorcery” what earlier Christian thinkers called the demonic. HM come close to identifying Jung’s “Philemon” as demons (68). In fact, they call them “nonphysical intelligences” (117), which is exactly how the early church defined them.
A Turning Point?
sorcery: secret techniques to contact spirit-entities in order to gain supernatural knowledge and power (Hunt & McMahon 18, hereafter HM).
doctrine of the soul: physical brain run by a spiritual entity (19).
Sorcery: The New Paradigm
Age of Aquarius: replacing drugs with Transc. Med., cosmic consciousness, and the like (31). The monsters/spirits/gods one meets on “meditation” are very similar to what people met on drugs.
Let the Buyer Beware
Demonic parallels on p. 49ff.
Popularizing Spirituality
Criticisms
*The book is heavy on “stats” and quotations. That makes it a useful reference guide but it is light on analysis. In fact, some chapters seem to be a collection of newspaper clippings.
*Some quotes, moreover, don’t add anything to the discussion and could have been left out.
Maurice Friedman and religion (59).
*HM do a fine job documenting numerous parallels with the demonic (49, ), but they never call it that. In fact, “demons” are rarely mentioned, if at all. The Christian tradition has long had this category for evaluating false practices. Why do not H and M make use of it? To be fair, in passing they note parallels between voodoo, shamanism, and the demonic (56). It seems, rather, that they call “sorcery” what earlier Christian thinkers called the demonic. HM come close to identifying Jung’s “Philemon” as demons (68). In fact, they call them “nonphysical intelligences” (117), which is exactly how the early church defined them.
August 7, 2024
Dave Hunt is one of my favorite authors, and he’s yet to disappoint with any of his books that I’ve read (and this one is no different). This book was written back the late 1980’s (around the time I was born), and the New Age movement was already in full swing. I hadn’t realized it was such a huge social force that long ago. If you hadn’t told me what year this book was written, I would have thought it was recent. That’s how relevant it still is. He saw the threat that the New Age posed almost 40 years ago, and he wasn’t wrong. We are now in a post-Christian society, and it seems like things are only going to continue going downhill. Lots of great information in this book, and I highly recommend it!
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October 8, 2020Good info on "New Age" stuff that is mostly just American muddle-headedness in all things now. An interesting historical treatise I guess. Keeping for that reason in my library, but not worth reading unless you have a research interest with this book as source material.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews