I’ve heard that their is some kind of plan concocted either by those in the New Age/Occult movement or the United Nations or by some collaboration between the two groups [New Agers and the United Nations] to reduce humanity to a state of of preindustrializaton in which people would not have the benefit of technology or least to reduce the current level of industry. In other words, they’re plotting to make humans more primitive. Is this true or false or a mixture of the two?
Does it sound true to you? I mean seriously? Oh and by ‘New Agers’ do you mean tree hugg’in dirt worshippers? Who is their leader? And do you think Kofi Annan is in cahoots with them?
Negative, it does not sound true to me, but I felt it necessary to dig into it regardless of that fact because I could be wrong and my opinion means nothing if no one evaluates the validity of either my beliefs or those promoted by conspiracy theorists. I personally feel that industrialization and globalization are bound to continue despite those who have objections to the fact. By New Agers, I am refering to those who follow the heterogeneous belief system that is lumped under the term “New Age.” These beliefs (not every New Ager shares these) include monism, pantheism, panentheism, reincarnation, karma, personal transformation, ecological responsibility (so basically they could be tree huggers, but they’re more diverse than that), a universal religion, and the Age of Aquarius. There could be more and as I stated earlier, the movement is heterogeneous so not all in the movement have those believes. Because the movement is not homogeneous in beliefs, I don’t think that there is any unified command structure for the movement as a whole, but there could be small leaders in some groups if any. Kofi Annan is probably not in line with them, but *some * conservatives tend or conspiracy buffs tend to speculate that the United Nations might be doing New Age bidding whether intentional or not.
Yes it’s true. But now you’ve gone and spoiled the surprise.
At least you forgot to mention how the gays are in on it too… :smack:
Futile Gesture, your sarcasm says it all. Okay, my question was pretty stupid considering that fact that I had my doubts as to the truth of the claims made the these people and then I posted it anyway.
It’s a well known “fact” that the UN does the bidding of Communists, not New Agers. Cite.
But seriously, the charge is so silly that it is a waste of time to disprove. Those who actually believe such nonsense would never listen to the huge number of facts that belie their case.
To cite just one fact to the contrary, the United Nations is on record as fully supporting – in fact, nearly requriring – technology transfers between developed countries and underdeveloped states which seek peaceful uses of nuclear power. It’s in Article V of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (text).
Such technology transfers, as envisaged by a UN sponsored multilateral treaty, are thoroughly incompatible with returning man to a prehistoric state of being.
Hell, I’m a science fiction writer and even I can’t figure out a way “to reduce humanity to a state of of preindustrializaton in which people would not have the benefit of technology.” Not at least without a global holocaust that would involve also killing off both the New Agers and the United Nations in the process.
That’s the thing about conspiracy theories. If they sound like really really bad shows on the Sci-Fi Channel, they’re not going to be true.
So, the UN is not the most capitailist friendly organization I don’t dispute that, but I have a hard time believing that the United Nations is trying to take over the world as implied in your cite. The UN is barely able to control the actions of any third world warlord, the five permanent members of the don’t seem to be willing to do any reforms that will take power away from them, and the fact that most nations are unwilling to commit much in the military force to the UN would seem to make it nothing more than a paper tiger when it comes to the exertion of power (although some would beg to differ).
The UN has many programs designed to promote technology transfer and research
http://www.biodiv.org/programmes/cross-cutting/technology/systems.asp
As has been noted “new agers” is too wide a term not to be further defined. Having said that, is there a 5 person group house of pantheist “new agers” in Seattle that wants to return humanity to some primitive state ? Probably. But the New Age movement is far too small, disorganized, localized in Namerica and Europe, and decentralized to offer anything like what is being suggested. Hell, they have trouble getting 15 people to show for their “Solstice rites” in the local woods, let alone generating the kind of will such a thing would take.
This is the right place to ask sh^t like this – its cool, don’t apologize.
Speaking as a new-ager/Occultist/Wiccan. . .nope. No plan. Hell, in college I couldn’t get the monumental paganly-inclined population (which I think was ::counts on hands:: six people on the entire campus) to get together on holidays. You think we’re organized enough to plan something like that?
On a more serious note. . .there really isn’t any sort of organized New Age/Occultist movement. The nature of the movement is simply too fragmented. There’s no one “denomination” or path of belief that dominates in the mind of believers. Even if there were. . .a lot of us have enough to worry about. Most of the time, we just want people to take us seriously; maybe then we can worry about taking over the world 
[sub]Note that Angel is joking here, people![/sub]
Also a lot of people that you might describe as “New Age” would not describe themselves as “New Age.” I first heard the term in the 1950’s and the term has remained very vague.
Since there are a lot of websites that deal with the catagories that you mentioned and millions of individuals with differing beliefs and opinions involved, I just don’t see it even formenting in the minds of various leaders.
This sounds more like a scare tactic used by someone who is either delusional or wants you and others to be afraid of the United Nations and intolerant of other religious viewpoints.
You are wise to be disbelieving.
Whoosh.
There is a kernel of truth behind the OP. There is a stripe of radical “environmentalist” that believes that technology is destroying the earth, and if they are also “New Age” types, they may believe that it’s spiritually damaging as well. There may even be some such folk in positions at the UN. More likely, though, is that this propaganda refers to those who believe that subsistence farming is better for developing countries than cash crop farming; such an agenda might be called “primitivist” by its detractors. It takes some stretching to link the two, but fearmongers thrive upon such stretching.
The first step is to eliminate property rights: The United Nations’ Big Green Machine
Without property rights, there can be no wealth; and without wealth there can be no industrial complex.
The existence of theories like this reveals more about the workings of strained conservative minds than it does about the new agers and the UN.
The UN link is bull but there are some New Agers that believe this. We even have (had) some Dopers argue for it. See this anti-framing thread.
That should be anti-farming not anti-framing (how would you hang your pictures?)
“Whoosh”? What is that supposed to mean?
[QUOTE=Squink]
The first step is to eliminate property rights:
It’s a big jump from showing that a particular organisation advocated reviewing policies regarding the private use of land in a particular defined area for environmental reasons to saying that they want to “eliminate property rights” in general.
It’s like showing that somebody wants to consider putting a paved road from A to B and then saying that they want to cover the entire planet in hardtop.
It’s unconvicing.
It’s the sound of a joke rushing over your head.
Duh. It’s simple. The UN did not support the invasion… sorry, democratisation [insert smiley of choice here], of Iraq. Ergo, the UN must be trying to chase everyone on Earth back to some primitive era where banging rocks together is a distant memory. Any fool can see that.