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High on the New Paradigm agenda is transformation of corporations by increasing to a "critical mass" the number of individual psychic experiences. The primary means for achieving transformation of individual consciousness is Transcendental Meditation or other "psychotechnologies" with occult potential.

Meditation techniques taught to relieve executive stress are typically the Trojan Horse into the business world for subtly effecting conversion to a New Age perspective. Fundamental to the worldview of inner-directed meditation (rather than meditation directed toward a transcendent God) is the assumption that all is one: matter and spirit, creature and creator.

The belief that humanity is destined to realize its divinity is the underlying assumption in some seminars of Landmark Education (formerly Werner Erhard's Transformational Technologies), Lifespring, and others with major corporations on their client lists. Monism comes to the fore when salespeople are taught to center on the "higher self" and become one with the "Universal Mind" and its unlimited abundance.

A salesperson focusing on the "higher self" detaches from traditional, quantifiable business goals (such as sales quotas) that feed the ego. Instead, accrual of wealth (sales) comes about as a byproduct of spiritual progress.

As Deepak Chopra describes it in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, when the universal laws of wealth consciousness are assimilated, they will provide the ability to create unlimited riches "with effortless ease, and to experience success in every endeavor."

Similar philosophies have roots in the metaphysical cults of Charles Fillmore's Unity School of Christianity and the 19th-century New Thought (mind-healing) movement—the same taproot that eventually produced the so-called Prosperity Gospel.

Copyright © 2003 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Also appearing on our site today:

The Higher Self Gets Down to Business | An old movement appears anew—in the corporate world.

Utopia or Kingdom Come? | Discerning wheat from chaff in the new business spirituality.

Organizations or conferences mentioned in the article include:

• Spirit in Business
  
  
• Institute of Noetic Sciences
  
  
• World Business Academy
  
  
• The Message Company
  
  
• Spirit at Work
  
  
• International Conference on Business and Consciousness

Scruples' online sites offer resources, articles, and web forums on spirituality in the workplace.

Marketplace Ministries exists to share God's love through chaplains in the workplace by on-site Employee Assistance Program for client companies.

In November 1999, BusinessWeek looked at the growing presence of spirituality in Corporate America in the article, "Religion in the Workplace."

Beliefnet.com has an archive of articles on spirituality and religion in business.

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February 2003, Vol. 47, No. 2