Heythrop College - New Age incubator

Today I won't name a long list of Heythrop College (ex Maria Assumpta Centre) connections to the New Age. I will just concentrate on the latest one: the forthcoming "Sacred Foundations and Cosmograms" conference that will take place on 3-4 December 2011, organized as  "Gatekeeper Conference 2011".

First question: is Heythrop College Catholic ?
- Founded 1614 in Louvain (Belgium) for the education of English Jesuits.

- In 1926 the two faculties were reunited in a single campus at Heythrop in Oxfordshire.

- In the mid-1960s began admitting non-Jesuit staff and students.

It says on their website: Since 1970, it has been a College of the University of London, while retaining a modern Catholic ethos, and offers an educational experience that respects all faiths and perspectives.

Well. I guess the key word here is 'modern Catholic' ...

Second question is: how New Age is the conference

The answer is: VERY much!

To start with, its organized by the Gatekeeper Trust.

The Gatekeeper Trust was established, among others by Sir George Lowthian Trevelyan – who was also involved in the establishment of the Fildhorn Foundation and is called a father of the New Age Movement. 

He said:
"We are talking about the emergence of a different world view in our time. This is a phenomenon that is happening during your generation. It's the most curious, the most extraordinary thing. This is not somebody's thought out idea; this is not an intellectually conceived hope of improving society or anything like that. Something extraordinary is actually happening inside our thinking. There has really been a turn-about in the centre of human consciousness."

"We are co-creators of that which truly is the Body of Christ. This is the New Jerusalem. And the change of consciousness could come ‘in the twinkling of an eye’.

Right: different world view, co-creators, change of consciousness ...
doesn't that that not sound New Age enough ?

The speaker - Peter Dawkins - is also a founder member of Gatekeepers Trust as well as English founder of the Francis Bacon Research Trust. Since 1978 he has written on the Baconian-Rosicrucian philosophies and "Ancient Wisdom" teaching (Rosicrucianism is a philosophical secret society, said to have been founded in late medieval Germany by Christian Rosenkreuz. It holds a doctrine or theology "built on esoteric truths of the ancient past", which, "concealed from the average man, provide insight into nature, the physical universe and the spiritual realm). 

He is the Founder-Director of the Zoence Academy which runs a training course in Zoence (a Western equivalent of the Chinese feng shui).

I don't really know what there is that is Catholic in his biography. New Age full power. 

Then we have a list of speakers:

- Anthony Thorley (landscape zodiacs as sacred spaces)

- Marko Pogacnik (Earth healing work by 'Lithopuncture')

- Helen Raphael Sands (a journey through the elements)

- Louise Coe (feng shui consultant and inner alignment practitioner)
- Lucy Wyatt (trustee of Gatekeepers)

I am sorry, but I think I missed God in any of the speakers' descriptions ... I mean Jesus Christ, not the universe....

And all that under the umbrella of 2012 and Olympic Games ... One more thing - for New Agers the date 2012 is significant, they expect some planetary illumination and get so excited with the Olympics and they don't take it as a coincidence ...

So, back to the Catholic Heythrop College - still educating priests, nuns and catechists .... don't be surprise to see what you see afterwards in your parishes and communities ...
Back to the Gatekeeper conference, I wonder why they use the name of Maria Assumpta centre even though the building was sold to to current Heytrhrop College and has nothing to do witj Maria Assumpta ? I am sure they love it, it add nice Catholic credentials to those who dont know much about New Age Movement.


Please write to the College asking them to stop inviting those people or to change the name to New Age College ...