New Age spirituality is not harmless self-help in church clothes. Steven Bancarz warns that its most dangerous elements hide in plain sight, packaged as wellness, peace and light that “looks good to Christians.”
“Satan wants to keep his identity concealed,” Bancarz said. “The point of coming as an angel of light is that an angel of light looks good to Christians.”
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Bancarz’s credibility comes from hard experience. Raised in a Christian home, he became a prominent New Age teacher with a viral platform and significant income before a public conversion to Christ. He says his life then was marked by bondage and deception despite frequent “mystical” experiences. “It’s not everything that it promises. It cost me everything,” he said.
Today Bancarz urges churches to recognize how counterfeit spirituality slips past our defenses. He cites 2 Corinthians 11 and says false peace and false light often mimic the work of the Holy Spirit.
Encounters with Jesus, he says, are “so self-authenticating” that they remove doubt and produce the ongoing inner witness of the Spirit. By contrast, New Age practices offer episodic experiences without submission to Christ or Scripture.
Bancarz’s specific warnings for Christians include subtle entry points that often get a pass because they are marketed as healthy or “spiritual” but not religious. He cautions believers to test practices and language against the Bible and the character of God.
Subtle entry points Bancarz says Christians should watch for:
- Contemplative methods built on a mantra rather than focusing on Christ and Scripture. “You’re kind of just trying to manipulate your own consciousness to self-induce a state of internal bliss and peace,” he said.
- Law of Attraction and “manifestation” that claim your words and thoughts create reality sometimes dressed in pseudo-quantum talk. “Why don’t we just pray to Jesus Christ and trust in His sovereignty instead of trying to manipulate things like a sorcerer would,” Bancarz said.
- Yoga presented as neutral stretching. He argues it is “intrinsically spiritual” and not just exercise.
- Wellness and detox culture that bundles “mind-body-spirit” services, energy healing and guided meditation under a health label.
- Media and children’s content that normalize sorcery symbols and soft-occult ideas. “It’s the more subtle deception that allows Satan to get a foothold in our life,” he said.
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Bancarz says the church’s best defense is a renewed mind and practiced discernment in a healthy local body. “We have to know our Word,” he said, calling biblical illiteracy a growing problem. He also urges believers to develop intimacy with God through prayer, fasting and obedience. “By constant practice we discern good from evil,” he said, pointing to Hebrews 5 and the gift of discerning spirits. Community accountability matters too. “It’s harder to lead a sheep astray if that sheep is with a flock,” he said.
He identifies a second danger in how New Age communities recruit. They offer acceptance, love, community and inner healing “without any moral accountability to God.” The appeal, he said, is powerful because it promises spiritual experiences while removing submission to Christ. “The most deceptive forms of Satan’s tactics are the ones that are going to imitate the attributes of God and the gifts of God,” he said.
Bancarz remains a continuationist who affirms the gifts of the Spirit but insists every experience must be anchored in Scripture. “Don’t grieve the Spirit by despising prophecy,” he said while urging believers “not to go above and beyond what is written.”
The stakes, he argues, are pastoral and eternal. New Age ideas do not just sit at the cultural fringe. They seep into classes, feeds and therapy rooms where Christians least expect them. “He’s going to be very sly and very conniving,” Bancarz said of the enemy.
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Cling to Christ, test the spirits and keep your Bible open. The New Age promises light and freedom but its counterfeit paths lead to confusion and bondage.
James Lasher, a seasoned writer and editor at Charisma Media, combines faith and storytelling with a background in journalism from Otterbein University and ministry experience in Guatemala and the LA Dream Center. A Marine Corps and Air Force veteran, he is the author of The Revelation of Jesus: A Common Man’s Commentary and a contributor to Charisma magazine.
Very informative, we as christians need as much biblical teaching! I look forward to more of this kind of teaching!