A Book Review - Cor Jesu Sacratissimum From Secularism and The New Age to Christendom Renewed - Roger Buck

Roger Buck’s spiritual journey is fascinating.

He began as a seeker then teacher of New Age spirituality at the well known New Age Centre at Findhorn in Scotland, and ended up a devout traditional Catholic.

He writes at length about His experiences with New Age Spirituality and how this Masonic, socially engineered religion has become very much the default spirituality of the west. 

He also explains how and why new age  spirituality ( which is a conglomeration of humanism, gnostism, paganism, lucifarianism and eastern mysticism ) has influenced and pervaded the culture so widely and how it has even begun to infiltrate Christianity through populist ‘teachers’ such as Richard Rohr and Glennon Doyle. And how it has gained momentum in progressive Christian movements and ‘worship experiences’, which have little to do with the real Word of God or the message of Jesus. 

Buck’s  personal experience of the dangers of New Age spirituality would resonate with many practitioners of it. He describes at some length how it leads to disassociation and disconnection, leaving a strange over emphasis on sensuality while leading to a pervading and disconcerting numbness and detachment. He also conveys how false doctrines such as ‘manifesting your destiny’ create anxiety as an overwhelming burden of responsibility is placed on personal ‘attuning’. 

Buck also carefully discusses the problem of ‘holism’ and the false relativism of assuming all spiritual paths are a way to truth.

Buck found Catholicism after having a profound, life changing experience of The Sacred Heart and Paray le Monial in France where Saint Margaret Mary had a vision of Jesus, His pierced Heart aflame and burning with love for souls. 

His descriptions of this experience are very moving. The Sacred Heart of Jesus indeed, continually bleeds and suffers over souls. 

This same Sacred Heart of Our Lord has been discovered to still suffer in the Blessed Sacrament of the Alter through thousands of Eucharistic miracles whereby blood and heart tissue begin to appear on the consecrated host itself during communion.

Buck also includes his lovely wife Kim’s own profound conversion experience on a mountainside chapel in Switzerland and how The Sacred Heart led her to the Catholic Church too. 

The contrast between the sacred beauty of their personal testimony and the state of modern spirituality is stark. 

The infiltration of post ‘enlightenment’ masonic thinking into Christianity is very disturbing and a subject Buck does not shy away from.

Indeed, his detailed analysis of ‘enlightenment despair’ as an existential component  of the modern psyche is important as it is tragic.

‘ Here, I say, are historical trajectories that have literally created hell on earth - whether it be the collective hell of the atheistic regimes inspired by Marx or the individual hell of a soul lost in despair and turning to Freud. In the past, untold millions of souls possessed faith as their birthright. Now, they spend their lives with all hope crushed - crushed by the malign fruit of the Enlightenment.’ 

He then gives voice to the term with an encapsulated example of this state with the loaded banality of Philip Larkins poem, which begins with the lines ‘I work all day and get half drunk at night.’

Some of the most compelling quotes in the book on this very subject come from Valentin Tomberg, a scholar of Theosophy and then of Rudolf Steiner who converted to Catholicism later in life and subsequently refuted all his early works. 

Tomberg wrote: ‘Continuity - or tradition and life - implies faithfulness to the cause that is espoused, to the direction taken, to the ideal that one has a guide… for the sake of continuity of life. This is what is stated in the seventh commandment: Thou shalt not commit adultery. There is carnal adultery, psychic adultery and spiritual adultery. … Spiritual adultery is therefore the exchange of a higher moral and spiritual value for a lower moral and spiritual value. It is, for example, the exchange of: the living God for an impersonal divinity; Christ crucified and redirected for a sage deep in meditation; the Holy Virgin Mother for nature in evolution; the community of saints, apostles, martyrs, monks, confessors, church doctors and virgins for a “community of geniuses” of philosophy, art, science, etc…”

One of the most compelling parts of the book for me conveyed how the Protestant reformation impoverished the deep, Catholic spirituality of Europe leaving it dry tinder to the lapping flames of cynicism, atheism and eventually the dangerous spirituality of the new age.

As Buck writes ‘ Is it not colossal hubris to think we ‘know better.’ than two millennia  of Christianity.’

Indeed, modern spiritual ‘teachers’ such as Eckhart Tolle suggest that

 ‘ If you follow any religion- say Christianity- you are enjoined to abandon it and follow him instead… these false guides say ‘let me show you how’ … The message is clear, one single modern human, knows better than the entire church.’ 

These ‘enlightened guides’ have  suddenly found the methods of determining truth  that millions have missed including all the holy saints, martyrs and apostles. 

Buck also argues how Protestant ethics led to the spiritual wastelands of modern western culture. He shows how Protestantism led to the excesses of Capitalism and as a result made way for the frighteningly widespread adoption of Communism as an ideological antidote for the disenfranchised masses.   

‘Let it suffice, for now, that Protestant countries generally secularised far more rapidly and easily than those traditional Catholic societies, warmed and animated by the Heart of the Church.’

Buck also laments trends in the church to change its doctrines or liturgical practises to accommodate modernism.

Buck writes: ‘Yes, mounting numbers recognise what has been lost and what must be restored - even if it means alienating those of modern persuasion. For here is the accusation made by liberal Catholicism still: ‘You will estrange the modern world! You will never appeal to modern humanity with your obsolete anachronisms! If you will not conform to the zeitgeist, you will no longer curry favour!’ But hark! Is there not a clear parallel here with the temptation on the mountain?

The devil took Him up into a very high mountain, and shewed Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and said to Him: All these will I give Thee, if falling down thou wilt adore me. Then Jesus said to him: Begone satan: for it is written, The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil left Him; and behold Angels came and ministered to Him.” -  (Matthew 4:8-11)

I found this book to be a fascinating and enjoyable read. It deepened my own love  and devotion to The Sacred Heart and my own Catholic Faith.

This book is a perfect read for those in the new age, who might be realising its spiritual dangers, yet don’t know where to go with their questions. 

It is also a perfect read for those dipping their toes into spirituality and yet not knowing which path to take. 

It’s a perfect read for Christians who want to understand why the modern church feels so far from its spiritual roots. 

Finally, it’s a perfect read for Catholics who are looking more deeply into the beauty of their tradition. 

The most valuable message of this book, ultimately, for me, was the deep and transformative power of The Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is the refuge of all humanity. Whoever you are, wherever you have come from, The Sacred Heart of Jesus suffers for you out of an overwhelming and all transcending Love. He waits for you.

Here is a link to purchase the book.

Here is a link to Roger Bucks YouTube channel where he discusses many of the topics mentioned in this book.