New Age Services. Everyone
is welcome, whatever your beliefs. We start the services with an
affirmation, followed by the talk, The services include a healing
circle, a prosperity ritual and an Oracle card reading for everyone. We
conclude with an AUM. After service we share coffee, tea and snacks (you
are welcome to bring some to share, if you like). The exciting New Age
Metaphysical Study Group follows.and I think of my students as family.
One does not become a spiritual teacher
simply by taking a class. St.
Paul said a spiritual teacher must be able to empathize with us because,
he has experienced things as we have (Hebrews 4:15).
DR. JOHN'S ACHEIVEMENTS
- FARM WORKER
- YARD WORKER
- MISSIONARY
- NEWSPAPER EDITOR
- LABOR ORGANIZER
- UNION PRESIDENT
- BOOKSTORE MANAGER
- PUBLISHER
- RECEIVES DD DEGREE
- PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE
- PASTOR
- PSYCHIC READER
- PSYCHIC HEALER
- STUDY GROUP LEADER
- BISHOP
- WEBMASTER
- OMEGA DIRECTORY
- NEW AGE ENCYCLOPEDIA
Dr John is a much needed wake-up! call to those fast asleep in their comfort zones of traditional belief systems. Questioning and thinking are actively encouraged by Dr John; he encourages everyone, not just his students, to think and question.
He has appeared in at least two movies and dozens of TV shows. He is the author of two books, 20 booklets and hundreds of articles. In his first book, New age BIble, he discusses the ancient secret of the ages which reveals our past and gives clues to the future. Hismost recent book, New Age Gospel, explains what New Agers believe and why.
Currently he conducts weekly services at the New age Commuity Church, teaches a weekly metaphysical study group, does spiritual counseling and edits the Omega Directory and the New Age Encyclopedia. He tries to make himself accessable to those with religious or spiritual questions
He is continually researching, checking and double-checking what he has already written. "I am not teaching exactly the same things I was teaching 10 or 20 years ago,"he says. "I have not reversed myself. But I am always finding llittle facts that modify or clear things up a bit"
An author's view - Melanie McGrath, Motel Nirvana, 1996, HarperCollins
Rev. Dr. Rodgers is a hell of a talker, brusque, without guile. His
family were Mormon converts from Minnesota who settled in Arizona to be
nearer Zion. Because they couldn’t afford to buy a home in Utah.
He was active in the church from an early age, and his mission as a young man took him to Oregon and Washington, then back to Arizona
“So I asked his authority and he said The
Bishop's Handbook and I
discovered there was this whole book of scripture that people like me
didn't know anything about."
Rodgers' continued insistence that the church abide by the revelations of founder Prophet Joseph Smith riled the local authorities. He woke up one day to discover that, so far as the church was concerned, he was no longer a Mormon,
Nonetheless,
still feeling like a Mormon, he went back to church and signed up to
began again as a novitiate.
"And
the bishop said, well that's OK, but we don't want you to talk." And
that was just too much for him. So he quit the Mormon Church.
In the late sixties he met
a girl who said she wouldn't date him unless he attended a class in
metaphysics. So he attended the class and discovered that metaphysics
was what he had been believing all along.
Later on, Rodgers and small
group of followers set up a New Age church.
"It's a small church because we preach truth, and who in hell wants truth? Fantasy's much better. Lies and fantasy you can sell all day long. And the truth is that there is no devil, and that you are responsible for everything that happens in your life. Whatever happens, you choose it, if not in this lifetime, in some other."
Chief among Rodgers' subsequent record of
achievements in public life was his success in forcing a repeal of the
Phoenix municipal law against psychic reading, which had been on the
city's statute books since 1913.
In 1992, feeling that no one else had the
answers to the nation's problems, John Rodgers ran as an independent
candidate for the presidency of the United States of America on the
following platform:
Repeal federal income tax
Legalize recreational drugs
Pay off the national debt
Senators to be selected by state legislatures
No censorship
A reporter's view - Lawn Griffiths East Valley Tribune, Oct 14, 200
Two decades ago, the Rev. John Rodgers launched a New Age seminary because he found people to be “good-hearted, well-meaning ‘eager-norants,’ ” excited believers woefully lacking information about religion and spirituality.The founder of New Age Community Church and publisher of the oldest metaphysical newspaper in the nation, Omega Directory, Rodgers will mark the 39th anniversary, on Nov. 1, of his Alpha Book Center in Phoenix, one of the oldest metaphysical stores in the U.S. Regarded as the Valley’s authority on New Age, Rodgers fiercely defends religious liberty, but says, “Most people don’t know their church’s doctrines, and most people don’t care.”
His monthly tabloid newspaper covers a broad swath of belief. The October issue carries such headlines as “The truth about vampires,” “New aliens found in Roswell, N.M.,” “Americans more spiritual than thought” and “Dutch priests are clearly not gay.”
“Things are changing, things are going to be different,” Rodgers says of New Age. “Religion is going to change. We are not going to have big Baptist churches. … It will be something along the lines of the old guru and students, or master-disciple thing — or maybe it will be on the computer.”
He spends much of his time maintaining two distinctly different Web sites:www.aznewage.com and www.aznewage.net, the latter focusing more on New Age essays. “People are becoming more spiritual and less religious,” he says. He believes God loves all people, wants them to be happy and “doesn’t care what goes on. Don’t pay attention to all the things that don’t matter.” Rodgers, 69, a native of Minneapolis, attended a Methodist church as a boy. Then his family joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He did a mission in the Pacific Northwest and ccontinued with the church into his 20s. After he moved to Arizona in 1965, he says, “They kicked me out because I was going by Mormon doctrine, and no church goes by its own doctrine,” Rodgers says with a laugh. When he tried to rejoin, the bishop said he was glad to have Rodgers back but didn’t want him talking in class anymore. “I wasn’t derogatory, just informative,” Rodgers says. But if he couldn’t talk, he wasn’t going back. “The Book of Mormon is a wonderful book,” he says. “It’s got really good stories, teachings and Mormon precepts.” From there, Rodgers took a metaphysics class in Tempe. “That is what I had been waiting for all along.” At the time, he worked at Al’s Bookstore in Phoenix and started a metaphysical section, complete with tarot cards. It quickly expanded its New Age trappings, books and resources. Eventually, its adult section was replaced by metaphysical.
In the 1960s, the Valley was “Christian country,” he says. “Wiccans were hiding in their closets.” In 1967, Rodgers bought the store and named it Alpha. The store moved around, and, at one time, he had three shops. In 1979, Alpha moved to its current place at 1928 E. McDowell Road, Phoenix. He touts it as the “Good Karma Store.” It recently reopened after a fire “We never would have gotten the store cleaned without it,” he quips.
About 100 people have gone through his five-semester seminary, with about 60 gaining ordination and some starting their own churches. He serves as bishop over several churches started from his. Fewer than 25 typically attend his Sunday service, and he described them as mostly “seekers and widows.”
Astrologer Dominique Nancy Shilling has held r